Chapter XXV. A rendezvous with the devil

For a whole year, the arguments and quarrels between her and Alara did not subside, not only because of Sardar’s seclusion with her but also due to a variety of other things, including her attire in front of him, her actions, movements, words, and her way of sitting.

-Damn, Alara, you are so beautiful, but not enough femininity! Change your character, act smart because the beauty of a woman is not in her face but in her mind and what she can do.

Extraordinarily stubborn, strict in her decisions, completely out of Hatshepsut’s control.

-The wedding is coming up soon; pity my weakness; at the very least, let’s purchase a short blue dance attire, some candles, pharaonic antiques, and silk curtains. Let me dance for him once, and heed my counsel; I won’t let you down.

After constant bickering, she decided to buy a dance suit, and on the wedding night, she refused to wear it. The suit remained locked in the wardrobe, for nothing but the arrogance and stubbornness of Alara.

Alara amused her husband by making him wallow in an infinite sea of passion and yearn for her repeatedly but in her own unique way.

-I do not need you, Hatshepsut; I am attractive without you and I am skilled enough to handle the situation on my own. If you like it, then have fun with us. I won’t stop you or deprive you of what you want, but you must go by my rules and my fashion, or else get out of my face.

In an ironic and strange way, Alara became a curse on Hatshepsut!

However, the latter will not give up easily, so she does not hesitate to try.

-Alara, I humbly beg you to pay attention. If only once, treat him cruelly, insult him, rage at him, and then dance the night away till dawn. If you don’t take my counsel, he won’t be a ring on your finger.

-Hatshepsut, there is no chance for you. You won’t endanger Sardar’s life and mine. We’ll be a part of a warm family. Our union will be ideal.

She added with blind confidence: I do not need him to be a ring on my finger, he loves me and fulfills all my desires, I will not allow Sardar to be harmed, as you did to my father, for you lack emotion, and what is between me and him is something you will not understand. His love changed me, and I change for him.

-You will regret it, Alara, one day you will realize your mistake, that is not what Zainab taught you.

-I told you repeatedly, I will not be a prisoner to you as my mother was, Sardar loves me, and I love him, there is no hope for you between us, I wish you would leave us alone, forever.

Since their wedding, six years have gone. She spent a long time residing in Egypt. She finds it challenging to travel with him everywhere he goes. She goes to Kuwait with him, then separates from him and heads back to Egypt. After visiting her, he departs and goes back to Kuwait or another country as required by the job.

Aside from a summer vacation, there are no pre-planned excursions due to shifting employment situations. A minimum of once, and maybe twice, must be made to Fouad in Turkey each year.

She was a devoted and loving wife who did everything in her power to make her husband happy, with the exception of one area where she fell short: she has not yet been able to conceive. After many visits to doctors, everyone confirms that there are no serious health problems in him or her that prevent this, it is God’s will, you have to wait, get some medical help, and eventually become pregnant.

Sardar relieves her, “Don’t worry, sweetheart, Alara suffices me, God will bless us with children when he wants, and if this does not happen, then I have no need for them, you are my ultimate goal, and I live with you the happiest of my days.”

Hatshepsut is helpless, Alara can barely hear her voice, completely in control of her, but not for as long as it seems! Disloyalty is a thorny dilemma, as is love.

What drives a man to betray an obedient, beautiful, polite, and loving wife?!

This answer remains in the drawing of the unknown, a satanic tendency within each of us, a moment of weakness perhaps, followed by great regret.

The winter of the world, 1977 A.D., Alara packed her luggage, longing for her husband. She would surprise him. She had not met him for a whole month. She took her flight from Cairo to Kuwait. She would arrive at dawn, when Sardar would surely be asleep.

She thought all the time about what she would do at the moment of meeting, nothing better than entering the house, without him noticing her, changing clothes, putting on a sexy nightgown, then to the bedroom, where he would open his eyes to his beloved, standing in front of him, longing for him.

The plane landed at the airport, a taxi to the house, she opened the door with her own key, crept lightly into the hall, changed her clothes, adorned herself, arranged her hair the way he liked, sprayed a perfume that always excites him, then to the bedroom, she moves covertly over the tops of her wounds to observe what did not cross her mind.

-I wish I had passed away earlier before this moment, and I wish you had too, Serdar!

She was frozen in place, unable to move, she wanted to scream at the top of her voice, there was no sound but the sound of her breath.

Asleep in another woman’s arms, after what seems like a long, tiring night of tossing and turning in bed.

Minutes passed like an eternity.

Silently stunned, her gaze does not divert from her husband, his naked body, sleeping on his stomach, and another woman sleeping on her side, embracing him with her hand and foot, in the same way, the one they have always slept together for six years!

Stunned, as if drunk, she staggered back to the outer hall. A strange force invaded her. Unexpectedly, she did not collapse, she did not even cry.

-Don’t worry, my dear, I swear I will make him pay the price for this betrayal of his. This is Hatshepsut’s time, so now is the time for you to pay attention to what I have to say.

Without making any introductions, she stood in the hallway in front of the mirror, sobbing silently as she looked at her physique and face while biting her lip in despair.

Standing right behind her back, whispering in her ear.

-Look poor so you can get what you want, Alara, and if you can, don’t show mercy, this world deserves no mercy.

-Yes, this is your time, Hatshepsut, for the honest people in this world are tormented, suffering, and persecuted.

Four hours passed without her moving, sitting on the sofa in the hall, one foot on top of the other.

At nine in the morning, the door of the room opened, and he came out, wearing shorts, looking for a glass of water.

Then Sardar froze in his place, looking in the mirror, Alar sitting on the couch opposite it, as soon as he saw her, he realized that she had been here for a long time, he was exposed, what a situation, and what a loss!

He stands stunned, not saying a word.

Looking at him with a strange apathy, with a fatal indifference, she said: Is she still asleep?

He didn’t have the temerity to look her straight in the eye, he shook his head, yeah.

-Who is she?

In a low voice, she could barely hear it: my employee.

-Secretly married to her?

He shook his head, no.

She sighed with grief, oppressed, resisting to control her nerves, an overwhelming desire to cry until she said with false piety and suppressed nervousness: I will enter the second room, and you will wake her up from her sleep, and ask her to leave the house, without making her feel anything. Find any excuse for yourself, as it is not appropriate for a businessman like you to see him a prostitute employee like her in a situation like this.

He sighed, his face reddened with shame at himself, and at the meanness of his act, still unable to raise his eyes to her, he meekly shook his head, “OK”.

A few hours ago, the reckless Alara, after sobering up from the horror of the shock, had lost her mind, wanting to smash things around her, to burn the room while they were probably sleeping in it.

Her madness aroused, she intends to expose him in the whole building, she will scream, ask for assistance, drag that bitch by her hair, throw her out the door, spit in her and his face, make him an example for those who are not taken into account.

A resounding scandal will not heal her anger, but this is what she can do now. She will destroy him and destroy his future. She will call the police after Alara blows into him all her experiences that she learned from her mother in scold and scandal.

Hatshepsut: Slow down, don’t rush, let me handle it.

-What can you do?

-What happened is inevitable, yet there is no justification for this betrayal, but first we have to make sure that she is not his second wife.

-It doesn’t change anything, his wife or his mistress, it makes no difference to me.

Hatshepsut: Rather, it changes a lot. If she is just a mistress, then you are his wife, and she is nothing more than a fleeting whim. He will throw her in the street, for your sake, and I will make sure that we heal our anger and humiliate him and her, but if she is a second wife, then this is a thorny dilemma. We have to make sure first.

She added: From this moment on, I will take over all matters with him. You will not oppose me in anything, Alara. Nothing has brought us to this situation except your stubbornness and your refusal to consult me about something, or even to hear my advice.

Alara: Are you gloating, Hatshepsut?!

-No, my dear, there is no difference between us. I am in pain as you are, except that you are still young. My experience in life is more. Leave him to me. Do what I say, and I will make him regret all his life for what he did. He will not repeat it, and he will be a ring on your finger.

She added: I would have done what you intended, and would have inflicted disgrace on him, disgrace and scandal, if it were for a reason other than this, but if we did that for this betrayal of his, we would do a lot of harm to him, more than to us, we would separate from him perhaps, and he would go on his way, to return to the arms of this whore , or someone else, even marry her, then you will discover that our loss is greater than his loss, we will live in oppression and anger forever.

-Do you think that I will accept life with him one day after?!

-Yes, you will live with him, and you will get over the matter, and you will let Hatshepsut punish him, in her own way.

-What is it?

-The one that you did not like with Zainab and Hassan. I swear, Alara, if I did not do it to Hassan, he would have done many times what Sardar did today, and Zainab would not have had the opportunity to be more than a servant woman at his feet.

After the mistress left the house, Alara came out of the room, advanced to him, and without any preludes, slapped him, looked at him with contempt, did not utter a word, did not even blink, tears blurred her vision, she wanted to call him in the ugliest words, nothing came out of her lips except sobs of tears.

Her feet could no longer carry her, she fell to the ground, leaned her back against the door, placed her hands on her forehead, her fingers interspersed with her soft silky hair, which fell down to cover much of her gentle face.

As if Alara years ago, she just opened the door to the postman, to find the Knight of Dreams standing behind him, but the tears are not the same, a great difference between tears of joy and hope, and tears of heartbreak, oppression and regret.

She cries, the more she cries, he remembers that night, when the postman took him to the door of their house, the same as she sat, the movement of her hand, her hair covering her face, tears flowing from her eyes.

The sensitive poet broke down in front of her, crying uncontrollably. He leaned over, struck the ground with his hands like a bereaved mourner, and kept repeating: Damn me, what I did, damn me, what I did.

I was not conscious, that malicious cunning. She came before sunset. She wanted files that she had forgotten with me. She carried some pieces of sweets in her hands. I invited her to a cup of coffee, and she must have put something in it. I didn’t realize myself after that.

There is no sound but sobbing and wailing.

Perhaps a heart attack is hitting her now, perhaps a stroke! As it happened to her mother and father, what did I do to her!

She can no longer breathe.

He’s gone mad even more, he’s completely losing his mind.

-Do anything but cry, hit me, kill me, spit in my face until, damn me, I am not the one who breaks your heart, sweetheart and soul, I am the knight of your dreams, a noble gentleman who has no purpose in this world but you, so that we will be together for eternity. I beg you, believe me, Alara, for whatever beautiful word you ever said, or noble attitude of mine, a poem I wrote for you, I swear that’s what happened.

Without any response, she rose to her feet, ran quickly into the room, and locked the door with the key behind her.

He stood all day on his feet, behind the door, hearing nothing but crying that would tear his heart at times, and frightening silence at other times, repeating, tirelessly, his excuse was that, I was not conscious.

Although everything she said and did from the moment Sardar opened the door, and was surprised by her sitting in the outer hall, was Hatshepsut’s plan, Alara was not pretending to cry, her heart had already been broken, for a whole week she could not bear to look at his face, she did not speak a single word to him, he did not go to work, nothing he did but run after her in the house from one place to another, asking for forgiveness and repeating his excuse.

What was she supposed to do? Despite the rudeness of the idea, Hatshepsut acted rationally, preserved her home, and her husband, and made him realize how noble, refined, and polite Alara was, even in a situation like this, she did not accept scandal for him, even in front of a prostitute, she did not accept his brokenness, or humiliation.

As a result, Sardar became broken and humiliated, not in front of his mistress, nor his neighbors or family, but only in front of Alara.

A regret in the heart of the sensitive poet, who was aggravated by the wife, with her good morals, her remoteness, her good manners, and her wide management. He realized that he had stabbed the heart of a woman who loved him sincerely, and he would not find anything like her in the whole world. There is no concern for him, except for the water to return to its course, whatever the cost is.

As for Alara, it is a mixture of sadness, remorse, and heartbreak. If she had listened to Hatshepsut from the beginning, perhaps her husband would not have dared to do something like this. Something inside her still wants him, even though she has come to hate him, or perhaps something inside her has started to hate him, even though she wants him.

It makes no difference, as Hatshepsut took the lead.

Alara failed to win the wager; Hatshepsut did.

Many times, many psychological states are transmitted to us, and grow up with us, in different forms, as a cause of circumstances, environment, upbringing, what we learned in our childhood, what we saw and heard. This is what makes us, and decides our future, except that we conquer evil in us, in one way or another, we find a way to curb it within us, we receive external help that strengthens our resolve; in the name of love sometimes, and all it takes is a shock, a strong shake, that makes us lose confidence in ourselves, in our decisions, so that the devil explodes inside us, with power and influence.

Whether Hatshepsut was a real pharaonic curse, or a psychological condition.

And whether it was Sardar’s betrayal, out of his stupidity, or a moment of weakness in front of a beautiful playful girl who seduced him for herself, or even due to the effect of an irritant substance that was placed for him in a piece of candy!

It is no longer of real importance to Hatshepsut

The important thing is that she is the one Sardar will deal with, from today onwards.

The reason for his betrayal is no longer important

The important thing is that by doing this, he freed Alara from her crypt, which was buried by love.

What he should worry about is not whether or not she believes his excuse

Rather, worrying about a sure rendezvous hit him unintentionally, perhaps, with the devil.