“I’m here on business. Let me in.” He glanced down the narrow, stinking hallway. A state apartment, built not long before but already its concrete flaking, the halls smelling of urine.
Unwillingly, it seemed, she opened the door. Closed it immediately, and stood wringing her hands as he looked around.
“You have been well?”
“Well, well… God has given us health … but this is not a very big place,” she murmured tensely. He noticed her front teeth were blackened, rotten. Furrows of worry had engraved her face. “The government lets me stay here because of Badriyah. But they only give us twenty-five piasters a month to live on, and the
He patted her shoulder. She was weeping, clawing her face. He said, “Things will be better now.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re going to Sudan. I have a business. A fishing business.”
She said wonderingly, “You always loved boats.”
“I have eight. Every day they go out. Fifty men work for me. You will both live in my house.”
“House?” she said, like a child repeating a word it has never heard before.
“I have a house on the Red Sea, in a place called Bir Sudan. I’ll take another wife. But you’ll still be my senior wife.”
“Your senior wife,” Haleemah mumbled. “But what of the girl—”
“We’ll hire a Sudanese woman to help you take care of—” He nodded toward the other room, assuming she was in there, though he didn’t hear her. He remembered her as never silent. That mindless crooning, wordless, endless, not disturbing, unless you were disturbed by the wind in the desert or the mindless tinkle of a fountain.
His wife trembled. Her eyes burned. She clutched his hand and began kissing it feverishly again and again, mumbling rapidly “God be praised, God is great, God be praised.” He caught her smell, close, rotten, the stink of a woman who has not bathed in months. There was no air-conditioning or even ventilation in this concrete tomb. The glass-less windows were shrouded with dark cloth. She was muttering rapidly now about houses and maids and money, interspersing it with pious
And something within him moved away from her. She was so intent on her comforts, on the outward things that meant nothing. Her breath stank. He shook her hand from his sleeve. “Where is she? I will see her now. Then I must go.”
“Oh — she’s — in her room.” She grabbed his sleeve again, then, as she grasped what he’d just said. “Go? Wait. Coffee — I don’t have any— a bad wife — not ready — so expensive — I’ll go across the hallway. Sit down, wait, sit down—”
“Don’t disturb yourself. Be calm. All things in good time,” he said, trying to make his voice reassuring. He pressed her hand again, felt its roughness. She was old. Old.
He went into the next room. Pushed aside a sheet hanging in the doorway, realizing too late it was damp, hung there to dry.
He stopped, breath catching in his throat.
Small bowls of lentils and couscous, half eaten, half decayed, covered the floor. The stench of feces hung where flies swarmed above an uncovered pot. Cloths stained with brown dangled from a line.
A black bundle lay on the truckle bed. The room was very hot. The windows were sealed. He moved carefully among the pots of food and ordure until he could bend over, then sit, carefully, twitching aside the blanket.
His daughter’s cheekbones stood out like those of a corpse. She breathed rapidly and shallowly, as if she’d just been running, and red spots flamed on her cheeks. Her eyes were closed. He touched them gently, the blind eyes that had been so beautiful when she was little. Her skin was puffy and unnaturally pale, save for that flush. A smell welled from beneath the blanket. He touched her cheek, but she did not open her eyes or move. He shook her shoulder, so thin he felt bone; nothing altered. Indeed, now that he looked close, he could hardly recognize her.
He glanced back, becoming angry. “Why’s she asleep?”
“She’s like that all the time now.”
“What do you mean? Doesn’t she sing?”
“She hasn’t done that since you went away.”
“She opens her eyes?”
“She no longer opens her eyes. She no longer sings. There is no money for doctors.”
He grew angrier, rage grew monstrously within him. “Where are the things I sent?” he shouted. “The silk? The furs? For her to touch, and stroke?”
“No, no! Don’t shout at me!” His wife covered her ears, cringing. “I had to sell them.”
The bowls shattered as he kicked them aside. He shouted, “You sold
them? She loved to touch them. That was her only pleasure! You have not taken proper care of her!”
“There’s no money — no help — I can’t do everything—”
“What have you done to her? Who were you expecting to see when you came to the door? Bitch! Whore! I will not take you to Sudan. You would shame me before my friends. You are no longer my wife. This is a sty.”
