a bedroom. Now it contained two satin couches and a writing desk by a window, which was crowded with jasmine.
“Did you write? Your father is in Nablus, he said nothing about you coming.”
Midhat was silent for a moment. Layla raised her eyebrows.
“Oh,” he said. “I assumed he would be here. I suppose I thought no one was working … I heard about the strike.”
“Yes, but it will soon return to normal. For that your father went to Damascus to buy more silks.”
“Of course. Well, in that case I’m sorry to have interrupted you. I should take a train, and go to Nablus.”
“Nonsense! Sit down. You must stay at least a night, you will have supper with me.”
“No, thank you, I should go and see Teta, I should get back to Nablus.”
“Midhat, I have not seen you in five years. Haram aleyk, you want to leave me after just hello? You must at least meet your brothers and sisters.”
She opened the door to shout for the children. Then she sat again, and they did not speak for a few minutes. A maid entered with a tray of coffee, and the children followed.
There were five. The eldest, Musbah, was as tall as his mother’s waistline and had a thick brow. He remained near the doorway, staring. The next eldest was a blonde girl named Dunya who reached forward for Midhat’s hand. Then there were Nadim and Inshirah, both dark-haired, Nadim dressed as a sailor, Inshirah in a white dress. And then Nashat, the shy boy he had already met. Layla lifted Nashat and balanced him on her hip.
Midhat shook their delicate hands one by one. Nashat refused to look at him, sucked a finger, and hid in his mother’s hair. As Midhat stepped back again, his stepmother fixed him with a determined look, and whatever rancour he had felt towards her suddenly vanished.
In Paris, he had often thought over his formative years in Nablus. Considering that each man was a product of his experiences, he thought that Layla’s actions may indeed have done him some harm as a child. Too early she had exposed him to the shocking insubstantiality of the family, to the fact that parents are just two people who have been united.
When Musbah was born, Midhat had been thirteen. The baby, he recalled, was very small, with ridges under his eyes that made his cheeks bulge, and deep pleats in the flesh of his arms. Sometimes he looked demure and sometimes like an angry little man, punching himself with his tiny fists and yelping.
A load of furniture had followed the couple and the baby to Nablus from Cairo, in a convoy of three carriages pulled by chained horses. The house was soon full of trinkets, and the rooms became at once much bigger and more crowded. An ornate wooden table sat in the centre of the sitting room near a wardrobe covered in petals of mother-of-pearl; and identical octagonal side-tables perched all over the house like strange implements, tall, narrow, clawed. The European-style bedstead, carried in by three men, took four hours to assemble.
Because Taher was conducting business in Jerusalem, Layla supervised the workers. She did not rebuke Midhat when he peered around the door to watch. “There was a beautiful headboard, zey kida,” she said, holding up her hands. “Fabric everywhere, silk. Bitjannin, haram. It would have been ruined on the journey.” The men were clumsy in their bare feet, holding odd segments of wood and iron, bowing occasionally to the veiled mistress.
That was the first time Midhat had entered the bedroom since Layla and his father returned. The second time was after school when he met his friend Adel Jawhari on the road. Adel was weeping.
“They beat me in class.”
“Why?”
“I laughed when Abu Nasir knocked his leg against his chair.” Adel smiled, and showed Midhat the backs of his skinny calves. The dark bruises were red with wet slits.
“Teta uses alum. We have some, come inside.”
As the door fell closed behind them, Midhat recalled that the medicine cabinet was in his father’s bedroom. While Taher and Layla were in Cairo, of course, it was just another empty room in a house full of empty rooms, where, in addition to keeping medicine, they stored sweets and marmalade for guests. He motioned for Adel to be quiet, and tiptoed into the bedroom. The famous bedstead stood in the centre, covered in bright cushions. He approached the cabinet, unclicked the latch, and put his hand in to feel for the