There, he was finally going back to his true self, riding the time machine described by H. G. Wells in the famous novel. He began to hum with Umm Kulthum and shout in ecstasy and cheer at the cadences exactly as he had done at the concert. Now he was listening to Umm Kulthum every night, and when it got close to 2 a.m. Chicago time, 9 a.m. Cairo time, Dr. Muhammad Salah turned off the recorder, put on his reading glasses, opened his telephone book, and began to call his old friends and acquaintances. All Cairo’s telephone numbers had changed: all the five-digit numbers were changed to seven-digit numbers. The numbers beginning with 3 now became 35 or 79. Every time he dialed, there were surprises. It was as if he were one of those cave sleepers at Ephesus, as if he had been asleep for thirty years then woke up and went back to his city. He dialed many wrong numbers, probably because the people he knew had moved. Sometimes he found the right number and then discovered that the person had died. Sometimes he reached those he was calling, whereupon he would say enthusiastically right away, “Don’t you remember me? I am Muhammad Salah, your colleague at Cairo University College of Medicine 1970.”
They all remembered him, some immediately and the others after a little thought. There would be shouts of greeting and laughter, and then he would go on, “I’m now a professor in a medical school in Chicago.”
“That’s great.”
After the surprise and the shouting and the remembering of bygone days, there was bound to come a moment when the warmth of the conversation wore off. As if the person on the other end were asking, “What reminded you of me now? Why are you calling me?” He had to offer an answer. He would lie by talking of a fictitious reunion of the Class of 1970 of the College of Medicine at Cairo University, or claim that there was a cooperative project between doctors in Illinois and Egypt. He talked fast and lied with an enthusiasm that surprised even him, aiming to distract the other person so that he wouldn’t think how bizarre the conversation was and so that he wouldn’t pity him. They should not find out that nostalgia had crushed him, that he had discovered, after turning sixty, that he had made a mistake leaving his country, that he regretted emigration to death. He should not show them his weakness and sorrows. All that he wanted was for them to talk to him a little about the past, to remember with them his real life.
Salah spent the late hours of the night making calls until the morning. Then he would take a bath and drink several cups of coffee and go to the university. Every two or three days his nervous system collapsed and he slept like a log until the following morning then once again resumed his journey to the past. He stumbled upon a true treasure when he discovered, on the Internet, a complete Cairo telephone directory. He gave up the old telephone book and started using the directory. Now he was able to make direct hits: he would remember the full name, then look it up in the Internet directory until he found the number and call. He was able to reconnect with a group of old acquaintances until he got to his target, his destination, the name that had persistently pressed itself on him from the beginning but which he had avoided, the name that he had exerted strenuous effort to dismiss from his mind, but finally gave into. He sat at the computer, opened the directory then tapped: “Zeinab Abd al-Rahim Muhammad Radwan.” He looked at the screen, panting with anticipation. A few seconds later the answer came: “Sorry, name not found.”
He looked at the letters on the screen, crushed by disappointment. He thought: Zeinab was five years younger; she must have been married for quite some time. The telephone must be in her husband’s name, if she were still alive. He felt a lump in his throat: Was she dead? Suppose she had died, how could that concern him? Wasn’t it ironic that he should grieve for her death thirty years after he had left her? He remembered that there was a professional directory that gave work numbers. He found it and typed her full name then clicked on “search.” A few moments later his heart almost jumped for joy. Her name appeared with “Planning Controller, Ministry of Economy” next to it, then her office numbers. Has Zeinab now become a high-ranking government official? Has she kept her revolutionary ideas or had she turned into an ordinary woman, a government employee who punches the clock, curries favor with her bosses, engages in office intrigues against her colleagues, then rushes home to cook before husband and children return? What did Zeinab look like now? Has time been kind to her and left her some of the old charm? Or has she turned into a fat, veiled woman like the tens of thousands crowding Cairo streets that he saw on television? How sad that would make him. “I still cherish you in my memory, Zeinab, as you sat next to me in the Orman garden! How beautiful you were! Can we go back as we were, Zeinab? There must be a way of going back.”
It was now ten in the morning Cairo time, a good time to call. Perhaps she went to the office a little late, like big shots. He waited another half hour to make sure she would be there, and then he called. He exerted an extraordinary effort to control his emotions. The secretary answered in a soft voice. He asked her about Ustaza Zeinab. She asked for his name. His voice was choking with emotions as he said, “I am an old colleague of hers and I am calling from America.”
“Just a moment,” she said and left him with a musical tune that kept playing endlessly. Finally the music stopped and her voice came on. “Good morning.”
“Good morning. It is Muhammad Salah, Zeinab.”
Chapter 28
Not a day passed without Tariq Haseeb dipping into the spring of happiness. He would finish his studying, take a hot bath, and as soon as he looked at his naked body in the mirror and imagined what he would do in a few moments, his desire would blaze. He would comb his hair from right to left to hide his baldness then spray some expensive Pino Silvestre cologne on his neck and upper chest. Then he would bolt out of his apartment, take the elevator to Shaymaa’s apartment, ring the bell, and she would open the door so quickly he would think she had been waiting for him behind it. He would rush to her, embrace her, and shower her with kisses. She would whisper in a soft, chiding voice, “Enough, Tariq.”
“No.”
“Do we have to meet every day?”
“Of course.”
“Isn’t what we do on Saturday enough?”
“I want you every minute.”
“We have to watch it. Finals are approaching.”
“This time we will do better on the tests than before.”
“God willing.”
The daily love encounter didn’t last more than half an hour. Tariq called it “the quick salute to love,” after which he would return to his apartment, take another bath, and sleep like a baby. On Saturdays, the “salute” was not quick; they lived like a real couple. They did their shopping for the week, then went to the movies, then went back to Shaymaa’s apartment, where he would put on the pajamas that he had left there especially. He would get to the bed before her and watch television until she finished her bath. He would feel breathless with desire when he saw her approaching slowly, her face rosy from the hot water. In bed she would take off all her clothes except her panties (which they agreed to consider a red line that should never be crossed under any circumstances). She would cleave to him as a wife anxious to please her husband. When they were done with their peculiar way of lovemaking, they would have an affectionate, pleasant, comfortable conversation during which they didn’t feel the passage of time. Sometimes they spent the whole day in bed, sleeping naked, with her panties on — the red line, of course — in each other’s arms, and then they would wake up, eat, and drink tea and make love more than once.
At the beginning Shaymaa was assailed several times by heavy pangs of conscience. Her prayers became irregular, then she stopped performing them entirely. She had frightening nightmares. Her father appeared to her more than once yelling at her then giving her sound beatings while her mother, in the background, cried in agony but could do nothing to protect her from the beating. Gradually she reached a comforting logical resolution. She went to the Arabic section at the Chicago Public Library and verified the noble hadiths that Tariq spoke of. She found them in al-Bukhari. The canonical punishment was for
