climb to the roof and jump to the tree to harvest what fruit the tree still produces. I asked Nadia to make a painting of it, and when she did, I was able to present it to my corazón.
Allie wrote of the pleasure they had in each other’s bodies, the delight in hiding from the bosses, from the soldiers, the drunkenness, the violence of the war itself. But she was always tormenting herself over her sin and wondering if she should confess it to the base priest.
But he is such a soldier, such a military man. How could he counsel me except with more military advice, to find a soldier and have the children I want to share only with my heart’s desire.
And then the inevitable happened: someone started spying on them. Allie found a crude drawing on her desk, heard snickers from her coworkers. Her roommates asked her to move out: they didn’t want to live with a traitor. Mr. Mossbach, the boss, told her no one trusted her because she wasn’t a team player.
“My work is always properly done, perfectly done. Even now when someone on the team sabotages it, I stay late and get it all together. How can you make this accusation?”
He laughed, suggested they have a drink after work, he’d help make it all right for her. A drink led to attempted sex; she fought him off, and then her life became hell indeed.
May 2
The weather here is as hot and difficult as my own poor life. I go, when I can find a way to leave unwatched, to the little room Amani found for us. But it has been many weeks now since I saw her.
May 14
Today, I finally saw my Desideria. She also has had to stay away—too many people are watching her. Someone, maybe even the Americans, warned her cousins that she is keeping “undesirable company.” It is easy for her family to keep her almost as a prisoner after work hours. She says she may have to quit her job, that someone in our office has suggested to her cousins and her mother that she is secretly seeing an American. Only the poverty of her family, their need for the money Tintrey pays her, lets her keep the job for now. “But my noble one, my exalted A’lia, we must be so careful. No one must see us together in the office. Do you understand?”
My joy with her is great. And yet my sorrow is great, too. Why is it wrong for us to meet? Because we are of different religions? Or because we are two women? Jesus, if you are the God of Love, then why is my love to be punished with so much sorrow?
That was the last entry. I flipped through the remaining pages, which were blank. And then I came upon a letter printed in black ink on a thin piece of onionskin. The ink had bled through, making it hard to read.
Dear Nadia,
I hope I may address you by your name without offense. You are the beloved sister of my beloved friend, now dead. When I heard of her death, I made my way to our room. Perhaps she told you of our room, with the date tree outside the window that told us life was still possible.
Someone had been in there. Not a drifting person, rather someone who came with the evil intent. My hands shook as I walked through the destruction of our small sanctuary. Our earthen pitcher broken, our mirror shattered, the linen cloth embroidered by my grandmother ripped in two. They had poured blood on our bed. Much destruction have I seen in this war, but this destruction was so personal, against me personally, and against your sister, that I almost fainted from the hatred that had been in a room where only love existed before.
I knew my beloved A’lia wrote in this book and kept it in a secret place we made behind the bed. Too many eyes were spying on her, in her living place and in her working place. She could not leave her writings where unfriendly eyes would see them. Thanks be to God that the evil ones did not find our hiding place.
I wish I could keep my A’lia’s book, but too many eyes look upon me also: Iraqi eyes, American eyes, mullah spies. So I send this book of her writings to you. Keep them safe as a sacred memory of your sister’s most noble and