It wasn’t that Thurayya treated his father badly, though it was very likely that she had a lover. After the doctor’s death, however, Thurayya refused to marry her other man in order to spite the one who had dared to leave her, her and the two children—and also so it could not be said that the doctor had done himself in because of her, and so that no one could possibly find fault in her performance as a widow. She cried for days and looked good in mourning. She chose a black dress that left her neck exposed, revealing its slender profile. She was splendid in her sadness, like some actress from the golden age of Hollywood. That’s how she saw herself, and that’s how others saw her. She kept her head held high. You could see the two tendons on the sides of her neck, long and taut, looking as though they alone were keeping her head from rolling off in sorrow.

Thurayya would always say that the war was what killed her husband. She would tell how he had escaped a terrible massacre, and how he made it home and told her he had seen the face of the killer, knew his name, and that even so, the man had not opened fire upon him. No! cried Mr. N in his heart: you are the one who killed him with your neglect and your betrayal. You are the one who sparked a war inside him.

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