The Time and the Place Read online

  Perhaps, though, no one suffered quite as much as Officer Muhsin Abd al-Bari or his unfortunate pregnant wife. By way of consolation and encouragement, she said, “You’re not to blame, this is something beyond man’s imagining.”

  “There’s no longer any point to staying on in my job.”

  “Tell me how you’ve been at fault,” she said anxiously.

  “Wasted effort and being at fault are one and the same thing so long as lives are not safeguarded.”

  “In the end you will triumph as usual.”

  “I doubt it. This is something quite out of the ordinary.”

  He did not sleep that night. He remained awake with his thoughts, overwhelmed by a desire to escape into the world of his mystic poetry, where calm and eternal truth lay, where lights melted into the ultimate unity of existence, where there was solace from the trials of life, its failures, its manipulations. Was it not extraordinary that both the worshiper of truth and this bestial killer should belong to one and the same life? We die because we waste our lives in concerning ourselves with ridiculous things. There is no life for us and no escape except by directing ourselves to the truth alone.

  Hardly had two weeks gone by than an incident no less strange than the previous one occurred. A body fell from the last car of Tram 22, in front of Street Ten late at night. The conductor stopped the tram and went toward where the sound had come from, and the driver followed him. They saw on the ground a man dressed in a suit—they thought he must be drunk or under the effect of drugs and that he had stumbled. The driver flashed his torch at him and immediately let out a scream and pointed at the man’s neck. “Look!”

  The conductor saw the well-known mark of the cord. They called out, and a number of police and plainclothesmen posted throughout the nooks and crannies of the vicinity hurried toward them. Two people who happened to be passing close by were arrested on the spot and taken to the police station. The incident caused a terrible shock, and Muhsin had to expend yet more hopeless and drastic efforts to no avail. One of those arrested was released (it turned out that he was an Army officer in civilian clothes), while several others were questioned without result. Muhsin tasted the bitterness of defeat and frustration for the fifth time, and it seemed to him that the criminal had none other than him in mind with his devilish pranks. The personality of the criminal made him think of mysterious characters in fiction, or of those creatures which in films descend to Earth from other planets.

  —

  Inwardly raging with his affliction, he said to his wife, “It’s only sensible for you to go to your father’s house at the Pyramids, far from all this atmosphere charged with terror and torment.”

  “Isn’t it wrong for me to leave you in this state?” she protested.

  Sighing, he said, “I just wish I could find some good reason for putting the blame on myself or one of my assistants.”

  The matter was discussed at length in the press and in detailed articles by psychologists and men of religion. As for Abbasiyya, it was seized by panic. At sundown it became depopulated, its cafés and streets empty: it was as though everyone was expecting his own turn to come. The crisis reached its peak when a child at the preparatory school for girls was found strangled in the lavatories.

  Incidents followed one upon another in horrifying fashion. People were stunned. No one any longer paid attention to the tedious details about the examinations and inquiries being made, or to the opinions of the investigators as given to the press. All thoughts were directed to the impending danger that advanced heedless of anything, making no distinction between old and young, rich and poor, man and woman, healthy and sick, a home, a tram, or a street. A madman? An epidemic? A secret weapon? Some foolish fable? Gloom descended upon the semi-deserted district. Terror consumed it. People bolted their doors and windows. No one had any subject of conversation apart from death.

  Muhsin Abd al-Bari roamed about the district like a man possessed, checking with the police and plainclothesmen, scrutinizing faces and places, wandering around in a state of utter despair, talking to himself about this despair and the pain of his defeat, wishing he could offer his neck to the murderer on condition that he would spare others from his devilish cord.

  He visited the maternity hospital where his wife lay. He sat beside her bed for a while, gazing at her and the newborn child, relaxing his mouth into a smile for the first time recently. Then he kissed her on the forehead and left. He returned to the world in which he wished to be seen by no one. He felt something resembling vertigo. Life: terminated by the cord of some unknown person so that it becomes nothing. Yet without doubt it was something, and something of value: love and poetry and the newborn child; hopes whose beauty was limitless; being in life, merely being in life. Was there some error that had to be put right? And when to put it right? The feeling of vertigo intensified as when one suddenly awakes from a deep sleep.

  Reports reached the station superintendent that it had been decided to transfer and replace Officer Muhsin Abd al-Bari. Extremely upset, the superintendent at once went to the room of the officer for whom he had such a high regard. He found him with his head flopped down on the desk as though asleep. He approached and softly called out, “Muhsin.”

  There was no answer. He called again, but the man still did not answer. He shook the officer to wake him, and the head tilted grotesquely. It was then that the superintendent spotted the drop of blood on the blotter. He looked at his colleague in terror and saw the mark of the infernal cord around his neck. The police station and its occupants were shattered.

  A series of weighty meetings were held at the Governorate and urgent and important decisions were made. The director-general summoned all his assistants and told them in firm, rousing terms, “We shall declare unremitting war until the criminal is arrested.” He thought momentarily and then went on. “There is something no less important than the apprehension of the criminal himself—it is to control the panic that has seized people.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Life must go on as normal, people must go back to feeling that life is good.” The questioning look in the probing eyes was answered by the director. “Not one word about this matter will be published in the press.”

  He discerned a certain listlessness in the men’s eyes. “The fact is,” he said, “that news disappears from the world once it disappears from the press.” He scrutinized the faces. “No one will know anything, not even the people of Abbasiyya themselves.”

  Striking his desk with his fist, he declared, “No talking of death after today. Life must go on as usual, people must go back to feeling that life is good—and we shall not give up the investigation.”

  The Man and the Other Man

  Out of the fruiterer’s, carrying a conical screw of paper like those used for sugar, the man emerged. He was swallowed up in the vegetable market by a slow, battling stream of people. His smiling, ruddy face, his tall frame stood out, and the other man, from his position by the telephone booth, spotted him and said to himself, “At last—he’ll not escape me.”

  He went on following the man closely until, slipping out of the crowd, he darted into the square. It was very important not to arouse his suspicions before the right opportunity presented itself. The man scanned the square till his glance came to rest on the confectionery shop on the opposite side; he made toward it around the right-hand half of the square, while the other man proceeded toward the same goal by way of the left-hand half. The man entered the shop, while the other stood under the tall lamppost.

  The autumn weather was agreeably mild, the late afternoon light, gentle and falling out of a sky from which the disc of the sun had disappeared from sight behind a tall building. The man waited for the person serving to be free. His eyes ranged greedily along the rows of confectionery, Oriental and Western, and the other man watched him patiently.

  A woman too was waiting; pretty, well dressed, she gave the unknown man an encouraging glance. The man regarded her with a look of curios
ity. Half smiling, she turned away from him. He moved forward a step, invading her territory. Boldly, he whispered to her. They exchanged whispers. The other man told himself that this presaged a complication, a fresh addition to his troubles, an unexpected challenge to his plan. Her turn came to buy her requirements, then his. They exchanged a few laughing words, like the bubbles in honey. Then she passed into the street of cabarets. For an instant he followed her with his eyes, then walked off slowly, bearing the paper cone and the parcel. No doubt they had made a date, and the other hoped that this would not delay the carrying out of his plan; he hoped the long toil and skillful planning would not be in vain. The meeting might be soon, which would complicate matters; it could, though, be for a morrow that would never come.

  The man set off. Walking did not seem to tire him. No one knew when his desires and greed would abate. As with a housewife, all shop windows attracted him. Watches, glasses, household utensils, clothes, spare parts, electronic gadgets, even medical accessories and the windows of chemists’ shops drew his attention. He breathed in the smell of kebab and felafel; he read the titles of books and the names over bookshops. Whenever he was brought together with a woman or young girl he would enter her territory, but no fresh engagement of forces ensued. The hues of sunset took on a brownness, and the breeze exhaled a refreshing coolness. He entered a shop that sold cloth and came out carrying a nylon bag. He stuffed the package of confectionery into the bag, along with the cloth he had bought. He had also bought a book. What book could it be? When did he think he would be reading it? The other would have liked to know his secret interests. He scarcely knew anything of significance about the man except for his name and identity and his obscurely unpleasant history.

  The man turned off into a shoeshine parlor. He seated himself on the revolving seat, placing what he was carrying on an old cane chair. Looking into the mirror in front of him, he ogled his face with admiring gratification; at times he stared straight at the image of himself, at other times he would twist his neck to right and left. Standing on the sidewalk, the other man watched him from an angle. For an instant their eyes met on the mirror’s surface. Upset by this, the other moved a step forward, and the man disappeared from his line of vision. Now he could see nothing but the aged shoemaker and the corpulent woman who owned the place. The other man had been afraid his reflection would attract the man’s attention, for his face was easily recognizable: swarthy, the eyes sharp, the hair black and thick. However, the man had been immersed in what he was doing and had not seen him. The streetlights came on and cast discreet evening shadows. Here he was, leaving the shop, even more pleased with himself now that he had had a shoeshine. A passerby in a hurry collided with him, and he moved back hastily, tightening his grip on the things he was carrying.

  “Hey!” he shouted angrily.

  The man in a hurry stopped in surprise but said nothing. Once again the man shouted at him. “You might at least apologize.”

  “Can’t you be a bit more polite?” asked the passerby.

  “No.”

  “Then I’ll not apologize.”

  “You animal!”

  The man in a hurry remonstrated by spitting on the ground, at which the man, placing his purchases on the pavement, fell upon him, and they exchanged vigorous blows. Realizing he was no match for his adversary, the man in a hurry fell back slightly, saying, “It’s you who want to quarrel. See who started it!”

  People collected, and a policeman came along. The other man observed all this, upset and irritated. When the policeman said that while the police station was handy and close it was better to settle things amicably, the two adversaries appeared to decide to avoid going to the station. And so, gathering up his belongings, the man went on his way. The other man, heaving a sigh of relief, followed him.

  Faced by a toy shop, the man completely forgot his state of agitation. Did he have young sons? He went in. How persistent and persevering he was! He came out without having added to his purchases. Maybe he had bought nothing or maybe he had bought some large toy that the shop was going to deliver. At that moment he was confronted by a middle-aged man carrying a briefcase under his arm. They shook hands warmly and exchanged some hurried words. Then the middle-aged man went off, saying, “Don’t forget the court case of the tenth.”

  Are you too someone who enjoyed indulging in lawsuits? When will you hear the judgment? I wonder where you’ll be going after all this? A fruit juice—fair enough. You’ve tired me out, may God tire you.

  For the second time their eyes met in a mirror. The other man’s heart contracted. Did the man remember him? No, he was taken up with the taste of what he was drinking, and his eyes were watering. He looked but did not see as, with ingenuous admiration, he enjoyed the image of himself.

  Leaving the shop and crossing the road, he disappeared into a tailor’s to order a winter suit made. He reappeared after a quarter of an hour, turned toward the Freedom Café and went in. The café was on a corner and had more than one entrance, and the other man saw there was nothing for it but to go in too. He watched from where he sat, while not far away, the man sipped a cup of coffee and wrote a message. He gave the message to the waiter and got up to go to the telephone. He was now standing very close to the other man.

  “Hallo. Hasan? Is the doctor there?…Make me an appointment as soon as possible…. Fine. Six P.M. Thanks.”

  Hardly had he returned to his seat than a friend joined him. Sitting down next to him, the friend asked, “Did you go to the funeral?”

  “Yes—I learned by chance.”

  “It comes to us all. Shall I ask for backgammon?”

  “I don’t have time.”

  “Just one game for a pound—win or lose.”

  The man looked at his watch and accepted the challenge. They played right away. At each throw of the dice, the man would make a sarcastic comment: he was an expert at psychological warfare, confident of victory. In less that ten minutes, he had risen to his feet and was stuffing the pound into his pocket. He went off laughing, with his adversary saying to him, “You robber—may God bless you with a pickpocket!”

  The other man said to himself that this was a prayer that would most likely be answered.

  Now the man made off toward the building where he lived, in the center of the city. This was the chance. It was not altogether guaranteed, and if it failed he would have to draw up another plan. Whenever one plan failed the plan that followed was exposed to fresh difficulties. There he was, disappearing into the entrance to the building. Catching up with him, the other man entered the elevator behind him. The two of them were alone. Without turning to him the man asked amicably, “Which floor?”

  “The top.”

  “Me too.”

  But a woman reached the elevator before it moved off. The other man became frantic. When the woman left the elevator at the second floor, he regained his composure. This was the chance. Though the probabilities were many, the consequences did not worry him at all. With extreme care he grasped the knife that lay concealed in his pocket….

  He went out of the elevator. He met no one. Better than he had foreseen, circumstances were working for him. He left the door of the elevator propped open, then hurried down the stairs. He made his way to the Ideal Bar, where he drank a lot and ate nothing but lettuce. He grew drowsy and dreamed a long dream in a very short space of time. Leaving the bar, he crossed in front of the building on the opposite pavement and saw the police and a great crowd of people. He continued walking to his hotel in al-Ataba. With a sigh of relief he entered his room, having totally forgotten his dream. He locked the door and put on the light.

  Turning around, he saw the man sitting in the armchair, regarding him with a calmness that was as heavy as death. A deep groan escaped from him, and he retreated till his back was touching the wall. He sought desperately to flee but could not move. Nailed to where he stood, he urinated over himself. It was he for sure whom he saw, the man himself, in one hand the paper cone, in the other
the bag: death staring out from a living picture, regarding him with motionless eyes that knew everything. He had a feeling of nausea, of dread, and told himself that he was either drunk or mad. Without uttering a word, the man ordered him to surrender; he was addressing him in a language that was new and clear, incisive yet inaudible. How and when had the man arrived with such speed? And what was the meaning of the police and the people gathered in front of the entrance to the building? How many years had gone by since he had committed his crime? How many years had he spent in the bar? With the passing of time, he became more sure about the man’s presence, his weight and unbounded authority. Something prompted him to slip his hand into his pocket, and he came across the knife he had left thrust into the man’s heart. It was then he realized that the world is subject to many laws, not just one.

  Midnight struck. One o’clock. Receiving secret orders, he meekly made ready to carry them out, scrupulously and with blind obedience. The man rose slowly to his feet and strode toward the door. He opened it, and the other man walked out in front of him, silent and obedient. He wanted to shriek, but the sound came to nothing in his throat. He went down the stairs, the man following him. On the way he met a houseboy, the hotel manager, the reception clerk, but no one heeded him. The miracle attracted no one’s attention, caused no astonishment or interest.