SIX
He knew this stretch of ground. Avoiding the road next the barracks he set out across the desert to reach the Martyour's Tomb in the shortest time possible, heading for it as if he had a compass built into his head. As soon as he saw the tomb's big dome in the starlight he began looking for the spot where the car would be tucked away.
Walking round the tomb, he scanned the ground as sharply as he could, but it was only when he reached its southern wall that the shape at a little distance became visible. He made for it without another thought, keeping his head low, crouching as he came closer to the car, until he could hear through the silence the sounds of love being made in whispers.
There'll be terror, now, he told himself, in the middle of pleasure, and joy will suddenly vanish but it's no fault of yours: chaos and confusion envelop us all like the vault of the sky. Didn't Rauf Ilwan used to say that our intentions were good, but we lacked order or discipline?
The breathing inside the car had turned to panting.
Almost crawling on his hands and knees, Said crept up until he could touch the door handle.
He tightened his grip on the handle, and yanked open the door, shouting 'Don't move.'
Two people cried out in shocked surprise and a pair of heads stared at him in terror. He waved the gun and said, 'Don't move or I'll shoot. Get out.'
'I beg you —,' said Nur's voice.
Another voice, throaty, as if strained through sand and gravel, said, 'What — what is it you want, please?'
'Get out.'
Nur threw herself out of the car, grasping her clothes in one hand, followed by the young man, who stumbled as he struggled to insert his feet in his trousers. Said thrust the gun so menacingly close that the young man began to plead. 'No.
No. Please don't shoot,' he said almost tearfully.
'The money.' Said growled.
'In my jacket. In the car.'
Said shoved Nur back to the car. 'You get in.'
Groaning with pain, she climbed in, 'Please let me go, for God's sake let me go,' she stammered.
'Give me the jacket.' He snatched it from her, removed the wallet and threw the jacket in the man's face. 'You have exactly one minute to save your skin.' While the young man bolted off in the dark like a comet, Said flung himself into the driver's seat, switched on the engine and the car shot forward with a roar.
'I was really scared,' Nur said as she dressed, 'as if I hadn't really been expecting you.'
'Let's have a drink,' he said as soon as they reached the road, still hurtling forward.
She handed him a bottle and he took a swig.
He handed it back to her and she did the same.
'Poor man, his knees were shaking,' she said.
'You're very kind hearted. As for me, I don't particularly like factory owners.'
'You don't like anybody, that's a fact,' she said, sitting up and looking ahead. Said didn't feel like trying to charm her and said nothing.
'They'll see me with you!' she squealed when she saw that the car was approaching Abassiyya. The same thought had occurred to him, too, so he turned off into a side street that led towards Darrasa and drove a little slower.
'I went to Tarzan's café to get a gun and try to arrange something with an old friend, a taxi driver. But now look how luck has sent me this car!'
'Don't you think I'm always useful?'
'Always. And you were fantastic too. Why don't you go on the stage?'
'In the beginning I was really scared.'
'But later?'
'I hope I was convincing, so he won't suspect me.'
'He was so out of his mind with fear he wasn't capable of suspecting anything.'
'Why do you need a gun and a car?' she asked, putting her head close to his.
'They're the tools of the trade.'
'Heaven! When did you come out of jail?'
'The day before yesterday.'
'And you're already thinking of doing that again?'
'Have you ever found it easy to change your job?'
Staring ahead at the dark road, visible only in the car's headlights, Nur made no reply.
At the turn, the hill of the Moqattam loomed nearer, like a chunk of the night more solid than the rest.
'Do you realize how sad I was,' she said softly, 'when I heard you'd been sent up?'
'No. How sad?'
'When will you stop being sarcastic?' She sounded a little annoyed.
'But I'm dead serious. And absolutely certain of the sincerity of your affection.'
'You have no heart.'
'They've got it locked up in prison, according to regulations!'
'You were heartless long before you ever went to jail.'
Why does she harp on the subject of affection? She should talk to that treacherous woman, and the dogs, and the little girl who rejected me.
'One day we'll succeed in finding it,' he said.
'Where will you stay tonight? Does your wife know where you are?'
'I don't think so.'
'Are you going home then?'
'I don't think so, not tonight in any case.'
'Come to my place.'
'Do you live alone?'
'Yes, in Sharia Najm al-Din beyond the cemetery at Bab el-Nasr.'
'Number?'
'There's only one house in the street; it's over a sackcloth store and right behind it is the cemetery.'
'What a great location!' Said laughed.
Nur laughed too. 'No one knows me there and no one's ever visited me. You'll find it on the top floor.' She waited for his reply, but he was busy watching the road, which began to narrow between the hill and the houses that came after Sheikh Ali al-Junaydi's place. At the top of Sharia Darrasa he stopped the car and turned toward her.
'This is a good place for you to get out.'
'Won't you come with me?'
'I'll come to you later on.'
'But where are you going at this hour of night?'
'You go straight to the police station now. Tell them exactly what happened as if you had nothing to do with me and give them a description of a person completely different from me. Say he's fat, fair-skinned and has an old scar on his right cheek. Tell them I kidnapped you, robbed you, and raped you.'
'Raped me?'
'In the desert at Zinhum,' he went on, ignoring her exclamation, 'and say I threw you out of the car and drove away.'
'Are you really coming to see me?'
'Yes, that's a solemn promise. Will you be able to act as well in the police station as you did in the
