Bahaa Taher - Sunset Oasis

When I neared home I found the children who play on the empty space standing silently and staring in the direction of the house, and a donkey standing at the bottom of the steps.

When the children saw me approaching, they fled, as usual, but continued looking curiously and warily in the direction of the house.

Hearing a yell come from inside, I too felt foreboding.

The children froze where they were and, as the yell repeated itself, I recognized Catherine's voice, so I pulled out my revolver and raced up the stairs, shouting, 'Catherine! What's happening! I'm here! I'm coming!'

I burst into the house brandishing my revolver. Then I came to a stop, unable to take in what I saw in the half-darkened room.

I saw Catherine standing holding a palm rib and clutching in her other hand the buttons of her blouse, which was torn. Then I noticed that she was gently striking with the rib a girl, who was kneeling on the ground embracing Catherine's feet and making a noise like an injured cat.

'What's happening?' I repeated.

Without thinking, I pointed the revolver at the kneeling girl, but as I pulled the trigger the rib that Catherine was holding struck my hand and the bullet went wide and I yelled with pain. The revolver flew from my hand and Catherine kicked it with her foot, which she had pulled free, into a distant corner. I was letting out a stream of curses and holding my injured hand, my mind racing as I tried to piece together what I saw in front of me. Had they sent someone to kill Catherine? Had they decided to begin with her instead of me? What did the children's gathering in front of the house and their fearful looks mean? This girl had attacked Catherine, torn her clothes, and perhaps tried to kill her. So why, then, was she clinging on to her legs and kissing them? I could understand nothing except that Catherine was defending herself with the palm rib.

I threw myself on the girl and wrested away her hands, which were gripping my wife's legs. Then I kicked her, as she screamed, towards the door, intending to push her down the steps. Catherine, however, hurried towards me, pushing the palm rib into my chest this time and shouting in a breathless voice, 'You didn't kill her with your revolver and now you want them to kill her in the road when they see her half naked?'

Catherine threw a gallabiya that had been in a heap on the floor over the girl where she lay moaning and gestured to her angrily to put it on.

The girl, who was wearing a dirty white robe, got up and quickly shoved herself into the man's gallabiya and pulled a scarf over her face. Looking as slight as a young boy, she set off at a run towards the door while I asked Catherine, my thoughts in disarray, who she was, how she had got in, and what she'd done.

The girl herself, though, turned suddenly before going out through the door and pulled the covering from her face, whose radiant beauty I took note of, despite everything, as she rushed towards Catherine, her grey eyes flashing, and pointed to her own breast, to my wife and to the revolver which lay on the floor, screaming as she did so in her own language, the tears streaming from her eyes. Then she rushed forwards again and knelt on the ground at Catherine's feet, embracing them and kissing them and making a low sobbing noise like a moan, while all the time she talked through her tears.

I was paralysed by astonishment, and Catherine too stood rigid where she was, leaving her torn garment open to reveal the two perfectly matched globes of her breasts, the upper halves pressed together and extremely white.

As the girl's weeping and moaning changed to something more like a death rattle, I asked Catherine in amazement, 'Do you understand anything?'

Like one under a spell, she replied, 'Not a word, but I think she's angry because she wants us to understand something that we can't, and that's why she wants you to shoot her with the revolver.'

'And that's what I want too!'

An overwhelming anger swept aside the moment of astonishment and I jumped up, intending to reach the gun, but Catherine extended her free arm and placed her hand on my chest, making an attempt to speak calmly amid her gasps.

'Look. She really is insane, so don't act like a madman yourself.'

The girl, however, suddenly jumped up and stretched her hands out as though she wanted to grab Catherine's chest, or embrace her, or throttle her — I don't know. I flung myself on her from behind and took hold of her neck, and she started screaming as I almost did strangle her, possessed by a crazy jealousy and a feeling that she would desecrate my wife if she touched her body with her hands one more time. Catherine's blue eyes flashed and she started firing off rapid phrases with an Irish accent I couldn't understand. Then, suddenly, she raised the palm rib and brought it down on the head of the girl, who was trying to wriggle out of my grip, and the girl let out a loud scream and a trickle of blood ran across her brow. Catherine then picked up the scarf and threw it over the girl's head, trying at the same time to get free of the girl's hands. She pushed her out of the door and closed it hard behind her.

When the girl had left, I noticed the complete silence that had overtaken the place. Despite everything that was happening in the house, I had been hearing loud noises outside — screams of adults, shouts of children, and repeated cries of apprehension — but now the silence was total. I opened the door, but all I could see was the girl mounted on her donkey, still wailing, and heading east, her back to the town, over which hung the silence of death. Out of all the children who had been thronging the open space, I now found only one, aged about four, sitting on the ground and crying. Then a man came running and picked the child up without looking towards the house and without raising his head and returned quickly with the child in the direction of the town. I was puzzled by what I saw and my anger redoubled as I looked at the empty square. I rushed back inside the house, shouting furiously, 'The grown-ups and children have disappeared from the square. There isn't a soul there.'

Catherine was sitting on a chair, glowering, and after a moment she said, 'So they must have discovered who she is.'

'You know her, then?'

'Yes. It's Maleeka, the only girl to speak to me the day I went to the Temple of the Oracle. She told me her name then and that was all and today she came disguised as a boy, as you saw. But they must certainly have discovered afterwards that she's the ghoul-woman, and she's escaped from her house.'

'The ghoul-woman? You mean she's one of the witches of the oasis they talk about?'

'No. I mean she's the ghoul-woman. She dared to leave her house before the months of imprisonment were over.'

I understood nothing of what Catherine was saying. She started trying to close the buttons on her dress, and then she said suddenly, almost shuddering, 'The ghoul-woman kissed my breast!'

I shouted in agitation,'Don't play with me, Catherine! Why did you let her do that? Has she entered our house before? And what does it mean that she's the ghoul-woman?'

With greater anger, Catherine replied, straightening her back in the chair, 'And you… and in this oasis… Tell me why the women are required to be more intelligent than their menfolk? And how can you be the ruler of this oasis and not know who the ghoul-woman is?'

'Is that part of my official duties too?'

'Of course! Since I've studied and read every book and every word written by every scholar or visitor who passed by this oasis, it should have been your duty too to study and learn. How can you govern people you don't know? When you calm down, you'll regret that you thought of killing her, and I too shall be sorry, for I was on the verge of killing her too. Why did I do that?'