Ahmed Saadawi

Mahmoud was confused about what Farid said. He didn’t want to think too much about his own attitude toward Saidi or Saidi’s attitude toward the general situation. These things required a level of effort, concentration, and mental distance that Mahmoud just didn’t have right now, or else he was just trying to trick himself into thinking he didn’t.

Mahmoud preferred to see himself as stupid, at least in his dealings with himself rather than with others, because the turning points in his life had come about because of stupid things, not because of planning or intelligence

That’s how everyone wanted to remember him; death gives the dead an aura of dignity, so they say, and makes the living feel guilty in a way that compels them to forgive those who are gone.