I balance my glasses again and take a harder look, but I can’t make out the black things. Father suggests that I wipe the lenses of my glasses. I go back into the room and wipe them with the bed sheet. I go back to the balcony. The man is still sitting looking at the little things in front of him. Father stretches his arm out to me without turning toward me. He whispers: “Loan me your glasses.” I take them off and hand them to him. He brings them close to his face without putting them on. He shakes his head, then he hands back the glasses, saying: “It’s no use.”
~ ~ ~
He prays the afternoon prayer. He sits me down in front of him on the bed. He rests his glasses on the end of his nose and, from the geography book, begins to explain to me the difference between straits, a gulf and an isthmus. He scolds me for forgetting. He’s annoyed. Gives me memorization exercises. He dresses and goes out. I hear him ask Mama Tahiya if she will look after me and say that he’ll probably be out until late.
I listen to his steps falling on the stairs and wait to see him come out into the lane, then I leave our room. Mama Tahiya is hanging her laundry out on the clothes line strung between the entrance to the living room and the door to her room. She has brought out a bucket of water and is cleaning the room and washing down their door with soap. I bring her jugs of water from the sink. She wipes down the floor of the living room while singing, “I’ll meet him tomorrow and the day after. .” She brings in the primus stove from the kitchen along with the small wooden foot stool that sits just inches off the ground. She puts them both in the middle of the guest room next to the washbasin made of zinc. She brings in half a cup of sugar from her room. She adds half a cup of water to it and stirs them for a long time, then pours the mixture into a small metal pan. She puts it on the fire, pulls the end of her dress up between her legs, and sits down on the stool. Fading sunlight comes in from the window to the skylight. It falls across her bare knees.
I come in and sit on the couch. The sugar and water start to boil. She squeezes a lemon into it and stirs it some more. I ask her what she’s doing. She says: “Halva for the hair.” Um Ibrahim gives me a small piece, then carries the pan to my mother in the bathroom. She closes the door behind her.
She goes on stirring until the mixture becomes a soft transparent paste. She lifts the pan off the flame and puts it down on the floor. I follow her as she leaves the room. She fills a tin pan with water, brings it back in, and puts it on the fire. She touches the paste to see how hot it is. She gives me a tidbit. I put it in my mouth and suck on it. She spreads out the paste, kneads it with her hands, and keeps on working it until the paste gets softer and turns a dark color. She rolls out the paste, cuts off a small section, and spreads it tightly over her forearm, then yanks it off all at once. She presses it a little more with her fingers to keep it soft. She does the same thing again and again until she gets down to her hand, then she throws that piece away and takes up another piece. She raises her arm up high and flattens the piece on her armpit. She pulls it off quickly. She keeps doing it until her underarm is soft and white, then she moves to her other arm.
The front doorbell rings. I stand behind the door and yell out: “Who’s there?” A woman’s voice answers: “I am Attiyat. Is Tahiya there?” I run back to the room to tell Mama Tahiya who it is. She tells me: “Let her in. She’s my cousin.”
I open the door. Dark and tall and wrapped tightly in a shawl. She follows me into the living room and slaps her chest, saying: “Oh no! Not in front of the boy!” Mama Tahiya answers back without a care as she passes her hand lightly over her bare arm: “What’s the big deal?” She sits down and asks when the constable will get home. Mama Tahiya says: “Maybe tomorrow. Send the kids to spend the night with me tonight. Have Ragui bring his tar drum with him.” Attiyat stands up and wraps her shawl tightly around her. She passes a look from Mama Tahiya to me and then goes out.
Mama Tahiya moves on to her other armpit. She twists her head to have a good look at it. She touches it with her finger. Stands up. She takes me gently by my ear and says: “Off to your room. Sit in there and don’t come out.” I take her hand and plead with her: “Please no, mama, by the prophet, don’t leave me there alone.” She studies me with a smile: “Okay. You can sit in the living room on one condition: don’t look in on me.” She turns on the light. I bring my geography book and sit down at the table by the front door.
I put the book in front of me, opening it to the notebook full of songs stuck between its pages. She moves quickly back and forth between her room and the living room, carrying clothes over her arm. She has Lux soap, a loofah, and a small mirror in her hand. She goes to the sink to fill a tin pan with water then carries it to the living room. She comes back to the door to her room and closes it. She shakes her finger at me and warns: “Don’t get up from your place until I’m done.”
“What if someone knocks?”
As she goes through the living room, she says: “Don’t answer.”
“Well, what if Tante Attiyat comes back?”
She closes the door behind her saying: “Don’t worry. She’s not coming.”
“What about papa?”
“He has a key.”
“Or if the lights go out?”
“When that happens, I’ll tell you what to do.”
I open the song book. I look for the song, “I am in love and I bring you your coffee.” I put the songbook aside. Stand up carefully. I sneak away from my place without letting the chair move. The electric light grows dim until it almost disappears, then comes back weakly.
I turn the knob on her door. I push on the door and go in. The light is on. I go towards the chiffonier. A photograph is pressed between the corner of the metal frame and the surface of the mirror. She is next to the constable in a crowded street. She wears a sleeveless dress and high heels, and he is wearing a dress shirt and slacks. The top of the chiffonier is cluttered with many things: a Gazelle brand bottle of perfume, tacks, a sewing needle, a spool of thread, a broken eyeliner pencil, an old thimble, a tube of lipstick in a brass case, a can of yellowish face powder, hairpins, torn playing cards, an old picture of her with a piece torn off and the torn piece showing a part of a leg in a man’s shoe, a small pack of Hollywood brand cigarettes (the kind that holds five of them), a silver strip of aspirin tablets, a dried up key lime, a toothbrush, a bottle of Anatolian hair oil, a steel comb, a metal statuette of a naked woman and a metal ashtray with a slanted edge.
I pull on one of its drawers. Pieces of clothing are carefully arranged. I push it back the way it was and pull on the one above it. A jar of jam. A box of pieces of cheese shaped like triangles. A large metal cigarette case. I close the drawer. Leave the room. I gently pull the door shut behind me.
I lightly move over to the door to the guest room. I press my eye against the keyhole. I see her sitting on the kitchen stool. Her right side is turned to me, so I can’t see her face. She is leaning over her folded right leg. A piece of halva sits on top of her foot. She pulls it up and smoothens it, then she puts it on the middle of her leg. She repeats the move higher up on her thigh. She turns toward the door and I jump back quickly. I hurry over to my seat. I sit down and open the song book, flipping through the pages. I linger over the songs of Ismahan. I listen. The sound of the stove.