dozed off when Zeina Bint Zeinat disappeared in the darkness.
Only once did Satan’s eyes glimpse her as she ran between the flower basins. He reached out with his long, firm arms, which were as hard as steel, and caught her by the hand. He pulled her into the back room in the garden. In one instant, as she ran and sprinted among the flowers like a white butterfly and the air lifted the hem of her white dress, baring her legs, Satan’s eyes fell on the soft thighs exposed to the wind. His eyes moved upward from the legs to the smooth body, until they rested on the soft pubic area where no hair yet grew.
Zeina Bint Zeinat was nine then, a schoolgirl. Miss Mariam held her fingers high for all the other girls to see, saying, “These fingers are created for music. Zeina Bint Zeinat will become a great musician one day!”
Ashamed of her short, stout body, Mageeda shrank in her chair. Her plump fingers couldn’t move smoothly or quickly over the keys of the piano. Her neck, like her short plump body, sagged under the weight of her head when she walked.
Mageeda’s little heart was filled with a combination of admiration and envy. Although Zeina was Mageeda’s senior by one year only, she seemed to be a hundred years older, for she seemed to have known life and death, God and Satan, and was no longer scared of them.
Mageeda’s heart, in contrast, was filled with fear, for she was terrified of the everlasting fires of hell after death, and of her father’s fist when it rose high and fell on her face or her mother’s. She suffered the blow, like her mother, without uttering a word or shedding a tear. She couldn’t lift her hand high and bring it down on his face, for her hands were plump and slow like her mother’s. She’d look down in shame, as her mother did as she walked.
On that Friday, Bodour went to visit her only friend, Safi, accompanied by her daughter, Mageeda. Safi lived alone in a small apartment on al-Agouza Street. In her early youth, Safi was married to a Marxist university colleague. She abandoned God and the Prophet for the sake of love. Her husband vowed undying loyalty and fidelity. But he broke his vows to her, for she caught him with the young housemaid in her apartment. He told her that men were polygamous by nature and that change was a constant and unchanging natural principle. Infidelity for him was the residue of feudalism and private property. A wife didn’t own her husband because human beings were free, and freedom was the highest ethical value, only paralleled by love. After her divorce, Safi got married to a man who believed in God and the Prophet, a man who held a yellow rosary in his hand. On his forehead was the dark prayer mark gained from frequently lying prostrate with his forehead touching the ground in obedience to God. When he vowed love and fidelity, Safi gave up Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. She wore a scarf round her head to hide her hair. She was married to him according to God’s law and following the Prophet’s example. Two years later, as she was walking along a street at the other end of town, she read the name of her husband on one of the houses. The exact name was engraved on a brass plate nailed to the door.
She hesitated for a moment. Before ringing the bell, she told herself that full names were identical in many records, including election lists and police registers. An innocent man could be detained because he had the same name as a criminal, or a dead man might even rise from his grave to cast his vote for the president.
She rang the bell three times before the door was opened. At the door stood her husband, in the flesh and with the dark prayer mark on his forehead. He wore white pyjamas adorned with pink flowers. His trousers were loose and unbuttoned and his penis peeped through the opening. She couldn’t mistake it. Her nostrils were still filled with his odor from the night before. She raised her hand high in the air and was about to bring it down on
Only once did Satan’s eyes glimpse her as she ran between the flower basins. He reached out with his long, firm arms, which were as hard as steel, and caught her by the hand. He pulled her into the back room in the garden. In one instant, as she ran and sprinted among the flowers like a white butterfly and the air lifted the hem of her white dress, baring her legs, Satan’s eyes fell on the soft thighs exposed to the wind. His eyes moved upward from the legs to the smooth body, until they rested on the soft pubic area where no hair yet grew.
Zeina Bint Zeinat was nine then, a schoolgirl. Miss Mariam held her fingers high for all the other girls to see, saying, “These fingers are created for music. Zeina Bint Zeinat will become a great musician one day!”
Ashamed of her short, stout body, Mageeda shrank in her chair. Her plump fingers couldn’t move smoothly or quickly over the keys of the piano. Her neck, like her short plump body, sagged under the weight of her head when she walked.
Mageeda’s little heart was filled with a combination of admiration and envy. Although Zeina was Mageeda’s senior by one year only, she seemed to be a hundred years older, for she seemed to have known life and death, God and Satan, and was no longer scared of them.
Mageeda’s heart, in contrast, was filled with fear, for she was terrified of the everlasting fires of hell after death, and of her father’s fist when it rose high and fell on her face or her mother’s. She suffered the blow, like her mother, without uttering a word or shedding a tear. She couldn’t lift her hand high and bring it down on his face, for her hands were plump and slow like her mother’s. She’d look down in shame, as her mother did as she walked.
On that Friday, Bodour went to visit her only friend, Safi, accompanied by her daughter, Mageeda. Safi lived alone in a small apartment on al-Agouza Street. In her early youth, Safi was married to a Marxist university colleague. She abandoned God and the Prophet for the sake of love. Her husband vowed undying loyalty and fidelity. But he broke his vows to her, for she caught him with the young housemaid in her apartment. He told her that men were polygamous by nature and that change was a constant and unchanging natural principle. Infidelity for him was the residue of feudalism and private property. A wife didn’t own her husband because human beings were free, and freedom was the highest ethical value, only paralleled by love. After her divorce, Safi got married to a man who believed in God and the Prophet, a man who held a yellow rosary in his hand. On his forehead was the dark prayer mark gained from frequently lying prostrate with his forehead touching the ground in obedience to God. When he vowed love and fidelity, Safi gave up Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. She wore a scarf round her head to hide her hair. She was married to him according to God’s law and following the Prophet’s example. Two years later, as she was walking along a street at the other end of town, she read the name of her husband on one of the houses. The exact name was engraved on a brass plate nailed to the door.
She hesitated for a moment. Before ringing the bell, she told herself that full names were identical in many records, including election lists and police registers. An innocent man could be detained because he had the same name as a criminal, or a dead man might even rise from his grave to cast his vote for the president.
She rang the bell three times before the door was opened. At the door stood her husband, in the flesh and with the dark prayer mark on his forehead. He wore white pyjamas adorned with pink flowers. His trousers were loose and unbuttoned and his penis peeped through the opening. She couldn’t mistake it. Her nostrils were still filled with his odor from the night before. She raised her hand high in the air and was about to bring it down on
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