My father moved swiftly towards her.

She took a few steps backward and then began to run. He ran after her, dragging his body.

Ziba went up the stairs to their bedroom and shut it from the inside. He followed her and banged on the door. “Come out right now. Don’t try to hide there.”

Ziba did not answer. After a moment he stopped threatening. He came back down and, without looking at me, went towards the outside door. I heard it slam shut.

Ziba came out and sat on the steps.

“I know you always hated me,” she said, playing nervously with the thin gold bracelets on her wrist. She had worn those as long as I knew her. She began to cry.

“Don’t cry. I’ll be leaving soon.”

But she kept sobbing. “I’m always going to be miserable. I’ll never have peace.”

Her childhood, as she had told me repeatedly, had been grim. She was forced to take care of five younger sisters and brothers while her mother worked. Her first husband, twice her age, had been abusive until he died. Then she was left with Darius to care for.

Abruptly she stopped crying and took off one of the gold bracelets and held it toward me. “Here, take this. I want you to have it.”

“Thanks but I hardly ever wear jewelry. It will be wasted.”

“Take it anyway, as a souvenir from me.”

“If you’re sure.”

“I am,” she said.

I took the bracelet and put it into my pocketbook, feeling it like a burden.

Outside I nearly stumbled over Darius, who was sitting on the steps, trapping flies with his hands. “Where are you going, Feri?” he asked, looking up.

“To the passport bureau. I remember that these offices are very slow.”

“Leaving already? Why do you want to run away like this? Relax, take it easy.” He glanced quickly at the house down the street. “Sit down and talk to me for a while. Tell me what you’ve learned about life.”

“I don’t know. Nothing that I can report.”

He followed a fly with his eyes and caught it swiftly in his hands. Holding it between two fingers, he plucked its wings and discarded its body into the gutter. “There! Flies are a curse.”

Darius glanced again at the house down the street.

“Are you waiting for someone?” I asked.

He blushed. “There’s a girl in that house, a beautiful girl. We write to each other all the time. I have a box full of her letters. I dream about her almost every night.”

“So you’re in love.” I could imagine the letters—sweet and cloying and exaggerated in their expression of desire. “Are you going to marry her?”

Darius was quiet for a moment, his big shoulders hunched. “I wish I could.”

“Why can’t you?”

His head still bent, he said, “She isn’t pure any more.”

I felt embarrassed and unexpectedly hurt by the crudeness of his words. “It’s your doing, I assume, that she isn’t pure.”