writing. He stared at it: he could not read it. At the end it was signed with a single letter: J.
What Haj Taher did not know, standing now at three o’clock in the afternoon on the 20th October 1919, in the entranceway of the family house, on the side of Mount Gerizim in Nablus, was that his son had already left Paris. And that earlier that morning, having stepped off a steamship onto the Egyptian shore, Midhat was this very moment in a carriage on his way to his father’s house in Cairo, where he was hoping to surprise him.
Six days earlier, Midhat had boarded the Caucase bound for Alexandria. After sending his letter to Jeannette, he decided not to return immediately to Palestine. First, it would be a good idea to acclimatise. Egypt was the place to start, a place known to him but not the way Palestine was known. Cairo was not a part of him as Nablus was. Nablus was all smells and sounds, the rushing air between the mountains. The only other time he had visited Egypt, by contrast, was on his first passage to the Marseille steamship five years ago. He imagined the delight in his father’s eyes when he saw him, unexpected and full-grown. He inhaled the sea air and smiled. The embrace would be full of spontaneous feeling.
Also six days earlier, a lilac envelope had left the Montpellier post office by mail cart and, also at Marseille, boarded a mail ship named the SS Amboise. There may have been a moment somewhere along the way in which Midhat and the envelope crossed paths. At the port perhaps, or somewhere in the Algerian basin or the Strait of Sicily, the two ships may have passed within view of each other. But regardless, the express mail boat docked at Port Said and the letter from Montpellier began its way overland to Palestine two days before the Caucase arrived at Alexandria.
In Alexandria the train station was closed. Other travellers who had alighted from ships gathered around a sign that announced track repairs; a few wandered to the entrance and peered through the glass. Scraps of paper and disused cloth banners were strewn on the lawns of the ornamental garden opposite, and around them the telegraph lines had been pulled down. A few hung loose from their poles like ribbons from a French liberty tree. Walking away from the crowd, Midhat found an idle caleche further down the road. A small man with a cigarette between his teeth was in the driver’s seat, resting his feet on the doorframe. After some negotiation Midhat persuaded him to drive to Cairo for the extortionate price of five piastres.
The route to the capital exposed more broken telegraph lines, vacant tramways, abandoned banners at the roadsides proclaiming “Egypt for Egyptians,” now trampled on and ripped. The horse pulled them alongside the railway track and Midhat glimpsed Egyptian workers hammering, under the watch of armed British soldiers.
The streets of the Abbassia neighbourhood were almost empty. It was that hour of the afternoon when the inhabitants lay in a stupor under shutter-strained daylight. He reached his father’s house: a white villa with pillared balconies in the baroque Ismaili style. The orange trees in the front garden were in their final bloom. Half-brown flowers decayed on the grass.
Layla opened the door with a child on her hip and a thin black veil over her face. For a moment she said nothing. Then suddenly, she cried: “Midhat!” The child turned away and wiped his mouth on her shoulder.
She ushered Midhat in with her free hand, and peered out before closing the door, as if the street might hold more surprises. When she turned and removed her veil to kiss him, he laughed in spite of himself at her enthusiasm. Perhaps time and distance simply wiped away ill will. Layla smiled naturally, as if no malice had ever passed between them.
“How tall you are!”
She set the child on his feet, and he pulled at her skirt. Layla seemed smaller than Midhat remembered. He looked down at her thin wrists and her long black hair, and her fingers, which she still hennaed, pale red from a former ointment.
“You are truly a man.”
This pleased Midhat not a little. She led him further into the house and shouted for more coffee. As she turned a door handle, the boy ducked under her arm and fled down the corridor.
Midhat recalled this room from his last visit, when it had been