Section 5 Summary

Mantini visits Carla's home, and she serves him coffee, remarking that their affair started with his serving her the extremely strong coffee in his shop the first day they met. Mantini asks Carla to leave Ben, because he deserves to be left for his inappropriate abandonment of Carla. Carla tries to clarify if Mantini is proposing to her. Mantini tells Carla that he cannot marry her, because he does not need any more reasons for his mother-in-law to prevent him from seeing his daughter.

In any case, Carla privately processes the scenario of marriage to Mantini. She envisions a life that would also include Mohammed, Mantini's daughter and mother-in-law, plus the fact that she is still Ben's wife. In order to marry Mantini, she would have to leave Tripoli, obtain a divorce, and then return. It all seems too complicated, even if Mantini...