that I’ve done it with you only because I love you.”
“Of course.”
“Are you going to leave me?”
“I’ll never leave you.”
As they went out of the kitchen, her steps looked confident and graceful, as if she had found fulfillment or got rid of a burden. He sat her next to him on the sofa and they exchanged a few whispered words interspersed with tender and heartfelt kisses from him on her hair and hands. Little by little the troubled look left her face, replaced by a warm softness. In a moment, as if he had just received a sign from her, he extended his arm and pulled her toward him, slowly and confidently this time. He felt her neck and lips with his fingers, then lifted her face, and they lost themselves in a long kiss.
Chapter 24
When Sarah opened the door, Jeff was standing behind her, high, staring at what was happening with unfocused looks. Dr. Ra’fat rained blows on her, and strangely enough, she didn’t resist him. She cried only once after the first slap then succumbed after that, as if she were receiving a legal punishment. When he kicked her hard and she fell to the floor, Jeff came to and rushed at Ra’fat to grab him, but he pushed Jeff with his hand and Jeff staggered under the influence of the drug. Ra’fat roared at him, “As for you, dirty junkie, I’m going to put you in jail tonight.”
Ra’fat stood in the middle of the hallway as if he didn’t know what to do next. Then he turned around and hurried outside, and soon the sound of his car could be heard pulling away. The outside door remained open and the entryway lights on. Jeff began to pace back and forth, muttering angry curses. Then he stopped suddenly and for a moment seemed out of it, as if just waking from a dream. He walked slowly, closed the door, and turned off the lights, then extended his hand to help Sarah get up. He accompanied her inside and they sat next to each other on the sofa that had witnessed the climax of their pleasure a little earlier. He looked at her face in the light, and for the first time, he noticed a bruise around her left eye and a thin line of blood trickling from the side of her mouth. He extended his hand and felt her face gently then said in a hoarse voice, “We’ve been assaulted.”
She remained silent, as if she hadn’t heard him. He went on, “Your father has shown his true colors. He wants to control the life of his adult daughter as if he were still living in the desert.”
She started crying in silence. He extended his hand with the dish that contained the dope, whispering in a confused tone of voice, “Wash the dish well. We’ve got to move fast. I’ll hide the dope at a friend’s on a nearby street. Then we’ll call the police.”
“I am not going to call the police.”
He looked at her for a long time and said, “Sarah, this is serious. We’ve got to turn your father in before he turns us in.”
“He won’t turn us in.”
“You’re beginning to worry me. How can you be so sure?”
“Because he’s my father.”
“How can you trust him after what he’s done?”
“Listen, Jeff. I know my father well and he’s not going to call the police. Okay? Isn’t that all you’re worried about? Now, back off.”
“What do you mean?”
“Leave me alone. I want to sit quietly for a little while, please.”
She leaned her head to the wall. She really needed some quiet. Despite her fatigue and pain her mind was seething with successive images that were astonishingly strong and clear. Her father’s angry face appeared as his hand rose in the air and slapped her, time after time. She kept recalling what had happened in full detail, as if she had not absorbed it or as if she wanted to inflict more pain on herself. Old scenes kept coming to her mind, shining and disappearing like flashes from the dark past. She saw herself as a child in her father’s arms, and her mother’s face came to her. She remembered how, for years, whenever she went to her little bed every night, she would close her eyes and put her head under the pillow, praying to God passionately that her father and mother not fight during the night so she wouldn’t be awakened in fright, as often happened. She recalled her first night with Jeff, the first tremor of pleasure and her alarm at the drops of blood that had stained the bed and Jeff ’s voice whispering, “Now you’re a real woman.”
The first time she saw Jeff snorting, she chided him harshly, reciting all she had learned at school about the danger of drugs. But he laughed and said simply, “If you haven’t tried it you don’t have the right to talk about it. It’s a fantastic medium. Without it I wouldn’t have seen the world as I depict it in my paintings.”
He kept insisting that she snort with him, but she adamantly refused. One night she was in bed with him and he persisted again more strongly. He said, as if pleading with her, “Listen to me. I want what’s good for you. Dope doesn’t take away your consciousness; it gives you additional consciousness. Try it just once, and if you don’t like it, don’t ever touch it again.”
She will never forget the first ecstasy. As soon as she snorted the powder she felt as if she were flying, soaring among the clouds: no sorrows, no worries, no fear about the future; a pure burning and raging happiness. Then she had sex with him and climaxed. Next time he offered her the dope she didn’t mind. When she asked him for it the third time he laughed out loud for a long time and said as he handed her the rolled-up paper, “Welcome to Club Happiness!”
Making love came to be associated with snorting, which took her to the highest levels of orgasm. It made her shake strongly several times, scream loudly, and then her body would subside, dying and being reborn from sheer love. Now Jeff was trying to resume what had been interrupted. He got closer until he clung to her then whispered, “Goddamn your foolish father; he ruined our trip.”
He was talking in a matter-of-fact tone of voice, as if commenting on bad weather conditions or a traffic jam. His voice was neutral and his regret light and passing. He didn’t wait for her reply, as if he took it for granted. He reached out for the bottle that originally had vitamins in it, raised it against the light, looked at it and shook it carefully, then emptied a little of the powder onto the dish, using a small razor to separate a thin line. When he started snorting through the tube, Sarah got up suddenly. She moved away and went toward the window quickly, as if she were running away. She was making a feeble, low-key attempt that she knew deep down was doomed to fail before it even began. She turned her face away and began to look out of the window. Jeff, as usual, seemed confident of her response. He looked at her with a smile, as if making fun of her childlike attempt to play hard to get. He extended his hand with the funnel. His blue eyes were exuding total control and when he sensed her reluctance, he said in a confident voice, as if concluding a pending matter, “Come on, little girl. Enough playing outside. Come back to the garden!”
She lowered her gaze and moved toward him, her head bowed, her will bent, burdened with all the hopelessness that in a few moments would turn into overpowering, boisterous pleasure. She threw herself next to him on the sofa, picked up the tube, raised it slowly to her nostril, closed her eyes, and snorted hard.
Chapter 25
Ever since General Safwat Shakir was a student at the police academy, his instructors predicted that he would have a brilliant future because of the strength of his personality, his precision, and his mental and physical capabilities. After graduation he worked as an assistant in the Azbakiya secret detective division and was able, despite his young age, to greatly optimize the way the system there worked. Back then, the work of a detective simply consisted of arresting suspects and torturing them until they confessed. Methods of torture were conventional: suspects were beaten, bastinadoed, or flogged with oversize whips. If a suspect insisted on denying the charges, he would be violated by the insertion of a thick stick up his anus, the putting out of cigarettes on his penis, or the administering of electric shocks to his naked body. Torture continued until the suspect gave in and confessed to what he was accused of. Those conventional methods were useful, of course, but they resulted in the
