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smell of grilling meat. She loved the smell of other people’s bodies, their sweat and pungency. Her tongue wandered before departing; her mouth was dry. The bones of her chest tingled. The arteries in her thighs sang, and she was penetrated by thousands of passions; she trembled and her fingers reached down to her belly. She felt within herself, within the circle of her region – secret sex but tumultuous sex. She wet her lips with saliva, breathing one heavy sigh after another, looking down at her rosy nipples, her pores open, crushing the ribs of this frenzy. She undulated like a firehose, not covering herself. You were behind the window watching her. Her hair was loose like a gypsy’s. No one called you away; no one paid attention to you. Your two aunts were content, one of them sprawled on the mat, her face turned to the glass ceiling, the other rolling a fresh cigarette, sealing it with saliva and lighting two cigarettes. She offered one to the sleeping woman. They took the first puff, and Aunt Najiya coughed. “I only like Ghazi cigarettes.” Cough. “I don’t know why I listen to you.”
    Your grandmother fell forward onto her fingertips on the roof. The voice of the muezzin called the evening prayer, and the two aunts roused themselves to go to the bath, and after washing they stood with my grandmother to pray. The whole neighbourhood was transfixed in awe. Grandmother sought protection from Satan. Her breathing was quick with supplications, the holy names of God. For the first time, Adil’s voice rang out: “I’m going up to fly a kite.” Your mother sought refuge in her room, Aunt Farida pulled her clothing over her thighs, and Grandmother stood before all: “Lord, forgive us in this world and the next.”
    Adil was already on the roof. This was Wednesday, and your father comes on Thursday.

Chapter 3
    Thursday was the day of the market bath. Your mother prepared a bundle of clothes for you: a clean vest and an old dress, unbleached cotton, elastic, dark ribbons for your hair, the comb with the wide, broken teeth, your open-toed sandals, her seamstress’s horse blanket, ribbed its length and width and lined with cotton, a folded shawl decorated with little circles and squares, a loofah, and soap. You tied up the bundle and stood in front of it.
    This was Aunt Farida’s day. She took her hanging straw bag and filled it with a bottle of water, some pears, a small melon, a pumice stone, homemade soap, a black bag, her blue perfume bottle, clean clothes, and a cake of cardamom soap.
    Your grandmother, whose asthma had troubled her lately, your mother, ill in her chest, and Adil, who had grown up a little, all stay at home. The bath in the ancient house was old and broken down, it was still being repaired. Your father painted it the first time, replaced the old punctured barrel, and paved the floor with new brown cement. He went into it before anyone else, and your grandmother was the last to leave it.
    Your aunt was the only one to frequent the market bath. The taste of the journey from the house to the bath, walking through the alleys, calling out to friends encountered by chance, scrutinizing new faces, and before this, leaving the house. We spent the whole day there. We boiled eggs and potatoes, fried kebabs, and grilled onions, then covered the food with flat, warm loaves of bread, and packed it all into paper bags. The day Thursday arrived, I held my breath, my skin peeled there, and my blood ran clear. There I was devoured by the muscles of my aunts, the sisters of my father and mother: Najia, Farida, one-eyed La’iqa, and Umm Suturi, opening their layers of pores and putting me in the trap. I stumbled about amidst the tons of flesh and breasts, bellies, and buttocks.
    The bath in the Safina district was far from us, in the other neighbourhood. We went through alleys and emerged in streets. We turned to the right and then to the left, and from the