Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Chapter 22

      Chapter 23

      Chapter 24

      Chapter 25

      Chapter 26

      Chapter 27

      Acknowledgments

       1

      Disappointment burns like desertification. It smells of old socks and leaches through the crevices and cracks of the new house. The odor, familiar and unchanging, greets Hussein every morning. Equally persistent is the dull heaviness in his brain, today the result of too much Johnnie Walker Red at last night’s welcome dinner for his American niece Muna. It is her first time in her father’s homeland, and Hussein thought he was lifting the mood of the family gathering when in fact he was just being selfish and getting drunk. As he slowly dresses, he hopes that the fog in his head will clear once he splashes water on his face. But after he turns the faucet in the bathroom sink, not even a trickle emerges. He suddenly recalls the empty and creaking tanks on the roof and the water truck three weeks late. Guided as much by the smell, he gropes for the tins his stepmother usually reserves for such occasions. After tap water runs low, Mother Fadhma fills containers at the town’s communal cistern. Her health is poor so she brings it home by taxi. Because he is too lazy to help, he never complains about the expense.

      This water is leaden, elemental like the smell that finds him in bed. The same taste pervades the glass of tea waiting for him on the kitchen table. His greedy first sip both scalds and steadies him, but the taste, so raw, repels him. It’s like eating dirt. When he bends to kiss his stepmother good morning he nearly loses his balance. He coughs, sags down into a convenient seat, and dismisses the prepared food in front of him with a barely perceptible shake of his head. He clutches the hot glass of tea to his chest like a life preserver.

      “Khubz?” The old woman offers a piece torn from a piping hot pita. Mother Fadhma has arranged his tea and breakfast dishes with care as if the world revolved around his every want and need. Wrapped in a new blue polyester robe—a gift from her granddaughter from America—she is prepared to wait on him, but he only shakes his head again, so she takes a bite of bread herself.

      “Such a party last night.” The words come out long and heavy like a sigh, but the inflection rises. She is soliciting his opinion.

      Hussein sits utterly still. He knows she would appreciate a conversation about the party, about Muna, about anything, but he needs to save the already depleted energy he has for the long day ahead.

      When she receives absolutely no acknowledgment Mother Fadhma’s small eyes narrow. She wants to scold him for eating too little and drinking too much; however, her silence was secured long ago. Even when he makes a fool of himself, as he did last night, she forgives him. On the rare occasion that she does summon the courage to rebuke him, her admonitions are gentle and consoling.

      Hussein is still considered the most handsome of his six brothers. He even managed to look good in the plain khaki uniform, identical to thousands of others, that he wore during his military service. Something about the worn red beret enhanced his boyish features. The combination of his lieutenant’s star and the discreet embroidered eagle of his elite brigade produced a subtle magic that more than one woman had found irresistible. Now, as he takes a grubby butcher’s overall from the rack behind the front door and leaves the house, it is clear that this once dashing effect has been lost entirely. The intervening years have engraved crow’s-feet across his formerly smooth and attractive features.

      The cracked stone