She was panting. And she didn’t shy away from my body or avoid my embrace, my caresses, and the kisses I’d been wanting to give for so long. She asked me to put the light out, and we spent hours in that sauna. I’d longed for this night for years. Later she talked a little, quite easily, just looking at me, with her large, almond-shaped eyes. About her fifteenth birthday, and the party that didn’t happen: it was to be in the Benemous’ mansion, Talib was going to play the lute, and Estelita was going to lend crystal wine glasses. But Zana canceled the party at the last minute. “Nobody understood why, only my mother and I knew,” said Rânia. “Zana knew my boyfriend, the man I loved … I wanted to live with him. My mother kicked up a fuss, got angry, saying her daughter wasn’t going to live with a man like that … she wasn’t going to let him come to our party. She threatened me; she’d create a scandal if she saw me with him. ‘With so many lawyers and doctors interested in you, and you pick a pauper like him …’ My father tried to help me, did everything he could, implored Zana to give way and accept him, but it was no good. She was stronger, and had my father spellbound to the end. I ignored all those suitors … some of them come around here to this day, pretend they want to buy something, and end up buying old stock … the leftovers … everything I haven’t sold in the past year. Now this is my world … I’m the mistress of all this,” she said, looking at the walls of the shop. We stayed silent, in the semidarkness; in the feeble light of the storeroom, I could hardly see her face. She asked me to go away, she wanted to be alone; she might even sleep in the shop. It was past two in the morning, and I knew I wouldn’t sleep that night. All I could think of was Rânia, her voice, her beauty that I’d seen so close, closer perhaps than anyone else. I never found out who the man was she’d fallen in love with. I would have liked to spend many Saturdays helping her in the shop, but she never asked me again.

Zana must have thought it strange to see me in my room, reading and studying, while her son slaved in the garden. On one occasion, I saw Halim observing his son digging and moving earth, carrying bags of dead leaves, tiring himself out. He felt no pity for him. Bitterly, he commented: “It’s curious to see how he sweats and struggles just to stay close to his mother.”