Adrift On The Nile Part 6

Ragab said, with even more callous indifference to his companion: "I called Samara to thank her, and said that I would like to visit her were I not afraid of embarra.s.sing her--and she said, amazed, that there was no question of embarra.s.sment!"

"An open invitation!"

"So just a few minutes later I was knocking on her door--and whom did I find inside but our friend Ali al-Sayyid!"

The "friend" was subjected to a hail of abuse.

"I thanked her and drank some coffee, and said that her article had all but made a new man of me!"

"Hypocrite, son of hypocrites, descended from a long line of bred-in-the-bone hypocrites," Ali intoned.

"My gaze was drawn irresistibly to her allure--while from her vocal cords issued the sort of honeyed tones that take a lot of effort to get past the censors!"

"Deluded fantasy," said Ali. "It was a normal conversation--conducted in a normal voice."

"But you were engrossed in a heated discussion with a film director, on the point of clinching a deal--"

Ali laughed loudly. "That was about a case of whiskey, nothing else. Which will shortly be consumed by the people on this infernal houseboat."

"And was it confined to honeyed tones?" asked Mustafa Ras.h.i.+d.

"What more can you expect from an almost formal occasion? But even so, the serious miss was swathed in a veil of femininity, like a b.u.t.terfly flitting from flower to flower--or Amm Abduh doing the rounds of his street girls!"

Sana's voice sounded like the top string of a zither when the player strikes it by accident. "What a magician you are," she said.

He smiled at her--a faint smile, which in the pallid blue light looked like a grimace. "My dear little thing," he said.

"I'm not little, if you don't mind!" she snapped.

"Little in years, but how great in . . . in stature--"

"Oh, spare me cliches that were old in the days of the Mameluke sultans!"

Ali sighed. "Oh to be in the Mameluke age--as long as we could be sultans, of course."

Sana replied, with undisguised dislike: "And oh how quickly the people on this boat turn into heartless beasts!"

But beasts do have hearts. And they are only savage when faced by enemies. I will not forget the whale as it retreated from the boat, telling me: _I am the whale who saved Jonah._ How many millions and millions of eyes have gazed at the Nile lying still in the moonlight. No better sign of Samara's sincerity than the pa.s.sage of migrating birds. And as for poor Sana, she has forgotten about the cave dwellers in the age of her first youth . . .

"This tobacco!" Anis cried. "It's burning like paper!" And he wrapped it in a handkerchief to squeeze it down, all the while taking part in the j.a.pan Olympics, running races and lifting weights and setting new world records. Then the telephone rang.

Ragab rose to answer it as if he was expecting a call. Anis could not hear what he was saying, apart from isolated phrases such as "Of course" and "Right away." He replaced the receiver and turned to the company. "If you will excuse me," he said; and turning to Sana: "I might be back at the end of the evening." And with that, he left. The houseboat shook under his powerful tread.

Sana twitched. It seemed to the others that she was almost in tears. n.o.body said a word. Everyone looked questioningly--but Ali shook his head.

At last Mustafa addressed Sana, speaking to her gently. "Don't. The romantic era is long gone. It's the age of realism now."

And Layla said, concealing a gloating smile: "It is an accepted rule here--nothing is worth regretting . . ."

"Hang romanticism! And regrets!" cried Sana vehemently.

"He has gone to meet a producer, I a.s.sure you," said Ali. "But you really should bear in mind that your friend is a professional ladies' man!"

Ahmad stood up. "I'll bring you a whiskey," he said. "But do try to pull yourself together."

Then Saniya spoke. She was startlingly blunt. "And if worse comes to worst," she said, "you've still got Ahmad and Mustafa!"

"And what about me, you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!" shouted Anis wildly; and then he added roughly, spitting the words out: "Dissipated, addicted wretches!"

Everyone convulsed with laughter. "Do you think he's really gone to see Samara?" Mustafa wondered.

"No, no, no," said Ali.

"It wouldn't be unusual for him to be after a woman!"

"Would somebody please tell me," asked Layla, "why on earth she came here if it wasn't because of him?"

"Nothing's impossible, I admit," said Ali. "But Samara is not a naive young girl. I don't think she would be satisfied with being a nine-day wonder."

"What is it that makes some men so incredibly presumptuous?" Mustafa wondered.

"Well, any star in his position is bound to have a certain charisma."

"It isn't just the aura of a star, or even elegance and good looks; he is simply s.e.xuality itself!"

"Oh, let the women speak about that," said Ahmad. But Ali went on: "Women fall in love, but they don't say why!"

"In that case," advised Khalid, "consult your pituitary gland."

Sana took a mattress and went out onto the balcony to sit on her own. "Is she the feminine ideal you are searching for?" Ali asked Mustafa, surrept.i.tiously indicating Sana. Mustafa tersely replied that she was not.

"The permissive society!" said Khalid. "Free love! It's the only remedy for all these ills."

"d.a.m.n you all," Anis said suddenly. "It is you who are responsible for the decline of Roman civilization."

Everyone roared. "You're unusually touchy tonight!" Ahmad observed of him.

"This filthy tobacco."

"But it is often like that."

"What about the moon?" Anis asked. "Do you know what part it plays in the comedy?"

"What comedy?"

"The comedy of comedies!"

The water pipe circulated without ceasing. They were silent, to collect their scattered thoughts. There were no more accusations to make. History? The future? It was all nothing. Neither more nor less. Zero. Miracle of miracles. The unknown was revealed in the moonlight. Amm Abduh's voice came from outside, as he chanted words that no one could make out. Somebody laughed; and somebody else said that it was amazing how quickly the time had pa.s.sed. They could hear the waves lapping against the bottom of the boat. Yes indeed, the part played by the moon in all this . . . And the part played by the ox, blindfolded at the waterwheel. One day the sheikh said to me: "You love aggression, and G.o.d does not love aggressors," as the blood poured from my nose. Or perhaps the sheikh had said that to the other man, and perhaps the blood had been pouring from his nose. How can you trust in anything after that? And then the same voice said: "Amazing how quickly the time has pa.s.sed."

Ahmad sighed. "Time to go," he said.

That is the death knell of our evenings. An indolent activity spread among them, and then Ahmad and Mustafa left, followed by Khalid and Layla. Ali and Saniya, however, slipped into the bedroom overlooking the garden. Amm Abduh came to tidy up the room, and Anis complained to him about the quality of the tobacco. The old man replied that there was nothing except bad tobacco on the market.

A sneeze came from the balcony. Anis suddenly remembered Sana. He crawled out to the balcony on all fours. Then he leaned against the rail, stretching his legs out in front of him. "Beautiful evening," he murmured. The moonlight had retreated from the balcony to the other side of the boat, toward the road, drawing its glittering carpet behind it.

"Do you think he will come back?" she asked.

"Who?"

"Ragab!"

"How miserable it is, to be asked a question one cannot answer!"

"He said that he might come back at the end of the evening."

"Might."

"Am I annoying you?"

"Of course not!"

"Do you think I should wait?"

Anis gave a light laugh. "People have been waiting for their saviors for a thousand years."

"Are you laughing at me, like them?"

"n.o.body is laughing at you. It's just their way of talking."

"In any case, you're the nicest."

"Me!"

"You don't say evil things."

"That is because I am dumb."

"And we have something in common."

"What is that?"

"Loneliness."

"You're never alone when you smoke."

"Why don't you flirt with me a bit?"

"The real smoker is self-sufficient."

"How about a little trip on the river in a sailing boat?"

"My legs can hardly carry me."

She sighed. "There's nothing for it. I shall have to leave. There is no one to take me down to the square."

"Amm Abduh will take anyone who has no one to go with."

In the breeze, the moist breaths of the night; and from behind the locked door of the bedroom, chuckles of laughter. The sky was completely clear, studded with thousands of stars. In the middle of the sky he saw a smiling face, the features obliterated. He began to feel as he had only ever felt when he set the world record at the Olympics. The time had gone so amazingly fast that the true tragedy of the battle appeared now before his eyes. The Persian King Cambyses sat on the dais, his victorious army behind him. On his right, his conquering generals; on his left the Pharaoh, sitting bowed in defeat. The prisoners of war from the Egyptian army were pa.s.sing before the victorious Cambyses when suddenly the Pharaoh burst into tears. Cambyses turned toward him, asking what it was that made him weep. The Pharaoh pointed to a man walking, head bent, among the captives.

"That man!" he said. "I knew him so long in his glory, it pains me to see him bound in chains!"

9.

Everything has been prepared for the evening, and now Amm Abduh is giving the call to the sunset prayer. But there is a heavy trial ahead, of waiting; waiting for the enchanted cup of coffee to work its magic. Waiting is a tense feeling of sleeplessness, and there is no cure for it except the balm of eternity. Until then the Nile will not ease you, nor the flocks of white doves; and with an anxious eye you picture your companions of the evening disperse as you picture all endings. The moon, appearing over the acacias, only serves to reinforce this melancholy instead of soothing it away; and as long as that is so, even good actions are succeeded by regret, and the heart is oppressed by any wisdom save that which sounds the death of all wisdoms. Let pains retreat before the magic, never to return. When we emigrate to the moon, we will be the first settlers ever to run from Nothingness to Nothingness. Pity the web of the spider who sang one evening in the village, in time to the croaking frogs. Just before sleeping this afternoon you heard Napoleon, accusing the English of killing him by slow poison. But the English are not the only ones who kill by slow poison . . .

Anis began to pace back and forth between the balcony and the screen by the door. He lit the blue lamp; and it was then that he felt the fingertips of mercy begin to soothe him inside.

The houseboat shook; voices were raised, heralding life. The company a.s.sembled, and the water pipe circulated beneath the eye of the moon.

For the first time, Sana was not there. When Ahmad remarked upon it, comments were quick to follow. "The thing is," said Saniya, "that you are all men in a state of zero gravity--you've lost your bearings."

Ragab appeared unconcerned, occupied as he was with the kif just then.

"You were cruel to her," Ahmad told him. "You didn't think how young she is."

"I can't be a lover and a nanny at the same time."

"But she is only a girl!"

"As I said, I'm not the first artist in her life."

Ahmad said that she had probably been truly in love with him. "If love manages to stay alive for a month in this s.p.a.ce age," retorted Ragab, "it can be counted as middle-aged!" And he told them how she had tempted him with her wiles, and how he had refused "like Joseph with Potiphar's wife!" And how love had been responsible for the fabrication of stories since the beginning of time . . . The moonlight shone down on them. Before long it would disappear from view. As Anis stared at his friends, new features were revealed; it was as if he were seeing them for the first time. For he saw them usually with his ears, or through a cloud of smoke, or through their ideas, the way they behaved. But when he focused on their faces spontaneously, penetratingly, he found himself to be a stranger among strangers. He saw ruin in the light wrinkles around Layla's eyes. He glimpsed an icy cruelty in Ragab's mocking smile. The world also appeared strange; he no longer knew where they were in Time; perhaps it did not exist at all. He became aware of the name Samara on their lips--and almost immediately he heard her voice as she joked with Amm Abduh outside. The boat's shaking ran like a shudder through his body. And then she appeared, in a white tailored jacket and skirt, waving her hand in greeting and taking her place on the mattress that was free--Sana's place. She lit a cigarette in a relaxed manner, and no one could detect anything in her bearing to justify Ragab's mysterious behavior the previous night. Innocently, she asked: "Where's Sana?"

Mustafa answered: "In Amm Abduh's hut."

Samara's innocent expression did not change. Mustafa said that perhaps she was looking for the Absolute in there. Samara replied that she ought to look for that in him, not in Amm Abduh's hut. Mustafa continued his mockery. "The fact is, Sana found that Ragab's love was a somewhat impermanent attribute, so she departed in search of something true and unchangeable."

"There's something truly unchangeable in Amm Abduh's hut," Samara rejoined sadly. "Emptiness."

It was true. The old man possessed only the robe he stood in, and he slept on an old couch with no coverlet. That was how Anis had found him when he had moved to the houseboat. He must get him a blanket before winter came.

Mustafa again urged Samara to try the water pipe, and Ragab backed him up. "Why are you so adamant!" he said.