I called Layla as I left the train and told her that I was going back to look for Bacchus. She asked me if this would help me find some peace, and I told her that it would and I would at least be close to Al-Firsiwi. I didn’t like to see him forgotten and ostracised. She liked the idea, and then said unexpectedly, ‘Why not write a story about Ibrahim al-Khayati?’ I told her we would have to discuss that some other time.
In the days that followed I thought of preparing an outline for a possible novel about Ibrahim. In the end I found myself reviewing the landmarks of his life: his idealism, his professional success, his lover’s suicide, his marriage to his lover’s widow, his relationship with his mother and with the twins Essam and Mahdi, his involvement in thorny cases such as the young musicians and gay marriage, the attempt on his life and his overall emergence from the rubble of the 1970s without convictions or bitterness. Finally, his appearance at the end of the century as an eloquent expression of a struggle that defied definition. When I finished writing this preliminary outline, I realised it was not a novel. It was simply Ibrahim’s life, the story etched on his face, and did not require someone to write it anew. If I wanted to write a novel about Ibrahim, I would have to invent another life for him, a life closer to the realistic scenario of a man without miracles. This would be a huge endeavour and would require energy that I did not have. It would also be a venture without guaranteed success.
I asked Al-Firsiwi to tell me, frankly, who stole Bacchus.
He settled himself comfortably in his seat and said, ‘Listen, Youssef, son of Diotima, this weak man was strung up by his feet and flogged night and day for two months. Do you think that if I knew, I would have gone on enjoying the beatings, for the love of God?’
‘But you have been saying many things ever since,’ I replied.
‘I say what I like!’
‘Among the things you say is that you buried Bacchus in the courtyard of a mosque in one of the mountain villages.’
‘Very likely! One possibility among many others.’
‘I know you have many accounts you’d like to settle. You probably want to punish this region by destroying one of its timeless antiquities.’
‘It’s not worth so much fuss. It’s an ordinary statue of the god of wine posing as a dusky adolescent. Even from an artistic perspective, it’s not a masterpiece. The Prado in Madrid and a museum in Florence have wonderful white marble statues of Bacchus. One of them, I can’t remember which, has the shadow cast by the bunch of grapes sculpted on Bacchus’s shoulder. How can one compare this with the dull appearance of the granite adolescent? Please! Spare me! He’s standing as if he had just come out of Jupiter’s thigh. Every land inherits what God granted it in intelligence and kindness. All this commotion, including some stupid people crying over a stolen memory. Let it go. What nonsense!’
‘All right, all right. No need to get all worked up about it. I said maybe. It might be one possibility among others, regardless of the value of Walili’s Bacchus. He disappeared in mysterious circumstances. Can you help me find an avenue to search for him?’
‘I haven’t the slightest idea,’ he replied.
I opened my briefcase and took out a book of poetry published a few weeks earlier in Frankfurt and titled Elegies. I said to Al-Firsiwi, ‘You know, an interesting book of poetry titled Elegies written by an obscure poet called Hans Roeder has been published in Frankfurt.’
He turned his face as he did when he wanted to listen carefully. I waited for him to say something, but he did not open his mouth. His features remained stiff as he sat listening in agitated silence before he asked me, ‘Can I touch it?’
I handed him the book. He spent a long time feeling it with his slender dirty fingers, then he opened it and buried his face between the pages, breathing in the smell of the paper, the letters and the printing press. Then he said, ‘I have no doubt it is a good book!’
‘It is the literary event of the season in Germany,’ I said.
‘Germany is a great poetic nation.’
‘That’s not what it’s best known for,’ I said.
‘It doesn’t matter. It knows itself and so does poetry.’
‘People say you have something to do with this book,’ I told him.
Al-Firsiwi laughed nervously. ‘Is there anything in this world I’m not connected with?’
‘People say this is the poetry book that Hans, Diotima’s grandfather, buried in the ruins of Walili.’
‘It’s possible,’ he said. ‘Why not? Though it’s a matter that would make Diotima turn in her grave!’
‘The introduction states that the publisher received the book from an anonymous sender, and that the poems are those of a German soldier who was held prisoner in Africa and participated in excavating a Roman site. Don’t you think that is more than enough proof that you found and sent the book?’
‘Does the book include two elegies, one addressed to Juba II and the other to Diotima?’
‘Yes, yes it does,’ I said enthusiastically. ‘And the introduction says that they are the best poems in the collection!’
‘Then I’ve screwed Hans Roeder with those two poems!’
‘But why didn’t you publish them under your own name?’
‘I’m not interested in that. He buried his poems in Walili and I buried my poems between his poems. No one will ever know what lies under the rubble and what comes to the surface. Plus, I did it for Diotima’s sake, as a final salute to her restless soul.’
I opened the book to the page where Diotima’s elegy began. I read two lines, but Al-Firsiwi stopped me with a sign of the hand as he stood up. His face had bloomed as a result of this story; he was proud of himself and looked somewhat happy. He went to his safe at the far end of the room and took out a big envelope.
He handed it to me, saying, ‘Here’s the manuscript of your great-grandfather’s poetry. I only found it after losing my eyesight. One evening I became very depressed, and the hopelessness of being blind pushed me to wander among the ruins, where I found a pile of dusty papers and a worn-out hat. They were in a room in a ruin, not far from the house of the handsome youth and close to the statue of a prone male, a symbol of fertility that did not last long in these halls. I slipped into the manuscript two poems that were not part of the savage intensity of Hans Roeder’s poems. I had written them as elegies for two important people in my life who did not live at the same time, but they both lived long in my heart, and at the same time.’
‘What about Bacchus?’ I asked.
‘Listen, when you begin digging, there’s only one chance in a million that you’ll find what you’re looking for and countless chances that you’ll find things you haven’t even dreamed of. You’ve found the manuscript, now forget about the worthless adolescent.’