“Late at night, Hanan sees a ray of light under her husband’s bedroom door. She opens the door to her old husband in bed with her beloved maid Alia. Blinded by rage, Hanan throws Alia out in the middle of the night. She watches Alia walk away, hoping she will turn back, and bitterly regrets having pushed her lover away.
Alia, who hasn’t turned 20 yet, has been Hanan’s maid for over eight years. She hasn’t heard from her family since her father brought her to the villa, in exchange for some money. Leaving home, she thought, would help her mother, brothers and sisters out. They all lived in a single room in the ghetto under the tyranny of her brutal father.
Life is not worth much in the ghetto, especially that of little girls. This is how Alia grew up to be so fierce. She was eight years old, and would carry a knife. But even that didn’t prevent her from being raped by the garbage collection leader. At least she got her revenge. She scratched his face with her knife, and didn’t let herself die of shame, like her old paralyzed sister, who had been repeatedly raped by their neighbor in that same tin room she couldn’t leave.
Alia walks away from the villa, with nowhere to go. She didn’t love Hanan, but felt safe in the golden cage. Being Hanan’s lover was an easy game she played in exchange of a little comfort. She heads towards the ghetto, fearing her father, recalling the misery she thought she had left behind, holding her little knife tight as she feels unsafe again.
As Hanan watches her leave, she remembers her own despair of a different kind. That of a lonely wealthy woman, married to a quiet, disgusting cousin against her will. Hanan’s life may be smooth, but it’s desperately empty. The two women’s encounter was unlikely anywhere else except in the villa, where Alia was the maid during the day, and a lover at night. Two tormented women who brought comfort to each other, and yet still engaged in a relationship of power and control over each other.”
(Group read suggestion from Mia DeGiovine Chaveco, book club co-founder.)