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worrying about his youngest child, who had given no reason for her decision to leave when she was still on holiday, carrying her bag to the bus station alone, refusing to be seen off.
    The previous night, after watching the movie at the soccer field, the girl would not talk to anyone. She wouldn’t touch her dinner nor watch television as she usually did, and the entire night there wasn’t so much as a peep from her radio, something she normally enjoyed. She didn’t even leave her bedroom to go to the bathroom, and Anwar Sadat was puzzled that she didn’t perform the dawn prayers, since his youngest child was quite pious. She came out of her room that morning, still not talking and tears in her eyes. Anwar Sadat had no idea what had happened, and he was afraid that if he asked she would only snap at him. He wondered whether he’d done something wrong. The young girl simply walked past him, carrying her towel to the bathroom. And something out of the ordinary happened yet again, as Maharani was out again in only a moment. She went back to her room and made herself up simply, as if she believed that she was as beautiful as she should be. But then she came out holding a bag, ate nothing for breakfast, and said brusquely, “I have to go.”
    In retrospect, her dejected eyes and cheerless face seemed to hint that her father was going to die that afternoon. Yet she left Anwar Sadat in a hurry, insisting on going alone to the bus station, as though they would have lots of time to see each other in the future. At the pancake stall he couldn’t stop grumbling about Maharani, not with any real sense of grievance, but rather as an excuse to boast about his daughter.
    Anwar Sadat had three daughters, all born in the early years of his marriage when he and his wife had enough fire between them to exhaust one another in bed. Years later, when their love had waned, people began to forget his wife’s name, Kasia, and simply called her Mrs. Midwife. Anwar Sadat was lucky to have no children by his other women. Bastard children would always be more of a curse to the father’s family than to the mother’s. His promiscuity was passed on to his children, as was his good looks.
    His looks had enthralled a lot of girls over the years, and Anwar Sadat was handsome even in old age, when his body ballooned and his hair dwindled to patches. Even then, he drew the attention of adventurous would-be lovers. His fine looks were an astonishing contrast to those of his wife. With a nose like a parrot’s beak, thick jaw, and cold patrician manners, Kasia was more the witch than the princess. It wasn’t so much that she was exceptionally ugly, but she was definitely unattractive to the majority of men. There was a widespread conviction that the failed artist had married money, and with her money he could afford to sleep with a lot of women, most of whom his wife knew about, though she chose not to care, so long as he didn’t get any of them pregnant.
    The eldest daughter, Laila, inherited her father’s sex appeal and lewd temperament. She was beautiful and full figured with a flawless, dewy complexion. Her face betrayed more than a little arrogance. By the age of sixteen, she was an exceptionally curvaceous schoolgirl, and a target for the boys as well as the teachers, until one day her father found out she was pregnant. Anwar Sadat searched frantically for a shaman to remove what was in her belly. His wife wouldn’t help, and the school would not accept a pregnant pupil. As soon as she graduated, Anwar Sadat dragged her and the classmate said to be responsible to a penghulu , who could officiate at the wedding. Two days later, the newlywed husband found her in bed with another man.
    It became the town’s most sensational scandal. Anwar Sadat went red in the face at the slightest allusion to what happened, and Kasia disappeared for several days to a relative’s house. Both men, the husband