“When I got into bed and lifted the coverlet so I could lie down, I found her naked. She gestured to me to take off my robe, so I took it off, the sweat dripping off my face and eyes, and I stretched out beside her and did nothing. She stretched out her hand, took hold of my thing and pulled me toward her, and I found myself on top of her, with her holding onto it with both hands and tugging. I was bathed in sweat and fear. She stretched her hand to the place where the swab was and placed it there, and I found myself getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Then I was inside her, and I got bigger inside her and learned the secret of life. She put her hands on my shoulders and screamed. That was the night I really came for the first time. Before that it wasn’t the same. That night my whole being was there, inside her.

“When I rolled off of her, I saw that blood had stained the sheet, and that she was searching for something like a madwoman. She searched the whole bed, afraid the swab was lost. I looked with her for a bit, then dropped off, so exhausted I didn’t hear her questions. The next morning she said she’d found the swab but I don’t think she had. I think my mother had just reassured her it wouldn’t do her any harm.”

Abu Ma’rouf said he’d never forget the taste of her.

“And your second wife?” I asked him.

“At first I didn’t want to get married again; Umm Ma’rouf had been part of my flesh. But my mother, God rest her soul, knew better than I. She knew a man shouldn’t remain alone or he’d mate with the devil, so she convinced me to marry the second Umm Ma’rouf, a refugee girl from Sha’ab, like us. I married her in Ain al-Hilweh, and she bore me seven children.”

“And what happened,” I asked.

“Shame on you — you can’t ask things like that. With the second one, I knew what to do, and everything went fine from the first night.”

“Did you tell her about the piece of cotton?”

“Of course not. You don’t understand women. You must never tell a woman about the others. If a woman doesn’t think she’s the center of your life, she’ll become miserable and make your life miserable, too.”

Abu Ma’rouf’s story amazed me. I thought it wasn’t possible, and then forgot all about it.

But now I see it could be true. I see you before me, and I see Nahilah, I see everything. I can see you, a child, going into the bedroom, playing around with the young girl, then falling asleep beside her. I won’t say you were innocent, but you just didn’t know how. Your mother arrives. She takes the girl to the bathroom. She soaps her and pours water over her, then puts the cotton in her — and you discover the secret of life through a little piece of white cotton.

I know you won’t like this story, you’ll think it’s a slur on your manhood. You prefer to talk about grapes and tears of arak and the dance of a girl adorned in candles before her groom, and you’d rather not admit that you didn’t know what to do.

Would you like to deny the whole thing?

Fine. I’ll agree with you. I won’t say you lay down beside her in your clothes like Abu Ma’rouf did. Maybe you took off your clothes and made the poor girl take hers off, too, and you didn’t know how to do it and your mother had to make do with a little drop of blood from her finger on the sheet. Then she waited seven nights for you two and finally was forced to put the cotton swab inside the girl to guide you to the place.

“It’s not true,” you’ll say.

Okay. So where is the truth? Tell me, since I’m still confused about the dates. Did Ibrahim die in 1951 at three, meaning he was born in 1948? What was going on between 1943, when you got married, and 1948, the year your first child was born?

Didn’t your wife get pregnant?

Would you put up with a wife that couldn’t get pregnant? Why didn’t you divorce her? Your mother used to say she was still a child and would get pregnant when she matured. So Nahilah didn’t mature until 1948?

Did you love her?

No, you didn’t. You yourself said you only learned to love her a long while after you married her, when your visits to her came to be your whole life.

So what was it?

You’ll tell me it was the war, and you paid no attention. You’re confusing me — I don’t understand a thing, I swear to you. Your story seems muddled and mysterious. And my presence in this hospital seems like a dream, but I know I’m not dreaming because I can’t sleep anymore.

Say something, Father — I’ve had enough of all this. Say something, just one word, then die if you want, or do whatever you please, or you could tell me if you need something.

Okay, okay, fine. It wasn’t thanks to a piece of cotton that your marriage was consummated, and it never crossed your mind to divorce your wife for not having children right away, you didn’t experience terror facing the Jewish settlement, you didn’t kill Ahmad Ibn Mahmoud, and you didn’t cry when you had toothaches. .

Happy now?

Satisfied and sound asleep? I swear you’re a lucky man. What have you got to worry about? You sleep like a baby beside death — death doesn’t dare touch you.

Death is afraid of you, you’ll say, or you used to say.

But me, right now I’m not in the mood to listen to heroics. Do as you like — die or don’t die, dream or don’t dream, it’s up to you.

^* Koran, Surah XXIV, 35.

^* Legendary figure of the national Palestinian movement, died in combat in 1935.

HOW DID we get here?

Honestly I don’t understand how things took this course, why they happened — or didn’t happen — like they did. I don’t understand why I stayed here, why I didn’t leave with them. I don’t understand how, you. .

Who says I had to stay?

I’m not talking about the hospital. The hospital, that’s you, and I couldn’t abandon you even if I weren’t a frightened fugitive or hadn’t fallen into Shams’ trap.

I’m talking about Beirut. I didn’t have to stay in Beirut as I claimed to Shams. I told her I felt I had to stay and that it just wasn’t possible for us to leave the people here, to turn our backs on them and go.

But I was lying.

Well no, I wasn’t lying. At that moment, with Shams, I believed what I said. But I don’t know anymore. I was with her in my house here in the camp; I closed the windows tightly so no one would see us. The cold was intense, but I didn’t feel it. My body was shivering with heat. I wanted to prostrate myself in front of her. She was beautiful and naked, wrapped in a white sheet, her long hair beaded with drops of water. I wanted to kneel down and place my head on her belly. Everything inside me was quivering. And there was the thirst that can never be quenched.

I wanted to kneel, rub my head all over her feet and pour myself out in front of her. But instead of kneeling, those stupid words came from my lips.

She asked me why I didn’t go with the others, and I answered and waited. I heard her laugh. She turned around in the white sheet, sat down on the bed, and started laughing. She didn’t say my words had bewitched her, the way words are supposed to in moments of passion.

She laughed and said she was hungry.

I suggested we make something at home and asked if she wanted me to make her some pasta as usual.

She yawned and said, “Whatever you want.”

She stretched her hand behind her back and the sheet fell away from her brown breasts, still wet from the bath. I leapt toward her, but she raised her hand and said, “No. I’m hungry.” I ran to the kitchen and started frying cauliflower and making taratur sauce.

“You’re the champion at taratur,” she used to say, licking the last of the white sauce, made from sesame paste, limes, and garlic, from her fingers.

She said she didn’t like fried cauliflower, but the taratur was fantastic.

I didn’t say. . well yes, in fact, I did repeat that sentence of mine for her ears. I said I felt that I had to stay because we couldn’t leave the people here. She laughed again and said she’d eaten enough and wanted to sleep. She pushed the tray to one side, put her head on the cushion, and slept.