'What was complete?'
No answer.
'The third talaq?' prompted Daoud.
Barakat's reply was barely audible: 'Yes.'
'The divorce was final on Monday?'
Jerky nods, tears, more tissues.
'Was Shahin scheduled to leave your house on Monday?'
'Yes.'
'Where was she planning to go?'
Barakat uncovered his face. 'I don't know.'
'Where does her family live?'
'There is no family, only a mother in Nablus.'
'What about the father?'
'Dead.'
'When did he die?'
'Many years ago. Before the?' Tears flowed down the sunken cheeks, wetting the lacerations and causing them to glisten.
'Before you were married?'
'Yes.'
'What about brothers or sisters?'
'No brothers or sisters.'
'An only child? Not a single male in the family?' Daoud's tone was laden with disbelief.
'Yes, a great shame.' Barakat sat up straighter. 'The mother was a poor bearer, useless organs, always with the female sicknesses. My father said?'
Barakat stopped mid-sentence, turned away from the detective's eyes. One hand picked absently at the scratches on his face.
'What did your father say?'
'That?'Barakat shook his head, looked like a dog that had been kicked too often.
'Tell me, Abdin.'
A long moment passed.
'Surely the words of one's father are nothing to be ashamed of,' said Daoud.
Barakat trembled. 'My father said? he said that Shahin's mother's loins were cursed, she'd been possessed by a spirit-a djinn. He said Shahin carried the curse too. The dowry had been obtained deceitfully.'
'A djinn.'
'Yes, one of my old aunts is a kodia-she confirmed it.'
'Did this aunt ever try to chase out the djinnj Did she beat the tin barrel?'
'No, no, it was too late. She said the possession was too strong, agreed with my father that sending Shahin away was the honorable thing to do-as a daughter, she, too, was afflicted. The fruit of a rotten tree.'
'Of course,' said Daoud. 'That makes sense.'
'We were never told of the djinn before the wedding,' said Barakat. 'We were cheated, my father says. Victimized.'
'Your father is a wise businessman,' said Daoud. 'He knows the proper value of a commodity.'
Daniel heard sarcasm in the remark, wondered if Barakat would pick it up too. But the young man only nodded. Pleased that someone understood.
'My father wanted to go to the waqf,' he said. 'To demand judgment and reclaim the dowry from the mother. But he knew it was useless. The crone no longer owns anything-she's too far gone.'
'Far gone?'
'Up here.' Barakat tapped his forehead. 'The djinn has affected her up here as well as in her loins.' He scowled, sat up higher, square-shouldered and confident, the guilt-ridden slump suddenly vanished. Reaching out, he took a drink from the water glass that, till then, had gone untouched.
Watching the change come over him, Daniel thought: Plastering over the rot and mildew of sorrow with a layer of indignation. Temporary patchwork.
'The mother is mad?' asked Daoud.
'Completely. She drools, stumbles, is unable to clean herself. She occupies a cell in some asylum!'
'Where is this asylum?'
