Translated from the Arabic by Essam M. Al-Jassim
“The final verdict has been rendered,”
intoned the sentry, his voice descending with the dirge of a funereal toll.
Before he moved to depart my gloomy confines, he paused at the threshold, casting a pitying glance in my direction. Then he inquired, with an unexpected trace of human solicitude, whether I harbored any lingering desire that still possessed my soul, any craving yet unfulfilled. I responded with an ambiguous inclination of my head, a motion so inscrutable that it hovered between assent and negation, between resignation and oblivion.
Perceiving no articulate rejoinder, he placed a soothing hand upon my shoulder, unbefitting his station and incongruous amid our sepulchral surroundings. He then proceeded toward the archway overlooking the tenebrous corridor.
“A hashish cigarette.”
The words, muttered as an afterthought and wrested from the abyss of my internal torment, arrested his footfall as he turned to seal the metal entrance of the subterranean dungeon.
Cognizant as he was of my lifelong abstinence from tobacco, his peering gaze roamed over my countenance, searching with prolonged scrutiny. His brow furrowed in unspoken bewilderment, as though he sought—within the altered features of my condemned soul—the rationale for so peculiar a petition.
Before the massive iron door clanged shut with sonorous finality, he inclined his head with grave deliberation and pledged, with solemn assurance, that he would exert whatever influence he possessed to procure the singular gratification of the indulgence I had requested.
***
The doorbell reverberated twice through the stillness, rousing the household from its repose. I threw open the wooden door. There, upon the threshold, stood my neighbor from the upper floor, Munjid, a man whose towering stature and breadth of shoulders commanded an undeniable physical gravitas. His imposing presence filled the entrance like a sentry carved from stone.
Munjid, I should observe, was by occupation a gaoler at a penal institution. With courteous deference, he sought leave to converse with me in strict confidence concerning a matter of no small consequence. I, in turn, ushered him into the formal reception chamber and with solicitous hospitality, inquired whether he desired any refreshments. Munjid declined the proffered courtesy with a polite apology, averring with succinct assurance that the matter would not, in its entirety, consume more than a few minutes.
Having settled into the offered seat, Munjid wrenched open the evidently long-restrained floodgates of secrecy.
“In the strictest brevity, know this: your wife stands entangled in a sinful and illicit liaison with the lawyer whose chambers occupy the ground floor of this edifice,” he enunciated.
“The denizens of this quarter have long been privy to this unfortunate affair, and I have taken it upon myself to convey this intelligence unto you, moved by the affection and amity which once united your venerable late mother and my own. May Allah graciously bestow His boundless mercy upon them. It now behooves you, with all due dispatch and unwavering resolution, to assume firm command of this most exigent situation before some vast, inexorable, and altogether unforgiving calamity descends. Beyond that, I have nothing further to say.”
My feet felt laden; my tongue lay paralyzed, incapable of uttering even the faintest response to the tempest raging within the recesses of my soul. The dark specter of her perfidy had long haunted my thoughts, yet I had persistently distrusted my own judgment and violently suppressed the solemn warnings of my own heart. The cruelty with which she treated me, her callous disregard for all sentiments of affection, and her incessant scathing derision of my devotion, all conspired to bind me in ceaseless orbit about her, with her as my sole and wretched center. By what tragic blindness had I failed to perceive her treachery throughout this long ordeal? How could I have been so utterly torpid? Never had I tasted the gall of disillusionment or endured such a shattering of the spirit. Ah, what bitterness now assailed me, imbued with all the unmitigated acrimony of colocynth!
Slow tears tracked sodden paths down my cheeks. When Munjid received no response from my stricken lips, he graciously sought my permission to leave. I escorted him to the door, dragging with me the heavy chains of my shattered illusions and my unabated grief. He stepped forth, then paused before I could close the door. Turning his gaze upon me, he offered these words of somber counsel: “Faithless women merit not that a man should perish for their sake.”
With that utterance, he left me to the desolate solitude of my woes and to the ruins of everything I had once believed to be true.
***
I regarded the hulking sentinel whose unyielding grip encircled my wrist. His eyes were shifty and restless; his jaw, coarse and square; his visage marked by brutish, unrefined lines. Whenever I endeavored to scrutinize his features, he would avert his eyes, as though deliberately avoiding my inspection.
“Munjid entrusted you to my care,” the sentinel grunted.
The words emerged with unsettling brevity, barely more than a pronouncement, before he unceremoniously hauled me onward through a corridor steeped in pallid, languorous light.
Midway along that somber passage, we emerged into a sprawling courtyard, where a carpet of verdant grass, flanked by two majestic lemon trees, offered sanctuary to vibrantly feathered songbirds, whose chorus filled the air. Above all that green, iridescent butterflies fluttered and danced in weightless, capricious flight. The tender light of dawn insinuated itself in stealthy degrees, dissolving the last shadows of night and gilding through with the promise of day.
I was able to discern that a mere handful of ephemeral moments remained before the full blaze of sunlight would cloak all within my sight: the lush green lawn, the twin trees, the butterflies, my own frail frame, and the suffocating shadow of the guard beside me. As I slackened my pace, the guard gave vent to a cavernous yawn and released his grip upon my wrist. I swayed for a precarious moment before steadying myself against the wall at my back.
I surrendered to an all-encompassing contemplation of the spectacle before me. The butterflies swirled and wavered above the grass in a choreography of exquisite randomness, as though beauty itself had been ordained to move without design.
In a visionary trance, I beheld myself furnished with a pair of wings of a striking azure hue, while she—my ethereal counterpart—bore pinions tinged with the crimson blush of a rose. When I reached out to draw her into a passionate embrace, she recoiled, repelling me with sudden force, shattering one of my wings. She fled from me in terror whenever I advanced, and when at last I laid hold of her, she shrieked and collapsed, lifeless, pierced by my own desperate thrust. I clapped both palms over my ears to muffle her agonizing cry and shut my eyes against the horror.
When I opened them once more, the guard was shoving me onward, and fallen butterflies lay scattered like dead leaves around my feet.
About the Author
Hossam Eldin Yehia Hossam Eldin, commonly known as Hossam Yehia, represents a distinguished Egyptian author whose literary contributions encompass novels, poetry, and short fiction. His creative works have been regularly featured in numerous literary publications throughout Egypt and the broader Middle Eastern region. At present, Mr. Yehia maintains his residence in Canada.
About the Translator
Essam M. Al-Jassim is a Saudi writer and translator based in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. His writings and translations have been featured nationally and internationally in various Arabic and English-language literary journals. He is the translator and editor of the recently published anthology of flash fiction: Furtive Glimpses: Flash Fiction from The Arab World.
