I told him that Mustafa Sa'eed was a lie. 'Do you want to know the truth about Mustafa Sa'eed?' I said to him with another drunken laugh. - al-Tayyib Salih

The world has turned suddenly upside down. Love? Love does not do this. This is hatred. I feel hatred and seek revenge; my adversary is within and I needs (sic) must confront him. Even so, there is still in my mind a modicum of sense that is aware of the irony of the situation. I begin from where Mustafa Sa'eed had left off. Yet he at least made a choice, while I have chosen nothing.

I had put out the candles and locked the door of the room and that of the courtyard without doing anything. Another fire would not have done any good.

But I would hope you will not entertain the idea, dear sirs, that Mustafa Sa'eed had become an obsession that was ever with me in my comings and goings. Sometimes months would pass without his crossing my mind. In any case, he had died, by drowning or by suicide - God alone knows.