Chapter 21
Doctor Bushi was getting ready to leave his apartment when Mistress Saniya Afifi's servant came and asked him to see her. His face darkening, Doctor Bushi asked himself with distaste,"What can the woman want? More rent?" but he quickly put that thought out of his mind, as Mistress Saniya could not challenge the military regulations that had frozen residential rents for the duration of the war. He left the apartment and climbed the stairs scowling. As is the won't of tenants, Doctor Bushi disliked his landlady and com plained loudly of her miserliness everywhere and at every opportu nity. One day when denouncing her, he said, "She's thinking of building a shack on the roof so that she can live in it and rent out her apartment!" His rancor against her was increased by the fact that he had never, even once, been able to get out of paying, for if things got tense, the woman would always go to Master Radwan el-Husseini for help. He was not pleased, therefore, to receive this invitation and mut tered, as he knocked on the door, "Spare us, 0 Repeller of Disasters]" The woman, fully veiled, opened the door to him herself and invited him into the reception room, and the man entered and sat down. The servant immediately brought him a cup of coffee, which he drank. Then Mistress Saniya said to him, "I've asked you here, doctor, to look at my teeth." Delighted by this sudden and completely unexpected turn of events, which made him feel affection for Mistress Saniya for the first time in his _life, the man .isked, his eyes gleaming with interest, ''Are you, God forbid, in pain?"
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During this period, Mistress Saniya Afifi looked on life with a new face, and life looked back at her with a new one too. Realization of her happy hope was a hair's breadth or less away. Loneliness had become an easy guest, packing its bags in preparation for departure, and the ice that had oppressed her spirit was starting to melt and run warm. Happiness always comes at a price, though, and a high one at that. She'd come to realize how high a price when she visited the fur niture stores on Azhar Street and the clothing stores on Mouski Street, in which she kept spending the money she'd hoarded all those long years, and without counting the cost either. During these com ings and goings, Umm Hamida scarcely left her side and convinced her, by means of her exceptional sk** and the help that she provided her with at every step, that she was an inestimably precious, albeit also extremely expensive, treasure, while 1\tfistress Saniya stinted her on nothing, comforting herself with the belief that the ordeal would soon be over.
The furniture and clothes weren't everything, though, and it wasn't just the bride's house that needed redoing. The bride herself was in need of nurture, care, and restoration. Thus, one day, she had said to Umm Hamida, laughing in no small embarra**ment, "Mistress Umm Hamida, do you think that all my worries could have turned my side tresses a little gray?" Umm Hamida, well aware that her worries were innocent of the charge, replied, "We can treat the worries with dye. Is there a woman who doesn't dye her hair these days?"
The woman laughed delightedly and said, "Bless you, you best of
women! What on earth would I have done with my life without you?" She paused for a moment, then rubbed her breast and said, "Dear God, can this dried-up body really satisfy your young groom?
No breasts, no bu*tocks-none of the things men find attractive." "Don't underestimate yoursel£ Don't you know how fashionable it is to be thin these days? All the same, if you'd like I can make you
some amazing pills that'll fatten you up in no time."
Umm Hamida nodded her pock-marked face proudly and went on, "Don't worry about a thing so long as Umm Harnida's with you. Umm Hamida's the magic key that opens all closed doors. Soon, if you go with me to the baths, you'll appreciate my powers."
The days of preparation pa**ed like this, in activity, exhaustion,
pleasure and hope, in the dyeing of hair and the making of potions, in the pulling of stumpy teeth and the mounting of gold ones, for all of which money had to be paid out. She overcame her customary carefulness and scattered her golden idol at the feet of the longed-for future, for whose sake also she visited el-Hussein, promising him a considerable sum plus bread slops in broth for the poor devotees who surround his mosque. She also promised forty candles to el-Shaarani.
Umm Hamida was amazed to see the change that had turned
Mistress Saniya upside down and took to slapping palm upon palm and saying to herself, "Are men worth all this bother? How great Your wisdom, Lord, when You condemned women to worship men!"