Her robe covered her to the wrists and throat, but her head was uncovered. A girl pulled herself up and straddled the wall easily, so that her long black robe was pulled up to the knee of a smooth white leg.

There was a scraping, as of something being dragged, and then a couple of thumps and a light exhalation, and two hands appeared at the top of the wall. He had scared her, Blaine thought, at the same time wondering at himself for risking the wrath of his conservative neighbors by talking to their women, even over a wall. He said it quietly, but in the perfect stillness it could not have been mistaken in the next garden. He said in the direction of the wall: 'Sabah el khair. He had once seen three of them coming out of their garden door carrying plastic shopping baskets by their long dresses and headscarves he had perceived that they were fundamentalist Muslims. He knew there were women in the next villa: he had heard their laughter and housework conversation many mornings. The sound struck Blaine with a strange excitement.

It was a quiet, slapping shuffle, the sound of the cheap, brightly colored plastic sandals worn by peasant women in this part of the world. He had stood for a minute rubbing his eyes and breathing deeply of the delicious air when there was a sound beyond that wall. At the bottom of the garden a seven-foot concrete wall separated his villa from the next. Other than the pausing, meditative song of the nightingale, the world was silent.īlaine went down the flagstone walk past the fig and orange trees, stretching and yawning in the deep blue, faintly purplish light that filled the garden like cool water. A vague pinkish glow dimmed the stars above the eastern mountains. The air was just a little damp, perfectly still. He put on clothes and went outside, the kitchen screen door slapping quietly behind him. The deep blue twilight was cool as he slipped out of bed, the floor tiles chilly on his feet. Blaine woke gradually in the early dawn, the nightingale still singing.

Short Trips by Jamil Nasir