Giant wisps of white brushed the sky as if the smoke from their cigarettes had risen high, expanded and stood still. Stars were pushing their way into view, gathering around them the darkest dregs of night. On the roof, speaking Emma’s language for the first time in two weeks, Yassir missed her, not with the light eagerness he had known on the rigs but with something else, something plain and unwanted, the grim awareness of distance. He knew why he had wanted her to come with him, not to ‘see’, but so that Africa would move her, startle her, touch her in some irreversible way.

Manaal threw up the keys. Ronan opened the locked room and put the light on. It was a single bulb which dangled from the ceiling, speckled with the still bodies of black insects. The room smelled of paint, a large fan stood in the corner. Conscious of his ignorance, Yassir was silent as Ronan, cigarette drooping from his mouth, showed him one painting after the other. ‘I like them,’ he said, and it was true. They were clear and uncluttered, the colours light, giving an impression of sunlight. Most were of village scenes, mud houses, one of children playing with a goat, one of a tree that had fallen into the river.

‘Paper is my biggest problem,’ said Ronan. ‘The brushes and paints last for quite some time. But if I know someone who is going abroad, I always ask them for paper.’

‘Is it special paper that you need?’

‘Yes, thicker for water colours.’

‘I like the one of the donkey in front of the mud house,’ said Yassir.

‘The Hilton don’t seem to want mud houses.’

‘Did they tell you that?’

‘No, I just got this feeling.’

‘That means I could get them at a discount?’

‘Maybe … How many were you thinking of taking?’

Yassir choose three, one of them the children with the goat because he thought Samia might like that. He paid after some haggling. Downstairs the birds were asleep in their cage, there was no longer any ice in the jug of kerkadeh. Manaal was waiting for him by the gate. She had a handful of dates from next door which she offered to Ronan and Yassir. The dates were dry and cracked uncomfortably under Yassir’s teeth before softening into sweetness. It was now time to leave. He shook hands with Ronan. The visit was a success – he had achieved what he came for.

Manaal slept in the car on the way home. Yassir drove through streets busier than the ones he had found in the afternoon. This was his last day in Khartoum. Tomorrow night a plane would take him to Paris, another plane to Glasgow, then the train to Aberdeen. Perhaps Ronan K. would be on his roof tomorrow night, watching Air France rise up over the new houses of El-Ma’moura.