No sooner had Magd al-Din finished his lunch, which he usually had late, after returning from work, than a loud woman’s scream was heard from downstairs.

“It was Lula, that was her voice!” exclaimed Zahra. “I know her voice.”

When another scream was heard quickly after the first one, Zahra went out of the room and met Sitt Maryam in the hallway. As the screams continued, Sitt Maryam went downstairs ahead of Zahra, who quickly followed with Camilla and Yvonne. After a moment, Sitt Maryam and Zahra were calling out to the exhausted Magd al-Din, since Khawaga Dimitri had not come home yet. Magd al-Din put on his gallabiya, to be ready for any development; he had eaten his lunch while in his underwear.

On his way downstairs, Magd al-Din saw Camilla and Yvonne coming up. They said nothing to him because they were hurrying. He heard men’s voices at the foot of the stairs and the sounds of a large crowd standing in the street in front of the house. He heard Lula in her room screaming, “Have pity! Have pity!” Sitt Maryam and Zahra were standing in front of the door.

“What’s happening?” Magd al-Din asked, and they did not answer but motioned him to enter the room. As soon as he did he closed his eyes. Lula was wearing a sheer white slip, almost naked. True, her hair was disheveled and her eyes swollen from crying, but, in the final analysis, she was an almost-naked woman. As soon as Lula saw him, she collapsed at his feet and held on to one of his legs and said, “Please, Sheikh Magd al-Din, I kiss your foot,”—and she actually did, since he was barefoot—”protect me, protect me from those sons of bitches.”

She said the last sentence in anguish. He looked at the men standing in the room: her husband, a policeman, and a thin, sickly man. Zahra and Sitt Maryam had come close to the door, and Magd al-Din asked them to bring something to cover the lady’s nakedness. But the policeman said, “No,” and the thin man added, “She must come as she is.”

“What’s the story, exactly?” Magd al-Din inquired as Lula crouched on the floor next to his feet, quietly crying now.

“This man is not her husband — this man is,” the policeman said, pointing to the thin man. Zahra had gone upstairs and brought down a white shawl that she placed on Lula’s shoulders. As soon as she heard what the policeman said, she went out, terrified, and stood shaking by Sitt Maryam.

“Is that true, Sitt…?” Magd al-Din asked, and he could not utter her name.

“You sons of bitches!” Lula screamed.

There were two policemen at the door of the house to prevent the angry mob from entering. The thin man rushed to Lula, trying to lift her up to go with them, while her lover stood there, his mouth agape, seemingly in total disregard of the situation. Lula got up and started to go with them. Magd al-Din yelled at the policeman to wait. He looked at Lula’s lover and asked the policeman, “Why don’t you drag this lout to the police station?’

“He’ll come with us as a witness to the crime of adultery.”

“There is no power or strength save in God,” said Magd al-Din sarcastically. “Is the crime of adultery committed by the woman alone?”

“That’s the law.”

Magd al-Din could not help moving forward and, as hard as he could, he slapped the lover, who, to everyone’s surprise, did not resist, or protest, or slap Magd al-Din back.

Lula saw the big crowd outside the door and gripped the wooden banister. “They’re going to kill me. Sheikh Magd al-Din. Please help me, may God help you!”

The thin man, her real husband, began to pull her and try to pry her hands loose from the banister, but he could not. The shawl that was covering her fell to the floor, and she left the banister and turned to the thin man and screamed at him, “It’s all your fault, you son of a bitch!”

Then she hit him in the chest as hard as she could. He reeled back, hit the wall, and fell to the floor. She turned to the policeman to hit him too, but he had pulled his gun and was aiming it at her. Frightened, she backed away and collapsed on the floor crying.

“Please, let’s wait and solve this problem calmly,” said Magd al-Din, who was thinking of the mob outside, which might actually kill her. Then he addressed Lula’s real husband, “Take your wife and divorce her before a marriage official, away from the police. If you leave it to the police, they’ll divorce her from you, but they’ll also put her in jail. What good will that do you? Leave her be.”

The man did not answer. In the meantime, Lula had rushed into her room and quickly closed the door behind her. The policeman tried to break the door down, but Magd al-Din held him back.

“Where would she go? She’ll open it up in a little while.”

Her voice came from inside, “I’m coming out, you sons of bitches!”

The door opened and Lula appeared in a beautiful dress, looking at everyone defiantly, then quickly bent down and kissed Magd al-Din’s hand, crying all the while.

“Please don’t believe them, Sheikh Magd al-Din,” she said. She looked at Zahra and Sitt Maryam and said the same thing. Zahra was now crying, while Sitt Maryam was fighting her tears.

“Let’s go — to hell, if you like,” said Lula to the policeman.

It was obvious that once she was covered, after she had put on the dress, she feared nothing. It all seemed strange to Magd al-Din. How could she, an adulterous woman, be afraid to walk in the street in her slip, but now that she was covered, she was no longer afraid, even of death? He said to himself, “Who knows? Maybe this woman is as sinless and pure as a saint.”

14

Lunch break is from noon to 2 p.m. Workers who live in the Railroad Authority housing one mile away usually go home for lunch and a short rest, then come back to work. On many days Magd al-Din opted not go home for lunch even though his house was closer to work than those of his co-workers. As a peasant he was used to eating his lunch in the field. Now he was bringing lunch with him most days and staying alone at the post, whose location and wooden walls made it a comfortable place to rest in both summer and winter. The two hours gave him a chance to read from the little Quran that never left the vest pocket next to his heart. He would also nap for a few minutes, sometimes half an hour, on the long, low bench. At first, Dimyan did not like to stay during lunch break. Like most workers he liked to have lunch and relax at home. But he found the trip without Magd al-Din more tedious than it already was. So he decided to stay with him, lunching and relaxing and talking, but not for long, because of Magd al-Din’s Quran reading.

The post smelled of dust and tea. The dust of the floor was moist, since there were no windows or openings except for the open door and the narrow gaps between the planks that made up the walls. And since the structure was more than fifty meters square, it seemed that the light pouring from the open door or the thin rays of light breaking through the gaps in the walls were not enough to dispel the humidity. As for the tea, they never really stopped making it, from when they first arrived in the morning to when they came back in the afternoon and during their breaks. They made it on a wood-burning stove outside the post, then drank it and poured whatever tea and leaves were left on the floor next to where they sat, for the soil to absorb it at its own pace. Today Dimyan, who was sitting facing Magd al-Din, said, “What’s to be done, Sheikh Magd al-Din?”

“About what, Dimyan?”

“About this damned job of ours — it’s breaking my back.”

“You’re complaining now, Dimyan, after we’ve gotten used to it?”