The Dreams (10 page)

I
was heading toward the elegant white building. In the heart of the great hall, the beautiful woman was sitting. We held a meeting with her, and she began to talk about the artistic production company that she had decided to form.

We all welcomed the company and its owner, presenting our individual views about work and production. We differed on nothing—except the salaries. She proposed setting each person’s salary by agreement with her. Some others thought the salaries should be based on a fixed percentage of the expenditures for films and plays. The debate carried over into the next session. I advised my colleagues that to stick to her idea would simply put us at her mercy: the percentage concept clarified the matter, shutting the door on any sort of opportunism.

The lady invited us to dinner, along with some other guests. After the meal, there was a celebration with music. Before we knew it, the woman had stripped off all her clothes and was dancing for us totally naked—an extremely enticing scene.

My final opinion was settled, once and for all: I resolved to distance myself completely from the company—and from its owner, as well.

I
was staring at a seductive woman as she walked down the street, when he boldly came up and whispered in my ear.

“If you have any orders,” he said, “she’s at your command.”

Despite the repulsive gleam in his eyes, I did not turn away. We agreed on a fee, one-half of which he demanded in advance: I gave him the half. He gave me an appointment, but when I showed up, I found him alone. He offered the excuse that she was indisposed, and he was perfectly prepared to repay the advance—but I believed him, leaving it with him.

He went on accosting me in my comings and goings, pleading for my patience. Fearing our encounters would damage my reputation, I informed him that my desire had since dampened. And—while I wouldn’t demand the return of my down payment—he had to stay away from me. He stopped approaching me, but still kept showing up most places I would go.

Finally, I became fed up, hating him so much that I decided to move to Alexandria. At Sidi Gaber station, I saw him, standing there as though in waiting.

T
he train came to a stop, though there was no station. My lady companion asked why this had happened, but I didn’t know how to answer her.

Next, squadrons of soldiers from the army encircled the train, then burst inside, wielding their guns. Many military officers who had been on the train, plus a certain number of civilians, were driven outside. I was among those placed under arrest, leaving my girlfriend distraught and afraid. We found ourselves out in the desert. The armed soldiers ordered us to remove our clothes except for our underwear. Then they moved the military detainees to one side and the civilians to another. We began to whisper to each other that we were lost and that the end had come.

The soldiers’ commander came and called out to each of us by name. A voice among us asked, “Will you kill us without trial?”

The commander answered with candor, “There’s no need here for a trial.”

The train pulled away—and I remembered the one with whom I had come.

W
e were invited to a meeting in the Azbakiya Gardens. There it was suggested that we honor our glorious professor on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of his birth. No one showed any enthusiasm—nor did anyone appear to object.

The ceremony, it was agreed, would take place in the Foreign Ministry, where he spent the flower of his life, and accomplished his greatest deeds. On the appointed day, I went early to inspect the place, immediately heading to the chosen hall. It was as elegant and awe-inspiring as always, though this time it was made even more glamorous by the presence of hundreds of gorgeous women the man had loved throughout his life.

They came dressed in identical uniforms for their role as hostesses, each one displaying the succulent splendor of youth. My heart pounded madly as I grew woozy amidst the charms of the raving beauties—succumbing to the lure of love. I simmered with the thoughts that I would utter in the speech conferring honor.

I
inquired about my friend, and was told that the great musician and songwriter, Shaykh Zakariya Ahmad, chanted his tunes each night in his house until dawn. “What good fortune!” I exclaimed, and was invited to come by one evening.

I went into the vast room, whose walls were embellished with arabesques, and saw Shaykh Zakariya seated on a couch, cradling his
‘ud
. He sang, “
Would that please God
?” as his family—women and children—sat in a circle around a man hanging by his feet.

Beneath the man’s head, but an arm’s length away sat a great vat of acid.

I became confused.

My confusion was compounded when I realized that everyone present was following the songs, paying not the slightest heed to the man being tortured.

I
n the closed room, the discussion went on between the lady broadcaster and myself about local versus foreign music. At different points in the conversation, I stood at the piano and played some songs.

Every so often, the door would open and a woman from the household—she might have been my mother or someone else of her stature—would enter to offer drinks. Without doubt, she regarded our seclusion with suspicion. Tired of her surveillance, I decided to challenge it by doing the unexpected. So, when next I heard the door opening, I rushed toward the broadcaster and clutched her to my chest.

I saw nothing wrong or unusual in what I had done. When I had finished my act of defiance, the woman had not only disappeared from the room, but from the house entirely.

T
he debate raged between a man, a woman, and her five sons about the right of the mother—who had passed her sixtieth year—to enjoy life and love.

The argument pierced the walls and became the talk of all the neighbors.

Some said it was a spurious love between an old woman and a young man the same age as her children, who was greedy for the money she’d inherited from her late husband. Others declared that a person must accept whatever they get from life—and especially, from love—even if the price be high. The affair seemed a disaster to the woman in the eyes of her five sons. They wound up murdering their wayward mother and going to the dock for it—accused of planning the crime and carrying it out together. In the investigation, arguments raged whose recurrent themes were motherhood and filial piety, honor and dignity, reputation, and respect for traditions.

I still can recall their faces and their words. Just as I remember the deceased woman when she defied the years and the wagging tongues to go her own way—so dazzlingly, seductively dressed and perfumed.

I
left the great house in which we had waited—each man alone, not knowing the others—and felt something like security after unease.

Yet the sense of relief didn’t last long, for soon I imagined that others were following me. I glanced behind me and saw in the distance a group coming after me, gesturing with their hands in the breeze.