Tarek asked:


Chapter one.
The old woman sat at a small rock beside the entrance of the garage. A black veil encircled her wrinkly, brown face and a mauve cloak swayed in the soft breeze at her narrow shoulders. The soles of her feet were black with dust. Last week, she sold her sandals to buy herself a scarf.

Beside her, Adham, her grandson banged his wooden doll against the rocky floor of the garage, where they lived. He looked at his grandma, waiting for a reply to his misdeed.

She held him up, throwing the doll away and walked into the small hut at the end of the garage. Her gait was slow. Her hips moved upwards and downwards as she dragged her feet over the cement stones, implanted in the ground.

The door to the hut was a towel torn at the middle. At night, she had to press its lower edge under a heavy stone to thwart any intruders. Inside the hut, a bed stood against unpainted, grey wall. White sheets spread across the wavy floor, Where Hayam slept. At the head of the sheet, an oven with a dangling door stood, waiting to heat a crust of bread or an expired tuna can.

She sat at the edge of the bed. Her grandson ate at some stale crusts of bread from the floor and after wincing with saliva bubbling at his lips, he spat it out. After some minutes, he fell to his back and slept.

Hayam walked to the window above the oven. It had a wooden door, painted in green. She pushed it and looked at a small pigeon standing at the stone where she sat some minutes ago. It was a beautiful pigeon. Her head was black and as you went lower, her body turned brown and right at her feathery tail it turned nearly purple. It bent down, poking a crust of bread with her peak into, what Hayam thought to be her husband’s mouth. it was so lovely to see such love, such warmth.

Hayam closed her eyes and imagined her husband, Hassan, sitting with her at their farm with the sun rising at the horizon. He would have a quick draught of his brown mug of milk then wash it and make tea for her in it.

“To my beautiful gypsy queen,” he would say as he would bend down, offering Hayam the mug. His green, narrow eyes would sparkle against the faint, light of a candle, as if he was about to cry.

Something stirred behind her. She turned and a hefty man walked into the hut. He wore a shirt smeared with black patches and a plastic, green sandal that failed to cover the black feet and long, dirty nails. Some oily patches between his receding hairs glimmered under the light of the lamp that hung down from the ceiling by a wire. His blue trousers were smeared like his shirt, especially at the knees. It seemed he spent a long time kneeling on them to fix one of the cars at his small shop.

“I can’t manage your son alone, Ramadan,” Hayam said, holding the baby boy from under the armpits and placing him at the bed, against the wall. “Your wife must return. I can’t do everything alone.”

“Mom, I told you. I can’t do anything about it.” Ramadan said, opening the door of the oven and peering into it. “There was a piece of meat right here this morning…”

“I ate it,” Hayam said, “I was hungry…”

“I’m hungry too,” he said, kicking the door of the oven. It closed over the oven, creaked, and clunked back over the floor. “Fine look, Mom. I am letting you to live with me, out of the purity of my heart. You should be grateful. I am not letting you to live in my home to eat my food. You can manage yourself; it is not my problem you are hungry. I’m the one who works, I need this food.”

“And I need someone to be with me,” Hayam said, “I’m alone; can’t you see that.”

“I don’t care,” Ramadan yelled, “I’m not here to stay with you; I have a family to feed, I have a wife waiting for me.”

Ramadan felt a warm, bony hand at his shoulder. “Am I not a part of your family, boy?”

“Take your hands off me,” he jerked his shoulder and Hayam withdrew her hand; her fingers outstretched towards her son’s body.

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