Shawqiya had screamed, which made Camilla hurry into the hallway. She figured out what was happening and shooed the cat away. The sun bathed Camilla, who stood there in a tight, short, light dress. Her strong, svelte body was bursting with femininity. She had a small frame that was filled with yearning to rebel and break free like a mare, and a body that imposed itself on your eyes so that when it approached from a distance you could not see anyone else. The fragrance of that body, like the aroma of aged wine, filled the nostrils and stirred the soul. Anyone who spoke with Camilla had to fight a real desire to take her in his arms without any preliminaries. Her slender waist and unbound, inviting chest appeared like a natural harbor for every hungry ship. Little, gentle Camilla had a body sanctified by an aura of warm allure. Zahra saw Camilla under the sun and exclaimed to herself, “Praise the Creator, she’s a gazelle!” Camilla heard her and did not say anything because the sound of drums and brass and wind instruments playing a military march drowned out everything else.

“The cinema!” Camilla shouted and ran to the window of their room. Zahra followed her, smiling. Quiet Yvonne gave up her place at the window to Zahra and went into the inner room to watch from its window. Sitt Maryam stayed in her place behind the sewing machine, working quietly now.

The cinema cart was a large wooden box with posters on its four sides. It was pushed by a man wearing a military uniform, which in fact was the uniform of all the popular street musicians, most prominent of whom was a man who carried a huge drum about one meter across that hung from his neck by a leather strap and rested on his belly. In his hands he had two drumsticks covered with cloth with which he beat the drum on both sides. Around him was the rest of the band beating smaller drums or cymbals or playing the same military march on their saxophones. Around everyone was a group of children dancing and laughing.

“Look at Clark Gable!” Camilla said to Zahra.

“Who?”

“Clark Gable.”

“Is that the man or the woman?”

Camilla laughed. “The man, of course. The woman’s name is Joan Crawford.”

Zahra fell silent for a few moments then, washing her hands of the whole affair, said, “These are difficult names.”

“The name of the film is The Sinful Desire” Camilla told her.

“Behave, girl!” Sitt Maryam shouted from behind her.

Everyone fell silent. Zahra thought about this indomitable girl who had been so sad the past few months and who had cried when the Germans entered Paris. What was it that made her regain her gaiety? She must have gotten out of her predicament. Zahra suddenly realized that she should not have looked at these posters for the movies this time. She had decided that the last time, when she saw in the picture an almost-naked woman jumping into the sea. This time she saw the actor with the trimmed mustache embracing the actress, boldly bending over her and almost kissing her. How could they take these wanton pictures and display them in the streets for every woman and girl to see? She backed up from the window and said, “Come with me, Camilla.”

Camilla walked behind her to Zahra’s room. Zahra had been holding her daughter by the hand all that time. She let go of her hand and uncovered the pot and with a ladle took out the chicken liver, put it on a saucer, and offered it to Camilla. Camilla was surprised but did not turn it down. Zahra told her, “Your uncle Magd al-Din has started a new job today.”

“Congratulations! So that’s what you’re celebrating!”

After a few moments Camilla asked, “Does every wife love her husband the way you do, Sitt Zahra?”

“The way I do? No. But who else does a wife have besides her husband? Do you learn something else in school?”

“We learn that exactly in school, and then some.”

“What is it that you like about that actor with the difficult name?” Zahra asked her suddenly.

Camilla was chewing the hot chicken liver fast and blowing on her hands. After she was done she answered, “His eyes — his eyes are so deep, Sitt Zahra.”

They both fell silent. Zahra thought about the age difference between them, only five years. Zahra was twenty-one, but Camilla was too daring for a sixteen-year-old girl. What would they do to a girl like that in the village?

“I’m afraid for you, Camilla.”

“What for?”

“I don’t know. I’m just afraid.”

“Don’t be afraid. The mischievous live longer,” Camilla laughed and left the room.

The end of the school year was the reason Camilla had regained her gaiety. The ordeal was over. Perhaps she had needed no more than one other meeting to fall forever. How could she permit herself to get into this relationship, doomed to end in failure or death from the very beginning? Whoever said that one could joke about matters of love? But they were good days anyway. It all began in a contest between the boys of Abbasiya and the girls Nabawiya Musa held at Ras al-Tin school. Whose fiendish idea was it? The headmistress of Nabawiya Musa School was challenging society. She was a woman of liberal ideas, though she was strict with the girls. She asked for the impossible and was confident that she would get it. She would have the girls compete against the boys and was confident that the girls would hold their own. What happened was that he was paired with her. The literary and scientific questions were hard, but he was amazingly capable. He recited verses from Keats in English and Baudelaire in French, helped his teammates out, and was the reason the boys of Abbasiya school scored such a stunning victory that the Nabawiya Musa girls cried in agony. She could not deny that she thought about him for a few moments that night. She was haunted by his sad, pale face, by his simple clothes, clean but suggesting poverty, as did his slightly yellow face. His eyes were always moist, almost tearful the whole time, sad but contented eyes. That was what attracted her. He was a truly charming young man.

She went to sleep thinking that she would not see him again. But the following day she saw him standing on the sidewalk opposite the gate of her school. She froze for a moment. She realized that he had come to meet her. She held onto Yvonne’s arm and would not let go. When she got off the streetcar at Karmuz Bridge she saw him getting off from the other car. He stood for a little while, watching them as they walked down the slope leading to Ban Street in Ghayt al-Aynab, then he walked along the Mahmudiya canal in the direction of Kafr Ashri.

He started stopping by her school everyday, just to look at her. Whenever she changed her route on her way home, he would be there. Finally she stood at some distance from the school and looked back at him. Yvonne was sick that day. It was as if he had prepared everything in advance. He came over to her right in the middle of the street with a necklace of white jasmine and in front of the passers-by, he slipped it over her head and around her neck. She stood totally still and he took her by the hand, and they walked to the Shallalat gardens.

“Where did you get the courage to do that on the street?”

“Poetry. I love all the crazy poets. Do you know the love story of Yesenin and Isadora?”

“No, I don’t know Yesenin. I know that Isadora was an extraordinary dancer.”

“Do you know anything about the French surrealists?”

“A little.”

“Well, those surrealists do whatever they want, without fear.”

They sat under the old, thick, tall laurel trees.

“I don’t know how I gave in to you,” she said.

He was looking at this meek hen with wide eyes and could believe neither what was happening nor what he was saying.

“But—” she added.

“I know, you’re Christian — you’re wearing a cross. I’m a Muslim. That’s how it is. Where will it lead? I don’t know.”