The women walk off across the rubble. They can no longer be heard.

Suddenly, a howl. From the woman. Horrified. Horrifying. Her footsteps stagger over the flagstones, stumble through the ruins, cross the garden, and enter the house. She is still screaming. She vomits. Weeps. Runs around the house. Like a madwoman. "I'm leaving this place. I'm going to find my aunt. Whatever the cost!" Her panicky voice fills the pa.s.sage, the rooms, the cellar. Then she comes back up, with her children. They flee the house without stopping to check on the man. The sound of them leaving is accompanied by the old woman's coughing and chanting, which makes the children laugh.

Everything is absorbed into the man's silence and pa.s.sivity.

And this continues.

For a long time.

Once in a while, flies' wings sweep through the silence. At first their flight is decisive, but after a tour of the room they become engrossed in the man's body. Then leave again.

Occasionally, a gust of wind lifts the curtains. It plays with the migrating birds frozen on the yellow and blue sky studded with holes.

Even a wasp, with its ominous buzzing, is not able to disturb the torpor of the room. It circles the man again and again, lands on his forehead--stings him or not, we shall never know--and flies off toward the ceiling, presumably to build itself a nest amid the rotting beams. Its dreams of nesting come to an abrupt end in the spider's trap.

It wriggles. And then nothing.

Nothing then.

Night falls.

Shots ring out.

The neighbor returns, with her singing and her lugubrious cough. And immediately goes off again.

The woman does not come back.

Dawn.

The mullah performs his call to prayer.

The weapons are asleep. But the smoke and smell of gunpowder maintain their presence.

It's when the first rays of sunlight pierce the holes in the yellow and blue sky of the curtains that the woman returns. Alone. She walks straight into the room, straight to her man. First she takes off her veil. Stands there a moment. Looking around, checking everything. Nothing has been moved. Nothing has been taken. The drip bag is empty, that's all.

Rea.s.sured, the woman comes to life. She walks unsteadily to the mattress on which the man is lying, half naked, as she left him the previous night. Stares at him a long time, as if again counting his breaths. She starts to sit down but suddenly freezes, crying "The Koran!" Once more her eyes fill with dread. She searches every inch of the room. No sign of the word of G.o.d. "The prayer beads?" She finds them under the pillow. "Has someone been here again?" Again the doubt. Again the fear. "The Koran was here yesterday, wasn't it?" Unsure, she sinks to the floor. Then suddenly cries, "The feather!" and starts scrabbling around in a frenzy. "My G.o.d! The feather!"

From outside comes the sound of children's voices. Local kids, playing in the rubble.

"Hajii mor'ale?"

"Bale?"

"Who wants water? Who wants fire?"

The woman goes over to the window, parts the curtains and calls to the children: "Did you see anyone come into this house?" "No!" they all shout at once, and carry on with their game: "I want fire!"

She leaves the room, inspects the whole house.

Wearily she comes back and leans against the wall between the two windows. "But who is coming here? What do they do to you?" Worry and distress are visible in her eyes. "We can't stay here!" She falls silent suddenly, as if interrupted. Then, after a brief hesitation, continues: "But what can I do with you? Where can I take you in this state? I think ..." Her gaze falls on the empty drip bag. "I've got to get water," she says to give herself time. She stands up, goes out, and comes back with the two gla.s.ses of water. Carries out her daily tasks. Sits down. Keeping vigil. Thinking. Which allows her, after a few breaths, to announce almost triumphantly, "I've managed to find my aunt. She's moved to the northern part of the city, to a safer area, to her cousin's house." A pause. The habitual pause, waiting for a reaction that doesn't come. So she continues: "I left the children with her." Again, she pauses. Then, overwhelmed, mutters, "I'm afraid, here," as if to justify her decision. Receiving no reaction at all, no word of agreement, she looks down as she lowers her voice. "I'm afraid of you!" She searches the floor for something. Words. But more importantly, courage. She finds them, grabs them, and hurls them at him: "I can't do anything for you. I think it's all over!" She falls silent again, then talks quickly, firmly. "It seems this neighborhood is going to be the next front line between the factions." She adds, furiously, "You knew, didn't you?" Another pause, just a breath to gather the strength to say, "Your brothers knew, too. That's why they all left. They've abandoned us! The cowards! They didn't take me with them because you were alive. If ..." She swallows her spit, and her rage as well. Continues, less fiercely, "If ... if you had died, things would have been different ..." She interrupts that thought. Hesitates. After a deep breath, decides: "One of them would have had to marry me!" Her voice shakes with a silent sn.i.g.g.e.r. "Perhaps they would have been happier if you had died." She shudders. "That way, they could have ... f.u.c.ked me! With a clear conscience." Having said it, she stands up suddenly and leaves the room. Paces nervously up and down the pa.s.sage. Searching for something. Calm. Serenity. But returns more febrile still. She rushes at the man and gabbles it all out in a rush: "Your brothers have always wanted to f.u.c.k me! They ..." Walks away, and back again. "They spied on me ... constantly, for the whole three years you were away ... spied on me through the little window in the bathhouse while I was washing myself ... and ... jerked off. They spied on us too, at night ..." Her lips tremble. Her hands move feverishly through the air, through her hair, through the folds of her dress. Her footsteps stumble on the faded stripes of the old kilim. "They jerk ..." She breaks off, and again storms furiously out of the room, for a breath of fresh air and to purge herself of her rage. "The f.u.c.kers!" she yells in exasperation. "The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!" And can immediately be heard weeping and begging: "What am I saying? Why am I saying all this? Help me, G.o.d! I can't control myself. I don't know what I'm saying ..."

She walls herself up in silence.

The children who were playing in the rubble can no longer be seen either. They have moved off at last.

The woman reappears. Her hair in a mess. A wild look in her eyes. After a little walk around, she sinks down by the man's head. "I don't know what's happening to me. My strength is deserting me, day by day. Just like my faith. I need you to understand." She strokes him. "I hope you are able to think, to hear, to see ... to see me, and hear me ..." She leans against the wall, and lets a long moment go by--a dozen cycles of the prayer beads, perhaps, as if she were still telling them to the rhythm of the man's breathing--enough time to think, to explore the nooks and crannies of her life, and return with memories. "You never listened to me, never heard me! We never spoke about any of this! We've been married for more than ten years, but lived together for only two or three. Isn't that right?" She counts. "Yes, ten and a half years of marriage, three years of conjugal life! It's only now that I'm counting. Only now that I'm realizing all this!" A smile. A short, false smile worth a thousand words of regret and remorse ... but very soon, the memories take hold. "At the time, I didn't even question your absence. It seemed so normal! You were at the front. You were fighting for freedom, for Allah! And that made everything okay. It gave me hope, made me proud. In some way, you were with us. Inside each of us." She is looking back, seeing it all again ... "Your mother, with her enormous bust, coming to our place to ask for the hand of my younger sister. It wasn't her turn to get married. It was my turn. So your mother simply said, No problem, we'll take her instead! pointing her fleshy finger at me as I poured the tea. I panicked and knocked the pot over." She hides her face in her hands. In shame, or to dispel the image of a mocking mother-in-law. "As for you, you didn't even know this was happening. My father, who wanted nothing more, accepted without the slightest hesitation. He didn't give a d.a.m.n that you weren't around! Who were you, really? No one knew. To all of us, you were just a t.i.tle: the Hero! And, like every hero, far away. Engagement to a hero was a lovely thing, for a seventeen-year-old girl. I said to myself, 'G.o.d is far away, too, and yet I love him, and believe in him ...' Anyway, they celebrated our engagement without the fiance. Your mother said, Don't worry, victory is coming! It will soon be the end of the war, we will be free, and my son will return! Nearly a year later, your mother came back. Victory was still a long way off. It's dangerous to leave a young, engaged woman with her parents for such a long time! she said. And so I had to be married, despite your absence. At the ceremony, you were present in the form of a photo, and that wretched khanjar, which they put next to me in place of you. And I had to wait another three years for you. Three years! For three years I wasn't allowed to see my friends, or my family ... It was not considered proper for a young married virgin to spend time with other married women. Such rubbish! I had to sleep in the same room as your mother, who kept watch over me, or rather my chast.i.ty. And it all seemed so normal, so natural to everyone. To me, too! I didn't even know how lonely I was. At night I slept with your mother, in the daytime I talked to your father. Thank G.o.d he was there. What a man! He was all I had. And your mother hated that. She would get all wound up whenever she saw me with him. She used to send me straight to the kitchen. Your father read me poems, and told me stories. He encouraged me to read, and write, and think. He loved me. Because he loved you. He was proud of you, when you were fighting for freedom. He told me so. It was after freedom came that he started to hate you--you, and also your brothers, now that you were all fighting for nothing but power."

Children's shouts ring out again on the rubble. The noise floods into the courtyard, and the house.

She falls silent. Listens to the children, who are playing the same game: "Hadji mor'ale?"

"Bale?"

"Who wants the foot? Who wants the head?"

"I want the foot."

They run off into the street again.

She takes up her story. "Why was I talking about your father?" Rubs her head against the wall, seeming to think, to scour her memory ... "Yes, that's right, I was talking about the two of us, our marriage, my loneliness ... Three years of waiting, and then you come home. I remember it like it was yesterday. The day you came back, the day I saw you for the first time ..." A sarcastic laugh bursts from her chest. "You were just like you are now, not a word, not a glance ..." Her eyes come to rest on the photo of the man. "You sat down next to me. As if we already knew each other ... as if you were seeing me after just a brief absence or I were some tawdry reward for your triumph! I was looking at you, but you were staring into thin air. I still don't know if it was modesty or pride. It doesn't matter. But I saw you, I watched you, I kept glancing at you, observing you. Noticing the slightest movement of your body, the slightest expression in your face ..." Her right hand plays with the man's filthy hair. "And you seemed so arrogant, so absent; you just weren't there. That saying is so true: One should never rely on a man who has known the pleasure of weapons!" She laughs again, but gently this time. "Weapons become everything to you men ... You must know that story about the military camp where an officer tries to demonstrate the value of a gun to the new recruits. He asks a young soldier, Benam, Do you know what you have on your shoulder? Benam replies, Yes, sir, it's my gun! The officer yells back, No, you moron! It's your mother, your sister, your honor! Then he moves on to the next soldier and asks him the same question. The soldier responds, Yes, sir! It's Benam's mother, and sister, and honor!" She is still laughing. "That story is so true. You men! As soon as you have guns, you forget your women." She sinks back into silence, still stroking the man's hair. Tenderly. For a long time.

Then she continues, her voice sad. "When I got engaged, I knew nothing of men. Nothing of married life. I knew only my parents. And what an example! All my dad cared about was his quails, his fighting quails! I often saw him kissing those quails, but never my mother, nor us, his children. There were seven of us. Seven girls starved of affection." She stares at the frozen flight of the migrating birds on the curtains. Sees her father: "He always used to sit cross-legged. He would be wearing his tunic, holding the quail in his left hand and stroking it at just the level of his thing, with its little feet poking through his hand; with the other hand, he would caress its neck in the most obscene way. For hours and hours on end! Even when he had visitors he didn't stop performing his ga.s.saw, as he called it. It was a kind of prayer for him. He was so proud of his quails. Once, when it was bitterly, freezing cold, I even saw him tucking one of the quails under his trousers, into his kheshtak. I was little. For a long time after that I thought that men had quails between their legs! Thinking about it used to make me laugh. Imagine my disappointment when I saw your b.a.l.l.s for the first time." A smile interrupts her and she closes her eyes. Her left hand strays into her own loosened hair, caressing the roots. "I hated his quails." She opens her eyes. Her sad gaze loses itself once more in the hole-studded sky of the curtains. "Every Friday, he used to take them to the fight in the Qaf gardens. He would place bets. Sometimes he won, sometimes he lost. When he lost he would get upset, and nasty. He would come home in a rage and find any pretext to beat us ... and also my mother." She stops herself. The pain stops her. A pain that spreads to the tips of her fingers and digs them more deeply into the roots of her black hair. She forces herself to carry on. "He must have won a lot of money in one of those fights ... but then he put everything he had into buying a hugely expensive quail. He spent weeks and weeks getting it ready for a very important fight. And ..." She laughs, a bitter laugh that contains both sarcasm and despair, and continues. "As fate would have it, he lost. He had no money left to honor his bet, so he gave my sister instead. At twelve years old, my sister was sent to live with a man of forty!" Her nails leave the roots of her hair, and move down her forehead to finger the scar at the edge of her left eye. "At the time, I was only ten ... no ..." She thinks about it. "Yes, ten years old. I was scared. Scared that I too would become the stakes of a bet. So, do you know what I did with the quail?" She pauses a moment. It is unclear whether this is to make her story more exciting, or because she is afraid to reveal the next part. Eventually, she continues. "One day ... it was a Friday, while he was at the mosque for prayers before going to the Qaf gardens, I got the bird out of its cage, and set it free just as a stray cat--a ginger and white tabby--was keeping watch on the wall." She takes a deep breath. "And the cat caught it. He took it into a corner to eat it in peace. I followed. I stood there watching. I have never forgotten that moment. I even wished the cat 'bon appet.i.t.' I was happy, thrilled to watch that cat eat the quail. A moment of pure delight. But very soon, I started to feel jealous. I wanted to be the cat, this cat savoring my father's quail. I was jealous, and sad. The cat knew nothing of the quail's worth. It couldn't share my joy, my triumph. 'What a waste!' I thought to myself, and suddenly rushed over to grab what was left of the bird. The cat scratched my face and scurried off with the quail. I felt so frustrated and desperate that I started licking the floor like a fly, licking up those few drops of blood from my father's quail that had dripped onto the floor." Her lips grimace. As if still tasting the warm wetness of the blood. "When my father came home and found the cage empty, he went mad. Out of his mind. He was screaming. He beat up my mother, my sisters, and me, because we hadn't kept watch over his quail. His b.l.o.o.d.y quail! While he was beating me, I shouted that it was good riddance, because that b.l.o.o.d.y quail had sent my sister away! My father under stood immediately. He shut me in the cellar. It was dark. I had to spend two days in there. He left a cat with me--another stray who must have been roaming around--and told me gleefully that if the animal got hungry it would eat me. But luckily, our house was full of rats. So the cat became my friend." She stops, shakes off her memories of the cellar, and comes back to the room, and her man. Unsettled, she gazes at him a while, and suddenly moves away from the wall. "But ... but why am I telling him all this?" she murmurs. Overcome by her memories, she stands up heavily. "I never wanted anyone to know that. Never! Not even my sisters!" She leaves the room, upset. Her fears echo down the pa.s.sage. "He's driving me mad. Sapping my strength. Forcing me to speak. To confess my sins, my mistakes. He's listening to me. Hearing me. I'm sure of it. He wants to get to me ... to destroy me!"

She shuts herself in one of the other rooms, to calm her nerves with total solitude.

The children are still shouting among the ruins.

The sun moves over to the other side of the house, withdrawing its rays of light from the holes in the yellow and blue sky of the curtains.

Later, she comes back. Eyes solemn, hands shaking. She walks up to the man. Stops. Takes a deep breath. Grabs hold of the feeding tube, closes her eyes, and pulls it out of his mouth. Turns around, her eyes still closed. Takes an uncertain step. Sobs "Forgive me, G.o.d!" picks up her veil and disappears.

She runs. Through the garden. Down the street ...

The sugar-salt solution drips, one drop at a time, from the hanging tube onto the man's forehead. It flows into the valleys of his wrinkles, then toward the base of his nose, into his eye sockets, across his chapped cheeks, and finally into his thick, bushy moustache.

The sun is setting.

The weapons awakening.

Tonight again they will destroy.

Tonight again they will kill.

Morning.

Rain.

Rain on the city and its rubble.

Rain on the bodies and their wounds.

A few breaths after the last drop of sugar-salt solution, the sound of wet footsteps slaps through the courtyard, and into the pa.s.sage. The muddy shoes are not removed.

The door to the room creaks open. It's the woman. She doesn't dare enter. She observes the man with that strange, wary look in her eyes. Pushes the door a fraction wider. Waits some more. Nothing moves. She takes off her shoes and slips quietly in, remaining on the threshold. She lets her veil fall to the floor. She is shaking. With cold. Or fear. She walks forward, until her feet are touching the mattress on which the man is lying.

The breathing has its usual rhythm.

The mouth is still half-open.

The look is still mocking.

The eyes are still empty, soulless ... but today they are wet with tears. She crouches down, terrified. "Are you ... are you crying?" She sinks to the ground. But soon realizes that the tears come from the tube; they are sugar-salt tears.

Her throat is dry, her voice deadened. Blank. "But, who are you?" A moment goes by--two breaths. "Why doesn't G.o.d send Ezraeel, to finish you off once and for all?" she asks suddenly. "What does he want from you?" She looks up. "What does he want from me?" Her voice drops. "You would say, He wants to punish you!" She shakes her head. "Don't kid yourself!" Her voice is clearer now. "Perhaps it's you he wants to punish! He's keeping you alive so you can see what I'm capable of doing with you, to you. He is making me into a demon ... a demon for you, against you! Yes, I am your demon! In flesh and blood!" She lies down on the mattress to avoid the man's gla.s.sy stare. Lies there a long moment, silent and thoughtful. Traveling far, far back into the past, to the day the demon was born in her.

"After everything I confessed yesterday, you would tell me that I was already a demon as a young child. A demon in my father's eyes." Her hand touches the man's arm tenderly. Strokes it. "But I was never a demon to you, was I?" She shakes her head. "Or maybe I was ..." Her silence is full of doubt and uncertainty. "But everything I did was for you ... in order to keep you." Her hand slips onto the man's chest. "Or actually, to tell you the truth, so that you would keep me. So that you wouldn't leave me! Yes, that's why I ..." She stops herself. Draws in her knees and curls up on her side, next to the man. "I did everything I could to make you stay with me. Not just because I loved you, but so that you wouldn't abandon me. Without you, I didn't have anyone. They would all have sent me packing." She falls silent. Scratches her head. "I admit that to start with I wasn't very sure of myself. Wasn't sure I could love you. I didn't know how to love a hero. It seemed so out of reach somehow, like a dream. For three years, I had been trying to imagine what you were like ... and then one day you came. You slipped into the bed. Climbed on top of me. Rubbed yourself against me ... and couldn't do it! And you didn't even dare say a word to me. In total darkness, with our hearts beating furiously, our breathing all jerky, our bodies streaming with sweat ..." Her eyes are closed. She is far away, far from this motionless body. Drowning in the darkness of that night of desire. Of that hunger. She remains there a moment. Totally silent. Totally still.

Then: "After that, I very quickly became used to you, to your clumsy body, your empty presence, which at that point I didn't know how to interpret ... and gradually, I started to worry when you went away. To keep watch for your return. I used to get in a terrible state when you went away, even for a little while ... I felt as if something was missing. Not in the house, but inside of me ... I felt empty. So I started to stuff myself with food. And each time, your mother would come over to me, asking impatiently whether I didn't feel nauseous at all. She thought I was pregnant! When I told other people--my sisters--about this distress, about the state I got into when you were away, they said I was just in love, that was all. But all that didn't last long. After about five or six months, everything changed. Your mother had decided I was barren, and kept ha.s.sling me all the time. And you did, too. But ..." Her hand reaches up and swipes through the air above her head, as if to chase away the remaining words bent on attacking her.

A few moments later--five or six breaths--she continues: "And you took up your gun again. Left again for that crazy fratricidal war! You became conceited, arrogant, and violent! Like all your family, except your father. The others despised me, they all did. Your mother was dying to see you take a second wife. I soon realized what was in store for me. My fate. You know nothing ... nothing of all I did, so that you would keep me." She rests her head on the man's arm. A timid smile, as if to beg for his mercy. "You will forgive me, one day, for all that I've done ..." Her face closes. "But when I think about it now ... if you had known, you would have killed me straightaway!" She leans right over the man and looks at him for a long time, staring into his vacant eyes. Then she rests her cheek tenderly on his chest. "How strange this all is! I've never felt as close to you as I do right now. We've been married ten years. Ten years! And it's only these last three weeks that I'm finally sharing something with you." Her hand strokes the man's hair. "I can touch you ... You never let me touch you, never!" She moves toward the man's mouth. "I have never kissed you." She kisses him. "The first time I went to kiss you on the lips, you pushed me away. I wanted it to be like in those Indian films. Perhaps you were scared--is that it?" she asks, looking amused. "Yes. You were scared because you didn't know how to kiss a girl." Her lips brush against the bushy beard. "Now I can do anything I want with you!" She lifts her head, to get a better look at her vacant-eyed man. Stares at him a long time, close up. "I can talk to you about anything, without being interrupted, or blamed!" She nuzzles her head into his shoulder. "After I left, yesterday, I was filled with such a strange, indefinable feeling. I felt both sad and relieved, both happy and unhappy." She stares into the thickness of his beard. "Yes, a strange relief. I couldn't understand how, as well as feeling upset and horribly guilty, I could also feel relieved, as if a burden had been lifted. I wasn't sure if it was because of ..." She stops. As always, it is difficult to know whether she is blocking out her thoughts, or groping for the right words.

She rests her head back on the man's chest, and continues. "Yes, I thought that maybe I felt relieved because I had finally been able to desert you ... to leave you to die ... to rid myself of you!" She huddles into the man's motionless body, as if cold. "Yes, rid myself of you ... because yesterday, all of a sudden, I started thinking that you were still conscious, quite well in mind and body but determined to make me talk, to find out my secrets and possess me completely. So I was scared." She kisses his chest. "Can you forgive me?" She looks at him tenderly. "I left the house, hidden beneath my chador, and wandered the streets of this deaf, blind city in tears. Like a madwoman! When I went back to my aunt's house in the evening, everyone thought I was ill. I went straight to my room to collapse into my distress, my guilt. I didn't sleep all night. I was sure I was a monster, a proper demon! I was terrorized. Had I lost my mind, become a criminal?" She pulls away from her man's body. "Like you, like your cronies ... like the men who beheaded the neighbor's whole family! Yes, I belonged to your camp. Coming to that conclusion was terrifying. I cried all night long." She moves closer to him. "Then, in the morning, at dawn, just before it started raining, the wind opened the window ... I was cold ... and afraid. I snuggled up to my girls ... I felt a presence behind me. I didn't dare look. I felt a hand stroking me. I couldn't move. I heard my father's voice. I gathered every ounce of strength, and turned around. He was there. With his white beard. His little eyes blinking in the darkness. The worn-out shape of him. In his hands he was carrying the quail I had given to the cat. He claimed that everything I told you yesterday had brought his quail back to life! Then he embraced me. I stood up. He wasn't there. Gone, taken by the wind. The rain. Was it a dream? No ... it was so real! His breath on my neck, his calloused palm against my skin ..." She rests her chin on her hand, to keep her head upright. "I was thrilled by his visit, lit up. I finally realized that the cause of my relief was not my attempt to abandon you to death." She stretches. "Do you under stand what I'm saying? ... The thing that was actually releasing me was having talked about that business of the quail. The fact of having confessed it. Confessed all of it, to you. And then I realized that since you've been ill, since I've been talking to you, getting angry with you, insulting you, telling you everything that I've kept hidden in my heart, and you not being able to reply, or do anything at all ... all of this has been soothing and comforting to me." She grasps the man by the shoulders. "So, if I feel relieved, set free--in spite of the terrible things that keep happening to us--it is thanks to my secrets, and to you. I am not a demon!" She lets go of his shoulders, and strokes his beard. "Because now your body is mine, and my secrets are yours. You are here for me. I don't know whether you can see or not, but one thing I am absolutely sure of is that you can hear me, that you can understand what I'm saying. And that is why you're still alive. Yes, you are alive for my sake, for the sake of my secrets." She shakes him. "You'll see. Just as my secrets were able to resuscitate my father's quail, they will bring you back to life! Look, it's been three weeks now that you've been living with a bullet in your neck. That's totally unheard of! No one can believe it, no one! You don't eat, you don't drink, and yet you're still here! It's a miracle. A miracle for me, and thanks to me. Your breath hangs on the telling of my secrets." She gets to her feet with ease and then stands over him, full of grace, as if to say: "Don't worry, there is no end to my secrets." Her words can be heard through the door. "I no longer want to lose you!"

She returns to refill the drip bag. "Now I finally understand what your father was saying about that sacred stone. It was near the end of his life. You were away, you'd gone off to war again. It was a few months ago, just before you were hit by this bullet, your father was ill, and I was the only one looking after him. He was obsessed by a magic stone. A black stone. He talked about it the whole time ... What did he call that stone?" She tries to think of the word. "He asked every friend who visited to bring him this stone ... a precious, black stone ..." She inserts the tube into the man's throat. "You know, that stone you put in front of you ... and tell all your problems to, all your struggles, all your pain, all your woes ... to which you confess everything in your heart, everything you don't dare tell anyone ..." She checks the drip. "You talk to it, and talk to it. And the stone listens, absorbing all your words, all your secrets, until one fine day it explodes. Shatters into tiny pieces." She cleans and moistens the man's eyes. "And on that day you are set free from all your pain, all your suffering ... What's that stone called?" She rearranges the sheet. "The day before he died, your father called for me, he wanted to see me alone. He was dying. He whispered to me, Daughter, the angel of death has appeared to me, accompanied by the angel Gabriel, who revealed a secret that I am entrusting to you. I now know where this stone is to be found. It is in the Ka'bah, in Mecca! In the house of G.o.d! You know, that Black Stone around which millions of pilgrims circle during the big Eid celebrations. Well, that's the very stone I was telling you about ... In heaven, this stone served as a throne for Adam ... but after G.o.d banished Adam and Eve to earth, he sent it down too, so that Adam's children could tell it of their problems and sufferings ... And it is this same stone that the angel Gabriel gave to Hagar and her son Ismael to use as a pillow when Abraham had banished the servant and her son into the desert ... yes, it is a stone for all the world's unfortunates. Go there! Tell it your secrets until it bursts ... until you are set free from your torments." Her lips turn ash-gray with sadness. She sits a moment in the silence of mourning.

Her voice husky, she continues. "Pilgrims have been going to Mecca for centuries and centuries to circle around that stone, praying; so how come it hasn't exploded yet?" A sardonic laugh makes her voice ring out, and her lips regain their color. "It will explode one day, and that day will be the end of the world. Perhaps that's the nature of the Apocalypse."

Someone is walking through the courtyard. She falls silent. The steps move further away. She carries on. "Do you know what? ... I think I have found that magic stone ... my own magic stone." The voices emanating from the ruins of the neighboring house prevent her once more from pursuing her thoughts. She stands up nervously and goes to the window. Opens the curtains. She is petrified by what she sees. Her hand goes to her mouth. She doesn't make a sound. She closes the curtains and watches the scene through the holes in the yellow and blue sky. "They are burying the dead in their own garden," she exclaims. "Where is the old lady?" She stands quite still for a long moment. Overwhelmed, she turns back to her man. Lies down on the mattress, her head against his. Hides her eyes in the crook of her arm, breathing deeply and silently, as before. To the same rhythm as the man.

The voice of the mullah reciting burial verses from the Koran is drowned out by the rain. The mullah raises his voice and speeds up the prayer, to get it over with as quickly as possible.

The noise and whispering disperse across the sodden ruins.

Someone is walking toward the house. Now he is behind the door. Knocking. The woman doesn't move. More knocking. "Is anyone there? It's me, the mullah," he shouts impatiently. The woman, deaf to his cry, still doesn't move. The mullah mutters a few words and leaves. She sits back up and leans against the wall, keeping quite still until the mullah's wet footsteps have disappeared down the street.

"I have to go to my aunt's place. I need to be with the children!" She gets to her feet. Stands there a moment, just long enough to listen to a few of the man's breaths.

Before she has picked up her veil, these words burst from her mouth: "Sang-e saboor!" She jumps. "That's the name of the stone, sang-e saboor, the patience stone! The magic stone!" She crouches down next to the man. "Yes, you, you are my sang-e saboor!" She strokes his face gently, as if actually touching a precious stone. "I'm going to tell you everything, my sang-e saboor. Everything. Until I set myself free from my pain, and my suffering, and until you, you ..." She leaves the rest unsaid. Letting the man imagine it.

She leaves the room, the pa.s.sage, the house ...

Ten breaths later she is back, out of breath. She drops her wet veil on the floor and rushes up to the man. "They'll be patrolling again tonight--the other side this time, I think. Searching all the houses ... They mustn't find you ... They'll kill you!" She kneels down, stares at him close up. "I won't let them! I need you now, my sang-e saboor!" She walks to the door, says "I'm going to get the cellar ready," and leaves the room.

A door creaks. Her steps ring out on the stairs. Suddenly she cries desperately, "Oh no! Not this!" She comes back up, in a panic. "The cellar has flooded!" Paces up and down. Her hand to her forehead, as if rummaging through her memories for somewhere to hide her man. Nothing. So it will have to be here, in this room. Determined, she s.n.a.t.c.hes the green curtain and pulls it aside. It's a junk room, full of pillows, blankets, and piled-up mattresses.

Having emptied the s.p.a.ce, she lays out a mattress. Too big. She folds it over and scatters the cushions around it. Takes a step back to get a better sense of her work--the nook for her precious stone. Satisfied, she walks back over to the man. With great care, she pulls the tube out of his mouth, takes him by the shoulders, lifts him up, drags the body over, and slides it onto the mattress. She arranges him so that he's almost sitting up, wedged in by cushions, facing the entrance to the room. The man's expressionless gaze is still frozen, somewhere on the kilim. She reattaches the drip bag to the wall, inserts the tube back into his mouth, closes the green curtain, and conceals the hiding place with the other mattresses and blankets. You would never know there was anyone there.

"I'll be back tomorrow," she whispers. She is in the doorway, leaning down to pick up her veil, when a sudden gunshot, not far away, rivets her to the floor, freezing her mid-movement. A second shot, even closer. A third ... and then shots ringing out from all directions, going in all directions.

Sitting on the floor, her wails of "my children ..." reach no one, drowned out by the dull rumblings of a tank.

Bent double, she makes her way to the window. Peeks outside, through the holes in the curtain, and is filled with despair. A tear-soaked cry bursts from her chest, "Protect us, G.o.d!"

She sits against the wall between the two windows, just beneath the khanjar and the photo of her mocking man.

She is groaning, quietly.

Somebody shoots right next to the house. He is probably inside the courtyard, posted behind the wall. The woman chokes back her tears, her breath. She lifts the bottom of the curtain. Seeing a shape shooting toward the street, she moves sharply back, and cautiously makes her way to the door.

In the pa.s.sage, the silhouette of an armed man makes her freeze. "Get back in the room!" She goes back into the room. "Sit down and don't move!" She sits down where her man used to lie, and does not move. The man emerges from the dark pa.s.sage, wearing a turban, with a length of it concealing half his face. He fills the doorway, and dominates the room. Through the narrow gap in his turban his dark gaze sweeps the s.p.a.ce. Without a word, he moves over to the window and glances out toward the street, where shots are still being fired. He turns back toward the woman to rea.s.sure her: "Don't be afraid, sister. I will protect you." Once again, he surveys his surroundings. She is not afraid, just desperate. And yet she manages to act serene, sure of herself.

Sitting between the two men, one hidden by a black turban, the other by a green curtain, her eyes flicker with nerves.

The armed man crouches on his heels, his finger on the trigger.

Still suspicious and on edge, he looks away from the curtains toward the woman, and asks her, "Are you alone?" In a calm voice--too calm--she replies, "No." Pauses a moment, then continues fervently, "Allah is with me," pauses again, and glances at the green curtain.

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 pa.s.sage.

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?"