Disillusionment

El-Bisatie's "A Conversation from the Third Floor" is saturated with expectation. Unfortunately, most expectations lead to disillusionment. There is the wife, Aziza, who travels all the way to the outskirts of some barren land to visit her husband, who is in jail. She is told, when she arrives, that she is not to speak to him. She must visit with him while he is three floors above her and a wall and wide courtyard apart from her. She expects to see him, to talk to him, but the most that she receives is a glimpse of parts of him: his hands, his arms, his nose, part of his face. In order to talk, she must shout. In order to share her children with him, she must lift her baby over her head and expose him to the hot sun. Aziza came to find out where her husband would...