groundless look of displeasure in your eyes I wanted to dispel it. The fact is that this morning Yasmina insisted I go shopping with her. When she learned I had left my aunt's ensemble, she suggested I join hers, so I could substitute for her occasionally at a wedding. Naturally I didn't agree, because I knew without asking that you wouldn't be happy if I stayed out late with the troupe. What I'm trying to say is that I remained with her because I knew you wouldn't get here before nine. This is the story. So sit down and bless the Prophet.'
'A trumped-up tale or the truth?' he wondered. 'What if your friends saw you in this fix? The fates are certainly making fun of you. I'd forgive twice as much as this if I could win a little peace of mind. You're begging now. You never had to beg before. You've humiliated yourself for this lute player. She once had the job of waiting on you. She served you fruit at parties and departed in decorous silence. If I can't reassure myself, let the fires of hell flame up.'
'Yasmina doesn't live in never-never land. I'll ask her if this story's true.'
Waving her hand to show her disdain and disapproval, she answered, 'Ask her anything you want.'
He got control of his frayed and refractory nerves all of a sudden and said stubbornly, 'I'll ask her this evening. I'm going to look for her. Now! I've satisfied all your requests. You must respect my rights completely.'
She caught his contagious fury and responded sharply, 'Not so fast! Don't insult me to my face. I've been very lenient with you until now, but everything has a limit. I'm a person made of flesh and blood. Open your eyes and pray to Fatima's father Muhammad.'
He asked in astonishment, 'Is this the tone you use to address me?'
'Yes, since that's how you're talking to me.'
The grip of his hand on his stick tightened as he yelled, 'I'm entitled to, since I'm the one who made you a lady and prepared a life for you that Zubayda herself would envy.'
His statement provoked her, and like a raging lioness she snarled, 'God made me a lady, not you. I only accepted a life like this after you pleaded with me fervently. Have you forgotten that? I'm not your captive or your slave. An interrogation and a police report what do you think I am? Did you buy me with your money? If you don't like the way I live, then each of us can go bis own way.'
'Lord of the heavens,' he reflected, 'is this how manicured nails turn into claws? If you still have any doubts about last night, then consider this impudent tone. You're suffering from tyranny like Nimrod's. Swallow the pain to the dregs. Drink the abuse till you've had your fill. So what's your response? Scream in her face, as loud as you can, 'Go back to the street where I found you!' Scream, yes, scream. What's stopping you? God's curse on the saboteur! The heart's treachery is far worse than a thousand other forms of treason. This is the romantic abasement you've heard about and mocked. How I'll hate myself for loving her!'
'Would you throw me out?' he asked.
In the same belligerent tone she said, 'If your understanding of our relationship is that I'm to stay here as your prisoner while you make accusations against me whenever you please, then the best thing for both of us is to break it off.'
She turned her face away from him. He studied her cheek and the side of her neck with an unnatural calm that was almost trancelike. 'The ultimate happiness I ask of God is casting her aside without a second thought. She has humiliated and angered you, but could you bear to come here and find no trace of her?'
'I have little confidence in you, but I didn't think your ingratitude would reach this point.'
'Do you want me to be a stone with no feelings or sense of honor?'
'If you only realized,' he reflected, 'that you're even less than that'
But he replied, 'No, I want you to be a person who recognizes the rights arising from good deeds and companionship.'
Changing from an angry tone to one of complaint, she said, 'I've done more for you than you can imagine. I consented to leave my family and my profession to stay wherever you chose. I haven't even complained about it, to avoid troubling your peace of mind. I didn't wish to tell you in so many words that certain people want a better life for me than this, although I haven't paid any attention to them.'
'Are there to be more problems, ones I haven't anticipated?' he asked himself.
'What do you mean?' he inquired indignantly.
She toyed with her gold bracelets, spinning them around her left arm. Then she said, 'A respectable gentleman wishes to marry me. He won't take no for an answer.'
'The heat and the humidity are stifling you,' he thought, 'and this shrew is opening her mouth to swallow you whole. How lucky that seaman is, trimming his sail outside the window….'
'Who is he?'
'Someone you don't know. Call him any name you want.'
He took a step back and sat down on a sofa flanked by two armchairs. Gripping the handle of his stick with both hands, he asked, 'When did he see you? How did you learn of his intentions?'
'He saw me often when I lived with my aunt. Recently he's attempted to speak to me whenever he's run into me on the street, but I've ignored him. So he got one of my girlfriends to tell me. That's the whole story.'
'How many stories you have!' he mused. 'When I found you gone yesterday, a single pain devastated me. At the time I wasn't aware of all these other pains and troubles. Leave her if you can. Break with her. That's the way to find peace. Aren't people wrong to imagine death's the worst thing we face?'
'I want to know whether you wish to accept this proposal.'
With a nervous flick of her wrist she stopped playing with her bracelets and stared at him haughtily. Then she asserted grandly, 'I told you I ignored him. You should understand what that means.'
'You mustn't go to bed tonight with such lethal thoughts,' he counseled himself. 'You don't need another night like the last one. Shield yourself from these fears.'
'Tell me frankly whether any man has visited you on the houseboat.'
'A man? What man do you have in mind? You're the only man who emers this houseboat.'
'Zanuba, I can ferret it all out. Don't be secretive. Tell me everything, even trivial details. Then I'll forgive you, no matter what.'
She protested angrily, 'If you keep doubting my truthfulness, the best thing is for us to part.'
'Remember the fly you saw die this morning in a spider's web?' he asked himself.
'Enough of that. Teil me if this man met you yesterday.'
'I told you where I went.'
In spite of himself he snorted, 'Why do you torment me? I've never wanted anything so much as to make you happy.'
She clapped her hands together, as though finding his suspicions hard to bear. Then she said, 'Why won't you understand me? I've sacrificed everything I value for your sake.'
What a beautiful song it was! The calamity was that it could easily have come from an empty heart, for a singer can dissolve into a sad and plaintive song while intoxicated with happy triumph.
'With God as your witness, tell me frankly who this man is.'
'Why does it matter to you? I said you don't know him. He's a merchant from another district, but he used to frequent the coffeehouse of al-Sayyid Ali occasionally.'
'His name?'
'Abd al-Tawwab Yasin. Do you know him?'
'I leased this houseboat to have a good time,' he reminded himself. 'Remember the happy hours? World, do you recall the Ahmad Abd al-Jawad whom nothing fazed? Zubayda, Jalila, Bahija… ask those ladies about him. No doubt he's some other man not this anxious fellow with white ravaging the hair of his temples.'
'The devil of unhappiness,' he observed, 'is the most energetic one.'
'No, it's the devil of doubt, because he's able to create something from nothing.'
He began to rap the floor with the tip of his stick. Then in a deep voice he said, 'I don't want to live like a blind man. Certainly not! And nothing can make me violate my manly sense of honor. In brief, I can't tolerate your absence last night.'
'We're back to that again!'
'And again and again and again. I'm not a child, and you're an adult too, a sensible woman. Today you've been telling me about that man. Has his promise of marriage really duped you?'
She answered proudly, 'I know he's not deceiving me. His promise not to approach me till we're married is a
