'No. I mean she's the ghoul-woman. She dared to leave her house before the months of imprisonment were over.'
I understood nothing of what Catherine was saying. She started trying to close the buttons on her dress, and then she said suddenly, almost shuddering, 'The ghoul-woman kissed my breast!'
I shouted in agitation,'Don't play with me, Catherine! Why did you let her do that? Has she entered our house before? And what does it mean that she's the ghoul-woman?'
With greater anger, Catherine replied, straightening her back in the chair, 'And you… and in this oasis… Tell me why the women are required to be more intelligent than their menfolk? And how can you be the ruler of this oasis and not know who the ghoul-woman is?'
'Is that part of my official duties too?'
'Of course! Since I've studied and read every book and every word written by every scholar or visitor who passed by this oasis, it should have been your duty too to study and learn. How can you govern people you don't know? When you calm down, you'll regret that you thought of killing her, and I too shall be sorry, for I was on the verge of killing her too. Why did I do that?'
She was silent for a moment. Then she said, 'But the girl is dead in any case. Her family will certainly kill her.'
I sat down on a chair facing Catherine and said, defeated, 'Please, then, help me to calm down. I asked you, please, who is this Maleeka, and what does it mean that she's the ghoul-woman, and what happened in this house?'
She laughed irritably and said, 'Just wait a little till I calm down myself!'
She slumped once more in her chair and took a deep breath before saying, in an exhausted voice, 'I don't know Maleeka. I saw her for one minute in Aghurmi.'
Then she paused once more and corrected herself. 'I think I saw her another time. There was a boy watching me when I went to the Umm Ebeida temple. I think it was her too. She'd come in disguise, as she did today.'
'So she's been spying on you for a while? We'll come back to that. But I asked you, please, what does it mean that she's the ghoul-woman?'
Catherine spoke and I tried to concentrate but I couldn't take in what she was saying. She asked me first, 'Did you notice that Maleeka's dress was white? Did you notice that her hair wasn't braided or combed? Did you notice that she wasn't wearing any jewellery and that her face was without any make-up, even the kohl that all the girls put on their eyes?'
'Are you making fun of me, Catherine? Of course I didn't notice any of that, and even if I had, I wouldn't have given it any thought. The only girls I see here are the very young ones when they play in the road, and I don't know what they wear or how they make themselves up when they get older. What can it matter?'
She answered that she didn't see women either but it was all recorded in the books that she'd read about the oasis. The white robe was mourning dress for widows here. When Maleeka took off her man's outer robe and removed the cloth over her mouth and she saw her dirty white robe and her face without any make-up, she'd realized at once that she was a widow, and she knew that she would be living under the punishment that they impose on widows in this oasis.
Perhaps it wasn't a punishment but just a manifestation of an ancestral fear of death. Or rather, not of death but of the woman herself, because they didn't impose this punishment on the widower; he was free to remarry even before a single month had passed after the death of his wife. The widow, though, had to wait for a long period so that she could become cleansed of the spirit that had possessed her and brought death to her husband. She remained a prisoner for four months and ten days. She was not allowed to change her mourning dress no matter how dirty it got. She could not bathe and she could not put on make-up. She couldn't wear any of her jewellery or comb her hair. Before all this, and more important than all this, however, was that she could not leave her house lest anyone's eye might fall on her, for whoever saw the ghoul-woman, as the widow was called, during that period was destined to perish because she was inhabited by the angel of death. During the period of cleansing, she was forbidden to speak to anyone and no one was allowed to speak to her, other than those of her closest relatives who had the courage, and even they had to do so from behind a wall. All this was kept up throughout the months needed for the widow to rid herself of the evil that had taken up residence in her body simply by virtue of the death of her husband, and only at the end of that period was she allowed to bathe in one of the springs of the oasis and resume her jewellery and make-up. On that day, however, the danger was extreme. The crier would go around the roads of the town crying in warning, 'The ghoul-woman is coming to you! Beware the evil destiny!' Then all would keep to their houses, because the evil powers of the ghoul-woman were strongest during the moments preceding her purification from the spirit of death, and any who saw her were doomed to perish.
I listened and couldn't believe my ears, and I asked Catherine to stop and made her repeat what she'd said over and over again so that I could understand, despite which many details escaped me. When she'd finished I said to her without reflecting, 'I often hear the crier moving between Shali and Aghurmi but of course I didn't understand a word of what he was saying.'
That wasn't what I wanted to say, so I asked her, when I'd pulled myself together, 'What, then, is the punishment for the widow who rebels against this imprisonment?'
'You mean, what will Maleeka's punishment be? I don't know. I didn't see anything about that in the books. I didn't read that a widow had ever rebelled against these practices.'
'But you said that they'd kill her.'
'I was just guessing.'
She paused for a moment. Then she said, 'I hope I'm wrong. I hope they don't do it and that Maleeka is unharmed! But I fear for her because she has broken many of their taboos. She left the house when she was a ghoul-woman who had not yet been cleansed, and she dared to come from Aghurmi to Shali, thus spreading the fatal curse over the whole community, as they see it.'
As I stood up, I shouted, 'And she dared to assault you. Don't forget that.'
Catherine gestured to show her indifference and said, 'She's a child and may be genuinely insane as well and we've punished her enough. More than enough, perhaps. I shall never forgive myself for what I did.'
I could not, however, join Catherine in her sudden forgiveness. Many thoughts were mixed up in my mind. I had to take revenge! I had to take vengeance on the one who'd broken into my house and assaulted my wife — child or grown-up, deranged or rational, ghoul-woman or angel, I could not forgive that!
Angrily I said, 'And why did this ghoul-woman choose our house of all houses?'
Catherine looked at me in amazement and said, 'Can you really not have understood yet?' Then she shouted, 'Where are you going now?'
And I left without replying.
12. Sheikh Sabir
A fear worse than any in my prophecies has come upon you now, people of my land! You mocked the prophecies and now you are visited with something beside which they are as nothing — the terror that 'none but He can remove' and that entered your houses the day the ghoul-woman went out against you. You summoned the sheikhs and the witches to find out what might release you from the curse that is abroad in the oasis.
The ghoul-woman only came out yesterday afternoon, yet by night the wailing filled the oasis, from Shali to Aghurmi. Women aborted and children who had never been sick were stricken with fever! Palm trees on the road to Aghurmi that had been healthy fell over dead when the ghoul-woman passed by them! Fires started in houses where not an ember burnt! Every minute, word of a new disaster would come from some house or garden and weeping and screaming arose from every house that the ghoul-woman passed in front of and from every house that contained anyone, man or child, whose eyes had fallen upon her. They expect a catastrophe at any second and have no idea how to prevent it.