Hassan's workshop had been closed for two days, but Salma knew he was inside. She saw him through a gap in the curtain, sitting on a plastic chair near the workbench. She did not knock at once. She read Baraka's message again, then placed a copy of the rent accounts on top of her phone.
When she knocked, Hassan did not open.
“It is me,” Salma said.
The lock clicked. Hassan opened the door halfway.
“What do you want?”
“Open it.”
“Did you bring Baraka?”
“I came alone today.”
Hassan let her in. The workshop was crowded with equipment packed into boxes. On the bench lay the rent notebook, repair receipts, and the message he had sent Baraka: If you leave now, I will pay you.
Salma placed the copy of the accounts beside the message. “One month's rent is missing. And the amount is close to the money you promised Baraka.”
Hassan sat down. “I wanted to help him.”
“By paying him to leave?”
“I wanted to prevent a quarrel.”
“Did you ask whether he wanted to leave?”
“He was not asking to leave.”
“Then what were you buying?”
Hassan rubbed his forehead. “Time.”
“For whom?”
“For the house.”
Salma opened the rent notebook. “The house did not need you to delete a message. The tenants did not need you to send rent to your account without receipts. And Baraka did not need money to become invisible.”
“You are pretending that everything I did was for myself.”
“You still have not told me what was for anyone else.”
Hassan fell silent. Salma noticed his phone near the wall, its screen cracked. She remembered him three years earlier, still a new electrician, helping Yusuf at the shop. She had believed that closeness had taught him the business. She had not known it had also made him inherit the fear.
“Baba told me that if Baraka were recognized, everyone would start asking about the property,” Hassan said.
“And you believed him?”
“I saw his accounts. He was considering using part of the house as security for my business.”
Salma raised her eyes. “Your business?”
Hassan closed his eyes.
“You said you were protecting the house.”
“I wanted to start an electrical-installation service with larger contracts. I needed security. Baba said he would look at the back section of the house, near the shop. I did not know whether he had promised it or was only trying to reassure me.”
“And when Baraka arrived, you thought the plan would collapse.”
“He did not arrive with that plan.”
“But his presence made you afraid.”
Hassan leaned forward. “If I admitted there was another person in Baba's life, the clan would start saying part of the house should go to him. People would look at me as the son hidden behind a name. I wanted things to remain as they were until I secured my own place.”
“So you had a direct interest.”
“Yes.”
The answer was clearer than Salma expected. She no longer saw Hassan as a lost protector trapped inside a duty. He was a frightened son, but he was also a man building a plan with his father's silence and his mother's vulnerability.
“How much had you put into that plan?” Salma asked.
Hassan opened a drawer and took out a paper showing equipment estimates, workers' wages, and a section of the house marked with a circle. At the top was the name of a company that had not yet been registered.
“I had started talking to the bank.”
“Using which title deed?”
“Baba said he would guarantee it.”
“He had not signed.”
“He said he would.”
“And because he said it, you took the tenants' rent?”
“I took the money to pay the business start-up costs and return it before you noticed.”
Salma felt anger turn her hands cold. “That was not a roof repair.”
“That was the missing month.”
“And you wanted to pay Baraka to leave so that no one would ask about the property plan.”
Hassan did not object. He opened his mouth, but he had no word capable of changing the account line.
Salma took the company paper and tore it in half. “You can no longer use my name, the house title, or your position as my son to represent the property.”
“You are tearing up evidence?”
“I am tearing up a plan that did not have my consent. This evidence will go in the file.”
Hassan stood. “You are taking everything from me.”
“I am stopping you from making another secret decision.”
“Baraka came with receipts, and now I am the problem.”
“You are not the problem. Your decision is the problem.”
Hassan picked up his tool bag. “I will leave the house.”
“You may go for a while.”
“You say that as though you have the right to throw me out.”
“I have the right to protect the house without erasing you as my son. Those are two different things.”
Hassan looked at the back door. “You cannot separate them.”
“I have to learn.”
He closed the rent notebook, put it in his bag, and took the copy of the message. Before leaving, Salma saw a small paper beneath the bench. It was a drawing of the house, the shop, and the back section circled.
“When did this plan begin?”
Hassan did not answer.
“Whom did you involve?”
“Baba.”
“And you thought his promise was enough?”
“For me, it was the only thing I had.”
Salma wanted to tell him that she too had built her life on Yusuf's words. The difference was that she had never been given the chance to decide whether those words were true.
Hassan opened the door. Salma stopped him with one word.
“Tomorrow you will return all the accounts.”
Hassan looked at her, then lowered his head. “I will bring them.”
“And you will not sign anything without me present.”
“I know.”
“You will go to Baraka and tell him I was trying to buy him off?”
“I will tell him myself.”
“And you will say it in front of everyone?”
“You will be able to say your side.”
“I do not want pity.”
“Neither do I want silence.”
Hassan left carrying his tools. For the first time, he did not take the rent notebook with him. Salma remained in the workshop with the house drawing on the bench. She folded it, but did not put it in her pocket. She placed it with the other evidence of a plan that had hidden behind the word protection.
At the door, Hassan turned. Salma did not follow him. She let him carry his own answer down the road without stopping him or calling him back.
“Baba promised me that section before he died.”
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