through which they had forced the hose: a thick shaft of black soot covered the gap between the top ledge and the ceiling. Eli gripped Midhat’s upper arm.
“Everything will smell so terrible.”
Midhat saw Hani had followed them in, and avoided his gaze. Cinders disintegrated under their feet as they walked out again. On the street, the crowd had dispersed.
“And the other buildings weren’t affected?” said Midhat, taking a step towards the sports equipment shop.
“No, and the bank is fine too,” said Eli. He lowered his voice. “That lamp. I knew something like this would happen.”
“Does Butrus know?”
“He doesn’t have a telephone, I called his mother. Go home and sleep now, Abu Taher. We’ll deal with it in the morning.”
“I’ll be here at daybreak.”
“Oh no, you won’t.” Eli turned to face him. “You will look in your house for that thing I told you about.”
“Let’s go home,” said Hani. “Yalla habibi. Imshi.” As they opened the car doors, he said: “I am so sorry, I can’t tell you. This is terrible. If there is anything I can do—or even if you just want us to go, if you need time on your own—”
“No, absolutely not,” said Midhat. He managed to smile. “It’s a shock, I’m sorry. You mustn’t leave. I’m the one who should be sorry. This is not what you expected after a long journey.”
“Khalas, I’ll do anything to help. I’m in Jenin tomorrow in the morning, but if there’s anything I can do when I come back …”
There was a clean feeling in the air when they arrived at the house, and the car doors made a clapping sound in the darkness. The house was quiet, and as Midhat descended the steps to his bedroom, sprung with nerves, he heard his wife moving inside. A fire, and the evil eye: hazard and scandal, two things that would set Fatima alight.
3
That their life was not more illustrious was clearly a source of pain for Fatima. That she was married to the co-owner of a shop, and not someone of high rank. In the early years they had rehearsed the myth of their romance, how Midhat proposed once, twice, and the third time she had chosen him. This story was the bedrock of all that came after, all the things they had imagined about each other from afar—most of which had transpired either not to be true or to be complicated by other factors, so that the foundation tilted and required extra work to balance. Fatima no longer liked to go over those early days. Apparently it tormented her to recall the time before her future was foreclosed. What was it she had wanted from her marriage, exactly? In what exactly had Midhat failed? To be rich? To take her abroad? To be, simply, different?
The first crack came with the news that the Kamal business was written in Layla’s name. At first, Fatima did not seem to understand what it meant. But as the years went on and she watched Midhat struggle to build something from nothing, she exaggerated his achievements among her friends, and opened the gap between her wish and the reality, a gap in which a violent disappointment resided. At the same time, he was certain her fibs boosted the popularity of Nouveautés Ghada among the Nabulsiyyat, and for that he was grateful. Women admired Fatima. Unlike Midhat, they fell for, and wished to emulate, her attitude of ornamental boredom. If Fatima told a few choice persons that the Cairene suits her husband sold were the height of fashion, then they quickly became so.
That night Midhat did not tell Fatima that someone may have put the evil eye on him: the fire was quite enough news for one evening. He downplayed it as they undressed for bed, he said it was small, he ascribed his involuntary sighs to Eli’s overreaction, he said these Samaritans, they are always hosting huge funerals for tiny animals. There was nothing destroyed that could not be replaced.
He woke in the morning full of dread. Hani left for Jenin, and when Midhat returned from taking the girls to school he found a note in the hall explaining that Fatima and Sahar had gone to a friend’s house. When he telephoned Eli, Eli’s wife picked up: her husband was taking care of the wreckage, she said, but had left a message: begin with the doorways. After that, look between the roots of trees, near beds, and beneath loose floorboards or stones. Also, although the clients