of hills, where the green separated over raw pink. The slope beside them was pilled with wild round shrubs, and ahead a sharp light outlined the striations in the grey rock.
“I’m exhausted,” he muttered. The words felt good. He said them again. “I’m exhausted.”
It was not really true, however. The walking itself had begun to clear through his fatigue, disrupting the stagnant waters in which, left suspended, he felt at risk of drowning. The uphill motion made his thoughts fluid.
“You know how everyone calls me the Parisian?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s strange, it’s only been a year. I already feel so far from it. I’ve been wondering. What would happen if I went back.”
“You can’t, habibi. Your life is here.”
“What life?” He gave a humourless laugh. “I have nothing.”
“Please. You just married the most beautiful woman in the town. You’re a success. Everyone thinks so.”
“I married her for him. I may as well have left for all the good I achieved. There was nothing to keep me here—”
“You did not only marry for him. I know you. You love her.”
Midhat clicked his teeth. “You can’t love a stranger. There’s no such thing.”
They had reached a kind of summit before the hill dipped again and rose. As they stopped moving, everything around them came to life.
“You want to know what happened last night? Fatima, she—she ran from me. She climbed on top of the cupboard and wouldn’t come down.”
He flicked his eyes onto his cousin and waited for the laugh. Jamil, who had his foot on a rock and was catching his breath, put a hand on his shoulder.
“It will get easier. She’s a woman. She doesn’t know anything yet.”
“Don’t tell anyone, will you?” said Midhat. “Though to be honest, Teta has probably told everyone already.”
“You’ll be fine. I know you’ll be fine.”
“Why do you only love me when I make a mistake?”
“My God,” said Jamil, pulling his hand away. “That is not true. Midhat. You are so arrogant!” He burst out laughing.
“What do you mean? Arrogant how?”
“What do I mean. Really, you think you are in the centre of everything. Oh no, I don’t mean like that. Shwaya, don’t be angry.”
“I’m not angry. I just don’t understand.”
“All right. Do you want to know what happened in my life the past two months? Are you interested?” Jamil made a strange lurching motion with his neck, and seemed, for a moment, to be in some kind of communication with himself. He resumed in a gentler tone. “First of all, I saw two people killed. First one, and then the other. Right before me, a few feet. All the blood, everything. I saw the last …” His lips pressed together. “The first one was a Jew, young guy, our age. Second one was Arab, killed by the Jew’s friends. This has been in my mind, you know? It sticks there …”
“This was at Nebi Musa? I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t ask! You didn’t even ask. We got back and you were away in your world again, reading poetry. The Parisian, wandering around with your coloured ties. You didn’t even ask me, you just left.”
Midhat was trying to recall the period of time after Nebi Musa, what had happened, what he was doing, when his mind caught on the barb of that final accusation.
“I already said—you know I lost you in the crowd, how was I supposed to find you?”
“I know,” Jamil waved his hand. Perhaps he had not meant to bring that up, it had slipped out in the fever of argument. “You should just look outside yourself a bit. The country is going to shit. We have starving fellahin walking around robbing people. You know how many people were robbed last week? Do you even listen to what people talk about?”
“Jamil, my father died. How you can say that, you don’t know what I’ve been—you hardly even see me!”
“No one is buying carpets, but still they come in, they look, pretend they’re going to buy things, and you know why? Because they have nothing else to do. I’m sorry about your father, but we’ve lost Damascus, now we’re going to have a Jewish country, because that’s what the British are making. Ya‘ni, khalas. It will be the Turks in their worst years. Worse, probably.”
Jamil continued walking, but Midhat stayed where he was. It took Jamil a second to notice, and he paused slightly further up the slope. Both were still out of breath.
“Why are you doing this to me?” said Midhat.
They were by a breach in the