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the rope. His exasperation seemed to be starting to equal his infatuation. He had made up his mind and he wouldn’t go back on his decision. He shouted across to her aunt, who was still smoothing out the banknotes as if they were tobacco leaves, and asked her to help him force Almaza to marry him. He wanted to teach her a lesson, so that she wouldn’t go playing with fire.
    Playing with fire? No, she had been waiting for the fair and preparing her whole being for the sake of this special feeling, this intimacy with an unknown man for two and a half days, so that she could preserve the image and the memories for a whole year, close at hand like winter stores, which she could bring out when she needed them. She could recall the warmth and excitement like a breeze laden with an intoxicating perfume. She could bring back the touching, the whispering, the way they had looked into each other’s eyes, or danced, with their shoulders brushing in time to the music. She could remember the music, the food, the noise, the sweets they had bought, and, above all, the men’s longing eyes as they followed her, thinking only of the woman, which at that moment was her. They pouredout their lives into her eyes, her breasts, her waist, her bottom.
    That was the only part she liked: the varying faces, the sinewy hands, not the reality of the characters behind them and the troubles they brought, which were the lightning conductors taking hold of the flash and snuffing it out.

Ingrid cast a glance
over the luggage piled up in the hall and hurried off to fetch a scarf to cover her blond hair. After a moment’s thought she changed it for another, not because the color didn’t match what she was wearing, for she rarely paid attention to her appearance, even at home. It was just that here, she always had to be sure that her clothes were suitable: that they had long sleeves, didn’t show her cleavage, didn’t cling to her body, and covered her knees.
    She settled on the thick scarf to deter stray lice. According to Souad, they adored blond hair for its novelty, and craved the taste of a scalp fragrant with shampoo and clean water, but Ingrid minded more that they were stubborn and vicious and bit through material in search of food, and warmth in winter, or shade in summer, briefly resisting the shampoo especially designed to eliminate them, before succumbing to their fate.
    Ingrid sat on the window ledge that she had appropriated as a seat, looking out over her little garden and the road. When her eyes had once more grown accustomed to the wild plants and the dark gray paving stones that had been laid in place of soil, because of sandstorms, she transferred her gaze to the shop across the road, which she had thought was derelict when she first moved into the house. She had even thought Sanaa was an abandoned city as she looked down from the aircraft at the barren mountainsides, the houses scattered over the vast expanses of empty land, and the lookout towers the color of sand. What she saw convinced her that her mission here would be extremely simple. This country appeared to be ideal—virgin territory, not yet visited by people with different religions and world philosophies to debate and defend. But as the aircraft landed, the earth split open and up sprung a city that was a riot of sounds and colors, and of customs she had never encountered before.
    Ingrid looked at her watch: Mahyoub was late.
Only
an hour late; that was nothing. She had grown used to waiting for people for hours. She was even mentally prepared for people not turning up on the right day at all, perhaps even arriving several days later. Time lay like a swamp, and people had stopped winding their watches long ago. This used to annoy her at the start. She had tried to fight it without success, not giving up hope until she had finally acclimatized herself to the way life was here, and begun to understand how a traveler relied on luck to move from one area to another. By that