Talsiha looked out from her 10th floor apartment across the Bruxelles skyline. She could see in the distance the traffic jam with police cars, ambulance and fire trucks at the front surrounding the train station.
Another evening in the city and another terrorist bomb. She shivered in the January evening chill and pulled her silk robe closer around her large breasts and closed the door of her balcony. When would it end? This madness, this need to destroy and divide?
It was a question she had regularly asked of her students at the University of Relation de Internationale, since escaping Qatar after the publication of her book on Arab female sexuality.
She stood naked in front of the mirror and admired her figure. 180cm tall, large mature breasts, flat stomach, long legs and firm buttocks. Not bad for a 34 year old. At this stage most Arab women were twice her weight and being replaced by the next wife!
She wore black stockings with a seam down the back and frilly pink tops, pink suspenders, black hold ups and a frilly pink bra. If any man saw her naked they would surely forget themselves. None would as she slipped on her long blackrobes and pulled the hijab around her face.
The dinner for the mature students finishing their thesis was well attended by staff, guests and students alike. Tasliha's class of mostly colonial Africans were all there in traditional Congolese, Cameroon and other native outfits like peacocks. Their black faces glistening among the white ones.
Her speech was brief but good humoured and she called out the names to hand out the diplomas. The Africans making the most noise as each one of them came to the stage to collect theirs. Appreciative of it more than the other races given the poverty and hardship they had overcome to achieve the diplomas.
Her two male star pupils from Congo, 54 year old Mfumu and 56 year old Mukulu getting the loudest cheers of the nights. Both men proudly waving their certificates in the air as they sat back among their throng of ecstatic blacks.
The formalities over, Talsiha joined the post event drinks party flitting from group to group. She was cornered by an excitable Mfulu and Mukulu who shook her hand profusely thanking her over and over.
She sat with them, sipped wine and laughed away the hardship of the past three years and enjoyed the success; she as the mentor and they as the venerable but eager pupils. After getting more than tipsy Talsiha took her leave but they insisted on making sure she got home safe in a city tense with terror, suspicion and rumour.
