In front of the stranger, I answered somewhat diffidently, “Searching for gold is easier.”

“Are you looking for a flat?” the young man said abruptly.

I replied that I was, and Amm Ahmad introduced us.

“Getting married?” the young man went on to ask boldly.

Ah, the seduction’s begun: Here in this theater it gets off the ground quickly and does not stop short of violence. The quarry is brought down to the accompaniment of a native flute.

“I own an old house that has two floors.”

“Is each floor an apartment?”

“No. It isn’t divided into flats.”

Amm Ahmad asked him if I could have one floor to myself, and he said I could.

“Won’t that inconvenience the family?” I asked.

“I live there alone,” he declared.

When I turned away from him, indignant at his boldness, he went on cunningly: “You and your family would find yourselves quite safe there.”

I thanked him and said no more. He hadn’t made a bad impression on me. What did he want? He knew nothing about my tragedy, my love, or my distrust of mankind.

I say that I’m going to Umm Hany’s small flat in al-Imam, where Tariq Ramadan is staying. She receives me warmly, but I have to wait until Tariq gets up. He comes out of his room with his hair standing on end, looking like the devil.

“Welcome,” he remarks, with unseemly sarcasm.

I ask him right off the bat, “I believe you went to see Abbas before he left?”

“Right.”

“It’s not farfetched to suggest that you said things that made him leave.”

“He felt trapped, so he skipped out.”

His insolence brings tears of fury to my eyes.

“Don’t you know the meaning of mercy?” screams Umm Hany. “What’s all this talk that’s been going around? I watched Tahiya dying; I saw Abbas crazy with grief!”

Her words astonish me, and I want to know if the talk that’s being spread around fits with what she saw.

“There’s nothing to it!”

“He wouldn’t kill her before your very eyes, you idiot,” says Tariq.

“To suggest Abbas is a murderer is lunacy.”

“His confession is being played out on the stage night after night.”

“Thanks to him you’ve become an actor that audiences applaud even more than Ismail,” says Umm Hany.

“Thanks to his crime—the crime that made him run away.”

“He’s staying in a quiet place,” I say stubbornly, “to finish his new play.”

“His new play! Don’t fool yourself, Umm Abbas!”

Ah—in those days he was reasonable and obliging in spite of everything.

“What do you think, Halima? Tariq Ramadan wants to rent a room from us.”

I objected. “No. No. Let him stay where he is.”