Driven by love and a sense of grateful indebtedness to this woman who had always been so sweet and good to me, I did all I could for her. After three weeks of care she’d recovered enough strength to leave her bed and sit in a comfortable chair in the sunshine. She had lost most of her fresh beauty and all her vitality, but she asked incessantly about the baby. Her recovery gave me a little respite, despite Taher’s continuing misery. He received no attention during my long hours at the theater, from eight in the evening until two in the morning, and I had hoped that Tahiya would soon be able to take over my duties. Suddenly, however, her condition deteriorated, so much so that I called the doctor again. “She shouldn’t have got up,” he said. “She’s had a relapse. It often happens, with no serious results.” I went back to my nursing feeling twice as depressed but with twice the determination. Umm Hany got to know about our predicament, and offered to stay with Tahiya during my absences.

Despite the assurance of the doctor’s repeated visits, my heart contracted, and I had a sense of imminent sorrow. Was I going to have to go on living without Tahiya? Could I bear to live without her? Torn between her and the weakening baby, I worried about how quickly the money was running out and wondered what else I could sell. I would gaze at her sallow, shrunken face, summoning up recollections of our beautiful relationship, as if I were bidding her farewell. The whole world seemed black to me. When the final warning came, I was outside the flat, returning from the theater, had just rung the bell, and heard Umm Hany’s loud wailing. I closed my eyes in acceptance of my fate, and opened my heart to the blackest sorrow.

—

A week after Tahiya’s death Taher joined her, as was to be expected. The doctor had predicted it. I hadn’t had a proper chance to learn what fatherhood was like: his tortured existence had always been a source of pain to me.

I don’t remember anything about those days except Tariq Ramadan’s weeping. Having cried my heart out alone, I had been able to bear up fairly well in front of the people gathered for the funeral, when all of a sudden Tariq’s outburst made everyone from the theater turn to look at him. I wondered what lay behind this show of emotion. Had he loved her, this animal, who had moved his canned imitation of love to Umm Hany’s house? I couldn’t help speculating on the meaning of his tears, not only in my capacity as a widower but also as a dramatist; for not even in my dazed grief had I forgotten my dormant aspirations.