He paused for a long time. Should he buy the book or not? His mind urged him to leave the book in its place on the shelf, since there were only a few piasters in his pocket. But he wanted to know what Sheikh al-Shirbini meant by the word quhoof, and what shaking it was all about. As far as he understood, the quhoof were not alien to him, and he had once been one of them. Didn’t the people in Ismailia call him gruff? After a period of painful hesitation, he was able to resolve the problem when the sheikh with the white beard gestured to him. ‘Don’t worry, the money’s not important,’ he said. So he bought the book at a lower price.
That evening, he couldn’t wait to get back to his room. As soon as he took off his jacket, he lay down on the bed, still dressed in his shirt and trousers, and d
