The Dreams

Dream 24

After not a short absence, I decided that my flat in Alexandria needed some repairs. The laborers came, the foreman at their lead. The work began with remarkable energy. My attention was drawn to a particular youth — who seemed strangely familiar. I felt a frisson in my body when I recalled that I had indeed seen him once — as he attacked a woman on a side street, taking her bag and running away. Yet I wasn’t sure, so — without the boy’s sensing it — I asked the foreman how much he trusted him.

“He’s as bankable as a gold pound,” the foreman said, “for he’s my son, whom I’ve raised myself.” This calmed my heart for a time — though whenever my sight fell on the boy my chest began to tighten. Seeking a sense of safety, I opened one of the windows that overlooked the street in which there labored those whom I knew and who knew me — but instead, I saw the alley of the garage on which my flat in Cairo looks down. Amazed, my heart pounded even more. As the time went on and darkness approached, I asked the men to end their work for the day before the evening began, since the electricity had been cut due to my long time away.

“Don’t worry,” the unsettling youth said, “I have a candle.” Concerned that the situation would offer him an opportunity to steal whatever was light enough to carry, I went to look for the foreman — and was told that he had gone into the washroom. Waiting for him to come out with mounting anxiety, I imagined that his disappearance into the W.C. was part of a conspiracy — and that I was alone with a gang of thieves. I called out to the foreman as the signs of approaching evening spread through the flat.