13

THE ENTIRE HOUSE WAS COVERED by black doubt, pale jealousy, hatred and malice, tension and insomnia. We were living on pins and needles, broken, exhausted, like crazy people, like a group lost in a dark desert. We started to collide with each other as we looked for light and salvation.

My father’s wife decided to challenge my father. She no longer submitted or kept quiet. She no longer just bore his anxiety. If she didn’t like what he said, she’d scream in his face. If he was quiet, she’d pretend to ignore him. If he issued an order, she didn’t obey. The situation overwhelmed her. She was like a pressure cooker full of steam that she’d kept in for too long, and she was bound to explode. She revolted against the suffering inflicted by my father—suffering that she didn’t understand and he didn’t explain.

My uncle’s joyful spirit disappeared. He was silent and miserable, as if he’d lost everything. He no longer tried to find out what was upsetting my father. He didn’t even talk to him anymore. If they met, they only exchanged a quick, meaningless hello, neither of them hearing it from the other. Many times, my uncle excused himself from eating lunch with us. Other times, we didn’t even see him before he left. It seemed that all that kept him in the same house with us was his affection for Auntie Safiya, his love for me, and a residue of feeling for his brother.

My father was the most miserable of all. He wasted away and dried out like a piece of wood. He always seemed like he wanted to smash something or cry. He sometimes controlled his nerves, appearing cold and frozen like he was made of stone. Other times, his burden oppressed him and he screamed and lashed out with sharp words like a whip. He seemed always to be operating according to a plan he had in his head—a naive plan, like something concocted by a child. It amounted to nothing more than keeping a close watch over his wife and surprising her from time to time. He was trying to catch her in his brother’s arms. He’d come home at unusual times and tiptoe into the house. He’d pretend to be on the phone but it would be clear there was no one on the other end and he was just observing her. When she’d leave to visit someone or run errands, he’d follow at a distance.

I remained the same as I was, except that the crime started speeding up my plan, like a horse race approaching the end. And as the finish line got near, my torture became even more severe—the torture of my conscience. I’d listen to the whistling of the storm, waiting for it to uproot the house.

I committed dozens of little crimes to stoke the fires of doubt inside my father. Every day, I’d throw a piece of wood on the fire. I didn’t have any mercy on him, not for a single day. Not on his downcast eyes, not on his body wasting away, not on his face becoming pale and thin—none of that could stop me or save me.

I knew that my father, by monitoring his wife, was looking for tangible proof with which to convict her, something that he saw with his eyes or touched with his hand. All I cared about was providing that for him.

Until one day . . .

My father, Auntie Safiya, and I finished lunch silently, as if it were our last supper. Auntie Safiya got up and went into her room. She came back after a bit, dressed to go out, holding her small handbag.

“I’m going to the tailor,” she said to my father as if giving him a formal report.

My father didn’t respond.

She left without waiting for a reply.

A few minutes later, my father got up and left to follow her, to keep tabs on her, to be sure that she really was going to the tailor.

I got up to say goodbye to him at the door, as Auntie Safiya usually did.

“I’m going to have coffee at the club,” he said, placing a cold kiss on my cheek. He said it as if suppressing an accusation that no one had made.

After he left, I wandered among the flowers in the garden, as if looking for a poisonous bloom. I saw my uncle leaving without having lunch with us once again. And suddenly, I had an idea. An idea that, if it succeeded, would bring about the end. It was a small idea but it would be the straw that broke the camel’s back, and the camel bearing the load was my father.

I gave a big smile to my uncle and ran over to him. I clung to his neck and started kissing him dozens of times on his face.

My uncle embraced me and kissed me back.

During that time, he went to great lengths to spoil me and show his affection for me, as if he was consoling me for the pain my father was inflicting.

“Where’s your father?” he asked, still embracing me.

“He left,” I responded. “He went to the club. Auntie Safiya went out too. There’s no one here but me.”

“That’s better!” he said, letting out a laugh, trying to hide his pain.

“I need to go out too,” I said, “but I have a friend who’s coming to visit.”

“What do you need? I’ll get it for you or have it delivered.”

“That would be great. You’d be doing me a big favor. May God preserve you!”

“What is it?” he asked, smiling. “What do you want?”

“I want you to go to the tailor and tell her to send me my dress by five o’clock.”

“No.” He cut me off, moving me away from him gently. “Anything but the tailor. I’ve never gone to a women’s tailor before.”

“Please, Uncle. Please! I have an invitation for tonight and I’ve worn all the dresses I have a hundred times. Please, do it for me!”

“Why don’t you just call her?”

“Her telephone doesn’t work. I’ve been trying to call since this morning and it’s no use. I even called the operator and it’s still no use.”

“Where did the driver go?”

“He went with Auntie Safiya.”

“But it doesn’t make sense for me to go into the tailor.”

“You don’t have to go in at all,” I said quickly. “All you have to do is tell her from the door, and when she sees that you’ve come yourself, she’ll take care of it quickly.”

“You always have a lot of requests, Nadia,” he grumbled. “And they’re all ridiculous. Where’s this tailor, my dear?”

“You know the Doss Building that’s near Café À L’Américaine? That’s it.”

“Fine,” he said, getting ready to leave from the garden gate. “But why didn’t you ask Safiya or your father to do this for you when they were leaving?”

“I was still thinking I’d get her on the phone,” I said, kissing him affectionately.

“Fine, my dear,” he said and left, shaking his head submissively.

“The sixth floor,” I said, joining him at the gate. “Her name is Madame Bruna.”

He shook his head again to signal that he’d heard me. He then got in his car and left. I watched until his car disappeared, my eyes wide and my heart pounding.

The tailor was in a big building like the one with Mustafa’s apartment, a building with doctors, lawyers, tailors and, no doubt, “apartments” like Mustafa’s.

At that moment, I knew, my father was standing at the door of the building, keeping tabs on his wife as she was going in, hiding until she left.

I wanted him to see my uncle go into the same building, to make him believe that he was meeting his wife.

Could I provide better proof than that?

Was there a crime simpler than that?

But would my father see him going into the building?

Maybe my uncle would go in from the other side.

Maybe my father was content with checking to see that his wife went into the building with the tailor and left without waiting for her to leave?

Maybe my uncle wouldn’t go to the tailor at all and would break his promise to me.

The feeling of the gambler began to overwhelm me, the feeling I’d gotten used to whenever I moved forward in one of my schemes, the horrible feeling in which the pleasure of fear broke out, the pleasure of anticipation, the pleasure of testing my intelligence.

A long time passed—a very long time—as I was in the throes of this wicked, delicious feeling.

I stared into space as if looking at the wheel of fate spinning in heaven, the wheel of this black fate.

I came to at the sound of a car stopping at the gate.

I saw my father come into the house, taking steps so wide and tense that he almost fell on his face.

He didn’t notice me as I was sitting in the parlor. Instead, he went straight to his room.

I followed him.

I saw him like a crazy person, opening his wife’s dresser and pulling her clothes from it, one after the other, tossing them on the ground.

I knew my plan had succeeded.

But I wasn’t happy.

No, I wasn’t happy.

The feeling of the gambler left me and terror took its place. I felt a terrifying fear that almost tore out my heart.

“What are you doing, Daddy?” I cried out, reaching up as if I were feeling my way through the darkness of myself.

He turned his head and looked at me with maniacal eyes that seemed not to see me or even know who I was.

“This has nothing to do with you,” he said in a rattling voice. “You get out of here!”

“Tell me, Daddy,” I pleaded, trying to get close to him. “What happened? Why are you acting like this?”

He pushed me so hard that I almost fell to the ground.

“I’m telling you to get out of here!” he shouted. “Get out of this room!”

I left, stumbling, leaning against the walls. I felt that everything in me was screaming, crying, breaking down. I found myself thinking seriously about aborting my plan before it was completed.

What was I doing?

Oh God, what was I doing?

Forgive me. Forgive me, Lord. Save me from myself. Save my father from me!

What was I doing, Lord?

I started moving my eyes along the walls in terror, as if I were afraid they’d close in on me. I lifted my arms up as if protecting myself from a fire blowing onto me.

I started thinking quickly, with the quickness of an insane person. A voice in my chest was repeating a monotonous refrain, round and round like the wheels of a train: what was I doing? What was I doing? What was I doing?

But I didn’t do anything.

I couldn’t.

I was suddenly struck with a stupor, as if evil Satan, when he set out from my chest, had taken my mind with him.

Another car stopped in front of the gate.

I saw my father’s wife come in slowly and firmly, not knowing anything about what was awaiting her.

“Bonsoir,” I heard her say.

I didn’t respond. I looked at her with pity, my eyes bathed in tears as if she were a chicken about to be slaughtered in front of me. At that moment, I wanted to bow down to her feet and kiss them, begging for forgiveness, imploring her to pardon me.

“What’s wrong?” I heard her say anxiously. “What’s wrong, Nadia?”

Before I could respond, my father turned his back stiffly to us like an angry rebel who’d decided to destroy the entire world.

“Go collect your clothes,” he said, his voice was a mere echo from a miserable unknown world. “Go back to where you came from.”

Auntie Safiya was perplexed. “What are you saying?” she asked in amazement, as if she were addressing someone crazy.

My father took a deep breath as if trying to get control of himself.

“Listen, Safiya,” he said in a trembling voice, trying to stay calm, “I don’t want a scandal. No scandals. What’s happened is enough. Get out of the house! This house isn’t yours anymore. Since the days of my grandfather, this has always been an upstanding house and only decent people have lived here.”

“What are you saying? What are you saying, Ahmed? Have you gone mad?”

My father couldn’t take it anymore.

“I’m saying that I’m divorcing you!” he screamed with everything he had. “You’re divorced, divorced, divorced! I’m saying that you’re a cheater! A criminal!”

Auntie Safiya backed up as if she’d been stabbed in the heart. She leaned on the small table to stop herself from falling.

“You’re crazy,” she whispered with a terrifying look. “You’re crazy! Crazy!”

“I was crazy the day I married you!” my father screamed again. “I was duped about you and your family. A family whose origin is slime. Only now have I come to know you. Only now do I know. I’ve given my honor and name to someone who doesn’t deserve it. You’re divorced—divorced three times. The official is on his way. I sent for him so he can divorce us and you can go to hell, you and the despicable dog who betrayed his blood, my good nature, and the honor of my mother and father!”

Auntie Safiya straightened and raised her head. She looked at my father in disgust. “I won’t respond to you,” she said as if collecting her entire life in a single moment with which to protect her dignity. “I’m leaving. I’m not picking up my clothes. I’ll leave that to you. You can be sure that as soon as I step foot outside this door, I won’t be coming back. All I want to say is that you have to see a doctor!”

She grabbed her small bag and walked toward the door.

I found myself unconsciously rushing to her and clinging to her. “No! No!” I screamed. “Impossible. No, Auntie! Don’t leave!” I looked at my father with tears in my eyes. “Auntie Safiya isn’t a traitor, Daddy!” I yelled, my whole body shaking. “Auntie Safiya is innocent. I—”

“Silence!” my father screamed, cutting me off.

“She’s innocent, Daddy!” I said. “Auntie Safiya is innocent and—”

“I know why you’re defending her.” He cut me off, still screaming. “She’s blinded the entire house. She’s blinded my brother and my daughter. She’s a criminal, and you know she’s been cheating on me, betraying me with the closest person in the world to me. You know, and I know you know. Today I saw it with my own eyes. I saw them both!”

I threw myself on my father.

“Don’t believe me, Daddy!” I said between sobs, wetting his chest with my tears. “I’m a liar. I’m the criminal. Your daughter is the criminal. I—”

“She’s nothing compared to you!” My father cut me off, shouting until he lost his voice. “You’re worth ten of her. She’s the criminal. She’s the traitor. This is the fate of cheating criminals. Look! Look at her! Look at her face that spites our Lord. She’ll be tormented. All her life, she’ll be tormented. Our Lord will make sure of it.”

He turned to her. “Go. Get out of here! Get out of my house!” Safiya turned her head away in disgust and walked toward the door silently, still preserving her pride. As soon as she opened the door, the divorce official appeared.

She looked at him, at his black beard, pale face, and dark cloak, as if she saw my crime as a snake slithering on two feet.

I felt a gloomy darkness surround me. It got closer and closer until I could no longer see a thing.

I felt myself collapse on the ground.

I don’t know how long I was passed out for. But when I opened my eyes, I found myself spread out on my bed. Auntie Safiya was sitting next to me on the side of the bed with a bottle of cologne in her hand.

As soon as my eyes met hers, I tried to smile. I felt as if I had woken up from a heavy, terrifying nightmare. I sat up and wrapped my arms around her neck. I tried to talk, but she put her finger on my lips. I took my arms from around her neck.

“Thank God you’re awake,” she said with a sad smile.

She eased me back down on the bed and leaned over to kiss me. Her kisses were wet with tears. Then she got up.

“Stay and rest, Nadia,” she said, leaving the room.

“Auntie! Auntie! Don’t leave me, Auntie!” I screamed.

She didn’t respond.

I tried to follow her, but darkness enveloped me again. I saw the walls of the room encircle me as if a vortex were swallowing me up.

*

Things moved quickly after that, faster than I could follow or contemplate, as if all the devils had gathered in our house to take it to another world—to hell.

My fainting was real. There was no fabrication or acting. The ugliness of my crime had overwhelmed me until I could no longer bear myself. The intensity of the crime had become greater than I could handle.

But this didn’t prevent my father from moving forward with the divorce proceedings, without any more thought, without more questions and doubt. When I collapsed the first time, as Nanny Halima later told me, my father didn’t even notice. He didn’t try to help me. He looked at me disinterestedly, as if a cup or a flowerpot had fallen on the ground. He left me there and took the divorce official into the study to sign the repulsive document.

The one who helped me was Auntie Safiya. She carried me in her arms, with love and tenderness, despite everything that was happening to her. She put me in my bed. She sat next to me until I came to. And then she kissed me and left the house.

My father finalized the divorce there and then and had the driver deliver the papers to Auntie Safiya at her family’s house.

Then he came to my room. He stood distracted, staring through the window while Nanny Halima was dabbing me with cologne until I opened my eyes. No doubt my face was dreadfully pale. My father looked at me in terror and pity. He came to sit next to me and took my hands in his.

“Shame on you, Nadia,” he said as if he was crying. “Don’t do that to yourself. There’s nothing that should make you so upset. Shame on you. I don’t have anyone but you. Nothing matters but you!”

I looked at him.

He looked like he’d grown old, like he wanted to put his head on my chest and cry. Everything about him was limp. His eyelids hung loosely on his eyes, his lips on his jaw, his cheeks on his cheekbones, every part of his face appeared weighed down by the weight of his worry.

I tried to get up, but I couldn’t. I felt weaker than I ever had.

“You made a mistake, Daddy,” I said in a soft, weak voice, putting my head back on the pillow. “A big mistake. Auntie Safi didn’t betray you.”

“That’s enough, Nadia.” He cut me off as if driving away a ghost from in front of him. “It’s over. Be sure I wasn’t wrong. I didn’t believe it at first, but I kept watching her until I was sure. I know you love her. I used to love her too, but I have to sacrifice my love to preserve my honor.”

I tried to speak, but he got up, rearranged the blanket around me, and kissed me.

“Relax, my love,” he said tenderly. “Try to sleep a little.”

He left. I didn’t know where he went.

I didn’t sleep.

I stayed in bed, broken, weak—extremely weak, as if I’d lost control of my body, as if my blood was abandoning me and spilling out of my pores. My tears flowed in a sad silence as if they were clearing a path on my cheeks for the torture to come.

This weakness came with a horrible pain, a terrifying pain. It started getting more and more severe. It began on my side and then encircled my body until it reached my fingers.

I welcomed the pain.

I found solace in it.

I kept submitting to the weakness and pain until I heard my father come back in the evening. Maybe he was drunk. He walked around the house loudly, without coming in my room to check on me.

Then I heard the doorbell.

Was it my uncle?

Yes, it was him. I heard his voice as he was talking to my father in the parlor. The conversation between them became so tense that they were almost screaming. I could only make out random words, all of them harsh and nasty.

I then heard the sound of the door slamming.

My uncle had left.

Afterward, I heard my father’s steps as he came up to his room—slow, tired steps, as he dragged his feet. I then heard the sound of weak, suppressed sobs.

My father was crying.

I felt my entire body freeze. My blood flowed sluggishly through my veins like sand. Despite that, I tried to get out of bed to go to my father.

My father was the one crying.

I suddenly let out a sharp scream. I lay face down, contracting every muscle in my body, gripping the pillow.

I screamed again.

Then I bit the pillow so I couldn’t scream.

I felt as if a red-hot skewer had plunged into my side.

It was pain that I couldn’t submit to or bear.

My father came at the sound of my scream, tears still in his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” he asked anxiously. “What’s wrong, Nadia?”

“Nothing,” I said through my teeth, my face still pressed against the pillow. “Nothing. This is Auntie Safi’s fault!”

I lifted my head and my father saw my contorted face and how much pain I was suffering. He called the doctor.

The doctor diagnosed me with a severe case of renal colic, and gave me an injection of morphine.

I got up in the morning, my head heavy and tired from the morphine.

I still had some hope that I’d find a way to atone for my crime, to bring my father’s wife back to the house. But my uncle unintentionally put an end to that hope. The next day, he announced that he’d marry Auntie Safiya, and he actually went to propose to her at her family’s house.

Maybe he did that because of his resentment of my father. Maybe he was convinced that Safiya was innocent and had been treated unfairly. Maybe he did it as a sign of gallantry after my father accused him of having a sinful relationship with her.

But my father took this as more evidence of his wife’s betrayal.

I believe my uncle went to propose to Safiya to fix his mistake . . . or maybe he was always hoping to marry her.

Of course, Safiya refused to consider it, even after the legally mandated period of waiting after divorce.

She refused completely and categorically.

My uncle left the house. He didn’t live with us anymore. He went to live in a hotel. He cut off his relationship with my father and started liquidating the accounts of the farm so that each of them managed his share independently.

The story spread through our social circles—the story of my father’s wife cheating on him with my uncle.

Delegations of family, friends, and acquaintances started coming over on the pretext of checking on me and my illness. But they were all hiding their delight at our misery, and suppressing a desire to hear more juicy details.

I was still sick. What made it worse was that everyone thought that I was sick out of love for Auntie Safiya and grieving her divorce from my father. Everyone thought I was an innocent, naive angel who couldn’t bear the sight of sin so I fell ill.

“She’s going to kill herself because of it!” I’d hear them say.

Or: “It’s as if Safiya bewitched her. The girl hasn’t been able to get out of bed since the day of the divorce.”

I was at the point of screaming at them, telling them that they were all idiots, that they didn’t know . . . they didn’t know that I was a criminal, that I was the killer.