The Life of Rami Mansoor - 1. Chapter 1

 

Rami and Adham

Part 1 of The Life of Rami Mansur

by Jim Davis

slimjimd32@yahoo.com

 

To an outsider, the hara did not look like much: narrow walk-up apartment buildings several storeys high crowding around an alley. Peeling yellow-colored plaster, layers of city grime, and a few sagging wooden balconies in the old style gave the buildings an antique appearance. The overhang of the balconies as well as the narrowness of the alley mostly kept out the broiling Egyptian sun, rendering the world below one of soft shadows to the casual glance. Nothing betokened the deeply-rooted ancientness of the place, that whatever was happening here now had probably happened untold times before and would just as likely happen again. But the sameness of this hara compared with thousands of other haras in this same city nonetheless suggested an endless repetition of lives of gloomy boringness, treading the same path forever with the certainty of the sun’s daily shining in the pale blue sky.

Thus an observer might conclude, wrongly! For that single little alleyway actually teemed with life, its thousand or so inhabitants experiencing all the dramas of human existence which give that existence its worth. It might do to argue that those dramas have no meaning and thus that human life itself is meaningless, but an observer cannot attribute meaning and value to his own life while denying they exist in the lives of the hara’s people, just because the latter are poor or their dwellings look drearily the same. Human lives are inevitably diverse; each has been assigned his own test by his Maker.

As a mere high school student in the late nineteen seventies, Rami did not stand out as exceptional among the hara’s inhabitants. Yet there is usually a certain aura about a young man on the verge of going out into the world, no longer a child, but yet not either fully a grownup, still innocent, but about to embark on a great adventure. The people of the hara looked on him that way, according him the greater degree of regard that went to a blooming youth, a regard he had not known as a child. Then they might also look on such youths with the bit of indulgence and pity reserved for those about to learn how hard the real world is.

To the outsider, life in the hara indeed seemed tough, in fact, almost impossible to bear, because of the crowdedness, the close proximity to one another in which everyone lived, not to mention the violence, mostly verbal but sometimes also physical, that tended to occur. But there were compensations too. The whole hara, whatever its inhabitants thought of one another, functioned as a community. Inside that community, the family was even a tighter grouping. Rami was growing up happily enough, or so it seemed to him, as one of six children in his parents’ small three-bedroom apartment. He could imagine no other life than one of constant closeness to his family. Each was responsible for all the others. Bred in this way, generations of Egyptian men reproduced families according to the pattern of those in which they had been raised.

Rami’s family was typical of Egyptian families: large and close knit. Rami was the fourth child and second son. Rami’s father, Sha‘ban Mansur, came from al-Sa‘id, the rustic and reputedly tough countryside of Upper Egypt, where old customs, such as blood vendettas, still prevailed. Having worked at repairing the agricultural devices available in his village, ‘Izbat al-Shurafa near the town of Jirja in Sawhaj province, he had migrated to Cairo, where he worked repairing and maintaining refrigerators in a government factory left over from the socialism of the ‘Abd al-Nasir era in Egypt. He was rather proud of his accomplishment of having succeeded in living in the city, even though to an outsider the family standard of living did not seem very high. But he still maintained ties with his village, too, so Rami was used to visiting there on occasion from the earliest age, albeit usually only about once a year. Sha‘ban’s eldest son Kamal had followed him in working at a skilled job, having been apprenticed to an electrician who also came from their village. Rami’s mother ‘Ayisha came from the same village as his father.

Yet Rami’s closest connection now, in his adolescence, was not in his family, but his friendship with Adham, another young man of his age who lived across the alleyway in similar family surroundings. Adham’s family resembled Rami’s in many ways. Adham was the fourth of eight children, and, like Rami, the second son. Adham’s father, Husayn ‘Ammar, had migrated to Cairo to work as a car mechanic and also came from al-Sa‘id, although from near Qift in Qina Province, which was even farther south than the village of Rami’s family. Adham’s mother came from a village by a different town, Dishna, also in Qina Province. Adham’s elder brother Khamis was also working as a mechanic.

Rami and Adham were inseparable. People could hardly think of Rami apart from Adham or of Adham apart from Rami. So had they been for a long time, constant companions since early childhood. It did not always happen like that in the hara, but it was commonly so, for people didn’t move around a lot, at least not in the same generation, so longstanding friendships often developed in a way quite unlike the West. Even so, Rami and Adham’s friendship was exceptional.

Although they were best friends, Rami and Adham were hardly alike. After all, opposites attract, or, as they say in the hara, each must love his opposite. In appearance they perhaps did not differ so much, or at least would not seem to to a foreign eye. Rami was lean, of slight build and average height. His head was crowned by thick, black, woolly hair of which he was justly proud and which he combed forward so that it protruded out above his forehead. His close-set eyes sparkled with highlights on his deep brown pupils and were accented by a pair of heavy black eyebrows as well as long eyelashes. His face came to a point at his jutting chin, above which he beamed a radiant smile, revealing a perfect set of white teeth under an adolescent mustache. His nose was slightly aquiline, showing Arabian ancestry. While his face shone with youthful optimism and though he loved joking like most Egyptians, he was the more deeply reflective of the two friends.

Adham, like Rami, was slender, but taller. He too had woolly, almost kinky, black hair and large dark eyes with prominent, arching eyebrows. His face was rounder than Rami’s and showed a flatter nose and thicker lips, revealing some African background, while his mustache was thinner. Like Rami, he was olive-skinned, but darker. Adham too would crack a smile more often than not, being if anything more jovial than his companion. Like other Egyptians, they were called by various nicknames. Because Adham, when little, had pronounced his own name Hadham, others called him that. Then, when he was naughty, that became transformed to Haddam, meaning “Wrecker,” but Adham of course didn’t like that name, so Rami never used it, except when he was mad at Adham, which was not very often. Instead, he called Adham by his usual nickname, Dahhuma. As for Rami, he was called Ramram and sometimes Ramrum as a child, which seemed too cute as he grew older, so his friends took to calling him Rimaya, meaning “archery” or “shooting,” a noun derived from his name, which means “archer” or “shooter.”

No one looking at the two youths would have imagined, Here are two thinkers. Rather, anyone would see only two rather attractive-looking high-school students. But whoever belittles the life experiences of some does so at his peril, for who is to say whose reflections and whose experiences are the most valid and valuable? God the Creator ever equalizes between people. Some merely enjoy the use of larger trumpets to make a louder noise for themselves.

While it was true that Rami and Adham had known each other since their earliest days, it was equally apparent that their friendship had grown deeper over the years. Both had, like most Egyptian youths, played soccer in the hara whenever they could, and still liked to play, if now more often elsewhere. But more recently, the seriousness of their studies had also increased with the approach of the decisive and much-feared general secondary-school exam, which would decide their future career possibilities. Therefore, the two had taken to spending more time studying together. Though both benefitted, it was oftener Adham who explained some point to Rami than the other way around. Generally, Adham had done better than Rami in school, but not so much better as to put any great distance between them. Indeed, Adham would often say to Rami, "I hope we get the same grades so that wherever we go, we can go there together!"

In Egypt as elsewhere in the Muslim world, boys and girls went to separate schools and, except within the confines of the family, were brought up separately. In the preadolescent and early adolescent stages of life everywhere on earth, boys tend anyway to be with boys most often. Thus it was that Rami and Adham found themselves together on the threshold of their awakening sexuality. Their friendship threw them together, but lack of opportunity kept them from much experimentation. Absence of privacy is a fine deterrent to moral corruption. Still, Rami remembered with excitement the thrill that had gone up his spine when he first laid his hand on Adham’s erect cock when both were twelve years old, and Adham had responded in kind. They were sitting on the roof of the building where Rami lived in the early evening, in a spot secluded from near view. The roof was an unkempt place scattered then with coops for chickens and rabbits and with old tin cans and other debris. At the time, they dared go no father than this, each staring into the other’s deep brown eyes in wonderment.

Afterwards, they feigned forgetfulness of that experience for a time and were modestly silent to each other about it. But it was not part of Adham’s character to regret anything that he did, nor did he appear to take such matters too seriously. After all, every such experience was a part of learning. As for Rami, he remembered it with delight but was reticent to raise the subject of something at once so magical, so pleasurable, and so powerful again even with Adham. Besides, they were busy enough with their other activities: their families, soccer, and school.

But the power of a mutual attraction, once set, is not easily deterred, regardless of the obstacles placed before it. When they were fourteen, they took to studying avidly for their final junior high-school exams at Rami’s, where there was more space than at Adham’s. Though the apartment of Rami’s family was small, the smallest room was nonetheless set aside for guests and provided with ornately-carved, gilded furniture with red upholstery. Adham’s had the guest furniture in the entry hall rather than in a separate room like Rami’s. As the guest room was not much used except when outsiders came to visit, Rami had been wont to use it while studying for a long time. Here he could spend long hours out of the way of the other members of his family. Now he invited his friend Adham over to study with him and to get away from the greater crowding and disturbance at his own house. Adham was one of eight children, while there were only six in Rami’s family.

One day while they were studying together, the noise of people in the rest of the apartment disturbed them, however. Rami’s mother and sisters were washing and cooking, and some of the neighbor women were coming in and out, to visit and gossip, bringing their babies too. Rami shouted from the door of the reception room, "This is like a marketplace! Can’t we study in peace?"

"Why don’t you go out to the park, or to Adham’s?" retorted Rami’s older sister Umayma in a chiding tone.

"You know well enough the park is noisier and crowdeder than here, and so is Adham’s!" answered Rami huffily. He shut the door.

Just as Rami and Adham had settled down to work, Umayma burst into the reception room to get something. Owing to lack of space in the apartment, the room was sometimes used for storage in addition to its other purposes.

"Now what?" demanded Rami.

"Don’t act like you own this place, little brother. We live here too!" responded his sister.

"I only want a little peace and quiet to study. Now go!" With that, Rami shut the door and locked it from the inside with the key, which the family normally left in it. "I’m sorry, Adham." Rami would never have shouted at his sister like that in front of an outsider, but Adham was like family.

Now they sat to work, each opening his own textbook with pencil in hand to make notes and mark what had to be memorized. Adham put his hand around Rami’s shoulder so that they could sit more closely. Rami felt a warm response in himself but only said, "Now then, what about this chapter on electricity?"

Adham’s response was to put his other hand on Rami’s thigh while saying nothing. Rami turned his head to look at his friend and said, "Adham!" The latter was looking sideways at him with an odd smirk. Already Rami could feel the awakening excitement in his cock as Adham’s hand moved inexorably upward in its direction. Rami looked breathlessly at Adham’s pants, perceived the latter’s own erection. Saying, "Adham...," in an altogether softer tone, he reached for the penis concealed under Adham’s pants. Each of the boys now firmly planted his hand on the other’s cock.

Adham said, "This is our chance, Rami. Come on!" and simultaneously began unbuttoning Rami’s pants. Without any reticence, Rami did the same to Adham. Soon both their cocks bobbed into view. Both were long and hard, fully erect, Adham’s being slightly thicker and considerably darker. Immediately Adham asked, "Do you know the secret custom?" which is the Arabic expression for masturbation.

Rami answered, "Of course, but we’ll mess ourselves up!"

Adham persisted, "Let’s do it," as he began working his hand up and down on Rami’s cock. "I want to see you come!" he said insistently. Rami tried to protest with his free hand, but the sensations were too pleasurable and his hand dropped away.

As Rami began panting excitedly, Adham held his cock downward somewhat while continuing to pump him with increasing speed. Rami soon whispered, "I’m coming, I’m coming," and his sperm spewed forth from his cock in rhythmic shots onto the coffee table and the carpet. Rami said, "Oh...," as he kept coming and finally slumped back. After recovering a bit, he tore a sheet out of his copybook and wiped up his seed as best he could.

"Now you do me," said Adham, who was harder than ever after just having for the first time seen his best friend’s jissom gush forth. Rami was still hard too. He quickly manipulated Adham’s throbbing cock, but his friend said, "Not so fast. It’s better if you make it last longer." So Rami palpitated Adham’s erection with slower, rhythmic motions. Now it was Adham’s turn to pant excitedly. Adham’s deep breathing became engraved on Rami’s mind. He inclined his head to rest it on Adham’s shoulder. "Quicker now!" commanded Adham, and the pace increased. Soon Rami was pumping him furiously. "I’m blowing!" Adham declared, as his hot jissom shot and shot from his cock outward two feet. Rami slowed his pumping as drops of Adham’s sperm dribbled over his hand, but Adham said, "Keep it up!" and continued to come. Then he lay back, exhausted. He turned to Rami and kissed him on the forehead. Rami withdrew his hand from Adham’s cock, feeling the sticky sperm between his fingers, thinking, this is Adham’s sperm.

After a minute, they did their best to clean up their mess with paper torn from their copybooks. Telltale wet spots still showed, splattered on the rug. Buttoning up his pants, Rami said, "We should never have done that! What if they find out? Now we’ve made a mess of the rug, too!"

Adham said, "Rami, is that all you can think of now?"

"Sorry, Adham."

That night Rami thought about what had happened with Adham. As he rolled onto his stomach in the hard wooden bed he shared with his six-year-old brother Sa’d, he remembered the pleasure he had felt. All he could think was how much he loved and admired Adham, Adham who was always so cool. He did not greatly care that their act, if known, would be strongly reproved by his folks, especially his severe father. So this was how love was! He could hardly wait for another encounter.

On the next day, a holiday, Adham greeted him cordially. They walked arm in arm out of the hara, down the sunlit street full of dust and scattered papers and shaded by an occasional tree, then sat down at an outdoor coffee house, ordered tea, and played backgammon. Rami stared hungrily right into Adham, who looked back knowingly. Both were thinking the same thing: no one knows but us how we feel. It was a shared bond that strengthened their already tight friendship.

It was not long afterward that Rami contrived to have Adham sleep the afternoon nap with him at his house. That was easily done, though they had not done it before, as Adham’s house was so nearby. No one in their families would ever suspect what they were doing, and what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. Rami ordered that they not be disturbed for an hour and turned the key in the lock of his bedroom door. Then the two boys kicked off their sandals and climbed into bed with their clothes on. They lay their heads on the long pillow that spanned the width of the bed and stared admiringly at each other. Rami extended his arm to stroke Adham’s kinky hair, thinking how it felt just like fine, soft wool.

"I love you Rami," Adham declared. "Nothing is better than friendship. I love you."

"And I feel the same, Adham."

Adham put forth his arm too and drew Rami closer to him. Rami glanced down at Adham’s pants, saw the bulge of his erect cock, and felt his own rising erection. They moved very close to each other, but their bodies did not yet touch. Rami inhaled the sweet fragrance of Adham’s breath so close to his face. They finally embraced, cuddling each other for some time, a time that Rami could not measure for the sweetness and warmth of the feeling in him. They pressed their bodies together, unconsciously beginning the rhythmic hip movements of lovemaking while lying, still clothed, on their sides, neither feeling the desire to mount his friend. The undulations of their hips gradually became deeper and quicker until both, panting furiously, sweating in the midday heat of late spring, blew their semen into their pants with all their force. Then they relaxed a bit without parting. Even after spending himself Rami felt no aversion, no indifference, but rather only the warm glow of love shared. They rolled onto their backs, Adham putting his head on Rami’s shoulder.

"We’ve messed our pants," commented Rami, almost giggling.

"Oh, Rami! Forget that! It’ll dry up."

"Glory be to God! How can anything be so sweet?"

"Let’s do now what we’re supposed to be doing and go to sleep." And with that Adham closed his eyes and fell asleep, as did Rami, following him.

Rami now seemed more light-hearted and buoyant than ever, or so thought his family. His inseparable companionship with Adham appeared to be a boon, since Rami’s grades continuously improved, as did Adham’s too. This, they thought, was the result of all that time the two spent studying together. Never did they suspect just how deeply the youths were involved with one another.

One day, as they were walking arm in arm in the street and Rami was gazing intently on Adham, the latter said, "No one must ever know what is between us."

"It will be our secret alone, Adham. I like it that way," Rami answered.

"It’s best for our love if we keep it secret. We don’t need to flaunt in public what we do in secret."

"True."

Now, as they had passed into high school, they had taken to making love quite frequently in their homes, usually at Rami’s, with ever more refinements and variety. First, their clothes had come off. Rami had suggested it would be better to make love without clothes. Each learnt to enjoy looking at the other naked. Then Adham had said he wanted to sleep with Rami for an entire night, which they had done as well, enjoying four or five orgasms as each climbed on the other in turn, always facing each other front to front. They had even coupled thus in the darkness of Rami’s room while other members of the family were sound asleep in it. The secrecy and the feeling that they were getting away with something increased their pleasure. But Adham was becoming more cautious.

"Maybe we should sleep together less often," Adham ventured. "It’s bound to be noticed."

"I agree, with reluctance, my heart," replied Rami.

"But it’s not because we’re doing anything wrong. It’s just easier this way."

"I love you, Dahhuma. Can that love be wrong? Tell me, how could our love be wrong?"

"I love you too, Rimaya, my soul. Love cannot be wrong. Those who say what we do is wrong couldn’t mean it about us."

Rami and Adham gradually took to spending more time away from the hara, though often not far away. Among cities Cairo is singularly devoid of places people can go to away from their own homes. Thus, the family ties are reinforced as people spend most of their time at home or in the homes of their relatives. Rami and Adham would go to school, play soccer in the street or park when space was available, loll on the grass under a palm tree in the green space near the great mosques below the Citadel, or, more rarely, walk along the Nile, a bus ride away. Once, however, they rode two different buses to get to the Pyramids at the edge of the desert west of the Nile. They got there in the late afternoon on a fine fall day when both were sixteen.

After walking up the hill from the last bus stop, they reached the Great Pyramid, a massive heap of huge blocks towering over them, pointing up toward the bright sky. At the pyramid’s base multitudes of people were milling around in considerable hubbub. Many of these were tourists walking up the entrance to go inside. Others were coming out, while others were walking around it. Many rode horses and a few camels provided by importunate locals who catered to the foreigners. These did not much bother Rami and Adham or the many other Egyptians who were also present. Most of these latter were there, as they were, on a day’s outing. Some consisted of family groups, with children dashing around to play on the enormous, mostly flat stones that paved the ground surrounding the pyramid. Others were male-female pairs of young lovers or couples engaged to be married, sitting at intervals on the low tiers of stone about the pyramid’s base, forced to share their intimate moments here in public. Many were groups of youths, like Rami and Adham, or, less often, groups of girls.

It was these latter who held the attention of the youths, who would sometimes try to impress them, usually unfavorably in the event, by various comments or other noises they might produce. It was no place where a boy and a girl could honorably meet for the first time. Rami and Adham played at this game too. When a girl tripped on the uneven ancient paving stones, Rami called out derisively, "O my love, my love!" Both youths then laughed in a silly way. There was no bitterness or meanness in either their manners or their intent, however; it was for them just a lark.

As the sun set, distant voices called the Muslim faithful to their devotions in the mosques below the eminence on which the Pyramids stood. Rami and Adham walked around the Great Pyramid, skirting its base, past the second pyramid of Khafra‘ and on to the farther, smaller third pyramid of Manqara‘. When they reached it, the sun’s trace was just a faint red glow in the darkening haze of the arid western horizon---only treeless rock and sand in that direction. Those guards who shooed people away from the area near the pyramids before the sound and light show began were so preoccupied with a quarrelsome group of tourists who were reluctant to leave that they failed to notice the two boys stealing past them in the dusk. Rami and Adham seated themselves upon great stones on the pyramid’s western slope, away from the lights. The two friends’ dark clothes and brown skin blended with the growing darkness of the desert to conceal them from view. As a last patrol passed beneath them, they lay low and remained unnoticed.

They sat together looking at their surroundings. The huge sandstone blocks on which they sat had originally been covered by a granite casing of giant stones, many of which now lay in a jumbled heap below them. But mostly, they looked out at the darkening sky. A sliver of a new moon stood poised above the horizon, ready to slide right after the sun to an early slumber. Stars began to twinkle into view now; few at first, then many, though the distant glare of Cairo’s lights far away on the other side of the pyramid prevented them from shining forth in their full brilliance and blotted out others from sight. Still, it was a pleasing view in that best part of the day, the evening when it falls silent. A gentle, cooling movement of air refreshed their faces.

Rami took Adham’s hand, gently squeezing it, oblivious to the ritualistic nature of his act, repeated so many times, probably even in this place, probably even between men. But for Rami, this was the supreme moment of his life. Nothing else would ever seem to matter so much. He said, "I’m afraid, Adham."

Adham turned to Rami, gently stroking his friend’s hair and the side of his face with his hand. "Don’t spoil this moment for yourself, Rami."

"Adham, nothing stays the same. What will happen?"

"My heart, don’t think about that now. I’m here and I love you. But if it is any help to you, I pledge you myself, forever, as God is my witness. I love you forever! Our love is unique. Our love cannot change. Nothing is more precious to me in my life than you. All I can give you is myself, but, by God, my dear, if I could take these stars from the sky I would give them to you!"

Rami, drinking deep of Adham’s words to him, stared up at the glittering lamps God had placed in the sky. Nothing seemed absurd in Adham’s statement. All was real, was serious now. Rami said, "And I give you my pledge, Adham, that I will be loyal to our love as long as I live. Nothing in the universe can be so good, so sweet as our love. No matter what time does to us, Adham, I will always love you. You are so fine, so generous. You’ve given me the greatest gift, your love, and the chance to love you." Rami then kissed Adham gently on the lips. Then they lay back, reclining against the next tier of stones above that on which they were sitting, to contemplate the beauty of what God had created, in nature and in themselves, with wonderment and awe. The stars now seemed to shine forth more brilliantly for them and them alone, glittering diamonds to adorn their friendship as a gift from God Himself.

"I will never love another," declared Rami. "Would you, Adham?"

"Never, my love. Don’t say such a thing. Don’t you see how perfect this moment is? If we want, we can make it last for an eternity. I will always remember this night, Rami, and all our other nights."

So they stayed there for seeming hours, which flashed by all too quickly for Rami. Adham glanced at his watch. "We’d better go now to catch the last bus. It’s nearly midnight."

"Already?" sighed Rami. They had been there on the side of the pyramid for about four hours, content just to be beside each other, directed by Adham to contemplate only that moment and to ignore the future, which oftenest dealt unkindly with young hopes and expectations.

In fact, it was not long afterwards that their hopes suffered a nearly fatal blow. Rami and Adham, now blissfully content in the afterglow of their exchange of mutual vows, were not quarrelsome like many others in the quarter in which they lived. But, like most Egyptians, they had a high sense of personal honor which they deemed worth fighting for. Because of their strong bond, each was even readier to defend the other’s honor than his own. This despite the fact that they had hardly any idea about how to fight, since they had little experience fighting, and their interests lay elsewhere.

Nevertheless, fighting often broke out among Egyptian youths, especially on the soccer field, especially if they were playing against relative strangers. Typically, when a fight broke out, it was more verbal than physical, the two parties each saying, “Let me at him! I’ll kill him!” expecting to be held back by their respective companions. And indeed, whenever two started fighting, a crowd would instantly gather and intervene to restrain the participants. Thus, there was usually little actual violence, and almost never bloodshed, but more hurt egos.

It happened when they had started their second year in high school that they were returning to the hara in the evening by a nearby street. As they were trying to avoid tripping over the broken paving stones of the narrow sidewalk in the darkening night, they encountered two other youths walking in the opposite direction. Rami, trying to keep abreast of Adham, jostled one of these youths as they passed. The youth yelled out, “Why don’t you watch where you’re going!”

Rami stopped and turned to say, “What’s the matter with you? We’ve got as much right to....”

The other youth, having turned around, came closer. “Oh yeah? You look like a khawal to me. A fucking khawal.” A khawal was a passive homosexual, the most despised kind of person in Egyptian society. But it was hurled as a common insult, and did not mean that the youth really thought Rami was like that.

Adham intervened, saying to Rami in a low voice, “Leave it alone, Rami. He’s just a no-good looking for a fight.”

The youth must have overheard Adham’s intervention, however. While his own companion made no attempt to restrain him, but rather advanced menacingly as well, the first youth, now picking on Adham, said, “Well, you little khawal. So you got a khawal friend too. I bet you spend all day fucking each other. The only question is who fucks....”

Before he could complete the sentence, Rami, full of rage and bitten by this charge, lunged to attack the persecutor, who smashed him in the jaw and sent him reeling. Adham now leapt at the offender and battered him to the earth, while Rami came right back to defend Adham against the assailant’s companion. As he tried to strike the second youth, the latter drew a switchblade, whose steel glinted ominously in the darkness before he plunged it into Rami’s chest. Then, he pulled the knife out and both the assailants fled.

“Adham! I’m hit!” Rami said. He held his hand over his wound, then turned it to reveal his blood-soaked palm.

“God! Rami! What happened?!”

“Ha....ad a knife,” Rami uttered as he felt about to faint.

“Rami, we’ve got to get help. Can you walk?”

“Don’t know, Adham,” Rami said in an ever fainter voice, as the pain in his chest began to hit him. “I want to sit down.”

“No, man, we’ve got to get that wound fixed.” Blood now covered the front of Rami’s clothes and dripped into the street. Adham dragged Rami along to a corner pharmacy that was open not far away.

“Wow! What happened to you?” said the pharmacist as he set to work to stop the bleeding. This man, a Coptic Christian in a mainly Muslim quarter, was named ‘Adli and knew both boys, as they lived not far away and their families were his customers. Rami now passed out, so they laid him down on the floor. The pharmacist told Adham to find a taxi to take Rami to the hospital. Adham came back after a ten-minute search with a taxi. They put Rami in the back seat, and ‘Adli prepaid the driver lest the boys not have any money on them.

Once in the hospital, Rami was well taken care of. Adham stayed by his side, making sure that he was all right, and then went back to their families, who were beginning to worry about the boys’s prolonged absence. Once informed of the assault, most of Rami’s family soon assembled by his side, astonished at the turn of events, since it was completely unheard of for anyone to be assaulted in the street like that by a complete stranger.

Although it took a long time for Rami to recover, he was able to go home in a few days. The wound, though painful, turned out not to be too serious. Rami was in fact proud that he had been in a knife fight and was wounded, even though that had amounted to a defeat. He was all the prouder because Adham was at his side constantly for the days he had had to spend in the hospital and indeed thereafter while he convalesced at home. Although the stabbing set him back a bit in school, he was able to catch up and finish the year. In school, everyone had heard about the incident and wanted to know how the other guys had fared. Rami and Adham asserted that they had beaten the assailants up and were winning until one of them ‘cheated’ by pulling a knife, not only a knife, but a switchblade. That the assailants had fled meant that Rami and Adham were left in possession of the field. The assailants were never caught, nor did they reappear to challenge Rami’s and Adham’s somewhat biased version of what had happened.

The stabbing behind them, as they worked on through high school, Rami and Adham still made the most of their opportunities to study, play, and be together. Carefully they concealed their sexual relations from their families, who, if they suspected, gave no sign of it. They did this by reducing the number of times they slept together but making the most of the occasion when it arose. Sometimes one or the other would feel a strong urge and quickly infect the other with a similar desire, whereupon they would contrive a way to be together, usually in bed now rather than furtively in the living room. Meanwhile, they charged one another with bright optimism which, while not causing them to excel all others in school, nevertheless propelled both to better and better grades that made the two of them likely candidates for university admission. As their families had no money for private tutors, this meant spending a lot of time together for Rami and Adham, a situation into which they threw themselves with zest. As long as their results continued to be good, their families were content to leave their friendship like that for its beneficial effects. Besides, they were far too young to get married yet anyway. And friendship, especially when it was as ideal as Rami’s and Adham’s seemed to be, was highly valued in its own right. In fact, the friendship of Rami and Adham even drew their two families closer together. "I never thought Rami would do so well at school confided Rami’s mother to Adham’s. "We have Adham to thank for that!"

Adham’s mother said, "I’m not sure Adham did anything. He’s never been especially brilliant at studying. Let’s thank God!"

Nor did their siblings evince any feeling of jealousy. On the contrary, they were all proud of their brothers’s unexpected accomplishments. It was hoped that the two friends would be the first of their families to make it to the university. Everyone supported this goal with enthusiasm, as education was viewed as the key to success in Egypt. Rami and Adham were thus freed from some petty services they might otherwise have had to undertake for their families, in order to give them more time for study. They were expected to study hard and continuously. Even Rami’s father, while maintaining his mien of paternal severity, quietly chuckled with pride in expectation of his son’s success.

However, Rami secretly fretted about the coming final secondary exam, whose results alone would decide their fates. What if he failed to do as well as Adham? Then they might end up in different colleges or, worse, different institutions. He could hardly expect Adham, or more particularly Adham’s family, to accept a lesser place than his results entitled him to, just so the two of them could stay together. It wouldn’t be fair to Adham. But Rami kept his fears to himself, as he did not want Adham to worry but only wanted the best for his friend. Meanwhile, Rami threw himself ever more into his studies, though he had never been so studious. But his worrying interfered with his concentration.

Adham noticed Rami’s worry and inability to concentrate and implored him to share his trouble with him. After much importuning from Adham, Rami admitted, "I’m thinking about the future."

Adham responded, "Don’t think too much. You’re making a mountain out of a molehill."

"That’s easy to say, my love, but how do I control what I feel?"

"All right, my dear. What about the future?"

"Well, how can I be sure we’ll always be together? The world may plot to split us up."

"Rami, how can you think like that? Just as surely as I am here with you now, so will I be always, even to death. Have you forgotten our sworn oath under the stars so easily?"

"Not at all. But what if you get the chance to go to, say, engineering, and I only get good enough grades to go to commerce?"

"Then I’ll go to commerce too. We’ll only select what we can both get into."

"Adham, you can’t do that! Your folks won’t allow it, at all! Imagine what your father would say. Besides, nobody gives up a chance at the better for the worse. It won’t work. Everyone will say you’ve gone crazy."

"Rami, calm down!" said Adham, putting a reassuring hand on his friend’s shoulder. "I can’t say what’ll happen for sure, but let’s wait and see. Let’s pray to God to give us the same scores. Besides, you’ve been studying hard; who’s to say I’ll do better than you? Anyway, we’ve got to cross that bridge, so stop worrying about it now."

Rami was somewhat reassured. He wanted them both to go to the same department as well as the same university. That way they would share all the same classes, as they had in high school, and could continue to study together. Adham, rather than being annoyed at his friend’s seemingly groundless worries, enjoyed reassuring and soothing him. He thought, how well my personality fits with Rami’s.

When the dreaded tests had come and gone, the results were finally sent out to all the students. Rami received the unopened envelope from the postman with the dread felt by many Egyptian students at something so little yet so decisive in their lives’s future course and went into the sitting room to read it in secret. It revealed an overall score of about seventy-nine percent, not too bad, but probably not good enough either. Rami’s brow furrowed in worry. Stuffing the letter rather obtrusively in his shirt pocket, he got up immediately and ran over to Adham’s.

"Adham! Did you get your score?" whispered Rami breathlessly as Adham opened the door for him. Then he saw Adham’s mother standing a few feet back from the door at the entrance to the small alcove they called a kitchen, listening, or so it appeared. Rami smiled at her in greeting, saying, "How are you today, Umm Khamis?"

She smiled back and answered, "Praise be to God."

Turning to Adham, Rami asked, "Can we sit inside?"

"Sure." Adham led them into one of the bedrooms.

Rami then opened the shutters to the sunny balcony and beckoned Adham to follow. "What’s your overall score then, Adham?"

"Eighty-two per cent."

Now Rami’s worries were to some extent realized. The difference between their respective overall scores was small, but unfortunately even a few percentage points mattered quite a bit. Rami’s eyes watered with forming tears.

"Look what this means!" Rami blurted with a choked voice. "I’ve failed you. Look at this." He threw the envelope in his pocket at Adham.

"Calm down, Rami," consoled Adham, opening the letter. He quickly read the result. "Don’t despair. You did well enough, remarkably well!"

"Adham, that’s three percentage points of difference. That’s too much. We’ll be split up."

"Well, at least we can be in the same university, even if we’re in different departments. That’s the first point. Second, maybe we’ll think of something."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, we could both choose all the departments in Cairo University. That way we’d guarantee our both getting into the same university. Or," said Adham with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, "we could both pick as our first choice one department that we could be sure we’d both get into."

"But Adham, your grade is good enough for you to get into a science department at Cairo University!"

"Yes, but I can also go wherever you go. Your grade is good enough to get you into a science department outside of Cairo."

Rami stared up at the westering sun blazing as every day in the same totally azure sky. Adham’s balcony had a southern exposure and overlooked neighboring tenements, their roofs and walls all giving the impression of an aged and arid yellow. No one was visible on them in the hot sun. Rami now realized it was strange for them to be standing out in the sun on a hot summer’s day. He took a deep breath and said, "Yes, I could go to someplace out in the provinces and study science. But I think I would rather go even to commerce in Cairo University. Then at least we’ll both be on the same campus. That will be enough, I guess. We can still be together. No one will think it strange, as they surely would if you didn’t take the best available." Cairo University was the best.

"Rami, we can still have everything we want. Why shouldn’t we go to another town? We could go someplace nearby in the Delta like Banha, or the Suez Canal Zone. Then we can both study science, as we should, since that’s what we’ve always wanted." After a pause, he continued, "There could be another advantage."

"What’s that?" Rami hadn’t really considered going away from his family.

"Well, it’d be hard to travel to, say, Banha or az-Zaqaziq and back every day. We’d have to rent a room there...." Adham smiled pleasantly.

Now Rami understood. He was delighted with the idea. That would keep them together for at least four more years and greatly increase their freedom. "Are you sure you want to do it, Adham?" Rami asked. "You could do better."

"Yes, I’m sure." Adham nodded decisively.

"Now, if we can only convince our families. They aren’t going to like it."

Indeed, the boys’s plan to go to a provincial university was ill-received by their families, whose agreement was absolutely necessary, since it would be the families who would be paying the expense of the room, an expense they would not have to bear if the pair stayed in Cairo. Rami’s father, who was not diplomatic at the best of times, hit the roof. But Rami worked hard on the other members of the family, and his older brother Kamal intervened in favor of the idea, offering to make a regular financial contribution. Kamal, who was twenty-eight, married, and had a baby daughter, had been working as an electrician in Saudi Arabia for several years, saving his wages in order to open a shop back home in Cairo. As a result, he had some money. Back for a short visit, he was proud to have a chance to sacrifice to help his younger brother get the best possible education. He pointed out that Rami could study science outside of Cairo, but probably not in one of the Cairo universities. Since Rami had been in the science stream in school, it would be a shame to waste his preparation and dash his hopes. Rami’s father and mother, on the other hand, didn’t want to break up the family. Rami’s mother felt that Rami was hardly more than a baby, certainly much too young to go off by himself. But Kamal won the argument.

In Adham’s family, the case was more difficult, for it was felt no one should give up any bit of his future even for the sake of friendship. The scores were out for all to see, and Adham’s was clearly better; therefore, he should go to the best department he could get into. Then too, Adham’s family, having numerous young children, needed all its income to make ends meet; how could they afford to put him in a room, even a shared one? But Adham’s father was less adamant than Rami’s, partly because he was set to go to work in Saudi Arabia with Kamal. Thus he was expecting to improve his family’s financial situation and was excitedly dreaming about that prospect too much to devote energy to resisting Adham’s request. Adham won his mother to his side by suave persuasion and wheedling. She knew she would miss him, but she didn’t want to stand is the way of what he wanted. Besides, she saw the benefit of reducing the crowding in their small apartment, where there were more and younger children than at Rami’s. Also, Adham’s brother Khamis supported the idea, and with that Adham’s father finally gave in. Khamis, a mechanic, twenty-six, didn’t have a shop of his own but nevertheless offered to help his younger brother out, as Kamal did for Rami, for he was so proud his brother was going to go to university. Kamal got together with Khamis and agreed to pay two thirds of the boys’s expenses if Khamis and his family would pay one third. Khamis agreed, and everyone was satisfied.

Even then, the matter was not finished, for, having seen their scores, the students had to apply to different universities not knowing exactly what scores would be acceptable in which departments in which universities. The admission scores changed only slightly from year to year, but even a slight change might be enough to upset a student’s carefully callibrated plans. Therefore, most students requested what was considered best, the Cairo U. medical school, and so on down to what was least prestigious. Rami and Adham, however, only requested science departments in provincial universities where they were pretty sure Rami could get in. Even so, there was an element of suspense until the joy-filled day when they learned they had both been admitted to the Faculty of Science at az-Zaqaziq, a couple of hours by public transportation northeast of Cairo.

Thus was Rami’s and Adham’s dream realized: they went early in the fall, when they were eighteen, to az-Zaqaziq to look for a room. Despite the chronic Egyptian housing shortage, rooms were usually available for students to rent. These were rented as furnished rooms for as much as twelve Egyptian pounds a month, a staggering sum for families of Rami’s and Adham’s social class. That expense was a hard pill to swallow, for they were acutely aware of what other uses their families’s resources could be put to, but Rami and Adham wanted to rent a room much more than any ordinary pair of students, especially those who only need a roommate to help with the cost. Rami and Adham thus sought out a room in a very poor neighborhood near the edge of town, in a hara much dustier and more rustic than their home hara in Cairo. Here, their building would adjoin low mud dwellings where recently citified peasants kept water buffaloes and chickens. Most Cairene students forced to leave Cairo to study in the department of their choice abhor such conditions and bitterly resent the transfer, but Rami and Adham did not, as this was the opportunity they had been waiting for.

The room they rented from a hearty older lady who let out three rooms in her small third-storey flat. Their room scarcely measured three and a half meters by two and a half and was furnished sparely with two small single beds at opposite ends of it. To the right of the doorway was a small, cracked wardrobe of seemingly antique vintage with two doors, inside one of which was a mirror spotted with age, mounted clumsily with bent nails. A little table with two rickety chairs like those used in outdoor coffee houses stood opposite the doorway under a window. That was all they would have for a desk. The old lady, Umm Karim, opened the shutters of the window as if to proudly show the view of the narrow hara two stories below, or of the other apartments opposite to her own, so close that two people extending their arms out across the space from either side could almost touch. Yellow whitewash peeled from the walls, an aged wooden floor creaked underfoot. Washbasin and toilet were away in the bathroom shared by the other residents.

Rami and Adham were delighted by their good luck. For them, this was their castle. Here, in the privacy of this tiny space, they could live a life they had hardly dreamt of before. Though the opportunity that they had was obvious, neither could yet fully know or suspect the whole range of delightful possibilities. They were embarking on a life no Egyptian outsider would have an inkling of suspicion about, for it was quite normal for university students of the same sex to share a room, just as it is everywhere. But while their colleagues dreamt of a distant marriage, Rami and Adham would spend some of their best years living their dream.

Rami was astounded at the opportunity. He couldn’t believe this was really happening to him, Rami Mansur. Umm Karim left them to themselves. In other circumstances, they might have locked the door to take immediate advantage of their opportunity to make love. Not now, however, when the opportunity was four years long. Rather, having deposited their small bags under the table, they sat on the different beds at the opposite ends of the room and looked at each other. Adham smiled knowingly, while Rami virtually smirked in triumph. Their eyes and their smiles said all that needed to be said.

Adham spoke first. "Well, now it’ll be just as if we’re married. What could be more complete?"

Rami, smiling pleasantly, said, "All I could ever want is to be your life partner." He was thinking, Indeed, Adham, my heart, I’ll never be able to love anyone else.

Moving to az-Zaqaziq meant meeting a new set of friends. The two youths knew no one there except distant acquaintances. Naturally, they first tried out these people, however distant, but they did not wind up making friends with them. Thus, they turned to their colleagues in the university. Fortunately, Egyptians make new friends easily, especially at that tender age. Some of their new friends, often strangers to az-Zaqaziq like themselves, began to visit Rami and Adham in their room, where the two friends would serve them tea and whatever else lay at hand. Rami and Adham had rearranged the furniture somewhat, putting the beds opposite each other at one end of the room. That way the two beds could easily be pushed together so that the two beds could become one continuous bed. Their living arrangements aroused no suspicion in the minds of their visitors, since talk about same-sex love was virtually taboo. Neither did the thought occur to Rami and Adham that anyone would question the purity of their friendship. They did not, for example, refrain from even public displays of affection for each other, though these were now less frequent because less necessary, since they now had the privacy of their own home, just like married people.

Guests gone and no others expected, they would push their beds together, and the night would find them naked in each others’s arms, sleeping thus until morning. At the height of their sexual powers, they would enjoy sex most nights, often more than once in a night. Their lovemaking was always exciting for both of them, never boring, and their sexual repertoire inevitably widened. It was this widening from seemingly harmless acts to those more specifically forbidden by Islam and looked down on by society, even if seldom specified or discussed, that caused tensions to break out between the lovers occasionally. This was especially the case with those acts which introduced an element of inequality into their relationship, even if they only dimly perceived its implications.

Thus it happened once when they were sitting opposite each other in bed, stark naked, cocks fully erect. Rami bent over to Adham and began kissing him from the lips on down to his nipples, while Adham bent his head over to caress Rami’s shoulder by grating his clean-shaven beard there in a movement he knew heightened Rami’s sensations. Rami then continued down, kissing Adham’s belly, his clean-shaven pubic area, and, finally, the tip of Adham’s penis. This time Adham held Rami’s head down on his cock. Automatically, Rami’s mouth opened and he moistened the head of Adham’s cock with his tongue. Adham began writhing with excitement, exclaiming, "O my love!" and held down Rami’s head harder. Rami began sucking on Adham’s cock while Adham writhed uncontrollably in pleasure, shoving Rami’s head down too hard on his cock. As Adham’s cock pushed deep into his throat, Rami choked and drew back. Adham was panting heavily. Rami then threw Adham back on his back and mounted him face to face, kissing his lips until both their engaged cocks exploded in hot ecstasy, bathing their bellies in their sperm.

But Rami was upset by what had happened and said later, when they were dressing the following morning, "What is that we did last night! There have to be limits."

Adham was crestfallen because of what Rami had said. He feared he had hurt his friend’s feelings, though he did not quite know why, as he did not see anything wrong in a little fun. But he knew how sensitive Rami was. After classes in the university, he did not find Rami, so he came straight home. Rami was not there either. Adham began to worry. But eventually Rami came in.

"Where were you? I’ve been worried sick. Why didn’t you meet me?"

"I was in the library."

"Doing what?"

"Studying. And thinking."

"And?"

"I love you, Adham. But can everything we do always be right?"

"Are you going to play the shaykh with me now, beautiful friend, after all we’ve been through? What do you think you are, a virgin girl?"

"Don’t be unkind, Adham. I know I’m your lover. But there are limits to everything."

Pulling off his sweater, Rami stepped near to the chair where Adham was sitting. Adham rose and kissed him on the lips. "Dear brother, you worry too much. Don’t forget you’re half of this too. Who started feeling me out and stripping off my clothes last night? Who lowered his head to kiss where I feel the most?" Adham pulled Rami close, kissing him again and pushing his cock against Rami’s through their pants. Rami did not respond. Adham thought, Now what?

But, later, at night, Adham began toying with Rami’s hair as they lay naked together in bed. Soon he was kissing his friend on the lips, then going inside his mouth with his tongue. Rami was electrified; his cock stood up hard and straight. Any thoughts of resistance vanished. Now Adham kissed Rami down the length of his body, across his slightly-built chest, his thin stomach, his clean-shaven pubic area, right down to his cock. After a moment’s hesitation, Adham opened his mouth over the high dome of Rami’s rock-hard cock, swishing his tongue around its edges, making his tongue dance along the bottom of it before coming back to swallow his beloved’s cock as deeply as he could. Rami did not push Adham’s head down with his hands but gently pushed upward with his hips, groaning with pleasure and out of control. Adham thought, If he comes..., but, before he could complete the thought, Rami, panting and puffing, had already blasted his semen into his friend’s mouth. Thinking, this is Rami’s semen, Adham swallowed, almost choking on it, so much did Rami throw out.

"O God," Rami cried, "How beautiful that was!"

"I’ve swallowed your come, Rami! I’ve swallowed it! Part of you is part of me now!" Adham did not feel the disgust, the revulsion that most people would feel at consummating an act considered so filthy by the Egyptians that they could not even stand to mention it, let alone discuss it, an act unknown to the very beasts. But then many human practices are unknown to the beasts. The reason Adham felt only good was because he loved Rami. Also, he knew Rami would now reciprocate.

"Okay, now I’ll do you," said Rami, smiling as he recovered from the crescendo of pleasure he had just experienced. Rolling over, he felt his way to Adham’s member, which he sucked until Adham too exploded in pleasure. Rami felt Adham’s effusion of thick, syrupy liquid into his mouth and throat. He gagged on it, but swallowed, as Adham had done with him. Deep down, he felt that its acrid taste and stringy consistency were slightly revolting, but he loved Adham and wanted to give him maximum pleasure. It would seem cold to spit out Adham’s sperm, especially since Adham had not done so with his. Besides, thinking of what they had just done excited him.

Thus, gradually, they got into ever deeper and more refined sexual relations with one another, while their moral inhibitions fell away. The greater the variety of acts they were willing to undertake, the less became their resistance to going even farther. This took a considerable amount of time. Although both retained traces of the scruples they had grown up with, especially Rami, the driving force of sex and the great pleasure they were enjoying banished all regrets. If they thought about it at all, they believed that God would forgive them, because they were in love and were only doing it with each other. If necessary, they could repent later, sometime.

After they had learnt to use their tongues fully and simultaneously, each sucking the other off in a synchronized double orgasm, they had only to learn to penetrate each other’s buns. This they had not done mainly because both knew what a low status befell the one who was mounted, who became a khawal, a passive homosexual par excellence, the most despised type in Egyptian society. Being fucked, the khawal played the woman’s role. But their new freedom invited still further experiment until all the possibilities had been exhausted. As frequently, Adham, being the less inhibited, took the initiative. He saw that he would have to submit to Rami first, as he had done when they had sucked. Since he truly loved Rami, he saw it as no obstacle, even if his main pleasure, as he conceived it, would be in at last mounting the friend whose welfare he had always been solicitous of. Adham could hardly contain himself with excitement at the possibility of entering Rami. It would be the symbolic cap and completion of their relationship. So Adham urged Rami to try mounting him from behind one night, to see what it was like. Rami’s reaction was, "That’s haram!” Haram meant religiously forbidden. “Not that! Let’s be satisfied with what we’ve got." Rami thought, Please let’s not make ourselves into a couple of khawals. But they never used that word between them, as it represented what society would think of their beautiful friendship.

"Come on, Rami," Adham persisted, using the same argument that had always been effective before, "Do you really think this one little thing matters now after all we’ve done? Do you really think you’re so pure? It’s only our love that matters. We’re in love and married, you and I. Don’t you suppose married people do this one with each other too?"

"Yes, but one is the woman," Rami responded, thinking of heterosexual anal intercourse, reputed, possibly wrongly, to be a widespread practice. "Besides, you won’t respect me anymore."

"Sure I will. We’ll both still respect each other if we both do it. We’re in love, Rimaya! I love you! Come on, Rami. Just once." At this, Adham used an argument more effective than words: he turned on his stomach and spread his legs invitingly, showing the root of his cock and his large balls, which were always primed with sperm for Rami. Above his balls loomed the crack of Adham’s brown buns and the rosebud of his virgin asshole.

This sight, along with Adham’s permission, or rather insistence, aroused Rami more than he wanted to admit, though his hard-erect cock was sufficient proof. Forgetting that he would have to reciprocate, he started kissing Adham on the back, shoulder, and neck. Having lubricated himself with butter, a technique they had learnt to apply for mutual sucking, he threw his whole weight on Adham’s back. Adham felt the excitement of Rami, his Rami, his lover, thrusting into him, panting. Each thrust of Rami’s long penis penetrated deeper into Adham’s buns. Rami found a wall of resistance as he pushed his cock into Adham’s asshole, while Adham puffed and muffled his shouts of pain in the pillow, lest the neighbors hear what they were doing. Seeing Adham in pain, Rami would have drawn back, but he now felt a greedy compulsion to complete what he had started and to break into Adham’s ass, thus mastering him. Thus, he gave a mighty push and was inside while Adham howled. He then shoved his cock in all the way. Within a few short moments, Rami felt the superhard moment in his cock, the tightening of his stomach muscles, then the electrifying pleasure in his penis as all too soon he shot and shot into his beloved friend’s love canal. Rami was astounded by the magnitude of his orgasm. Then he kissed Adham’s neck again and rested right on top of him for a long moment. Finally, he withdrew and carefully wiped the traces of sperm and brown slime off his cock with the tissue paper they kept by the bed. Turning then to Adham, he asked, "Was it good?"

"Sure," Adham said, somewhat uncommitedly, with a quizzical look on his face, awed by the enormity of what he had done and, still hurting, less happy with the result than he had expected. Not only did Adham suffer intense and abiding pain from being ‘opened’ for the first time, but, more disturbingly, received intimations of pleasure as well from having Rami’s member in him and especially from knowing that Rami had come in him. They had now made love fully. But Adham, still unrelieved of his charge, and having given up his virginity, was now harder than ever, and more determined than ever to have his prize at last. He turned over and began fondling Rami, who fondled him, wishing to masturbate him and be done. But Adham would have none of that. He tried to turn Rami on his face.

"Not now, Adham, I’m tired after that," Rami pleaded.

"Oh? We’ll see about that. Don’t you want us both to have this? We should be equals in it.”

Rami submitted passively to his lover’s argument and persistence, but with much apprehension. True, what they did between them was a safe secret, and Rami believed that most people were chaste only from fear of public scandal and shame, so that what one could get away with was all right. But he felt a reluctance gnawing at him, like a virgin girl unwilling to easily part with her virginity.

Rami put his head face down on the pillow, spread his legs, and waited for Adham’s mighty brown ram to plunge into him. Adham climbed on him, gently biting Rami’s neck and shoulders. Rami could feel Adham’s member greased with butter sliding into the space between his buttocks.

"God, your ass is beautiful!" exclaimed Adham excitedly. Rami felt his cock go erect once more as Adham shoved his penis into Rami’s asshole and began to press downward on the root of the latter’s cock. The size of Adham’s penis felt enormous as Adham crammed it fully into him, and Rami briefly shrieked into the pillow from the pain. But Rami gradually recovered as he felt Adham’s sweaty body on his back, and especially noticed Adham’s panting, as the latter heaved forward and downward in undulating motions of his hips, faster and faster, penetrating him deeply. Adham also worked his hand under Rami’s hip to grab the latter’s cock and make him come a second time. Rami soon responded by ejaculating again, while Adham pumped into him, bursting with oceans of sperm, which not only filled Rami’s anus but also streamed down his legs and trickled over his balls. Adham shivered at the hugeness of what he had just done, then after a couple of minutes rolled off Rami, turned to him, hugged him close with sweaty arms, and kissed him. Rami lay exhausted and sweaty too, face down still. Adham shook him. "Look at me!" he demanded. Rami only groaned. Adham lifted Rami’s near shoulder, making him face him. Rami’s lithe body glistened with little beads of sweat. Adham noticed the sparse wisps of black hair growing on his friend’s chest, the sign of his budding manhood. But Rami’s face was expressionless.

"What’s the matter, love?" asked Adham.

"I’m tired now, Adham. I don’t think I liked that. It hurt a lot. It still hurts.”

"But you came!"

"Yes. I did. But I don’t think I liked that. We shouldn’t have done that."

Adham looked worried, his smooth forehead now creased with lines of anxiety that might in time engrave themselves there. "Didn’t you like the feel of it?"

"I don’t know."

"Well, I think we should try to do everything at least once. If you don’t want to, we needn’t do it again. But as far as I’m concerned, I liked it." Adham kissed his friend.

"Now we’re really a couple of khawals!" declared Rami suddenly, with unexpected vehemence.

"Rami! I’m Adham, your lover, remember? What’s this? Our love cannot be wrong. Don’t you remember that?"

"I guess so, Adham. Whatever you say."

"Then pull yourself together. Our days are still long, God willing."

Rami nonetheless felt something had changed in him that night. He couldn’t say exactly what it was. It was as if their love, while still powerful, had lost its sweet innocence. It was as if Adham had forced him to do what he didn’t want to. It was haram, the act of Lot’s people, sodomy, deserving of divine punishment as averred by all and sundry. Worse, it was unequal. One was in heaven on top, in control, playing the man’s role. But on the bottom, the other one was in hell, taking illicit pleasure, if at all, in playing the woman’s role. Actually, Rami had enjoyed both, except for his guilt about being on the bottom. So naturally he was confused. But also it was almost as if he had at last grown up. Unfortunately, this act, seemingly so vile and humiliating, was for him the rite of manhood, just like the baptism of fire for a warrior. Sex was changed for him, as if, awakened from youthful innocence and naiveté, he now saw its other functions, even if he did not yet understand them. He began to perceive the role of sex in dominance and subordination, as well as its association with force, violence, and even pain. These were aspects Adham had already recognized and accepted without looking back.

Nonetheless, Rami’s feeling for Adham was unchanged. He still couldn’t imagine any other love. The next day, Adham further apologized for injuring Rami’s feelings. Having thought it over, Rami cheerily offered, "Never mind, Adham, my love." But after that Adham didn’t venture to offer anal intercourse again to Rami, nor to seek it from him, being satisfied with the knowledge that he had fucked Rami, and once fucked, always fucked. However, Rami sometimes remembered how manly Adham was, how masterfully his friend had mounted and made love to him. As a result, he began to worry about being a khawal and determined to resist any further anal intercourse firmly.

Adham observed the change in his friend’s jovial disposition with some dismay and began to be less forward about initiating sex. But Rami, having made love with Adham continuously for years, now did not want to stop making love and indeed could not. Rami’s appetite remained voracious, and soon they were continuing much as before, like married people, except that Rami and Adham relied more heavily on the bond of sex to make up for what they lacked of the social cement found in marriages. If Adham failed to caress him when they went to bed, Rami was sure to start petting Adham on the head and kissing him, arousing him so that they would make love once more. Soon back to the appearance of their blissful existence, Rami cleaved to Adham more than ever, and Adham loved it.

Their friends, such as they were, noticed the unusual bond between Adham and Rami. One of their friends, named Wahid, who was a religious Muslim whom Rami shared classes with, took to calling them "the Twins," because of their inseparability. Of course, Rami and Adham never tried to hide their friendship. They would do things characteristic of young Egyptian friends, such as buying identical clothes and wearing them together. But this was not all that Wahid and their other friends noticed: they could see that Rami and Adham were bound also by a special affection for each other. It was clearly visible in the way Rami looked at Adham and vice versa, and in the way each seemed to know what the other was thinking. Then too, when they talked to others, it was often about each other. Rami, the more garrulous of the two, did more of the talking. But their friends saw nothing in the least harmful or wicked in their friendship; such thoughts did not exist. Rather, people thought what an excellent example of mutual loyalty and good faith it was that Rami and Adham presented. Of course, no one suspected how they spent their nights. Had anyone suspected, he would have kept it to himself anyway.

Certain changes usually would appear in students on moving from high school to university. University students would be, for example, as a rule more mature, or at least would like to believe they were more mature, and thus would act accordingly. In Egypt, there was also the change from sexually segregated to mixed education. In the conservative and Islamic environment in Egypt, this did not mean of course that boyfriend-girlfriend relationships become common, though some may have come to exist, especially by those days, especially in the biggest cities. But there was a great deal of reticence still, and marriage was always in the air when any contact happened between a young man and a girl. Nevertheless, a certain amount of informal acquaintance would become possible for those who wished to pursue it. Rami and Adham were quite naturally indifferent to the appearance of girls in the midst of their campus. Still, the girls’s presence introduced a new element, however feebly, into their lives.

First of all, some of their colleagues were already eager to talk to the girls. This did not go unnoticed, especially by Rami, but he could hardly disapprove on Islamic moral grounds, in view of his own lifestyle, as well he knew. Neither Rami nor Adham was particularly religious, and they did not perform the daily Islamic worship prescribed for Muslims, though the youths would never have considered themselves beyond the pale of their religion. But while Rami and Adham remained passively indifferent toward the presence of girls, others did not leave them to enjoy their indifference in peace.

For now the subject of marriage tended to be brought up with greater frequency. Rami and Adham were modestly reticent to discuss it, as were many other youths, especially those who still wanted to finish their education. Certainly, they could point out that they had no wherewithal by which to marry now. Nevertheless, already in the first year of university, and in a provincial town, where moral behavior was even more conservative than in the capital, the normal phenomenon of male-female pairing was increasingly brought to their attention, requiring an attitude toward it. As with most things, Adham took this lightly, merely as another occasion for joking. "Now that we’re married, dear, which of us is the husband and which is the wife?" he would ask laughingly. Rami, on the other hand, taking matters more seriously, sought to reject the validity of male-female relations in his mind. He would think dirty any couple he saw holding hands, for example, a rare and generally disapproved act in Egypt in any case, though commoner in the capital than elsewhere. Adham told him not to fret about what others might do; the two of them had their love in any case, and that should be sufficient for them. If the world didn’t like it, the world could go to hell.

What made the situation more interesting were the actual contacts they had with the girls. Though Rami and Adham had chosen to specialize in biology together, the huge number of students even in this provincial university and the arbitrary system of assigning students to sections meant that in fact they didn’t usually wind up sharing a class. Therefore, they had different sets of classmates. Thus it would happen that a girl colleague might talk to one or the other of them separately on occasion. If Rami saw a girl talking to Adham, a new, wracking feeling spread in his heart and became like a hard lump in his throat: jealousy. He controlled himself, of course, confident of Adham’s persistent love for him, but Adham, wise to every twitch of his lover’s nose, could see what was going on and reassured him. Actually, Adham was secretly delighted at this further proof of the extent of Rami’s attachment to him. When they clung together at night he would think, Rami is mine! How much I possess him! However, Adham, ever faithful to his love, was also careful not to hurt Rami’s feelings. Adham never started talking to girls from his side, unless they accosted him, if there was any possibility Rami would know of it. Nevertheless, Adham enjoyed the girls talking with him and would joke with them, cracking a broad smile in the spirit of fun while also revelling in the irony of it.

In spite of this, it was Rami who was more attractive to the girls, possibly because of his light brown color and handsome Arabian face with his black mustache now growing thicker, not to mention his striking, large eyes and long eyelashes. It is true also that the girls, especially in Egypt, are often more attracted to shy boys who do not pursue them. In any conversation between a girl and a boy, the possibility of marriage, though not spoken of out loud, is ever present as a hidden backdrop. Rami was deeply embarrassed when girls tried to talk to him. He was always polite and non-committal, speaking in a low voice that attracted the girls even more. Half a dozen of his fellow students from the female side, who sat separately from the boys in the large lecture rooms, had a crush on him as soon as they saw him on the first day. He did not realize this and did not consider himself particularly attractive, thinking his appearance ordinary at best. It was Adham that Rami always thought so good-looking, so manly, so mature, and hence grew easily jealous over. However, Rami’s girl colleagues immediately began to contrive to talk to him, mainly when he was leaving the lecture hall. That was rarely easy, because he would usually depart with other male students, including the religious Muslim Wahid, who was his classmate. Nonetheless, one or two girls would sometimes find him by himself and try to speak to him. The most successful gambit was based on studies. Once a colleague named ‘Azza spoke to him while he stood waiting outside the building after an afternoon lecture.

"Excuse me, you’re in Doctor ‘Abd al-Wahhab’s botany class, aren’t you?" she ventured.

"Yes," he answered almost questioningly, a quizzical expression on his face.

"Do you follow all the material? I’m afraid I don’t quite get all of it."

"Yes, I guess so." Rami managed a wan smile.

"Could you please explain to me this part about cell structure?’

"I...I...I don’t know," Rami stammered nervously, feeling a blush spread across his face.

"Don’t be nervous because of me. Oh, I forgot. My name is ‘Azza Sa‘id. What’s your name?" She extended her hand for an acquaintance shake.

Rami wanted to say, What business is that of yours? But he was too polite. He said, pronouncing every syllable separately with equal emphasis as if afraid of making a mistake, "Ra-mi Man-sur." He lightly grasped only her fingertips between his thumb and forefinger to shake her hand twice, then let go.

"You aren’t from here, are you?" she continued.

"I’m from Cairo."

"I thought so! And what quarter do you come from?"

Rami didn’t like this line of questioning, which was already too personal. "You ask a lot of questions," he replied, unwilling to open up any further.

"I’m sorry, Rami. That’s a nice name, Rami. And a rare one."

Rami could think of nothing further he wanted to say. Therefore, ‘Azza returned to her original tack. "Well, tell me then about cell structure in plants."

Rami was now quite embarrassed. He had to go meet Adham, or else Adham would soon pass by that way. He didn’t want Adham to see him talking with a girl because he didn’t like Adham talking with girls and didn’t want to give him any justification for doing so. Thus he said, "I’m afraid I have to go now." Then, as an afterthought, he added politely, "Maybe later."

Unfortunately, in this case it was already too late. As he turned to look away from ‘Azza, there was Adham standing beside him. Rami blushed again. "Adham!" he said. "I was just coming to meet you."

Adham said, "Don’t let me interrupt if you’re busy," while smiling knowingly at Rami. Adham, knowing Rami so well, could see from his friend’s discomfiture what was going on. He knew that Rami had not begun the conversation with the girl, but he couldn’t resist exploiting the situation a little.

Turning to ‘Azza, Rami said, "With your permission," and then, locking arms with Adham, walked away with his friend. ‘Azza was not disappointed. It was quite a triumph to coax that many words out of Rami, more of a triumph than she realized. And she had learnt his name and the name of one of his friends.

Rami, however, was a bit upset. As he drew rapidly away from the scene with Adham, he apologized, "She just started talking to me. Just like that."

"Sure," said Adham, "that’s what they all say. And you answered her. You were carrying on a great conversation."

"Come on, Dahhuma. You know me better than that. I certainly don’t need her for anything."

"Yes, I know you," Adham answered, thinking, Indeed, I know you better than you can imagine. And you do know me too, Rimaya, my love.

Rami had been nervous partly owing to the background knowledge that conversations with girls could lead to more complicated entanglements. Not that he was worried about himself; he couldn’t have cared less. He didn’t find ‘Azza or her peers either attractive or interesting. While he found somehow loathsome the idea of Adham conversing with girls, in his mind he knew Adham loved only him and, like him, was hardly capable of having any interest in girls after the long years of their love. But the encounters still made him decidedly nervous inside for a reason he could not quite identify.

As with everything else, however, time and practice to some extent cured Rami’s initial nervousness and embarrassment. Adham assured him that encounters with the opposite sex were harmless and, for the two of them in particular, amusing. If Rami caught him talking to a girl, Adham would tell him once they were alone together, "If only she could see how we spend our nights! Then what would she think?!" This, bringing up warm and constantly rejuvenated memories of nocturnal bliss for Rami, usually was enough to bring a smile back to his face. Adham might also speak in mock compassion, "Poor girl. She has no hope at all with us!"

Once Adham was late coming to meet Rami. The latter then went off to the lecture hall which Adham should have just come out of a few minutes before. To Rami’s dismay, he saw his friend having an animated conversation with a girl he had seen him talking to before, Hadiya, one of his classmates. Rami walked right up to them, suppressing a glower, feeling red-faced and hot. Actually, he did not look as bad as he felt. Adham, seeing him, at once said to Hadiya, "I have to go now," excusing himself.

As they walked away together, Adham took Rami’s arm. Rami asked him, "What were you talking about?"

Adham answered flippantly, "Marriage."

Rami’s face flushed. "Why? Who’s getting married?" Rami asked in somber voice with grave mien.

"Rami, lay off! Why are you always like this? Don’t you trust me? What good is love without trust? I don’t get all mad when you talk to girls, although the girls flock to you like sparrows to ripe millet. That’s because I know you so well. You must know me just as well. After all, we’ve been married, you and I, for years. Doesn’t that make any difference? I love you. Don’t you know that by now? I would never want to hurt you. But I like a joke. Can’t you take a joke? Can’t you tell when it’s a joke? Do you have to make problems where none exist?"

Rami knew how Adham felt and was contrite. "I’m sorry, Adham, my love. Of course I know you well. But I love you so much I get these...these feelings."

"You mean you get jealous. Well, you shouldn’t. It hurts me to see you get upset. But you needn’t be so possessive. We own each other, true. But, God! We’re living together, we sleep together every night. What more could you want?"

Rami, anger dissapated, smiled broadly at Adham. "I’m sorry, love."

Thus, gradually Adham was able to dispell Rami’s fears so that Rami began to accept either his or Adham’s engaging in casual conversation with girls. When he perceived that Hadiya and the others were no threat, he calmed down. Nonetheless, the presence of the opposite sex in the university campus was a trying experience for Rami. He also became aware of how some of his friends talked a great deal about girls and were interested in them, an interest he did not share. Thus, Rami became increasingly aware of his peculiarity. As widely varied as the personalities and natures of different individuals are, Rami never quite found anyone like himself---except for Adham. But even Adham was not exactly the same, for he did not feel the external world impinging as did Rami. That was because Adham, inside himself, did not feel himself different, peculiar, or abnormal. He knew his relationship with Rami was of unexampled rareness and was extremely thankful for enjoying such a blessing. He believed anyone else having such an opportunity for adventure, sex, and excitement would be crazy to pass it up. He saw himself as a human being whose love, Rami, happened to be a male, whereas Rami increasingly saw himself as a male who loved another male who happened to be Adham.

Because of their involvement with each other, Rami and Adham had few close friends. Though Adham was more sociable then Rami, he still did not neglect his duties to his friend. Every evening both were in their room, unless they went out together, as they often did to eat a light nighttime dinner at a small restaurant. They never stayed overnight anywhere else except on their frequent visits to their families in Cairo, to which they commuted at least once every two weeks, also together. During the day, however, Adham often had time for joking with friends, male and female, on campus. Rami tended to devote more time to study. As a result, Rami surpassed Adham in grades for the first time at the end of the first year.

One person who took some interest in them was Wahid Mustafa, who was Rami’s classmate in the biology department. Wahid, a slight, brown youth with a thin, scraggly beard left unshaven in accordance with the Prophet Muhammad’s practice, preferred to study like Rami, with whom he spent considerable time in the library. Rami found Wahid congenial to study with. His Islamic demeanor was likely to drive away the attentions of silly girls. For his part, Wahid found Rami helpful in his studies. Also, Wahid hoped that Rami would become an active Muslim like himself, which meant that he would perform the ritual worship at appointed hours, among other requirements. Rami was a Muslim in name already, of course, but like many did not keep up the formal requirements of Islam. Wahid took Rami’s general avoidance of dallying with girls as well as his loyal friendship with Adham to mean that he was already serious and of a good moral character, only needing a little push to become active and devout. Rami, for reasons he naturally kept to himself, regarded Wahid’s efforts to recruit him with a regretful cynicism which he carefully concealed. How could he worship and pray, after all, when he was living with Adham as he was? Worship required a state of ritual purity he was far from. Therefore, whenever Wahid would ask him to go with him to the mosque for worship, Rami would decline politely, saying, "May God guide me to do right." He said also to Wahid, "Maybe you’ll straighten me out and make a shaykh out of me yet. God guides to His light whom He will." Rami said this without sarcasm, for despite his inability now to follow Wahid, he nevertheless respected the latter for his obvious purity and guileless sincerity.

Rami’s association with Wahid did not entirely eliminate his contact with girls, though, for those who saw his handsomeness continued contriving to meet him. Generally, whatever one of them found out about him was soon spread to the rest. For his part, Rami had overcome his initial nervousness and fright; his attitude now was one of bemused indifference. Though by his nature he preferred male company, his love of Adham made Adham his sole essential preference. When Adham was absent, he was mainly indifferent about who he was with and hence would accept conversing with girls as well as with male colleagues. So it was that his female colleague Ulfat spoke with Rami after class one afternoon outside the lecture hall. As usual with him, the initiative had to be hers.

"How are you today, Rami?" she inquired.

"Fine, thank God," Rami said in a non-committal, subdued tone, his dark, almost black eyes sparkling from the highlights of reflected sunshine.

"How are your studies going?"

"Fine, thank God." Rami still offered little encouragement. But he had been quite surprised how girls had shown such an interest in him and found it curious. It gave him something to play with. So he added, "And how are your studies, Miss Ulfat?" staring right into her eyes with his, a move he knew would have its effect.

It did. Ulfat was mesmerized by his romantic gaze and his long black lashes. She was excited by even this little bit of attention from handsome Rami, Rami who rarely showed any interest in girls. She responded, "As well as I could hope. But we’re still at the beginning, so it’s hard to tell how things will turn out."

"Indeed it is."

"What do you plan to do when you graduate?" she ventured.

"I don’t know. Take my position as a government employee, I suppose." Students never could know exactly where the government would assign them on graduation. The appointed posts often did not fit the academic background. "And first I’ll have to go into the army, of course." That would be for only one year, God willing, now that peace reigned on the perennial war front with the Israelis. Rami hated the thought of the army, which would certainly mean separation from Adham, but that still lay three or more years in the future.

"Will you live in Cairo after your appointment comes through?"

Good God, thought Rami, how can I know that now? "I guess I’ll live wherever I am sent." Rather, I’ll live wherever Adham happens to be, whatever the world thinks, and to hell with the world if it doesn’t like it. "I’d rather live in Cairo, naturally."

Rami regarded Ulfat. She seemed to him rather plain, though actually she was quite pretty. Her skin was smooth-complexioned and light brown, fairer than Rami’s. Her dark brown eyes were accented by long dark lashes, to which she had added kohl. She had attractively braided her straight, dark hair and done it up at the back of her head. While she did not wear a covering scarf like devout Muslim women, her clothing was otherwise modest, although her long flower-printed dress revealed an ample and attractive figure. Rami thought, It’s strange; men pursue women, even such as this one, in their lives, but I feel nothing toward her and certainly don’t desire her or want to be with her.

Ulfat’s questions had a definite purpose. Rami seemed an attractive candidate for marriage, although in reality such hopes were premature. Nevertheless, the information in his answers, though spare, was interesting to Ulfat and important. Rami was aware of this and, while willing to respond and converse, would give opaque answers if anything truly vital was involved. Therefore when Ulfat asked, "And where would you like to live in Cairo?" she really wanted to ask, How and when can you get an apartment in Cairo?

Rami could have answered her actual question by saying, I’ll live with my family, while he really wanted to say, With Adham, but he chose instead to answer opaquely, "Wherever I can." In this manner, he and Adham resisted all prying attempts to find out about their families’s economic background, only saying they were both from as-Sayyida Zaynab, a well-known popular district of Cairo having dwellings of various standards. Actually, they were from Birkat al-Fil, the next district to the east, which, despite its ancient Islamic monuments, was even of a poorer standard.

"Are you content with where you live now?" Ulfat already knew that Rami was sharing quarters with Adham, a fact she had learnt from one of their more gregarious male classmates who had visited them.

Rami savored the irony of the question. Content? Content to be living with Adham, to be with him every night? Content did not come near to describing how he felt. In heaven would be closer. But he responded simply, "Yes." Then he added, "We have a small room, but then material standard of living isn’t everything, is it? It suffices."

"You say ‘we.’ Do you share with someone?" She already knew the answer, but didn’t want him to know that she knew it.

"Yes, with my friend Adham." Yes, rather with my love, Adham, he thought. Rami liked to mention Adham’s name, which filled him with so many pleasant associations.

"What does he do?"

"He’s a student here like me. He studies biology too, but in another section."

"I see. And what do you do with yourselves? I mean, do you go out, or what?" ‘Going out’ here did not mean in the company of girls, of course.

Rami blushed slightly at the irony of the question. Now she’s really hit the nail on the head! he thought. If only she knew what we really did! Hah! But he answered, "We mostly go out to eat, and then not always. Mainly we just....study." He drew out the last word slowly, while he was thinking, Answering this question at least is fun. "Here comes Adham now," Rami said as he saw his friend striding toward them. Had Rami and Adham not been so close, Adham would have stood off until Rami took his leave of Ulfat. But as Rami did not do so quickly, Adham came right up to them.

"Welcome, Adham!" said Rami. Ulfat noticed how intently Rami’s sparkling eyes gazed at Adham. Adham glanced rather at Ulfat, looking her over. Rami, turning to Ulfat, said, "This is my friend Adham Husayn. Adham, this is my colleague, Miss Ulfat."

"Ulfat Muhammad," she added, completing her name. She shook hands with Adham. Rami and Adham stood close by each other, both facing her. They are indeed a handsome pair, thought Ulfat, though she held Rami to be the handsomer of the two. How nice that Rami has such a sincere friend, she thought.

"I’m honored to meet you," said Adham perfunctorially.

"I was just telling Miss Ulfat about you," said Rami to Adham. His constant reiteration of ‘Miss’ was rather annoying to Ulfat.

"And what did you tell her?"

"He told me you study together," interjected Ulfat. "It’s nice that you help each other."

"Study? Yes, we do some of that," said Adham, smiling slyly.

"I wish I had such good help," Ulfat continued.

"I’m afraid you’ll have to ask Rami, since you’re in the same class," Adham said.

They took their leave of Ulfat and started walking home together.

"You seem to get along with her," Adham told Rami.

"Adham, it’s just chatter. I don’t like it. It makes me nervous."

"You don’t find her pretty?"

"Of course not!"

"Amusing, then?"

"Not that either."

"Then why do you think you talk to her?"

Rami looked at Adham with exasperation. "Why?! Because she’s there. Because she talks to me. Because people talk to each other. Because you encourage me to do it. But it doesn’t mean anything to me." Rami was somewhat annoyed with Adham’s manner, even though he knew he meant nothing thereby. Still, Adham’s words, as well as the conversation with Ulfat, reminded him how the world pressed in on them from the outside. These were exactly the questions everyone would be thinking and would increasingly ask. Rami was not stupid. He could read the signs. The future would look dim but for Adham, on whom he could always count. At the moment, though, Rami was annoyed at Adham’s interrogation of him regarding Ulfat. Protesting this, he said, "Adham, why do you harass me with questions like these?"

"You’re so cute when you’re mad," answered Adham facetiously, smirking.

After the end of the first year, Rami and Adham returned to Cairo for the summer. Though this limited their opportunities to sleep together, they bore it patiently, partly because they were more cautious than ever now, especially as they became more self-conscious about the uniqueness and rarity of their shared life and were thus more anxious that nothing abnormal should be noticed, in particular by their families. Also, though used to regular lovemaking, they now found it possible to do without for a period of time, particularly in the expectation of more later. Adham most especially was willing to be practical and patient. Thus he counselled Rami, who went along with his view. On the other hand, both still missed their families and enjoyed the chance to catch up with them, especially since their families were so proud of them for being successful university students. As a reward for their hard studying and success in their exams at the year’s end, their families decided to give them the chance to go to Alexandria on the Mediterranean by themselves for a couple of weeks in August, when Cairo was sweltering. Rami and Adham jumped at the opportunity.

Alexandria, Egypt’s big seaport, is hardly less crowded than Cairo, especially in the summer, when the masses descend on its many miles of white, sandy beaches. As often happens in Egypt, accommodation can be a problem, particularly for the less well-heeled, but equally often in Egypt such problems are solved by the network of one’s relatives, connections, and acquaintances, not to mention friends. In the case of Rami and Adham, it was Rami’s aunt Khayriyya whom they stayed with, who lived in Alexandria’s crowded older quarter. They could stay with her because her daughters were all grown and married, there being left, besides her husband Mustafa, a mechanic, only her younger son, Yusuf, who was sixteen and still in high school. Khayriyya was Rami’s mother’s older sister.

Despite the smallness of their apartment, Khayriyya welcomed Rami and his friend as house guests and managed to set aside a room for them by themselves. She had always liked Rami, her favorite sister’s son, and thought him the handsomest of his family. Rami had always treated her with great politeness and deference. She knew Adham too, from her previous infrequent visits to Cairo, and of Rami’s close friendship with him. This she regarded benignly, as did everyone else, thinking what an adorable pair they made. Rami and Adham, for their part, were at their exhuberant best, the arrangements deeply pleasing to them.

They went down to the beaches daily, some days to one, other days to another. Having arranged beforehand to meet some of their male colleagues from az-Zaqaziq, they sometimes had other companions to make a livelier party to play, swim, and loll on the sand under big umbrellas. Even though their skin was dark and hence less sensitive to the sun than that of Europeans, they still had to be careful of the dazzling sunshine of midday, so prone to burn everybody. They liked swimming and horsing around in the water particularly, though neither had had much experience nor any formal instruction in how to swim. Nevertheless, they enjoyed themselves plenty.

Both also enjoyed displaying their handsome bodies at the beach, naked except for swimming trunks, and each spent some time looking the other over while lying on blankets on the sand. Rami thought, How is it that Adham looks so perfect to me? He stared at the smooth sheen of Adham’s well-proportioned limbs, rendered even a little darker than usual by exposure to the sun. Adham is perfect, he thought, no flaw in him. The sweet stream of affection for Adham flowing in Rami’s breast became a torrent. Adham had grown older, Rami knew, and was nineteen now, but each passing year only added to the excitement of his male beauty, at last becoming the beauty of a mature adult. Adham was fully grown now, having shot up in height over the last few years of growth to be tall, about 5’11”, and lanky. Adham’s mustache and beard had thickened; the latter he shaved daily, the former he displayed proudly, the emblem of his masculinity. Rami thought how beautiful Adham’s mustache was; certainly it would never do for him to shave it. When Adham had somewhat facetiously suggested that he might do exactly that, Rami pleaded with him not to.

"It makes me more attractive to the girls," Adham protested. "Surely you don’t want that."

Rami was confident of his friend. "It makes you more attractive to me," Rami declared. "Surely I don’t want you any other way. And I don’t give a damn who else likes you. No one else will ever love you as I do."

"You wouldn’t like me then without it?" Adham inquired with feigned anxiety. "In that case, I’ll shave it off right away."

"I’ll always love you however you are. But it accents your beauty, beautiful brother. Just for me, don’t shave it."

On the other hand, Rami never considered shaving off his mustache, which was thicker than Adham’s, though neither’s was especially large or thick. Rami considered it a necessary attribute of masculinity.

Contemplating the nearly-naked Rami, Adham noted approvingly how his friend’s body had filled out and become more muscular over the years. Rami too had attained a height only slightly less than Adham, about 5’10”. Rami’s body hair was also now a bit more prominent, especially the small triangle of dark hairs between his nipples. Rami looked more of a full-grown man now. The scar from the knife wound, a short, horizontal line less prominent now than it had been, nevertheless still marked Rami’s chest, bringing back memories of shared experience. Adham thought again how thoroughly he knew Rami and how much he loved him and was thankful for their friendship.

Sometimes Rami found himself looking over others at the beach. Many were of little interest. There were always some devout Muslims unwilling to take off their street garb and strut around in partial nudity like the others. Some family groups included old people and children. Men in swimming trunks with overhanging pot bellies exposed their own grossness. Then there were the women dressed usually at least in modest one-piece bathing suits, if not even in a more complete covering. All these Rami had only a minimal interest in.

Most of the bathers, however, were young men and boys. Rami looked at these. He thought, The nakedness of a nation certainly displays its national colors. Egypt’s color under the broiling sun, contrasted with the white sand background, looked darker than Rami had usually conceived. We really are a part of Africa, he thought. The young men could be divided into two categories: attractive and unattractive. It was a subjective judgement on Rami’s part, of course, as to who fit into which category. But he also thought, None of these looks beautiful compared to Adham, Adham who is perfect.

Adham’s attention was more scattered. He too could see other young men who were desirable, whom it would be pleasurable to lie with, though none struck him as being as interesting as Rami, and certainly none so handsome. Besides, thought Adham, surely none of them has anything like the experience and practice we have, even though a few of them might have some. And the majority wouldn’t be interested anyway. But Adham also paid attention to the girls’s forms, finding them of some interest for a reason he could not fathom and now hardly began to contemplate. They didn’t have Rami’s incomparable masculine beauty, of course. They couldn’t compete with that. However, they seemed to have some allure that was in a different category altogether.

Rami wondered if some of the young men he looked at on the beach were like himself, or if any of them had a friendship as he did with Adham. Certainly he had never heard of any such relationship. In the minds of the Egyptians, sexual relations between men were always necessarily characterized by a dominant or masculine and a submissive or effeminate partner, the latter being the khawal, the object of derisive contempt if not actual disgust and hatred. Nor did the dominant one escape disapproval. Nonetheless, such relationships doubtless existed, allowed by the lack of interest most humans have in the personal lives of others who are in no way connected with them. But these relationships were discouraged by the mutual responsibility of individuals for each other in the family. Hence, when they existed, such relationships had to hide underground. Another theme in the minds of the Egyptians was an older man who kept or seduced boys, the latter playing the female part.

None of these stereotypes fit Rami and Adham; hence, hardly ever would anyone in the least suspect what was really between them. Knowing from the start in what contempt such relations between men were held, Rami and Adham deliberately avoided attracting attention to themselves, though such avoidance was fortunately easy. It attracted no attention for them to hold hands, walk arm in arm, or wear identical clothes, all of which were perfectly acceptable between friends in Egypt. They could even kiss on meeting, though this might have seemed odd if done continually before people who knew them. But they eschewed anything that smacked of effeminacy, as did all Egyptian men in general. Indeed, this wasn’t even a conscious decision on their part, but was something they did automatically.

On the beach, sometimes they would notice a pair of European males who were obviously homosexuals. It could be seen in their mincing manner of walking and lilting speech, their slightness of build, the cut of their hair, their effeminacy in general. Rami felt them to be rather disgusting as well as foreign. He didn’t think it proper that they flaunt their nature thus. Nor did he find their pale pink bodies and prematurely wrinkled faces in the least bit attractive. However, they were strange. Rami thought, Adham and I surely have little in common with them. They are like women; we are men at least. But it somehow made Rami feel all the lonelier, so that he would cling to Adham even tighter at night, to think how unique he and Adham were. Rami rather looked over the masses of dark brown Egyptian bodies thinking, Aren’t there any like us out there? How could we ever know if there were?

Adham, on the other hand, found the European homosexuals more curious than repulsive. Certainly they bore no particular sexual attraction to him. But unlike Rami, he recognized that these had something in common with Rami and him, however tenuous. Accouterments of masculinity and femininity he found superficial, as he did not share Rami’s hypersensitivity about identity. To Adham, a male was a male, and that was that.

One day a pair of such Europeans came near Rami and Adham, who were lying by themselves in their swimming trunks on blankets after an early morning swim. These Europeans were in their late twenties, tall, thin, and blond. One was taller with a longer face, the other, though tall too, was a bit shorter and had a squarer visage. They wore swimming trunks, sandals, and light short-sleeved shirts left unbuttoned in front. Rami threw his head back, ignoring them, while Adham sat up, folding his arms over his bent legs to look at them. They noticed his staring, as they had been looking at Rami and Adham. Probably they would not have been encouraged to approach if Adham had not stared at them. His staring must have seemed inviting, though he had not meant it that way. They came right up to him and asked for directions. Rami sat up straight in alarm.

"Where is the New Alexandria Hotel from here?" asked the taller one in laughably broken Arabic, gesturing with his hand westward toward the endless line of highrise buildings along the shore.

Adham replied in equally broken English, "I do not know."

Rami whispered to Adham, "What do they want? We don’t want to be seen talking with the likes of them."

"No one knows us here, Rami, don’t worry," Adham confidently reassured him in a whisper.

While Rami sighed in exasperation, the taller male, taking a cigarette fom his carrying case, spoke again, saying, "You wouldn’t have a match, would you?"

Adham answered, "Sorry, no."

The man fumbled in his case to look for a matchbook, which he eventually brought forth, while his companion looked Rami over as if he would feed on him. Rami folded his arms over his knees defiantly and glared back. The tall man offered Adham a cigarette. Adham was not a smoker, but nonetheless accepted the gift, which he acknowledged with a mock salute. The man lit Adham’s cigarette. "How about your friend?" the man inquired.

"I do not smoke," sneered Rami in English as broken as Adham’s.

The man lit his own cigarette and drew in a puff. "Well, how are we going to find our way back to our hotel, I wonder?"

Adham puffed on his cigarette, trying hard to look as sophisticated as the smoker in a cigarette ad, but coughed on the unfamiliar smoke. Then he looked up at the man sheepishly.

The taller man spoke again. "I wonder if you would be so good as to come look with us. You speak such good English and would be so great a help."

"Sure," Adham offered. "We always like to help."

Rami thought, Oh, no! He whispered to Adham in Arabic, "Let’s not go with these khawals, please Adham!"

Adham whispered back, "Come on, Rimaya, it’s just for fun. We won’t do anything."

This sounded bad enough to Rami, as if they would ever have contemplated doing ‘anything’ anyway. But he turned to another objection. "What about our stuff?"

"We’ll just change and leave now. We can come back later if we want. We needn’t be gone long." Thus Adham dragged Rami along with him again. Rami could have refused to budge, but that would have focused all the attention on him. Mainly, though, he wanted Adham to think him a sport and not a coward, although in reality he was now thoroughly frightened. Who knew what these queers might do to them? And he didn’t like the way they looked at him and Adham. But he put on as good a face as he could.

The boys changed in the dressing room by the beach where they had deposited their clothes. When they emerged then to meet the Europeans, the latter betrayed only a brief surprise at the youths’s newly clothed appearance, still beaming at them with seeming delight.

"What are your names?" asked the taller European. Rami’s tongue stuck in his throat, but Adham immediately answered, "My name is Akram and this is my friend Sami."

The Europeans introduced themselves too. They turned out to be Germans, Hans and Erich. Or so they said. Hans was the taller one, Erich his more silent partner. Hans walked at Adham’s side while Rami clung to Adham’s arm on the other side. Erich walked beside Rami. Rami felt sure he couldn’t utter a word. He imagined the worst. To have these queers pawing him would be more than he could bear. But to have them lay their hands on Adham, his Adham, that would be just cause for murder.

Adham, unconcerned, engaged Hans in a spirited conversation, while Erich bent forward to hear. Adham divulged how old they were, where they were from, where and what they studied, why they were in Alexandria, and how long they had been there.

"Your friend seems rather silent," Hans commented, looking at Rami’s tense features and the vertical worry line forming on his forehead above his nose. But Rami’s fine-featured beauty moderated the real harshness of feeling he wished to express.

"Oh, he’s just moody sometimes. But he’s sweet like sugar when you get to know him." Adham turned and grinned at Rami, who was horrified. What would be next?

As Rami feared, they found the Germans’ hotel easily. As he had also feared, they invited them up to their room for refreshment as a reward for their help. As he further feared, Adham accepted without a blink. This was too much. Rami protested to Adham, whispering loudly in his friend’s ear in Arabic, "Are you crazy? I’m not going up there! No way! How do you know what will happen? Why don’t you ever listen to my opinion?"

Adham replied whispering softly, "Stop worrying and don’t be afraid. Are you always so timid? Nothing will happen. They won’t dare do anything. Can’t you take anything as fun?"

"This is no fun, that’s for sure!"

"Come on, Rami. Trust me."

So Rami gave in again, with misgivings.

The Germans’ room was actually an immense suite sumptuously appointed, more luxurious than any accommodations Adham or Rami had hitherto seen. The walls were hung with delicately-woven tapestries, the ceiling ornamented with molded decorations, the polished wooden floor covered with thick-piled carpets, the room furnished with plush armchairs and couch. This was the living room.

Rami and Adham entered the room hesitantly. Had women invited them, they could not have come up, but they could and did come up with the men, even though they knew what they were there for. Hans and Erich motioned for them to be seated. They sat beside each other on the couch, Rami at the end, Adham next to him in the middle. Hans and Erich disappeared for a minute inside the other rooms of the suite.

"Rimaya, look at this place! They’re sure to have lots of money. They might give us some, or maybe...."

"Dahhuma, have you gone completely nuts? How are we going to get out of this now? You realize that they’ll want something in return for every favor they give us!"

"Just leave things to me. And for God’s sake don’t be mad now. Everything will be all right. We can leave whenever we want."

"Rather, whenever you want."

"You can leave if you like."

"What! And leave you with these....these khawals! Over my dead body! And they’ll lay their stinking hands on you over my dead body too!"

Adham snickered good-naturedly at Rami’s vehemence, as if nothing was happening. "Now be a good guy and calm down!" he said.

Hans and Erich reemerged. Erich sat in the armchair nearest to Rami while Hans asked what they would like to drink.

"What do you have?" asked Adham.

"Whisky, cognac, scotch....," Hans rattled off in a long list.

Rami sat straight up. So they would get them drunk, then have their pleasure with them! Rami Mansur, who had never drunk a drop of alcohol, was certainly not going to start now. To preempt Adham, he said in broken English with broken voice, "We are Muslims. We don’t drink alcohol. At all."

Adham said, "I’ll have a soft drink."

"And what would you like, Sami?" asked Hans.

"Nothing," Rami glowered.

"Bring him the same as me," interrupted Adham, smiling.

Hans reemerged from inside a second time with the drinks and a box of chocolates. This he opened, offering the youths sweets. Rami and Adham had never before eaten chocolates as fancy or as expensive as these. Adham cautiously took one. Rami resisted. "Take one!" commanded Adham in Arabic, and Rami obeyed.

"It’s probably poisoned," muttered Rami under his breath.

"Then let’s both eat one," whispered Adham.

Actually, they found the chocolates quite good. Adham took another. The drinks were presented and poured, Hans and Erich preferring alcohol to loosen themselves up to broach the subject. Hans now sat next to Adham on the couch, while Erich sat in the armchair nearest to Rami.

Turning to Adham and extending his hand behind Adham on the sofa, Hans asked, "Tell us how your love life is. We are so curious about Egyptian youths’s love lives, especially since we heard that Egyptian love songs are so....hot." Hans dropped the last word like a plate on the floor.

Rami took this up immediately. "I’ve got a girlfriend in az-Zaqaziq. Her name is Ulfat. When I get enough money together, we’re going to be engaged and...."

Adham cackled out loud in amusement. "Look," he said masterfully, "don’t listen to a word he says. Actually, we’re lovers; we’ve been so for years. We share a room and make love every night without fail. We’re never bored." As if to prove this, Adham began petting Rami’s woolly hair with his right hand.

Rami turned to Adham and shoved the latter’s hand away forcefully. He said in Arabic, "What’s this you’re saying?! And I thought we were friends! How can you say such things in front of strangers?! You’ve disgraced us, disgraced us!" The Germans didn’t seem to understand, but observed Rami’s petulant protest. Rami was deeply shocked. His brown face flushed with red, Rami said to them in English, "Don’t listen to him. He’s only joking. A stupid joke, too!"

"Well, we don’t care," said Hans.

"Right, we think it’s fine if men love other men," said Erich, winking at him from the side. Rami seemed surrounded and was still in shock from what Adham had said in front of the Germans. It was unbelievable! Adham, his loyal friend! Now thoroughly mad, Rami resolved to tough it out, stick to his imaginary innocence, and yield nothing.

"It’s not fine with us," he said, turning to Erich.

"Rather, it’s not fine with our society," Adham said. "But with Sami and me it’s different." Adham proceeded to stroke Rami’s hair again. Again Rami twisted his head away and pushed Adham’s hand back.

"I’d love to make love to you, Akram," said Hans, staring at Adham. Suddenly Adham became quiet and cast his gaze to the floor like a girl being courted. Hans gently caressed the back of Adham’s neck, feeling with his fingertips the wisps at the bottom of Adham’ s short-cropped hair.

At this Rami, quaking like a volcano on the verge of eruption, delivered his ultimatum in short, clipped Arabic, "Adham, that’s it! I’m going to kill that guy! I’m going to kill him if you don’t put a stop to this farce right now!"

Adham, still staring at the floor, said, "Sorry, we are also completely loyal to each other. We never look at anyone else. You’ll have to remove your hand." Adham then shook his head in Rami’s direction to point out why. Hans saw a devilish fire burning in Rami’s coal-black eyes. He withdrew his hand.

"What a pity!" said Erich. "Won’t you change your mind, Sami? Be so good."

"Don’t try me," growled Rami in a firm and burning voice, equally emphasizing each word. Automatically, his hand was on the hilt of the knife he kept hidden in his pocket. He sensed that the possibility of violence had not passed. Well, let them try, he thought. Although the Germans were both bigger and stronger-looking than Rami and Adham, they would not escape unscathed if they tried to use force.

Hans defused the situation by saying, "Well, we’ve had a nice visit, haven’t we? Would you like anything for your trouble?"

"Nothing," uttered Rami in a loud whisper. "We must go now. Come on, Akram," he added, pronouncing the last word with a special sarcasm.

They rose and left almost without a word, Adham only saying, "Goodbye," in a faint and chastened tone. Once outside the hotel, Rami strode away as fast as possible, Adham trying to keep up.

"Look at what you almost did to us, Adham! And you said, ‘Leave it to me.’ Leaving it to you almost caused a disaster. They might have taken us by force! What if they’d had two more friends waiting for us, then what would we have done? What? Huh? Answer that! Even so, there was almost blood back there. Do you think I’d let something like that put his slimy hand on you? Or did you like it? It sure looked like you liked it. Isn’t that what you took us there for?"

"Rami, Rami, love, calm down. It wasn’t like you imagine at all. Those foreigners weren’t going to do us any harm. Those people are always afraid of exposure. They’d be afraid to assault us."

Rami boiled. "Afraid of exposure! And what about us? You neatly exposed exactly how we live, just like that! I thought we agreed that no one should ever know what is between us. Then you go blurt it out, and in front of whom? In front of a couple of khawals!"

"Exactly. They don’t know us nor anyone that we know. We could deny everything if we had to. Besides, they probably found the truth about us unbelievable, just as anyone would. I don’t know what’s gotten into you. You didn’t used to take everything so seriously. Can’t you see how funny it is, Sami and Akram? And when you talked about marrying Ulfat, that was the clincher. Hah!" Adham chuckled with delight remembering Rami’s big lie. "That was still fun, anyway."

"And I suppose it would have been fun too if they’d stripped off our clothes and fucked us? It’d started, you can’t deny that," Rami fumed.

"And it would have finished right there, Rami. Because what I said I was going to say anyway, threat from you or no. We’ve always been loyal to each other. Do you think I’d ever change that?" Adham looked at Rami earnestly.

"I love you, Dahhuma!" Rami yelled in pain, remembering his horror at that point in the adventure when the German had laid his hand on Adham’s neck.

"And I love you, Rimaya. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings."

"Never mind, Dahhuma, my love."

"We needn’t do that again. Once is enough."

"Whatever happens, I love you, my soul."

When they returned to az-Zaqaziq in the fall for their second year in the university, they sought out the same room they had been in before. It suited them nicely. Their families were hoping they would transfer to Cairo University so that they could live at home, but the two friends naturally had no intention of letting that happen. Now the room began to take on more of an appearance of belonging to them. Their possessions increased slightly: books, clothes, a small radio-cassette tape recorder that Kamal had brought them as a present from Saudi Arabia. They often listened to Egyptian love songs, singing appropriate lines from them to each other. They were especially fond of the songs of ‘Abd al-Halim Hafiz, the tenor voice of adolescent love, whose songs seemed to them mostly directed at males, especially as ‘Abd al-Halim, who had died less than three years before, had never married. Of course, the Egyptian public never took his songs to be about love between males, as gender in Arabic songs and poetry is usually ambiguous, but Rami and Adham understood what they wanted to.

Once, Rami was sitting with Wahid and Ahmad, another colleague of his, at an outdoor café after they had finished studying for the day. Rami was just about to hurry home to meet Adham when the subject of ‘Abd al-Halim came up as one of his songs of lost love blared from the coffee house’s scratchy-sounding radio.

Ahmad said, "Shaykh Kishk called him ‘the aging adolescent.’ But you can’t argue with ‘Abd al-Halim’s popularity and success, can you?" Ahmad meant by this to needle Wahid, the religious Muslim, who by now regularly sported a skullcap, because Wahid would have to defend the views of the great Shaykh Kishk, the famous religious leader, who had even been described in the West, though erroneously, as Egypt’s Khumayni.

"Who needs him?" replied Wahid, referring to ‘Abd al-Halim. "The Qur’an suffices for me."

"What do you think, Rami?" continued Ahmad, intent on dragging Rami in as an ally. Ahmad knew that Rami, despite his respect for Wahid and despite a certain outward Islamic conservatism and austerity of manner, was a great fan of ‘Abd al-Halim.

"I like his songs. I admit it."

"There," Ahmad went on, "you see? Everyone follows what is popular, even if it’s based on immorality. You can’t argue with popularity."

"It’s not so immoral," countered Wahid, "but singing in this vein, about love and such, is a waste of time. It’s shallow, and it leads many astray into a long night of longing for something that does not exist."

Rami smiled. Certainly men commonly believed that true love was a mirage with no real substance. He knew otherwise. But Rami wanted to protest Ahmad’s claim about immorality. "Ahmad, what do you mean, ‘based on immorality?’ What’s wrong with a man singing?"

"Nothing. The immoral part has to do with his background. Everyone knows that that story he concocted about his having had a love affair that didn’t work out and his not getting married as a consequence is so much hogwash. He didn’t have anything to do with women. God deprived him of the enjoyment and the love he sang about so much."

"Maybe that’s why his singing is so good, because he meant it," Rami replied. "I still don’t see any immorality. So he didn’t get married. So what?" Rami acutely remembered himself now.

"Yeah, but he didn’t stop at that," Ahmad continued. "He wasn’t pure like the Prophet Yahya. No, ‘Abd al-Halim liked to do it with boys. He was just a big homosexual. Anyone can see that. Just look at the way he sways and twists back and forth in the concerts of his they show on television, exactly like a khawal. He looks the part. But that doesn’t stop everyone from liking him. You seem to like him well enough, Rami."

Rami felt as if he had walked into a carefully-laid trap and suppressed a blush. He said nothing, however, being effectively silenced. He felt if he said anything about homosexuality, he would be betrayed by a quavering voice, a nervous shaking, or a red face. A lump rose in his throat, blocking his vocal cords, and he lowered his gaze, believing with every passing second that he was exposing himself more and more openly.

Wahid took up the subject, distasteful to him as it was. "Well, even if I agree with you that ‘Abd al-Halim looks likely to be a sodomite and that the sodomites are the people of hellfire, still we can’t be sure. It’s better to say nothing about such matters when we’re not sure. We must avoid slander and backbiting."

Thank you Wahid! thought Rami, for getting us out of that. Rami took no umbrage at Wahid’s characterization of the sodomites as people of hellfire because he didn’t consider himself a sodomite. Sodomites were khawals, promiscuous, passive, and anally-oriented. Rami was none of these. Besides, the Qur’an taught that the sodomites were among the wicked. How could his love for Adham be wicked? Thus, it was impossible for Rami to consider himself a sodomite. He felt that the purity of his love for Adham rendered their relationship legitimate in the highest degree. Love like theirs could never be associated with wickedness, whatever the world might suppose.

Generally, their second year went on much as the first. Now they were both more accustomed to dealing with girls, which especially made a difference to Rami, who had found that so difficult at first. This did not mean, of course, that he spent more time with them or looked for chances to meet them; he just felt more at ease. Rami and Adham spent about the same amount of time with friends as before, tending now to invite them more often to their room. Adham tried to spend more time studying. It had been quite embarrassing to him that Rami had surpassed him in the first year’s final results. He had had to put up with some good-natured kidding from their acquaintances in Cairo as a result, as well as some sharper criticism from his father. But Adham, though not a bad student, was not that much interested in studying, partly because he doubted whether his final grades would make that much difference in his life. However, he didn’t want to fall behind Rami, or at least not far behind. Rami and Adham still spent a fair amount of time studying together, especially in the evenings in their room, when they would sit at the table or lounge on the beds together while reading to each other as well as discussing what they had read. But, because of their different schedules, they would also study alone or with other students during the day. For example, Rami would study with Wahid.

Wahid continued to push Rami to come to the mosque with him, especially the Friday congregational worship, when thousands crowded the mosques. "Just try it once, Rami," was the line Wahid now used.

Rami consulted Adham, saying, "Let’s go to make the Friday worship this week. It’d be something new."

"Rami, are you crazy? That’s not for us. Believe me, that’s not for us. We can do that when we’re old and worn out."

"But I already promised Wahid. Come along, to humor him."

"No. You go if you want. What good will that do us?"

"All right, Adham, I won’t do it again either. But come on. Be with me. You can close your ears to the sermon."

"Which I will surely do."

Wahid was not surprised that the Twins came together. They went to one of the largest mosques in az-Zaqaziq, built in the imitation Mamluk style popular under President Sadat. On entering, Adham thought, Oh brother! He was thoroughly bored, though he tried not to show it. Rami was more interested. He thought the togetherness of mass worship attractive. Looking over the crowd of worshippers, all men, from where they were sitting on the floor, he could see many faces expressing sincere devotion and simple piety, much like his impression of Wahid. He admired their devotion to an abstract principle that was permanent and unchanging. In fact, I adhere to that too, he reflected, belief in God and His worship in Islam. But Rami’s devotion was all toward Adham. He thought, glancing sideways at Adham, he is my Ka’ba, toward him I turn in worship. But this is blasphemy! No, because He Who created Adham is greater even than Adham. I know that. I know too that we die. But for now I know that we will live our lives together, even to old age.

The sermon was given by a short, white-bearded old man wearing a white turban and robe. He fulminated furiously from the many-stepped pulpit about various subjects, including marriage, settling near the end on sexual immorality. Mostly he condemned boyfriend-girlfriend relationships outside of marriage in eloquent sentences. Rami nodded at this approvingly. But finally he added, "And lack of sexual responsibility also leads to such major sins as sodomy, like we see in the West, where they even have marriages between males. All sexual practices between males, whatever they may be, are considered sodomy, are forbidden for Muslims, and are one of the surest and shortest paths to Hell."

Adham frowned at this. He would surely give Rami a lecture about having forced him to listen to such drivel, a denunciation demeaning to their love from a senile codger. Rami, who had been sitting cross-legged, drew one of his knees up, folded his arms around it, and rested his chin on his thigh, thereby partly concealing his face. He sighed weakly. He had heard nothing new, of course, as the attitude of the religious shaykhs and the religion was generally known, even though they brought up the subject infrequently. But did the speaker on this day have to be so categorical, not leaving an opening for a distinction between khawals and others? Didn’t their love, loyalty, and steadfastness count for anything?

When they stood for the worship itself, then bowed and prostrated themselves in unison toward God’s Holy House in Makka, Rami felt nothing at all. Going through the motions of worship, he felt a peculiar and repulsive emptiness inside himself. He much regretted having come, and not only on Adham’s account. He thought then that he wouldn’t be able to worship God again, at least not in this way. Thinking, I’m sorry, but I feel nothing, he added, but I thank You God for Adham, may You preserve him and me. That was all he could think.

After the worship service was over, they got out of the mosque as fast as they could, into the loud hubbub of the masses mixing with the hawkers and beggars outside. Adham gave a black-hooded beggar woman a small coin. They waited for Wahid, who was in no such hurry and was performing extra worship. Adham said to Rami, "Hah! And I say again, hah! Need I say more?"

"Dahhuma, you always say we should try to be amused by what differs from us."

"But Rimaya, my love, that was awful! Why should we have to hear ourselves insulted? I don’t care what some goddamned senile old man has to say. The shaykhs think they can decide for God, but if you ask me they’ll be the first to go to Hell. As long as we don’t hurt anyone, God won’t punish us."

"I admit we shouldn’t have come. But how was I to know that that was going to happen?"

"Always expect the worst," said Adham, slyly changing to a smile.

Wahid then joined them. "How did you find it?" he inquired gently.

"Oh, splendid," replied Adham. "Such a command of classical Arabic, too." Rami with difficulty suppressed a grin at this.

"Then you’ll come next week?" Wahid asked.

"When next week comes, we’ll see. If God wills," answered Adham.

Of course, Rami and Adham never went to the mosque together again. Adham expressed some reservation now about Wahid too. "You spend a lot of time with your Sunni friend," he commented drily to Rami. Adham had no equivalent male colleague that he spent so much time with.

"Are you too at last jealous then?" asked Rami intently.

"No. Of course not. I merely said you spend a lot of time with him. A fact."

Nevertheless, Rami understood that Adham felt jealous. This pleased him, giving him a warm feeling in his breast, as it proved how devoted Adham was to him. Also, he secretly enjoyed Adham’s discomfort, as he imagined it, thinking, Now maybe he knows how it feels. At the same time, Rami knew that Adham had nothing to worry about, because he didn’t spend time with Wahid except to study, not even finding him attractive-looking. Thus Rami wanted to reassure Adham and said, "If you want, I’ll cut him off. I don’t need him for anything."

"I didn’t mean that, Rami. Just forget it."

While Rami and Adham were still living much as before, an important development for their two families occurred in Cairo. The families had become friendly with each other in the first place mostly owing to Rami and Adham’s friendship. Now, in the month of April, Rami’s older brother Kamal came to visit them. This in itself was quite unusual, for he was very busy with his electrical repair shop in their old quarter and hence rarely left Cairo. He came on a Thursday night, planning to go back the next day. Rami and Adham greeted him warmly; it was Kamal’s financial support that had made it possible for them to stay in az-Zaqaziq. Rami respected his older brother from a distance and liked him better than their father. In fact, he held Kamal to be an ideal example of gallant manhood. Adham felt somewhat the same toward his older brother Khamis, who was, however, a little closer in age to Adham than Kamal was to Rami. The news Kamal brought concerned Khamis.

"Dear brothers," Kamal addressed them after he had settled into one of the chairs in their room, "I have good news. Our families are about to be bound together by a firmer tie." Rami thought, What could be firmer than my love for Adham? "Rami, Khamis is going to marry your sister Ruqayya. Congratulations to you both!" Kamal beamed with an exhuberant smile.

"May God bless you!" returned Rami and Adham in unison, giving the required formulaic response.

"This is wonderful!" said Rami.

"Splendid!" declared Adham.

"When is this to be? How did it come about?" asked Rami. Neither of the friends had any inkling that Khamis was planning such a thing. Being away from home, they were somewhat out of touch, but marriage was such an involved process in Egypt anyway that a man would keep his plans secret, even from his own family, until they were absolutely certain.

"They will be married early in the summer, God willing, as soon as you two are finished with your exams. That way it will work out best."

Rami reflected on this new surprise. It would further establish his links to Adham, for now they would be related, even if remotely, through his sister’s marriage. Ruqayya was two years younger than Rami, only eighteen. That was an eminently marriageable age, however. Ruqayya would have only a high school education. Khamis was ten years older than her. Though he did not have his own shop, he was now quite a successful mechanic working under an older man. This would leave only Rami and his little brother Sa‘d, who was twelve, unmarried in the family. Kamal and their sisters Mahasin and Umayma were already married and had moved to their own dwellings with their spouses.

"Where will they live?" asked Adham, wondering how Khamis could already afford to marry, what with the housing market so difficult and expensive.

Kamal smiled. "Where do you think?"

"At our house?" ventured Adham.

"You’ve got it!" said Kamal zestfully. In Adham’s family, his sisters Bahiyya and Layla were already married and had moved out with their husbands. Now Khamis would bring his wife, Rami’s sister, to add to Adham, his sister Habiba, and his younger brothers Usama, Lutfi, and Sha`ban, as well as their parents, in their small apartment. Things there would be crowdeder than ever. Khamis would have to look for another place to live as soon as possible, which would be a hard task to accomplish with little money in the midst of the acute housing shortage. But they would muddle through. Adham was happy for his brother Khamis, especially since it was Rami’s sister that he was marrying. He even thought she was not bad looking, as she shared Rami’s fineness of features. But that was not the main consideration. Most important was the harmony of the two families.

"Now our two families will have a real close connection," said Kamal to Adham, meaning no harm. "You know the proverb, ‘Friendship lasts a day; kinship lasts forever.’ Now the bonds will be really sealed, God willing."

"May God complete it in goodness," replied Adham in ritualistic phrase, a wistful expression on his face.

"Unfortunately, there are no sisters left now in our family for you to marry one of them," Kamal said jokingly to Adham.

"So you think. But I can still marry into your family," said Adham.

"How is that?" asked Kamal, while Rami looked on expectantly.

"I would like to marry Sahar," Adham said, sounding serious. Rami smiled relaxedly. Sahar was Kamal’s three-year-old daughter.

"Don’t you think you should wait a year or two?" asked Kamal facetiously.

"I’ll only wait for her to grow younger," replied Adham, straight-faced as ever. "She’s already nearly too old for me now."

 

The school year ended; Rami and Adham both passed their exams with good results, though Rami again slightly outshone Adham, who had once again slacked off from too much studying as the year had passed. At the wedding of Khamis and Ruqayya that summer, they were asked when they might be getting married themselves. It was easy enough for them to say, "After we graduate, and in fact after army service too," that is, after at least three years. That still seemed distant; both were yet but twenty, and many Egyptians in that time didn’t get married until thirty or more.

This summer, they also spent a longer but less adventurous time in Alexandria, spending more time with Yusuf, Khayriyya’s son. Rami’s anger the previous summer made Adham reticent about doing what would provoke his friend or hurt his feelings. He knew fully how jealous and possessive Rami was over him, but he liked it. He loved Rami, and he still felt he could do what he liked. Adham also greatly enjoyed their convenient living arrangement in az-Zaqaziq, which provided so completely for all his needs. In exchange, he was not greedy and could easily turn away from what Rami did not like. Unlike Rami, however, Adham was not so possessive of his lover, because he had complete knowledge of the extent of Rami’s love for and dependence on him.

Both youths were turning day by day into men. The maturing process went on imperceptibly but continuously. All things change constantly; the universe is at all times in a state of flux. But human changes and development are quicker at certain periods than at others. A youth of eighteen or twenty, in some ways, is like a clean slate; that is, he has little experience on which to rely, hence his seeming greeness and relative innocence. But experience begins to pile up, horizons become fixed, positions are taken, and the youth learns better how to behave, how to react. Like this, Rami and Adham were growing up. Even though they seemed to be the same persons day by day, they were not, actually.

The third year was no harder for them than the earlier two. Rather, with the passage of time, they seemed to organize themselves better for study. Though they now tended to make love less frequently, they still almost never failed to do so at least every other day. And they still had their visitors.

One day Ahmad, Rami’s colleague, came to call. Though Ahmad was a handsome, strapping youth with dark brown skin and wiry, short-cropped hair, Rami did not much like him to visit since he had several times mentioned the subject of homosexuality, which made Rami nervous. But Ahmad was also importunate, and Rami, obliged by the requirements of hospitality, could not but welcome him. To allay his suspicions, ever since their conversation about ‘Abd al-Halim Hafiz, Rami always played a tape of a woman singer when Ahmad came to visit, never of ‘Abd al-Halim. Rami had also confided his worries to Adham, who as usual showed no concern. “Why should he think like that of us? And even if he does think like that, what does it matter?” was Adham’s response.

“Adham, he likes to talk a lot. Better be careful around him.”

“If he’s so interested in male love, maybe he’s like us. Did you consider that, Rami?”

“Not likely. Lots of people talk about lots of things. Besides, we can’t take any chances. Even if he couldn’t prove anything, he sure could drag our good name through the mud. I’m afraid he might already suspect.”

“You worry too much, Rami.”

“But even you have to admit it would make a big difference, to have someone find out our secret, someone who knows us both and knows whom we know.”

Ahmad came on a wintry evening during midterm exams to compare notes with Rami, who always thought Ahmad’s apparent studiousness somewhat put on but did not know his real motives. Rami and Adham welcomed him to their room. Adham lounged on his bed reading a book while Ahmad sat on one of the two chairs and Rami made tea. Then he too sat at the table on the other chair. All were dressed in heavy clothing against the mild but wet cold of the Egyptian winter. Rami and Adham, like many other Egyptians, had no heating. It was the year in which President Sadat had been assassinated, only three months earlier, by people identifying with the Islamic trend. Ahmad brought up the subject of Islam, controlling the conversation as usual.

“Well, the way things are going, it looks like we might have an Islamic state here sooner than anyone thinks. I suppose you would like that, Rami. I’m sure our friend Wahid would.”

“I really don’t care much about politics, Islamic or otherwise. But it’s good for Egypt when it’s really itself. We are Muslims, after all.”

Ahmad pounced eagerly on this opening as if he’d been lying in wait for it. Or so it seemed to Rami. “Yes, but how can you say that when neither of you keeps up even the minimal requirements of worship?”

“Well, Ahmad, since when have you gotten so religious? We don’t see you keeping them up either.”

“True now. But I intend to. And we all had better intend to the more Islamic that our country becomes.” Ahmad changed tack. Quoting from the tradition attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, he said, “But religion is work, not just worship. And no work is so important as marriage. The Prophet, peace be upon him, called it half a man’s religion. If that’s so, it seems to me that marriage is more important than ritual worship.”

Rami’s and Adham’s reaction to this was one. Both said surprised, “Are you getting engaged then?”

“Yes.”

“Congratulations, Ahmad!” both friends declared emphatically in unison. After they had made polite inquiries about his fiancée, when he intended to get married, and so on, the conversation returned to its original course, directed by Ahmad.

“Don’t you agree that marriage is half of your religion and an absolute requirement?”

Despite Rami’s warnings, at this critical juncture Adham interfered to say, “Certainly not an absolute requirement. Who has ever said that? Isn’t marriage in the view of Islam supposed to be the most preferred of the voluntary acts, therefore not required? As for being half of a man’s religion, well, who knows which of the Prophet’s traditions are true and which were made up later.” Rami suppressed a wince at these denials of the importance of marriage in front of the suspicious Ahmad.

Ahmad turned to rebut Adham. “Your reference to the voluntary nature of marriage comes from the Prophet’s traditions as well, while the following comes from God Himself in the Qur’ân: ‘Marry the unmarried among you, and the righteous among your male and female slaves.’ What could be plainer?”

“That only means the unmarried women,” Adham contended.

Rami intervened, “No, I agree with Ahmad that it refers to everybody.” He then looked up the definition from the dictionary, which showed that Ahmad was right.

“Don’t you intend to get married, then, Adham?” inquired Ahmad.

“I’m only saying it’s not an absolute requirement. I didn’t say anything about myself. It’s still early. We have to finish our studies, the army, save some cash....”

“What about you, Rami?” Ahmad continued.

“Sure. Of course. I’ll get married, but I don’t have any plans right now,” answered Rami nervously, “for the same reasons Adham has given.”

“Well, you’d better both start thinking about it now. It’s better when you plan ahead,” said Ahmad. “And never think that marriage isn’t necessary,” he added pointedly. “It keeps you away from sexual deviance.” ‘Deviance’ meant any relations outside the bond of marriage.

Later, Rami had a conversation with Wahid in the university library. This time it was Wahid who brought up the subject of marriage. “When do you think you’ll get married?” he asked Rami.

Knowing that Wahid, his good friend, was not suspicious like Ahmad, Rami answered him with greater candor. “I don’t think I ever want to get married.”

Wahid was shocked. “What! Rami, everyone has to get married. It is God’s law for His worshippers. Why ever would you not want to get married?”

Taken aback by the vehemence of Wahid’s response, which he ought to have expected, and remembering his native caution about exposing himself, Rami retreated. “Well, I haven’t thought much about it,” he began with feigned nonchalance. “I guess I like the way I’m living now. I don’t see that I need to be married for anything. I can take care of all my needs myself.”

“You might think that now. But what of the future? Now you are getting along simply as a student because you are young and can bear anything, your family supports you, and you have Adham for companionship. What happens when you get old, when you have to do everything for yourself, when you and Adham graduate and split up?”

“Adham and I will never split up,” responded Rami automatically, with firmness.

“You may not think of it now, but only God knows what the future holds. Don’t you want children to take care of you in your old age?”

“I haven’t thought about it.” Actually, Rami had already thought about it and had rejected the idea, as it did not fit with his love for Adham.

“Besides, you were born because your father and your mother got married. It would be base ingratitude to them and to God not to get married. This is God’s way with his creatures. Every animal and even plants form pairs, male and female. I know, my brother, that you do not want to form illicit relationships with the opposite sex and that you are chaste and upright in your personal behavior. But God has made marriage lawful for us. Also, how can we form an Islamic society if we don’t raise Muslim children in Muslim families?”

Rami felt daunted, in fact crushed, by this quantity of arguments, though he had heard it all before. Actually, he had taken notice of, categorized, and memorized the arguments better than others because he felt so threatened by them. Some he could refute, others he could not, but even those he could disprove he felt pointed to a general truth: that marriage was a desirable state, especially in front of society. But he didn’t want it for himself; he hated the idea, or rather he couldn’t entertain it at all. It especially bothered him that this now came from Wahid, whose coolness and sincerity he respected. He pleaded, “But I don’t have to think about that yet, do I? I can wait at least ten years before I have to think about it.”

Quoting an Islamic proverb, Wahid replied, “The best kind of righteousness is that done quickest.”

“Besides, I don’t see why absolutely everyone has to get married. The world has enough people already.”

“Well, the Prophet said, ‘Whoever can do it, let him get married. And he who cannot, let him fast in order to reduce his sexual desire.’ Some people may not be able to get married, out of poverty or whatever, but whoever can ought to get married. Surely you can’t argue with that as a general principle.”

“I guess I can’t,” answered Rami, defeated, his whole life with Adham reduced to ‘whatever.’ The beauty of his homosexual love for Adham he could not bring forth to counter Wahid’s arguments. He burned inside at the injustice of the world, but had to take these blows smiling.

Adham, on the other hand, was never bothered by these questions. Hadiya, his girl classmate with whom he was somewhat familiar and spent a little time joking and talking, questioned him one day on the campus, “Adham, aren’t you going to get married one of these days?”

“Who, me?” Adham answered. “I’m not thinking about it at the moment.”

“Then when might you think of it?” Hadiya persisted.

Many men would have been put off by such questioning, but Adham was unperturbed. “I don’t know. When the time is right, I’ll know what to do.” So he deflected questions, and had such an unserious, lighted-hearted mien that Hadiya could not tell what he meant thereby. This fit perfectly with the pattern of Egyptian males, who usually did not let on to anyone, often not even to their families, about their marriage plans until these were fairly certain. Nor was Adham especially concerned about his unmarried state, neither was he worried about the future. It wasn’t in his nature to worry about anything. He didn’t put people into categories of married or unmarried, homosexual or straight; he just took matters as they were and people as individuals. While Rami fretted about how they would continue to live together and how he could stand separation from Adham when they went into the army, Adham was fascinated by the great variety of people he met in life. Whereas Rami tried to concentrate on his scientific studies, Adham found people far more interesting and would have regretted not having specialized in a more people-oriented field than biology, if not for his doubt about the value of university education in general.

As a result, when the third year drew to a close, Rami once again scored somewhat higher than Adham in the final exams. But both were successful enough, and both looked forward to completing the fourth year and getting their degrees, which would make their families proud and which would also, they hoped, be their tickets to a better life.

The fourth year began smoothly. Both Rami and Adham were fully adjusted to the university life they had chosen and had little to complain about, because they had each other. Financially, Rami’s brother Kamal continued to support them; the expense was not more than room and board, as the tuition was almost free. They continued to make the trip back to Cairo frequently to visit their respective families. For such weekend visits, they would leave az-Zaqaziq on Thursday afternoon and return early on Saturday morning. During these visits, they usually saw little of each other, concentrating instead on their families who had been so generous to them. Rami would usually go visit Kamal in his shop, which was far from the family’s house. It was easier for Rami to visit Kamal in his shop than at home, for Kamal’s house lay even farther away from the family dwelling in a public housing project in a slummy newer suburb. Adham would not usually accompany Rami on such visits.

However, even in Cairo, Rami and Adham occasionally went out together. Thus they did one Friday afternoon in the month of November, that gray month of gloom in northern climes, but which in Cairo is crisp and pleasantly cool, not yet cold, when the air is cleaner than usual. Rami and Adham took a bus to the big square of al-‘Ataba. There they intended to take in a movie, for the films that came to az-Zaqaziq weren’t the best. Not that those in Cairo were necessarily excellent, but then Rami and Adham followed the popular taste: shoot-em-up Italian Westerns, slam-bang karate films from Hong Kong, or police or spy thrillers. They definitely didn’t care for romance on the screen, which they would heckle derisively, along with many others in the audience, who were mostly unmarried young males like themselves. But on this day, having arrived early, Rami and Adham walked around the square, crossing in defiance of the traffic signals and crosswalks, as did most people when the police weren’t looking or giving jaywalking tickets. It was then that something happened.

On the Friday holiday, the traffic was lighter than on the other days of the week. That did not make the street safer, though, but rather more dangerous, for the cars can move faster in light traffic, and Cairene drivers usually go as fast as they can. Thus it was that one of Cairo’s notorious little Fiat taxicabs, tearing through the square full tilt, then swerving to avoid another vehicle, hit Adham from behind and threw him at least thirty feet. Rami was caught completely off guard: one second Adham was there walking next to him, the next second he was lying unmoving on the asphalt ahead. Rami ran to him in breathless panic; a crowd gathered in a second. Adham was lying face down. Rami kneeled to bend over him as strangers crowded in a circle around them and peered down. “Adham!” he cried, “Adham! Are you okay?” Adham did not move. “Adham!” Now, in moment of need, Rami did not know what to do.

It was one of the men in the crowd who stooped over Adham to see if he was still breathing. “He’s alive. Your friend’s alive. He’s still breathing.”

Rami bent over Adham to see for himself and found Adham was still breathing. But oozing blood now ringed Adham’s head in a small puddle. Just then, the crowd parted as several new faces came forward holding a paunchy middle-aged man with a big mustache by the neck and arms. The man looked terrified. “We’ve caught the driver for you! Shall we beat him up?” they asked Rami.

“No, don’t do that!” said Rami, unable for some reason to think of vengeance in such a moment of tragedy.

Even so, the crowd, enraged, shook the man, shouting, “Look at the work of your hands!” Others, less charitably, said, “Kill him! Kill the bastard! We’ll teach you to run over innocent people like that!” Thus Egyptians always took the side of the injured pedestrian regardless of who was at fault, and in this case the driver was in fact at fault. Outside of Cairo, it was said, the driver might well be beaten to death, to the extent that the Egyptian police advised drivers who struck people not to stop but instead to go to the nearest police station and turn themselves in.

Clearly, Adham had to be moved. The man holding the driver by the neck then said to him, “Well, the least you can do is take him to the hospital. Now!”

The driver, too terrified to speak, nodded hastily in assent.

“Well, bring the car up then. But don’t hit him again.”

Rami had lost interest in this drama as his head began to swirl and he felt himself going faint. But he had to keep awake, for Adham’s sake. Rami stayed close to Adham, kneeling over him. Adham did not move.

The driver brought the taxi as close as he dared. “Let’s move him! Careful now!” shouted the men close at hand as they started to pick Adham up.

Rami said, “Better turn him over first. Slowly!” This they did. Then Rami cradled Adham’s limp upper body, taking special care to hold his head so that his neck would not get bent, and carried him to the open rear door of the taxi. Tears welled in Rami’s eyes as he saw how Adham’s beautiful face was now a torn and bloody mess, with a deep gash in his forehead, his eyes open but glazed over. It was difficult with all the help to get Adham into the taxi. Rami laid his head in first. Then the crowd pushed to shove the body into the car. Rami told them to stop, then, letting the others hold up the body, ran around to the other side of the car to pull him in by the shoulders as gently as he could manage. The taxi seat was too short for Adham to lie stretched out, so his legs were folded up and the rear doors closed. Then Rami got into the front seat with the driver.

Rami had no idea where to go now. He should have known where the nearest hospital was; in fact, he did know, but his head was swimming. The driver beside him, still thoroughly frightened, began to babble, “Please, sir, I’m sorry. I’ve got six children at home. I’m only trying to make an honest living. Please, we hardly have enough bread to eat. Take pity on us, sir. At least take pity on my family. Please, sir, I’ll make it up to you. Please, sir....”

“Look, right now all I care about is we get my friend to the hospital. Take us to the nearest hospital before he dies! If he dies, you know what will be on your head then!”

The driver gulped and started the car.

“What is the nearest hospital?” Rami asked.

“Gumhuriyya Hospital, sir. I’ll get you there as fast as I can.”

“No more need for fast tonight, sir,” Rami answered sarcastically. “Just get him there safely. Don’t let him fall off the seat.”

Rami glanced back. Adham still did not move. Blood oozed from his wounds onto the taxi’s seat as the taxi bounced over the chuckholes in the asphalt.

They passed through the gates of Gumhuriyya Hospital not five minutes later. These opened on a vast interior courtyard in which stood the hospital building itself. Rami immediately jumped out of the car and ran in the main entrance.

Inside, he found a concierge sitting behind a desk. “My friend’s been hit by a car. He’s bleeding to death.” Rami hoped this was an exaggeration but thought it would get him better service.

“Take him to emergency, around to the side.”

Rami ran back out and directed the driver around to the emergency room. Running up the steps there, he found several nurses and orderlies standing around inside. “My friend’s been hit by a car and badly hurt. He’s bleeding to death.”

One of the orderlies turned to face Rami and asked, “Where is he?”

“Outside in a cab.”

The orderly sauntered slowly outside with Rami, as if there was no hurry, and looked through the window at Adham. “We’d better move him on a stretcher,” the orderly said

“Yes, that will be better.”

Rami followed the orderly inside once more to make sure he would actually come back out. When they reemerged, three orderlies carefully put Adham on a stretcher and carried him inside. Rami remained to settle accounts with the driver, whom he had no intention of letting go, since Adham might die.

“Your friend will be all right, God willing....” intoned the driver.

“No thanks to you. Look, let’s go to the police station now to file a report.”

“No need for that, sir. Please, sir. Your friend will be all right.”

“My friend isn’t all right. You hurt him. You almost killed him. Maybe you have killed him, God forbid.”

“No, no. You’ll see. We got him here in time.”

“No thanks to you.” As the initial shock wore off, Rami remembered that he had to go to Adham now; he couldn’t stay with the driver. He had only mentioned the police to frighten the man. “Well, I want your name, address, phone number where I can reach you, your driver’s license number, and your car license number. And I am going to file a report.”

“No need for that if everything turns out okay.”

“Every need for that, especially if things don’t turn out okay. Just write down those things for me now anyway, or else we go straight to the police.” The man hardly knew how to write, whether from nervous fear or illiteracy. Rami took down all the information himself, copying from the man’s documents, thinking in any case he could not of course trust him to tell the truth. Then the taxi driver drove off as fast as he could, while Rami watched, thinking, if Adham dies, I’ll come kill you myself, you bastard! Rami then turned to face the hospital, the beginning of what he realized would be a great ordeal, but one with whose burden he could cope because it was service to Adham.

Back inside, it took a few minutes to figure out where they had taken him. Rami found him lying on a hard, raised bed on one side of a small room with a middle-aged nurse hovering over him, cleaning up his face with alcohol. She hardly glanced at Rami. “You his brother?” she inquired.

“Yes. Is he going to be all right?”

“You better ask the doctor,” she said rather officiously. “He took a pretty hard knock on the head.”

“Where is the doctor then?”

“Oh, he’ll be in by-and-by.”

Rami leaned on the bed, stationing himself at Adham’s feet in order to stay as close as possible without annoying the nurse. Blood continued to ooze slowly from Adham’s wounds, particularly the large gash on his forehead. Rami only stared at Adham’s face in a daze, unable to think. But Adham now started to twitch, then to shake, and then groaned incoherently. Rami interpreted this hopefully as a sign that he would be all right.

When the doctor came in, he told Rami to wait outside. Then they brought up a wheeled cart, to which Adham was transferred, and took him away to another place. Rami paced the corridor to await news. Glancing at the clock above the nurses’s station, he realized that it was still early, for only a matter of minutes had elapsed since the accident, and they had never seen their movie; therefore, he did not need to worry about their families worrying about them yet. There would be plenty of time for them to worry later.

Eons seemed to pass and nothing happened. Rami grew impatient and queried the passing nurses and orderlies, but they only told him he’d have to wait. Minute followed minute like a slow dripping of water from a tap. Trying to divert himself, Rami looked out the windows into the courtyard on the western side of the corridor, where the westering sun was already low on the horizon. The courtyard contained a garden shaded by big trees that had not shed their leaves because of Egypt’s mild climate. Like everything else in the public sector in Egypt, the garden looked ill-tended and frumpy. Turning his eyes back to the corridor inside, Rami beheld walls of the same ubiquitous yellow whitewash that one saw everywhere else in Egypt as well. Rami’s eyes ran along the cracks in the whitewash upward toward the ceiling, as if he was exploring to find the source of a river by ascending its major tributaries. Then he ran his eyes back down the cracks to the floor. There was nothing else to be done.

Finally, the same doctor who had taken him came down the hall to talk to Rami. “Doctor, is he all right?”

“Your brother has severe head injuries. I’m afraid it’s a skull fracture.”

“Yes, but will he be all right?”

“Well, first of all, he’ll live. His life is not in danger. But with a skull fracture, it’s hard to tell if there aren’t also brain injuries.”

“Brain injuries! Are you sure? What does that mean?”

“Yes, well, we have to wait and see how he is when he fully recovers consciousness.”

“Yes, but what are the possibilities?”

“Let’s just wait and see. There’s a good chance he’ll recover fully, God willing. Oh, and he has some other minor injuries as well. He has a broken arm and leg. But these will heal fully, with God’s permission.”

At this Rami burst out sobbing, each new injury and danger hitting him like a body blow. The doctor put his arm around Rami’s shoulders to comfort him. “Say, uh, what’s your good name?”

“Rami.”

“Look, Rami, it could have been much worse. They said you brought him yourself in a taxi. You shouldn’t have moved him unless you were sure he didn’t have a spinal fracture. You could have paralyzed him for life. Luckily, he has no spinal fracture, so it worked out as well as could be expected. You have to be thankful to God for your friend’s life being spared. He’ll be all right, God willing. Let’s pray to God for his full recovery.”

The doctor’s words, laced as they were with an attack on Rami’s rescue of Adham, stanched Rami’s tears. “I had to bring him. I had to save him. What if he’d died?” At this Rami’s tears welled up once more. When he had regained control, he asked, “Can I see him now?”

“Better not yet. He’s resting under medication now.”

Rami decided to go now to tell Adham’s family the bad news. He hated to leave Adham there alone, but there were no telephones in their families’s homes, so there was only one way of bringing the news to them: in person. But he wanted to hurry, in order to come right back to the hospital. Also, Rami felt he had to go now because he couldn’t stand more waiting, waiting that would last a still undetermined time and would seem interminable. By going to spread out the burden, he would also keep himself occupied. Therefore, he hailed a taxi outside to get him home post haste. Once inside the hara, he ran right up the stairs to Adham’s door, which Adham’s fifteen-year-old brother Usama opened. “Quick, Usama, Adham’s been in an accident. He’s in Gumhuriyya Hospital, second floor.”

After the appropriate pandemonium and some shrieking of the women caused by this announcement, Adham’s father appeared. “What happened, Rami?” he asked.

“It was one of those damn little taxis hit him. I took him to Gumhuriyya Hospital. They’re not allowing visitors because he’s resting. He’ll be okay; he’s just shook up. I’m going right back there now.”

“We’ll go too.”

“Okay, Abu Khamis, let’s meet downstairs in ten minutes. I’ve got to go home first to get some things.”

With this, Rami went back to his own house to pack up the few things he would need for his vigil, which he rolled up in a blanket. His own family, also shocked at the news, understood immediately that Rami would go back to be with his friend. Rami raced down the stairs to meet Adham’s family. Adham’s father and mother appeared along with his little brothers Usama and Lutfi. Khamis was not home. Once they emerged from the hara into the main street, Rami hailed a taxi for them, and they all piled in, Lutfi sitting in Usama’s lap. All sat silent in the taxi, no one saying a word, but when they reached the hospital and found neither doctor nor news, Adham’s father and mother both beset Rami with questions. How did it happen? How could it have happened? Would he be all right? Why couldn’t they see him now? Just how hurt was he?

Rami could hardly speak at all, as the questions immediately brought back the horror of the accident and its bloody result. He answered the questions as best he could, diplomatically trying to minimize Adham’s injuries by being vague. As it was normal to do this, the fears of Adham’s family were not allayed in the least, and they continued to pace anxiously in the corridor while Rami went off to look for the doctor, thus escaping from their questioning. Rami wondered if Adham’s parents wouldn’t somehow blame him for the accident. He had hardly yet had time to feel guilty that he was safe while his friend had been badly injured, but he wondered if he hadn’t been hasty in summoning them so fast. In any event, they would have had to know soon enough.

Rami found the doctor and brought him back to Adham’s waiting family. Unfortunately, he still had little to say, as Adham was said to be still resting and not to be disturbed. This greatly increased everyone’s anxiety, and the whole group paced about silently. It seemed like hours had passed before the doctor at last reappeared and conducted them to Adham.

The narrow room had four beds, all of them occupied. Adham was lying contorted under a sheet on a bed by the window, moaning feebly from the pain he felt despite the pain killers he’d been given. Above his left eye, his forehead still bore the marks of an enormous cut now sutered up, while his head was swathed in bandages, and his broken arm and leg immobilized in plaster casts. Adham opened his eyes to stare tiredly at the faces of his expectant family. “Mama!” he moaned as his mother leant over him to inspect the damage more closely, her eyes brimming with tears. He looked horrible, but at least he was living. Neither Rami nor the doctor had mentioned anything to his family about possible brain damage, and he was conscious, so the situation wasn’t as bad as might have been expected. But Adham’s painful moaning shook the nerves of all, even his father, who, however, did not cry. Rami had already shed many tears, and now regarded Adham fearfully, wondering if he would ever get back to normal again. May the Changer of fortunes be glorified! thought Rami. Only hours ago he was fine, and now this! And what after this? After Abu Khamis had had his look at his son, Rami drew close. Adham looked blankly at him, evincing no recognition.

“Adham, it’s me, Rami. You’re going to be all right. We’ll stay with you. I won’t leave your side until you’re well.”

Adham only uttered a moan and closed his eyes, wincing from the pain. Rami felt hurt that Adham did not appear to recognize him, although he seemed to know his parents. Rami then moved aside so that Usama and Lutfi could approach their stricken brother, but the latter evinced no consciousness of their presence either.

The doctor entered, making his rounds. As it was now quite late, he suggested that the family go home; after all, Adham needed rest above all, and they could do nothing for him. This suggestion led to argument among the visitors, each one vowing to spend the night at Adham’s side. But Abu Khamis said, “We can’t all stay here tonight.” Rami insisted on staying by Adham’s side, permitting Adham’s family to go home, as they trusted Rami to keep vigil over his friend. Rami, after all, was like a member of their family. After they had left, Rami sat in the sole chair, a small, armless one with a low metal back. It was not possible to sleep in that chair, so he unrolled the blanket he had brought from home and spread it out in order to lie on the floor to rest and perchance to sleep. By then it was one o’clock in the morning. Rami mulled the day’s events over and over in his head. How could this have happened? He felt warm to be near Adham, being there for him, should Adham need him, but he remained rather agitated that things had changed so dramatically, suddenly, and unexpectedly. It was a long while before he finally drifted off into a fitful and insufficient sleep.

When Rami awoke in the early morning, he found Adham groaning in bed. Eventually, as Adham’s family came back to visit him, Adham regained consciousness and began to speak. The doctor came in to make the point that he should keep quiet, not move around, and especially not thrash his injured parts about, which would not help the wounds to heal. Nevertheless, the doctor reassured all that the prognosis was good, that the skull fracture would heal itself, and that fortunately there were no brain injuries. He also urged those present not to tire Adham out with too much conversation. Although their classes were resuming the following day, Rami vowed to stay by Adham’s side as long as he was in the hospital. But Adham himself disagreed, saying in a quiet and broken voice, “Rami, you have to go back to az-Zaqaziq.”

“What?” replied Rami. “My place is here with you. I’m not moving.” Rami didn’t care that this conversation was happening in front of Adham’s parents.

But Adham was firm. “Rimaya, you have to go. Please don’t make me angry. Go back and study.” At this, Adham moaned from the pain.

Rami was incredulous. “Dahhuma, it won’t matter if I miss a few classes. I have to be here for you. I’m not going anywhere.” Rami’s eyes began to tear up.

Adham was still adamant. “Please, Rami, just go.”

“No!”

“Go!” Adham huffed, with considerable effort.

The doctor then intervened. “Rami, it would be better for Adham if you don’t stay around all the time. Your presence isn’t necessary. We can already see from the diagnosis that he will be all right, even though he has some recovery period ahead of him. In fact, he may need your help more in the future while he is convalescing, so you shouldn’t exhaust yourself now. And he will get plenty of good care here. His parents are here, and he needs quiet now. Don’t agitate him.”

“See, old friend,” Adham continued. “I’ll be all right. You can see me next week. Go back to az-Zaqaziq. Please.” Adham drew out this last word slowly, and Rami knew he was defeated, because he could not refuse Adham’s plaintive request. Embarrassed and almost in tears, he withdrew from the room slowly, turned, and fled.

So, after going back to his own parents’ apartment to inform them of what was going on, Rami took the bus back to az-Zaqaziq alone, something he had never done before, not even once. He was exhausted by the whole episode, broken hearted at his friend’s suffering and injuries, but most of all profoundly shocked at being so violently sundered from Adham, his other self. Also, he reeled from Adham’s brusque dismissal of him, even though he knew that Adham was only caring for his interest, so that he would not fall behind in school. Still, this only added to his loneliness. He tried to console himself with the idea that, thank God, Adham had survived and would be all right, and then they could be together again as before. This way, he almost banished depression from his head, until he entered Umm Karim’s apartment. She cheerily greeted him, observing, “You’re getting in late. And where’s Adham?”

Rami carefully composed himself to explain, speaking slowly and frequently halting when it seemed his voice would crack with sorrow. He briefly described the accident and the hospitalization, realizing that he would have to repeat the same story frequently to people here in the next day or two. Then he excused himself, went to his and Adham’s room, and closed himself in, locking the door behind him. Now the loneliness struck him as if someone had hit him in his stomach; he felt acute pain welling upward from there to his throat, and he collapsed face down on his bed, burying his face in the pillow to muffle his loud sobbing until he cried himself to sleep.

Next morning, Rami was somewhat better, despite the strangeness of the situation. He gathered his books and went to the university, where he found Wahid, who greeted him eagerly. Although Rami smiled back at his friend, the wanness of his expression and his tired look alerted Wahid to ask what had happened, and it all came pouring out now in more detail than Umm Karim had heard. Wahid commiserated with Rami and then suggested they study, saying that that should help him to feel better, by getting his mind off of the accident. So passed Sunday, but Monday dragged on slowly for Rami, who was constantly thinking about Adham and wondering how he was. He had no means of calling Adham at the hospital, of course, nor of talking to his family. Thus Rami resolved to return to Cairo the next day and told Wahid of his plan. Wahid, sympathetic and supportive, assured Rami that he would inform him of any developments in their shared classes so that Rami would not fall behind in his courses.

As Rami sat on the bus going to Cairo Tuesday morning, he reflected that, while nothing had happened that threatened his bond with Adham, the situation still showed that the world might conspire against them. He thought, What if Adham had died? This thought brought tears to his eyes, so that he turned his head to look out the window lest the other passengers notice his weakness. Try as he might, Rami found it impossible to stop thinking about Adham. He didn’t care or even think about whether his obsession was “normal” or not; he simply couldn’t think about other matters when so much was at stake.

Once he arrived in Cairo, Rami proceeded directly to the hospital, imagining correctly that Adham would still be there. Adham evinced no surprise that Rami had come but acted as if he had been expecting him. Although Rami still pleaded with Adham to let him stay by his side, Adham said no, and Rami began to get used to going back to al-Zaqaziq without Adham. But he spent as much time with him as possible when he came back to Cairo every weekend.

Adham’s condition improved slowly. After a week in the hospital, he was discharged and went back to his parents’ apartment in the hara. He remained subject to headaches for some time and looked quite odd with his head bandaged and his arm and leg in plaster casts. It was quite a task even for him to go to the bathroom, and Rami helped him to do that when he was present. As Adham was thus somewhat immobilized, Rami took the opportunity to describe for him the details of the accident as he remembered them. Though he remembered their attempt to go see a movie in al-‘Ataba, Adham couldn’t at all remember being hit or anything else until he woke up in the hospital the following morning. Besides talking about the accident, Rami also would study with Adham during his weekend visits in the hope that Adham would not fall too far behind. In al-Zaqaziq, Rami also continued to study with Wahid, whose companionship was a poor substitute for Adham’s but was better than nothing.

After a couple more months, the day came when Adham went back to al-Zaqaziq with Rami. Adham was now more or less recovered and could walk again, although with somewhat of a limp. But he looked gaunt and thin, having lost weight during his ordeal. Rami took it upon himself to bring him back to full health. Soon the pair were able to resume their previous life to a great extent. But Rami realized that Adham had changed. He wasn’t so cheerful and carefree as before. When Rami asked in the privacy of their room what was the matter, Adham said, “Rimaya, love, I saw death. I didn’t think I was going to make it. It was too much.”

“Yes, but I’m back with you now.”

Adham squeezed Rami in a hug of acknowledgement. “Yes, we are. Thanks. Thank God for that. But it made life seem so …. temporary and fragile.”

Rami found this strange. Nothing new had been learnt. He had always been the worrier of the two, and now it seemed Adham was coming around to that view too. He did not know if he liked it. He said, “But Dahhuma, you don’t really remember the accident, do you? I mean, you were out cold, and when you came to, you knew right away that you would be all right. Remember, you told me not to worry and to go away.”

“True, Rimaya, but I wasn’t really sure I would get better. I just didn’t want you to worry. I really hurt and they never tell you anything straight in a hospital. But it was more being a cripple who couldn’t even take care of himself for all those weeks. I mean, that was sudden, just to be wiped out like that. And from what you described about the accident itself, I got so close to dying. I dunno.”

So, Adham now started to take his studies more seriously and began to perform better. As the summer and graduation approached, Rami continued to fret about what they would do after they were done, a problem that had been on his mind from the beginning but now became more acute, even without the accident. They would have to go back to Cairo, for one thing; no more living together alone as they had now for almost four years. They would both be drafted into the army, too, and they could hardly count on staying together during the year of active service which that entailed; rather, they would almost certainly be separated. Then they would have to seek work after that, perhaps in the government. Rami had long known it might be difficult to stay together. But he suggested that they might, perhaps, find work together in one of the Arabian oil countries, which had lots of expatriate workers in them in all fields. There, they could possibly continue the experience of living in al-Zaqaziq in some form, even though it might not be easy. Adham’s typical reaction to this was, “We’ll see what the future brings. God willing, we’ll manage something or other. Even if we can’t live together like here in al-Zaqaziq, we can at least be near each other, surely.” He preferred to take life as it came, one day at a time.

During this their last year, they continued to commute back to Cairo on weekends as before, but they didn’t try to go to any more movies in al-‘Ataba. They still devoted most of their time in Cairo to their own families. Thus, Rami scarcely noticed one Friday afternoon in the late spring when Adham went with his mother to visit his aunt Zaynab, who had an only child, a daughter named Safa’. Zaynab’s husband, Muhammad ‘Abd al-Khaliq, was rather well-to-do from the point of view of Rami’s and Adham’s families, living in a somewhat more upscale part of the center of the city by the ‘Abidin Palace, near which he carried on his successful furniture-making business. It was fairly rare for Adham to visit this aunt of his, but it did happen from time to time, and Egyptians were always visiting their relatives. Rami himself visited various of his own relatives too sometimes on the weekends at home.

The following day, Rami and Adham went back to al-Zaqaziq. Although Adham didn’t say anything new, Rami sensed that something was up. They were hardly inside the door in their room when Adham began, “Rimaya, we need to talk.”

“OK,” said Rami, sitting down on his bed.

“Rami, you are always talking about the future. I agree that we need to plan for it. We’ve always been completely honest with each other, so I don’t want to hold anything back.” Adham took a deep breath to launch into the subject. “Rimaya, we need to get married. That will be a protection for us before the world. As you know, my sister Habiba likes you, and I would like you to marry her. Then we can be even closer, and in front of the world!” Saying this, Adham smiled pleasantly, trying to convey satisfaction. Adham’s sister was two years younger than Rami, quite beautiful like Adham, and ready for marriage. Rami had known already that Habiba liked him, but had always scoffed at her interest, which he of course did not share. What was unexpected and shocking was that Adham was going along with this. Adham then went on further, “My mother has already talked to your mother, but she held back from talking to you about it yet because I wanted to tell you first.”

“Thank you,” said Rami quietly, unable to think straight as the shock hit him and began to sink in, but thankful that this hadn’t been sprung on him in front of his whole family.

Then Adham moved on to the harder part. “As for me, my family want me to marry my cousin Safa’, my aunt Zaynab’s daughter, and I’ve agreed to do it.” Adham then waited for a response from Rami, whom he realized, because he knew him so well, couldn’t possibly be pleased or content at this news, but he hoped Rami would learn to live with it, because he saw this as the only way for them after graduation. Even though getting married would be a long process, he wanted to get it started.

Rami looked at Adham coldly without saying anything as he tried to digest this double jolt, which hit him like a punch in the gut. On the surface, it was an honor for Rami that Adham should offer him his sister to marry, but Rami rejected the idea as soon as he heard it, and was greatly displeased at the thought of the pressure from his family to accept the plan that he would have to endure. But the idea that Adham marry his cousin, and that Adham had just declared in front of Rami that he had accepted the idea, that was the real shock. Even worse, Adham had agreed to this plan without even consulting Rami! How could this be possible? Rami was stunned.

Had Rami and Adham had a normal friendship, Rami should have offered some congratulation to Adham, even if he didn’t like Adham’s choice, but, according to how he really felt, Rami made no such move, nor did he smile. He could not yet conceive of what it might mean. Adham had never once seriously mentioned the possibility that he might get married before, and now here he was declaring his intention to marry a specific girl and, furthermore, a relative, an entanglement which, once begun, would be adhesive and difficult to get out of. However, Rami was confused. Adham had been Rami’s whole life since childhood. He just couldn’t believe that his Adham would simply turn on him. As Adham had offered Rami his sister, Rami knew that Adham still meant for each of them to have an important role in the other’s life and to be near each other, but he couldn’t conceive of how that could work. He felt a stone growing in weight in his stomach and gradually rising to weigh down his chest as well. Finally, after an interval of many minutes of complete silence, Rami said quietly, almost inaudibly, in a voice laced with sadness, “Why do you think we should get married, Adham? I thought we weren’t going to do that.”

Adham was happy that Rami was at least giving him a chance to explain the plans. “I know what you may think, Rimaya, that our having wives will take us away from each other. But it doesn’t have to. I’ll still love you just the same as before. After we graduate, we aren’t going to be living together anymore anyway, for a while, at least. But we can still be together as often as possible.” Being together here meant having sex, of course. “And we can still see about going to the Arab countries, maybe to Saudi Arabia. Then we could live together over there while our wives stay in Egypt.” Adham seemed to have it all planned out.

“But you still haven’t answered my question, Adham. Why would we want to get married? Whose idea was that? Was it your idea to do that? Aren’t we enough for each other? Aren’t I enough for you? And shouldn’t you have at least told me what was going on?”

Adham smiled his pleasant, cheerful smile, concealing underneath the nervousness he felt in dealing with this subject with Rami. “Rimaya, my family want me to do it, my mother and my aunt discussed it, agreed on it, and suggested it to me.” Adham didn’t mention that the thought of marrying Safa’ had occurred to him by himself before also, but he hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, so it was not really the motivating reason here, and he did not believe he was deceiving Rami by avoiding mention of it. Adham continued, “When they sprang it on me, I had to agree.” Rami did not see at all how this could have been. Why didn’t Adham protest, or at least delay accepting?

Undaunted, Adham continued, “Also, it really is quite a good opportunity. Safa’ is my cousin, and her mother wants her to marry in the family. I am the choice because I am a university graduate, or rather soon will be, God willing, and no one else is. With her father’s money, I can make a business…”

“So that’s it, Dahhuma? That’s all there is? You want to get married to get rich? Maybe we should have let those Germans in Alexandria you wanted us to go with have their way with us, huh? That would have made us a lot of money,” Rami sneered, starting to get annoyed and feeling his temperature rising.

Adham ignored this, trying to remain the voice of calm. “Well, Rami, what should we do then otherwise? Live openly as lovers here?! You’ve already said yourself that that won’t work. Marriage is the way of life here, and marriage will be a protection for us to carry on as we like. I have to get married, and you have to get married too. And what could be better than that you marry Habiba?”

Rami knew that now was not the time to hold back. “Adham, I am not going to marry Habiba!” he said firmly. What a ridiculous idea, he thought to himself. Curiously, Adham did nothing further to try to persuade Rami to marry his sister. Probably that is just because he knows I will never agree to that, thought Rami. They had, after all, mentioned Habiba’s crush on Rami before between themselves, although always jokingly.

Now, Adham turned to the problem of what Rami’s refusal would mean. “Well, Rimaya, how are we going to explain your refusal to marry Habiba to my family, and yours.”

“Dahhuma, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” said Rami coldly. “And I don’t see any problem in saying the truth. I’ll do it for you if you want.” Actually, Rami was scared and daunted by the problem of explaining himself to his family, and especially to his mother, who no doubt now had her heart set on the proposed match that could never happen, not to mention Adham’s family. But he wanted to show Adham that he was completely firm in his refusal of Habiba, and would by no means reconsider.

But Adham still did not want to give up on persuading Rami of the necessity of getting married, which would make Adham marrying Safa’ so much easier for Rami to accept. Therefore, Adham went on, “If you don’t want Habiba, maybe you could marry Ulfat,” referring to that girl classmate who had shown interest in Rami and was also quite good looking. Adham smirked cutely as if he was trying to make a joke, or at least be light-hearted, but Rami remained stony-faced. Adham added, “And I will still love you just the same.”

“So you want us to marry women and not love them? What would Safa’ think about that, huh? And what about her mother, or your mother for that matter? How do you think they would react if they knew the whole truth about you?” Rami did not mean, of course, to threaten Adham with exposure by this, and Adham knew that, so he remained outwardly calm. Rami rather meant to remind Adham that he too was a lover of a man, Rami.

“Rami, my dear, maybe love comes after marriage. People always say that. Who marries for love anyway, after all? You may not think it now, but maybe you could come to love a woman too in some way. Besides, love of woman is not like love of man. She would never be like you for me. You should know that! Come on, Rami, you should be happy for me getting married.” Adham tried to smile.

Oh, please! thought Rami. Indeed. “Adham, this is just extra baggage. This isn’t going to help us at all. This is certainly going to take you away from me.” Rami meant by this that it would take away a bigger piece of Adham’s time with him, not that it would take him away completely.

Adham answered calmly, “Rimaya, my dear, of course this won’t take me away from you any more than the other circumstances that we can’t do anything about take me away from you anyway. After all, life won’t let us be together every minute. Besides, I will still be there for you. And we don’t need to be together all the time anyway, right? I mean, what counts is that I am there for you with love in my heart, not physically next to you every second.”

Rami did not like the way this was going. “Adham, of course it matters. This means you would be spending your nights with a woman. How can that do us any good? We won’t be able to get together that much anymore.”

“Rami, love, we’ll find a way. We can work on going to Saudi Arabia.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it.”

“OK, what do you want, then? That I give up this marriage plan, which is a good one, and any other that ever comes along?”

“Yes,” declared Rami with great frankness. “Yes. You’ve never once talked about getting married before. This is a new idea. I thought the two of us were married to each other. You said so.”

“Yes, Rami, what is between us is the true marriage. But that never will be accepted here by our society and our families. Be practical. This is Egypt, the land of family, remember? Two men living together: I can just see a picture of that.” Adham rolled his big brown eyes in derision.

“Well, aren’t we two men, and haven’t we been living together?”

“Yes, but that is temporary, and that is only because we are young students. Now, that time is almost over. We can’t stay at Umm Karim’s anymore. We can’t continue to live in al-Zaqaziq; we have no further business here after graduation. How would we live together in Cairo? Tell me that, huh? Rimaya, my love, we have got to move on to the next stage. We can still love each other and keep our friendship. And we’ve been pretty clever about our activities, so I imagine we’ll find ways to keep those going too. I still love you, Rimaya. Tell me you love me.”

Rami felt absolutely crushed by this turn of events and by the torrent of arguments pouring apace from Adham’s mouth. “I love you,” he intoned softly, scarcely audibly, in a voice of resignation and detachment. But then he added with more fervor, “Dahhuma, please don’t do this.”

Adham replied in a calm, even voice, “Rimaya, I am going to marry Safa’, and that is that. It’s my destiny.”

“Adham, you’re breaking my heart.”

“Don’t talk like that, Rami, love. You’ll just make things worse. You’re going to hurt me.” Tears started to well in Adham’s eyes. As if advising himself, sniffling, he continued, “Buck up. I know that this situation isn’t perfect and maybe isn’t what we would want in a world of our own. But we have to deal with the world we’re in, and in that world, a man marries a woman, and that’s that.”

“For my sake, I’m asking you not to do this, Adham,” pleaded Rami again, in a last attempt to preserve things as they had been. But that he had little confidence that he could turn Adham’s resolve showed in the cold, grim expression that marred his beautiful face.

“I’m sorry. I can’t change it. I’ve already promised,” Adham pleaded back weakly. Weak or not, Adham’s resolve was fixed. It was a splendid opportunity to marry an only child, in effect a kind of heiress, and Adham liked her and found her beautiful besides. Despite his relationship with Rami and his longstanding sincerity and monogamy in it, he could appreciate female beauty too, while Rami would not or could not, or almost could not.

Rami sighed and sank backwards to lie back on his bed, his head pressed between his hands, his feet still planted on the floor, and then let out a long, mournful howl of pain. He said nothing further because there was nothing further to be said. Funereal thoughts began to take possession of him. How could this possibly happen? he thought. It makes no sense. I thought I knew Adham and now he springs this on me. And he won’t back down, either. Adham, whom he thought he knew, was becoming a stranger.

Adham sat down next to Rami and tried to pull him up to hug him. Rami jerked away suddenly, shouting, “Don’t touch me!” Then he added, “I’ve got to think about this.” At that, he got up and went out of the room, heading downstairs to the street.

Away from their shared room, Rami’s misery burned and grew. Ignoring all of Adham’s well-crafted rationalizations and arguments, Rami felt as if he had been clubbed on the head with a complete and total rejection. His anger at Adham mounted as he recalled all of Adham’s fine promises of everlasting devotion, such as their night under the stars six years before. How could Adham desert him? Adham had said, Oh, we’ll still be together. Sure. But not for much of the time. Yes, Rami knew that the world would never like two men living together, especially as they got older when they should be married, but he thought they could come up with something. Now Adham had just glibly precluded all such possibilities. And now Adham wants to be with a woman. Yuck! thought Rami, conjuring up the revolting picture. Rami did not really know Adham’s intended, Safa’, though he had seen her a couple of times visiting the hara. At the time, Rami had not paid her any attention. He could not recall that she was really quite pretty; had he remembered that, he would have been even more annoyed and perturbed. But the idea of Adham, his Adham, going with anybody else was just intolerable, and that at bottom was Rami’s position: total rejection.

So what to do now? Rami thought, as he wandered aimlessly in the rustic quarter in which they lived, stepping carefully to avoid obstacles in the dirt street as well as people and animals going in various directions. He would have to continue living with Adham until the exams, still a couple of months away. He would have to be sufficiently cooperative and civil with him so that life would be possible, even though he wasn’t sure whether or not he could do that. He would have to maintain outside appearances with people whom they knew. He would have to continue to study for the final exams of the fourth year. Rami didn’t like a single one of these necessary behaviors; in each case, he would rather do the opposite. And he did not really know if or for how long he could live in such a situation, but he vowed to steel himself to it, in the hope that Adham would come to his senses. After all, hadn’t they been friends since childhood and lovers for years? Hadn’t Adham always been sincere to him before, even giving into Rami’s wishes quite often? Why shouldn’t they just continue now as they had been doing? But then the fact of Adham’s clearly and honestly stated intention to marry Safa’ floated to the surface of Rami’s consciousness, and his heart sank at this reflection.

As the days passed slowly, though he tried hard, Rami’s plans to remain calm and reasonable were overwhelmed by his coursing emotions which did not permit him to treat Adham very nicely. For his part, Adham told him rather provocatively, “You will come around to my point of view. You will attend the engagement party and be happy for me.”

For his part, Rami would ask Adham, “Have you come around to my view yet?” Adham would always reply in the negative, “Not yet,” with a friendly smirk that Rami now found supercilious, patronizing, and belittling. Otherwise, they did not have much conversation, and Rami refused to have any sex, feeling so displeased with Adham as he was. Rami took to staying away from their room for longer periods, even staying with Wahid in his dormitory a couple of times.

Meanwhile, Rami had to deal with his own proposed marriage on their very next trip to Cairo the following weekend. Soon after he reached the family home and was alone with his mother, she asked, “Did Adham talk to you about something?”

This was Rami’s cue: She could only be referring to one thing. “Yes, Mama,” he said, “He did.” Rami then cut straight to the point, “Mama, I am not going to marry Habiba. I can’t do it. I don’t love her.”

“Yes, but she is Adham’s sister. Don’t you want to marry Adham’s sister? Surely you’d like to marry your best friend’s sister. And love can come later. Besides, why shouldn’t you love her? She’s like a part of Adham.”

Rami sighed slightly. “Mama, I haven’t even graduated yet. I have nothing. We don’t have any apartment for me to get married in. I would have to save up a lot of money first.”

“Well, there may be a way. We can help you out, and Kamal can help you out. He’s already agreed.” It seemed everyone kept trying to present Rami with decisions they had already made without consulting him at all. Everyone was being ever so helpful.

“Mama, I won’t do it. Ever. That’s that. I can’t. I’m sorry. I hate to mess up the plans you have all made.” Actually, he was glad he had left this little shred of control over his life, the power of refusal. “But I can’t and I won’t marry Habiba.”

“She likes you, you know.”

“Yes, I know that. But it doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, but what about Adham? Doesn’t he want you to marry his sister? He’s your best friend. How can you turn him down? Don’t you think he’ll be hurt?”

I hope so! thought Rami vengefully. The whole thing was just Adham’s plot, or at any rate Adham had a hand in it.

“And besides, don’t you usually go along with him? How can you oppose him in something so important?”

“Well, I’m not going along on this. Sorry.” In different circumstances, Rami might have gone along with it. It would be the course of least resistance. Everyone was expecting him to get married eventually, and, since Habiba wanted him, it seemed like a perfect match. It was true that Khamis was married to Rami’s sister, so the ties between the two families would be doubled, but that was not so unusual and might even be advantageous. But Rami was completely unable to entertain the idea. He didn’t want to get married at all and didn’t want to live with a woman. He had had plenty of time to think about the subject at the university, where several young women had crushes on him, and he had rejected it firmly and utterly. Now the irony was that Adham wanted to get married and wanted him to get married too, and to his sister no less, but Rami rejected all of this, despite his lack of any alternative vision of the future. What Adham said was right, of course: Two men simply could not live out their lives as a couple in Egypt, and if they tried to do so, they would attract more hostile attention than Rami could even imagine. Even so, Rami could imagine a lot of dislike for such a course, starting with his family and continuing with everyone else he knew. Now that Adham had decided to get married, and Rami could not restrain his jealousy, things looked bleaker and more hopeless than ever. But, never mind, Rami told himself, I will never give in to this.

However, Rami also saw that his course of complete refusal was perhaps not the best face to present against the united expectations of his family. So he decided, while resisting and not allowing any practical steps to be taken toward his getting married, to emphasize the practical objections to his taking any steps now. The arguments that he was too young, that he had no money of his own and no apartment, that he had to save up enough to afford a suitable wife, and that he still had to do his army service, which would be unremunerative, were entirely sufficient to defeat any marriage proposal for the present. Besides these, he could also raise objections against any particular candidate by making his requirements for a wife too stringent. For starters, he could demand a university graduate like himself, and those were not very many in the circles his family traveled in.

Indeed, when his rejection of Habiba became known, many imagined that Rami’s reasoning was that she was not a university student like himself, but only had a high school diploma. Since the conventional wisdom in Egypt was that the wife should have one degree less than her husband, Habiba seemed ideal for Rami on this point too. Thus, Rami seemed to be putting on airs by demanding a higher degree, even though this was just the supposition of people in the two families and was not based on anything that Rami had specifically said yet. But Rami didn’t care what people thought of him, as long as they did not know his big secret.

Habiba was of course broken-hearted at Rami’s rejection of her, especially after having had a crush on him for years. Adham merely sighed over it, thinking, Maybe this is for the best. Maybe Rami should marry a stranger, because with too much closeness and familiarity in the family, something might come out about us. Adham’s parents were disappointed. Adham’s brother Khamis, who had helped to finance Adham’s and Rami’s living in al-Zaqaziq and was married to Rami’s sister, sought excuses for Rami: Maybe he just did not care for Habiba. Maybe she was too close to Adham, and he didn’t of course want his ideal friendship with Adham to resemble a marriage, thought Khamis. Maybe Rami was already in love with or in agreement with a different young lady from the university. When Khamis pressed Adham on these points to find out which was the true one, Adham allowed him to believe that, yes, there might be someone else: Ulfat. Adham of course knew well that this was not true, but he was still hoping that Rami would get married to some woman sometime, and also he wanted carefully to avert any possible suspicion of abnormality from Rami and thus from himself as well.

So Rami was able to stop any further plans for himself to get married. However, his trips to Cairo with Adham remained the most unbearable times for him. Being so jealous and possessive over Adham, he would still travel with him on weekends, even though he would just sit simmering, sulking, frowning, and staring out of the window of the bus. But once they were in the hara again, the family preparations that had been set in motion for Adham’s engagement proceeded apace, requiring Adham to visit Safa’ occasionally, always in the company of chaperones, of course. Despite his rejection of Habiba, since Rami was Adham’s best friend, Adham invited Rami to come along with him, but Rami refused. When others intervened, including his own family, to ask him why he was not going, he made up feeble and unconvincing excuses, such as he didn’t feel well, which of course could not be used every time.

Rami’s family couldn’t help but notice a change in him that went far beyond his refusal to marry Habiba, because he was suddenly so morose all the time after having been a happy young man. Rami’s family’s attempts to get out of him what was the matter were rebuffed by denials: Everything was fine, he would swear. As Egyptians constantly gossip about each other, especially in the family group, Rami’s family talked at length about him. Whatever the matter was, it seemed that something had happened between the two friends, and that Rami had some kind of deep-seated grievance against Adham. Rami’s moroseness seemed possibly connected with the business of marriage pressure and Adham’s prospective engagement; that seemed to be just too much of a coincidence to be accidental. And of course his family were right about that. It was speculated that perhaps Rami was jealous of the fact that Adham was getting engaged while he was not. Closer to the truth, another suggestion was that he was sad because he would be deprived of some of Adham’s companionship. Finally, it was suggested that maybe Rami had had some similar plans to get married but had been rejected, so that he could not bring himself to be happy for Adham or about anything. Adham encouraged this version by circulating a story about Ulfat, that Rami wanted to marry her, but she was reluctant and giving him a hard time, the exact opposite of the truth. This helped to limit speculation.

In any event, the change in Rami’s attitude toward Adham, which was difficult not to notice, and the coincidence that this had happened concomitant with Adham’s marriage plans seemed perfectly innocent to Rami’s family, for, although they were aware of the existence of homosexuality, Rami did not fit any of their rigid stereotypes, as neither was he effeminate, nor was Adham, nor were they different in age, so it did not even occur to them that Rami was in love with Adham and that that was the problem, much less that that love had been reciprocated and that they had consummated their love over a long period, indeed, for eight years. Also, the family would not suppose evil thoughts about their son and brother without proof, so if anyone had entertained such a speculation at all, he would have kept it to himself.

But the situation was unstable as it slowly ground along. Adham agreed to a date in the late summer for the engagement party, making it clear to Rami that he would be very irritated with him if he didn’t attend. To convince him of the necessity for that, Adham reminded Rami that, even if he hated his engagement to Safa’, he had a responsibility to keep up outward appearances and especially not to create a scandal that would approach their big secret. Rami listened to Adham’s plea and responded ambiguously, “Well, we’ll see about that.” However, Rami had no intention of attending Adham’s engagement party, and even if his rational mind had submitted to Adham’s entreaties and agreed to swallow his revulsion for an evening, his galloping emotions would never permit it. Rami could just see a picture of himself at the engagement party, which would be a fairly small family affair, but well attended by all the people he knew best in his life, with himself frowning in jealous rage the entire time or more likely blowing up, ruining everything, and humiliating himself. And even though Rami hated the entire subject, he still had enough control over himself to think, I can’t afford to do anything that will wreck my relations with everybody, because things might change and I might need them for something. Also, maybe Adham will come back to me someday. Furthermore, at least the date set for the party is after our exams, Rami thought, so it shouldn’t affect our graduation. But Rami was already not studying much, after having been quite good at studying before, but now he couldn’t really concentrate on anything except his own misery.

 

End of Part 1