Adrift On The Nile Part 3

Refreshed by a cold shower, Anis gave himself up to the sunset. A somnolent, all-pervasive calm reigned. Flocks of pigeons made a white horizon over the Nile. If he could only invite the Director General to the houseboat, then he would be guaranteed a life as peaceful as the sunset, free of its present rankling thorns. He sipped the last of the bitter black coffee. He had mixed a little magic into it, and now he licked out the dregs with his tongue.

The friends arrived all together--as did Ragab and Sana. They had been inseparable all week, and Sana had finally become acquainted with the water pipe--at which Ahmad Nasr had whispered in Ragab's ear, "She's a minor!" And Ragab had whispered back, propping his elbow on Anis' knee: "I'm not the first artist in her life!" And Layla Zaydan had p.r.o.nounced: "Woe betide those who respect love in an age when love has no respect!"

Ahmad found no one to whom he could expound his conservative ideas--save the peaceable Anis, to whom he said, leaning toward him: "Wonderful, the way yesterday's wh.o.r.e becomes today's philosopher!"

"That," replied Anis, "is the way it usually goes with philosophy."

Then Ali al-Sayyid snapped his fingers, causing heads to turn toward him. "By the way," he began in a serious tone, "I have a message to relay, before you all become too addled."

When he had the attention of some of the company, he continued in a clear voice: "Samara Bahgat wishes to visit the houseboat!"

Now the interest was universal. All eyes were fixed upon him, including those of Anis, though he continued to minister to the water pipe.

"The journalist?"

"The same. My beautiful and renowned colleague."

A silence fell while this news was digested. Unreadable glances were exchanged. "But why does she want to visit us?" Ahmad inquired finally.

"I am the one who has made her interested in you. We've had many long conversations about the houseboat."

"You've got a loose tongue," Ragab remarked. "But does your friend _like_ houseboats?"

"It's not so much whether she does or not--more that she knows, or has heard, about more than one person here. Myself, being a colleague and friend, and Khalid Azzuz because of his stories, and you from your films--"

"Does she have any idea of what goes on here?"

"I think so. She is not completely unfamiliar with our world, because of her work, and her general experience of life."

"If we are to judge her on the strength of what she writes, then she is an alarmingly serious person," Ragab said.

"Well, she is serious. But everyone has a taste for the more mundane side of life."

"And has she made other excursions like this?" Ahmad asked, with some irritation.

"I should imagine so. She's a friendly person, she likes people."

"But she'll constrain us," Ahmad pursued.

"No, no, no. Don't have any worries about that."

"So will she--partic.i.p.ate?"

"To a certain extent--in our more blameless activities, that is."

"Blameless! So we _are_ going to be investigated, then!"

Ali stressed that she was coming for no other purpose than to get to know them.

Concern yourself no more with the matter, or else all the water pipe's good will come to nothing. Remember how the Persians received the first news of the Arab conquest . . . Anis smiled. He spotted a number of dead midges on the bra.s.s tray, which prompted him to ask: "What cla.s.s of animal do midges belong to?"

The question held up the flow of their ideas in an annoying and intrusive way. "Mammals," Mustafa Ras.h.i.+d replied sarcastically.

"The messenger's only duty is to deliver the message," Ali went on. "If you don't like the idea . . ."

Ragab interrupted him. "We have not heard the opinion of the ladies."

Layla raised no objection. Neither did Saniya. As for Sana, she suggested that Anis and Ahmad and Mustafa should be allowed to decide, "since they are the ones who need girlfriends!"

"No--no," protested Ali, "what an unthinkable idea--don't embarra.s.s me, please!"

"But in that case," wondered Sana, pus.h.i.+ng back a stray lock of hair from her brow, "why do you want her to come?"

"I have nothing to add!"

"If the midge is a mammal"--Anis pursued his train of thought--"how can we maintain that your friend is not in the same cla.s.s?"

Ali addressed everyone, ignoring Anis' interruption. "Your freedom is guaranteed in every way. You can say or do what you like--smoke, tell your ribald jokes; there will be no investigations, no probes, no reporter's trickery of any kind. You can rest a.s.sured. But it would not do for you to treat her as a frivolous woman."

"_Frivolous_ woman?"

"What I mean is that she is an excellent person, just like any of you, who should not be treated as if she were . . . loose."

"Really," said Ahmad, "I don't understand anything."

"That is to be expected of you, O Nineteenth Century personified. Everyone else understands me without any difficulty at all."

"Perhaps," said Khalid, "in spite of those articles of hers, she's actually an unreformed bourgeoise."

"She is not bourgeois in any sense of the word."

"Why don't you tell us something about her," Mustafa suggested. "That would be more useful."

"Certainly. She's twenty-five. She graduated in English just before she turned twenty. She's an excellent journalist, better by far than most people her age. And she has ambitions in the artistic sphere which she hopes to realize one day. She looks at life from a serious angle, but she is very pleasant company. Everybody knows that she refused to marry a very well-to-do bourgeois man, in spite of her small salary."

"Why?"

"The man was under forty, the director of a firm, the owner of an apartment block--like Khalid here--and a relation on her father's side to boot. But, as I understand it, she did not love him. . . ."

"If we can judge by her heart, then," said Khalid, "she's a radical."

"Call her progressive, if you like. But genuine and sincere as well."

"Has she ever been arrested?"

"No. I have known her as a colleague ever since she got her first job on _Kulli Shay'_ magazine."

"Perhaps when she was a student, then?"

"I think not, or else I would have found out about it during our long talks together. In any case, it wouldn't influence my opinion of her one way or the other."

Sana spoke. "Why do you want to invite such a dangerous woman to the houseboat," she asked, "when she can't entertain us in the least?"

"She must come," said Layla. "We need some new blood here."

"Make a decision," said Ali. "She's at the club now. If you like, I can call her on the telephone and ask her to come over."

"Did you tell her that it is the whale who gathers us all here?" Anis asked him.

Ali did not reply. He suggested taking a vote. Anis laughed at his own embalmed memories. He suggested that they bring Amm Abduh to add his vote as well. Ragab put his arm around Sana, and Ali rose to go to the telephone.

6.

Half an hour after his telephone call, Ali al-Sayyid left his seat in order to be ready to welcome the newcomer at the door. Not long afterward, they felt the faint vibration of footsteps on the gangway. Ahmad wished aloud that they had hidden the water pipe so that they could feel easy in the presence of the visitor, but Ragab signaled contemptuously to Anis. "Pile it on," he said.

She appeared smiling from behind the screen, and came forward--followed by Ali--to meet their combined gazes in a calm, friendly, and unembarra.s.sed way. All the men rose to their feet. Even Anis stood up, his white robe rumpled up over his s.h.i.+ns. Ali began the conventional introductions. Ahmad offered to bring her a chair, but she preferred to sit on a mattress; and Ragab--involuntarily--moved closer to Sana in order to make room for her. Anis resumed his work, stealing occasional glances at her. He had been led, by what he had heard, to expect someone rather odd, and she was definitely a woman of character; but she was also quite charmingly feminine. From under drooping lids he saw that her dark complexion was undisguised by makeup. Her features were as open as her simple elegance, but in her gaze there was an intelligence that prevented him from fathoming her. He imagined that he had seen her before, but in what bygone age? Had she been queen or subject? Another furtive glance--but this time she showed him a new picture! He tried to absorb it all, but the concentration tired him out and he turned away to the Nile instead.

The customary hubbub of introductions and compliments was followed by a silence. The gurgle of the water pipe made a duet with the crickets. Adroitly, Samara avoided looking at the pipe in any meaningful way. When Anis pa.s.sed her the mouthpiece she put it to her lips without smoking, by way of salutation, and then pa.s.sed it to Ragab, who took it, saying: "Be at your ease."

She turned to him. "I saw you in your last film, _Tree Without Fruit_," she said. "I can say that you played your part extraordinarily well."

He was not so modest as to be embarra.s.sed by praise. "Opinion, or flattery?" he asked warily.

"Opinion, of course--and one shared by millions!"

Anis looked through the smoke at Sana and, seeing her tame her rebellious lock of hair, smiled. The Director General himself, with all the power conferred on him by financial and administrative directives, could not control all "incomings and outgoings". Thousands of comets, scattered by stars, burned and frittered away as they were flung into the earth's atmosphere, and not one of them found their way into the archives. Nor were they entered in the register of incoming mail. As for pain, that was the heart's domain only . . .

Now Samara was addressing Khalid Azzuz. "The last story of yours that I read was the tale of the piper . . ."

Khalid adjusted his spectacles.

"The piper whose pipe turned into a serpent!" she continued.

"And since its publication," said Mustafa, "he well deserves the epithet of "python."

"It's a strange, exciting story," she said.

"Our friend is a leading light of the old school--the school of 'art for art's sake,'"said Ali. "Don't expect anything else from this houseboat!"

"Oh, I think it won't be long before the theater of the irrational, known generally as the absurd, will be founded here," said Mustafa.

"But the absurd has existed among us in abundance, even before it became an art," said Ragab. "Your colleague Ali al-Sayyid is known for his absurd dreams, and Mustafa Ras.h.i.+d strives after the absurd in its guise of Absolute. And our master of ceremonies here--his whole life, since he cut himself off from the world some twenty years ago, is absurd."

Samara laughed aloud, throwing off her gravity. "I am really a wisewoman, then!" she said. "My heart told me that I would find wonderful and interesting things among you!"

"Was it your heart that told you," wondered Ragab, "or Ali's tattle?"

"He said nothing but good!"

"But our houseboat is not unique, surely?"

"Perhaps not, but the more people there are, the fewer who can live in friends.h.i.+p."

"I never imagined that I would hear a journalist say that!"

"People generally present the same face to us as they do to the camera."

"Have we not met you in a sincere and guileless way?" said Khalid. "When will you give to us in kind?"

She laughed. "Consider that I have. Or give me a little time."

Anis piled the brazier with charcoal and carried it to the threshold of the balcony, where it was exposed to the breeze. He waited. The patches of heat grew gradually larger until the black charcoal had turned a soft, deep, glowing, crumbling red. Dozens of small tongues of flame darted up, branded with evening glow, and began to spread so that they joined into a dancing wave, pure and transparent, crowned at the tips with a spectral blue. Then the charcoal crackled, and swarms of spark cl.u.s.ters flew up. Female voices screamed, and he returned the brazier to its place. He acknowledged to himself his unlimited wonder at fire. It was more beautiful than roses or green gra.s.s or violet dawn; how could it conceal within its heart such a great destructive power? If you feel inclined, you should tell them the story of the person who discovered fire. That old friend who had a nose like Ali's, and Ragab's charisma, and the giant stature of Amm Abduh . . . Where had that curious notion gone? He had been about to toss it into the discussion when he was carrying the brazier out to the balcony . . .

"I am a lawyer," Mustafa was saying. "And lawyers by their nature think the worst. I can almost imagine what is going through your head about us now!"

"There is nothing like that in my head!"

"Your articles pour forth bitter criticism of nihilism, and we could be considered--in the eyes of some--nihilism itself!"

"No, no," she replied. "One cannot judge people on what they do in their free time."

Ragab laughed. "Better to say "free lifetimes"!"

"Don't remind me that I'm a stranger to you," Samara said to him.

"It is bad manners to talk like this about ourselves!" Ahmad said. "We should really be finding out about you."

"I am not a mystery!" she said.

"The writer's articles can generally be counted on to reveal the writer," said Ali.

"Like your critical pieces, you mean?" asked Mustafa.

The room resounded with laughter. Even Ali laughed for a long time. Finally he said, his face still full of mirth: "I am one of you, O dissolutes of our time, and whoever is like his friends has done no wrong. But unfortunately this girl is sincere."

"Everyone is writing about socialism," remarked Khalid, "while most writers dream of acquiring a fortune, and of nights full of dazzling society."

"Do you discuss these matters a great deal?" Samara asked.

"No, but we are forced to if someone alludes to the way we live."