Whenever I saw her in the red cafeteria I’d say to myself, “This girl grabs me like hunger.” I’d imagine her and her high spirits in the old house, the way it would be rejuvenated, warmed. I fantasized about her curing me of deep-seated ills.

Amm Ahmad Burgal kept encouraging me in private. “Halima is a relative of mine,” he said one day, “on my mother’s side. She’s educated and she’s clever. I’m the one who got her her job here with al-Hilaly Bey.”

“She’s a wonderful girl,” I responded, encouraging him to go on.

“Her aunt’s a good woman. She herself is a very virtuous girl.”

“There’s no question about that.”

His smile was so promising that it ignited my feelings, which were already pretty volatile; and I let myself surrender to the enticements of my own imagination, allowed myself to be lulled into daydreams, overpowering visions of sweet sensation, unbearably sustained. One day I finally said to him, “Amm Ahmad, I sincerely want…”

The rest of my unfinished sentence he understood. “Good for you!” he mumbled, full of glee.

“I have no income except my salary, but I own the house, and that’s not something to be sneered at these days.”

“Having a roof over your head is more important than keeping up appearances.” And a little later that same week he was able to meet me with the words “Congratulations, Karam!”

During the days that followed, I floated on the tenderness of a tranquil engagement, wrapped in a veil whose silk translucence was woven from gossamer dreams and only the most dulcet of realities. The leather shaving kit she gave me made me so pleased that I felt like a child. Sirhan al-Hilaly raised my salary by two pounds and congratulated me on entering a new life. The theater people gave a party for us in the cafeteria and saw us off with flowers and sweets.

What’s on the woman’s mind? Her veined hand toys absentmindedly with a heap of popcorn. She hasn’t a cheerful thought in her head. We’re condemned to venting our mutual irritation on each other alone. We live in a prison cell. Only the light streaming down on the rubbish strewn along this ancient street makes it look a little different, as gusts of wind pick up the lighter bits, blowing them here and there to be kicked about by the feet of countless boys. What’s on the woman’s mind?