he might have believed that his tribulations were a punishment for his homosexuality, but he knew at least ten homosexuals who lived quiet, carefree lives with their lovers. Why should he, specifically, lose Abduh?
Bit by bit his mood deteriorated. He lost his appetite for food, started drinking a lot, and kept to the house. He stopped going to the paper except for the most pressing of emergencies, which he would resolve and then hurry back home, where everything was silence, sorrow, and memories: Abduh used to sit here, and eat here, and put out his cigarette here, and… here he used to lie next to him, while Hatim stroked his black body, kissing every part of it and whispering in a voice trembling with the heat of desire, “You’re mine, only mine, Abduh. You’re my beautiful black stallion.”
Hatim spent entire nights wallowing in his memories and going over his relationship with Abduh minute by minute till one night from amid the clouds of drunkenness and despair, an idea emerged that flashed in his mind like lightning. He recalled that Abduh had said once jokingly, “A Sa’idi can’t live without other Sa’idis. You know, if I go any place I have to ask where’s the cafe that the Sa’idis hang out.”
Hatim pulled himself together and looked impatiently at his watch. It was past 1 A.M. He dressed hurriedly and in half an hour he was asking people on the street in Imbaba where the Sa’idi cafe was. In another half hour, he’d found it. In the short distance he traversed between the car and the entrance to the cafe, he felt the sweat pouring off his brow, and his heart was beating so hard it almost stopped.
The cafe was cramped and filthy. Hatim hurried in and looked around him impatiently. Later he would ponder the relation between our extreme desire for something and our ability to realize it — was what we wanted inevitably brought about if we wanted it enough? He longed so much to find Abduh that he did in fact find him. He was sitting in the farthest part of the cafe smoking a waterpipe, wearing a capacious, dark-colored gallabiya and had a large Sa’idi turban on his head. At that moment he looked enormous and imposing, like a magic dark-skinned jinni that had materialized from the world of the imagination. He looked too as though he had returned to his true self, to his origin and his roots; as though he had taken off along with his Western clothes his whole contingent and exceptional history with Hatim Rasheed. The latter stood before him for a moment in silence, looking at him closely as though confirming, verifying, laying hold of, his presence, lest he disappear again. An instant later he rushed toward him and exclaimed in a gasping voice that made the customers turn their heads in his direction, “Abduh. At last.”
Their intercourse on the first night was simple and spontaneous, as though she had been his wife for years. The rose opened to the touch of his fingers and he watered it more than once till it was quenched. This amazed him and he took to asking himself as he recalled the details of their wedding night how was it that he had succeeded easily with Radwa when he had never touched a woman before? Where had his apprehension, hesitation, and fear of failure gone? Perhaps it was because he felt at ease emotionally with Radwa, or because he had applied all Sheikh Bilal’s advice, or because his wife had encouraged him with her experience and shown him the secret sources of pleasure. This she had done skillfully and adeptly, though without abandoning her natural modesty as a Muslim woman.
Taha thought about all this and came to the conclusion that his marriage to this woman was a great benison from Our Lord, Glorious and Mighty, because she was a woman who was refined, honest, and sincere in her Islam. He loved her and felt at ease with their daily routine. He would leave her in the morning and spend the whole day at the camp. Then he would return after the last prayer of the day to find the room tidy and clean and delicious hot food waiting for him. How he loved to sit with her at the low round table to eat their dinner! He would tell her what had happened during the day and she would recount to him her conversations with her sister Muslims and give him a summary of what she had read in the newspapers (which he didn’t have time to read). They would laugh together at the antics of little Abd el Rahman and his mischief, which would only be put to a stop when he fell all of a sudden into the clutches of sleepiness, at which point Radwa would carry him to the bed she had prepared for him on the floor, returning to remove the remains of the food and carefully wash the dishes.
Then she would excuse herself to go into the bathroom and Taha would get straight into their old iron bed to wait for her, stretched out on his back, gazing at the ceiling, his heart brimming with that delicious, nervy passion that he had come to know and love and to which he looked forward every night — his implacable longing for her; her enchanting body, refreshed by the hot water, naked but for a large towel that enveloped her as she emerged from the bathroom; the tense, thrilling, silent moments, gravid with desire, while she turned her back to him and prettied herself before the mirror; and the confused words, empty of meaning, that she spoke in a hushed, gasping voice as she made a pretense of conversing on any subject, as though to conceal her desire for him. He would understand the signal and grant her no delay, crushing to himself her supple, tall, slender body and tickling her with his kisses and his burning breath till his sweetness overflowed and he emptied himself in her embrace of all his feelings — his sorrows, his memories, his frustrated hopes, his unstilled desire for revenge and his savage hatred for his torturers; even those blazing, obscure sexual yearnings that had so often swept over him and made him ache in his room on the roof — all this he would empty into Radwa’s body, to emerge liberated, at rest, the fire damped and replaced by a calm, steady affection that grew more firmly rooted every night.
Once they had made love he would gaze at her with genuine gratitude and cover her hands, face, and hair with kisses. He had become an expert in the topography of her body and learned its language so well that their lovemaking would last for hours, during which Radwa’s face would light up at times with intoxication.
Months passed in his life with her in which he tasted happiness. Then one night he was with her in bed when his performance unexpectedly faltered and he grew confused and finally desisted. Silence reigned and suddenly he jumped up, shaking the bed beneath them, and rushed over to switch on the light. She gathered together her clothes to cover her naked body and asked him anxiously, “What’s the matter?”
He stayed silent and seated himself on the couch. Then he slowly doubled over and put his head in his hands, his faced creasing as though something was hurting him. Greatly distressed, she hurried over to him and asked, “What’s wrong with you, Taha?”
Affected perhaps by her genuine concern for him, he moved restlessly, heaved a great sigh, and then said, avoiding her eyes, “Please don’t misunderstand me, Radwa. I’m happy of course with our marriage and I thank God a thousand times over for having provided me with a godly wife like you. But I didn’t join the camp to get married. I came with Sheikh Shakir for a particular purpose, to struggle for God’s cause. I’ve been here for a year, I’ve finished all the different types of training, and till now they haven’t entrusted me with a single mission. I’m scared that my determination will weaken as time passes.”
He was speaking in a soft, sad voice. Then he struck his leg with his hand and cried bitterly, “If it were all about getting married, I would have married you anywhere but in the camp. Every day I ask myself a hundred times, ‘Why am I here?’ Why, Radwa? I’m sure that Sheikh Bilal married me to you to distract my mind from the struggle.”
Radwa smiled like a wise, understanding mother and putting her arm around his shoulder said affectionately, “Seek refuge with God and chase these thoughts from your head because they’re the whisperings of Satan. Sheikh Bilal is an honest man and never lies. If he thought you weren’t worthy of gihad, he would have expelled you from the camp, just as he would never marry you to a corrupt woman who would divert you from your religion” (and here her voice took on a reproachful tone). “I’m your wife, Taha, and I’m the first to encourage you in gihad and I’ll be the first to feel proud of you if you attain martyrdom, which I pray God I may attain alongside you. But I know from my experience with the late martyr Hassan that military operations are not a game and that they are governed by precise considerations that are known only to the brothers on the Gamaa Council.”
Taha opened his mouth to object, but she quickly and gently laid her hand on it as though to stop him speaking and whispered, “Be patient, Taha, be patient.
At exactly ten o’clock on Thursday morning, a black “Phantom” Mercedes pulled up in front of the Yacoubian Building. A smartly dressed man in his forties descended and made inquiries until he was conducted to Hagg Azzam’s office, where he greeted the latter and haughtily presented himself, saying, “Gamal Barakat, from the Basha’s office.”
