I turn to Halima and bark at her, “Look!” She jumps and we both speculate as to whether he’s coming to congratulate us or to gloat, while he stands there grinning, with his little eyes, thick nose, and heavy jaws, like a pig. Be tough with him, the way you were the other times.

“Tariq Ramadan! What brings you here?”

“Our first visit from a loyal friend,” Halima sneers, “since we returned to the face of the earth!” She’s agitated, unnerved.

“I couldn’t help it. I’ve been in a whirl, too.”

“You’re like a nightmare,” I say, turning my back on him to busy myself with a customer.

“I have bad news,” he says.

“Bad news doesn’t mean a thing to us,” says Halima.

“Even if it’s about Mr. Abbas Younis?”

“He’s a devoted son,” I snap back. “When I refused to return to my old job at the theater, he set us up in this little shop.”

“And his play’s been accepted,” the woman adds.

But it’s precisely about Abbas’s play that Tariq’s come here. Has jealousy driven him crazy? He’d rather die than see Abbas succeed. So let his jealousy kill him. He’s the source of all our trouble. No one can understand you better than I, Tariq: we both crawled out of the same dung heap.

“The setting is this house,” Tariq persists. “It’s about you, and it reveals other crimes no one ever imagined.”

Is that possible? Abbas never said a word about the subject to anyone. But then he’s such a perfect little moralist. “What do you mean?” I ask.

“Everything. Everything! Don’t you want to know about it?”

What’s he getting at? Why should Abbas compromise himself? “Even prison?” I ask.

“And that he’s the one who denounced you to the police and that he killed Tahiya.”

“That’s nonsense!”

“What do you mean?” the woman shouts. “You hate Abbas!”

But he’s said enough already to disturb me deeply. “Isn’t it just a play?” I say feebly.

“Abbas can explain everything,” Halima says.

“Go see the play for yourselves!”

“You’ve been blinded by hate!”

“Not by hate. By the crime!”

“You’re the only criminal! You’re crazy with spite!”

“My son may be stupid, but he is neither an informer nor a murderer,” I retort, hiding my anxiety.

“Tahiya’s murderer must be brought to justice!” he yells.

He and the woman begin a terrific row, but my own thoughts wander, until I finally get rid of him with a curse.