Duna Ghali is an Iraqi writer, translator and poet, born in Basra in 1963. After graduating from the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Basra, she left Iraq following the Gulf War and settled in Copenhagen in 1992. She has worked in the field of literary translation, notably at the Royal Library of Denmark.
She is the author of several novels, including Al-Nuqta al-Ab‘ad (2000), Indama Tastayqiz al-Ra’iha, Manazil al-Wahsha, Batnuha al-Ma’wa and Janub, as well as collections of prose and poetry. She has also published a novel, poetry and prose, as well as literary translations, in Danish.
She is a member of the Danish Writers’ Union, the Danish Translators’ Association and PEN, and publishes in both Arabic and Danish.

Professor Yassine never received a guest without being perfectly prepared. Elegance and poise were among his essential qualities; he allowed himself no compromise. Just as he was meticulous in his work, he was always impeccably turned out, and clean-shaven. If he was not satisfied with his appearance, the guest would have to wait until he was ready.

But the professor did have other sides. He loved birds, considering them inherently melancholic. His cage usually housed a male and a female - never two males, nor two females, nor three birds of mixed sex. However, there were exceptions: one day, the female pecked and scratched the male to death, so that she could look after their chick alone, to which she was deeply attached. Two days ago, the cage he had made himself had not been properly closed: alas, the chick had escaped. The female was devastated and without giving the professor time - due to the incessant bombing - to get permission to leave the house and find her another mate, she died.

‘Can females really be so deeply affected by their young?’
he said teasingly to his beloved as he cleaned out the cage.

Her decision had upset him. She pushed the cage aside, as if for good, and said, her voice tinged with disgust:
“I don’t want them anymore. They're nothing but a source of suspicion and filth.”

The professor continues his conversation, saw in hand, in the family attic they are converting. No one knows about it except his twins and his beloved.

– Incidentally, Jesus wasn’t a carpenter, as they say, but a weaver of tent cloth.
– And you, you combine the two.
– A fortified, carefully designed hideout?
– Wouldn’t it have been better, Father, to make coffins?

Laughter begins to rise, then stops abruptly. He watches her as she tries not to smile. How can this mother radiate such happiness? She sparkles beside the twins like a star. And he, in his situation, sees her as the greatest star on earth. His happiness is complete, because of hers.

What a source of energy! To hang out the washing with such exhilaration, to shake the sheets so enthusiastically and then smooth them out with such tenderness!

Every morning, he observes his ageing body: how it straightens, almost springing up, to reassure itself of her presence. In the nooks and crannies of the house: a faulty tap, a damp patch crying out for a coat of paint, a puncture in his bicycle tyre. By the end of the day, everything in the house is repaired, for a smile that has blossomed into bouquets of white roses within him. He cares little that he is a difficult man, whom people avoid; with time, he no longer knows how much value to place on other's opinions. But if the lines on her face relax, all the dust, all the fear that clings to them will disappear, or at least be put off for another day .

The plaque on the door too.

– What’s wrong with it?
– It needs lifting.

He unscrews the four corners of the wooden plaque to which a thin strip of copper is attached, engraved by his own hand:

‘Home of Professor Yassine the carpenter’

There is a solution for everything. And yet, the night before, he had felt close to breaking point. His body was ageing. It was all he could do to stop madness taking hold. His soul was on the verge of collapse. He did not understand what had come over him when she asked him to sleep apart from her, to sleep alone -separate beds. It is not her body, but her contented face, that is his life force. Despite his customary reserve, every time he died, she revived him.

They would have been the happiest of lovers, had it not been for their own selves. He replays in his mind the overwhelming way in which she offered herself to him, each time giving him new life:

‘I am all yours… or take what you want… or else, are you satisfied now?’

He himself becomes the pleasure he pours into her. His fulfilment is only complete when he is within her. But even angels have their conditions. She punished him for a fault he did not commit, and for which he could find no solution. None of his colleagues or pupils, no one in the neighbourhood, or the world, could imagine the liquid, bleeding heart beneath that carefully ironed shirt. Her anxieties outweigh all others. And now the hiding place is finished. He says to himself:

“All that remains is the lock, which I'll have to go out to buy ”

It doesn’t matter if the door is slightly stubborn. It’s because of the old hinges. Wood is in short supply, and the wood he’d gathered wasn’t of consistent quality: some of it damp and mouldy, some hard and dry. Before each time he leaves, he has to anticipate a thousand things: a power cut, the gas running out, a knock at the door. He shows her how manage the tricky secret door: you have to lift it slightly. But he's quick to add that he’d prefer her not to do it when she’s alone. Times are extremely hard. He thinks regretfully to himself that this time he hadn't managed to finish the job perfectly for her.

He sits on the bed to put on his shoes. His spine has stiffened, his stomach has grown heavy and hinders his movements. He wipes his sweaty forehead with his hand and carefully closes the door behind him. Going down to the street has become an adventure. Going out feels like a slap in the face the moment he steps over the threshold. She seemed annoyed by his going out in search of a lock. She didn’t adjust his collar. She now merely nods in agreement at whatever he says or does. He misses the days when he used to kiss her hand.

A pro-president demonstration took him by surprise. He hadn’t noticed where it had sprung from. He struggled to stay on his feet, not to be swept away by the surge of the crowd. Amidst the chanting, he couldn't identity this dense crowd. When they crossed paths as they poured into the adjacent alleyways, they stopped him, and fear gripped him. He had no money to give as an offering, and he had to walk with them. He blended into their chaotic ranks, smoothing a few strands of his hair back into place.

In the stifling heat, he would have liked to take her elsewhere, to a more anonymous, secluded spot. No one understands his anguish. Love had been stolen from him, and he was reduced to sleeping on the bare ground. The first surge of his passion might have lasted. It is difficult to avoid being swept up in this crowd, in this system that has been dysfunctional for decades. He takes care not to bump into anyone as he passes. Nothing matters to him but peace and quiet. Others might believe there is nothing behind these features, that this body has lost all vigour. He stumbles. If the earth could speak, it would do nothing but curse. Even the potholes he encounters on his way remain voracious, like open mouths, ready to swallow up men and rubbish without ever being satisfied.

His face covered in dust, he lies on the ground, listening to her breathing, peaceful, deep in slumber. A groan rises within him. The demonstrators have been infiltrated by other groups, and a clash has broken out. All those helicopters are circling overhead; some descend so low they stir up whirlwinds of dust.

How could the earth have dried up like this without anyone objecting?
Why does everything always end with acceptance?

If they had wanted to, they could have reduced the stone to dust. And he would have transformed that fertile patch into a garden for her, planted there what she dreamed of: fruit trees, flowers, thick grass. A young man pulls him from under the crowd, and some of his students recognise him, allowing him to get past the barricade. He tries to read what is written on the raised placards, whilst, every night, her head would come to rest on his arm.

Passers-by look at him with suspicion. Professor Yassine has aged prematurely. They've seen his wife, draped in black. The grieving mother has left her job; she, too, has aged. They attribute their harshness, which has grown with each passing day, to the martyrdom of their two sons.

And when he is overcome with anger, he sneaks out to collect scrap metal and planks abandoned in the alleyways and rubble. She says to him:

“Such behaviour is thoughtless and irresponsible given what is happening.”

He shouts, his voice drowned out by the whistling of the strikes, clad in his woollen robe, its braided silk cord tied around his protruding belly. He stands for a long time near her bowed head, gazing at the bare nape of her neck as she sits on the bed. She rests her face in her hands, tilting it towards the floor, away from him. He waits for her migraine to get so bad that she will call for him. He thinks of ways to win her back, to leave things unresolved. Ever since childhood, it had sometimes happened that what he desired intensely came to pass.

At night, he imagines gently running his hand over her forehead, to the two points between her dark eyebrows, whilst she nestles against him in total abandonment. Ever since they announced the loss of the twins in war, she has been prolonging her prayers and invocations. Simply to keep him at a distance, he is convinced. He has become invisible to her eyes. She no longer desires any of the dishes he prepares. Her gaze follows precise paths: from the door to the attic, every time she hears a noise. He has bought extra locks, of various sizes, without managing to reassure her. She no longer trusts him as she once did. She doubts the solutions he proposes. Day after day, he has gathered wood here and there, for fear of arousing suspicion. He brings it back, tied to his bicycle, walking the rest of the way.

The twins, hiding, have found what their father had built for them, now finished. They reassure her. The father says:

– No one can uncover the secret.

And the twins agree with his words, trying out their beds.

It is no surprise: carpentry was not, in his family, merely a hobby passed down, but a true trade. They know the different types of wood, the secrets of the trunks, the kinds of stains and glues. With their own hands, they make the most essential pieces of their homes, meant to last and be passed down from generation to generation: the beds on the terrace, the kitchen cupboards, the shelves for books and utensils. He remembers the surprise he had made for her that first time, covered with a sheet. She had rewarded him with that sparkle in her eyes and kissed his cheek. Nothing, ever since, could be thrown in the bin — because of that moment.

In his hands, tins of tomato paste become elegant money boxes; worn and torn clothes are transformed into a vibrant rug he sewed so she could lie on the floor during the scorching hours of summer; and, from the hardwood of the remains of a tree that had brought down the fence between two terraces, he carved for her a smooth, polished handle for her knife.

All these cherished stories, as they lie together on this bed, are indifferent to the fabric that folds away, whilst the warmth of a winter afternoon stirs his desire. An illness has struck him, from which he must recover, but, inflamed by the touch of her thigh, he says to her:

– Love is certainly not an illness… but it can fall ill, if you ignore its passion and hunger.

She began to imagine things that drove her to push him away from her: that white hairs were invading her hair, that her eyelids had turned blue and swollen, that the twins were still in her womb. Whilst he could smell the scent of bitter orange emanating from the empty space she left in the bed.

Inside him, something green mourns its defeat as he grows older.

When the locked hiding place was stormed, they found a concealed wall at the entrance, intended for hanging carpentry tools and work instruments high up. Beneath it, perfectly ordered shelves, filled with empty glass and metal containers, washed, gleaming, sorted by size. Perhaps it was the lock seller, bound by law to record in his register the names of all who bought them. The thought crossed his mind just as they broke down the door.

The secret behind the denunciation remains a mystery. He should have been quicker, at that precise moment, able to catch her in his arms before she fell.

A sharp whistle pierces his ear.
Had he really, deep down, wanted this to happen?

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The English adaptation is based on the French translation from Arabic by Rita Barotta.