The Beginning and the End

EIGHTY-NINE

At the sound of the word “policeman,” their souls burst apart like shrapnel. Hassanein leapt to his feet, staring at the servant. Hassan flung one of his feet from the bed to the floor. With a gruesome glance at the window, he muttered, “Escape!” Their mother looked dazedly from one son to the other, her throat so dry that she was unable to utter a word. Hassanein remained momentarily immobile. Realizing how stupid it was just to stand there doing nothing, he shrugged his shoulders in despair and went to the policeman at the door. They exchanged salutes.

“Yes?” Hassanein inquired.

“Am I addressing the respected officer Hassanein Kamel Ali?” the man asked gruffly.

“You are.”

“The respected officer of Al Sakakini police station wants to see you at once.”

Looking beyond the policeman as far as the road, Hassanein was reassured when he saw none of the faces he might have expected. Uncertain, he inquired, “What does he want me for?”

“He ordered me only to inform you that he wanted to see you.”

Hassanein hesitated a little. Then he went to the room to put on his clothes. He found his brother eavesdropping behind the door. At once Hassan asked anxiously, “Have they come?” In a sickly, feeble voice his mother repeated the question. As he dressed, Hassanein recounted the conversation with the policeman.

“Perhaps,” Hassan spoke up immediately, “this officer is one of your acquaintances. Maybe he wants to alert you before they ambush the house. This is clear enough. Listen to me. If he asks you about me, tell him you haven’t seen me for ages. Don’t hesitate and don’t be afraid about lying to them, for they’ll never be able to trace me. As soon as you leave, I’ll disappear. So have no scruples about what you tell them. May God protect you!”

Hassanein hid his eyes from his brother lest they reveal the gleam of an emerging hope. “Are you strong enough to make your escape?” he asked.

Hassan snatched his suit from the peg. “I’m all right,” he said. “Goodbye!”

Hassanein went off with the policeman. The first thing to occur to him was to ask the officer’s name. Maybe he actually was one of his acquaintances. But he was once more in the dark when the policeman gave him a name he had never heard before. Now matters were complicated indeed. However, Hassanein was relieved and reassured at Hassan’s decision to disappear. They reached the police station a little before sunset, and the policeman led him to the officer, stopped, and saluted.

“Lieutenant Hassanein Kamel Ali,” he said.

At arm’s length from the officer as he sat at his desk stood two lower-class men and a woman, the marks of a recent fight on their faces. The officer rose, stretched out his hand.

“Welcome!” he said. He ordered the policeman to leave the room and close the door. He waved the young man to a chair in front of the desk.

What does it all mean? Hassanein thought as he sat down. Welcome and compliments. What next?

The officer rose, and leaning with his right hand on the edge of the desk, stood facing Hassanein, carefully studying his face; a curious, perplexed sort of glance, as if he didn’t quite know how to begin the conversation. Hassanein found this short interval of silence coarse and intolerable. An abhorrent feeling of awe, worry, and annoyance had come over him from the very moment he stepped into the station.

Maybe he’s a refined officer and is too embarrassed to fling the charge in my face, he thought. This is curious in itself. Speak out and take the burden off my chest. How much I’ve dreaded this nightmarish moment. I already know what you want to say. Speak.

“The policeman said you wanted to see me,” he said, losing his patience.

“Sorry to bother you,” the officer apologized. “I’d have preferred to meet you under better circumstances. But you know what duty dictates sometimes!”

Breathing out his last hope of safety, Hassanein replied gloomily, “Thank you for your kindness. I’m listening.”

“I hope you’ll take what I have to say with courage,” the officer said earnestly and gently, “and behave in a manner that suits an officer who respects the law.”

Hassanein was wan and almost fainting. “Naturally,” he said.

The officer clenched his teeth, his cheeks contracting. “This,” he said curtly, “has to do with your sister.”

Hassanein raised his eyebows in surprise. “You mean my brother?” he said.

“I mean Madam, your sister. But excuse me. First I should like to ask you: Do you have a sister by the name of Nefisa?”

“Yes. Has she had an accident?” Hassanein asked.

“I’m sorry to tell you this,” the man said, lowering his eyes, “but she was arrested in a certain house in Al Sakakini.”

Hassanein rose to his feet. Frightened, rigid, and pale, he stared at the officer. “What are you saying?” he asked, out of breath.

The officer patted his shoulder sympathetically. “Get hold of yourself,” he said. “This has to be handled with reason and calm judgment. I hope you’ll help me do my duty without making me regret the measures I’ve taken to protect your reputation.”

Staggered, Hassanein stared at the officer, listened vaguely to his voice. As if in a dream, the voice would vanish, the face remain; the face vanished, the voice remained, sometimes only two lips spewing forth a stream of frightful, disconnected, incomprehensible words. Despairing, Hassanein glanced nervously around the room, his eyes blinking: a gun fixed on the wall here, a row of rifles there, an inkstand, and the strange odors, the dead smell of old tobacco, the strange scent of leather. In a kind of receding consciousness, his mind harked back to memories which had no connection with the present. The old alley floated in his mind’s eye; now he was again a boy playing with marbles with his brother Hussein.

She was arrested in a certain house, he thought. What house? Surely one of us has lost his mind! But which one of us? First, I’ve got to be sure that I’ve not gone crazy.

Resigned, Hassanein sighed weakly. “What did you say, sir?” he asked the officer.

“A Greek woman has a house in this quarter,” the officer continued. “She rents rooms to lovers at so much per hour. This afternoon, we raided the house, and found Madam…with a young man. We arrested her, of course, and I proceeded with the customary cold-blooded formalities, of which, of course, she was frightened, you know, and in the hope that I would release her, she confided that her brother was an officer.”

“My own sister? Are you sure? Let me see her.”

“Please control yourself. Had I been sure she was your sister, I’d have released her. But I was afraid she was lying. So I referred the matter to my boss, the Mamur. He approved of suspending legal action on condition that we could prove the truth of what she was saying.”

Curiously enough, Hassanein entertained no doubt about the identity of the arrested girl. Yes, his pessimistic heart told him, it’s got to be Nefisa. Was this the end of his journey in life? In his state of shock, he felt like some ancient relic of the past, of no relevance to the present. He was eager to get it all over with.

“Where is she?” he said in a lifeless voice. “Please let me see her.”

The officer pointed to a closed door. “She fainted when she knew I’d sent for you instead of setting her free, so we left her in this room. Conduct yourself like a man with respect for law and remember I’m responsible for security. You’re a decent, respectable man. So use your head. Nobody in this police station needs to know anything about it. But don’t forget, everything depends on you.”

“Please let me see her,” Hassanein repeated in the same lifeless voice.

With heavy steps, the officer walked to the door and opened it. Like a sleepwalker Hassanein approached, casting a glance over the officer’s shoulder like a man entering a morgue to identify a corpse. Close to the wall facing the door, a girl huddled against a sofa, her head flung back, her eyes half closed, dim, unseeing. She was either unconscious or had just recovered. Her face was as pale as death, and a few wet strands of hair stuck to her forehead. It was unmistakably Nefisa.

When it comes to disaster, he thought, my heart never lies to me. If she was dead, I’d disown her without hesitation. Unaware of their presence, she remained motionless, perhaps too exhausted to move. The officer looked inquiringly at him. But Hassanein’s eyes became glazed as he stared at his sister. Surprisingly, in the deathlike silence, he found a temporary escape from his agony. Oblivious of the passage of time, he seemed to hear a terrible inner voice shattering the silence: Everything is finished! it proclaimed. He recalled the scene at home before he had left, an hour earlier, his mother desperate and perplexed, standing between him and Hassan, who was then preparing to escape. His mind filled with blasphemous imprecations, Hassanein wished he might die.

What does the officer expect me to do? he thought. What should I do? Oh, God! How can I leave this place? He heard the man address him. “I’ve done my duty. The rest is up to you.”

“Where is the other?” Hassanein asked, avoiding the officer’s eyes.

Understanding his meaning at once, the officer replied rather sternly, “After the usual legal routine, I released him.”

“Thanks,” Hassanein murmured. “Let’s get out of here.”