of branches, and saw the figure one last time before it was engulfed by the mass of rising earth. The light was failing. Midhat increased his speed.
“Midhat!” came a voice from behind. “Midhat, wait!”
“Jamil?”
“Yes, yes, it’s me.” Jamil’s tall body came up the path at an angle. “Why were you running?” He laughed, and burst into a sprint to catch up. “Are you scared?”
“No.”
“Ça va?”
“Ça va bien.”
“You don’t look fine.”
Midhat wrinkled his nose in protest. “I saw someone up there,” he said at last. “With a big beard.”
“It was probably the Brother of the Virgins.”
“Who’s he?”
“A priest. He likes to sit in odd places. Quite strange.”
“Is he French?”
“Probably. Why?”
“I saw a Frenchman with a beard in the Samaritan synagogue.”
“The synagogue—what were you doing there?”
“He was looking at something, I think. A page, or a book.”
“What were you doing?”
Midhat hesitated. “I told you already. Teta wanted a charm.”
Jamil did not reply. Midhat wondered if he ought to tell him what had happened at Haj Nimr’s house. He was not sure he could bear Jamil’s scorn.
“You know,” said Jamil, leaning to pick up a stick from the roadside, “she’s marrying him.”
It was a moment before Midhat realised they were talking about Yasser. His stomach dropped. “What?”
“They signed the book already.”
Midhat stopped walking. Jamil released a torrent of laughter, and Midhat waited for him to finish. Finally, Jamil wheezed, and said: “I’m joking.” He raised his stick above his shoulder and lobbed it over the edge of the slope. He seemed to take no notice of Midhat’s dismay. “I suppose they have been selling their old books. The Samaritans. These foreigners are coming to buy.”
“What are they buying them for?”
“Money, habibi, what else. Times are tough. Oh by the way, I meant to tell you—”
“Do you mean money for the Samaritans, or money for the foreigners?”
“I’m working in the khan now, in a carpet store.”
“Oh, well, that’s good news,” said Midhat. “We can eat lunch together.”
“My father copied you. Or copied your father. I have to spend a year there and then I’ll graduate to the offices. So I’m dealing with carpets all day. It’s interesting.” He did not sound convinced.
The bend in the road unfolded and they could see much further ahead. Coming down a narrow path that forked on the slope was the French priest. He was lifting his habit to climb over the rocks, and as he stepped at last onto the main track he opened the bag on his shoulder and slid a book inside. He was taller than Midhat remembered from the synagogue, and broader. The habit flicked up in front of his feet as he strode towards them.
“Bonjour,” said Midhat.
To his surprise, the priest came to a complete standstill. “Bonjour.”
The boys likewise stopped in the middle of the road.
“This is my cousin,” said Midhat in French. “Jamil Kamal.”
“Fursa sa‘ida.” The priest bowed his head. “Père Antoine.” He reached out a hand for shaking.
“Fursa sa‘ida,” said Jamil.
Midhat looked at the pencil in Père Antoine’s hand, and continued in French: “What were you writing?”
The priest regarded him. His eyeballs seemed quite pink. In Arabic, he said: “Notes. I am studying.”
“At a university?”
“I am with L’École Biblique, in Jerusalem.” He paused. “Je suis professeur. Though I am not teaching at the moment. You are a student?”
“No. I was a student. Now I am working, we are both working … in the market.”
“Ah,” said Antoine, blinking several times. “That is interesting.”
“It is not particularly interesting,” said Midhat at once. “In fact, I would say it is quite boring. Isn’t it Jamil? I would say it is not interesting at all.”
“I don’t think it’s very boring,” said Jamil in Arabic. He wore an odd expression.
“I meant, only, that it is not interesting that one should be a student and then work in a market. It is …” Midhat shrugged, “commonplace. At the same time, I would not say it is particularly representative either.”
There seemed to be no appropriate reply to this remark. A strong breeze ran through the grass on the mountainside. No one said anything, and Midhat knew the dissonance was his fault, that he had strained the exchange needlessly. The priest made a motion to go.
“It was nice to meet you,” said Jamil.
Neither of the boys spoke on the way home. Then as they passed a thicket of trees before the house, Jamil said: “You know, I have forgotten most of my French.”