At last it was time to go. Our neighbors waited in three taxis as the five of us squeezed into Um Buraq’s Lincoln Continental. Mama asked Um Buraq how she’d gotten all those dings and scratches on her car. “People in this country can’t drive,” Um Buraq explained, and we set off.

Ajay had mostly been the one who drove her car. In the short time since he had left, she had managed to crash into sidewalks, a streetlight pole, and the side of a building. She was so tiny, she had to crane her neck to see over the steering wheel and swerved in and out of lanes.

Jehad didn’t say much, but Um Buraq went on apologizing for what the police had done to him. She said Kuwait would suffer a loss for not embracing a young man as smart and passionate as him. To spare Jehad, I changed the subject by asking about Deepa and Ajay.

“I can’t believe I forgot to tell you!” she exclaimed, bumping the car into the sidewalk, jolting us all. “Deepa bought a house!”

“Stop!” Sitti Wasfiyeh yelled. “Stop the car!”

Um Buraq slammed on the brakes in the middle of the road. “Bismillah!” she yelled. “What’s wrong, Hajjeh?”

Our neighbors in the taxi behind us also slammed their brakes, almost ramming into us.

“I want to sit in the backseat,” my grandmother demanded. “I didn’t survive four wars just to die in a car accident. Help me out of here!” she ordered, opening the door.

I had grown accustomed to Um Buraq’s crazy driving over the past months, but Mama and Sitti Wasfiyeh were bracing themselves. Um Buraq seemed puzzled. Jehad smiled, almost laughing, and that made me so happy I laughed too. I couldn’t stop, which made Mama laugh. Sitti Wasfiyeh was delighted to have provoked it all. “I’ve always been funny, even when I was a little girl. I could make people laugh like this,” she said. And that turned Jehad’s smile into laughter too. Even Um Buraq was laughing, all of us inside her banged-up Lincoln Continental at the head of a four-car caravan on an eerily quiet road, heading away from a deserted Palestinian city inside Kuwait.

“This country will never be the same without Palestinians. Look at all these empty buildings,” Um Buraq said when we all quieted down.

Mama began sobbing in the backseat. Sitti Wasfiyeh chimed in, cursing Israelis and Yasser Arafat. She raised her hands in prayer. “O God, my Lord, destroy the Jews for making us endless refugees and condemn Yasser Arafat for causing another Palestinian exodus. O my Lord, burn the Americans and burn the Jews. They are behind all these wars.”

“Amen,” Mama said.

Jehad remained silent, watching the world speed by his window.

We were stopped at two checkpoints along the way, but thanks to Um Buraq we passed without incident. She showed her ID, clearly listing her as Kuwaiti, and lied that we, along with the caravan behind us, were Palestinians who had sheltered and saved her entire family during the occupation. She spoke to them with the authority of a public auntie, and they responded with due deference to an elder, waving us all through after checking our IDs.