Another crust of bread and layer of onion, swallowed with difficulty.
“The more I think of your father, the more I hate your mother. She kept him shut up in a small, sweaty room, sleeping on a rush mat. Your brothers treated him like a madman. Just because he had acquired great wisdom. Nobody understood him. To start with, I was afraid of him too. Not because of what your mother and brothers kept saying about him, but because I remembered what my aunt had suffered at the hands of her father-in-law. And yet, bit by bit I became closer to him. With a great deal of fear. But at the same time a shadowy, indefinable curiosity. An almost erotic curiosity! Perhaps it was the part of me haunted by my aunt that drew me to him. A desire to live the same things she had lived. Frightening, isn’t it?”
Full of thoughts and emotion, she finishes her onion and stale bread.
She blows out the lamp.
She lies down.
And sleeps.
As the guns grow weary and quiet, the dawn arrives. Gray and silent.
A few breaths after the call to prayer, hesitant footsteps can be heard on the muddy courtyard path. Someone reaches the house and knocks on the door to the passage. The woman opens her eyes. Waits. Again there is a knock. She stands up. Half asleep. Goes to the window to see who this person is who doesn’t dare enter without knocking.
In the leaden fog of dawn, she makes out an armed, turbaned shadow. The woman’s “Yes?” draws the shape to the window. His face is hidden behind a length of turban; his voice, more fragile than his appearance, stammers, “C-c-can I… c-c-come in?” It’s the breaking teenage voice, the same one as yesterday. The woman tries to make out his features. But in the weak gray light she cannot be sure. She consents with a nod of the head, adding, “The door is open.” She herself stays where she is, next to the window, watching the shadow as it moves along the walls, down the passage, and into the doorway. The same clothing. The same way of hesitating on the threshold. The same timidity. It’s him. No question. The same boy as the day before. She waits, quizzical. The boy is struggling to step into the room. Glued to the door frame, he tries to ask, “How… m-m-much?” The woman can’t understand a word he’s saying.
“What do you want?”
“How…” The voice breaks. It picks up speed-“How… m-m-much?”-but not clarity.
Holding her breath, the woman takes a step toward the boy. “Listen, I’m not what you think I am. I…” She is interrupted by a cry from the boy, fierce to start with, “Sh-sh-sh… shut up!” and then calm, “How… m-m-much?” She tries to move back, but is halted by the barrel of the gun against her belly. Waiting for the boy to calm down, she says gently, “I’m a mother…” But the boy’s tense finger on the trigger prevents her from continuing. Resigned, she asks, “How much do you have on you?” Trembling, he pulls a few notes from his pocket and throws them at her feet. The woman takes a step backward and turns a little so she can cast a furtive glance at the hiding place. The green curtain is slightly open. But the darkness makes the man’s presence imperceptible. She slips to the ground. Lying on her back, looking toward her man, she spreads her legs. And waits. The boy is paralyzed. She cries impatiently: “Come on, then, let’s get this over with!”
He puts his gun down next to the door, then, hesitantly, walks over, and stands above her. Inner turmoil has made his breathing all jerky. The woman closes her eyes.
Abruptly, he throws himself on top of her. The woman, struggling to breathe, gasps, “Gently!” Overexcited, the boy awkwardly grabs hold of her legs. She is frozen, numb beneath the wild flapping of this clumsy young body as it tries vainly, head buried in her hair, to pull down her pants. She ends up doing it herself. Pulls his down, too. As soon as his penis brushes her thighs, he groans dully in the woman’s hair; very pale, she keeps her eyes closed.
He is no longer moving. She neither.
He is breathing heavily. She too.
There is a moment of total stillness before a light breeze lifts and pulls apart the curtains. The woman opens her eyes at last. Her voice-weak but forgiving-whispers, “Is it over?” The boy’s wounded cry shocks her. “Sh-sh-shut… sh-sh-sh-shut your mouth!” He doesn’t dare raise his head, still buried in the woman’s black hair. His breathing becomes less and less intense.
The woman, silent, gazes with infinite sadness at the gap in the green curtain.