his confession, Midhat angled the blame towards Haj Nimr.
“You are such an idiot,” she said, unmoved. “You should have let me, why did you stop me?”
“You mean the charm?” he lashed back. “That doesn’t even make sense! That was meant for Fatima, not for her father. You would have to have taken a hair from his head.”
She marched out of the room. “And now I have to find you another girl. You are unbelievable. Unbelievable! You want to make me work like a donkey.”
“It’s not my fault,” said Midhat, but she was already gone.
In bed that night he wondered whether Teta might have been right. Whether, had he said yes to the charm, Haj Nimr might have consented. Obviously, failing with the Hammads would not put an end to the question of marriage. If it was not her, it would be some other girl. In the morning, he rose early and left before Teta was awake.
To Hisham’s bewilderment, Midhat threw himself into the bookkeeping that day with zeal. He exerted his mind all morning and all afternoon over the mathematics of debt and credit, in pursuit, not really of the ostensible goal—the completion of this or that task—but rather of the feeling afterwards. He wanted the used-up sensation, that ecstatic emptiness after concentrating. He wanted to be a body that did nothing but work, with no space left over in his mind to ruminate. He fell asleep quickly that night, and woke early again the following morning.
In this manner three weeks passed. It took that long for him to learn how to manage the accounts without Hisham’s supervision. Several things must be done at once: he must monitor the interest accrued on the credit lines, while also remaining aware of the different family names, and the traditional allegiances that mitigated interest rates, or allowed one to speed up an order when the client came in person; and then keep an eye on the outstanding orders, the progress the tailor was making, and what stock, if any, was running low. As he became more adept at these details, however, he found they required less and less concentrated energy, and as more free time appeared in his working day the flurry of activity was breached with dangerous passages of stasis.
Teta made no further mention of brides, nor did Midhat broach the topic. He had still not told Jamil about his failure, and whenever he saw his cousin’s long strides approaching the store, head dipping side to side in search of him, he adopted a languor he did not feel. He suspected Jamil was behaving stiffly around him too. Although this might only be a lingering shyness from their time apart, Midhat still felt their conversations had shallowed since that night at Sheikh Qassem when he first told Jamil about Teta’s plan. It made him protective of his private feelings. Should Jamil ever ask, he was prepared to explain that he had not yet decided whether to speak to Haj Nimr. Jamil did not ask. Midhat tried not to think about it. But thoughts had a way of travelling back, like water on a skewed floor.
To distract himself, he spent time in the tailor’s room. He brought Butrus cups of coffee, and watched reams of fabric develop into quilts and pillows and mattress covers, and the hemming of the silk belts and handkerchiefs under the biting tooth of the black and gold Singer sewing machine. Most of what the Kamal store produced was for clients in the hinterlands, so there was some limitation in type and style, although the fellahin did dress nicely for their weddings. But the store did not set out to provide for the upper-class market: those clothes were the domain of the Samaritan tailors.
The Samaritan store was located on a corner near their quarter. There were four staff, two women and two men, and at least three could usually be found sewing in a semicircle. The most gregarious was Eli, a tall, thin man with prematurely grey hair and a youthful olivey face. He was always happy to show Midhat what they were working on, and this became a point of interest in Midhat’s day; sticking his head in after lunch he tracked the progress of the European-style woollen coats as they took shape, the way the gold embroidery was fitted over the jacket backs, and the gowns adjusted for the ladies to wear to their private parties. Finished items lay pressed and folded near the entranceway. Unless expressly