The Patience Stone (8 page)

The man is silent. He is glaring at the woman.

Outside, the shooting has stopped. All that can be heard, in the distance, is the dull roar of the tank leaving.

The room, the courtyard, and the street sink into a heavy, smoky silence.

The sound of footsteps makes the man jump and he turns his gun on her, gesturing to her not to move. He peers through a hole in the curtain. His tensed shoulders relax. He is relieved. He lifts the curtain a fraction and hisses a code in a low voice. The steps pause. The man whispers, “Hey, it’s me. Come in!”

The other man enters the room. He too is wearing a turban, with a part of it hiding his face. His thin, lanky body is wrapped in a
patou—
a long, heavy woolen shawl. Surprised by the woman’s presence, he crouches down next to his companion, who asks him, “So?” The second man’s eyes are fixed on the
woman as he replies, “It’s ok-ok-okay, th-the there’s a c-c-ceasefire!” stammering, his voice a teenager’s in the process of breaking.

“Until when?”

“I … I … d-d-d-don’t know!” he replies, still distracted by the woman’s presence.

“Okay, now get out of here and keep watch! We’re staying here tonight.”

The young man doesn’t protest. Still staring at the woman, he asks for “a c-c-c-cigarette,” which the first man chucks over to get rid of him as quickly as possible. Then, having completely uncovered his bearded face, he lights up himself.

The boy darts a final stunned glance at the woman from the doorway, and reluctantly disappears down the passage.

The woman stays where she is. She observes the man’s every movement with a distrust she is still attempting to hide. “Are you not afraid of being all alone?” the man asks, exhaling smoke. She shrugs her shoulders. “Do I have any choice?” After another long drag, the man asks, “Don’t you have anyone to look after you?” The woman glances at the green curtain. “No, I’m a widow!”

“Which side?”

“Yours, I presume.”

The man doesn’t push it. He takes another deep drag, and asks, “Have you any children?”

“Yes. Two … two girls.”

“Where are they?”

“With my aunt.”

“And you—why are you here?”

“To work. I need to earn my living, so I can feed my two kids.”

“And what do you do for work?”

The woman looks him straight in the eye, and says it: “I earn my living by the sweat of my body.”

“What?” he asks, confused.

The woman replies, her voice shameless: “I sell my body.”

“What bullshit is this?”

“I sell my body, as you sell your blood.”

“What are you on about?”

“I sell my body for the pleasure of men!”

Overcome with rage, the man spits, “
Allah, Al-Rahman! Al-Mu’min!
Protect me!”

“Against who?”

The cigarette smoke spews out of the man’s mouth as he continues to invoke his God, “In the name of Allah!” to drive away the devil, “Protect me from Satan!”
then takes another huge drag to belch out alongside words of fury, “But aren’t you ashamed to say this?!”

“To say it, or to do it?”

“Are you a Muslim, or aren’t you?”

“I’m a Muslim.”

“You will be stoned to death! You’ll be burned alive in the flames of hell!”

He stands up and recites a long verse from the Koran. The woman is still sitting. Her gaze is scornful. Defiantly, she looks him up and down, from head to foot, and foot to head. He is spitting. The smoke of his cigarette veils the fury of his beard, the blackness of his eyes. He moves forward with a dark look. Pointing his gun at the woman, he bawls, “I’m going to kill you, whore!” The barrel sits on her belly. “I’m going to explode your filthy cunt! Dirty whore! Devil!” He spits on her face. The woman doesn’t move. She scoffs at the man. Impassive, she seems to be daring him to shoot.

The man clenches his teeth, gives a great yell, and leaves the house.

The woman remains motionless until she hears the man reach the courtyard, and call out to the other,
“Come on, we’re getting out of here. This is an ungodly house!” Until she hears the flight of their footsteps down the muddy road.

She closes her eyes, sighs, breathes out the smoky air she has been holding in her lungs for a long time. A triumphant smile flickers across her dry lips. After a long gaze at the green curtain, she unfolds her body and moves over to her man. “Forgive me!” she whispers. “I had to tell him that—otherwise, he would have raped me.” She is shaken by a sarcastic laugh. “For men like him, to fuck or rape a whore is not an achievement. Putting his filth into a hole that has already served hundreds before him does not engender the slightest masculine pride. Isn’t that right, my
sang-e saboor
? You should know. Men like him are afraid of whores. And do you know why? I’ll tell you, my
sang-e saboor
: when you fuck a whore, you don’t dominate her body. It’s a matter of exchange. You give her money, and she gives you pleasure. And I can tell you that often she’s the dominant one. It’s she who is fucking you.” The woman calms down. Her voice serene, she continues, “So, raping a whore is not rape. But raping a young girl’s virginity, a woman’s honor! Now that’s your creed!” She stops, leaving a long
moment of silence for her man—if he can, and she hopes he can—to think about her words.

“Don’t you agree, my
sang-e saboor
?” she continues. She approaches the curtain, moving aside some of the mattresses concealing the hiding place. She looks deep into her man’s glassy eyes, and says, “I do hope you’re managing to grasp and absorb everything I’m telling you, my
sang-e saboor
.” Her head is poking slightly through the curtain. “Perhaps you’re wondering where I could have picked all this up! Oh my
sang-e saboor
, I’ve still so much to tell you …” She moves back. “Things that have been stored up inside me for a while now. We’ve never had the chance to discuss them. Or—let’s be honest—you’ve never given me the chance.” She pauses, for one breath, asking herself where and how she should start. But the mullah’s cry, calling the faithful to prostrate themselves before their God at twilight, throws her into a panic and drives her secrets back inside. She stands up suddenly: “May God cut off my tongue! It’s about to get dark! My children!” She rushes over to lift the curtain patterned with migrating birds. Behind the gray veil of the rain, everything has been plunged once more into a gloomy darkness.

By the time she has checked the gaps between the drops of sugar-salt solution one last time, picked up her veil, closed the doors, and made it to the courtyard, it’s already too late. Now that the call to prayer is complete, the mullah announces the neighborhood curfew and asks everyone to respect the ceasefire.

The woman’s footsteps pause on the wet ground.

They hesitate.

They are lost.

They go back the way they came.

The woman comes back into the room.

Upset, she drops her veil on the floor and lets herself fall, wearily, onto the mattress previously occupied by the body of her man. “I leave my daughters in Allah’s hands!” She recites a verse from the Koran, trying to persuade herself of God’s power to protect her girls. Then she lies down, abandoning herself to the darkness of the room. Her eyes manage to see through the dark toward the mattresses. Behind the mattresses, the green curtain. Behind the curtain, her man, her
sang-e saboor
.

A gunshot, far away. Then another, close. And thus ceases the ceasefire.

The woman stands up, and walks toward the plain green curtain. She pushes the mattresses aside, but doesn’t open the curtain. “So I’ll have to stay here. I’ve got a whole night to myself, to talk to you, my
sang-e saboor
. Anyway, what was I saying before that stupid mullah started screeching?” She makes herself focus. “Oh yes, you were wondering where I could have gotten all these notions. That was it, wasn’t it? I have had two teachers in my life—my aunt and your father. My aunt taught me how to live with men, and your father taught me why. My aunt …” she opens the curtain slightly. “You didn’t know her at all. And thank God! You would have sent her packing straightaway. Now I can tell you everything. She is my father’s only sister. What a woman! I grew up enveloped in her warmth. I loved her more than my own mother. She was generous. Beautiful. Very beautiful. Big hearted. She was the one who taught me how to read, how to live … but then her life took a tragic turn. They married her off to this terrible rich man. A total bastard. Stuffed
with dirty cash. After two years of marriage, my aunt hadn’t been able to bear a child for him. I say for him, because that’s how you men see it. Anyway, my aunt was infertile. In other words, no good. So her husband sent her to his parents’ place in the countryside, to be their servant. As she was both beautiful and infertile, her father-in-law used to fuck her, without a care in the world. Day and night. Eventually she cracked. Bashed his head in. They threw her out of her in-laws’ house. Her husband sent her away, too. She was abandoned by her own family—including my father. So, as the ‘black sheep’ of the family, she vanished, leaving a note saying she had put an end to her days. Sacrificed her body, reduced it to ashes! Leaving no trace. No grave. And of course, this suited everyone just fine. No funeral. No service for that ‘witch’! I was the only one who cried. I was fourteen years old at the time. I used to think about her constantly.” She stops, bows her head, closes her eyes as if dreaming of her.

After a few breaths, she starts up again, as if in a trance. “One day, more than seven years ago, just before you came back from the war, I was strolling around the market with your mother. I stopped at the underwear stall. Suddenly, a voice I know. I turned around. There
was my aunt! For a moment I thought I was seeing things. But it really was her. I greeted her, but she acted as if she hadn’t heard, as if she didn’t know me. And yet I was absolutely, one hundred percent sure. I knew in my blood that it was her. So I managed to lose your mother in the crowd. Began trailing my aunt. I didn’t let her out of my sight, all the way to her house. I stopped her at her front door. She burst into tears. Gave me a big hug, and asked me in. At the time she was living in a brothel.” She falls silent, giving her man, behind the green curtain, the chance to take a few breaths. And herself, too.

In the city, the shooting continues. Far away, nearby, sporadic.

In the room, everything is sunk in darkness.

Saying “I’m hungry,” she stands up and feels her way into the passage, and then into the kitchen to find something to eat. First she kindles a lamp, which brightens part of the passage and sheds a little light into the room as well. Then, after the slamming of
a few cupboard doors, she returns. A hard crust of several-day-old bread and an onion in one hand, the hurricane lamp in the other. She sits back down near her man, by the green curtain, which she pulls aside in the yellowish lamplight to check that her
sang-e saboor
has not exploded. No. It is still there. In one piece. Eyes open. Mocking expression, even with the tube thrust into the pathetically half-open mouth. The chest continues to, miraculously, rise and fall at the same pace as before.

“And now, it’s that aunt who has taken me in. She likes my children. And the girls like her, too. That’s why I’m slightly more relaxed.” She peels the onion. “She tells them loads of stories … as she used to before. I grew up with her stories, too.” She puts a layer of onion on a bit of bread, and shoves the whole thing into her mouth. The cracking of the dry bread mingles with the softness of her voice. “The other night, she wanted to tell a particular story that her mother used to tell us. I begged her not to tell it to my girls. It’s a very disturbing tale. Cruel. But full of power and magic! My girls are still too young to understand it.” She takes a sip from the glass of water she had brought to moisten her man’s eyes.

“As you know, in my family we were all girls. Seven girls! And no boy! Our parents hated that. It was also the reason our grandmother told my sisters and me that story. For a long time, I thought she had invented it especially for us. But then my aunt told me that she had first heard that story from her great-grandmother.”