“What are you two doing in there?” asked a rather distasteful voice.

Startled, Mr. N turned. It was his neighbor; that is, the resident of the room alongside his own, whom he could not stand to see on account of the torments Mr. N suffered from hearing his voice through the wall. The never-ending quarrels the man had with his poor wife, whom Mr. N never once heard defend herself or object, for the husband talked nonstop, filled Mr. N’s ears to bursting every single day. One moment the neighbor would tell his wife that she was to blame for every misfortune; the next, he would flirt with her and tell her she was the only thing that made his life bearable. Sometimes he would cry and beg her pardon, only to become angry with her again.

Early on, Mr. N used to pound on the wall they shared to let him know he was there, listening, in case that would make the man feel embarrassed. Then he did it to inform the man of his annoyance at all the noise. Later on, he knocked to appeal to the neighbor’s modesty, since it isn’t appropriate for people to shame their loved ones publicly. In the end, when the neighbor took no notice of any of these knockings, Mr. N complained about the man to Andrew and to Miss Zahra, and they promised to move him to a different room. That never happened. But Miss Zahra had started coming around whenever the neighbor raised his voice. She would go into his room for a few minutes, and when she came back out she left only silence behind.

Once, when Mr. N was complaining about his situation to Miss Zahra, he asked her about his neighbor’s wife, asked her how any woman could bear all that cruelty without uttering a sound. Miss Zahra replied, “It’s better that we don’t get involved in the affairs of others, don’t you think?” Mr. N agreed, concluding that the man’s wife had to be mute, for, as he saw it, there was no other explanation for her behavior.

Without asking permission, that mute woman’s husband, who had been standing over the two of them in his striped pants and blue short-sleeved shirt, sat down at the table too. He pushed away the bowl in front of him, scratched the back of his head, crossed his legs, and said, laughing, “You’re absolutely correct, my dear lady. But it’s not just pasta that needs to be al dente, but emotions too! Especially love. It should always be left just a touch underdone, don’t you think? That’s the secret: right on the cusp, as it were, neither more nor less. For if love cooks longer than it should, it gets mushy and tastes burned. That’s what I’m always telling my wife … But alas, Daoud, to whom do you sing your psalms?”