his eyes met hers and he said, “Are you all right?” did she realise how heavily he was breathing.
She smiled. “Yes. Thank you for asking.”
In the morning, she woke alone. Two workers were shouting outside, instructing or greeting each other. She rose, and set the sheet to soak in the kitchen. The red stain lifted and clouded the water in the bowl. She jerked open the rickety window and the wind hurried in to startle the water’s surface, cooling the skin on her neck.
Not at ease, precisely; she felt steady, that was it. The wind rifled through the garden, pushing the two trees near the bottom in circles and agitating the bushes. That space out-of-doors, both enclosed and open, all her own—she dashed to the bedroom and drew a coat from the cupboard, wrapped a cotton shawl around her head; below the coat her ankles were just visible above her slippers. She unbolted the salon doors to the first terrace, turned the handle, and tipped one of the iron chairs leaning against the table upright. Although all she could see beyond the garden was the mountain, nonetheless she stayed close to the back door.
Why, if there was no one to see her? They lived on the outskirts. That had been a worry at first, but now it seemed wonderful. Her anxiety about being far from the centre, from the famous houses, from her family, was fading—for perhaps, after all, this meant she would be liberated from the approval of others. Would it not be wonderful—thinking of the voices that had woken her from the fields—to be a fellaha, to be free like this? To shout in the morning alongside the men, as one set to work?
This view was indeed a spectacle. Even before the eye reached that churning froth of white and blue above, the wind below was magnificent, and as she watched it dismantle the garden’s stillness, a washing rope on the patio began to swing from side to side like a necklace, and she had the thought that she should hang the sheet out here to dry. Inside, she wrung the fabric in the sink and carried it out. The uncoiled cotton smacked the washing line, and the wrinkles unravelled under her numbed fingers.
Perhaps it was the wind’s noise that prevented her from noticing the figure at first. When it entered her awareness, it was standing perfectly still. She flinched, and the soreness in her neck reawoke. No gate had sounded, no footstep. The apparition was entirely in shadow, on the penultimate ledge, bottom half severed by the slant. She raised her hand to her forehead to block out the sunlight, and saw that whoever it was was now moving, climbing the steps. Her first terror was allayed when she saw it was a woman: heavy peasant dress; no veil. The woman stopped on the second terrace, and now Fatima could see her face. An old woman, too many teeth in her mouth. Her eyes were soft and large, her forehead long. She was holding her shawl over her chest with one hand.
“I knocked,” she called out, in a low harsh voice.
Fatima took a step towards the chairs and the salon door, which she saw, to her horror, had swung open.
“You did not hear me,” said the woman.
“Who are you?” shouted Fatima, but the wind snatched her voice away.
The woman continued to stand there, brazen, and Fatima was struck with the alien sensation that it was she, and not the woman, who was the interloper; this had something to do with her opponent’s gravity, her fixedness, while Fatima felt as insubstantial as a piece of linen. She could be a previous incumbent; she might have worked for the old man. Or she might be a jinni. Fatima thrust out her arm and shrieked, as loud as she could:
“Get out of my house! My garden—get out!”
“Madame.” The woman held her curved palms together as though catching something. “Madame, please.”
Fatima stared. Was this woman here to beg? Should she try to run for the salon door—perhaps the woman had heard about her, the new young bride, and saw in her seclusion and youth a chance for robbery—one heard terrible stories. But instead of running for the house, Fatima was filled with blistering outrage that someone might think she could be taken advantage of. She pulled her coat tight across her body, fixed her scarf well around her head. She performed these small actions briskly and pointedly, in an attempt to