Just as there are charming women in the world, and clever women, and righteous women, and deceitful women, there are also indignant women. Jamila was an indignant woman. When, at Salwa’s sboua, she registered the nature of the gossip going round the far end of the table, she spoke up at once, as she usually did, with the usual indignation. “How dare you say such awful things?”
Suddenly, all eyes were on her.
“Poor Yasser,” she went on. “Poor, helpless man! I’ve never laid eyes on a sweeter soul in all my born days. He’s been in my house, you know. He always comes to beg sadaqah from Mubarak. Don’t tell me, I haven’t a clue. I know better than you! And you ladies, slandering his good name for nothing but your own amusement—shame!”
Naeema, with the buck teeth that were always smeared with lipstick, and Khadija, with the big, pouty lips and the slightly crossed eyes, and Lamia, whose husband was a trader, and never home, and God only knew what she got up to when he wasn’t, all fell silent. Only Salwa, whose third child’s birth was being celebrated, and who therefore seemed to feel entitled to be the center of attention, had the audacity to counter Jamila.
“That’s all well and good for you to say. You only ever meet him when your husband’s home. Me, I saw him in the souk last month, and you wouldn’t believe the things he said to me!” Putting on a gruff, husky voice, she recited: “‘Oh, Darling, that new perfume of yours…how delicious! I know you wore it just for me.’”
The ladies erupted with laughter.
“I tried to get away,” she continued, “but by then, of course, he had my scent. Once he has your scent, he’s like a bloodhound. He tailed me through the souk, crashing into merchants, knocking over tables, lifting ladies’ skirts with that splintery old broomstick of his, calling out, ‘Darling, Darling!’—”
The whole table was now in hysterics. All but Jamila.
“Eight and a half months pregnant, I was,” Salwa went on, “not that he could see it, and sprinting wasn’t really within my repertoire just then. He almost caught me!”
The ladies shrieked!
“And Lamia,” she continued without a hint of shame, “whenever her husband’s away, Yasser drinks so much that he’d end up blind anyway if he weren’t already, and he comes to stand beneath her window, and there he does the lewdest things!”
Now Lamia, flushed but gaining courage, took over with her own imitation of Yasser: “‘What’s the matter, Baby? Isn’t he long enough for you? Oh, well…I guess he’s a bit sleepy tonight…but that’s why I’ve got this broomstick!’”
“Enough!” cried Jamila. “I don’t want to hear another word! Just because you ladies haven’t suffered the misfortunes he has, you think you can go around making up horrible stories about him! Well! What if I manage to prove you all wrong?”
They all sat staring and blinking at her, staring and blinking.
“What’s done is done,” observed Naeema. “How can you prove us wrong?”
“I’ll prove that you’re liars,” said Jamila. “You wait and see.”
* * *
That evening, Jamila summoned Sarah, her maid, to the kitchen. “Look here,” she said enigmatically. “I need your help with something.”
Mubarak was slumped on the sofa in the other room, half-watching television through his drooping eyes, but she wasn’t afraid of being overheard. He was a city official. He worked very hard. By this time of night, he was always exhausted.
“Today,” she said, “at Salwa’s sboua, everyone was saying nasty things about poor old Yasser. Calling him a lecher, a cretin, a heathen!”
Hands clasped behind her back, Sarah shifted her weight from foot to foot uneasily.
“First thing tomorrow,” said Jamila, “as soon as Mubarak leaves for work, I want you to go and find Yasser and tell him that I want to see him. And here’s the important thing: you must hint—very subtly now, but not so subtly that he can miss it—that I’ve fallen in love with him.”
Sarah’s eyes bulged.
“Oh, but it’s not true, of course,” said Jamila. “How could anyone love a man like that? No, no, it’s all just a test. And he’s going to pass! Yes, he’s going to come here and tell me to my face, very respectfully, mind you, that he respects me and my husband, and only the purest of thoughts about me ever enter his head. Then he’s going to want to pray with me, and how could I deprive a pious man of that? So, we’re going to pray together for a while, and then I’ll give him a basket of fruits, and some money, and send him on his way. You’ll be there as a witness, Sarah, so if any of those stupid ladies has the nerve to question my integrity, you’ll set her straight. Understand?”
Sarah looked as if she wanted very badly to say something other than, “Yes, Ma’am, I understand.” She even opened her mouth as if to say it. But, predictably, what came out was, “Yes, Ma’am. I understand.” And that was for the best. At least as far as Sarah was concerned.
* * *
The next morning, Jamila waited impatiently while Sarah ran her errand. It would take her thirty minutes to get to the sad little shack on the far edge of town where Yasser eked out his meaningless existence, and another thirty minutes to return, and that made an hour, but it felt like much more than an hour had passed when she finally looked at the clock, and it had been only ten minutes. The night before, there’d been no room in her heart for trepidation, but now that things were moving, she was anxious to get it all over with long before Mubarak came home. She didn’t want him or anyone else getting stupid ideas.
The truth was, it scared her, now that she thought about it: the possibility of her husband getting the wrong idea, and leaving her, and then where would she be? Once in a while, she had to fend off a particular, insidious thought had a habit of working its way into her brain: that even if she hadn’t married him, Mubarak, with all his natural gifts—his grit, his intelligence, his conscientiousness, his determination, and his charm—might’ve managed to make something of himself on his own. This thought disturbed her. It suggested that he mightn’t have married her for her money after all—but if not, then what had he married her for?
Just then, Sarah burst in. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were wide, and she could barely speak. “Ma’am,” she gasped, “he’s coming!”
Jamila leapt up. “What? Where?”
“He’s coming behind me.”
“You stupid girl!” Jamila cried. “Don’t tell me you left him to find his own way!”
“No, Ma’am,” wheezed Sarah. “I told him not to come.”
“Whyever would you tell him not to come?”
“Because he wanted me!” Having gotten back enough of her breath to form complete sentences, she added, “He said he’s never had a woman, and now the richest, most beautiful woman in town is calling on him, and he doesn’t want to disappoint you, he wants to do a good job, so he’d better practice on me first. That’s what he told me!”
“You temptress!” shrieked Jamila. “You whore!” Then she hesitated. “Wait…he said that? About me?”
“About me, Ma’am.”
“But he said I’m the most beautiful woman in town?” echoed Jamila. “Those were his exact words? Not just your own sycophantic embellishment?”
“No, Ma’am,” said Sarah. “I mean, Yes, Ma’am. That’s what he said, Ma’am. I think…possibly…because your name is Jamila?”
Just then, there was a loud clattering at the door. Jamila and Sarah both started. Wide-eyed, they stared at each other.
“Well,” said Jamila. “Don’t just stand there. Let him in.”
Sarah crept over to the door and drew it open, hiding herself behind it as she did so. In a moment, the splintery broomstick that Yasser used as a cane discovered the opening; in another, he was in the foyer. He looked awful. Much worse than the last Jamila had seen him. His face and arms were covered in fresh scratches, from which blood was beading, and his pants and shirt were torn and frayed and soaked in sweat, and an awful smell was emanating from him, in particular from his right shoe and pant leg, which appeared to be covered in sewage.
“Jamila, Darling?” he called. “Here I am!”
Jamila swallowed.
“It’s me,” Yasser went on, swinging his broomstick ahead of him as he crept into the foyer. “Yasser. Your beloved one.”
Sarah was breathing very loudly behind the door.
“Is that you, my dear?” he wondered, turning toward Sarah and banging his broomstick against her shins.
Jamila found her voice. “Yasser,” she said, “my…dearest? I’m over here.”
He spun toward Jamila, leaving Sarah, hands clamped over her mouth, to sink into a terrified crouch behind the door. “There you are!”
“But why does your face look like that?” asked Jamila. “Have you been attacked? Oh, my…my dear…we must get you cleaned up.”
“I ran all the way here,” said Yasser. “I was so excited. I ran through some trees. And some bushes. And I tripped. Twice. Those stupid restaurant people—they just leave their chairs and tables everywhere! It’s not good for the blind. Maybe later you can have a word with Mubarak, and he can have a word with them. How is good old Mubarak, anyway? No, never mind. I don’t care. I’m too excited! Oh, and I stepped on something…a bag of shit. Not my fault. It was just lying in the road. You know how people leave things lying in the road.”
“We’ve really got to get you cleaned up,” said Jamila. “That smell—”
“No, no.” Yasser stripped off his shirt in a magnificently fluid motion and tossed it over his shoulder. It landed on Sarah. “No need for that. It’s just on my clothes—and we won’t be needing those.”
“The door is still open,” said Jamila.
“Go ahead and shut it,” said Yasser, grappling with his belt buckle.
Behind him, Sarah stealthily eased the door to, just in time to conceal the blind man’s naked buttocks from anyone who happened to be walking along the street. One leg at a time, he stepped out of his pants, which he kicked contemptuously away. He still had his shoes on. His erection, liberated, bobbed before him like a tumescent dousing rod.
“The sweat,” Jamila said weakly, “isn’t just on the clothes. Come, now, dear…wouldn’t you like a nice bath?”
“Time for that later,” grunted Yasser, skating his broomstick across the floor as he advanced. “Let’s not deprive ourselves of one another any longer.”
Jamila thought very fast.
“Oh!” she cried, leaping forward and seizing Yasser by the arm. “Oh, no!”
“What is it?”
“My husband!”
“Mubarak?”
“Of course, Mubarak!” She dragged Yasser with her down the hall. “Just now, through the window, I’ve seen him. He’s coming! He must’ve forgotten something! Oh, what a disaster! We can’t let him find us together! Come, let me hide you in the closet.”
At the far end of the hall was another door. Jamila wrenched it open, drove Yasser through, then slammed it shut behind him. Immediately, she collapsed against the door, gagging. The smell was much too strong.
In the foyer, Sarah sat with her back to the front door. Yasser’ shirt was still draped on her shoulder, though she didn’t seem aware. Her eyes met Jamila’s. For a long while, all that either woman could do was suck great breaths into their lungs, and each exhalation was half-giggle, half-sob.
* * *
So startled was Yasser by his unceremonious relegation to the closet that for some time, he, too, could only stand with his back to the door, dazed; but eventually, he did begin to get his bearings. The first thing he noticed was that it was cold. There was even a draft. Still, this was an opportunity. Never in his life had he managed to bury his nose in a rich woman’s clothes. What a good sniff he would have now, his deprivation finally at an end! If he was really lucky, he might even find something unwashed…perhaps a bit of lingerie….
Tentatively, still gripping his broomstick, he put out his other hand and felt ahead of him for the clothes. But there was only empty space. These rich people, he thought with a mixture of scorn and admiration, had all the space in the world, and nothing to do with it. If he were Jamila, he wouldn’t just invite himself, Yasser, around for a casual fling; he—meaning she—would put a bed in this very closet and invite him to live there. Then she could have him whenever she wanted him and know she was doing a good deed besides.
Scanning the ground ahead of him, Yasser made his way deeper into the closet. But still there were no clothes. Then, suddenly, a light came on—the heat hit his face; had he knocked against a switch?—and, very close, a man sucked in his breath. “My god! Are you okay?”
“What?” exclaimed Yasser. “You’re here, too?”
It took Yasser just a few seconds to process this information. Of course, he saw at once, he shouldn’t be surprised. After all, she was that sort of woman.
But then came another voice—a woman’s this time. No words. Just a horrified scream. And then the blurt of a horn, and the clip-clop of hooves, and before he could piece all this together, Yasser’s left foot landed on something that squelched and exploded, spattering his naked legs and chest with foul-smelling liquid.
Another bag of shit—mixed with urine, this time, or perhaps it had been diarrhea all along—which someone had left lying in the road.
* * *
Thirty minutes was how long it took Yasser, now dressed only in feces and feces-streaked shoes, to make his way back to his shack. At no point was he offered a ride—though he was seen by nearly everyone in town, including Salwa, her husband Karim, Lamia, Naeema, and Khadeja, who, noting which direction he had come from, and recalling the particular form that Jamila’s indignation had taken the day before, were able to work out a great deal through abstract reasoning alone, even before Sarah’s testimony was added to the record.
After that, very few secrets remained.