CHAPTER FIVE

From the Train Station to the Roxy Cinema

“As FRUSTRATED AS I AM with Ismail,” the old man said, once he had calmed down and his face had returned to a more natural colour, “I can’t blame you for reacting like this. The story has to be told somehow. Now we’ve reached the part that has to do with me in particular.”

“With you?” I asked him, breathless. “I’m dying to hear this. This whole time I’ve been wondering what connects you to Widad’s story. Also, I’d really like to figure out the mystery of Ismail.”

“He’s no mystery. But I simply will not begin the story from the end. I mean, I won’t tell it backwards. If I did that, you wouldn’t be able to understand, and you’d ask me to start again and tell it the right way.”

“I’m so eager to hear it, sir. I hope you won’t pay any attention to Ismail if he tries to disturb us.”

“Let me begin with the story of my uncle Ibrahim Pasha,” the old man said, “and his fat wife and daughter…

“I used to live with Uncle Ibrahim Pasha. My uncle wasn’t a pasha the way some might think. The word pasha just stuck to him for some reason, like a badge that everyone got accustomed to using. The first person to use it was my father. I don’t know why. My uncle loved it when people added that extra adjective to his name. Most likely my father, who was five years older than my uncle, was trying to flatter him by using the honorific title pasha, and then he just got used to calling him that. My father started to use the word even when he wasn’t around. Whenever Uncle Ibrahim telephoned he would identity him by using that name, which was how he came to be known that way all over town.

“My mother and father were going to travel to Paris by steamer, and they wanted to take me with them. They even recorded my name on the travel papers, but two weeks before the ship was set to depart, I came down with typhoid and was bedridden. My body was frail, very frail. When I got sick my mother wished that she could die in my place, or at least along with me. I was her only son. Typhoid was very dangerous and only the strongest men survived it. A scrawny little boy like me didn’t stand a chance. This is how our relatives started to talk, and their chattering eventually found its way to my mother’s ears.

“Because she knew me and realised how weak I had become, she believed all those prognostications and broke down completely. They had to take care of her and me at the same time. But I proved all the gossip and the advice wrong. I didn’t die. Even the Jewish doctor who oversaw my treatment—or to be more precise: who oversaw my decay and my slide towards death—was astounded when I returned to health. He had been convinced that a recovery was impossible, certain I was going to die, which is why he spent more time caring for my mother than he did attending to me. When my fever broke and I came out of the coma, he pursed his lips and shrugged his shoulders in wonder, even as my mother’s blood pressure hit its lowest ebb. He couldn’t heal her. She couldn’t get out of bed. It was only when I slowly approached her bedside that her blood pressure would return to normal and she would smile.

“My father paid the Jewish Dr Behar well, concluding that I was out of harm’s way thanks to his care. He paid him double for me and my mother, even though the doctor had no hand in either of our cases. Nevertheless, the doctor offered my father some medical advice that was well worth his payment, and even more… hundreds of times more. He recommended that I shouldn’t travel to France with them as my health might deteriorate even further, which would no doubt result in the typhoid killing me.

“The two of them had to travel so that my mother could be treated by superior physicians in France. She suffered from chronic low blood pressure and depression. Because they had managed to get permission to travel from the French Mandate authorities, and since their steamship was set to depart in two days’ time, they decided to go without me, leaving me with my uncle until they returned. But they didn’t come back. The ship sank somewhere between Beirut and Marseille, which is how I managed to stay alive, thanks to typhoid and the advice of a Jewish doctor.

“I had moved into my uncle’s house along with our servant Khadija. At the time I was only twelve years old. Khadija was twenty-five. She was an incomparable woman, married to a man who used to beat her savagely, until her body was black and blue. The problem was that she hadn’t borne him any children. This terrible catastrophe led to her having to endure the ferocity and abuse of her husband. Despite her impassioned pleas—she was as gentle as a bird—he refused to divorce her. She was relieved when he finally married another woman, hopeful that his new wife would distract him from her, especially when, a few months after their marriage, her stomach started to swell. But Khadija was deluded. Her husband continued to beat her. His other wife only helped him do it. When she came over to our house for the first time, her face and body were bruised from the beating. My father nearly went to her house to confront her husband. My mother wept at the sight of her, giving her work on the spot. And that’s how she came to live with us, despite the threats her husband shouted at her from the pavement outside our house.

“Khadija became my father’s personal crusade. He offered her husband a substantial sum if he agreed to divorce her, but the man refused, so my father sent a police officer who threatened to throw him in jail. Nothing came of this, however. One day Khadija casually glanced across the street to where her husband usually camped out all day on the pavement, but didn’t see him there. Several days passed without her seeing him. Khadija was worried about him—just imagine! Had something unfortunate happened to him? It seemed she couldn’t be at peace until she made sure that her husband—who used to beat her with the strength of a horse—was all right. Khadija begged my father to send someone to look into the matter. My father chuckled at this behaviour, at her kind-heartedness. What kind of a woman was she? She truly was both strange and a good person. But we were shocked to discover, through my father’s investigation, that Khadija’s husband was dead. That’s right, dead. His new wife had murdered him in a fit of rage, burying a kitchen knife in his chest. The killer went to jail and was sentenced to death. Her older brother took custody of her two children, one of whom was still breastfeeding at the time, and they nailed the door of her house shut.

“Khadija mourned her husband for a long time, remaining in seclusion for the entire period stipulated, without receiving my father or any other man. She lived in our house with us as if she were part of the family. The truth is that she didn’t have anywhere else to go. When my mother and father drowned she totally fell apart, and when she managed to pull herself together, she said, ‘I don’t have anyone else in the world except for you.’

“One week after the tragedy, my uncle called me to say that he wanted to speak with me in private. As I sat across from him, I avoided looking him directly in the eye. I was afraid of him. I can’t recall ever caring for the man. This is the first time I’ve admitted that. I never even told Khadija, who was so good at keeping and manufacturing secrets. Still, she instinctively knew somehow, as soon as I got back to our room from that meeting.

“My father and my uncle owned an artisanal soap workshop they had inherited from their father, that is, from my grandfather, who died before his time. It was one of the most important and best-known workshops in the country. The quality of their soap was renowned as far as away as Cairo and Istanbul. It was said that people would check inside the boxes of bay leaf soap in search of the stamp imprinted with our family’s name, al-Aghyurli.

“The workshop was in an ancient airy building divided into three sections. One for storing raw materials before production; another, for cooking the soap, with an enormous vat that had a giant burner underneath—from the vat, the soap would be poured and then left to cool before being cut into equal-sized cubes; and, finally, the section where the bars would be stacked on top of each other in a pyramid, leaving gaps for the soap to breathe and dry well. At that point the soap was ready to be sold.

“It used to make me very happy when my father took me to the workshop with him. I loved to inhale the smell of bay leaf that hung in the air. I was even more amazed by the sight of those soap pyramids as I walked around them. I never tired of looking up at them. I would knock over those structures all the time. But my favourite activity was stamping the bars of soap before the pyramids were even built. I would insist on helping to stamp them, despite how weak I was. Strong arms were required to bring down the heavy press hard enough on the surface of the soap bar. When I grew up and became a man, I realised how spoilt I’d been by my father and his employees. They always used to humour me, gladly giving me the stamp even though they wound up having to try and sell bars of soap marked with indecipherable designs. Everything changed whenever my uncle Ibrahim Pasha was at the workshop, and I would sit there in silence, not daring to move a muscle. He used to shout at the workers. He despised children, and he thought of me as a parasite and an idiot.

“When my grandfather got sick, my father and my uncle vowed not to sell off the workshop, to keep it within the family for ever. It would be a struggle for the two of them, one that would require all the means at their disposal. In order to control the succession of the inheritance, they would have to marry two sisters and give birth to boys as well as girls in order to marry them to one another… and so on and so forth for several generations. One of them would have to give birth only to males while the other would have to have females. But if they gave birth to the same sex, whether male or female, they would both have to get married all over again, again to two sisters. In other words, they had to move heaven and earth in order for the workshop to remain in the al-Aghyurli line and to hold on to the distinguished soap brand, the one I got a thrill from whenever I stamped the fresh bars of soap.

“And just as my grandfather had hoped, my mother gave birth to a boy, and my uncle’s wife Hamideh Khanum had a girl, whom she called Jalila. Despite the fact that my mother and my uncle’s wife were sisters, the two of them couldn’t have been more fundamentally different. Whereas my mother was slim and emotional and good-natured, her sister was heavy-set and emotionless and not so bright. She weighed more than two hundred pounds, and in the days when Khadija and I lived with them she might have weighed as much as two-fifty.

“Because she was so fat, she moved very slowly, and couldn’t walk without someone else’s help. She preferred to remain seated to avoid exerting too much energy. They built a custommade seat for her, one that was strong enough for her tremendous weight. Anyway, she used to wheeze whenever she tried to drag her arse from one place to another. And when she had to get up to use the bathroom or go to bed, she would call for my uncle Ibrahim Pasha or the servant to help her. But my uncle stopped taking the risk of picking her up or even supporting her in case he slipped a disc. He already suffered from back pain. And because there was a constant exodus of maids who fled after just one week of working in my uncle’s house, they were forced to constantly search for new staff to work for them and take care of the house. My uncle had to employ several maids at once, two to tend to his wife and another one to tend to the rest of the house.

“Ayyoush and Ammoun, Hamideh Khanum’s two private maidservants, were strong and accustomed to hard work. For example, Ammoun worked in a quarry. Both of them stayed by her side from the time she woke up in the morning until the moment she went to sleep, at which point they would tuck her into bed and return to their own homes.

“That fat blob needed someone to help her bathe and dry herself off, to get dressed and brush her hair. Once I became part of the household, I took great pleasure in watching my paternal uncle’s wife, who also happened to be my mother’s sister and looked like a mountain of jiggling white flesh. One time I saw the two servants helping her put on her underwear. She couldn’t do it by herself because she was unable to bend over to grab hold of it. But what really disgusted me was when I happened to see her sitting on the kind of toilet that children sit on when they’re potty trained. She struggled to get up. I examined the bowl later and discovered that it was quite large. I concluded that my uncle must have ordered a custom-made model to the specifications of his wife’s rear end.

“Everyone who ever saw her found it hard to imagine how such a creature could have given birth to Jalila. Her thighs were so large they stuck together. How had she given birth at all? I often wondered this myself after learning that babies don’t come out of their mothers’ belly buttons, as Khadija told me when I nagged her to explain. Actually, I also heard some of my uncle’s wife’s friends laughing at her when they asked the same question. The mystery becomes even greater and stranger when you see Jalila, my uncle’s daughter and my fiancée. She was eight years younger than me, meaning she was four years old while I was living with them. Like her mother, Jalila was overweight, meaning that she was set to be just like her in future, if not even heavier. She was also lazy and an overeater, consuming prodigious amounts of food in a single meal. She neither moved nor played, and was always looking for somewhere to sit down. What’s worse, she was as stupid and callous as her mother. The thing that infuriated me most was that I only seemed to bump into her when she was sitting on her special toilet, struggling, all red in the face. Another thing she inherited from her mother was chronic constipation.

“My uncle’s wife Hamideh Khanum did have one positive attribute: she loved music. I don’t know where this love came from, but she had as good an ear as the country’s most famous ladies at that time. Maybe she was just emulating them for the sake of it, but she really did like to listen to and play music, and shimmy and sway to good Arabic music.

“My uncle had one of the most beautiful houses in the entire city. My grandfather had built it for the whole family to live in but he passed away before it was finished. It had two storeys connected by an elegant staircase. The rooms on the ground floor were large and private: three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a kitchen. Wooden doors as large as the wall separated the rooms from one another, and when they were folded back all the way the three rooms could be converted into a large living room for entertaining. Usually most of those doors remained shut, and the family would only use the front room near the entrance and the three bedrooms; to be clear, right across from my uncle’s wife’s bedroom. A lot of the time, or perhaps even most of the time, I could see what was going on in her bedroom while I was sitting in the living room. She would always leave her door wide open, closing it only when she went to bed. The upper floor was totally neglected because Hamideh Khanum wasn’t able to climb up there. They gave me my own room directly above my uncle’s room, and which looked down on both the garden and the street. Because the upper floor had been completely forgotten, they let Khadija take the room adjacent to mine.

“The house had large balconies facing in all directions, with especially good views of the front yard and the street. In the summertime my uncle and his wife liked to sit in the shade of the cypresses, oleanders and chinaberries, their leaves crinkling in the breeze and blocking them from the sight of anyone on the street. In that season the westerly winds were pleasant but they also inspired sorrow in people’s hearts.

“My uncle Ibrahim Pasha was sitting on the far side of the table when I walked into the living room. I sat down across from him. To my left, the door was wide open and I could see my uncle’s wife in her room. It was late on Friday afternoon. Typically my uncle wouldn’t go to the soap workshop on Fridays. He would stay at home after getting back from prayer, and relatives might drop by to say hello. A week had passed since we had received the disastrous news of my mother’s and father’s ship sinking. I was discombobulated and inconsolable. The idea that I would have to live my whole life in that house made me even sadder. So did my knowledge that, with that cruel twist of fate, my slim and tender mother had been replaced by my uncle’s wife, a fat and vulgar woman.

Up until that day I hadn’t been able to accept what had happened. Not even Khadija’s bitter tears confirmed for me that the telegram my uncle had received informing us of the ship’s sinking was true. But I had lost my mother for ever. She used to say she wanted to die with me or instead of me if I came down with a fever. That was why, when I sat down across from my uncle, I expected him to tell me that the news wasn’t true and to apologise on behalf of the telegraphic service, especially when I saw him holding an envelope and staring at me as he waited for me to come in and sit down. So as to prevent my imagination from rushing to unrealistic expectations, he addressed me in his croaky and hushed voice, drowning out the orderly tick-tock of the grandfather clock that was taller than I was.

“‘You know very well, nephew, what happened to your mother and father, God rest their souls.’

“He paused in order to add the necessary gravitas to what he was saying. I acknowledged this silence. He had taken away all my hope. I realised I was going to be an orphan for ever. His pause gave me the chance to reconsider my expectations. Because I hated them all so much, I had been hoping he would tell me they were kicking me and Khadija out of their house and that we would have to go and live alone in my parents’ house, which was now mine. But he went on mercilessly:

“‘It’s time to read you your father’s will.’

“He took out his glasses and placed them on his nose. They didn’t have arms to go over his ears the way glasses are made today. He read out the will as I listened in silence.

“The only thing I understood was that I was going to have to live in my uncle’s house until I got older, and that I would have to marry Jalila so that not a single share of the soap workshop would go to anyone outside the family. My uncle would be trustee over me and my property, which was half of the soap workshop and my father’s house. If I refused to marry Jalila I wouldn’t inherit anything at all.

“They bequeathed Jalila to me. That’s what had happened. My uncle finished speaking, took off his glasses, and returned the will to its envelope. Then he stood up to place it on the table beside the grandfather clock. I remained speechless, staring at his empty chair. I was devastated. But I had a habit of not showing how upset I was, something I’d inherited from my mother, so I didn’t express how much I hated my uncle and his wife and his daughter Jalila. Something to my left caught my attention and I calmly turned around. Jalila was sitting on her chamber pot trying to shit. She was staring right at me. I looked at her red and bloated face. Her mother was sitting behind her on her low-slung chair, shaking as she laughed at something one of her servants had said to her.

“Through a narrow window just below the ceiling you could see the last few stairs leading to the upper floor. Anyone walking downstairs would be able to see what was going on in the living room from there, and anyone looking from below would be able to see the person going upstairs. I was trying to look out the window so I wouldn’t have to look at Jalila. I saw Khadija there. I wanted to gaze into her tender eyes. She looked back at me. It was the first time she came through for me. There she was, leaning over the guardrail, trying to offer me support with her tearful eyes.

“My uncle and I left the room. When I got upstairs, Khadija embraced me and held me close. In my room, I started crying and repeating, ‘I hate him… I hate them all.’ She tried her best to cover my mouth.

“The tragedy unfolded smoothly; at least for me it did. I was young. As I told you, I wasn’t yet twelve years old. Whenever she started crying, I would squeeze Khadija tight. She liked me to call her Khaddouj. I knew she was crying over the death of her employers, who had both been very good to her. I would draw close and hold her, and she would reciprocate by holding me the way I liked to be held: with both arms, resting my head on her shoulder as my face brushed against her neck. She would cry for a bit longer before calming down. We’d stay like that for a long time.

“I loved the way she smelt. Not even my mother had a smell like hers. A scent like cloves. Even today, I still can’t figure out how to explain that smell. Whenever she hugged me, I would feel at peace, calm and still. There wasn’t anything quite like Khaddouj’s smell to take me away from thinking about the loss of my mother. There was no place on earth that could make me feel as peaceful as I did when my face was nestled between her shoulder and her neck. She’d lean her shoulders against me, wrap her arms around me, and caress my scrawny chest.

“She hadn’t embraced me when we were at home. She never once did that. My mother didn’t either. She’d let me rest my head in her lap and I would lie on my back as she freely tousled my hair and stroked my forehead with a tender hand. Whenever Khadija had me in that position, she’d laugh and call me a spoilt brat. In her opinion, an only child is bound to be spoilt by both parents, and that’s the child’s right. She hugged me for the first time the day after I’d spoken to my uncle. Rather than staying out on the staircase, she pulled me inside my room and then sat down to place me in her lap, squishing my face against that throne between her shoulder and her neck. We were both in tears. When we finally stopped crying I felt a tremendous calm, a peace that eliminated all of my dejection and my hatred for my uncle and his family. I was filled with tender and incomprehensible feelings whenever my chest nestled against her breasts. At first she would try to keep them away from me. Whenever I drew closer she would pull back, then she’d forget herself and turn back towards me. I would fondle her breasts once again. She tried to pull away, but in the end she stopped noticing when her breasts rested against my chest.

“That was the day I discovered the scent of cloves and sweet figs that lingered on her skin.

“She had a toned body, tall and barley-coloured. She was neither skinny like my mother nor fat like my uncle’s wife. I would describe her as being full. When she hugged me to calm me down, I would run my hands over her forearms and her shoulders and her back. I couldn’t feel her bones. They were covered by a thin layer of pillowy and comfortable flesh. I would cling to her so that her breasts were close to me.

“That familiar and pliable body silently used to take beatings from her husband before he passed away. I hated him from the instant I laid eyes on those blue and winecoloured bruises all over her face and her neck. I believe that at the hammam she showed my mother the bruises all over the rest of her body. Maybe that’s why I felt such powerful sympathy for her body, just as she felt sympathy for my sudden orphanhood.

“We didn’t speak much. That’s just the way I was. My uncle would start to worry about my psychological well-being when he noticed my long silences, which could last for days on end. He would see me here and there, at various places in the cavernous house, looking around at everything and interacting with everyone in absolute silence. Khaddouj found a kind of eloquence in that silence, as she told me when I got older. Because of my distaste for my uncle’s family, I shrank away from them, finding my only refuge in solitude and in being close to Khadija.

“After a while, I started becoming afraid of being away from her, especially at night. I would have strange nightmares about oceans, drowning, suffocation and then death. I would wake up mewling like a kitten, my body as stiff as a board, terrified of what I had seen in the dream, without the strength to toss away the blanket and get up to shake off what had scared me so badly. One time, when Khadija was singing me to sleep, I told her, ‘I’m afraid of the night. I’ve even started getting scared of the dark.’

“She stopped moving, brought her face in close to mine, and asked me in a whisper, ‘What are you afraid of? You haven’t always been like this.’

“‘I have bad dreams.’

“‘Like what?’

“‘Oceans and boats and caves. Drowning and people dying.’

“She shook her head. She understood that my parents’ drowning was causing these nightmares.

“‘There’s no need for this,’ she said encouragingly. ‘You used to sleep in your room all by yourself.’

“I continued to be silent and sad. I really wanted her to sleep next to me. I couldn’t stand being alone. She looked over and saw how despondent I was. The way I was looking drove her to ask, ‘Do you want me to sleep in here with you?’

“I nodded unenthusiastically. She smiled at me. Maybe she considered me a brat for not jumping for joy at her offer, because she started tickling and kissing me, and we tumbled around on the bed laughing.

“She switched off the light and got into bed next to me. I wasn’t right next to her, but up against the wall. She patted me and invited me to snuggle up next to her. She placed her hand under my head and pulled me in close. Then she fell asleep.

“For a while I couldn’t move. I breathed in her strange odour, my face under her chin. I didn’t want to upset her. The whole thing was pretty strange, obviously. I was too nervous to move, which could have made her move away from me or to turn onto her other side. I woke up in the same position. I didn’t have nightmares that night. Her soft and warm presence, her tangy smell kept the nightmares at bay. In the morning she was happy to hear how well I had slept beside her, and she promised to sleep next to me that night as well.

“I started to look forward to nightfall all throughout the day. Whereas I had once hated the night, I began to love it, to anticipate its arrival. When it finally arrived, I would find myself in such a good mood I’d begin to hum a popular tune unintentionally. Khadija would smile and stroke my hair as she got the bed ready and then invited me to get in. She did so cheerfully, maybe with a little smile on her face as well. She would leave the light on and then get into bed next to me. I would curl up next to her, and as I brought my face in close to her neck, she would move it out of the way so I could get in nice and close.

“The first time my skinny frame pressed up against her full and fleshy body, she didn’t get upset. She began to play with my hair instead. She would run her fingers through it and then brush it down to the side with her hand. Then she would plunge her fingers into my thick hair and do the same thing all over again.

“‘You heard about your beloved father’s will. Are you sad about it?’ she whispered.

“‘Yes’, I replied, relishing the scent of cloves. ‘I’m sad about it. Nobody ever told me I was going to have to marry Jalila when I grow up.’

“‘Don’t worry about it too much. She’s going to grow up to be very beautiful.’

“‘But I don’t love her, Khaddouj. She’s so serious, so fat. I really hate all of them.’

“She scolded me by squeezing my head and squishing my nose under her armpit. She snorted once before saying, ‘Don’t you dare say anything like that ever again. He’s your uncle, your father’s brother.’

“‘But I hate him. I feel like he doesn’t even like me. I’m scared of him when his eyes get big and wide.’

“At first she remained silent. Then she sighed. Her chest rose and fell. Even though she was wearing a cotton nightgown, her left breast brushed across my ear. I lifted my arm and her supple belly found its way under my hand. Her head moved. I guessed that she was trying to look at me but all she could see was my hair. My face was still buried in her armpit.

“Some time passed. Maybe she was trying to figure out why I had done that. Why would I cling to her and dare to touch her belly button? She gently took my hand and returned it to my side, then drew a hair’s breadth away from me, leaving my head where it rested. It must have made her uncomfortable.

“The next day she looked at me through different eyes. Several times I caught her sending probing glances my way. She was trying to discover whether I was staring at her whenever she turned away or bent over. Was I spying on her? She was obsessed, the poor girl. I felt a little bit guilty. I wasn’t sure what I was doing exactly. I felt like I had committed an adolescent trespass, like being difficult or too serious. I was suspicious of my own reasons for being like that. It seemed to make her uncomfortable, so I didn’t push. One reason for that was how happy I was whenever I touched her body. As far as I was concerned, she represented something maternal, the woman the little boy in me wanted to be near.

“I was sad about what happened. I had been comfortable with the way she looked at me but I started to avoid it, especially after she stopped going to the bathroom with me to help me bathe. She would take me in there instead and explain how I was to wash myself. She told me I was old enough to take care of myself. I would start crying whenever I took a bath. My tears flowed into the warm water I poured over my head with a copper pot. The first time I knocked on the door asking for a towel, she thought the redness in my eyes was from the soap. But when she found out I was sad, she would hug me the way she always did. She held me, without letting me cling to her in return.

“On the orders of my uncle, Khadija took me to register at the neighbourhood school. I had to re-enroll after nearly a month out of school. It was too difficult to get to my old school. We’d lived far from my uncle’s house. My old school was two buildings away from my father’s house.

“The arrival of the telegram about the ship going down made us forget all about school. I would gaze down through the window at the street and watch the other kids walking by in their black uniforms, carrying their bags as they scampered off to school or headed home afterwards, without feeling any urge to be one of them. I was comfortable with being lazy, until my uncle Ibrahim Pasha found me sitting with the women, listening to their idle chatter, and he mentioned that school could take me away from all of that. By the way, I found everything they were talking about very interesting.

“The teacher enrolled me in his class and asked me to follow him. I had to let go of Khadija’s warm hand as I secretly cursed the school and my uncle, who had brought it up in the first place. But I quickly came to like it. It was very different to my old school, much calmer. It had a large courtyard lined with classrooms. There was a single class for each grade. Most of the time they would combine students from two grades in the same room with a single teacher, but there weren’t that many students there compared to my old school. God only knew how many classes or how many students that school had. When we were let out of class, in between periods, it was like Judgement Day. The boys were naughtier. What really made me despise that old school was one of those boys in particular. He was enormous, even though he was only one year older than me. From the moment he laid eyes on me he started to bully me. If I didn’t give him my lunch and whatever money I had, he would beat me up. I had to be very sneaky in order to avoid his wrath.

“At my new school I didn’t encounter anyone as bad as that devilish bully. Perhaps there were other boys who picked on the weaker ones but I didn’t run into any, thankfully. There was a boy in my fifth-grade class who was a lot like me. He was calm and skinny but bashful somehow. Whenever he spoke his face turned red, just like me. But he also had some strange tics which I loved to watch and have a laugh at whenever he was around. His name was Malek, and when I learnt that the name for heron in Arabic is Malek al-Hazeen, or Sad Malek, I started using that as a nickname for him.

“The best thing about that school was my teacher. He was old and wore a red fez to hide his baldness. He wouldn’t leave his seat until the bell rang. He used to make the pupils do their homework in the classroom to fill time while he groomed himself, which he never seemed to stop doing. He would pull out a compact mirror and a pair of scissors, and start plucking the little black hairs from his ears. He never grew tired of this. I’d forget all about myself and my homework whenever he took out his mirror and I’d sit there staring at him. My seat was right in front of his desk, with only a single chair between us. He would catch me watching him a lot of the time, and I would look away, immediately fearing some kind of punishment. Then I would go right back to watching him as soon as he returned to the busy work with his ears. Sometimes I was even able to make out a tiny hair that had evaded his scissors and mirror. I imagined pointing it out to him.

“1936 was an important year, with a flavour all its own. I turned twenty and Jalila turned twelve. I finished my bachelor’s degree. Although I wanted to travel to Damascus to continue my studies, my uncle thought I should stop with just the one degree so I could take over the books at the soap workshop. He wanted me to go straight to work and learn how to manage the business. I would eventually become the owner, once my uncle passed away, along with Jalila, who would become my wife.

“I spent my days at the soap workshop waiting for my Jalila to call. In the evenings Sad Malek and I would go to the Dunya or the Eastern to watch Mohammed Abdel Wahab films. We’d also take part in demonstrations and other anti-French Mandate events organised by the National Bloc. One day in September, Malek came to see me at the soap workshop. He whispered in my ear that the delegation that had travelled to Paris at the beginning of the year to negotiate with the French government for independence was arriving in Aleppo that day. They were returning after a victory in the negotiations. The Bloc called on the people to give the delegation a welcome worthy of heroes returning from a glorious battle. I asked my uncle for permission to go, and as he had actually donated some money to the office of the National Bloc he let me. We hurried off to the train station.

“The train was packed that day with people who had come to greet them. First and foremost was Monsieur de Martel and the other members of the Aleppo Government. A brass band played as we chanted slogans in favour of an independent Syria. Apparently they had also added an additional slogan celebrating Syrian-French brotherhood. We began to chant it, overjoyed by the successful negotiations. As the train approached, the people grew increasingly excited and the music more frenetic. By the time the music stopped, some of the most excited people had nearly fainted. Station agents were stopping the enthusiastic masses from falling off the platform and onto the tracks. It was only by the grace of God that dozens of people didn’t become victims of the Treaty, crushed under the wheels of the train.

“The delegation descended from the train, with Mr Hashim al-Atassi at the front, followed by Saadallah al-Jabiri and all the rest. Monsieur de Martel kissed each one of them on the cheeks and the grandees gathered there to greet them did the same. When they had all lined up in front of the train to have their photo taken for posterity, a young peasant woman whose beauty surpassed anything I’d ever seen before appeared at the door of the train. She stood there in shock. She wondered if she had done something inappropriate because the masses had stopped chanting and shouting. The brass band had also stopped playing. Everyone was staring at her, finding her presence on the train quite strange. As for me, I was in love. I loved her from that moment. I wanted to know her story and what she was doing there. She recoiled in embarrassment, especially when the camera flash bulb went off and released smoke into the air. She placed her hand over her face, covering her eyes, seemingly blinded by the flash.

“The poor thing said something to the delegation and to Monsieur de Martel before she descended the carriage steps and stepped onto the platform. The chanting started back up again and the marching music resumed. The people forgot all about her, especially when the delegation and their welcome party moved towards the exit. But I didn’t forget about her, even as the huge torrent of people forcefully pushed me along. I was trying to find her, but I couldn’t even get my own bearings as the people shoved me ouside the station, into the street, and far away from the building. I knew I had lost her. I returned to chanting slogans along with everyone else, holding Sad Malek’s hand.

“The next day I scanned the newspapers for coverage of the delegation’s arrival and I found the photo with her in it. I bought two copies of the paper, one of which I stashed in my room. The other I placed in my pocket so as to keep it close by while I was at the soap workshop. I would take it out in order to regard the young lady’s beauty. In the evening Sad Malek and I went to a café where I showed him the picture. It seemed that he liked her as well, and she became the girl of our dreams, my friend Sad Malek and I.

“We began to talk about her every day. We wondered what her name was, who she was, where she might be at that moment. We started making up stories about her. We wished we would run into her on the street, which was why we continually wandered around the city neighbourhoods, checking the faces of veiled and unveiled women. One time we came across a woman who looked liked her, so we followed her. When we caught up with her and looked her in the face, we discovered it wasn’t the one we were looking for. But she was young and beautiful. Malek fell in love and followed after her to find out where she lived. From that day forward he no longer shared my love for the woman from the newspaper.

*

Now that I had been introduced to the first link in the connection between him and Widad, I asked the old man, “Did you ever speak with Khadija about the young woman in the newspaper?”

“I began to stay alone in my bedroom. I’d take out the newspaper and gaze at her face. I wanted the paper to give me a clue about where she might be hiding, but it was useless. Isolation made me think too much. Khadija grew nervous. Once she anxiously said that I had begun to stray and that I was getting more and more distracted. I tried not to respond because I wasn’t sure if she would laugh if I told her I was in love with a young woman I didn’t know anything about, apart from her picture in the paper.”

“But you told her in the end, right?”

“Of course. One night we were sitting in my room just before bedtime. She was knitting me a pair of woollen gloves for the coming winter and I was looking at an open book but couldn’t focus enough to read. I was desperate to talk to her about the girl in the newspaper. When I showed her the picture in the newspaper, she thought I was pointing at the French officer or other members of the delegation. I pointed out the young woman who was standing behind them on the steps of the train carriage. I told her I loved that woman.”

“What did she say?”

“She started laughing at me. Then she warned me not to fall in love with anyone because I was just going to have to marry Jalila, my uncle’s daughter. When I said I was serious, she realised she couldn’t see very well or make out anything in the picture apart from the delegation. I promised I’d buy her some glasses. But Khadija did begin to listen as I told her about that young woman. I relaxed. She gradually realised that the whole thing was merely the fantasy of a young man.”

“Where did you meet Widad after that?”

“I’ll tell you in due course. But I’m worried about Ismail right now. I don’t hear a sound from downstairs.”

“Don’t worry about him. I’ll check on him as soon as you finish the story.”

“I told you my uncle’s wife Hamideh Khanum loved music and concerts. She often tried to emulate high society women and considered herself one of them. But since her extreme obesity prevented her from leaving the house, she would host parties in the living room several times over the course of a year, although she spread word that she held a private salon on the first Monday of every month called the Hamideh Khanum Salon.

“I could tell by the preparations going on in the house whether there was an event the following Monday. All the seats would be moved into the living room, and more chairs would be rented from a private company. I would help move the dining-room table into a far corner. I took pity on sweet Khadija, who had been instructed to set up the three rooms with the doors wide open, expanding the space to accommodate a hundred or so women in addition to the Khojah and her girls. We arranged the rows of chairs in a semicircle around where the musicians would sit. According to my uncle’s wife’s instructions, we left space for the dancer to move around. My uncle’s wife would talk excitedly about the dancer with her visiting friends. I would hear them whispering about her extraordinary beauty. One of them hinted at a romantic relationship between the dancer and Khojah Bahira, whom I had seen before at my uncle’s wife’s salon.

“Whenever the Monday parties convened I would always be sure to spy on the women. I would sit with Khadija on the landing and look down on the living room. Khojah Bahira was on my mind, with her manly look and masculine clothes. When I was thirteen years old I began to take more pleasure in watching the women play music and dance and kiss one another. Then I noticed how some of them would ask for sheets or blankets, according to custom, and place them over their thighs. I could see the outline of their hands as they writhed and rubbed against each other under the blankets. They were banat al-ishreh. They caressed one another in view of the other women. Khadija warned me not to look at such things but I didn’t pay any attention to what she said.

“On this particular Monday I was in my spot by the window on the stairs leading upstairs. So that nobody could see me I had left the small curtain sewn by Khadija closed. I would draw it back a little with my finger and look out. The living room was filled to capacity with women, friends of my uncle’s wife. Hamideh Khanum was sitting in her chair in the front row. To either side of her were her closest friends, whom I knew well from their visits to the house. They were chatting and laughing with one another. My uncle’s wife’s servants and Khadija were performing their duties. I noticed that all the women had curled their hair. They were also chewing gum. Those who were well-known lovers of women would cling to their ablaya. Because I was looking over the musicians from up on the landing I could see things that were concealed from the others. I would see one of them caress her girlfriend’s ear with her fingertips while another one leant her head back and rested her neck in her girlfriend’s hand. I also saw rapid kisses as they whispered in each other’s ears.

“Then the Khojah came in, followed by her performers. The Khojah greeted my uncle’s wife by kissing her on both cheeks and then did the same thing with a number of other invited guests. Everyone took their seats facing the performers. The Khojah’s voice was gruff and the way she moved and sat was masculine. Apparently Hamideh Khanum had inquired about the dancer. Bahira said that she was changing her clothes and would be there shortly, just as soon as the mood warmed up.

“Mohammed Abdel Wahab was all the rage in those days. The all-female troupe started to play one of his songs from a film with Warda, ‘His Eyelid Teaches Love’. Placing a fez on her head, the Khojah started singing. She was mimicking Abdel Wahab. The women were playing, snapping their fingers as they started to sway. The kamancheh player stunned me. She was very pretty. I also saw a woman holding her girlfriend who was sitting on the floor beside her. Then she plunged her hand in between her thighs in order to stroke her down there. Both of them were in the second row, which allowed them to hide from prying eyes. Her girlfriend surrendered. She rested her head on her shoulders, closed her eyes and smiled as if in a dream. A little while later I saw the women looking behind them. A young woman dressed in a gallabiya made from embroidered white silk saya came forward and stood in front of Khojah Bahira so the women could admire her height and her beauty.

“All the women were staring at her, as if they had been bewitched by some kind of magic spell. Even the woman who had been caressing between her girlfriend’s thighs removed her hand, mesmerised by this young woman. The band was on to their second song, ‘Why Do You Tease Me?’ by Mounira Mahdiya. Khojah Bahira hadn’t started singing yet. I looked over at her. The magic spread to me as well. I became completely still. Even my breathing slowed down. It was the young woman from the station.

“I pulled the curtain back all the way and pushed my face up against the glass. I forgot about trying to stay hidden. What good was that caution in the presence of such magic? Just then she started to dance. My movement had attracted her attention and she was staring up at me, smiling sweetly. Her smile calmed me. What was this dance that so captivated all the women and me? It wasn’t a dance, more like effortless movements to the rhythm of the music. My heart was pounding. My entire body was quivering because of my long-lost love; now, all of a sudden, I saw her dancing right before my eyes. Khojah Bahira also saw me but she didn’t pay me any mind. I received another look, then a third, then a fourth. Whenever she looked over in my direction, she would smile. Later on she would tell me that she had been smiling at the hilarious sight of me, with my face distorted against the window pane.

“I didn’t realise what I was doing until I had walked down the stairs and was approaching the living-room door. I was burning up with love and my desire to see her up close. I also wanted her to see me. My love had no meaning if she didn’t notice me, didn’t recognise me. The path between the rows of chairs began at the living-room door and ended where the musicians were. I stood by the door, unconcerned with the anger my presence might stir up among those women who were accustomed to covering themselves whenever men were around. In those days, I was more confident than most men. I stood there without taking my eyes off of her. From time to time she would look at me and our eyes would meet. She was so gorgeous. Without even being aware of it, I started to move through the chairs in her direction. When Khojah Bahira noticed how mesmerised I was by her dancer’s beauty, she frowned even as she kept on singing. I stood in the middle of the space; Widad looked at me while she danced. It seemed as though she were dancing for me and me alone.

“The Khojah finished singing and the dancer stopped dancing. We were face to face. For some strange reason the women didn’t seem to notice me at all. They were too taken by the dancer, as well as the soft ambience all around her.

“‘What’s a man doing at a women’s party?’ Khojah Bahira demanded, angrily gesturing at me.

“The women needed a few seconds to extricate themselves from the grip of the dancer and absorb what Bahira had just said. I was gazing into the eyes of my enchantress, and she was gazing right back at me. All of a sudden a maelstrom of judgements and ululations broke out as the women realised they would have to conceal their feelings as well as their chests and their legs. Many of them noticed that their hands were in places they shouldn’t be. When I looked over at my uncle’s wife, I saw her whining as she pointed towards the door. Just then I felt myself being shoved by my aunt’s servants and by Khadija. I was so mesmerised that I didn’t even notice what was happening. I collapsed outside the living room. Khadija brought me to my senses and started pushing me upstairs to my room. I cast one backward glance at the dancer and saw her doubled over in laughter at what was going on all around her.

As I was being prodded upstairs by Khadija’s two powerful hands, I heard Khojah Bahira introducing her dancer after everyone had calmed down. She said her name was Widad…”

 

“So you had been searching all over town for your sweetheart, and you ended up meeting her inside your own house?” I asked the kindly old man.

“That’s right. It never occurred to me that I might see her at our place, especially because I saw her for the first time as a young woman arriving from the countryside. The second time I saw her she had been transformed into a well-known and much-loved dancer.”

“Weren’t you a little bit disappointed to discover that she had become a dancer?”

“On the contrary. She was so attractive. You might say that her beauty was extraordinary. And the way she moved, it was as though she were doling out tenderness to each and every person. That’s what made her seem a sorceress. My love for her only grew.”

“Then what happened?”

“Everyone at the party thought I was acting strangely. Hamideh Khanum complained about me to my uncle Ibrahim Pasha. He called for me that night and started shouting: ‘We try so hard to provide for you, you little ingrate, but you’re never going to grow up!’ He told me he couldn’t understand why I would walk in on those honourable women while they were unveiled. He said he was going to punish me for it.”

“Well, did he?”

“The truth is that he was convinced the dancer had hypnotised me just as she enchanted everyone else. He decided to keep me out of the house during the next party.”

 

The old man was smiling calmly. He had forgotten all about Ismail. The memory of his first encounter with Widad had put him in a good mood. But I found the whole thing rather strange. I was sitting there with a loaded rifle in my hands, constantly watching the window, or looking over towards the door, then over at Shaykh Nafeh lying in bed. It was so odd that I should be defending his memories with a gun and trying to keep Ismail, a man still incomprehensible to me, from putting a stop to our conversation. I cautiously stood up, as if I were racing from one trench to another, and picked up the framed photograph I had hidden from Ismail’s view. I gazed at Widad, standing on the stairs of the train, just above the head of Monsieur de Martel.

“I spent the next few days totally confused about what to do,” the old man said. “I had found the young woman from the station but she was still so remote from me. Sometimes I was ecstatic, sometimes I was sad. Love had found me but there were still many difficulties. Should I just go and talk to her? What would I do if I found myself face to face with her? What could I possibly say to her? Should I tell her I was in love with her? Would Khojah Bahira let me talk to her? Hundreds of questions were running through my head and I didn’t have the answer to a single one. I was fed up with the vow to marry my cousin. That is, the vow made by my dead father, who had linked my inheritance to my marrying overweight Jalila. Then there was the fact that Widad had become a dancer. I was sure she had more admirers than there were hairs on my head. And finally there was the intimate relationship she had with her Khojah, which I’d heard about while eavesdropping on my aunt and her friends. Did my love for her have any hope?

“Khadija could sense what I was up to. She noticed I was always distracted and sighing. Sleep didn’t come easy for me. I started asking her to leave me alone so I could stay up late with the newspaper. She could tell what my problem was without knowing specifically that the dancer was the same woman I had fallen in love with at the train station. She thought I was a strange young man who fell in love with every young woman he met. That’s what she said when she invited me to tell her what was bothering me. One time, after everyone had gone to bed, she said, ‘We’re alone now. Nobody can hear us. Tell me, Nafeh, are you in love with the dancer?’

“She whispered this, as if someone were pressing their ear against my door.

“‘Yes, I love her, Khaddouj,’ I replied. ‘I’m so clueless when it comes to affairs of the heart.’

“‘When will you stop falling for young girls? They’re a dime a dozen. Besides, it isn’t healthy to fall in love with every woman you see.’

“I looked right at her. She was right to say that. But she didn’t realise that the girl at the station was also Widad the dancer.

“‘It’s her,’ I said with a sigh.

“‘What do you mean?’

“‘I mean, I finally found the girl from the station. It’s Widad.’

“Khadija needed some time to process what I was saying. She repeated to herself several times: Is she the same person? Is she the same person? I nodded at her, and she leant forward on her knees and stood up. She began to pace around the room silently, picking up a few things here and there. She was thinking. Then she came back and sat down next to me.

“‘But she’s a dancer and a bint al-ishreh’, she whispered.

“‘I don’t care,’ I said, slightly irritated. ‘If I never get the chance to see her again and speak to her, I’ll just die.’

“‘You won’t die if you don’t get another chance to talk to her. Now your uncle Ibrahim Pasha, he’ll kill you if he finds out about this.’

“‘Please, tell me how I can meet her. I don’t know what’s come over me since the day I first saw her. Help me figure out what to do next.’

“‘Khojah Bahira will never let you near her. She’s a woman hunter. Everybody in town knows that. Now that Widad’s her ablaya, she’ll bare her fangs to defend Widad, if necessary.’

“‘Where does Khojah Bahira live?’ I asked without regard for the Khojah’s fangs.

“Khadija stood up and moved towards the door. The poor dear was worried about me in my lovestruck mood.

“She paused and whispered, ‘I’ll find out tomorrow. But God forbid…’

“Then she walked out and shut the door behind her. I stayed awake until morning.

“Two days later I was standing outside Khojah Bahira’s house. It was late afternoon. I hadn’t been able to come up with an excuse to leave the soap workshop until later in the day. I told my uncle I had a stomach ache and diarrhoea, so he let me go. I didn’t go home, though. I went straight to the Farafrah neighbourhood instead. That morning I had made up my mind. I put on my finest clothes, knotted an elegant tie around my neck under my starched white collar, and styled my hair with scented lotion. I was perfectly presentable standing there at the door. Nevertheless, I checked my hair to make sure that everything was perfect. I had thought about bringing a bouquet of flowers but I hadn’t been able to find any on the way, and I didn’t want to lose time by going home first.

“The neighbourhood was quiet. There were some people walking past, a little boy playing in the street. I was nervous of what would happen when I knocked on the door. I envied the little boy his innocence and his lack of involvement in romantic affairs. I placed my hand on my heart and found it beating more quickly than usual. I thought my face must have turned yellow; it might even have gone blood red. I waited there for an infinitely long time, standing and thinking. Then I heard Khadija’s voice urging me on. When I turned around to look for her, I realised I had been hearing things. I pumped myself up, telling myself that whatever was going to happen was going to happen, that they weren’t going to kill me. Then I gave a short prayer, walked up the stairs, and knocked on the door.

“The woman who had been playing kamancheh at the salon opened the door. She was kind but confused and asked me delicately, ‘Yes? Can I help you?’

“She was smiling sweetly, which encouraged me to open my mouth and stammer, ‘Khojah Bahira’s house, please?’

“‘This is Khojah Bahira’s house. What do you want?’

“‘I would like to see Miss Widad.’

“She stared at me with great curiosity, scrutinising my face, my shiny hair and my clothes. She was confused but she stayed calm, becoming even a bit more so. Apparently I had impressed her.

“‘Who wants to see her?’

“‘Nafeh Effendi, Hamideh Khanum’s nephew,’ I said, introducing myself.

“‘Ahhhh…’ she said, nodding her head to indicate that she recognised me.

“‘You’re the one who showed up at the women’s party…’

“‘Yes, ma’am. May I…’

“‘What do you want with Miss Widad?’

“What could I say? I should have prepared myself for questions like that.

“‘It’s just that… I’d like to see her,’ I said simply.

“She nodded to indicate that she understood, then calmed me with a smile that seemed to indicate sympathy with my awkward situation. She invited me inside and led me down a dark hallway. She was wearing a pink summer dress, and because we were walking towards daylight, I imagined I could see the outlines of her body through the diaphanous material, so I looked away. She pointed towards a simple couch in the iwan and asked me to sit down. Then she went into one of the bedrooms.

“I sat on the edge of the couch, pulled my knees in close, and folded my hands in my lap. That’s the way I’d sit sometimes when I was in someone else’s house. I felt as though the earth were shaking under my feet, then under the couch I was sitting on. I soon realised that the whole world seemed to be shaking because of my overactive heartbeat. I looked up to see two women staring down at me from the upstairs bedroom. I recognised them from my aunt’s party as the percussionist and the qanun player. The qanun player was leaning against the shoulder of the percussionist. They were both smiling as they whispered to one another. As soon as I looked away from them, I heard movement in the two downstairs rooms that were separated by opposing staircases. The kamancheh player who had let me in disappeared into one of those rooms. Instinctively I looked up to see Khojah Bahira poking her head out from one of those rooms to size me up. I could tell she wasn’t happy to see me in her house. She pulled her head back inside before I could look away. I noticed that the two staircases had beautiful wrought-iron banisters leading up to a platform connecting the two rooms. I could hear whispering coming from the room. The Khojah’s raspy voice grew louder but the conversation remained inaudible to me.

“My anxiety grew. Maybe she was asking the kamancheh player to kick me out. A long time passed like that. I amused myself by looking at the plant climbing along the length of the wall, musing that it probably grew up and over the wall, towards the street. I heard laughter coming from upstairs, then a door opening and soft footsteps. I turned around to find Widad standing on the landing, holding on to the banister: beautiful, elegant, bashful. Her eyes were all enchantment. She was wearing a plain housedress that hung down to her knees. I carefully stood up to greet her. I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t collapse to the ground. She smiled at me, then looked away and came down the steps, walked over to the iwan and stood right there in front of me. She extended her hand to shake mine. I was trembling. She welcomed me and sat down on the couch. I sat down next to her.

“Time went by. I didn’t know what to say. We sat there in silence. From time to time I would look over at her to find her twiddling her thumbs, just as I was. I looked up and saw Khojah Bahira and the kamancheh player staring down at us from the bedroom. Craning my head, I saw the other two women looking down on us from upstairs as well. What kind of a visit was this? How was I going to speak to her?”

“But you must have said something…” I told the kindly old man. “To introduce yourself to her, I mean.”

“Finally I managed to force myself to say something. There were five pairs of eyes staring at me.”

“What did you say?”

“I said, ‘My name’s Nafeh and we met at my aunt Hamideh Khanum’s salon the previous Monday.’ She nodded and told me she knew that. Then we had a conversation in something like a whisper.

“‘I saw you once before, a long time ago.’

“‘Where?’

“‘At the train station. We were welcoming back the delegation coming from Paris.’

“‘Ahhh, that’s right! I was just arriving in Aleppo.’

“‘But I lost sight of you in the crowd. Ever since that day I’ve been looking for you.’

“‘Why?’

“‘I don’t know what to say exactly. I was smitten. Then I bought a newspaper. They had run that photo, the one with you in the background, behind the delegation, above the head of Monsieur de Martel.’

“‘I was in the photo?’

“‘I have two copies. I’ll give you one.’

“‘Thank you.’

“‘Your name’s Widad.’

“‘Yes.’

“‘I’m Nafeh.’

“‘I know. You just told me that.’

“‘Ahhh, right. Can we go out sometime? We could go to the park for a picnic, for example, or to the cinema, if you prefer. They’re showing a new Mohammed Abdel Wahab film.’

“‘I don’t know. I don’t think Khojah Bahira would approve.’

“‘Let me speak to her.’

“We fell silent. We sat there, looking away from one other, the conversation at an end. I could feel her looking up at my face. When I looked over to do the same, our eyes locked. Time went by. I considered getting up to leave but she stopped me by asking in a hushed voice, ‘Why did you want to see me?’

“My answer this time was quick and direct: ‘Because I love you.’

“I continued gazing into her eyes. I really did love her. I would have died for her. She was flummoxed by my answer, by my confession of my love for her. Her face turned red and she tried to look away, but continued gazing right back at me. I felt she was happy to hear about my love for her, that she wanted to accept it.

“We were both startled when we heard Suad the kamancheh player hurrying downstairs to ask us if we’d like some tea. I said, ‘No thank you,’ and asked to speak with Khojah Bahira before I left. Suad stopped. Instead of going to the kitchen, she went over to the iwan. She was very sweet, and seemed to be enjoying this event. Still, she was worried about what the Khojah might do to me; the way she looked at me told me so.

“‘Why do you want to see Khojah Bahira?’ the kamancheh player asked in a whisper.

“‘I need to ask for her permission,’ I replied, my courage renewed.

“‘What do you mean?’

“‘To take Miss Widad to the cinema.’

“‘I sensed there was some danger in what I was asking the kamancheh player. She turned around in a hurry and glanced towards the banister. Through the crack in her bedroom door, I could see the Khojah pacing and watching us agitatedly.

“‘Right now?’ the musician asked me.

“As I looked over at Widad, I could tell she wanted me to do this.

“‘Not right now. Some other day.’

“‘Go now, then,’ she said, as though she had found the perfect solution. ‘We’ll come up with a way to make it happen. The Khojah doesn’t have to know about it. She despises men.’

“I walked back towards the foyer with the two women behind me. I opened the door and asked Suad, ‘When should I come back?’

“‘We’ll find a way to get in touch with you. Don’t come back until then. Goodbye.’

“I grabbed Widad’s hand under the pretence of shaking and saying goodbye. Her hands were moist with sweat. She seemed to agree with everything I said. She was hooked on me. I pulled away and left. When the door closed, I leant against the wall to gather my strength. I’d used all my strength to make my first and last adventure a success.

“The nearby voice of the muezzin was calling out the dusk prayer, tender and reassuring. I looked up at the sky and said, ‘O Lord.’ I saw the climbing vines of ivy. They had tumbled over to the outside wall, just as I suspected. I wiped the sweat from my brow and started walking home slowly.”

 

The old man fell silent. He closed his eyes and remained quiet. As far as I could tell, he was trying to pinpoint the exact moment in his memory. He was breathing heavily. Some of the wrinkles in his face were trembling. I looked at the photograph for the last time and returned the frame to its place behind the curtain. The rain was loud, creating a regular and pleasing rhythm. Just then it occurred to me to look at my watch. It was past twelve. A new problem floated to the surface of my mind. How was I going to feed Shaykh Nafeh? I stood up and pressed my ear to the door. I thought perhaps I had heard voices downstairs. The strange thing was that Ismail hadn’t moved since I’d kicked him out of the bedroom by threatening him with the rifle. I continued to listen for a moment but didn’t hear a thing. I drew away from the door and turned towards the window. I tried to look out through the blinds. The inky darkness prevented me from seeing the back garden. I moved away from the window. I was nervous. The old man was snoring softly, his mouth open. Suddenly I had the urge to go back to the window because I sensed something unusual. Maybe the light reflecting on the glass had kept me from seeing out. I switched off the lights and hurried over to it. I would have shouted from fright had I not thrown my hand over my mouth. There was a head there, just below the window, blocking out the natural light. Two white orbs were looking right at me through the two slats. I was sure it was Ismail. Apparently he had got a wooden ladder and was climbing up in the rain to spy on me. Before he could see me in the darkness of the room, I threw open the window and his head vanished. I pushed aside the window frame and looked down. There he was, Ismail, trying to scurry down quickly. I pointed the rifle at him and shouted at him to freeze.

Ismail stopped where he was and looked up at me. He was glistening from the rain that soaked him, sopping wet and hurling spite towards me. If the rifle had been in his hands instead of mine, he would have shot me right then and there.

“You’re spying on us, you son of a bitch!” I spat—but I whispered so as not to bother Shaykh Nafeh. “Aren’t you at all afraid that I might kill you?”

“Kill me?” He paused a beat before continuing, “You’re a motherfucking coward. You couldn’t even kill another dog like you.”

“I swear to God. I’ll kill you if you don’t stop pushing me.”

He let out a short, derisive snort. As he climbed back up two steps I could see him more clearly.

“What are you trying to get out of all this?” he asked me.

“Why don’t you just get out of here? Leave us alone. I swear I’ll let you go in peace.”

“Don’t start with me. I’m going to stay here with the old man. He needs me.”

“For the story?”

“He needs to get it out. I’m helping him by listening.”

“How long are you going to stay? Until he’s finished?”

“None of your business.”

“It’s not worth it. I’m going to kill you before you can leave.”

“I’m the one with the rifle. It’s aimed at your head as we speak. Let me hear the rest of the story in peace. When it’s over, I’ll be on my way.”

“I don’t want you to hear the end of the story. Even if you do, you’ll be dead before you have the chance to take it with you back to the city.”

“But why?”

“Because the city has forgotten all about it. I don’t want people to start talking again.”

“But it’s the story of the old man’s life.”

“And my own life, you goddamned homewrecker.”

So that was it. Ismail had some important connection to the story. He was a part of it. I had been expecting that.

“It won’t be long before the old man passes away. He’s had a long and full life,” he went on, but with a much more intense edge than before. “At that point, I’ll go back to Aleppo. I don’t want the story to get there before me. I’m going to live out my life there. I’ll defend my reputation and my dignity with every fibre of my being. If you think this rifle is the only weapon in the house, you’ve got another thing coming. The problem is I don’t want to kill you in front of the old man. You do realise that you were in the crosshairs of my pistol just a little while ago. The old man is the problem.”

The rifle wobbled in my hand. It was no longer aimed at his head. So he had a weapon. He reached down to his waist, pulled it out, and held it up for me to see. He smiled wickedly as he slid it back under his waistband. He seemed to be saying something else but I couldn’t understand him. I was hung up on the matter of weapons. Ismail was dangling there by my mercy as I gripped the hunting rifle. I knew it was out of ammo, but I didn’t have the heart to use it anyway. Like he said, I’m a motherfucking coward. I didn’t want to kill anybody, even if it was Ismail, who was just waiting for the chance to get rid of me the same way he’d got rid of Dr Fares, as far as I could tell. Meanwhile, he had a pistol, but he wouldn’t use it against me as long as I was protected by the old man. But what if the old man were to die? The thought terrified me. This meant that my life was bound up with the old man’s. I would have to protect him.

My upper torso was sticking out the window. Rain was pouring down on me, but it didn’t bother me at all. My only concern was the old man, and how to keep him fed.

“The old man has to eat,” I told Ismail gently.

“The old man’s gonna die, O Great Master, all for the sake of your stupid story. And you know what’s going to happen to you if anything happens to him.” Then he added, “Why don’t you just let me come in and feed him?”

“You know I’m not going to let you inside. You’ll bring the food at the appointed times, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

“Come on, go back to your room and we can all get back to our normal lives.”

He was trying to lure me away from the old man’s room so he could carry out his plot against me. I refused.

“You knew full well that I’d say no way,” I said. “I also love life.”

“Are you afraid I’m going to kill you?”

“Absolutely. You’re going to kill me as soon as I’m away from the old man.”

“Aren’t you afraid I might poison you?”

“You’re going to bring the same food. You won’t give me a special plate. I’m going to eat the same thing you give Shaykh Nafeh.”

He was silent for a few moments while he thought the matter over. It seemed he didn’t have any other choice. Through gritted teeth he grunted how much he hated me, how I wouldn’t get out of there alive. Then he climbed all the way down the ladder. I watched him walk away, cursing me nonstop until he disappeared on the other side of the garden. I shut the window, switched the light back on, and dried myself off. I took off my wet clothes and borrowed a shirt from the old man’s closet. After half an hour I heard Ismail’s footsteps walking down the hall. He placed something on the ground, tapped on the door, and then drew away. When I opened the door he was standing by the staircase. He spat and then went back downstairs. There was a serving tray with a number of plates, some drinking water, and the old man’s medication. I carried the tray inside and locked the door once again. After waking the old man, I fed him and gave him his medication. I placed the tray back in the hallway, then crawled into bed beside him and fell asleep, cradling the rifle.

In the morning the old man roused me with a gentle nudge. At first I was disoriented to find myself in his bed, but after a few seconds I recalled the events of the previous day. The rifle was on the floor beside the bed. The first thing he asked after waking me up was to go to the bathroom.

“The bathroom?” I asked, yet another chore that was required when taking care of him. I also needed to use the bathroom. I stood up, grabbed the rifle, and hurried over to the window. The rain was still coming down. The garden was peaceful. I looked for Ismail but didn’t see him. Even the wooden ladder had disappeared. I backed away from the window and stood in front of the bed, clutching the rifle as I considered the best way to get to the bathroom without running into Ismail. Apparently I was a funny sight because the old man was smiling, and then he burst out laughing.

“You look like a moron who’s kidnapped someone and then finds himself in a tough spot.”

“So that’s what you think of me, huh?”

“Precisely. You’ve got try to understand where Ismail’s coming from. If you knew the reason why he doesn’t want you to hear this story, you’d forgive him. Anyway, I’m happy to see you fighting so hard for this. If you keep it up, I’ll stand with you. We’ll find a way to work things out with Ismail. I just ask that you think kindly of him despite his actions. Come on, let’s go to the bathroom.”

I helped him get up and put on his robe. I slid back the bolt and opened the door. The breakfast tray was sitting right there. The old man and I smiled. Ismail had done his job to perfection. We walked the five paces to the bathroom. I was listening intently, trying my best to hear any movement Ismail might make to announce his presence.

“Ismail told me that this story is his story as well, the story of his life.”

“Yes,” the old man said, not looking at me. “That’s true.”

“What did he mean by that?” I asked as he opened the bathroom door.

“You’ll understand everything once the story is finished. Are you or aren’t you patient enough?”

I told him I’d be patient. Then I helped him into the bathroom, took off his robe, and left, shutting the door behind me. I moved towards the staircase and crouched down in a fighting posture, rifle at the ready.

The ground floor was quiet. Everything was as it should have been, clean and organised. Where was Ismail? What was he up to? What did he have in store for me? I heard a sound coming from my bedroom. I stood up and pointed the rifle at the door. I walked without making a sound, and when I reached the door I pressed my ear up against it. No sound. I pulled back. I was afraid. I was the one with the rifle, but I wasn’t going to be able to use it. I didn’t have the right to do so. The old man had just asked me to think kindly of Ismail, to try and understand where he was coming from. The story was his story, too. I never thought I would become so obsessed with a story about a person like Ismail. It was his own past he hated so much. I heard another noise coming from my room. I was certain it was Ismail. Maybe I was wrong. I retreated to the bathroom door and waited there until the old man was ready. I went in when he called out for me. I helped him with his robe and he left me there to clean up myself. He told me he was going to wait outside until I was finished. He was my only protection then, not the rifle.

 

After we’d had breakfast and sat down on the couch, the old man said:

“The following days passed extremely slowly. Every time there was a knock on the door, I expected it would be Widad, or someone with news from Widad. I spent those nights in real anguish. Sleep abandoned me, and I became more and more distracted. I started being able to recognise Widad’s sweet facial features in the photographs more easily after having met her in person. I would place the photograph directly under the light and begin drifting off with the idea of her until morning. After a week had passed without their calling me as Suad had promised, I became increasingly anxious, increasingly suspicious that Khojah Bahira had forbidden them from getting in touch. She must have really hated me. I would ask my uncle Ibrahim Pasha for permission to leave the soap workshop to hurry over to the Khojah’s street, which wasn’t far from work. I’d just stand there staring at the door, waiting for Widad to look out. Then just as abruptly I’d head back to work when I grew tired of waiting for another chance to ask for the Khojah’s permission, and on and on.

“Inside Khojah Bahira’s house what actually happened was exactly what I suspected. Much later Widad told me everything. I had been on her mind ever since I had wandered into the women’s gathering at my uncle’s house. I had impressed her. I was the spitting image of the heroes in those tales her housemaid Fatima used to tell her. Widad would confide in Suad, talking to her about me at times. Suad was able to confirm that I was Hamideh Khanum’s son, and Widad learnt that I was an orphan, just like her. Apparently this commonality made her care about me even more. There’s something else I have to mention that also helped me win this round against Khojah Bahira. I was a handsome and elegant young man in his twenties, brimming with vitality and sophistication, whereas the Khojah was nearly fifty-five. The truth of the matter was that Suad herself preferred the company of men, and she began to encourage Widad’s desires. The two of them would talk about me whenever they were alone together. But the Khojah, her ablaya, could sense that her sweetheart’s mind was elsewhere. She asked her about it, but Widad hid her feelings for me from the Khojah. Suad warned her not to talk openly about me for fear of stirring up Bahira’s jealousy. On the day I went to visit them, when Suad informed her of my arrival, her cheeks turned all red and she started crying.

“The Khojah tried to forbid Widad from seeing me. She asked Suad to kick me out at once. But the kamancheh player convinced her it wasn’t such a bad idea for Widad to spend time with me because I was the nephew of Hamideh Khanum, one of their most important clients. She argued that there was nothing to fear from Widad spending time with someone of my social class. After I left, Bahira had felt, with the expert and subtle intuition of a woman, that this love story might have been developing. She became irritable, perpetually on edge and began to forbid Widad from going out except when she was with her. She would constantly talk to her about the savage men who took women by force and tore them limb from limb—like feral dogs, wild animals. They didn’t know anything about love but would seize a woman and destroy her virginity, impregnate her and force her to have their children. They planted impurity at the core of women, who then demanded ritual cleansing. They insisted that women wash their feet. If they got sick, women had to become their nursemaids. If they grew tired of a woman, they would kick her out and replace her with someone else.

“But all that talk couldn’t convince Widad to hate me or stop thinking about me. She would simply listen to her ablaya and nod her head. Yet she would be thinking about the day when we could be together. Suad told her to be patient. But what could I do in the meantime?

“One day our chance came. I was sitting on the veranda looking out onto the street when I saw a boy approaching our building. He stopped at the garden gate and tried to find a way to knock on the door. At first he didn’t see me, so I stood up so that he could. My heart told me he had a message for me, just as Suad had promised. I went down to meet him at the gate. He told me that I should go to the Roxy Cinema at once. He handed me a ticket for the three o’clock screening as well as a handwritten note from Suad asking me to come in only after the film had already started, so that it would be dark and nobody would be able to see me. I gave the boy a respectable tip and hurried back upstairs. I put on some nicer clothes, slapped on some cologne, greased my hair until it was shiny and then styled it. I placed a white rose in my coat pocket and raced over to Baron Street. I stood at the entrance to the cinema, listening to the brass band playing while people filed inside. The film was a French tragedy. I didn’t happen to notice the title, and I couldn’t understand why the two women had arranged for us to meet at the screening of a depressing foreign film. As soon as they announced that the film had begun, I handed my ticket to the attendant and went inside. The usher escorted me to a private box for families. He led me inside and then left, drawing a curtain aside for me. The film was showing a woman weeping over the dead body of her husband or beloved. As I stood there in the box, my own beloved Widad and her friend Suad were sitting right in front of me. Both of them turned towards me. In the glow of the screen I could see both of them smiling at me encouragingly. I was perhaps a confusing sight. Or maybe I looked funny with my shiny hair and the rose jammed into my coat pocket. Suad gestured towards the empty seat beside Widad, and I sat down. We sat there in silence watching what was happening on the screen in front of us. Neither of us knew what to do. I had to offer the first word but I had forgotten everything I had planned to say. Finally we bridged the gap by turning to look into each other’s eyes.

“Widad was exceedingly beautiful in the darkness and the glow of the screen. In that moment I knew I was in love with her, that I would do whatever it took to win her love, no matter what it cost me. I also knew that she loved me. She would smile whenever we locked eyes. I cautiously reached out my hand, asking for hers. As she turned back towards the screen, she held my hand. It was warm; her touch gave me indescribable feelings. I could feel her soft and regular pulse. I squeezed her hand gently and she reciprocated. She became increasingly soft and pliant. After a while, her hand started to sweat. I took out my handkerchief and dabbed at her hand.

“‘This is the second time my hand has started sweating when we’ve seen each other,’ she whispered, leaning her head towards mine.

“‘Don’t worry. I’ll dry it off with my handkerchief.’

“‘But you’ll miss the film.’

“‘I’m here to see you and you alone.’ I felt myself bursting with words as I whispered, ‘I’m so happy I found you. I’m even happier that you love me back. Do you have any idea what’s going on inside my heart?’

“She stared back at me, as if to ask what was going on in my heart.

“‘I’m yours. I’ll do whatever it takes to be with you. I want you to love me as much as I love you.’

“‘I…’

Her hand, still in mine, had started to sweat again and I dried it once more. She really did love me.

“‘I want to marry you,’ I said.

“She continued to stare at me. She squeezed my hand. She said she wanted the same thing, but then she corrected herself, ‘I have a problem. And you have a problem, too.’

“She was right. I had a serious problem in my cousin Jalila, and the matter of the inheritance. Her problem was Khojah Bahira.

“‘Khojah Bahira?’ I asked her.

“‘That’s right.’

“‘I’m going to give up the inheritance, and you’re going to run away from the Khojah. Isn’t that what you want?’

“She gazed into my eyes for a long time, unable to respond. She continued watching the film. ‘Isn’t that what you want?’ I asked her a second time, but she didn’t answer. I just left her damp hand resting in mine. What I understood in that moment was how difficult the whole thing seemed to her. We remained in that position until I heard Suad ask me to leave before the film was over. She told me she would send the boy again with a new card and a new appointment. Then she said goodbye. The promise of another appointment put me at ease. Widad stared into my eyes and squeezed my hand one more time. She took the rose from my coat pocket, then raised it to her lips and kissed it. I said goodbye, stood up and left. As I closed the curtain behind me, they watched me go. Once I had left the cinema, I couldn’t go home right away. I wandered around the citadel, breathing in the smell of her sweat on my handkerchief. At home, too, my nose was filled with her scent. I was so happy that I forgot all about the hardships that lay ahead of us.

“We met up several times in the private box at the Roxy Cinema. The more we came to love one another, the bolder we became. The last time she let her head rest on my shoulder, her hand in mine, as we watched the film. We attended many screenings together and often didn’t remember a thing about the films themselves. But Widad with Umm Kulthum was one of my favourites because it had the same name as my beloved. The heroine Widad was a slavegirl with an angelic voice in the time of the Mamluks. Baher the merchant was her master, and he loved her very much but had to sell her after he lost all his money when bandits raided his caravan. We cried for the two lovers separated by fate. And oh how we cheered along with the audience when Baher was able to recoup his money and bring back his sweetheart. I saw that film several times, either by myself or with my friend Sad Malek. When we watched the film together, my Widad told me I was like Baher, the film’s hero. I told her I was ready to spend all of my inheritance on her if Khojah Bahira were willing to sell her. We were both very moved by Umm Kulthum’s singing. We memorised all the songs, especially ‘You Like the Way I Love You’. Often Widad would whisper the opening line of that song in order to express her pure affection. I used to sing the song out loud when I was alone in my room. It was a way to call out for my sweetheart.

“We saw The White Rose with Mohammed Abdel Wahab three times together because the cinema extended its run for several weeks. We would sing along with Galal Effendi, a man forced to be apart from his love, Raga, played by the fresh-faced Samira Kholoussy, songs like ‘O Rose of Pure Love’ and ‘My Moaning Makes You Sad’ and ‘My Pain, My Unhappiness’. I went to see the well-known film Long Live Love by myself a year and a half later. At that time I was in very bad shape, psychologically speaking.

“We also saw Anthem of the Heart by George Abyad, which was about a European dancer who drove a husband to leave his wife. We didn’t like that one very much because the dancer was a bad person, whereas my beloved dancer was amazing and mind-blowing. But together we watched the films of Naguib el-Rihani, in which he played a character called Kashkash Bey. That was an indispensable opportunity for us to forget about the world altogether. We would laugh from deep in our hearts at the adventures of Kashkash Bey. We saw Kashkash Bey, His Majesty and Yaqout Effendi and The Adventures of Kashkash Bey. The last Naguib el-Rihani film we saw together was He Wants to Get Married, and we laughed so hard, tears streamed down our cheeks.

“I told you how I would hold her clammy hand all the time. Every time we met, I would pull a new handkerchief from my pocket and soak it with the sweat from her hand. Then, when I got home, I would hide it somewhere cool so it would stay damp and retain her sweat and its smell for as long as possible. Eventually I had about a dozen of those handkerchiefs. I still have all of them to this day.”

That last sentence really struck me, so I jumped up.

“Do you really still have all those handkerchiefs?” I asked, interrupting him.

“Yes, I kept them all.”

“May I see them?”

He nodded for me to go over to the dresser. I hopped over there, opened it and peered inside. He gestured towards the top shelf where there was a wooden box inlaid with pearl. I brought it down and took it over to him. He asked me to open it. There were several things inside: some old silver currency; an ornamental sash that dancers used to wear around their waist in the olden days, women’s barrettes; a lock of blonde hair; folded-up papers that looked like notes; a large number of torn Roxy Cinema ticket stubs stamped with identical numbers; a plastic bag with a dozen white handkerchiefs folded carefully; and a few other small inconsequential things.

I took a handkerchief out of the plastic bag and held it to my nose, searching for Widad’s smell. I imagined I could detect the delicate smell of feminine sweat, mostly evaporated over the years. I didn’t smell soap or detergent, which meant that the smell on the handkerchief, whatever it was, was the smell of Widad. I pressed the cloth against my nose for a moment, until I had memorised the smell, and then returned everything to its place and closed the dresser.

I sat back down near the old man. We needed a few moments’ silence: for him to remember that smell, and for me to inscribe it in my memory. Without my prodding him, Shaykh Nafeh began again:

“We were very happy during those innocent trysts under the guardianship of Suad, who chaperoned us and whom we loved, under protection of the darkness of the cinema, until the day we had feared and always knew would come. Khojah Bahira found out about our meetings.”

I detected a cloud of sadness rolling over Shaykh Nafeh’s face.

“How did she find out?” I asked him. “Who told her? Did someone catch you there, God forbid?”

“Nobody ever saw us together. We continued to take the same precautions whenever I was at the Roxy Cinema. I would come out, as I explained to you, before the end of the film, that is, before the lights went up.”

“So how did that bitch manage to find you out?”

“The boy who used to deliver the tickets and the messages ratted on us.”

“My God…” I said. I was surprised.

The old man was silent for a moment before explaining to me how it all came to pass.

“Bahira could feel Widad growing distant from her. She noticed that she was becoming distracted all the time. She no longer responded to caresses or kisses. She asked to be left alone, and spent time with Suad in a bedroom or on the rooftop. They would gossip with one another for long stretches of time. Khojah Bahira would ask Widad to join her at the hammam when she bathed. She began to notice how Widad would shrink away from her ablaya’s ageing female body. Widad would even avoid going to the hammam with her. In bed she would yawn and pretend to be asleep whenever Bahira tried to get intimate with her. When the Khojah asked why her sweetheart was drawing away from her in body and in spirit, Widad responded that everything was totally fine—she was tired—or she gave some other excuse. Bahira also asked Suad about it, but she would only ever say that she had no idea about Widad’s state of mind. She allowed Suad to accompany Widad to the cinema to try to keep her happy. She was a young woman who had always adored love stories. She loved films. And although Bahira had refused at first, she eventually relented when she saw how sad Widad had become. The two young women would go to see a film every week and then tell Bahira the plot of whatever they had seen. As soon as they got back from the cinema, Widad would ask Suad and Aisha and Faridah to play for her so she could dance. Dancing to their music put her in a good mood, one befitting a woman who had just come back from a rendezvous with her sweetheart. At the end of the night, once she had danced and laughed to her heart’s content, she would evade Bahira’s caresses and kisses and advances. If her ablaya tried to embrace her once they were in bed together, she would ask her to leave her in peace so she could sleep. Widad was becoming happier and more beautiful but also more distant. Bahira sensed this right away because of how much she loved her and how jealous she could be. Nobody likes to see their significant other so affected by experiences they have nothing to do with. One time she sent Bahiya, the oud player married to the pimp, to follow them and find out whether they were actually going to see films together. Did they go inside together and come out together? Bahiya reported that there was nothing to be suspicious of. But with Widad’s continuous and inexplicable coolness, Bahira started to monitor her more closely. Finally she noticed how the baker’s employee who delivered their bread every day would speak to Suad for a long time. The last time, after Suad and Widad had left for the cinema, the Khojah summoned the young man and told him he should tell her everything because she already knew what was going on anyway. She threatened to report him to his boss if he didn’t tell her the truth. If he told her what she wanted to hear, she would reward him with a silver majidi coin. The young man spilt the beans. He told her all about the tickets and the messages he delivered to a young man named Nafeh. And immediately Bahira knew it was me. My visit to her house was unforgettable.

“Khojah Bahira was a clever and experienced woman. She had learnt how to handle her sweetheart in a situation like this. She welcomed Suad and Widad as if everything were normal when they returned from the cinema. She even enjoyed Widad’s dancing, her laughter and coquettishness. She praised her more than any previous night. The next day she went over to Hamideh Khanum’s house and told her what was going on between Widad and me. She convinced my aunt that I was smitten by Widad’s dancing, that Widad knew my soft spots and was taking advantage of me so I would marry her. Bahira left our place before I got home, having sown fears for her daughter’s future and that of the soap workshop in Hamideh Khanum’s heart.

“Hamideh Khanum told my uncle everything. I was in my room trying to write some poetry to my beloved when my uncle called me into the living room. When I got there, he asked me to close the door. As I did so, I spotted Hamideh Khanum and Jalila staring at me and scowling. I didn’t understand what was happening until my uncle Ibrahim Pasha opened his yellowish mouth, which was quivering with anger. He cursed me and then hit me with an ashtray. He hurled every possible insult at me. He told me I was worthless, lost, a blind adolescent who didn’t know what was best for him. He said everyone would speak ill of the family. Then he said something about cheap dancers and I understood at once. I was frozen in place, in shock. How had he found out? Then he made up his mind. There was no going back. He had to protect the inheritance from my thoughtless behaviour. I was grounded from that point forward. I was not to leave the house unless accompanied by him. I wasn’t to go to the soap workshop ever again. I would remain like that until his daughter was one year older, at which point I would have to marry her.

“‘Now get out of my face, you miserable piece of shit,’ my uncle roared at me. ‘You’re to stay in your room until the wedding. It’s the end of the al-Aghyurli family when a boy comes along and falls in love with a dancer. Hah!’

“I kept my mouth shut and walked out of the living room in a daze. The world had gone black. For a few moments I considered killing myself. My uncle’s wife was gloating and Jalila was crying, but I couldn’t figure out what she was crying about. Was it out of sadness for me, or fear of losing me? Khadija marched me up to my room. She was the one crying, not me. She knew all about Widad and our meetings at the Roxy Cinema. Before I could ask her, she wept and swore she hadn’t said a word, and that Khojah Bahira had visited Hamideh Khanum that day. I knew the gig was up.

“Yes, it was over. I was stuck in my uncle’s house. I had to stay in my room. I was forbidden from leaving the house under any circumstance. Khadija attended to me in my room. She fed me there. If I wandered around the house at all, only when my uncle Ibrahim was at the soap workshop, I was met with spiteful stares from Hamideh Khanum and her pudgy daughter. So I preferred to stay in my room anyway. I would lie in bed thinking, despairing of the world. I cried a lot, especially at night, after Khadija had gone to bed. How could I be so unlucky in love? I was despondent. As I mentioned, I even thought about killing myself.

“I began to hate life itself. What kind of an existence was one without Widad? And what had happened to her? What was Khojah Bahira doing to her?

“I imagined that she was forbidden from leaving her house, too. Was she crying about it? She had been so happy when we first fell in love. She so looked forward to our meetings at the Roxy Cinema, she told me, so she could place her sweaty hand in mine. She once told me that she had begun see life as easy, as beautiful. But now she had to perform for wealthy women in their salons, at weddings, put up with the attentions of vile Khojah Bahira. The very idea filled me with bile and a hatred of life. The image of them in bed together drove me mad. I believed Widad would no longer accept the advances of her ablaya, but how could I know for sure? The Khojah was trying to make her forget about me. Meanwhile, I was devastated, and my crisis was only getting worse.

“The truth is that Khojah Bahira concealed what she was up to. She let the two women go to the movies every week as usual. The boy from the bakery would take the ticket, the message and the baksheesh from Suad but he stopped coming to see me to deliver the goods and instead went straight to the Khojah and gave her whatever Suad had asked him to give me. The first time I didn’t show up, Widad found it strange. But in the weeks that followed the whole thing became even more disturbing. She grew very sad. At first she thought I might be sick. Once they tried wandering around my neighbourhood and in front of my house on the off chance that I might appear. But at the time I was in bed, despairing of the world. I couldn’t even get up to go out onto the veranda looking over the street. Suad went to the soap workshop. My uncle didn’t know who she was. She told him she wanted to buy some soap. Suad left the soap workshop even more confused by not finding me there either. They two of them were wondering what could have happened to me, just as I wondered about Widad.

“At home Widad was becoming increasingly irritable. The Khojah was monitoring her, and knew the reason for her irritation. She wanted to keep control of her. I was a man. All men steal away women from her, so she had to stand up to them, to get in their face. Even if this irritated Widad temporarily, she would eventually get over it. The Khojah didn’t want to relive the story of Widad’s mother Badia, whom the Yuzbashi Cevdet had desired so madly and whom she’d lost for all eternity.

“The Khojah watched Widad while she sighed. She was burning up. She didn’t know what could have made me stay away from her. She lay down in bed next to her ablaya. She let her do whatever she wanted, and when the Khojah was finished she would turn her back and stay awake until morning. The Khojah could hear her sighs. Her heart ached for Widad, but she was looking out for number one. Widad no longer asked the women to play so that she could dance when she and Suad got home from the cinema. At home her pain only grew worse. Bahira could read it all over her face. As soon as they got home she would disappear into her room, take off her clothes and immediately get into bed. She might cry for a bit as well. Bahira would try to cheer her up with gifts or with new plans for a party, but to no avail. Whenever she danced at a wedding or a women’s salon, she did so with a mask of sadness on her face. Maybe that was why she had an even greater effect on the women than before. This layer of sadness made her ever more attractive and enchanting. That’s women for you, always so romantic. Widad began to hate going to the cinema. Mohammed Abdel Wahab and Kashkash Bey, Naguib el-Rihani and Umm Kulthum, George Abyad and Bishara Wakim no longer meant anything to her.

“Khojah Bahira informed Suad that there was going to be a wedding party at Hamideh Khanum’s house soon and that they were going to work it. This started Suad’s mind churning. Could it be the wedding of the man who seemed to be on the verge of passing out from the intensity of his infatuation with Widad when they sat there together in the darkness of the cinema? Had he forgotten all about his love for her and decided to marry his pudgy cousin all because of the inheritance? But then why would he have sworn that he was ready to give up his share of the soap workshop if that was the price he had to pay to be rid of Jalila? Suad couldn’t bear to advise Widad to just forget about me.

“So I was imprisoned in my own bedroom. On my uncle Ibrahim Pasha’s orders I had to wait there for Jalila to reach the age of female maturity so I could marry her. She was twelve years old. Every morning they would check her dress for splotches of blood so they could announce her wedding. My uncle was mapping out my future in his mind. As soon as his daughter came of age, he would marry her off to me and send us to study in Paris. I didn’t know the entirety of his plan. I presumed I was going to marry her and then go back to the soap workshop. Because I hated it there so much, I despaired of my life and despised living. I loved one person and one person only, and she was the one I wanted to marry. But once they had prevented me from seeing her, perhaps she had started to hate me, and so I preferred to bury myself in my room.

“My beard was getting long. I neglected the hair on my head and started to hate bathing altogether. My body had atrophied. I cried and moaned all the time. I no longer had any appetite for food or drink or reading. All I did was take out the things that reminded me of her. I reread her letters and her brief handwritten notes. I’d stare at the ticket stubs, smell again the handkerchiefs scented with her sweat. Khadija had begun to fear for me and my mental health. I wasn’t well. If I’d carried on that way I might have died, or at least wound up going insane. She would come in to check on me, sit down on the edge of the bed, and drown in a wave of silent weeping. Where was Nafeh? What had become of him? She started begging my uncle and his wife to do something to save me. But they were unmoved by her warnings. All she heard my uncle say in return was that nothing was going to happen to his brother’s son; she didn’t need to be afraid and should just worry about keeping me fed. But I refused to eat. In tears, she would beg me to eat, and when I saw her beseeching me like that I’d force down a few small morsels.

“Khadija started to despise them. She started to hate my uncle Ibrahim Pasha and his wife and daughter. In everything that was happening to me, she saw injustice against the son she never had. Since becoming an orphan I had been like a son to her. It seemed to her that my death wouldn’t come down like a lightning bolt on my uncle’s head because he didn’t seem to care whether I lived or died. In fact, if I died, he would get his hands on my inheritance. That would solve the problem of the soap workshop once and for all. Khadija started encouraging me to run away. She even went back to the house where she had once lived with her husband before he died, pulled out all the nails boarding it up and went inside. She cleaned it and got it organised. If my condition got any worse, Khadija planned to take me from my uncle’s house to save me.

“My uncle had called Dr Behar several times. He prescribed some sedatives and growth hormones for me, and told my uncle how important it was for me to change my lifestyle. He recommended taking me to a mountain resort for some fresh air. But did my uncle have any interest in taking me up there? After a while he started to forget about me altogether. He grew bored of thinking about my condition. But Khadija never stopped thinking about ways to help me. She knew what was ailing me and how it could be treated. One day she suggested to my aunt that she bring in a healing lady to pray for me and to exorcise any demons that had possessed me. Hamideh Khanum yawned and then agreed. She told Khadija to go and fetch one for me. She too had grown bored of me, my sickness and demons. Khadija asked for directions to Khojah Bahira’s house. This all happened without my knowledge. I was laid up in bed, dead to the world, totally despondent. When Khadija went to the Khojah’s house and knocked, Suad came to the door. Khadija introduced herself as my servant and said she wanted to speak with Suad or with Miss Widad about a very important matter. An hour later they were all at Khadija’s house.

“Khadija told Suad and Widad the whole story. She told them that ever since I had been imprisoned by my uncle and his wife, I was slowly dying in my room because of the separation and from the intensity of my love for her. She told them everything, about the inheritance and the requirement that I marry Jalila, who had not yet reached the age of maturity, and about the depth of my hatred for her. Widad broke down in tears. She never dreamt that I might die because of my love for her. She still loved me despite everything the Khojah had done to turn her away from me. But how were the two of us ever going to be able to meet? Khadija told them that she had everything figured out. All Widad had to do was put on some of Khadija’s old clothes and make herself look like a pious old woman who went around praying for the sick and exorcising their demons, especially the female demons men fall in love with and who possess them. The only way they can be cured is through special rituals. Widad agreed to this plan. She was burning to see me and to heal me. The two of them helped her get dressed. Despite those old clothes, her beauty and her body still gave her away. My beloved was a consummate angel.

“Khadija and Widad left. Suad stayed behind at Khadija’s house to wait for them. Twenty minutes later my servant was guiding Widad, I mean, some poor ascetic old woman with a hunchback, into my uncle’s house. After informing Hamideh Khanum that the old woman had arrived, she immediately led her upstairs without anyone seeing her. She brought her into my room. She pointed at one of the doors, told her to wait in that room, and then shut the door behind her.

“Widad stood by the door. I wasn’t conscious at the time so I didn’t see her. I was out of it because of the tranquillisers Dr Behar had prescribed for me. But she was right there in my room, and Khadija had closed the door behind her. Widad took off her yellow shawl and approached the bed. She placed her hand over her mouth so she wouldn’t cry out from horror at what she was seeing. I was in a pitiful state. My hair was unkempt. It had been a long time since I’d last bathed. She had only ever seen me with my hair combed and shiny. Now she was seeing me in my worst state. My facial hair had grown long and I reeked of sickness and sweat and a filthy bed. I had become very skinny, my face had yellowed, and my lips were cracked. To put it bluntly, I looked half dead.

“She knelt beside the bed, crying. She held my hand and started to kiss it, running it along her face, wetting it with her tears. She kept repeating, ‘Baby, baby.’

“I was in a very small boat. Dr Behar was steering with two little oars. I had my back to him as I leant over the water, searching for my mother and father. My mother appeared beneath the water, calling out to me. She wanted me to dive in after her. She was smiling with the kind of tenderness I had been looking for on the faces of every woman on earth. I hadn’t seen it anywhere except with Khadija. Whenever I tried to get out of Dr Behar’s boat in order to dive in after her, she would disappear. One time I saw her approaching from underwater. She wasn’t waving at me to follow her but swimming right up to the surface of the water. She took my hand and started to kiss it. She moistened it with the water and her tears. I could hear her calling me ‘baby’. She always used to call me that. I wanted to jump out of the boat and sink down to be with her, but she started crying and begging me not to. I started wailing. She reached out her hand and began to stroke my forehead. The strange thing was that my forehead was wetter than my hand. I opened my eyes and found that it was all a dream. I had been dreaming I was in Dr Behar’s boat but I was actually in my own bed. There was no ocean. Only the normal atmosphere of my bedroom. And it wasn’t my mother who was holding my hand, crying, but Widad, dressed like a servant, kneeling beside the bed, crying in anguish as she repeated the word, habibi, baby.

I surrendered to the dream. I believed it was real. I had been looking everywhere for Widad, both in the dream and in life. It didn’t matter anymore. The important thing was for me to see and touch her. I didn’t examine the reality of what I was seeing too closely. I hoped that what I was seeing was real. But it didn’t matter. Let it be a dream. There was no longer any difference for me between dreams and reality. She watched me gazing back at her and she froze for a moment before sitting on the bed, holding me. She began to kiss me, unconcerned by my sweat and my many odours. I held her. I caressed her body, my head pressing against her chest. She was crying as she kissed my hair and said, ‘Why do you love me? I mistreated you. I thought you would have forgotten about me when they asked you to. I love you, believe me. You have to get on with your life. You have to live.’

“I didn’t stop stroking her. I started to doubt that what I was seeing was a dream. When I opened my eyes it turned into reality, and not the reverse. But I still wasn’t convinced. How could Widad be sitting on my bed, holding me and kissing me and crying over me? How could she be so close to me? Had she been reduced to a poor woman, dressed like that? But no, it was her. I could tell by her distinctive smell, which I recognised from our trysts in the box at the Roxy Cinema. I knew the feel of her skin from when I’d held her hand and wiped away the sweat. The whole time I was trying to understand what I was actually seeing and feeling. Was it reality or a dream world? While I was still in that state she suddenly stopped crying. She seemed to be considering something very carefully and furrowed her brow quite seriously. It was the first time I had ever seen her like that.

“‘I’ll show them all,’ she said out loud. ‘I’m yours, Nafeh. I’ll show them all that I’m yours, your uncle and his pudgy wife and wrinkly Khojah Bahira, whose bad breath I despise. I’ll show them all. We’ll stick our tongues out at all of them.’

“‘Hold on a minute, baby,’ she told me, getting up. I followed every move she made, enchanted. She walked over to the door and unlatched the lock, made sure the door was closed and came back. She stood in front of the bed, her back to me, and began to take off her clothes. The bottom part of her shawl fell down as she took off her yellow robe, and then she took off the shawl even though it looked really good on her. She had nothing on underneath but silk red stockings adorned with lace along her thighs. When she turned her torso to release her hair from the shawl I saw the vague elliptical line between her legs. She turned towards me. I just about died from that sweet lump that swelled in my throat. She was smiling at me despite the tears in her eyes and those running down her cheeks. She was naked. An ivory-white body. Everything about her was gorgeous. Everything about her was extraordinary. One moment I believed I was dreaming, the next I thought it was real. She came and lay down next to me, pulled me close to her, clung to me. She reached out to undress me from below, and then took off her lace stockings.

“‘I’m yours,’ she whispered in my ear. ‘Come, take me.’

“I didn’t understand what she meant. She started kissing me. I couldn’t understand what was happening. She didn’t even wait for me to get involved. I was hypnotised, in a dream state. She let me lie there. Then she got on top of me and took me inside of her.

“She was angelic. I clung to her body. Life surged through me afresh. I could hear myself panting as she gasped for air. She was kissing me and weeping. But she was defiant, gentle with me and extremely stern with all those people we’d decided to stick our tongues out at. Her breathing grew faster until she cried out and then cooled off again, quenched at last. She lay down next to me. I held on to her so she wouldn’t turn into a fading dream that would be forgotten in a few days. We remained silent, bound to one another. I felt both awakened and depleted. She stood up, put on her clothes, and left the room. She said something to Khadija and then came back inside. A few minutes later she took the serving tray from Khadija. I was so hungry I ate out of her hand. She began to feed me even as she kept on kissing me. I had been saved from the clutches of death for a second time.

“As she fed me, Widad told me everything. She told me it had been the Khojah who betrayed us to my uncle’s wife, that my uncle had pronounced his unjust ruling and thrown me into my prison until his daughter Jalila came of age. She asked me to come back to life if I truly loved her, to come back as powerful and handsome as I had been before. I promised her I would. She promised me she’d do whatever she could so we could be together all the time and said we could meet at Khadija’s house. Then she put the shawl back on in preparation for going back outside. But she kissed me for a few minutes before she finally left. I heard Khadija take her downstairs. Then the outer door slammed shut.”

 

The old man grew quiet. He leant his head against the headboard and closed his eyes. After he had finished his lunch, I helped him into bed. I started to monitor him. Sometimes he would squeeze his eyelids shut. I convinced myself that he was remembering what had gone on between him and Widad when they were in bed together. I let him reminisce about that state of passion and told myself I’d wait there for him, even if he fell asleep. I drew closer to him. I wanted to watch his skin twitch as he remembered the event. His breathing was laboured and feverish; beads of sweat bloomed on his temples. I could tell how relaxed he was, how much he was enjoying himself.

I moved to the window to observe what was going on outside. It was sunset. The day had ended quickly. I noticed that I could no longer hear the sound of rain. How had it escaped my notice until just then that it had stopped pouring? First I opened the window, then the shutters. Rain was falling softly, the last remaining drops. I took a deep breath. The horizon was clearer now that the low, heavy clouds had dispersed. All that was left were some high clouds which were likely to dissipate in the air at any moment. It seemed we would get some sun tomorrow. I closed the shutters and the window. Was it possible that the rain might stop and the sun might come out in the morning before the story was finished? I was anxious and distressed. I hurried over to switch on the light. I saw Shaykh Nafeh’s expression clearly. He was smiling now. I crouched beside the bed and studied the soft creases in his face. He must have been a handsome young man when Widad first decided to give herself to him. He had retained those good looks until that very moment, despite his advanced age. He opened his eyes and saw me there. He was happy. It seemed as if he had been having a pleasant dream that he was afraid might slip away from him. He closed his eyes again and gently nodded his head. I noticed his convulsing hands slowly going slack.

“Hey, Shaykh Nafeh… Are you awake?” I asked him in a near whisper so I wouldn’t disturb his pleasant mental state. He reached his hand out towards me and I held it close. It was warm, wrinkled and soft.

“Thank you, my dear boy, for listening to me,” he said.            “You’ve allowed me to relive those moments. I’m so grateful that my last days brought you to me.”

“I’m so happy that you’re happy, but I’m sorry to inform you that the rain has stopped. Tomorrow the sun is going to shine. The end of the story must be upon us. I’m nervous about that.”

“Don’t worry. You’ve heard most of it now anyway. I’ll try to wrap it up quickly. I wouldn’t have any regrets at all if I were to die tomorrow.”

“But what about the end of the story? I want to know everything. And what about Ismail?”

“I’ll try, but you have to understand something. My whole life I’ve been trying to recall what happened that day between Widad and me but I always failed. I needed to tell someone like you just so that I could remember. You have no idea how relieved I am right now.”

I told him I was afraid for him to go to sleep.

“I know, Shaykh Nafeh, I know. Again, I’m delighted about your happiness, but what happened after she gave herself to you?”

As he drifted between dreaming and wakefulness, he said, “We started meeting at Khadija’s house every week, then every three days, then just about every day.”

“But what about your uncle Ibrahim Pasha?”

“He was happy for me. But when he saw the splotch of blood on Jalila’s underwear, they decided to marry us.”

“You didn’t run away?”

“Widad recommended that I go ahead and marry Jalila. She said there was no point in my missing out on the inheritance. At first I refused, but she insisted. She said I came from a good family and she was just a dancer, other things like that. Even though she knelt before me and cried, she told me it would make her happy for me to own my father’s house and workshop. She believed my uncle was capable of the worst, either forcing me to marry his daughter Jalila or else killing me out of humiliation. She was worried about me and convinced me that she’d wait for me.”

He began to speak more calmly, his words halting, as if he were drifting away from me. He spoke with his eyes closed. At first I shook him gently, then more and more forcefully.

On the verge of tears, I asked him, “What do you mean she would wait for you?”

“I had to travel to Paris with my wife in order to go to law school…”

“Why would you agree to that?” I asked aggressively.

“That was my mistake,” he replied as though in pain. “I didn’t have to get married and go like that, because…”

He started to cry.

“Because what? Tell me, Shaykh Nafeh, I beg of you.”

He began to disappear into his own kingdom. His hands were hardly trembling at all anymore. What was happening to him? I began shaking him again. With one hand I wiped away his tears and with the other hand I wiped away my own.

“Because… I…” he said, his words spaced further and further apart. “I wouldn’t… ever… see her… again… I lost her… for… ever…”

“Why? What happened?”

“Now… let me go… please…” he said, as if tremendous pleasure were washing over his entire body, as if he were back in the arms of his beloved, as if he were reaching orgasm. “I don’t want to lose this pleasure. I’m reliving those moments… I spent in her arms.”

“Just tell me what happened to Widad,” I said hurriedly, sensing that he was about to depart. “Please, I’ll kiss your hand.”

“Because… she… ran away… from… Khojah Bahira.”

Then he exhaled one last time and lost consciousness.

I held his hand and stroked it, tried to rouse him once again but his hand was limp and heavy. The hairs on my neck stood on end. I held his wrist and searched for a pulse. Time passed while I searched, but there was nothing. I drew away from the bed in horror. I muttered, “Shaykh Nafeh… Shaykh Nafeh!” I placed my ear against his chest, where his heart should have been. I didn’t hear a sound. Shaykh Nafeh was dead. I cradled him, then started to shake his body as I called out in a hushed voice, “Shaykh Nafeh… Shaykh Nafeh…”

I was overwhelmed by lethal panic, afraid I was going to die. I sat down on the ground, placed my head in my hands. Could death come so easily? Just a few minutes before he had been talking and shuddering from his illness. He wanted to relive those moments of pleasure so he could die inside them. What a horrible thing. Had I helped him to die? My body quaked as I started to weep. He had only wanted to rediscover that forgotten pleasure so he could die in peace. I had been so captivated by his story that I was almost willing to die if I didn’t get to hear the ending. Then there was Ismail. He’d threatened to kill me but he hadn’t followed through on his threat because of the old man. Yet now the old man was dead, no doubt he would try. I told myself not to be afraid. I had a rifle. I could defend myself. But I was a man afraid of his own imagination. I’d rather die than kill another human being.

I heard the sound of Ismail’s footsteps tiptoeing upstairs. He was bringing dinner. I stood up and moved closer to the door. I wiped the tears from my eyes and placed my ear against the wooden door. I heard his footsteps getting closer. Then he placed the dinner tray on the ground and picked up the lunch tray. I heard him curse me as he walked away, his footsteps receding. I heard him go downstairs. Then silence again. I inhaled deeply, sat with my back against the door and spread my legs on the floor. I had to think. How and when was I going to get out of there? The best time would be at dawn, which meant I would have to spend the entire night with the old man’s corpse, and it also meant that Ismail couldn’t find out what had happened. If he knew his master was dead he would come straight in and kill me. He knew I wasn’t going to use the rifle because I was a coward. He told me as much when I caught him standing on the wooden ladder spying on us from outside the window. But why did the old man have to die? Why now? I had started to care about him and everything connected to the world he’d told me about. I loved Widad as much as he did. I began to love dance and the Khojahs and the kamancheh Suad used to play. I loved the handkerchiefs he had used to wipe away the sweat from Widad’s hand. I thought about taking them with me to Aleppo. I couldn’t live without the traces of Widad, especially the smell of sweat on her hands and the photograph of her standing just above the hat of the French High Commissioner Monsieur de Martel.

But what about the story? Would I lose it now that Shaykh Nafeh had died without finishing it? I couldn’t ask Ismail to finish it even though he was the only one who possibly could. He despised me because I had heard the story. Either I would have to give in to him or figure it out for myself. But could I do that? Could I understand why Widad would run away from the Khojah? Or figure out who Ismail actually was and what had happened to Widad and Jalila, his wife? And what about all the other questions that didn’t even occur to me as I sat there on the floor, leaning up against the wall?

I looked up at the photographs hanging on the wall, arranged to cover every last inch of the wooden surface. I could use them to deduce the end of the story; that’s what I told myself anyway. I’d spend the whole night studying them, until dawn if I had to. Then there was the trunk. It contained piles of folded documents. I’d take them with me to Aleppo. Ismail didn’t need them. He hated everything that had to do with the story and its characters. I might find something in there that could unlock all these riddles.

I stood up. I had spotted an old suitcase in the cupboard when the old man had asked me to take out the trunk. I pulled out the suitcase, then the trunk and placed them both on the couch. I brought over the photograph of Widad at the train station and opened the suitcase to put the picture frame and contents of the trunk inside. I discovered that it was filled with documents.