Ragab signaled him to go. He left the room, saying that he was going to the mosque.
After he had gone, Ragab asked: "Do you think the old man understood anything?"
"He understands nothing," Anis replied.
"We should all leave now," said Ragab nervously.
Khalid agreed. "Dawn is about to break."
Khalid, Layla, Ali, Saniya, Mustafa, and Ahmad left.
Ragab turned to Samara. "I am sorry to have caused you such distress," he said, "but come with me now, so that I can take you home."
She shook her head in revulsion. "Not in that car."
"You don't believe in ghosts, surely!"
"No--but it was me it ran over. . . ."
"Don't let your imagination run away with you!"
"It's true. I'm . . . shattered."
"All the same, I won't leave you. We can walk together until you find a taxi." And he stood in front of her, waiting for her to rise to her feet.
16
The voice of Amm Abduh, making the dawn call to prayer, came to him; and he thought: I am alone. I should call someone to be with me, or go to be with someone.
He gestured with his arm at the night, and thought: The mystery has evaporated from my head and I am sober. He laughed at the extraordinary idea. But he was sober; and here was the coming dawn without a single voice talking, and there was no trace of the whale. Where was the rest of that fine stuff they had put in the pipe--run over by a car? The Caliph al-Hakim had murdered so many. When he came to believe that he was a god, he forbade the people to eat _mulukhiya_. Why did I give in and go out with them? So have I been crowned a killer. The speed, the madness, the murder, the escape; the sharp discussion, the taking of votes in bloodstained democracy. My wife and child rose and died once more. No one save the dead will sleep tonight. That scream, which mocked the perfection of the heavenly spheres! Unknown, from unknown to unknown. When would his mind have mercy on itself and surrender to sleep? The Caliph al-Hakim went up on the mountain to practice his sublime secrets, and did not return. He has not returned to this day. No trace of him has been found, but they still look for him now. That is why I say that he is alive. A blind man saw him once, but no one believed him. He might yet appear to those who smoke the pipe on the night that marks the Qur'an's revelation. As for that unknown man, he has murdered sleep.
His distracted gaze lingered on the refrigerator, just above the door. For the first time he discovered the resemblance between the curve of the door and the forehead of Ali al-Sayyid. And it had eyes as well, filled with tears of mirth. They said that the Caliph al-Hakim had been killed. Impossible. A man such as he could not be killed. But he could, if he wished, commit suicide. From the top of the mountain, he had looked down on Cairo, and commanded the mountain to crush the city; and when the mountain did not carry out his command he realized that his struggle was absurd, and killed himself. That is why I say that he is alive, and may still appear to those who smoke the pipe on the Night of Revelation . . .
He heard Amm Abduh's voice now, from the garden, as he was returning from the prayer. "In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate," he was murmuring. Anis called him, and the old man came at once. "Aren't you asleep yet?" he said.
"Have you taken the rest of that good kif?" Anis asked him.
"No, I have not!"
"I've looked for it everywhere; I don't know where it has gone."
"Why are you still awake?"
"My head is still spinning from that damned trip."
"You must go to sleep. It will soon be morning."
As the old man started to leave, Anis asked him: "Amm Abduh, have you ever killed anyone in your life?"
"Oh!"
Anis sighed vexedly. "Oh, go away," he said.
He began to pace to and fro to tire himself out. He went out to the balcony and threw himself down on a mattress, but he was so keenly awake that he despaired of sleep. The fact that there was no kif on the houseboat redoubled his anxiety and sense of foreboding. He would have to summon the patience of the stars.
The streetlights went out. Nature took on her true colors. The first glow of dawn came creeping, staining the horizon with a violet that deepened into carnation. Then the gloom retreated, and the acacias were born again. He rose to his feet, at once despairing and defiant. He held his head under the tap for a long time, and then drank a glass of milk, which he did not want, from the refrigerator. Then he made himself some coffee and sipped it. He became sick of the place; he put on his suit and left the houseboat early, to wander in the side streets until it was time to go to the office.
