The following day, while Hisham was out, he sat reading at the store. The air was yellow with pollen. He had bought this book two years ago by the Seine, when while browsing the volumes for sale he chanced upon a passage about the Holy Land and immediately handed over the francs. Since then, it had become an illicit pastime to read descriptions of the place he came from, to be transported by a landscape so precisely drawn and tinted in this other language that he ended up longing for the sights of his childhood as though he were not already among them. A shadow fell over his page and he jumped.
“As-salamu alaykum,” said Haj Nimr Hammad.
Midhat mumbled a response. Haj Nimr was wearing a summer coat, belted around the waist. He looked thin. With one stride he entered the corner where jackets were hanging ready for sale, then looked down at the small stove and coffee things. He approached a shelved wall stocked neatly with folded fabrics. He touched one at eye level, a print of blue flowers on yellow, and pulled it down like a doctor inspecting a bottom lip. He rubbed his thumb over the pattern.
“Can I help you with something in particular?” said Midhat. “If you are looking for a special occasion, may I recommend the Samaritan tailors.” He was speaking too fast. His consonants became meticulous: “They work just around the corner. We,” he shrugged, “mostly stock items for the fellahin.”
Nimr returned to the fabric shelves. “The fellahin,” he repeated. “And this is where you will be working?”
“Pardon?”
Haj Nimr faced him. The hollows of his eyes were very pronounced, and his moustache was full and grey.
“I’m training here,” said Midhat carefully. “Ba‘dayn I’ll be in Cairo, where my father is.” He paused. “The store in Cairo is larger, you know. Spacious.”
Nimr nodded. “And you are not yet engaged?”
“No,” said Midhat. “I am not engaged.”
He nodded again. “In that case … in that case, if you wish to marry my daughter, you may.”
Midhat gaped. A twitch of laughter advanced up his chest, and a hand appeared at his mouth, his own hand, to stop it.
“Thank you. God bless you, ya Haj.” He slipped from his chair onto legs full of liquid. “Of course, yes,” he heard himself say. “By God I would like to marry your daughter.”
Haj Nimr’s eyes slid away. “We will expect you soon, then, for the proposal.”
“Yes.”
“The wedding will have to be after Ramadan.”
“Yes, yes, of course …”
“Ma‘salameh.”
After the last flap of Haj Nimr’s coat in the yellow light, the silence in the store was enormous. Midhat laughed once, very loudly. Suddenly, he wanted to run. He sat down and crossed his legs. His arched top foot rapidly pressed and released an invisible pedal. At last a figure appeared in the doorway, and he jumped to his feet.
“Hisham, I have to go! I have to go!”
He sprinted up the mountain. Three fellaha women blocked the road as it steepened: he skirted them up the crag to the side, loose soil rolling, and ran along the path to the house.
“Teta! Teta! Where are you? Haj Nimr said yes!”
His grandmother appeared from her bedroom in a nightgown, her grey hair tied in a plait. She squealed and grabbed his ears, pulling his head down to her height.
“When when when?”
“Aha-ow!”
“We have to tell your father immediately!”
“He said we will wait until after Ramadan.”
“What changed his mind?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tell Jamil, go, we’ll tell your father after. Habib alby!”
She clapped her hands together, and gave a little scream.
“You are mad,” said Midhat.
Um Jamil was slicing tomatoes in her kitchen, her fingers covered in juice and unbound seeds.
“Jamil is at the store,” she said. A smile broke on her face. “What’s happened?”
“I’ll tell you later. I want to tell my cousin first.” He squeezed her upper arm, and gave her a kiss.
He flew down the mountain. Near the bottom he stopped in the shade of a large tree and found he was out of breath. He turned his chin to the clear sky. Unburdened by the sun, he could see it glowing in the foliage above him, the green leaves fluorescent like the bodies of insects. He walked the rest of the way, straightened his tie, and pushed back the hair at his temples. Outside the market, men smoked pipes in the heat, and he saluted their rotating faces. A slew of water appearing from the entrance to a cheese shop caught his trouser