bottle. A dark-headed figure appeared in the doorway and screamed.
“Get out of here! How dare you come in here!”
Adel sprinted out the door. Before Midhat could follow, Layla had stopped the door with her body and raised her hands. Ten red fingertips.
Teta appeared behind her. “Habibi get out of there.”
Midhat aimed for his grandmother. But Layla grabbed his arm and slapped him across the back of the head and neck, awkwardly and with force so that her long nails scraped the skin. He wrenched himself free and ran out through the front door, which Adel had left ajar. There was no sign of his friend out on the mountain. He cornered the building; no sign. Two sheets hanging on adjacent ropes formed a corridor; Midhat ran inside it and sat down, as the maid beyond pulled another sheet from a basket.
“Midhat?” came Adel’s voice after a few moments. “Midhat?”
Then all that was left was the sound of the wet cotton rasping on cotton, and the flap of fabric as the maid slung the laundry onto the ropes. The sky grew dark, and the hairs rose on Midhat’s legs. Rattling hooves announced Taher’s return from Jerusalem; the door fell shut; Layla’s voice began its uninterpretable squall, gusting out of windows as she passed them. The sounds settled. At last the maid called Midhat in for dinner, and they ate in silence around the low table.
He could never remember if this came before or after it was decided that he would leave for Constantinople. He remembered only that one night as Teta lay beside him on his bed she described the Turkish capital, and the new school he would be going to. He would say goodbye to his father, goodbye to the tiny baby, goodbye to Layla.
Midhat looked down at his stepmother, her hands on the shoulders of her sons, and recognised that above all she was extremely young. She could not be more than thirty. Which meant she had been approximately Midhat’s age now when she married his father, if not younger. No wonder she had hated the heir of her predecessor. And no wonder she had preferred to live in Cairo near her family, and had used her energy to persuade Haj Taher to arrange it so. It had been necessary to claim her territory and expel the foreign boy when he trespassed into her bedroom. Marriage was her life’s great venture, and, happily, she had prevailed.
The surprise that Midhat had planned for his father was all Layla’s then, since immediately after he left the house she sent a telegram to her husband in Nablus. Haj Taher replied that he could of course stay in Palestine for a little longer than planned; it would do no harm to delay his visit to Damascus given the circumstances. By God’s grace, how many times does one stand to welcome a returning eldest son?
In the Kamal house in Nablus, Um Taher was beside herself with glee. While Taher was out at the khan she went downstairs to tell Um Jamil, and instructed her to tell their neighbours; the news would travel around the rest of town through the whispers of the maids. Her grandson was returning, Doctor Midhat, from Montpellier and also from Paris. They must have a ladies’ reception to celebrate. The following day Um Jamil came upstairs to help prepare the food, calling from the doorstep that Jamil was so pleased, so pleased! The years of the war had aged Um Jamil, and her birdlike face was covered with wrinkles that fanned out from the corners of her eyes. She sang in Um Taher as they rolled the kusa and crushed the garlic, and then left the rest of the work to Um Mahmoud as the other women arrived, kissing congratulations and sweeping through to the salon.
“Twenty-four years old? He has plenty of time!” said Um Dawud. “Let him play a little,” she clucked, jiggling her shoulders.
“Dalia,” said Um Taher. “Midhat is a nice boy.”
“Shu nice boy?” said Um Dawud.
Um Taher looked astonished. A second later, she abandoned her piety, hooting as wholeheartedly as she had played her virtue, just before drawing her embroidery closer to her failing eyes, her belly wobbling beneath it.
“Um Mahmoud!” she shouted. “Are you making more coffee?”
“Yes Mama,” came the voice of Um Mahmoud.
“And we need more chocolate ba‘dayn!”
“Is Taher excited?” asked Um Burhan.
“Of course,” said Um Taher.
The women exchanged looks. It was good to see her happy, meskina Um Taher.