mystery of her life. Sweat crept down her forehead. She leaned forward for the maid to scrub her back, and one bead sped down the side of her nose.
Her mother was near the doorway, speaking to someone in her social voice. “Hakayt ma‘a Um Hashim imbarrih.” Fatima abhorred those false undulations. She thought they sounded servile. “An jad? Is that so?”
“Turn please, ya sitti,” said the maid.
“Ma‘roof,” said Widad.
Nabulsi women were always proclaiming something was “ma‘roof,” that it was known. Out on the mountain road every house was visible, and it was a platitude that anyone who needed directions could be shown the spot from a neighbour’s rooftop, though such a thing seemed unlikely ever to have happened, for who would ask who did not already know? Fatima’s mother used the word interchangeably with “of course,” so perhaps it had more to do with the way women related to one another, each as keen as the next to assert how much she knew.
Fatima’s curiosity about the Kamal family was piqued. She had met Um Taher once at an istiqbal, but the little else she knew was based on details her brother Burhan brought home from Café Sheikh Qassem one evening two weeks ago. A man named Midhat Kamal had returned to Nablus from France, and was working in his father’s shop in the khan. He had been involved in politics. And he wore beautiful clothes, and was very handsome. And he had had a lover in Paris, she was called Pauline—but at this point their mother had scolded Burhan for indecency and smacked the back of his hand.
Fatima and Nuzha rinsed, and wrapped again in their stripes returned to the main room for refreshments. Trays of food were laid out beside the fountain, and nargila pipes set up along the walls, coiled around their cylinders. Their mother made a space for two on the bench beside her. When the girls were younger they always competed over food. Rather than trying to eat the most and most quickly, as one might in a household of need, the sisters had competed over who could eat the slowest, and leave the most food until last, because to consume was no longer to have, and she who had the most on her plate was king. Fatima watched Nuzha deliver a square of watermelon to her lips. Her teeth crushed the fruit, her lips glistened.
“I heard they are making their own soap, now,” said someone to their mother on the other side.
“Ma‘roof,” said Widad.
Another woman was holding forth on a more interesting topic. “And she was so angry she said I won’t sleep with you, I want a divorce, so, ya‘ni, she went on strike, she wouldn’t sleep in the bed, she moved to the floor of the bathroom, she said I will sit here in the bathroom until you divorce me. And she took in her blankets, ya‘ni, and flowers, and she made it nice in there. And khalas she came back one day and he had gone in there and was sleeping on the floor where she put all her nice things, and she says shu sar? He says you made it so nice in here I want to sleep in the bathroom too.”
The women leaned back into their laughter.
Fatima’s fingers were wrinkled when they left the hammam. She and her mother walked Nuzha home, and then continued up to the Kamal house on Mount Gerizim. Her muslins were soft on her skin and the wind pushed the fabric against her mouth, so that as she exhaled the moisture warmed her whole face.
A maid answered the door; Widad addressed her as Um Mahmoud. Um Mahmoud led them to the reception room, where they sat beside each other on the sofa, and the wind rattled the window.
“As-salamu alaykum,” said Um Taher in the doorway with a smile. Her red dress was stitched with black and her thin grey hair pulled back into a chignon. She had a round face and colourful lips.
“Wa alaykum as-salam,” said Widad, rising to remove her veil. Fatima copied her.
“Mashallah, Fatima,” said Um Taher. “You are much taller than when I saw you last.”
They sat and Um Taher and Widad discussed the guests at a recent wedding in the town. Beside Fatima, on the windowsill, a fly was struggling on its back. Now it paused, tiny black legs kinked. Now it scrambled, fluttering its limbs.
“The girl has a beautiful singing voice,” said her mother.
“Mashallah,” said Um Taher.
“Fatima, would you sing?”