Hannah likes that here, at a foreigners’ event, in a foreigners’ school, they are almost on another planet. She likes that people here speak to them both in English; and they can walk around with their scarves around their necks, their abayahs wide open over their jeans and T-shirts; and the courtyard smells like hamburgers, which two middle-aged, blond men grill at another booth.

Something comes over her—she doesn’t know what she’s thinking—and while Summer is buying two hamburgers and the craft-booth lady is selling a tea cozy to a tall Scandinavian-looking woman with a blond pixie cut, Hannah sticks her hand into the pot holder and hides it under her abayah. It isn’t like a cassette. It won’t fit in her pocket. When Summer hands her a paper plate of food, she doesn’t know what to do with the pot holder. With her back to the craft table, she presents it to Summer.

“You bought it!”

“Changed my mind. Can I put it in your bag?”

“We should go to the gold souk. You’ll find better souvenirs there.”

Hannah loves the souk. The whitewashed, wooden-windowed buildings lean against each other. What would it be like to live in one of them? What was life like for her grandparents’ grandparents? She and Summer eschew the many gold shops, instead visiting a tiny silver shop. Hannah checks out charm bracelets with little high-heeled shoes and miniature houses and roller skates, silver rings that look like growling jaguars, and amulets with God’s name on them. The far wall displays the pieces Summer likes best: a pair of hammered-silver earrings with etchings of crescent moons that appear shakily hand-drawn, another pair that looks to both of them like silver ear-chandeliers. Strings of thick, knuckle-size beads of coral and turquoise; amber beads that look like sugar dates.

“It’s so hard to find this traditional stuff,” Summer says. “Everyone wants gaudy jewelry. Diamond bracelets from Italy.”

When Hannah says she can’t afford to buy anything, Summer haggles with the shopkeeper in Arabic over the price per gram of silver. Unlike most of the men in the souk, he wears a black T-shirt and blue jeans, not traditional clothing, and he responds in American English. “I can’t go any less—I’ll lose money.”

Summer keeps haggling though, till Hannah tires of listening. She steps outside and sits at a fountain listening to the water tinkling. As two men walk by, she thinks she hears one of them say, “Habibti”—my love, darling, sweetie. She flips them the bird. They keep smiling.

Summer has left the shop, and she cusses the guys out. “I told them to respect themselves.” She hands Hannah a small black plastic bag. Inside is a velvet box containing the chandelier earrings.

“I can’t accept that,” Hannah says. “You keep them.”

“No, no, you have to have something to take back with you. Something better than a pot holder.”