Adrift On The Nile Part 10

13.

The houseboat rocked; someone was coming. Since the party was already complete, they wondered who it could be, and looked toward the door with a certain anxiety. Ahmad rose in order to stop the newcomer at the door, but a familiar laugh was heard, and then Sana's voice, calling: "h.e.l.lo!" She came in, bringing by the hand a well-dressed young man. Ragab stood up to welcome him, saying: "Good evening, Ra'uf!" and introduced him to the others as "the well-known film star . . ." The couple sat down amidst lukewarm and formal expressions of greeting.

Sana said, in a voice that was bolder than usual: "He gave me so much trouble before he finally agreed to come! He said: "How can we intrude on their privacy?"' But he is my fiance--and you are all my family!"

She received congratulations from all the group, and continued: "And like you, he's one of those!"--pointing at the water pipe and laughing. Her breath smelled of drink. Anis felt no embarra.s.sment, and vigorously sent the pipe on its rounds. "Aren't you lucky, Ra'uf," Sana said next. "Here is the great critic Ali al-Sayyid, and the famous writer Samara Bahgat--the pipe makes strange bedfellows!"

"But Samara, unfortunately, does not partake," said Ragab.

"Why does she keep on coming, then!" Sana replied scornfully.

Ra'uf whispered a few words in her ear that were unintelligible to anyone else; she only giggled. Then Amm Abduh came in to change the water in the pipe, and when he had gone, Sana said to Ra'uf: "Can you believe that all that great hulk is one man?" And she laughed again, but this time alone. There followed a tense silence that lasted a quarter of an hour. Finally Ra'uf prevailed upon her to leave with him. Taking her by the arm, he stood up. "My apologies," he said. "We must go--we have an urgent appointment. I am very happy to have met you all. . . ."

Ragab accompanied them to the door, and then returned to his seat. They remained gloomy in spite of the water pipe pa.s.sing from hand to hand. Ragab smiled at Samara to humor her, but she only said, indicating the pipe and alluding to Sana's scornful remark, "Whatever I say, no one believes me."

"It doesn't disgrace you totally to have people say that," said Layla.

"Except when those people are my enemies."

"You have no enemies," said Ragab simply, "except the fossilized remnants of the bourgeoisie."

But she began to talk about the rumors that were spreading among her journalist colleagues, and she mentioned also her former flat in al-Manyal, where her late homecomings had set the neighbors to gossiping. "And when my mother said: "Her job keeps her out late," they said: "Well, what keeps her at her job!"

"But you are living on Kasr el-Aini Street now," said Ragab.

Mustafa tried to arouse Anis; a repeat of yesterday's outburst might disperse the gloom. But Anis did not come out of his own world. He was thinking of the empty cycles that hemmed him in every day; the rising and the setting of sun and moon, going out to and returning from the Ministry, friends gathering and parting, wakefulness and sleep. Those cycles that reminded him of the end and made something into nothing. Fathers and grandfathers had turned in these revolutions, and the earth waited calmly for their hopes and pleasures to fertilize its soil. What does it matter, that pa.s.sions are consumed by fire, turned to clouds of smoke tainted with the musk of a forbidden and obscure magic. . . .

As for Layla, she tormented herself with a fruitless love, soaring out into the void like a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p out of orbit. The G.o.d of s.e.x stretches out his leg until his white shoe comes to rest against the brazier, and he stares at this delightful and irksome girl, his gaze smoldering in his compelling black eyes. There was much said on the subject of Sana and her fiance, but Ragab did not share in it. When the friends noticed his total absorption in Samara, Ras.h.i.+d said: "How fortunate we are, to witness in our age the story of a grand pa.s.sion."

"Oh, let's call it by its real name," said Khalid.

"Don't spoil the dream for us!" pleaded Ahmad.

"What is new about it," said Layla, "is that one of the parties is a serious person."

"What could be the role of a serious woman in love whose lover is futile?" wondered Khalid.

"Cathartic," Ragab replied. "To purify him of his futility."

"And if his futility were his unchanging essence?"

"Love must be victorious in the end!" said Ragab, and Samara laughed at them all.

Khalid spoke. "I would be interested to see a serious girl in love. A minister tripping up is so much funnier than an acrobat."

"There is no difference between a serious and a frivolous woman when it comes to love," said Ali. "Seriousness is simply a practical concern with public matters in the same way as private ones."

Khalid winked in the direction of Samara. "In which of the two regards," he inquired, "do you think she is concerned now?" At which everybody laughed, and then he continued: "Do you think there is any hope of her becoming interested in general concerns?"

"Her hopes are pinned on the new generation!"

Khalid looked at Ragab. "It appears that the generation of the forties is no longer good for anything but love," he said.

"That is, if it is actually any good at love!"

"The new generation is better than us," said Ahmad.

"Is there no hope for our changing, then?" asked Mustafa.

"We usually change only in plays and films," said Khalid. "And that is our weakness."

"And the strength of the satires which show us our true selves!" said Ali.

"Why don't you ever admit to that in your articles?"

"Because I am a hypocrite," said Ali, "and I was referring anyway to foreign comedies. As for the homegrown versions, they usually end in a sudden character change on the part of the lead in a facile, preachy manner. That's why the third act is usually the weakest in the play; it is usually written for the censors."

Khalid turned to Samara. "If you were thinking of writing a play about people like us, then I would advise you as a fellow writer to choose the comic form. I mean farce or absurdism--they're the same thing."

"That is certainly worth considering," said Samara, continuing to ignore Ragab's gaze.

"Avoid the committed type of hero who does not smile, or speak, except of the higher ideal, who exhorts people to do this or that, who loves sincerely, and sacrifices himself, and p.r.o.nounces slogans, and finally kills the audience off because he is so insufferable!"

"I will take your advice," Samara said. "I will write instead about those others who kill off the audience because they are so charming!"

"But these also have their artistic problems," Khalid continued. "They live without any beliefs at all, wasting their time in futile pursuits in order to forget that they will soon turn into ashes and bones and nitrogen and water; and at the same time they are worn down by a daily life that forces upon them a certain kind of desperate and--to them--meaningless seriousness. Don't forget, either, that the insane everywhere around us threaten destruction at any moment. People like this do not act, they do not develop; so how can you hope to succeed in constructing a play around them?"

"That's the question!"

"And then there is another problem, which is that any one of them is no different from any other--except in outer appearance. That is, any one of them is not a personality, but is made up from disintegrating elements, like a crumbling building. We can distinguish between one house and another, but how can we tell the difference between two piles of stones, wood, gla.s.s, concrete, mortar, dust, paint? They are like modern painting, one canvas just like the next. So how can you justify having several characters on the stage?"

"You are practically telling me to give up writing!"

"Not at all--but I am pointing out that like attracts like. Just as the righteous stick together and the evil find each other, so is the drama of the absurd for the absurdists. Brother Ali here will never take you to task for the lack of plot or character or dialogue. No one will embarra.s.s you with questions about the meaning of this or that. Since there is no foundation to build on, your detractors cannot shake you. Indeed, you will find people who will praise your work, who will say--and rightly--that you have expressed, through a chaotic play, a world whose ident.i.ty is chaos . . ."

"But we do not live in a world whose ident.i.ty is chaos!"

Khalid sighed. "And that is the difference between you and me. You can go back to the loving looks of brother Ragab now."

Nothing here turns with certainty, sure of its goal; nothing save the pipe. Before long, lethargy will descend from its enchanted abode among the stars and tongues will be stilled. The new pa.s.sion will likely bear fruit before the night is out in the form of a kiss beneath the guava tree. And before that, the earth has turned for millions and millions of years to result in this night party on the surface of the Nile. The moon disappeared from view, but he could see the gecko above the balcony door. It ran, and then stopped, and then ran again. It seemed as if it was looking for something. "Why is there movement?" he asked.

They turned to him, expecting some surprise.

"What movement, master of ceremonies?" asked Mustafa.

And he murmured, continuing with his work: "Any movement at all."

14.

As it was an official holiday, Anis spent the day on the balcony and in the sitting room, withdrawn into a state of complete harmony. Just before sunset Amm Abduh came to prepare for the evening. He bid Anis a happy festival day for the third or fourth time, thinking that it was the first time he had greeted him. Anis asked him what he knew about the festival. Amm Abduh replied that it was on this day that the Prophet left the unbelievers--curses upon them--for a new place.

"This room will shortly be filled with unbelievers!" said Anis.

The old man laughed, unable to credit such a thing.

"You are escaping into your faith," Anis continued wickedly.

"Escaping!" Amm Abduh replied. "I came here one day, a long time ago, riding on top of a train."

"Where did you come from!"

"Oh . . ."

"And from what crime were you fleeing?"

"Well . . ."

He was determined to forget. Perhaps he really had come to Cairo on the run from some crime. Perhaps he was carried to the city on the wave of revolution in 1919. And now he no longer knew; and so no one knew at all.

"Are you a serious man, Amm Abduh?" he asked, still teasing.

"Ah!"

"Do you not know that Samara is a new Prophet?"

"Almighty G.o.d forgive you!"

"And she has an army behind her, to wage war on Nothingness, and march forward!"

"Where to?" asked the simple Amm Abduh.

"To prison--or to the madhouse."

Amm Abduh left for the sunset prayer. "Where shall I find a cat for all the rats on the embankment?" he murmured to himself as he left.

The friends arrived shortly afterward, earlier than usual in celebration of the holiday. Anis set about his usual business. They talked, for some of the time, about their personal affairs. Ragab announced that he planned to raise his asking fee to five thousand pounds per film, and Khalid congratulated him, for reaffirming in this way his loyalty to Arab socialism. Ragab laughed, but made no comment. He began instead to talk about Sana, how she was appearing with Ra'uf at parties and at the studios as his fiancee. Ragab was sure that this engagement would not end in marriage. Layla wondered how long the serious one's seat would remain unoccupied.

"She came back yesterday from a press tour of the industrial zone," Ali said. "She will probably come tonight."

"Tell us the truth," said Khalid to Ragab. "What is your relations.h.i.+p with her?"

Ragab smiled.

"Are you meeting in some little bachelor apartment behind our backs?" Khalid pursued.

"Certainly not--you must believe me! There are no secrets between us here!"

"In that case, you must now admit defeat for the first time in your life."

"Not at all. I'm just not launching my attack quite yet, so I can relive my memories of Platonic love!"

"So there is love?"

"Of course."

"On your part as well?"

He took a deep drag on the pipe, and exhaled in a leisurely fas.h.i.+on. "I am not devoid of love," he said at last.

"Love, Ragab style?" Saniya inquired.

"Yes, but a new model."

"This means that it is essentially nothing."

"Let's wait and see."

"She is truly beautiful," Ahmad said.

"But she has a strong personality," said Ali.

"Which is a somewhat repellent characteristic in a woman," said Saniya, at which Layla fixed her with a disapproving look, so she cheerfully amended: "Well, it can be, sometimes."

"The more impregnable the fortress, the greater the glory of those who take her," said Ragab.

"But the atom bomb takes no account of fortresses or conquerors," said Layla.

"She has turned down a splendid marriage," said Ahmad. "That deserves admiration in itself."

"Don't prejudge the matter!" said Saniya. She turned to Ragab. "Has she not referred to marriage at all?"

"Sometimes marriage comes without anyone referring to it, like death," he replied.

"Tell me truly, could you seriously contemplate marriage?"

He paused for a moment before saying: "No." His hesitation made a deep impression on everyone. Why don't I put the brazier out on the balcony and have my own fire festival? Its blaze is immortal, unlike that of false stars. But women are like the dust, known not only by their rich scent but by the way they seep and settle into you. Cleopatra, for all her amours, never divulged the secret of her heart. The love of a woman is like political theater: there is no doubt about the loftiness of its goal, but you wonder about the integrity of it. No one benefits from this houseboat like the rats and the c.o.c.kroaches and the geckos. And nothing bursts in unannounced through your door like grief. And yesterday the dawn said to me when it broke that really it had no name.

He listened to them discussing domestically produced meat and Russian fish and hard currency and the balance of payments. Then they all roared with laughter; and the boat shook, announcing a newcomer. Silence reigned. "Here comes the bride!" Saniya murmured.

Samara sauntered gaily in, and shook hands with them warmly as a festival greeting. She was eagerly asked about the trip, and replied that it was splendid, and that they should all go on one like it in order to be created anew. Khalid let his eyes wander over those present and then wondered aloud: "Do you think we could be created anew?"