• 2 •
On the verge of collapse, in the middle of that narrow muddy room, I suddenly found myself surrounded by three women I had never seen before. The eldest was really old: about ninety, doddery with age, with a bent back, a sporadic dark cough, a lost gaze, and a lifeless pallor to the skin.
She was wearing a light blue robe and had colourful beaded bracelets around her wrists, and an amulet hanging from her wrinkled neck, as was common among old women in those days. It probably contained some Qur’anic verses or prayers to ward off the evil eye or, if the woman was Christian or Jewish, some sections of their prayers.
The second woman was middle aged. She was thin, and looked as though she had grown up in a poor neighbourhood or wasteland, because her feet were bare and callused and,
