It took me two hours to finish, mostly because I decided to walk the length of the hill to check on the trees at the far edges. I was happy to see the saplings were still alive, and below the crust of sunbaked earth, the soil was moist enough to sustain worms.

There were still lines of people at the bakery when I arrived, with less than forty minutes before curfew. Bilal hadn’t had time to buy supplies, but there were bags set aside for us. He had distributed the vegetables to his aunts and to Ghassan, and they had brought cheeses and pickles for us, and some spices and rice. Ghassan’s sister and I tended to the last customers while Bilal and Ghassan loaded our car. There was just enough time for me to hurry down the street for ice cream, and I got enough for us all.

“Thank you, my sister, you made me a happy man!” Ghassan said. It was rare to see Ghassan effusive. Who knew ice cream was all it took?

There was not enough time to see Jumana, but we talked on the phone. She had checked on the salon and actually found one woman who wanted to spend her precious three hours getting her hair colored and fixed, her face waxed, and her nails done.

“I told her the salon wasn’t open, but she was so pitiful I changed my mind,” Jumana said. “She paid me well, but I wasn’t able to do what was on my own list. Luckily Faisal stocked up on food for us. I didn’t even get to see Wadee. His wife is pregnant, and she’s having a hard time with the nausea. I had planned to check in on her, but I suppose the woman at the salon needed me more.”

I would have liked to get pampered at the salon, and tried to thread my own eyebrows when I got home. But it was no use. Threading isn’t the kind of thing you can do to your own face. My hair had been graying, and I wanted to dye it. I was in need of a full body wax, and though I could do that on my own, depilatory sessions had always been social events with friends. I began to plan how I would spend the next three-hour curfew reprieve, and realized I had stopped thinking about a total lifting of the curfew. Tragic, how we adjusted our sense of normal.

“You’re brilliant, my wife!” Bilal said, pulling out the ice cream. “This is what I love about you. We’re all fighting and rushing for the basics, but you have enough sense to remember the sweetness.”

“El hilw ma byinsa el halawa,” I said. The sweet do not forget the sweets.