Ahmed's father decides his eighth child will be raised as a boy regardless of the baby's actual sex.

Ahmed is born female but the midwife announces the birth of a baby boy.

Ahmed's father secretly cuts his own finger to provide blood for Ahmed's sham circumcision ceremony.

Ahmed accompanies his mother to the female hammam and glimpses adult women's bodies for the first time.

Ahmed's mother begins binding his chest tightly to conceal his developing breasts.

Ahmed experiences his first menstrual period, recognizing it as the hidden truth of his female body.

Ahmed announces to his parents his desire to marry his sickly, epileptic cousin Fatima.

Ahmed's father dies, leaving Ahmed to assume control of the household as its new patriarch.

Fatima is delivered by two old women to Ahmed's home to begin their life as husband and wife.

Fatima visits Ahmed's room just before dying to reveal she has always known his secret.

After his father's and wife's deaths, Ahmed secludes himself and descends into depression and gibberish writing.

Ahmed leaves the family home, joins a circus, and is renamed Lalla Zahra by Um Abbas.

Lalla Zahra performs nightly as a dancing woman in shoddy male garb to crowds at the circus.

The original storyteller dies, and three alternate storytellers convene at a café to continue the tale.

A blind troubadour arrives at the café, claiming to travel eastward in search of a mysterious woman whose story inspired the tale.

Ahmed's story begins before his birth, when his father resolves that his eighth child will be raised as a boy regardless of sex, setting in motion a lifelong deception. From a fraudulent circumcision through a rigid masculine upbringing, Ahmed suppresses his female body and absorbs the worst elements of patriarchy. After his father's death, Ahmed takes tyrannical control of the household and marries his epileptic cousin Fatima, who dies revealing she always knew his secret. Unmoored by grief and depression, Ahmed eventually abandons the family home, joins a circus, and discovers brief freedom performing as Lalla Zahra. The narrative frame collapses when the original storyteller dies, giving way to competing voices who offer conflicting endings. The arrival of a blind troubadour ties Ahmed's story to a mysterious Egyptian woman and the eternal, ever-shifting nature of storytelling itself.

The core journey of Ahmed from birth to sainthood.

Ahmed's father forces his pregnant wife to endure bizarre rituals in failed attempts to produce a male child.

Ahmed's father publishes a large newspaper announcement declaring the birth of his son Ahmed.

Ahmed attends a private Koranic school and later becomes enthralled by the ritualistic fervor of the mosque.

Ahmed accompanies his father to the male hammam and observes that men wash quickly with little conversation.

Ahmed spends time at his father's pottery studio, displaying business skills that surpass his father's own.

After his father's death, Ahmed commands his sisters to submit and live in silence.

A man claiming to be Fatima's brother interrupts the storyteller, insisting the tale is being told incorrectly.

Curious about Fatima's body, Ahmed peeks under the bedsheet while she sleeps and discovers she wears a chastity belt.

Ahmed moves Fatima to a separate room and begins consciously wishing for her death.

Ahmed isolates himself in his room, communicating with his illiterate mother only through bizarre written notes.

Ahmed gazes at his own naked body in the mirror as an act of liberation before departing the family home.

An old vagabond woman corners Ahmed in an alley, tears off his jellaba, and suckles his small breasts.

Marrakesh's market square is stripped of its traditional characters and replaced with a fountain playing Beethoven.

Salem recounts that Lalla Zahra kills Abbas and herself by placing razor blades between her buttocks.

Fatuma describes marching in the streets with starving families and being shot by authorities.

This pool traces the social rituals and ruptures that frame Ahmed's hidden identity, beginning with a father who subjects his wife to cruel folk remedies and announces his son's birth with a splashy newspaper declaration. Ahmed's upbringing as a Muslim boy — Koranic school, the male hammam, his father's pottery workshop — installs the patriarchal world he learns to inhabit and eventually weaponize against those around him. His brief marriage to Fatima is marked by private cruelties and unsettling discoveries, while the household crumbles further as Ahmed retreats into isolation after her death. His departure from the family home is preceded by a disturbing encounter in an alley, and his circus life ends in violence according to Salem's sensational account. The pool closes with Marrakesh's modernization erasing its traditional soul, and Fatuma's firsthand account of political brutality enacted on protesters in the streets.

The rituals, relationships, and ruptures surrounding Ahmed's secret life.

Ahmed's paternal uncle rejoices at each female birth, anticipating inheriting his brother's estate without a male heir.

Ahmed's father walks ahead of him to teach independence after hooligans steal Ahmed's bread and he weeps.

Audience members debate aloud and fill in the storyteller's declared blank space covering Ahmed's adolescent years.

Ahmed attempts to have an honest conversation with his father about the secret of his biological sex.

Fatima's family erupts in uproar when Ahmed's family arrives to propose that Fatima become Ahmed's bride.

Fatima whispers her thanks to Ahmed upon arriving at his home, grateful to escape her family's oppressive house.

Ahmed begins an epistolary correspondence with an anonymous other following the deaths of his father and wife.

Ahmed falls asleep in the bathtub and experiences what may be sexual pleasure delivered by his anonymous correspondent.

Ahmed identifies his anonymous correspondent as male for the first time in a journal entry.

Ahmed removes his chest bindings and masturbates before taking to the streets with only money and his manuscript.

Um Abbas leads Ahmed into an alley and physically examines his sex, confirming her suspicions about his gender.

Ahmed receives a letter at the circus from his correspondent, who claims to be a faithful spectator.

Ahmed suffers nightmares of his enraged father accusing him of betrayal and his mother's silently moving lips.

Amar contradicts himself mid-account, offering both a death at sea and a peaceful death at home for Ahmed.

Fatuma weaves details from Ahmed's own life into her personal account, suggesting she may be the protagonist.

This pool focuses on the moments of revelation and decision that secretly drive Ahmed's story forward. His uncle's anticipation of an inheritance exposes the greed underlying the original deception, while Ahmed's father's lesson in emotional suppression reveals the violence built into his male upbringing. Ahmed's failed attempt to speak honestly with his father and his shocking choice of Fatima as bride represent acts of muted rebellion against a life of imposed falsehood. Isolated after his father's and wife's deaths, Ahmed discovers himself through anonymous letters and forbidden autoerotic exploration, finally shedding his chest bindings to escape into the world. The circus brings new freedoms alongside haunting nightmares of a disapproving father and a silenced mother, and the tale ends in narrative uncertainty as Amar's self-contradicting account and Fatuma's cryptic story leave the reader questioning who Ahmed truly was and whether the protagonist ever truly died.