“Salma, why did you throw away all the letters I wrote to Philippe?”
“Because I believed this was the only way to avenge you.”
“But you made me believe that he had no feelings...”
“And he doesn’t... My husband has no feelings either. I’m going to arrange another meeting with that film producer.”
“I won’t destroy myself like you did. It’ll be an open marriage like we agreed it would be: step by step.”
“But won’t you wait a little bit until you can stand on your own two feet?”
“I won’t wait. This isn’t the first time he’s betrayed me with random women whom he’s found along the way. Carrying on like this you’re harming your children.”
“Spare me the sermon. Even you, Lamia, didn’t you say that you would’ve loved Philippe until the end of time, that you would’ve waited for him for a hundred years? Even after he sold you out for the cheapest possible price?”
“But he didn’t sell me out. He had to pull back because Crazy Samir the militiaman would’ve killed him. Samir sent me a letter that said, If you open your door to him one more time, I’ll push him right through the gates of hell.”
“You know what? Today I can’t even believe this whole story... How did Samir know that Philippe had been coming over to your place?”
“He was definitely spying on the house.”
“So he would spend all day and night guarding the entrances to the street? Who knows, perhaps a mutual friend told Samir what time your dear beloved would come. Believe me... there was a mutual friend. Perhaps Philippe was happy about this development and seized the opportunity to flee, using the party thugs as an excuse — something beyond his own desire or free will.”
“But who was restraining him? Holding his freedom hostage? Who was blocking him?”
“You portrayed him as an exemplary person, tormented and honest, you only ever spoke about his sincerity. He didn’t remain sincere, though. Why didn’t he stand up for you?”
“With those murderous beasts after him?”
“They only wanted to frighten him...”
“He had a right to be scared — I would have done the same thing had I been in his position... He is free!”
“Of course he’s free, but the problem is that he shackled you with your feelings... He didn’t end things there but instead distorted your view of life and men. This shriveled you up — you! Someone who had been full of life and brimming with confidence. You started your life with the wrong person and this ruined everything.”
“And you...? Aren’t you doing the same as I did? Then surely what you’re saying isn’t true, and at least I knew love.”
“In my opinion, all you knew was stubbornness, sadness, and loneliness that got you nowhere... Yes, he was very sincere! The whole time you used to talk to us about how he didn’t want to be tied down to any one woman, and then, all of a sudden, he was engaged. Then he got married with everyone there watching — all of his friends and ours too... He’s worse than my husband, taking everything he could and not giving anything at all. After all these years, I charge him with having planned this all with a mutual friend of his and Samir’s, encouraging Samir to threaten him so he could run away like the wind.”
“Could someone really plan to act so despicably? What are you ranting on about? It seems to me that your husband’s cheating has made you delirious!”
“But with clear vision. Never make justifications — of any kind — for a man. And Philippe’s the one being charged here.”
“Wow, the girl’s gone mad!”
“No, I’m not mad. Only I can no longer trust anyone, not even you, who deluded us into believing you were unique, suffering, tortured — but no more than two years had passed when... Didn’t you fall in love with his friend Mousa? Did you think I didn’t know? Why didn’t you try to marry him?”
“Who told you that he wanted to get married?”
“Your egotistical beloved made it seem as though you weren’t suited to marriage and you believed him, you believed the lie. You constantly compared him to Philippe and that’s how you distorted your relationship with Mousa for no reason. After this, you did the worst thing. You fell in love with a married man!”
“But I don’t know his wife!”
“What’s the difference?”
The doorbell rang. She awoke in a panic, not only because of the ringing but because Farid had arrived before she’d prepared anything for dinner.
Farid was there in front of her, with his big, sparkling eyes. He engulfed her in his arms and his scent filled her nose: this strange mixture of expensive cologne and washing powder wasn’t familiar to her... She found the scent pleasant, perhaps because it wasn’t like other scents she knew. The cologne seemed like a disinfectant. Then he put his hand on her backside, forcefully, lifting up her buttocks.
“How I love a woman’s full bum!”
She started to laugh vibrantly and was secretly happy because he’d praised her butt.
“Do you know, Lamia, I love you for your happiness? When you were small, you were so joyful. I would watch you bite into an apple as though it were the last apple on earth. Do you still eat them like that?”
“Like what?”
“You used to plunge your teeth into an apple and bite into its core, sucking out its juices voraciously. Hearing that sound from far away would make me salivate. So many times, I’d bite into an apple trying to imitate you and not succeed. This made a big impression on me. Could you eat one right now just for me?”
She started to laugh. “I didn’t know you were paying attention to what I was doing.”
“I remember another time: You’d finished cleaning the porch and you were sitting on the stairs in the shade to cool off. Then you brought a plate of apricots and put them down in front of you on a little stool. The colors of the apricot stones were reflected in your skin. Then your female cousins came, Salma was one of them. They sat down and ate apricots and gossiped. I used to gaze at all of them and wonder which of you was the prettiest. I used to feel that you all had one face that was repeated over and over.”
She felt like he was talking about another woman. Had she really been that happy? She took pleasure in this image of a young woman surrounded by a bevy of other young women who resemble her. As if she were a memory of a paradise lost. Yes, Farid will take me far away and he’ll help me. He’ll be busy with his scientific research and I’ll be busy with my children. I’ll discover a new continent; I’ll be in his big house in Sydney, far away from all this muck.
She saw white sails in tranquil, sparkling harbors, as though they were an extension of a road that continues when asphalt turns into water.
“It’s my luck that you didn’t marry. I’ve wanted a woman like you in my life for so long. Happy and strong. Perhaps you were satisfied when I came to you the first time. You didn’t even visit me or pick me up at the airport. I’m the one who took the initiative and came to visit you all. You were unfazed by my visit and remained distant, standing on guard. You are still as proud as you were as an adolescent and perhaps even more so.”
“It seems I still have high expectations,” she said. “Your pride frightened me.”
“How did you manage to put aside fear and find the courage to encroach upon my world once again? I thought you’d arrived at this age without marrying because of your pride. You know that as a woman advances in age, there is no longer a justification for these high expectations.”