Suddenly his muscles contracted in fear and he awoke, sweat cold on his body. It took him several moments to bring the room into focus. His head throbbed and an ache behind his eyes made the bright sunlight unbearable. The room was small. Strips of moldering yellow plaster hung from the lathes. The single window was tall, with broken shutters dangling crazily shut, slicing the light in zebra patterns on the warped floor. The bed was the only piece of furniture in the room: a verminous mattress over springs. When he looked at it, he got to his feet in disgust, staggering a little. From far away he could hear a high toneless chanting. It was the sound that had awakened him, that he had heard in his dreams: the muezzin calling the Mohammedans to prayer, a strange, unearthly noise. As he picked up his trousers, which lay crumpled on the floor beside the bed, someone began to pound on the door. Through wide cracks in the door’s panels he saw the outline of a woman. “Come in,” he said, pulling on his trousers.
