“They put me in this wing because I’m rich. The country’s whole iron supply passed through me. I rose from nothing, and my family were farmers from Akkar. I obtained a high school diploma by sheer effort but didn’t go to college. When I went into business, I began by selling nails. I sold old ones and bought new ones. Then, at some point, the prices suddenly shot up at a crazy rate. I started selling the stock I had built up at a tenfold profit. Yes, I’m the master of iron. Iron is me. Here: feel my hand and you’ll see how cold and metallic I am. Poor Maryam was made of straw. Thin and light as straw. When I put the rope around her neck, it was moist, not at all what I was expecting. She was so emaciated, I thought her neck would be dry and brittle as bone. But no, her skin was damp, as though she had just dried it after a shower. Damp, tender, and light, like a doll when you lift it up and wave its feet through the air … My wife was of salt. Grains of salt, ready to dissolve. Salt always has a kind of coercion. There’s something in its flavor that tastes like distress … Miss Zahra said I was bothering you with my shouting. Did she tell you how I replied? ‘Tell him to go jump in the sea!’ That was the night Maryam tapped at my door and invited me to dinner. Time after time, she sat me at her table and cooked up amazing dishes in her head. She insisted that I eat from her empty dishes and sip from cups filled with water. For a while, Maryam made me forget my wife and my crime. Then she opened up to me about her secret plan and asked me to see her through it. It’s okay, Maryam! I’ll help you on your way! And she’d help me forget … ”

Daoud stopped talking when we heard a knock next door, followed by the sound of Miss Zahra opening the door and calling. Daoud jumped up and hid behind the bed, on the side facing the bathroom. He pulled the blankets over his head.

“Don’t tell her I’m here! I don’t want to see her. Miss Zahra is made of rubber, and I loathe rubber.”

“Perhaps the police have come,” I told him. “You have to go to the interrogation. Don’t worry. I’ll tell them I heard you talking in your room, and that you didn’t leave it the whole night.”

Daoud’s face lit up with a smile. “Really? What a friend!” Then he got up and headed toward the door, which he opened and went through. I heard him greet Miss Zahra. Their voices receded down the hall as they made their way to the director’s office.

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