1

I was trying to fall asleep when I heard slippers on the stone steps in the hotel. I heard footsteps. Even over all the noise from the wedding. The howling and fireworks. It had to be a woman’s step. Light and young. Then another woman climbed the stairs. I heard her, too. I heard her little feet. I heard her nightdress, the sound of cloth. Thin cotton cloth. From her small steps I could even hear how tightly it clung to her body – and I knew the dress was white. But that night I wanted to be alone. Fired from my job at the paper I had no desire for life.

I was hungry and exhausted. After I’d complained to the receptionist for mixing up my registration, she’d got her own back and by the time I realized what was happening it was too late. It was the middle of the night but she’d said, “Of course” and only later would I understand that blank look in her eyes: she was a little devil.

After an awkward silence I’d asked her if the restaurants were open in the old city. “Of course,” she’d said and I’d slipped into a dark labyrinth, shadows swirling out of every corner. Shadows you always see when you arrive in a city for the first time and wander off in the wrong direction. In the morning I knew I would wake up to realize that if I’d only walked the other way I would have ended up in the heart of town. But a traveller at night is no match for misfortune. Hunted down by all kinds of shadows, I made it back to my room at the Dar el-Medina, the window looking inwards. I skimmed hopelessly through Saudi channels brimming with discussions about the Koran. I struggled in vain to get online and I resigned myself to the fact that I would never kill the lone mosquito buzzing about the room … so I tried falling asleep. That’s when I heard the slippers.

Laughter: I started, as if a deer had just darted across my path. I heard a woman press her foot against her thigh, like a stork. I heard her slipper drop. I heard broken conversation.Then fingers over the jasmine blooming in the courtyard. I heard a flower being picked, branches bending. I suppose you only listen carefully to the sounds of the night when you’re looking for adventure. Grabbing the bottle of whisky I’d bought last minute at the airport, I pinched three glasses between my fingers.

They stopped talking when they heard me coming. Two women leaning against the low white terrace walls of an old Tunisian villa now the Dar el-Medina Hotel, elbows on the low walls, hips pushed out. On our faces that stupid smile a tourist gets when she asks for her differences to be forgiven.

Their nightgowns really were white. And yes, the one with bigger hips had pressed her alluring foot against her thigh, just like a stork – she was more confident and more flirtatious than the other woman. “I can’t sleep with all this noise,” I said in English. Clearly we were all from the lower hemisphere but I didn’t want to make things difficult by choosing one Arabic dialect over another. “The wedding, right? Come join us,” said the one with the hips. “Come,” echoed the other. They both spoke in Arabic. A word was enough to tip me off as to where they were from. The bubbly little one with the big hips was Tunisian – she hadn’t used the feminine ending on her invitation. The other spoke with a stronger accent; she was a bold, shadowy, mysterious Egyptian, with the taut, tall body of a man. The Tunisian was the perfect little lady, sweet and more womanly. Then a firework cracked over our heads and we suddenly felt freed from the usual social niceties. I moved closer, putting the glasses on the low white wall. I looked at them to be sure … yes, everyone was drinking.

“You can’t really see the wedding from here,” said the bold Egyptian.

“Look from here,” said the Tunisian, pointing to one side.

Searching for the wedding, I said, “So this must be one of the wonders of Tunis. All the terraces are hidden from each other, no?”

“That’s right,” said the Tunisian with the hips. “The genius of the our count