“Go see him, that’s the main thing!”

“Of course I’ll go.”

“Do you want me to go?”

“You haven’t got anything fit to wear.”

“Then it’s up to you to go.”

“That crook is lying.”

“He detested the way we lived. He was so idealistic you’d think he wasn’t my son at all, but someone else’s bastard,” the man says. Then he seems to change his mind. “But he didn’t double-cross us. And why would he kill Tahiya?”

“You’re asking me?”

“I’m thinking aloud.”

“You believe what the wretch said!” I shout.

“You believe him, too.”

I press my lips together to hold back the tears. “We’ve got to hear what Abbas has to say.”

“As a matter of fact, I don’t believe him.”

“You’re raving!”

“Damn you!”

“I was damned the day I got tied to you!”

“The same applies to me.”

“I used to be pretty.”

“Your father was a postman, but mine was employed on the Shamashirgi family estate.”

“Which means that he was only a servant.”

“I come from a family.”

“What about your mother?”

“Just like you.”

“You’re a windbag. You don’t want to go, do you?”

“I’ll go when it suits me.” Then, changing his tone, he says, “He’s most likely to be at home in the afternoon.”

Praying for patience, I surrender to his indolence, though doubt is killing me from my feet upward. What is it they say about the best people? A rose among the ruins—in a community of thieves and their victims. The man has bought me material to make a dress so I could go out, but I’ve put off making it. I’ll start cutting it out right away and then see about getting it made. The son of a whore insults me about my origins. But Abbas could never betray his mother. He may have scorned everything else, but not my love. Love is stronger than evil itself.

My happy childhood home in al-Tambakshiyya, where the sun always shone, even in the winter, even at night, the home of Halima, beautiful daughter of a beautiful mother and a father who always brought home nice things, things we liked. “Let her go on,” my mother used to say to him. “Education will give her the opportunity of a lifetime. I wish I’d had the chance.” That was before he died.

Our good cousin, Amm Ahmad Burgal, came visiting one day, “The girl’s father is dead, and keeping her on at school has become a hardship.”

Mother asked, “So what should we do, Amm Ahmad?”

“She has a certificate, and she’s clever. She must find work. They’ll be looking for a cashier at the theater.”

“Would that kind of work suit you?” asked Mother.

I answered with apprehension, “I suppose practice will make up for what I lack in experience.”