Then one mellow evening, as the world was swimming in a splendid light, my mother duped my grandmother, calmly informing her that she wanted to get married to Salih, Hania’s son. My grandmother was shocked; that is to say, she was mortified by the thought that her daughter, who had only rarely spoken to her for many months, had now started raving like someone on the verge of losing her grip on reality. And she was right to feel that way, at least, according to Aunt Warda. At that point, Salih, Hania’s son, hadn’t even asked for her hand yet. Rather, it’s certain that he had never even thought of such a thing in the first place. As far as that poor, skinny, very shy and introverted young man was concerned, my mother was like the morning star—it was enough for him to contemplate her beauty from afar, knowing full well that getting any closer to her would be impossible. Besides, he was the sole breadwinner for his aging mother, who would begin to wheeze loudly after taking just a few steps because of her weak heart. On top of all that, Salih didn’t possess any distinguishing features that would ever make a young woman who was as beautiful as my mother desire to marry him in the first place.
Uncertain of what to do, my grandmother left her daughter and hurried off in a panic to see my grandfather and apprise him of the strange proposal she had just heard. It didn’t take long before my grandfather, who was well known for being quick-tempered, had gone out of his gourd, and the sparks shooting from his eyes made him seem capable of bringing the house down upon its foundation. Once she sensed that he had started to calm down, my grandmother returned home to see her daughter, hoping to hear something from her that might indicate that what she had said before was just a joke. Just a joke and nothing more. But my mother, in the same calm tone of voice, affirmed that she would refuse to marry anyone but Salih, Hania’s son. Or else. “Or else what?” my grandmother furiously demanded from her. “Or else I’ll do something terrible, something the people will never forget!” my mother yelled, her beautiful white face shining with clear defiance. As soon as word of this got out it preoccupied the people of the village for a long time. Some said that Zeina might have been bewitched by a cunning old woman who wanted to take revenge on her because of her beauty. Others spread the rumor that she must have been doing it just to have a laugh at everyone after those long months spent in silence and isolation. Then there were those who whispered here and there how she must have been cursed after refusing to marry the best men the village had to offer, and that God was going to exact a terrible revenge from her if she did marry Salih, Hania’s son, because he wouldn’t be able to satisfy her in bed or provide her with the comfortable life that every young lady of her beauty and household talents would expect. Salih vanished all of a sudden and some wicked tongues spread rumors about how he had fled from the terror of what he had heard, but some people who came back from Kairouan claimed to have seen him strolling through the markets that very morning, and in the afternoon somebody surprised him just as he was raising his arms in prayer at the shrine of Sidi al-Suhbi. So when he reappeared in the village decked out in a fancy qamariya robe, wearing a shashiya cap on his head and strutting around in black shoes that glinted in the sunlight, my maternal uncle Mukhtar decided to talk to him, with the intention of convincing his sister that her stubbornness was unhelpful and that her choice was unacceptable even for those involved. After listening to him for a long time, Salih smiled a childish grin, spread apart his hands and said, as the scents of Kairouan wafted off of him, “What’s so strange about all of this, Si Mukhtar? I’ve loved Zeina ever since we were children, and she loves me as far as I can tell. So I think our marriage will be a blessing from God!”
Aunt Warda says that my mother’s marriage to Salih, Hania’s son, was truly that, because God blessed the people that year with a bountiful harvest of olives and almonds that kept the specter of poverty at bay. Therefore it wasn’t strange for the wedding to last a full seven days and seven nights. And Ali, Khayra’s son, who I had only ever known as an aging, worn-out, and somber old man, was at the peak of his fame and glory at the time. No wedding could be a success without him. Aunt Warda told me that at her sister Zeina’s wedding he sang the sweetest and most beautiful songs, which not only delighted the men, women, and children, but also the horses and the trees and the silverware, even the foothills and Mount Tirzah. After being silent for a little while, Aunt Warda added, “Your mother may have made the right choice, because experience shows that marriage for love doesn’t last. It leaves its participants with nothing but sorrow and pain. But rational marriage is usually successful and propitious, and blessed for those who choose it.”
THE SON
The cops barged in on me while I was fast asleep in a Hammamat hotel that I can’t remember the name of right now because I had shown up there drunk late at night and only just barely found my way to the room booked for me. By nine a.m., I was in custody in the capital. But first they had a taxi driver take us to the arches on the road to Zaghouan.
After staring at me for a long time the driver looked at the policemen circled around me one after another, and with absolute confidence in himself and in his memory, he nodded his head repeatedly as proof that I was the one they were looking for. Then he turned his face away with the pride of someone who has succeeded in the task he had been assigned. Maybe they thought I was going to try every trick in the book and every means possible to deny the charge they meant to lay on me, because they started getting all puffed up like furious devils that would smash my face in if I tried any funny stuff instead of answering their questions. But with utter composure and calm I told them, “Please excuse me, gentlemen, there’s no need for you to beat me up or smash my face in because I’m fully prepared to answer any question you care to ask me, of whatever sort. What’s more, in order to avoid wasting time and energy and getting on people’s nerves, I’m ready to dictate my confession to you in full, without any detours or evasions. That’s right, I’ll do that for you, respected sirs, so just calm down and hear me out.” They were astonished and continued to stare at me with doubt and suspicion, convinced I was setting some sort of a trap they hadn’t caught on to yet. In order to assure them that I was quite serious about what I had said, I actually started to narrate everything that had happened with the utmost precision.
The truth is that from the moment the fire broke out in the ravine I intended to give myself up to the first police patrol I saw as I made my way back to the capital on foot, but I put it off and went home instead, as if I simply had to see it in whatever condition it was after finally carrying out what I had been planning for many months. As soon as I got home I took a cold shower that invigorated me and gave me back some of the mental clarity that had evaporated during that infernal afternoon. Afterward I began searching here and there for something, I wasn’t sure what exactly, when all of a sudden I found more than 2,500 dinars in my large closet. In that moment I told myself it would be such a shame for me to enter the gloom of prison and then go on to face the gallows without ever getting my hands on some of the things I had always dreamed of. I immediately took a taxi to Bab al-Bahr, where I had only ever been when I was broke or just about. After the cab dropped me in front of the Municipal Theatre I headed toward a store in the Palmarium where I bought two robes, two high quality summer shirts, and a nice pair of shoes. Then I got my hair cut in the latest style on Carthage Street. From a perfume shop in Colisée I bought some expensive cologne that the attractive saleswoman who looked like a model assured me had been specially designed for young men my age. Putting all of that into a leather satchel I had also bought in a shop in Colisée, I headed toward Muncef Bey Station to hire a private car that would take me to Sousse. By six p.m. I was strutting around on the beach at Bu Jaafar like a prince, with