on a narrow side street in the Kalsa quarter, facing a whitewashed doorway whose jambs and lintel hold the ghost of Arabic geometric tilework — diamond and star forms pressed just beneath successive coats of paint, readable only where low raking light catches the relief in shadow rather than in illumination; cracked stucco cornice overhead, the street empty, cooling stone underfoot still holding last night's dark — standing motionless in front of the painted-over doorway, gaze angled not at the door itself but at a specific low section of the jamb where shadow reveals the buried pattern
The linen trousers don't wrinkle when I stand still. I noticed that on day one and I'm noticing it again now, standing in front of a doorway at 6:30 in the morning with my bag at my feet and nowhere I need to be for three hours.
I came back to Kalsa because it was where I started. No other reason. The streets were the same — same cracked cornice, same two cats occupying the same stretch of wall — but the light was different. Lower, more orange, coming from a direction that didn't exist last week. It changed the geometry. Things I'd seen became things I hadn't.
A white-painted doorway at 6:30 AM, raking golden light revealing geometric Arabic pattern beneath layers of paint
The doorway is on a side street I walked past on the first night without stopping. White paint, unremarkable. But the light this morning was hitting it at a specific angle — low and raking — and underneath the white I could see the geometry. Arabic tilework, painted over so many times the pattern had nearly closed. You can only read it in shadow. You have to look at where the light isn't.
I stood there for a while. Long enough that a man on a scooter slowed down to look at what I was looking at, found nothing, and left.
the same Kalsa side street, now from behind her and closer — the whitewashed doorway fills the background, its paint layers visible as a stratigraphy of pale creams and greys where plaster has shed; the door itself is old timber, studded, slightly ajar, darkness inside it absolute — the instant a man on a scooter has just passed behind her and she has not turned — she is still reading the wall, one hand having just risen to almost-touch the jamb before stopping short, hovering two centimetres from the surface
The city had no opinion about my leaving.
I went back to the hotel and changed into something that looked like it had somewhere to be. Repacked the bag. The ceramic dish was still wrapped in the grey shirt, the paper looser now, and I sat on the edge of the bed for a moment with my hands on both sides of it before I put it in.
a narrow hotel room, the bed's white linen rumpled, morning light from a single east-facing window falling in a soft overcast band across the floor; a ceramic dish wrapped in a grey shirt rests on the bed beside her, the paper around it slightly loosened, and her small structured tote sits open on the floor, repacking mid-process — seated on the edge of the bed with both palms resting flat on either side of the wrapped dish, looking down at it — not at the object but at the space between her hands, the moment before she lifts it into the bag
At the airport I had coffee standing at a counter near the gate. Bitter, correct, in a small cup that was too hot to hold all the way around.
A small espresso cup, thick white ceramic, on a zinc counter near the gate
Somewhere over water, I tried to remember the exact angle the light had needed to be.
What she wore
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I wore the skirt because I didn't want anything to rustle. Just something that moves when I move and stops when I stop.
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Added the jacket when the café felt cold and then never zipped it — it just stayed open for the rest of the morning.
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I changed at the hotel because the airport version of me needed to look like she had somewhere to be, not like she'd been standing in front of doorways for an hour.