everything. Tell me if this is a residence or a brothel.'
Then a woman's voice protested, 'Are you packing up your clothes and leaving home? This is your house, Mrs. Maryam. It's not right for you to leave. It's the other woman who should go.'
Maryam cried out, 'It's not my house anymore. That honorable gentleman has divorced me.'
The other woman replied, 'He wasn't in his right mind. Come with us now. Let's leave talk for the morning. In spite of everything, Yasin Effendi's a fine man and comes from a good family. God's curse on Satan. Come along, daughter. Don't grieve.'
Maryam shouted, 'No talking! No settling! May the sun never rise again on that criminal son of a crooked mother.'
There were footsteps of people retreating. Finally only an indistinct buzz of voices could be heard. Then the door was closed with a loud bang. Yasin breathed deeply and stretched out on his back.
98
He opened his eyes to find the morning sunshine filling the room. Me had the worst hangover of his entire life, although the preceding night had hardly been his first time to get drunk. Rotating his head mechanically, he noticed Zanuba snoring beside him. Then his memory recalled the events of the past night in one fell swoop. Zanuba was in Maryam's bed. And Mary am? … With the neighbors. And the scandal?… Broadcast everywhere. What a giant leap into the bottomless pit of destruction! What use was there for anger or regret now? What was done was done. Everything might change but not the previous day. Should he wake her up? Why should he? Let her sleep to her heart's content. Let her stay where she was, for she could not leave the house until dark.
He had to revive himself to meet his difficult day. He pulled the light cover from his body, slipped out of bed, and padded out of the bedroom. His hair was disheveled, his eyelids swollen, and his eyes red. He yawned in the hallway with a bovine sound. Looking at the open door of the parlor, he sighed deeply. He closed his eyes and moaned in response to his hangover. Then he headed for the bathroom. He really had a hard day in front of him. Maryam was at the neighbor's, while the other woman occupied the bed. Day had overtaken him before he could conceal the traces of his crime. How crazy! He should have spirited her out before going to bed. How co aid he have been so negligent? What disaster had befallen him? When and how had he moved her from the parlor to the bedroom? He did not remember anything. He did not even recall how and when he had fallen asleep. The upshot was a colossal scandal with nothing to show for it. It had been a perfectly innocent evening but one now as filled with disgrace as his head was with distress and discomfort. But it was hardly amazing, for the apartment, a bequest from his mother, God forgive her, had long been inhabited by scandalous demons. The mother had passed on, but the son had remained to become the butt of the neighborhood gossip. By the following day the news would have reached Palace Walk.
'Forward, denizen of the abyss of debauchery. If this cold water you're using to wash your body could only cleanse your mind of its evil memories…. Who knows? Perhaps if you look out the window, you'll find a group of people watching at your doorway for the departure of the woman who expelled your wife and took her place. No, you won't allow her to leave today, no matter what. As for Maryam, you've divorced her. You divorced her without wanting to, when her mother's grave is still fresh. What will people say of you, liar?'
He felt a pressing need for a cup of coffee to revive his senses. On his way from bathroom to kitchen he noticed the console table in the front hall and remembered the bottle of cognac that had spilled in the parlor. He wondered for a moment if the rug was damaged but then remembered with ironic regret that the furniture was no longer his property. It would soon go to join the woman who owned it.
In a few minutes he was carrying a glass half filled with coffee to the bedroom, where he found Zanuba sitting up in bed as she stretched and yawned.
She turned toward him and said, 'A good morning for both of us! We'll have breakfast at the police station, God willing.'
He took a sip and looked at her over the rim of the glass. Then he said, 'Pray to God the Omniscient Benefactor.'
She waved her hands until the gold bracelets jangled. Then she blurted out, 'You're responsible for everything that's happened.'
He sat down on the bed near her outstretched legs. He answered uneasily, 'A trial, huh? I told you to address God the Omniscient Benefactor.'
She rubbed the small of his back with her heels as she moaned, 'You've destroyed my home. God only knows what's waiting for me there.'
As he crossed one leg over the other, his house shirt rode up to reveal a thigh that was firm and covered with a forest of coal-black hair. He asked, 'Your boyfriend?… May God disappoint him! What's he compared with my wife, whom I've divorced? You're the one who's devastated my household. It's my home that's destroyed.'
As though addressing herself, she said, 'It's been a dark night.
I haven't been able to tell my head from my feet, and the din is still ringing in my head. But it's my fault. I should never have listened to you.'
He suspected she actually was pleased, her complaints notwithstanding;, or that she was using them to get at him. Had he not known women in the Ezbekiya fleshpots who boasted of the number of bloody battles waged over them? But he did not get angry. Matters had reached such a desperate pass that he was spared the effort of trying to remedy them.
He could not help laughing as he observed, 'It's the worst catastrophes that make you laugh. Laugh! You've wrecked my home and replaced my wife. Get up and pull yourself together. Prepare for a long stay… till night falls. You won't leave the house until it's dark.'
'What dreadful news! Imprisoned! Where's your wife?'
'I don't have a wife anymore.'
'Where is she?'
'In divorce court, if my guess is correct.'
'I'm afraid she'll attack me when I leave.'
'You afraid? Lord have mercy on us! Last night, menacing though she was, you didn't lose a bit of your sly pluck, you niece of Zubayda.'
She laughed for a long time. She seemed to be acknowledging the charge against her and to be proud of it too. Then she put out her hand to take the glass of coffee. After drinking a little, she returned the glass and asked, 'Now what?'
'As you can see, I'm in the dark too. It hurts to be exposed in front of people the way I was last night.'
Shrugging her shoulders disdainfully, she said, 'Don't worry about it. There's not a man alive who hasn't more dirty linen than the earth has room to hide.'
'Just the same, a scandal's a scandal. Think of the fight, the wailing, the divorce at dawn. Picture the neighbors coming with alarmed curiosity to my apartment. Their eyes took in everything.'
She frowned and said, 'She started it!'
He could not restrain his sardonic laughter. She persisted: 'If she had been wise, she could have worked everything out. Even str? ngen, in the street are considerate to boisterous drunks. She's the one who brought the divorce down on herself. What did you say to her? 'Whore and daughter of a whore'? Huh? And something else about English soldiers?'
He only remembered this now. Giving her a peeved look, he wondered how these phrases had taken root in her memory. He muttered uneasily, 'I was angry. I didn't know what I was saying.'
'Humbug!'
'Humbug to you!'
'English soldiers? Did you get her from one of their haunts like the Finish Bar?'
'God forbid. She's from a decent family, lifelong neighbors. It was just anger, a thousand curses on it.'
'Without anger, secrets would never come to light.'
'By your aunt's life, we have enough trouble as it is.'
'Tell me about the English soldiers, as if there was anything I didn't know about them'
