She turned to open a door and entered, setting the lamp on a table bracketed to the wall. She stood in front of the mirror to examine her reflection carefully. Yasin forgot about Zubayda and her musical lover. He riveted his greedy eyes on Zanuba’s desirable body, which he was seeing for the first time stripped of the wrap. He fixed his eyes on her with force and concentration and moved them deliberately and delightedly from top to bottom and from bottom to top. Before he could act on any of the tens of wishes racing through his breast, Zanuba remarked, as though continuing the same conversation, "He’s a man with no equal in his graciousness or sensitivity to music. As for his generosity, we could talk about that from today till tomorrow… that’s what lovers should be like… otherwise…"
He did not miss the implications of her reference to the generosity of the performer’s lover. He had accepted from the start that his new romance would cost him dearly, but her reference to it seemed in poor taste and offended him. Motivated by an instinct of self-defense, he found himself forced to say, "Perhaps he’s a rich man".
Responding to his maneuver, she said, "Wealth is one thing, generosity is another. Many a wealthy man is stingy".
He inquired, not because he wanted to know but merely to avoid silence, which he was afraid would seem to express disapproval, "Who do you suppose this generous man is?"
Turning the knob to raise the wick on the lamp, she answered, "He’s from our district. You must have heard of him… al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad".
"Who!"
She turned toward him in astonishment to see what had frightened him. She found him in a rigid pose with his eyes bulging out. She asked him disapprovingly, "What’s the matter with you?"
The name she had spoken had come upon him like a hammer falling violently on top of his head. The question had escaped from him unintentionally in a scream of alarm. For some moments he was bewildered and oblivious to his surroundings. When he saw Zanuba’s face again and its expression of astonishment and disapproval, he was afraid he would give himself away. He exerted his willpower to defend himself. To conceal his alarm, he resorted to some playacting. He clapped his hands together, as though he could not believe what had been said about the man, because he thought he was so respectable. He muttered incredulously, "Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad!.. With a store in al-Nahhasin?
She gave him a bitterly critical look for alarming her for no reason. She asked him scornfully, "Yes, him… So what made you cry out for help like a virgin being deflowered?"
He laughed in a perfunctory way. Praising God secretly that he had not told her his full name the day they met, he replied with mock astonishment, "Who would believe this of such a pious, respectable man?"
She looked at him with skepticism before asking him sarcastically, "Is this what really alarmed you?… Nothing but that? Did you think he was a sinless saint?… What’s wrong with his doing this? Can a man attain perfection without having an affair?"
He said apologetically, "You're right… there’s nothing in this world worth being astonished at". He laughed nervously and continued: "Imagine this dignified gentleman flirting with the sultana, drinking wine, and swaying to the music…"
In her same sarcastic tone she said, as though to continue his statement, "And playing the tambourine better than a professional like Ayusha and telling one gem of a joke after another until everyone with him is dying of laughter. It’s not surprising, given all of this, that in his store he’s seen to be a fine example of sobriety and earnestness. You should be serious about serious things and playful when you play. There’s an hour for your Lord and an hour for your heart".
He plays the tambourine better than a professional like Ayusha… He tells jokes that make his companions die from laughter… Who could this man be? His father?… Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad? That stern, tyrannical, terrifying, God-fearing, reserved man who kills everyone around him with fright?
How could he believe what his ears had heard? How, how?… There must be some confusion between two men with similar names. There could be no relationship between his father and this tambourine-playing lover. But Zanuba had agreed he owned a store in al-Nahhasin. There was only one store in al-Nahhasin that bore this name and it was his father's. Lord, was what he had heard true or was he raving? He wanted dearly to learn the truth for himself, to see it with his own eyes. That desire gained control of him. This investigation appeared to him the most important thing in life. He was unable to combat the desire. He smiled to the girl and shook his head sagely as though to say, "What days we live in. Each more amazing than the last". Then he asked her, as if motivated by nothing but curiosity, "Isn't there some way I could see him without being seen?"
She objected, "You're strange! What need is there to spy?"
He entreated her: "It’s a sight worth seeing. Don't deprive me of it".
She laughed contemptuously and commented, "You've got the brains of a child in the body of a camel. Isn't that so, my camel? But death to anyone who disappoints one of your requests… Hide in the foyer while I take them a dish of fruit. I'll leave the door open till I come back".
She left the room and he trailed after her with a pounding heart. He hid in a dark corner of the hall while the lute player continued on her way to the kitchen. She soon returned with a dish of grapes. She went to the door from which the singing came and knocked. She waited a moment and then went in, leaving the door open. There he saw a divan at the end of the room. Zubayda sat in the middle of it cradling a lute. She accompanied herself as she sang, "O Muslims, O People of God".
Sitting next to her was his father, not someone else. When he saw him, his heart pounded harder. His father had removed his cloak and rolled up his sleeves. He was shaking the tambourine and gazing at the performer with a face brimming with joy and happiness. The door was open only so long as Zanuba was in the room, one or two minutes, but during that time he witnessed an amazing sight: a secret life, a long story with many ramifications. He awoke like a person emerging from a long, deep sleep to the convulsions of a violent earthquake. In those two minutes he saw a whole life summed up by one image, like a brief scene in a dream that brings together diverse events that would take years in the real world. He saw his father the way he truly was-his father, not some other man, but not as he was accustomed to seeing him. Never before had he seen him without his cloak, at a relaxed, spontaneous party. He had never seen him with his black hair sticking up as though he had been running around bareheaded. He had never seen his naked leg as it appeared at the edge of the divan, sticking out from his gown, which had been pulled up. He had never seen, by God, the tambourine in his hands as he shook it with a dancing rhythm gracefully interspersed with taps on the skin. Perhaps most amazing of all, he had never before seen his face smile. It was glistening with such affection and goodwill that Yasin was stunned, just as Kamal had been when he saw their father laughing in front of his store, the day he went to see him driven by his desire to get his mother released.
Yasin saw all of this in two minutes. Once Zanuba had closed the door and gone to her room he remained where he was, listening to the singing and the jingling of the tambourine with a spinning head. It was the same sound he had heard when he entered the building, but how differently it affected his soul, what new images and ideas it brought to his mind now… When a child who has not started school yet hears a school bell ring, he smiles, but once he is a pupil it sounds like a warning of the many hardships ahead.