The girl who fooled us all”

“The girl who fooled us all”

Souad was an average-looking university student in her first year at the Faculty of Arts. She was very intelligent, excelled in her studies, and was always walking around the university with her flute in her hand. She would sit with her classmates with her flute, enter the session with her flute, and if anyone asked her to play a piece of music on the flute, she would avoid them. No one ever saw her play any melody on it. 

She met Marco, who was two years older than her and in the third year, and a strong friendship developed between them, to the point that they shared every detail of their lives and their secrets with each other. 

Souad told Marco about the suffering and injustice she had endured in her life and continued to endure. Her parents and older brother had died in a car accident when she was young, and she had moved in with her uncle to be cared for and raised. Her uncle's wife treated her harshly and showed her no motherly love or affection. When she grew up and reached high school age, her uncle's wife wanted to marry her off to her son Walid, because Souad had inherited a lot of money from her parents, and her uncle's wife coveted this money. 

Souad wanted to finish her education first, and she begged her uncle for this, and he granted her request. 

Due to the psychological pressure she was under, Souad suffered from high blood pressure and diabetes. 

Marco's roommates began to notice a clear change in him.  He was often absent-minded and sat alone, even though he was a sociable person who loved to sit with people and talk to them. When they asked him what was bothering him, he told them about Souad and the details of her tragic life. They were very moved and prayed for God to help her. 

Two weeks later, Adel was walking alone, sad, at three o'clock in the morning near the train station. Marco, who had just gotten off the train after a one-day visit to his family to return to school, saw him and called out to him. Adel did not hear him because he was distracted, so Marco approached him and called him by name. Adel stopped, and as soon as he saw him, he greeted him, hugged him, and said,

‘Thank God you are safe. We missed you yesterday at the theatre rehearsal.’ 

+ God bless you. I'm sorry, I travelled to check on my parents, then came back quickly, but what's wrong with you, my friend? Why are you walking around at this late hour in winter? 

-   I feel a little suffocated, and I'm thinking about something that makes me unable to sit anywhere. I walk around without knowing where I'm going. 

+ It's very cold outside. Come with me, Adel, to my place so we can talk and have a hot drink to warm up.

-   Okay, Marco.

They went to Marco's place, and after Marco made two cups of tea, he said, "I know what's upsetting you, Adel, because I've been through the same thing. 

Adel was surprised, so Marco repeated himself: I've been seeing you with Souad every day for a week, going out and talking to her, so I said to myself I'll try to talk to Adel and save him. 

-       Save me from what?

+ I'm saving you from Souad because I know your kind and sensitive, and you're easily influenced. I know Souad will take advantage of that because she's a compulsive liar. She loves to lie. 

-   What are you saying, Marco?

+ I'm telling you the truth, and I know the truth hurts. 

Marco told Adel the story of Souad's fake life and how she had deceived him, borrowing money from him on the pretext that she had forgotten her wallet, and how he would often go to church to pray for her with tears in his eyes every day, until Tony, a colleague of theirs in another department, whom they both knew, as he was a member of the choir, saw him and warned him about this girl, saying that she always lied and made up false stories in order to quickly gain people's sympathy, sometimes to borrow money from them, and that her parents were still alive and as kind as the rest of our parents. 

Adel was surprised when he heard this and said to Marco, ‘That's exactly what she did to me too, except that she told me that her mother had died and her father had remarried after her mother's death, and that her stepmother was the one who oppressed and tortured her.’ Marco replied, 

Because she is a great actress, she can convince anyone who falls prey to her with any story and finds special pleasure in seeing that prey suffer for her.

 They agreed to put an end to their doubts and go to her village and ask, without attracting attention, if her parents were alive. They did go and confirmed the truth of their colleague Tony's words, so Adel decided to confront her. Marco advised him to treat her superficially, with a simple greeting, so as not to escalate the situation and make her condition worse. 

As the days passed, Marco discovered another one of his kind-hearted colleagues who had fallen victim to Souad, and he wondered how she was able to prey on all these kind people so easily!

Adel and Marco joined a service for blind children. Their programme involved taking them and their supervisors to the corniche for a walk, singing and performing humorous sketches appropriate to their situation. At sunset, they would leave after these angels boarded the bus with their supervisors to return to their headquarters. Once, after finishing their service after sunset, Adel and Marco walked along the corniche to enjoy the beautiful spring air. Their feet stopped at a scene they knew well. Saoud was playing a new tune for one of the college teachers, who was known for his commitment and strictness. They found him sitting in front of her as if he were spellbound, or as if he had been hypnotised. He was like a puppet that she could move as she pleased. She shed tears in front of him, which made the puppet cry with her. She looked at them with one eye crying and the other laughing in triumph. Then she stuck her tongue out at them in mockery, and Marco and Adel clapped their hands together, then continued walking in front of her, while she watched them with one eye and followed them with the other until they slowly disappeared from the corniche until the corniche completely swallowed them up.