Hagos was asleep alongside Eyob. Both men shared the habit of heavy sleeping, as if, Saba thought, they were in one long, deep dream which ought not be interrupted. As if their love could only come alive in the hours when the midwife, the judge, the mother, the committee of elders were asleep, in the hours when tradition closed its eyes, leaving desire free and unhindered.
Saba lay next to Eyob. She emulated her brother and placed an arm on her husband’s chest. This was her time to be loved.
We all entered this camp as humans but only some of us would leave so. Disgust is an acquired taste, she reminded herself.
But this wasn’t disgusting. It astonished Saba how judgemental thoughts still arrived in her mind and how much resisting she still had to do. Eyob was the oasis in which both she and her brother took refuge from their long journey. His heart, the heart that had stopped twice before, beat under his ribcage, rhythmically.
Saba undressed and squeezed herself between the two men.