I didn’t believe her at the time. I took her in my arms and said, “You’re in a state of shock. Tomorrow, you’ll calm down, and everything will turn out okay. Mr. Joe can go to hell! His whole family can go to hell! It’s he who ought to fear me. I’m Mr. N! And if he doesn’t, I’ll tell the police about him … Fine, I won’t tell on him. I’ll leave him alone, and he’ll leave me alone. How will he find me anyway, when we’ve left without a trace?”

I left her there to cool off and went out to my balcony. The gardenia and the carnation had breathed their last. A thick layer of dust covered everything. The tower stood nearby with an ominous calm. The heavy night mounted over my head like cliffs of black grease. I closed the balcony door, went to my room, and fell asleep, while traces of the whisky rose in my head as vapor, visions, and strange apparitions.

———

The human ability to adapt—to things positive and negative, to plenty and scarcity, to life and death—is terrifying.

I watched Shaygha transform day by day. She contracted within the apartment; then she expanded to fill it. She feared her pimp would find her; then she relaxed into her new situation and her new identity. She felt anxiety for her family; then she grasped at a future still not ripe enough to promise anything certain. She fell asleep as one person and woke up as another. She was getting used to me in my new guise, and I felt her skin expanding, her limbs lengthening, her face settling into gladness. I saw her unwinding into something more tender, softer, like dough when it relaxes.

Over the course of about two weeks, Shaygha eased into the idea of her disappearance. She allowed my persuasions to convince her, so long as she didn’t leave the apartment, not for any reason. A wretch does not need long to become convinced of their salvation; they’ll believe any story you sell them … I sold Shaygha the most beautiful stories, and she bought them all. She wasn’t stupid, and she did not need proof. I was the proof. It was my story that she believed, with my lineage, my station, and my financial situation. She began believing in my passion and my desire to have a relationship with her.

After several more days, she gave me a list of things to get her from a shop at the Cola Roundabout that imported things that foreign women bought. I proposed going down to Daoura Circle, which was closer, but Shaygha made me swear not to go back there. So what if I did? Who did she think would recognize me, now that I was a human being again and had recovered my former appearance? I promised her, but I didn’t keep my word. I couldn’t bear the crowding at Cola Roundabout, and Bourj Hammoud was calling to me after my long absence.