Chapter Seven
Heba knocked on the apartment door. Her knocks were faint, trembling. Standing behind the door, she touched Muna's shawl wrapped around her wrist beneath her black abaya, as if it provided her with the coldness of the grave to endure. She felt her heartbeat thumping against her chest like a distant war drum, but her face remained a mask of wax, betraying nothing of the turmoil boiling within.
Khaled opened the door, a filthy smile of victory plastered across his face. He scanned her from head to toe with a demeaning, predatory gaze, then exhaled a cloud of cigarette smoke into her face, the grey haze surrounding her mournful features.
He said in an ecstatic, boastful tone:
"Welcome back... I thought you'd spend the rest of your life wailing in your father's house. What brought you to the wolf's den, Heba? Did you miss the prison, or the beatings? Or did the walls of your father's house become too small for your shame?"
Heba lowered her head, feigning a shiver in her shoulders. She spoke in a broken whisper, barely audible:
"I have nowhere left to go, Khaled... the neighborhood is devouring my reputation with their talk. The neighbors look at me as a mother who failed to protect her daughter. And Muna... Muna left me alone in the cold. You were right, you are the strong one, and I've come seeking your protection... don't leave me to the mercy of the people."
Khaled let out a hysterical laugh that shook the empty apartment. He stepped back, swinging the door wide as if opening the gates to a private hell:
"Come in... come in, you fool. The ewes always return to the wolf that preyed on their young. I knew you couldn't breathe without your master. Come in and wash away this disgrace that drips from you."
Heba entered with steady, cautious steps. The apartment reeked of alcohol, tobacco, and a hollow regret that had never touched the owner's heart. But her eyes were scanning the place with the precision of a "sniper" searching for prey. She was looking for one thing: a vulnerability. She saw the discarded liquor bottles, his weapon lying carelessly on the table amidst piles of ash, and Muna's old photos, torn in cold blood and tossed into the trash.
Khaled said, pouring himself a glass of pale yellow liquid:
"You will be a servant here for me and my friends. You will wash the floor with your tears to cleanse it of the memory of your daughter, who chose death to escape my 'discipline.' Is that understood?"
Heba slowly raised her eyes to him. There were no tears; instead, there was a haunting "emptiness" that terrified Khaled for a moment—an emptiness like a black hole that swallows everything. She approached him with an uncharacteristic boldness, reaching out to straighten his stained collar, just as she used to do as his submissive wife for many long years. She whispered in a voice dripping with honey-coated poison:
"I will do everything you ask, Khaled... I will prepare a night for you like you've never seen. I will brew you the 'Tea of Loss' that I drank for bitter years while waiting for your release... and I will make you taste the truth you hid from the judge, the truth you made everyone believe."
Khaled was unsettled by her strange calmness, but his ego, bloated by his escape from justice, blinded him to the blade lurking in her eyes:
"Go to the kitchen and be silent... I don't want to hear your voice unless you are obeying my orders."
Heba turned toward the kitchen, a diabolical glint in her eyes born from the womb of oppression. She wasn't just looking for a knife to kill him; a quick death was a mercy unearned by a man who had stolen forty years of light from her. She was planning something greater—something that would make this apartment, which witnessed Muna's final scream and her horrific fall, witness his confession to every single word, or his burning alive inside the fortress he thought was invincible.
She closed the kitchen door behind her and leaned her head against the cold wood. She remembered when Muna was small, how she used to play, her voice... everything there reminded her of Muna. She touched the old scar on her hand and smiled bitterly. She opened her bag and pulled out a small bottle containing a clear liquid—a "sedative." She began to boil the water, the whistle of the kettle sounding to her like a cry for help from the past.
She added sugar—lots of sugar—then emptied the entire bottle into his large cup.
"This is the price of your silence, Khaled... and this is the price of my daughter's scream."
She emerged with the tray and set it before him. He took the cup boldly and downed it in one go, as if gulping down his final victory. Not minutes passed before his eyes began to roll, his head grew heavy on his chest, and the cup slipped from his hand, shattering on the floor and breaking the silence of the room.
Heba moved now like a wandering ghost. She opened his closet and pulled out the gasoline cans he had been hiding—the very cans he intended to use to burn her one day.
She began to search the corners of the house, hoping to find anything that would implicate him in their daughter's murder. She turned over every corner, entering the room where Muna had been held captive. She began searching for any shred of evidence that Muna had not committed suicide. She opened Muna's wardrobe and found a small box tucked away carefully, as if Muna knew that only her mother would be the one to find it.
Heba opened it, and there, she was struck with horror by what she saw...