Mr. N grunted in disgust. He opened the window to encourage the perfume to leave with her. A fresh breeze entered, followed by a new and disgusting odor, as though of decaying bodies. God, what was it? The older Mr. N got, the stronger his sense of smell became, as though he were turning into a dog. Odors entered his mind and remained there, tickling his brain and toying with his nerves before taking up permanent residence. He remembered the scent of his father’s shaving soap in the morning, and the scent of his medicine and alcohol in the evening. From Mary, the scents of flour, grass, and cinnamon. From Sa’id, the overpowering odor of his sweat. And from Thurayya … No, Thurayya didn’t have a scent of her own. Or else Mr. N never got close enough to smell it. Perfume aside, he couldn’t remember her having any flavor or fragrance at all.

Mr. N suddenly felt a great weariness settle upon his arms and the base of his neck. He wished he could stop the flow of his thoughts so he could lie down and sleep. He had gotten so wrapped up in the story of the papers and the scents that he forgot his intention to go into the bathroom to get ready for his brother’s arrival. But had Miss Zahra really said that Sa’id was coming to visit him? Had she really put on Thurayya’s perfume? Or had Mr. N just wished it to be so?

———

Mr. N remained baffled for days by his visit to Bourj Hammoud. He felt as though he’d visited some distant land and left himself behind even after he came back. At night, he dreamed of the neighborhood’s streets and alleys, and of the multitude of shops and people he had seen. In the mornings, he would sit on his balcony with his papers, yet his thoughts took him right back to that teeming bazaar until he forgot himself, forgot the tower and its noise, the scars of its construction. It would have been a mild curiosity, maybe even a blessing, except for that face—the face that began invading his dreams and his waking reveries both, a face so terrifying that it brought Mr. N plummeting back to earth. Mr. N was sure he knew that face. It had been purged from his memory for years, it’s true, and even now it wavered and retreated when he tried to fix it in place. Indeed, Mr. N only had to apply a little logic in order to doubt himself and conclude, given the gap of more than a decade and a half, that he was merely the victim of a cruel coincidence. Why shouldn’t there be two men with the same name as well as a certain similarity in their build and facial features …?