What was the point of disabusing her? She’d played her part willingly and well. And the passion with which she had offered up to him the treasures of her young body was also worthy of esteem. He should be indulgent of her incoherence and her fears; he wasn’t an ingrate. She still deserved a touch of tenderness.
“I taught you how to find joy everywhere,” he said. “So don’t worry; you won’t be bored.”
“Will you think of me?” she asked. Then, worried: “But not in your mocking way! I know you!”
“I will think of you entirely seriously. I promise.”
They were silent for a moment, then Soad opened her bag and began to reapply her lipstick. Heykal was struck by the look of contentment with which she completed the task. He’d never seen her do it before, making that thoroughly obscene gesture of stroking a red wand over her parted lips. She seemed proud of the act, as if it made her a woman. Disgust and a hint of bitterness seized him at the sight of this sacrilegious daubing: it disfigured the image he wished to preserve of the girl. He turned away, waiting for the barbaric work to be done.
When she was finally ready, he stood. They left the tearoom and said their goodbyes in the street.
As for Heykal, he trembled with his new freedom, already alert to the promises that lay strewn in his path. Other faces, other passions awaited, and he contemplated the end of his love with a voluptuous serenity. It was always like this. He would feel a strange happiness, as if the woman he’d abandoned had left with a portion of his love, so that a part of him would always be out there roaming the vast universe.
The busy, crowded street reminded him that as yet nobody knew about the important event — the governor’s resignation — that would soon take place. Heykal suddenly was filled with delight: he had to tell his friends right away. He picked up his pace, looking to see if he could find the jasmine seller who was usually somewhere around here. At last he saw him, standing by a door, unshaven, a sinister figure in spite of the red flower tucked behind his ear to signal his profession. Heykal bought a slender bouquet of jasmine, slipping it delicately into the inside pocket of his jacket. Then he hailed a horse-drawn coach and yelled Urfy’s address to the driver.
Seated at his desk in the empty classroom, Urfy was concentrating with difficulty on the book he was reading. The late-afternoon light still penetrated the basement windows, but it was the stingy, dirty light of a dungeon. Urfy abandoned his reading, removed his glasses, and rubbed his eyes irritably. The thoughts rattling around in his head filled him with bitterness. It was his mother, as always, who was worrying him; he dreaded the decision he had to make. One of his friends, a doctor, had strongly advised him to put the old woman in a clinic where she would receive state-of-the-art care. There was a slim chance that her condition might improve — but was a slim chance worth the anguish of separation? The clinic was fairly distant from the city, and he would be able to visit her only rarely. It was a proposal that Urfy stubbornly rejected. Transferring his mother into the care of strangers would feel like abandonment. Little by little, she’d start to forget him: his image would vanish into the folds of her wavering memory and in the end he would be extinct in her heart. And this flame that still burned in his mother’s spirit, the last trace of the happiness of his childhood, was his only safeguard against an atrocious world. He suppressed the tears that were rising to his eyes and put his glasses back on. When he was ready to start reading again, he realized that the light had disappeared and he could no longer see a thing.
Heykal’s arrival in the classroom startled him — as if he were an enemy who had sprung out of the darkness to attack. Heykal was the last person he wanted to see, since he more than anyone couldn’t have cared less about the situation. Heykal’s humor and irony would force Urfy to behave in a way that was incompatible with the torture he was undergoing. He needed calm and solitude. But he overcame his feelings of revulsion at the intrusion, and descended from the podium to greet his guest.
“Welcome,” he said.
“Hello,” Heykal responded. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but I had to see you.”
“You’re not disturbing me at all,” Urfy said quickly. “I was just reading, but I noticed it was getting too dark. Wait here, and I’ll go get a light.”
“Oh, no!” protested Heykal. “It’s fine like this. We don’t need a light.”
Urfy didn’t insist. His visitor’s desire corresponded exactly to his own wish to remain in the dark. What he was most afraid of was that Heykal, with his sharp eye, would discern his distress. He didn’t want to talk about his mother, not at any price, and he didn’t want to discuss the horrible dilemma he faced. This was his own private ordeal, a sacred destiny, and he would hate to see his pain picked over by impious hands. But as soon as he smelled the odor of jasmine emanating from the young man he knew that he wouldn’t escape the thing he feared most. He knew Heykal’s crazy ways. The bouquet was in the inside pocket of his jacket; he was sure to take it out at some point to offer it to the old madwoman. He must be intending to visit her in her room. These meetings between Heykal and his mother terrified Urfy. There was something bizarre, almost insane, about them. It strained his nerves terribly — already he trembled at the prospect.
“Sit down,” he said, indicating one of the benches and taking a seat across the aisle. “I hope it isn’t bad news that brings you.”
“On the contrary. Urfy, my brother, it’s a time to rejoice! The governor is ruined.”
“It’s in the papers?”
“Not yet. But the news came from a reliable source. You can believe me.”
“What happened?”
“It’s very simple. As I predicted, the prime minister demanded his resignation. In a week, we’ll be rid of him.”
Urfy didn’t feel like rejoicing. What did the governor’s ruin matter to him; it couldn’t make up for his own ruin. He could find nothing to say that suggested happiness, or even satisfaction. Everything in him was inert; everything boiled down to suffering. But he mustn’t disappoint Heykal by keeping silent. And yet in spite of his efforts his voice was bitter when he spoke:
“It’s everything you hoped for, isn’t it?”
Heykal seemed not to have heard; his face remained immobile as it slowly disappeared into darkness. By now Urfy could barely make out his features, and he was growing ever more uncomfortable. What if he burst into laughter? He shuddered at the thought. Instantly he knew that Heykal was in an unusual state of mind; something indefinable and vaguely worrisome was going on within him. Urfy leaned across the aisle, reducing the distance that separated him from his friend, presenting his ear, as if in expectation of a whispered message.
“In a sense, yes,” Heykal finally replied.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, my dear Urfy, that the future may hold some surprises for us. We can’t forget that there are mediocre governors, whose tasteless tyranny wouldn’t give us anything to work with.”
“No doubt,” Urfy said, a bit disconcerted by Heykal’s odd way of thinking. “Leave it to chance then — I suppose it’s served us well so far. We’ve had a lucky streak. We’ve got nothing to complain about.”
“I’m not complaining. But I have a feeling the next governor will bore us to death. He might even try to act sensible — to make people forget the foolishness of his predecessor. He’ll be out to prove himself, that we can be sure of. Perhaps we’ll have to go into exile.”