'Yesterday?'
'Yes, I should have come to see you, but I had some things I had to attend to and I needed rest, so I spent the night at Sheikh Ali al-Jumaydi's. Remember him?'
'Sure. Your late father's Sheikh. I watched his meetings with you lots of times.' They left the car and went into the reception hall.
'They were fun, weren't they?'
'Yes, and I used to get a big kick out of their singing.'
A servant switched on the chandelier, and Said's eyes were dazzled by its size, its multitude of upturned bulbs, its stars and crescents. The light that spread throughout the room was caught in mirrors at the corners, reflecting the brilliance. Objets d'art on gilt stands were displayed as if they had been salvaged from the obscurity of history for that sole purpose. The ceiling, he saw looking up, was richly decorated, while all around him comfortable chairs and cushions were casually disposed among vividly patterned carpets. His eyes rested last on the face of Maitre Ilwan, now round and full, a face he had loved, whose features he had long ago learnt by heart, having gazed at it so often while listening to Rauf speak; and, stealing occasional glances at the objets d'art, Said went on examining that face while a servant drew back curtains and opened French windows to the verandah overlooking the garden, letting a breeze heavy with the perfume of blossomy trees flow into the room.
The mixture of light and scent was distracting, but Said observed that Ilwan's face had become cow-like in its fullness, and that despite his apparent friendliness and courtesy, there was something chilly about him, as well as an unfamiliar and rather disturbing suavity, a quality that could only have come from a touch of blue blood, despite Rauf's flat nose and heavy jaw. What refuge would be left if this only surviving support also collapsed?
Rauf sat near the French windows to the verandah on a sofa that was arranged with three easy chairs in a square around a luminous pillar adorned with mythological figures. Said sat down, without hesitation and without showing his anxiety.
Ilwan stretched out his long legs. 'Did you look for me at the paper?'
'Yes, but I saw it wasn't a suitable place for us to meet.'
Rauf laughed, showing teeth stained black at the gums. 'The office is like a whirlpool, in constant motion. Have you been waiting long here?'
'A lifetime!'
Rauf laughed again. 'There was a time no doubt when you were quite familiar with this street?'
'Of course.' Said, too, laughed, 'I've had clients here with whom my business transactions have made their premises unforgettable. The villa of Fadil Hasanayn Pasha, for instance, where my visit netted a thousand pounds, or the one that belongs to the film star Kawakib, where I got a pair of superb diamond earrings.'
The servant came in pushing a trolley laden with a bottle, two glasses, a pretty little violet-colored ice bucket, a dish of apples arranged in a pyramid, plates with hors d'oeuvres, and a silver water jug.
Rauf gestured to the servant to withdraw, filled two glasses himself and offered one to Said, raising the other: 'To freedom.' While Said emptied his glass in one gulp, Rauf took a sip then said, 'And how is your daughter? Oh, I forgot to ask you — why did you spend the night at Sheikh Ali's?'
He doesn't know what happened, thought Said, but he still remembers my daughter. And he gave Rauf a cold-blooded account of his misfortunes.
'So yesterday I paid a visit to al-Sayrafi lane,' he concluded. 'There I found a detective waiting for me, as I'd expected, and my daughter disowned me and screamed in my face.' He helped himself to another whisky.
'This is a sad story. But your daughter isn't to blame. She can't remember you now.
Later on she'll grow to know and love you.'
'I have no faith left in all her sex.'
'That's how you feel now. But tomorrow, who knows how you'll feel? You'll change your opinion of your own accord. That's the way of the world.'
The telephone rang. Rauf rose, picked up the receiver and listened for a moment. His face began to beam and he carried the telephone outside to the verandah, while Said's sharp eyes registered everything. It must be a woman. A smile like that, strolling into the dark, could only mean a woman. He wondered if Ilwan was still unmarried. Though they sat there cozily drinking and chatting, Said now sensed that this meeting would be exceedingly difficult to repeat. The feeling was unaccountable, like the whispered premonition of some still undiagnosed cancerous growth, but he trusted it, relying on instinct. A resident now in one of those streets that Said had only visited as a burglar, after all, this man may have felt obliged to welcome him, having actually changed so much that only a shadow of the old self remained.
When Said heard Rauf's sudden laugh resounding on the verandah, he felt even less reassured. Calmly, however, he took an apple and began to munch it, pondering the extent to which his whole life had been no more than the mere acting out of ideas that had come from that man now chuckling into a telephone. What if Rauf should prove to have betrayed those ideas?
He would then have to pay dearly for it. On that score there was not the slightest doubt.
Rauf Ilwan came in from the verandah, replaced the telephone and sat down looking extremely pleased. 'S. Congratulations on your freedom. Being free is precious indeed.
It more than makes up for losing anything else, no matter how valuable.' Helping himself to a slice of pastrami Said nodded in agreement, but without real interest in what had just been said. 'And now you've come out of prison to find a new world,'
Rauf went on, refilling both glasses while Said wolfed down the hors d'oeuvres.
Glancing at his companion, Said caught a look of disgust, quickly covered by a smile. You must be mad to think he was sincere in welcoming you.
This is only superficial courtesy — doing the right thing — and will evaporate. Every kind of treachery pales beside this; what a void would then swallow up the entire world!
Rauf stretched his hand to a cigarette box adorned with Chinese characters, placed in a hollow in the illuminated pillar. 'My dear Said,' he said, taking a cigarette, 'everything that used to spoil life's pleasures for us has now completely disappeared.'
'The news astounded us in prison,' Said said, his mouth full of food. 'Who could have predicted such things?' He looked at Rauf, smiling. 'No class war now?'
'Let there be a truce! Every struggle has its proper field of battle.'
'And this magnificent drawing room,' said Said looking around him, 'is like a parade-ground.' He saw a cold look in his companion's eyes and regretted the words instantly. Why can't your tongue ever learn to be polite?
'What do you mean?' Rauf's voice was icy.
'I mean it's a model of sophisticated taste and — '
'Don't try to be evasive,' said Rauf with narrowed eyes. 'Out with it. I understand you perfectly, I know you better than anybody else.'
Said attempted a disarming laugh, then said, 'I meant no harm at all.'
'Never forget that I live by the sweat of my brow.'
'I haven't doubted that for a moment. Please don't be angry.'
Rauf puffed hard on his cigarette but made no further comment.
Aware that he ought to stop eating, Said said apologetically, 'I haven't quite got over the atmosphere of prison. I need some time to recover my good manners and learn polite conversation. Apart from the fact that my head's still spinning from that strange meeting, when my own daughter rejected me.'
Rauf's mephistophelean eyebrows lifted in what looked like silent forgiveness. When he saw Said's gaze wander from his face to the food, as if asking permission to resume eating, he said, 'Help yourself,' quite calmly.
Said attacked the rest of the dishes without hesitation, as if nothing had happened, until he'd wiped them clean. At this point Rauf said, a little quickly, as if he wished to end the meeting: 'Things must now change completely. Have you thought about your future?'
Said lit a cigarette. 'My past hasn't yet allowed me to consider the future.'
'It occurs to me that there are more women in the world than men. So you mustn't let the infidelity of one lone female bother you. As for your daughter, she'll get to know you and love you one day. The important thing now is to look for a job.'
