She smiled — almost sneering — and replied, “What difference would it have made if they had been obliterated?”
Pointing to the carvings on the columns, he said, “If we could read the hieroglyphics, we would learn astonishing things.”
“Really!”
“Certainly. Don’t you know pharaonic history?”
She shook her head no. Thus the first part of the visit came to an end. As they approached the tomb behind the temple, Tahiya asked, “Aren’t there other ruins besides this tomb?”
Sensing the boredom that prompted this inquiry, Mahgub felt nonplussed and answered, “There are many ruins, but we aren’t allowed to visit the others.”
Descending some steps, they found themselves in a long, narrow room the walls of which were decorated with carvings and frescoes. Their heads almost touched the ceiling. They cast a look around. Then the young man fixated on the frescoes and said in a faint voice, “Let’s look at the pictures. See how brilliant the colors are.”
They began near the entrance with the wall where the beneficiary of the tomb was portrayed with his wife on his left and their children between them. They were surrounded by servants and retainers. In the following panel they saw a picture of an expansive field that was being cultivated by oxen pulling plows. Standing here and there were naked peasants. Tahiya spent hardly any time at all on this image and moved on to the third panel. Mahgub realized that the pictures of naked people embarrassed her. As he examined these images with bulging eyes, a malicious smile spread across his lips. His heart beat faster, and he sensed even more strongly their isolation. He did not leave the picture of the field and did not turn his eyes away from the representations of naked people. Thus his soul was filled with this extraordinary reality: that they were alone together in front of naked people. He gazed so assiduously that he imagined the figures were becoming three-dimensional before his eyes and starting to throb with life as blood flowed through their veins, their bodies were washed with an incandescent reddish hue, and fleeting glances flashed in their eyes. Then their necks craned toward … the fleeing girl, whose cheeks were crimson from embarrassment. His heart pounded violently, and his limbs were inflamed by his strong emotion. He tried in vain to control himself. He remembered that she had come alone and recalled their conversation in the automobile, her affability, their isolation, and their presence in this tomb, which enveloped them with a centuries- old savagery. He imagined that the fruit was ready to pick, and his inner turmoil bubbled up until he became a savage beast deficient in both mind and volition. He swallowed, making a weird sound. His eyes were fixed on the naked figures, even though he no longer saw anything. He asked, “Haven’t you looked at this field that’s full of …”
She retorted tersely in a way that suggested boredom, “There’s nothing worth seeing.”
He turned his head and almost whispered, “How easily bored you are, Miss.”
He moved closer to her till he was beside her. Then he began to study along with her a picture of a servant kneading bread. He leaned over a little as if to inspect a detail of the picture, brushing against her shoulder and right hand. Then straightening again, he looked into her eyes and said in a quavering voice, “Don’t you like anything?”
She laughed delicately and replied frankly, “The fact is that we haven’t found anything to justify the trip.”
In a shaky voice, his eyes piercing hers, Mahgub said, “But the place is beautiful and calm.…”
She noticed his trembling voice and sensed his intense, fiery gaze. Then her eyes twitched and she looked down. Frowning anxiously, she said, “It’s time for us to leave.”
He nodded his head and tried to say something but found he could not speak. So he seized her hand, which she quickly took back, gazing at him with disgust. He paid no attention to this, took her hand again by force, and said — as emotion swept like a wave over the surface of his visage, “Let’s stay a little longer.” The devil of desire seized control of him. So he pressed her to him violently and put his arms around her. His mouth, which was burning to devour her, descended toward her. She, however, fended him off with her right hand and pulled her head away from him. Anger flared in her beautiful face, and she shouted at him in a voice that echoed disturbingly in the silent tomb, “You’re crazy! Let me go! Let go of my hand!”
Almost insane with torment, he pleaded with her, “Don’t be angry … I beg you … come to me.”
She broke free of his arms, however, with a wild force she did not know she possessed and shouted with stern determination, “Stay where you are! Don’t you dare touch me. Don’t you try to stop me.”
She headed for the door. He yielded and followed her, his head bowed, silent, weighed down by feelings of shame and embarrassment. They walked along silently, retracing the route they had traversed as happy friends. Her beautiful face was overcast by an angry dark red. She held her head high with pride and conceit. He did not know how to atone for his error. The longer the silence lasted, the more desperate and defeated he felt, as he wondered regretfully if he should have been more patient. He told himself sadly: Obviously a girl like Tahiya shouldn’t be treated like the butt collector. Perhaps he had not allocated to Tahiya a due amount of suave courtship. If only he had employed more deliberation and patience with her, he might well have succeeded. Damn unruly passion! It had cost him an auspicious opportunity.
When they reached the automobile, without glancing at him, Tahiya commanded, “Stay where you are!”
She climbed into the car, closed the door, and ordered the chauffeur to depart. He followed her with his eyes until she was lost from sight as the automobile quit the Pyramids Plateau, leaving him alone. He stayed where he was for a time — just as she had ordered — feeling gloomy. Then he shrugged his shoulders. As the spirit of contempt returned, he almost laughed at himself. He looked at the pyramid for a long time. Then he muttered sarcastically, “Forty centuries have watched my tragedy from the top of this pyramid.” A sudden wave of anger overwhelmed him, his pale face turned red, and his nostrils quivered. He felt like pelting Cairo with huge stones from the pyramids. His feet started moving, even though anger still devoured him. Why was he sad? She was just a female and no better than his girlfriend, the butt collector. Right. All the same, he had blown an opportunity, losing Tahiya and her father forever. He thought for a moment. Then, shrugging his shoulders, he murmured contemptuously, “Tuzz.”
18
Mahgub put his failure behind him and set to work enthusiastically. He met the editor of
March passed with its mild weather, fine winds, and a sky that was beginning to shed its winter cloak to welcome spring’s heat and fragrance. Next came April with its sun — as jaunty as any other upstart — and its dust- laden winds and bilious, grimy weather. His father’s usual monthly letter arrived at the beginning of May. In it he said he was sending the last pound note he could spare. He prayed for his son’s good fortune and success. Then he added that he was expecting his son’s support, which he so badly needed, from that time forward. He included the good news that, God willing, he would soon be able to move and perhaps even to walk with a cane. There was nothing in the letter they had not already agreed on, but Mahgub could not repress the rage that shook him as he remembered his black nights — nights when he was starving and delirious. He kept saying of his parents, “If only they had been … I would have been.… If only they had been… I would have been…”
Then the examination came on the first of May, and the results were announced by the twentieth. The four friends, who had been classmates for four full years, all passed. The examination was for Mahgub not merely an academic exercise. As a matter of fact, it was his one and only opportunity to reap the reward for fifteen years of effort. So he was doubly delighted, breathing a huge sigh of relief. A graduate’s delight with his success is,
