“What ’s that odor?”
“Maybe it ’s from something rotten.”
Without noticing I had come to the window over the beautiful street, and I took a deep breath. A new car with a foreign license passed, and Si l-Wakil raised his head. For a moment I thought he was looking at me, but he was following the trail of a jet high above; no doubt the sun blinding my eyes prevented me from following it. Still, I cried, “The view from here is wonderful!”
She was facing the light, and I was able to make out her eyes and lips beneath the veil. The dirty, depressing atmosphere of the room had given me the sense that I had done my duty and that I should escape, so I hurried out unconsciously; but a hesitant step or half step from her stopped me.
I had regained my composure. I half turned, and said, “I’ll be in my apartment. If you need hot water, or towels, or sheets or anything else, let me know.”
I stretched out on the bed in my clothes. I decided I would wait a few seconds only and then go to al-Baqqali. The door of my apartment opened, however, and she entered, filling the doorway with a green dress figured with trees stretched over a plump body; her swelling chest showed in a wide opening from which the dress receded. I was overcome with confusion, which she noticed with interest. Where was the mature woman of the jellaba? Before me was a young woman, not a “dear lady.” God forgive you, Si l-Habib, you must not know her. I remained stretched out where I was, disbelieving, comparing her two appearances. Had I not seen the change with my own eyes I would have sworn it was impossible. I had often been deceived by a veil, especially when it rose to the level of the lower eyelids; but this was the first time it made me seem like an idiot. I thought that if I had been standing I would have seen the attractive valley between her two shining breasts; but I resisted the attraction, especially as I felt that she wanted to reassure herself. Her stance combined command and execution. Her eyes were the power from which flared a provocative flame, exasperated with existence: they shone, while her closed mouth gave a wan smile, barely bending that dark red streak.
“When will the water be hot?”
She put down the suitcase. Once again the melodies began to set me adrift on a dark path. It seemed to me that I would become drunk, as had happened before. The inflections of her voice seemed to bring together lines that coiled around the resistance of any man, pulling him toward the power flaring from the burning eyes so that he melted in the flames.
I couldn’t help myself, I stood and stared at her. Her face contained enough beauty for half the girls in the world. I nearly cried, “From what sky have you descended, O enchantress?”
“It seems I’ ll be spending my day here. After I rest, I’ ll clean the apartment.”
I rejoiced—no, I nearly flew from joy. But I trembled, and sweat began to drip from my fingers.
“Where is the bathroom?”
“Discover it yourself, my apartment isn’t Buckingham Palace.”
“You know how to joke, coming from the East!” She said the last word with great scorn and disdain.
She took of her shoes near the door and put on my sandals, taking everything without asking my opinion. I stretched out again and closed my eyes, as she hummed a popular tune without words. The rustling of her silken dress enveloped the room in an air of domesticity which I had been deprived of for a long time in my life. Sounds of interrupted lovemaking. It reminded me of a muwashshah poem in which birds chirped and nightingales warbled and sang as the soul leaves the body, swimming in endless depths of pleasure. There I would meet in it diaphanous colored bodies, beloved, on a bed of cottony clouds, in a happy childhood world which disappeared only with the end of the notes of that muwashshah.
Since I knew from long observation that I become embarrassingly confused in any situation that requires me to harmonize, spontaneously, a state of rapturous love with appropriate external behavior, I withdrew to the balcony and began to wipe the abundant sweat from my hands on the thick hair of my forearms. The pretty Jewess whom the Ethiopian claimed to own was on the roof hanging clothes. Her tall house overlooked the little low roofs spread out to the distant west.
“Your apartment is prettier. It’s not bad.”
She stood near me at the window, her figured dress touching my trousers.
“But al-Jaza’iri’s apartment is cleaner.”
The joke was silly, but her laugh was contagious, so I laughed not only out of courtesy but with all my heart. There was something else: I had begun to disintegrate emotionally, collapsing in a way I never had before, and which I could not stop. Why?
“Do you clean it?”
“I have a maid.” My voice came out broken and weak, with nothing manly about it, so I was worried. But I kept my smile, even though I guessed it was inane.
“Pretty?”
“Who?”
“The maid.”
“She’s about forty.”
“I didn’t ask you about her age!”
Often in a situation like this provocation would arouse me, and I would welcome it because it would restore my selfconfidence. But I was not aroused. I shrugged. “Maybe, but I…”
What did I want to say? The words escaped me. Any word would seem stereotyped, especially to someone doubtful.
She rescued me. She put her tender fingers on my lips in an accustomed movement, as if she had known me for a long time, setting in motion many wishes. I envied others their ability to deal with situations like this and get what they wanted in a mirthful manner. I could have kissed the beautiful finger, on which shone a beautiful large stone. I could have bitten it. But I did not. I condemned myself; it was insipid, sensible behavior.
“And Si l-Jaza’iri, does he have a maid?”
“Not that I’ve noticed.”
I had begun to get used to my elation over her sweet, musical timbre. She nodded, gesturing toward his room. “A miserly old man doesn’t care.”
“How are you related?”
She smiled and shrugged. “He’s just a relative.”
Her words were empty of any feeling of love, or hate, or pride. It was scientific language, as if she had said, “my dress.”
“Then you’re Algerian.”
“No.”
She stretched out on my bed as I leaned on the window, her exuberant chest rising and falling. She closed her eyes, and her long eyelashes against her white cheeks formed the symmetrical rays of a black sun.
“How so?”
She put one foot on the toe of the other foot. She was balancing something hidden. The green dress fell away from her shining white leg and its plump calf, and she began to move her feet like the pendulum of a clock. She said musically, “Does it matter to you to know?” She lowered her legs, sat up, and moved her head, so her long hair fell to her shoulders.
“No. I like interrogations.” I withdrew; my hesitancy returned to me and I was silent.
“Is the bath water hot?”
“Yes.”
“Where will I take a siesta?”
“Don’t you like the place?”
She wrinkled her nose as her eyes moved over my modest furniture. “Not bad.”
Then she leaned on her arms as if she were about to get up. “At least there’s no rancid odor in your place.” She stared at me with her bold eyes, and inclined her head to the left. “Tell me, are you a thief?”
I