sore. He shot back with painful candor: 'Of course not'.
Although she had tried to avoid quarreling with him from the beginning, his tone hurt her badly. She replied sharply, 'There’s no harm in that. Isn't it amazing how you can't bear to miss your carousing for even one night?'
He said angrily, 'Mention one thing that would make staying home bearable'.
She became enraged and said in a voice that showed she was on the verge of tears, 'I'll leave. Perhaps then you'll like it better'.
She turned her back on him to flee. He followed her with a stony glare. 'How stupid she is! She doesn't know that only divine decree keeps her in my house'.
Although the quarrel had relieved a little of his anger, he would have preferred for it not to have happened, if only because it served to increase his depressing boredom. If he had wanted to, he could have appeased her, but the listlessness of his mind had overwhelmed all his feelings.
In a few minutes, a relative calm took possession of him. The cruel words he had thrown at her echoed in his ears. He acknowledged that they were harsh and uncalled for. He felt almost regretful, not because he had suddenly discovered some dregs of affection for her in the corners of his heart, but because of his desire to treat her politely, perhaps out of respect for her father or fear of his. He had not exceeded these bounds, even during the nerve- racking period of adjustment when with decisive firmness he had undertaken to make her accept his policies. He had apologized when he got too angry.
Anger was nothing out of the ordinary for this family. The only time they attempted to control their tempers was when the father was present, monopolizing for himself all rights to anger. Their anger was like a bolt of lightning, quick to flare up and quick to die down. They would be left with various forms of regret and sorrow. Yasin was like this, but he was also obstinate. His regret did not motivate him to seek a reconciliation with his wife. He told himself, 'She’s the one who made me angry… Couldn't she have spoken to me in a gentler tone?' He wanted her to be consistently patient, forbearing, and forgiving, so that he could shoot off in pursuit of his passions, confident about the home front.
After she got angry and withdrew, he felt even more uncomfortable with his imprisonment. He left the room to go to the roof. He found the air pleasant there. The night was tranquil. It was dark everywhere but more profoundly so under the arbor of hyacinth beans and jasmine. On the other side of the roof, the dome of the sky was visible, studded with stars like pearls. He began to pace back and forth on the roof between the wall adjoining Maryam’s house and the end of the hyacinth bean garden with its view of the Qala'un mosque. He gave himself over to contemplation of various mental images.
As he was walking slowly by the entrance to the arbor a rustling sound or perhaps a whisper caught his ear. He could hear someone breathing. Surprised, he stared into the darkness and called out, 'Who’s there?'
A voice he easily recognized replied in ringing tones, 'Nur, master'.
He remembered immediately that Nur, his wife’s maid, retired at night to a wooden hut containing a few sticks of furniture, next to the chicken coop. He looked across the roof until he made out her figure standing a few feet away, like a condensed and solidified piece of night. He saw the whites of her eyes, as pure white as circles drawn in chalk on a jet-black form. He kept on pacing and said nothing more, but her features were automatically traced on his imagination. She was black, in her forties, and solidly built. She had thick limbs and a full chest. Her rear was plump. She had a gleaming face, sparkling eyes, and full lips. There was something powerful, coarse, and unusual about her, or he had thought of her that way since she had appeared in his house.
Suddenly and unexpectedly, an inclination to assault her exploded within his breast like fireworks going off without any warning. This was a forceful, dominating lust. The whole point of his life seemed to be concentrated in it. It got control of him just as it had the night of Aisha’s wedding, when he had seen Umm Hanafi in the courtyard as he was reaching the threshold. His languid being was permeated by a bubbling new life. Restless desire spread through his veins, electrifying him. His ennui and boredom were replaced by an insane, raging, hot interest. All of this happened in the twinkling of an eye. His gait, thought, and imagination all became energetic. Unconsciously he stopped pacing the entire width of the roof. He cut back on the distance by a third and then half. Whenever he passed her, his body was troubled by tempestuous desire… A black maid?… A servant? So what? It would not be the first time for him. Women like Zanuba definitely were not the only ones he craved. Just one beautiful feature was enough for him, like the kohl-enhanced eyes of the doum fruit vendor in al-Watawit, which had compensated for the stench of her armpits and the mud caked on her legs. Even ugliness, so long as there was a woman attached to it, was excused by his blind lust, as it had been with Umm Hanafi or with the one-eyed geomancer with whom he had enjoyed some private moments behind al-Nasr Gate.
Nur at any rate had a solid, firm body. Touching it would no doubt inspire him to be virile and active. The very fact that she was a black maid would lend interest to the tryst and novelty to the experience. He would be able to verify the rumor about girls of her heritage, who were said to be hot and passionate.
The circumstances seemed propitious. It was dark and secure on the roof. His desire intensified. His nervous energy was bounding. His heart raced. He cast a piercing glance in her direction and changed course slightly so that he would just happen to rub against her one way or another when he passed her. He would postpone making an open declaration of his intentions until he had a chance to sound out the situation cautiously, for fear that she might be a fool like Umm Hanafi and cause the house to echo with a new scandal.
Staring at her, he advanced with deliberate steps. He wanted to have all the lust raging inside him conveyed to her by the message in his eyes, in spite of the encompassing darkness. When he got close to her, his heartbeats became irregular. He came up beside her and his elbow touched the upper part of her body. He kept on walking, as though it had been an accident. A tremor passed through his body when he collided with her. He was not sure what he had touched, for he was wandering in a trance world. All he could remember as his mind cleared a bit at the edge of the roof was that he had felt something tender and appealing and she had stepped back nonchalantly. His suspicion that she was not worried about him was corroborated by her reaction.
He turned around, determined to attack again. He went back toward her with his arm folded so his elbow would touch one of her breasts. His senses did not mislead him this time. He did not move his elbow away, as one would have expected from a person who had simply lost his way. He left it there to brush gently past the other breast, no longer trying to avoid awakening her suspicions. He walked on, telling himself, 'She'll no doubt understand what I'm after. Perhaps she has understood and wanted to step aside but was slow to do it. Perhaps she was taken by surprise and startled. At any rate, she didn't push me away with her hand and she remained still. She won't start screaming suddenly like that other bitch. Let’s try a third time'.
On this occasion his pace was quick and impatient. He slowed down when he reached her. Then he stretched his elbow out to her breasts that swelled like a full pair of little waterskins. He moved his arm in a hesitant, doubtful manner. He started to walk on, driven by a desire to flee, but found her so yielding or dull that the remnants of his conscious mind were drowned in an insane flood. He stopped. With a voice that emerged from a fog of lust, trembling and fading away, he asked, 'Is that you, Nur?'
The maid, who was backing away from him, replied, 'Yes, master'.
To prevent her from escaping, he pursued her until her back was against the wall and he was almost touching her. He wanted to say anything he could think of to declare his inner turmoil, like a boxer waving his fist in the air while watching for an opportunity to deal a final blow. Breathing on her forehead, he asked, 'Why didn't you go into your room?'
Blockaded by him, she stammered, 'I was enjoying the fresh air a little'.
His greedy appetite overcame his hesitation. He put his hand on her waist. Then he pulled her gently toward his breast. She put up some resistance and kept him from achieving his goal. Putting his cheek next to hers, he whispered in her ear, 'Come to the room'.
She muttered uneasily, 'Shame on you, master'.
Her voice rang out in the silence in a way that disturbed him. She had not raised her voice intentionally, but it did not appear easy for her to whisper or her whisper had a resonance to it, even if less pronounced than that of her normal voice. His panic quickly deserted him, both because his lust was fully ignited and because her tone lacked the protest that her words suggested. He took her by the hand as he murmured, 'Come along, sweetheart'.
She did not attempt to free her hand, either because she was pleased or because she was obedient. He was lavishing kisses on her cheek and neck, swaying from the intense emotional impact, in a delirium of happiness. He began to say, 'What’s kept you from me all these months?'
She answered him in her normal tone of voice, lacking any ring of protest, 'Shame on you, master'.
