for you.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Tariq said gratefully.
Friedman placed his hand on Tariq’s shoulder and said as he saw him to the door, “Unfortunately the decline in your grades makes it mandatory for the department to give you a warning. That’s spelled out in the rules. You’ll receive the warning within two days. That’s bad, of course, but it is not the end of the world. If you work hard and regain your standing we can annul the warning as if it were never issued.”
Tariq looked in silence at Dr. Friedman. He couldn’t speak and was unable to concentrate on his surroundings. Distraught, he walked down the corridor with heavy steps, staggering as if he had received a violent blow to the head. Dark and misty pictures kept appearing and vanishing in his mind. He kept walking, so lost in thought that he passed the dorm without realizing it. He knew that his performance had suffered recently, but he hadn’t made much of it. Whenever he got a bad grade he’d say, “I didn’t do well in this test, but I’ll do better next time.”
Dr. Friedman had made him look in the mirror and see reality. He was falling to the bottom. His academic future was threatened. Today they had issued him a warning; tomorrow they’d expel him like Danana. The difference was: Danana was supported by the Egyptian government. As for him, if they dismissed him he would be lost forever. What had happened to him? How did Tariq Haseeb, the genius, the legend of academic superiority, come to fear failure and expect expulsion?
Tariq closed the apartment door calmly then threw himself onto the bed with all his clothes on; he didn’t even take off his shoes. He stared at the ceiling in silence for about half an hour then got up, left his apartment, and took the elevator to the seventh floor. He stood in front of Shaymaa’s apartment hesitantly, and then rang the bell two consecutive times: that was the code that Shaymaa knew, and she would hurry to him, opening the door as if she had been waiting behind it. This time she didn’t open up. He thought she had gone out for one reason or another. He called her and found the telephone turned off. He rang the bell again. A long time passed, and he thought of leaving. Finally she opened the door. She was wearing her house clothes and had a scarf on her hair. She had not preened herself as usual for their meeting. She didn’t say a word but turned and made room for him, so he could enter, and then she sat in front of him on the sofa in the living room. In the light he saw that her eyes were bloodshot and her face wet from tears.
“What has happened?”
She remained silent, avoiding looking at him, which added to his apprehension. He went over and placed his hand on her shoulder. She pushed it harshly.
“What’s wrong, Shaymaa?” She bowed her head for a while then started sobbing, saying in a breaking voice, “A catastrophe, Tariq.”
“What happened?”
“I’m pregnant.”
He stood there looking at her as if he didn’t understand, as if frozen in place. He was no longer able to think. His consciousness was scattered, broken into thousands of little pieces. He began to notice things around him as separate sights unconnected by anything: the lamp on the side table, the fridge with its humming sound, the floor covered with thick dark brown carpeting. Shaymaa suddenly got up and began to slap her face with her hands and scream, “Now do you know the catastrophe, Tariq? I am pregnant in sin, Tariq. In sin!”
He rushed to her and held her hands and after some effort was able to stop her from slapping herself, but she threw herself on the chair and began to sob with such despair that she broke his heart. He spoke for the first time and his voice came out deep, as if coming from a well, “You’re mistaken.”
“What do you mean?”
“You couldn’t be pregnant.”
“I did the test twice.”
“I assure you it is impossible.”
She looked at him shrewishly and said, “You are a doctor and you know very well that what happened is possible.” It seemed the red line had been compromised.
A deep silence fell and she began to cry again, then she said in a shaking voice, “This morning I thought of committing suicide, but I fear God Almighty.”
She got up suddenly, got close to him, held his hand, and whispered in a hoarse voice: “Please protect me, Tariq. I implore you.”
He kept staring at her in silence. She said in a supplicating voice, “I’ve asked about the procedures. We can get married here in the consulate.”
“Marry here?”
“Our families will be upset because we didn’t ask them, but we have no choice. I’ve asked at the consulate. It’s a simple procedure that would take less than half an hour. After that a copy of the marriage document would be sent to the civil registry in Cairo.”
She said the last sentence in a matter-of-fact tone, as if he had agreed to the marriage and only the procedure remained. A heavy silence settled between them. He turned his face away so as not to look at her and said in a soft voice, as if talking to himself, “I also have a big problem. I’ve received an official warning from the university: my GPA has plunged.”
“We have to resolve our situation first. When do we go to the consulate?”
“Why?”
“To get married.”
“My circumstances would not permit marriage now.” Silence prevailed again. She began to breathe unsteadily. He went on in a pleading voice, “Please, Shaymaa. Understand me. I will never let you down. I will do all I can to help you, but I cannot marry this way.”
She stared at his face. She tried to say something but finally she half sighed, half sobbed, then pushed him with her hands as she shouted, “Get out of here! Go. I don’t want to see your face.”
She took me to the Marshall Field’s department store and told me as the glass elevator took us upstairs, “Here they sell fancy fashions from the biggest names in design all over the world, but thank God they haven’t forgotten poor people like us, so on the last floor they sell slightly irregular or older-model merchandise at affordable prices.”
How she had loved me and has taken care of me! And I had treated her as harshly as she had treated me nicely. Yesterday she came to celebrate with me, bringing the dancing outfit that she had bought especially for me; she wanted to look like the Andalusian dancer that I had imagined. All this love I met with incredible cruelty. I accused her of spying, of treachery. I will apologize to her as soon as I see her. I’ll kiss her hands and beg her to forgive me. How could I have been so cruel? I was not myself. I was tense and miserable, so I took all my frustrations out on her: Safwat Shakir’s breaking into my apartment, his knowing all the details of my life, and his attempt to frighten me by threatening my mother and sister. All that made me a nervous wreck. My sister Noha, I can’t imagine that they’d actually arrest her. If they harm her I’ll kill this Safwat Shakir. Can they be humans like us? Were they at one time innocent children? How could a person’s job be simply to beat and torture people? How can a man who tortures another eat and sleep and make love to his wife and play with his children? Strangely enough, all State Security officers have the same features. The officer who tortured me when I was arrested at the university looked like Safwat Shakir: the same cold, sticky shine in his complexion, the same dead cruel eyes, and the same wooden, ashen face filled with bitterness.
A gust of icy wind blew, so I closed my eyes and started walking on the sidewalk in brisk steps so that blood would rush to my limbs. This method of coping with the cold I had also learned from Wendy. There are dozens of details and situations that we had shared that I couldn’t forget. I looked at my watch. It was seven-thirty. Why
