and left the line. He stood under a locust tree and watched those two squirming lines of hungry people. A Russian army truck snorted by in the street. Under the tarped back, soldiers were sitting, rifles in hand. The truck was still in sight when the baker came out and announced, “Out for the day.” People started to disperse reluctantly.
Ahmad followed Raana and caught up with her in a quiet street. The perplexed look on her face did not go away until Ahmad revealed his identity. “You can’t do this!” she said with eyes wide-open, a hint of a smile on the corner of her lips, looking around in apprehension. For a moment, she was going to walk away, but the excitement was stronger than the possible consequences. Awkward and nervous, with her heart racing and her eyes flitting from window to window, she walked by Ahmad’s side for the first time. “You can’t do this,” she kept saying, but soon she was proved wrong. From that day on, a veiled Ahmad would appear out of nowhere, from around a corner, from a recess in the wall, and start walking by her side, passing her notes with no concern of getting picked out by inquisitive eyes. They walked not as lovers but as friends, unburdened and unfettered. During their promenades she would forget hunger and her father wheezing in his bed. She felt an unnatural freedom she was not used to.
One sunny afternoon, she extended her hand to take the long-awaited note but the hand that bore it would not let go. Grabbing at the folded paper, the two hands hovered in the air for a little while in a quiet alley. Then one hand slid onto the other. For a short second, two hearts raced in young chests. Neither knew what to do next. Ahmad could not stand being close to her any longer. He let her hand go and rushed out of the alley.
With time, the initial electricity subsided into a heartening warmth that handholding and surreptitious touching of the fingers in quiet streets kindled. Ahmad was burning inside. He wanted more. Instead he gave more. His poems grew longer and more feverish. His notes were warm and restless, his touch affectionate and lingering. Raana burned with a smaller fire. Freed from her initial shock, she often became the one to extend her hand first, but fear walked with her everywhere she went. Except when she went to Sara’s house to talk about her adventures or listen to the verses of love that Sara read with such zeal, sometimes forgetting to say the words out loud, as if it had been written for her. The day Sara mentioned her husband’s imminent trip out of town to see a new doctor, the girls looked at each other as if they had arrived at the same thought. But the longer Raana pictured herself with Ahmad, the more the illicit encounter seemed like a dream of the past than a possibility for the future. She followed Sara around the house, unable to stop thinking out loud.
“I can’t,” Raana said standing over Sara who sat on the rug and unscrewed her nail polish.
“I think it’d be a waste not to,” Sara answered, running the brush on the nail of her thumb.
“You think so?” Raana asked, walking over to the radio and back to Sara. “He is a gentleman. But how do I leave my house? What should I tell my mother? What if something goes wrong?”
“You’ll be spending the night with me. I’m afraid of the dark without my husband.”
“You are?” Raana’s eyes opened wide as if not only that was a good excuse for her mother, but it was also true.
“Yes, terrified.”
Raana did not answer the sarcasm. “I don’t know.” She sat down by Sara. “I’m so nervous. What if he turns out to be a jerk?”
Sara raised her head from her hand. “A jerk who writes poems for you is not called a jerk.” She waved the brush in her hand as she spoke. “There isn’t much as good as this boy out there. Trust me.” She paused a few moments then got back to painting her nails, so deep in thought that she did not realize when Raana left.
* * *
—
AHMAD COULD HARDLY HANDLE THE anticipation. He made twice as many hat deliveries than the other days. He could not concentrate in class. Sleep skipped him at night. When the evening came, he was near the house an hour