“I have to go to my aunt’s place. I need to be with the children!” She gets to her feet. Stands there a moment, just long enough to listen to a few of the man’s breaths.
Before she has picked up her veil, these words burst from her mouth: “Sang-e saboor!” She jumps. “That’s the name of the stone, sang-e saboor, the patience stone! The magic stone!” She crouches down next to the man. “Yes, you, you are my sang-e saboor!” She strokes his face gently, as if actually touching a precious stone. “I’m going to tell you everything, my sang-e saboor. Everything. Until I set myself free from my pain, and my suffering, and until you, you…” She leaves the rest unsaid. Letting the man imagine it.
She leaves the room, the passage, the house…
Ten breaths later she is back, out of breath. She drops her wet veil on the floor and rushes up to the man. “They’ll be patrolling again tonight-the other side this time, I think. Searching all the houses… They mustn’t find you… They’ll kill you!” She kneels down, stares at him close up. “I won’t let them! I need you now, my sang-e saboor!” She walks to the door, says “I’m going to get the cellar ready,” and leaves the room.
A door creaks. Her steps ring out on the stairs. Suddenly she cries desperately, “Oh no! Not this!” She comes back up, in a panic. “The cellar has flooded!” Paces up and down. Her hand to her forehead, as if rummaging through her memories for somewhere to hide her man. Nothing. So it will have to be here, in this room. Determined, she snatches the green curtain and pulls it aside. It’s a junk room, full of pillows, blankets, and piled-up mattresses.
Having emptied the space, she lays out a mattress. Too big. She folds it over and scatters the cushions around it. Takes a step back to get a better sense of her work-the nook for her precious stone. Satisfied, she walks back over to the man. With great care, she pulls the tube out of his mouth, takes him by the shoulders, lifts him up, drags the body over, and slides it onto the mattress. She arranges him so that he’s almost sitting up, wedged in by cushions, facing the entrance to the room. The man’s expressionless gaze is still frozen, somewhere on the kilim. She reattaches the drip bag to the wall, inserts the tube back into his mouth, closes the green curtain, and conceals the hiding place with the other mattresses and blankets. You would never know there was anyone there.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” she whispers. She is in the doorway, leaning down to pick up her veil, when a sudden gunshot, not far away, rivets her to the floor, freezing her mid-movement. A second shot, even closer. A third… and then shots ringing out from all directions, going in all directions.
Sitting on the floor, her wails of “my children…” reach no one, drowned out by the dull rumblings of a tank.
Bent double, she makes her way to the window. Peeks outside, through the holes in the curtain, and is filled with despair. A tear-soaked cry bursts from her chest, “Protect us, God!”
She sits against the wall between the two windows, just beneath the khanjar and the photo of her mocking man.
She is groaning, quietly.
Somebody shoots right next to the house. He is probably inside the courtyard, posted behind the wall. The woman chokes back her tears, her breath. She lifts the bottom of the curtain. Seeing a shape shooting toward the street, she moves sharply back, and cautiously makes her way to the door.
In the passage, the silhouette of an armed man makes her freeze. “Get back in the room!” She goes back into the room. “Sit down and don’t move!” She sits down where her man used to lie, and does not move. The man emerges from the dark passage, wearing a turban, with a length of it concealing half his face. He fills the doorway, and dominates the room. Through the narrow gap in his turban his dark gaze sweeps the space. Without a word, he moves over to the window and glances out toward the street, where shots are still being fired. He turns back toward the woman to reassure her: “Don’t be afraid, sister. I will protect you.” Once again, he surveys his surroundings. She is not afraid, just desperate. And yet she manages to act serene, sure of herself.
Sitting between the two men, one hidden by a black turban, the other by a green curtain, her eyes flicker with nerves.
The armed man crouches on his heels, his finger on the trigger.
Still suspicious and on edge, he looks away from the curtains toward the woman, and asks her, “Are you alone?” In a calm voice-too calm-she replies, “No.” Pauses a moment, then continues fervently, “Allah is with me,” pauses again, and glances at the green curtain.
The man is silent. He is glaring at the woman.
Outside, the shooting has stopped. All that can be heard, in the distance, is the dull roar of the tank leaving.
The room, the courtyard, and the street sink into a heavy, smoky silence.
The sound of footsteps makes the man jump and he turns his gun on her, gesturing to her not to move. He peers through a hole in the curtain. His tensed shoulders relax. He is relieved. He lifts the curtain a fraction and hisses a code in a low voice. The steps pause. The man whispers, “Hey, it’s me. Come in!”
The other man enters the room. He too is wearing a turban, with a part of it hiding his face. His thin, lanky body is wrapped in a patou-a long, heavy woolen shawl. Surprised by the woman’s presence, he crouches down next to his companion, who asks him, “So?” The second man’s eyes are fixed on the woman as he replies, “It’s ok-ok-okay, th-the there’s a c-c-ceasefire!” stammering, his voice a teenager’s in the process of breaking.
“Until when?”
“I… I… d-d-d-don’t know!” he replies, still distracted by the woman’s presence.
“Okay, now get out of here and keep watch! We’re staying here tonight.”
The young man doesn’t protest. Still staring at the woman, he asks for “a c-c-c-cigarette,” which the first man chucks over to get rid of him as quickly as possible. Then, having completely uncovered his bearded face, he lights up himself.
The boy darts a final stunned glance at the woman from the doorway, and reluctantly disappears down the passage.
The woman stays where she is. She observes the man’s every movement with a distrust she is still attempting to hide. “Are you not afraid of being all alone?” the man asks, exhaling smoke. She shrugs her shoulders. “Do I have any choice?” After another long drag, the man asks, “Don’t you have anyone to look after you?” The woman glances at the green curtain. “No, I’m a widow!”
“Which side?”
“Yours, I presume.”
The man doesn’t push it. He takes another deep drag, and asks, “Have you any children?”
“Yes. Two… two girls.”
“Where are they?”
“With my aunt.”
“And you-why are you here?”
“To work. I need to earn my living, so I can feed my two kids.”
“And what do you do for work?”
The woman looks him straight in the eye, and says it: “I earn my living by the sweat of my body.”
“What?” he asks, confused.
The woman replies, her voice shameless: “I sell my body.”
“What bullshit is this?”
“I sell my body, as you sell your blood.”
“What are you on about?”
“I sell my body for the pleasure of men!”
Overcome with rage, the man spits, “Allah, Al-Rahman! Al-Mu’min! Protect me!”
“Against who?”
The cigarette smoke spews out of the man’s mouth as he continues to invoke his God, “In the name of Allah!” to drive away the devil, “Protect me from Satan!” then takes another huge drag to belch out alongside words of fury, “But aren’t you ashamed to say this?!”
“To say it, or to do it?”
“Are you a Muslim, or aren’t you?”
“I’m a Muslim.”
“You will be stoned to death! You’ll be burned alive in the flames of hell!”
He stands up and recites a long verse from the Koran. The woman is still sitting. Her gaze is scornful. Defiantly, she looks him up and down, from head to foot, and foot to head. He is spitting. The smoke of his cigarette veils the fury of his beard, the blackness of his eyes. He moves forward with a dark look. Pointing his gun at the woman, he bawls, “I’m going to kill you, whore!” The barrel sits on her belly. “I’m going to explode your filthy cunt! Dirty whore! Devil!” He spits on her face. The woman doesn’t move. She scoffs at the man. Impassive, she seems to be daring him to shoot.