He dropped his eyes and said, “I went to wash my hands.”

“Did you take her wallet?” my father asked in a voice more resigned than accusing.

My uncle’s lips trembled with small twitches, but he did not say anything. He went towards the hook, his body moving mechanically. He bent down and I could see the wallet slipping out of his hand onto the floor. “Here it is, the wallet is right here.” He stood up. “I just went to wash my hands.”

Without exchanging another word we went back to the living room. Everyone was eating and no one asked any questions. My uncle sat on the same side of the cloth as I, sheltered behind a row of elbows and shoulders, his face hidden from me. The room was full of traps.

4

Afterwards, in my room, I could still see my uncle’s face as he had dropped the wallet. I should pity him, I said to myself. He is a frustrated man, a person whose energy and liveliness have gone sour. His stealing is a cry for attention. The rationalization did not help.

I tried, futilely, to recall the sense of urgency I had had about the trip. The plan had begun to form in my mind one late afternoon as I stood behind the picture window of our living room in Lexington, looking out at the grass-covered backyard, acutely aware of a stillness all around me. The trees, a bird sitting on a branch, the backyards of neighbors, seemed to have gone to sleep or frozen to death. Color had bled out of them. How different this was from that other world, I had thought. Our sun-choked, dust-swept courtyard, the melancholy sunsets and hazy noons. The hum of prayers pouring out of mosques, a child climbing an ancient tree. Uncertainty, a mystery in the air.

That night I had dreamt of Iran, something that I had not done since I married Tony. In the dream I was sitting in the hollowed-out stump of a tree in our courtyard. It was a very clear day and all the flowers and leaves were vividly outlined in the sun. Then the air suddenly changed; a hard wind began to blow and it quickly turned into a hurricane. Someone was walking towards me in the darkened air, calling my name, asking for help. I jumped out of my enclosure and ran towards the figure whose voice became more and more desperate—a tiny, featureless figure with its hands stretched out, trying to move forward but not able to. As I came closer I could see that the figure was someone very much like me, only she was smaller and younger.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Don’t you know me?”

I shook my head.

She began to laugh, trembling all over, her features becoming distorted and frightening. It was as if I were looking at my image in a broken mirror.