of his cigarillo and flattened his tie, and the girl looked up.
“Is that your daughter?”
“Yes.”
There was another long silence. When Midhat spoke again, he did so with a formality that suggested he had been considering his phrasing.
“When I look at my life,” he said, “I see a whole list of mistakes. Lovely, beautiful mistakes. I wouldn’t change them.”
That same expressive intensity had returned to his face. In the space of a few seconds Antoine assessed this sociable, humorous man as rather evasive—a person who ordinarily withheld a great deal. But it quickly struck him that he was probably being influenced by those rumours of Midhat’s psychosis, by the idea that a man would not enter an asylum without some discrepancy in his soul’s architecture. That might seem reasonable, but Antoine nevertheless pulled back on the collar of his presumption, which, after everything, still strained to race off down paths of cause and effect. Pensively, he listened for the piano. He heard only the cicadas.
“I would change—perhaps I would change a few things,” said Midhat. “But how are we to know? We make the biggest decisions when we are young.”
“You are still young.”
Midhat raised an eyebrow.
“You cannot be more than thirty-five.”
“I am forty-one.”
“Oh, that’s young. You have plenty of time to make more errors.”
They both laughed, and whatever tension had emerged, or that Antoine had imagined into being, departed.
“Go on,” he said. “Tell me more about this woman.”
Midhat gave him a shocked grin. “How did you know it was a woman?”
It was Antoine’s turn to raise an eyebrow.
“Well. It was a very, very long time ago. In fact, I don’t even know if she is still alive. And if she is, she has probably forgotten. She might remember me. We always hope people remember us, but I’m not sure they do for very long. Maybe something reminds them, once in a while. Some object or other. But that would be only a brief breach—or at least, it should be brief, if one is to continue. The past comes back to me now and then.” He smiled. “But I do not live there.”
Antoine faced forward, with a priest’s instinct that he must allow Midhat to speak unobserved.
“One thing I would change is the mistake I made about your country. I had an idea about France, you know. I had a kind of fantasy of virtue. That I would change, or maybe,” his tone twisted, he skewed the thought, “maybe that is just the only thing I could have changed. The other things, it was all … just … out of my hands.”
“You are not the first to make this error,” said Antoine. He adopted a pastoral air and interlaced his fingers: “But you know that a place cannot be virtuous. An idea may be virtuous. Not a place.”
Down in the grove, the cat was snatching its way up a tree trunk.
“You will go back?” said Midhat.
“Oh, France does not love me. After the uprising, I think I will go to Cairo.”
Midhat made a noise of interested surprise.
“I would like to live more in the world,” said Antoine, “from now on.”
“A worthy ambition.”
“I have found it rather difficult, rather taxing …” He left off.
Midhat did not ask him to complete the thought, and Antoine regretted his personal turning. He imagined Midhat was put off by it, that having come here to confess he did not expect his confessor to reciprocate. He took a last breath of his cigarillo, holding it very hard, and in his chest felt a now familiar bending inward of shame. After more shuffling noises from inside, the door opened. Out stepped an old man, followed by a younger one with a broken leg.
“As-salamu alaykum.”
“Wa alaykum as-salam.”
The old man led the younger to a pair of seats further along, and pulling out a pipe, began stuffing it with tobacco. Antoine pressed the stub of his cigarillo onto the stone below the railing.
“How many are dead?” said Midhat quietly.
“I couldn’t tell you. Many. Probably many more have gone unrecorded. It has not been a bloodless revolution. Did you hear about the battle at Anabta? Dawn till dusk. Several women were martyred.”
“You probably know more than most Nabulsis know,” said Midhat. “I should come to you for the news, one never hears it straight from anyone directly involved. My cousin …” He stopped. “My wife thinks someone in Nablus has a grudge against me. Do you know anything about that?”
Antoine considered. This had occurred a few times during the years of his