Until that year and ever since Fatima could remember, the upper part of the house had been occupied by Turkish soldiers, who used it for accommodation and sometimes as a meeting house, and with that curious mixture of fearful deference and the pride of the chosen Haj Nimr had made no show of resistance. Turkish cuisine infused the Hammad kitchen, and Fatima learned to cook white bean pilaf, stewed spring lamb, and stuffed chicken at the side of the Turkish cook. With the onset of war the Turks were replaced by Germans, who helped stock the kitchen as prices soared in the markets. And now, three years later, Fatima’s family at last recovered the use of their upper rooms, and her father’s rise to prominence in the town was matched by her mother’s delight at being in charge of the house again.
Once lunch was on the boil or in the oven, Fatima returned upstairs to her clothes iron, which she brushed with hot beeswax to ward off rust. She spent the time that remained reading magazines and stitching, and just after four o’clock her sister and brother came home from school and the family gathered for lunch.
Fatima had lately developed an awareness of the length of life. Now that she was entering a new phase she saw both that it was long, and that it was a portion with an end. She considered the two mountains that formed the shoulders of Nablus and gave the city its finitude; however much the city might attempt to mount the crags and spread its suburbs, the earth was its body and it was bound to the valley. If Nablus grew at all it would have to spill out between the crevices where the valley ended in the plain, and even then it would only reach so far.
But the war had wrought changes, and in its wake Nablus was for the moment troubled with uncertainty. Trade was restored, the rationing was over. But tales of Salah ad-Din and Crusader battles were surfacing in the common memory as newspapers read aloud in coffee shops reported the redrawn maps, and their beautiful city, which had always been the southern sister of Damascus, officially became a province north of Jerusalem. That dignity the ruling families had so coveted under the Turks, developed over centuries, and campaigned tirelessly to protect, was at once under a far greater threat.
Travel was again possible between cities; Jerusalem was electrified, and under the new lamps and to the tunes emanating from the shiny phonographs, modern nightlife arrived in the Holy City. Young men rode down from Nablus to rent apartments within the old city walls, counting the hours on their watches as they passed into the night, smoking by the roadsides and dancing in bars.
Fatima dreamed of the Nebi Rubin festival. She had been ten years old when they went with their cousins from Lydda and spent two weeks in a big tent by the sea in Jaffa. Markets, cafés, and restaurants were set up for the festival; in the daytime there were horse and camel races and at night theatre troupes performed, and singers from Egypt and Lebanon, and in roped-off circles magicians played tricks, poets recited, and dervishes whirled. She doubted she would be allowed to attend Nebi Rubin again until she was married.
As Fatima finished her prayer a wind blew into the cave and curled the dust at her feet. Through the cave’s mouth she saw night settling over the town, and hurried to extinguish the three lamps she had lit, then pulled her veil back over her face. The oil and matches in one hand, the other grasping the rocky entrance to the cave, she stepped out onto the mountainside. At once she pulled her muslin tighter and bent to keep steady against the wind. The movement of something black in the trees jolted her attention. But it was only the branches as they wagged and crossed each other, blocking sections of the violet sky.
Everything was close in the dark. She gripped the tiny bottle and listened, heard only the nightjars, the crickets, the broken call of the wind. She padded down the slope, clicking the bottle against the rocks for balance, her heart pounding. By the time she reached the town, her fear of the wild darkness had turned into a fear of the scolding she would receive for being out so late alone.
Closing the door, head bowed, she walked straight towards the bedroom she shared with her sister. But her mother was listening for her, and came rushing up from the kitchen.
“Where have you been?” she screamed. “Shame! Shame on you!”
“I was praying, Mama, I’m sorry.”
“Why are you praying at this hour? Imagine who could have seen you! Shame on you Fatima!”
Fatima raised her arms to protect herself.
“Get to your room before your father whips you!”
For good measure, her mother reached out to pull down Fatima’s arms, and then her veil, and slapped her hard across the face.
2
After the night of his disgrace, Midhat left the Molineu house without saying goodbye. Before the sun could rise the next day he had softly closed the front door and dragged his trunk to the centre of town, where he bought a ticket to Paris and sent a telegram ahead to his friend from the ship, Faruq al-Azmeh. He arrived at the Gare de Lyon several hours later, his lungs raw with loss.
As he took his first look at Paris—the cluttered pavements, the zinc roofs, the faceless rush—that same changing sensation of the night before, when he realised he would have to leave the Molineus’, stirred again within him. The people seemed less to walk down the street than to hurtle; he heard the cry of a seagull and the earth muttered beneath his feet as though somewhere below water was churning.
With all the clothes he had bought over the last year there was no space in the trunk for his overcoat and tarbush, so he was wearing them now and he was sweating. Surrounded by black bowlers and blue uniforms, he noticed Tricolores angled from the military bureau and realised he could not have marked his difference more obviously. There were some frowns of confusion and clear distaste. But no: he would not take the tarbush off.
“Taxi?”
Above the bridge the gulls applauded. The taxi window showed a river and wide tree-lined banks. He wished he could recall the name of the neighbourhood where Jeannette had spent her childhood, and her mother had taken her life. As they crossed onto the farther bank a light rain began to pester the roof of the taxi; they drove alongside the river past a fenced park, and easels lined up on the quay, and the buildings rose on either side as they turned inward to where the city thickened. At last they halted on the Rue du Four, and Midhat opened the car door and paid the driver.
“Monsieur Kamal!”
At a metal table under an awning, a pair of spectacles dangling from his neck, sat Faruq al-Azmeh. The globe of Faruq’s forehead seemed to have grown with his receding hair. They shook hands.
“I was so pleased to receive your telegram. My good friend, how are you? Turn around, this is our front door.”
“I have missed you,” said Midhat, as they climbed the stairs. “On the ship, do you remember, you told me all those things about the French. I wish somehow you might have stayed near me, there was so much more I needed to ask you.”
“Mais bien sûr,” said Faruq. “There will be time!”
The apartment was on the third floor of the building, with a balcony onto the street, and a window at the back onto a shared courtyard. The main room was furnished sparely but richly—dark green wainscoted walls, full bookshelves, windows ceiling-high and hung with damask curtains. Faruq helped him carry the trunk into a bedroom, rubbed his hands, instructed him to sit, and reached for a bottle of whisky and two glasses.