The Patience Stone

She stops and sinks into a long, thoughtful silence, slowly resuming her patching of the little blouses.

She does not emerge from this silence until she pricks her finger with the needle, and shrieks. She sucks the blood and goes back to her sewing. “This morning… my father came into my room again. He was holding a Koran under his arm, my copy, the very same one I had here… yes, it was he who took it… and so he had come to ask me for the peacock feather. Because it was no longer inside the Koran. He said it was that boy-the one I let come here, into my home-who stole the feather. And that if he comes I must make sure to ask him for it.” She stands up, goes to the window. “I hope he does come.”

She steps out of the house. Her footsteps cross the courtyard, stop behind the door that opens onto the road. No doubt she takes a quick look into the street outside. Nothing. Silence. No one, not even the shadow of a passerby. She turns away. Waits outside, in front of the window. Silhouetted against the background of migrating birds frozen mid-flight on the yellow and blue sky.

The sun is setting.

The woman must go back to her children.

Before leaving the house, she stops by the room to carry out her usual tasks.

Then leaves.

Tonight, they are not shooting.

Beneath the cold, dull light of the moon, the stray dogs are barking in every street of the city. Right through till dawn.

They are hungry.

There are no corpses tonight.

As day breaks, someone knocks on the door to the street, then opens it, and walks into the courtyard. Goes straight to the door into the passage. Places something on the ground and leaves.

As the last drip of solution makes it into the dropper and flows down the tube into the man’s veins, the woman returns.

She walks into the room, looking more exhausted than ever. Her eyes are guarded, somber. Her skin pale, muddy. Her lips less fleshy, less bright. She throws her veil into a corner and walks over, carrying a red-and-white bundle with an apple-blossom pattern. She checks the state of her man. Talks to him, as she always does. “Someone came by again, and left this bundle at the door.” She opens it. A few grains of toasted wheat, two ripe pomegranates, two pieces of cheese, and, wrapped in paper, a gold chain. “It’s him, it’s the boy!” An ephemeral happiness flits across her sad face. “I should have rushed. I hope he comes back.”

As she changes the man’s sheet: “He will come back… because before he dropped by here, he came to see me at my aunt’s house… while I was in bed. He came very gently, without a sound. He was dressed all in white. He seemed very pure. I

A cry.

Moans.

Once again, silence.

Once again, stillness.

Just breathing.

Slow.

And steady.

A few breaths later.

A stifled sigh suddenly interrupts this silence. The woman says “Sorry!” to the man, and shifts a little. Without looking at him, she pulls away and moves out of the hiding place to sit against the corner of the wall. Her eyes are still closed. Her lips are still trembling. She is moaning. Gradually, words begin to emerge: “What’s gotten into me now?” Her head bangs against the wall. “I really am possessed… Yes, I see the dead… people who aren’t there… I am…” She pulls the black prayer beads from her pocket. “Allah… What are you doing to me?” Her body rocks back and forth, slowly and rhythmically. “Allah, help me to regain my faith! Release me! Rescue me from the illusion of these devilish ghosts and shams! As you did with Muhammad!” She stands up suddenly. Paces around the room. Into the passage. Her voice fills the house. “Yes… he was just one messenger among others… There were more than a hundred thousand like him before he came along… Whoever reveals something can be like him… I am revealing myself… I am one of them…” Her words are lost in the murmur of water. She is washing herself.

She comes back. Beautiful, in her crimson dress embroidered with a few discreet ears and flowers of wheat at the cuffs and hem.

She returns to her spot next to the hiding place. Calm and serene, she starts speaking: “I didn’t go and seek counsel from the hakim, or the mullah. My aunt forbade me. She says I’m not insane, or possessed. I’m not under the spell of a demon. What I’m saying, what I’m doing, is dictated by the voice from on high, is guided by that voice. And the voice coming out of my throat is a voice buried for thousands of years.”

She closes her eyes and, three breaths later, opens them again. Without moving her head, she glances all around the room, as if seeing it for the first time. “I’m waiting for my father to come. I need to tell all of you, once and for all, the story of the peacock feather.” Her voice loses some of its softness. “But first I need to get it back… yes, it’s with that feather than I’m going to write the story of all these voices that are gushing up in me and revealing me!” She becomes agitated. “It’s that fucking peacock feather! And where is the boy? What do I bloody want with his pomegranates? Or his chain? The feather! I need the feather!” She stands up. Her eyes are shining. Like a madwoman. She flees the room. Searches the house. Comes back. Her hair a mess. Covered in dust. She throws herself onto the mattress opposite the photo of her man. Picks up the black prayer beads and starts telling them again.

Suddenly, she screams, “I am Al-Jabbar!”

Murmurs, “I am Al-Rahim…”

And falls silent.

Her eyes become lucid again. Her breath returns to the rhythm of the man’s breathing. She lies down. Facing the wall.