The Celestial Gate by Avital Dicker (red white royal blue txt) 📗

fault. Maybe she wasn’t attractive enough. Mahmud was always polite to her; he never complained about the food she made and he never hit her. He also never touched her. Sual was lonely in that big house of his parents. She’d spend whole days on her own. Mahmud worked most hours of the day in the bakery and went out with his friends almost every night.

Sual stopped eating to lose weight and even started wearing eye makeup, but Mahmud continued to ignore her and she was too embarrassed to tell even her own mother.

About a year into the marriage, Sual discovered the truth. It was a sun-soaked morning. She was hurrying home from the outdoor marketplace, determined not to give Mahmud’s mother a new reason to embitter her life. As always, she turned down the narrow alley leading the house. Suddenly, she heard a familiar voice. Curious, Sual approached the fence, identifying Mahmud’s voice with certainty. Through the bars of the iron gate in front of a shabby yard strewn with empty soft drink cans, she saw Mahmud passionately embracing a strange man.

The shopping bags fell from her hands, the contents tumbling out every which way. Sual paid no attention to them, fleeing as fast as she could, far, far away.

She knew exactly how the neighborhood treated such men. Clearly, Mahmud was hiding his nature because he feared for his life. She wished him no harm, but none of this was her fault.

She was only seventeen. She hadn’t eaten freely in a year; she’d felt rejected and unattractive. He should have told her; he had no right to make her feel that way. Sual thought about the long, empty years awaiting her and ran even faster.

Without thinking, her legs carried her home to her mother, the only place where she’d ever felt good. She stopped at the entrance, unable to cross the threshold. Were she to enter and tell the truth, she’d start a war between the families and Mahmud would be harmed. No, she couldn’t live with that on her conscience.

Roughly, Sual dried her tears, refusing to give Mahmud’s mother the pleasure of seeing her weak. Carefully, she re-applied makeup to her swollen eyes and only then turned around to her husband’s home, the place that had become her prison.

Three years had passed since then. Three years of knowing and keeping silent. The pain was replaced by anger, but the anger, too, passed, leaving behind only despair. Some nights, Sual almost dared speak with Mahmud, but she always, at the last moment, took fright and changed her mind.

Sual knew that she wasn’t going to get pregnant by her husband but couldn’t think of a practical solution. On the one hand, she couldn’t tell anyone the truth about Mahmud. On the other hand, were she to get pregnant in the near future, she’d find herself divorced, humiliated, an outcast without a home to live in.

It was a particularly hot summer afternoon. Sual walked slowly through the Old City alleyways. She was carrying multiple shopping bags, dripping with sweat under her heavy, long-sleeved, black dress. In summer, Sual would usually go to the marketplace early in the morning, but today, because of the heatwave, she’d decided to wait until the sun was past its zenith and the paving stones of the quarter had cooled off somewhat.

A pesky fly had decided to accompany her down the alleyway, landing alternately on her nose and her forehead in an irritating dance. Sual stopped to rest, carefully putting the shopping bags down on the ancient stones and tried to shoo the fly away with her hands. Leaning back against a wall, she dabbed at the perspiration on her face with her headscarf and brought her breathing under control.

Because of the high temperature, foot traffic was sparse. She looked across the street at the shop full of hookahs and other souvenirs. Normally, it would be packed with tourists, but today it was almost empty.

Two soldiers in green uniforms, rifles slung over their shoulders, passed by. They didn’t bother Sual. She was used to soldiers. Rock-throwing and shootings in the Old City of Jerusalem were part of everyday life.

Sual remained in place for some time, enjoying the shade and silence. Near the hookah shop was Yusuf’s famous hummus joint, a small place consisting of a few old wood tables wobbling on the narrow sidewalk. Usually, Yusuf’s was packed; his hummus was excellent, its reputation well-deserved. Yusuf would make the hummus in the morning and, normally, it would all be gone by the early afternoon, after which he’d close up for the day. But today, apparently because of the heat, nobody had been particularly hungry, so the stand was still open.

Three tourists sat at one table. A young, chubby woman had her back to Sual. Her brown hair was gathered into a messy ponytail, and her hand lay confidently on the knee of the bespectacled young man to her side. Next to them, on a cracked wooded chair, a half-full glass of Turkish coffee in front of him, sat the most beautiful man Sual had ever seen. Oddly, his eyes were glued on her.

She suddenly felt her blood rushing madly through her body. She sensed the pulse pounding in her right temple, threatening to explode the blue vein there.

Nervously, Sual tugged at the hijab that had moved out of place and hurried to cover her face again. She had never felt such a burst of heat shaking her limbs. Instead of casting her eyes down, a reaction that had become second nature to her over the last few years, she looked back into the man’s eyes without thinking.

Time stopped. The world around her disappeared. The only things remaining were the blue-eyed stranger and her with her dark brown irises. Her legs trembled under her long dress and she thanked Allah for the supporting wall behind her back.

The blond fellow got up, took some coins out of the pocket of his faded jeans, and tossed them on the table.