I Sweep the Sun Off Rooftops Read Online Free PDF Page A

touching. But they never went to have their photograph taken together, like the couples who had decided to marry and rounded off the religious and legal formalities with a visit to the photographer; they never went to put their thumbprints on a wedding document, and Almaza had never worn the black wool cloak striped with red and yellow that her future husband was supposed to give her. She walked back home with the group from her village, alongside laughing women who had won their lifetime’s companions and prospective bridegrooms whose chests swelledwith pride, all of them thinking about the weddings to come, while she thought about working hard, and preparing herself for next year’s fair.
    Almaza would cast a last glance over the tents as they were taken down, the revelers and pilgrims gathering their baggage, ready to depart, the vendors loading their unsold goods on to donkeys and camels, and the tears would run down her brown cheeks like little white rabbits. She would murmur to one of the new brides-to-be who was consoling her, “Never mind. God is generous. There’ll be another year and another fair.”
    She knew that she would repeat these words often over the next few days—to her old aunt whom she lived with, to the other old women and young girls in the village and anyone else who noticed that there was no striped woolen cloak around her shoulders. She realized that behind her back they all discussed why she was on the shelf although she was pretty, with a good figure, a beauty spot by her mouth and a nice smile. There were those who believed she had the eyes of a flirt, and men feared a woman who looked as volatile as a hive of discontented bees; others just thought it was her lot in life to remain unmarried.
    Almaza could have kept going to the fair year after year, until she was approaching her thirties, and still come back with no woolen cloak, a few more lines on her forehead and whispered comments flying around her ears.However, this particular year a young man saw her among the hundreds of single women, lost his heart to her and ran after her. But it was the mischievous eyes that had captivated him in the first place, their restless expression throwing him off balance and making him seek refuge in the dark beauty spot on her chin, until that had gathered him up and thrown him into the waves of laughter, which revealed even white teeth like pearls.
    Almaza swung her hips gently as she walked with him, and laughed; she was silent or whispered shy words, touched his warm hand, let him put his arm around her and draw her close so that their hips were touching. She listened carefully to all he said, learned his name and what he did, looked at his brown hands and touched them and craved the cigarette he held tightly between his fingers. She asked him for a drag but he offered her a whole cigarette and she puffed on it contentedly.
    Nobody looked at them; people were attracted by the crowds in front of them, the market stalls, the sweetmeats, the mothers with their children, while the single men and women were in twos in every corner, leaning against the trees, sitting on the rocks, happily conferring.
    After a day and a half, Almaza was turning into a beautiful flower, because of the faint blush always on her cheeks and the fragrance constantly around her; she was a butterfly, tipsy from the excess of the sweet words he spoke toher, a bee drowning in the nectar of intimacy. Nevertheless, on the third day he went away again, and she was left alone with no cloak and no marriage document, to walk home with tears in her eyes. But she was unable to bury the memory of the two and a half days in her usual way, by working, pausing to sigh from time to time, and listening to her aunt shouting that there must be somebody who wished her niece ill, since the young man, who had chosen her and thought she had chosen him, followed her home. He was almost out of his mind because she had cooled toward him when he had tried to