So this Salmawi knows everything.
I stopped in my tracks in impotence and frustration. Fiona asked me to tell him that we wanted to ask the sheikh's advice, and even if he refused to meet us, perhaps he could explain a treatment to us, or inform us as to the name of someone else he trusted.
Salmawi talked to the two boys again, and then we stood and waited some more. I looked at Fiona. She hadn't lost her calm but disappointment showed itself clearly on her face as she said in a tone of resignation, 'If this doesn't work either, we can only go back.'
At that moment, however, I saw the two boys returning at a run. They said something to Salmawi, whose face brightened and who gestured to me and Fiona to stand back a little from the door. After a short time, I saw approaching that same Sheikh Yahya who wore his glasses tied to his ears with string, leaning on his stick.
He seemed to me to have aged greatly since I had first seen him. He stood inside the door, his face flushed with anger.
He didn't look at me or at Fiona but addressed thunderous phrases to Salmawi in the language we don't understand, while Salmawi tried to placate him, waving his hands in supplication. The sheikh, however, was about to turn his back on us and retreat when Fiona asked me quickly to tell him that she had heard that he was in retreat, worshipping God, and that the best way to worship God, as far as she was aware, was to help those in need.
In a loud voice I translated for the sheikh what Fiona had said, starting with the words, 'My sister says to you…'
Without looking at me, he answered in a voice that shook but was completely clear, 'Tell your sister that no one speaks in God's name. He alone assesses and judges.' To which Fiona replied, 'Despite which, it is a sin in all religions for someone to turn away any needy person that knocks at their door.'
'Unless the one who knocks be a murderer or have hate in their heart,' he said.
Fiona responded, 'My heart holds no hatred for anyone. I came seeking your help and you have refused to help me. God knows, though, that I do not hate you.'
He came towards us a little without passing through the garden door and stared from behind his glasses into Fiona's face, saying, 'And your sister? And the district commissioner?'
I was translating for them mechanically, and Fiona said, 'I can't answer for my sister or for the district commissioner but I know that hatred is a sickness in any heart. God has afflicted me with the disease that I came to you to seek help with, but he has spared me the other.'
I then said, 'And for myself, Sheikh Yahya, I too hate no one.'
Staring with his dim eyes into Fiona's face, he said, in an aside, 'But do you love us? Do you and your husband love our land and our people?'
He didn't wait for a response, but turned his back and returned the way he had come, resting his weight on his stick and on the boy's shoulders.
Fiona stood, following him with her eyes until he disappeared, and I too remained where I stood, as though paralysed, observing him vainly. She moved towards the donkeys, coughing hard and putting a hand over her mouth while gesturing with the other that we should go back.
Salmawi said in his tremulous voice, 'She had some medicine with her in the caravan that helped when the bouts of coughing came.'
I said roughly, 'She doesn't have that medicine with her, and it doesn't work any more.'
Urging us to hurry, Fiona said, 'Let's go. I don't need any medicine now. But I really did hope the sheikh would help me.'
'God damn him!' I exclaimed.
Fiona frowned in my face, saying,'Don't you see, Catherine? You're just proving that he's right!'
Even more angrily I said, 'I'm not a saint like you!'
She replied, 'And I'm not a saint, and I don't like anyone to address me by that term. I used to be too shy to say so to my father, who coined the expression, but I implore you not to use it. I am not a saint. It's enough for us just to be humans. It's more than enough.'
On the way back, Fiona was completely silent. She bent over her donkey, and it seemed to me that her whole body was on the point of collapse, and I started saying to myself, 'Don't you dare die, Fiona! If you're not a saint, then become one, and make a miracle to cure yourself of this illness! What anyway is this disease that isn't infectious but is on the verge of killing you? Make a miracle, since the medicine of Ireland doesn't work and this accursed sheikh refuses to try. I do not believe at all in the business of their magical herbs, or that the sheikh could have an effective medicine, I just did what you wanted.
'He spoke of my hatred, and my animosity! My animosity and Mahmoud's? He's the one who bears animosity. Whom do we bear animosity towards? I don't even think about them, since they keep themselves away from us. I do not hate the sheikhs despite their ignorance and narrow-mindedness. In fact, I loved this sheikh until I saw what he did today. No. "Love" is too strong. I mean that I liked him on that day. I found something in him different from the rest of the sheikhs.
'But I know the truth now. He's the worst of them. God damn him a thousand times over, however much that angers you, Fiona. I don't forgive easily, like you.'
When we arrived home, Fiona was so exhausted that she put her arm round my shoulder as we climbed the worn stairway. I put my own arm round her waist and we rested at each step, as she was breathing with difficulty. When I opened the door, she collapsed on to the first chair in the room, saying between breaths, 'I haven't left… the house… since I came here, which is why… I'm not used to moving. Don't worry, Catherine. I'll sleep a little and then I'll be better.'
I looked at her face as I forced myself to smile and said, 'I'm not worried, Fiona. I know it's just a passing crisis, like the others.'
In truth, I wasn't worried. I was terrified.
In the morning, I woke up in a bad mood.
Fiona stayed in bed and I didn't have much conversation with Mahmoud during breakfast, though I did ask him to invite Captain Wasfi for a cup of tea in the evening.
He said, wonderingly, 'Didn't you tell me Fiona is tired?'
'That's why I want him to come. The change and the company may be good for her. This isolation that we live in is killing.'
He said doubtfully, 'I don't think that Wasfi's company…'
I interrupted by saying, 'Are you jealous?'
He looked at me in astonishment. 'Of that child?'
I went on, irritably, in spite of myself, 'So invite him today, then. And tell him too that I'd like to take a look at whatever books he has on Siwa.'
I spent the day with Fiona in her room on the second floor. I took her her breakfast in bed and she didn't object, as she has done before. She always insists on coming down to take breakfast with me in the main room, no matter how bad her condition, having first washed and got fully dressed, as though we were about to go out to an important meeting. This morning, though, she stayed in bed, and her smile did not succeed in hiding her extreme exhaustion. I stayed with her and proposed to her that she move into a room on the ground floor with us, so that going up and down the stairs didn't wear her out, but she preferred to stay where she was.
In the evening, we were sitting in the main room waiting for Mahmoud and Wasfi, Sergeant Ibraheem having come earlier to inform us that they would arrive at sunset.
The rest had done Fiona good and she was a little better. She had arranged her toilet with care and tried, as usual, to appear normal.
Mahmoud entered like a whirlwind after two knocks on the door, trying to hide the great excitement that shone from his eyes. Wasfi was behind him, smiling with a certain bemusement and carrying a heavy bag.
Mahmoud waved in our faces a parcel he was holding, saying, 'Imagine what happened!'