He misunderstood. “That’s exactly it. How can I marry her when I know all about it?” He stared at me persistently.

“I must go now,” I said.

“Why don’t you wait until tomorrow. I’ll take you to the passport bureau.”

I shook my head. “I’d better go now.”

“I’m your brother. Can’t you ever listen to me?”

I shrugged and tried to smile. I wondered if he had known the truth about my mother all along.

5

I ached with memories of my mother as I walked along the narrow, dusty street to the wider one. She sits under a tree in the late afternoon, with a glow of twilight all around. A furry kitten plays with a fallen pine cone. The courtyard is very quiet except for the cooing of the pigeons or the movement of the cat.

On another afternoon my mother walks towards me in the courtyard. “Here, I made this for you,” she whispers, handing me a huge rag doll. She bends down to kiss me and walks away and that is the last I see of her.

For a long time I would follow my father around and ask him over and over, “When is she coming back?” He would always say, “I don’t know.” He would hold me to himself and rock me, saying, “It will be all right. You have me to care for you.”

I would go from room to room, looking for things that belonged to my mother. The two red felt-covered trunks where my mother kept her clothes were still there, and a pair of slippers lay beside them, heel to heel. I would touch the shoes. I opened one trunk and smelled her clothes, rubbing them against my skin. Silk scarves, velvet dresses with bright floral designs, frilly underwear scented with rosewater. All that, along with the photographs of my mother, were discarded by my father later; everything vanished, as he hoped her memory would.

After a while I threw away the rag doll she had given to me. Her absence and the rag doll had become associated, and the doll now seemed unspeakably alien.

What if my mother lived somewhere nearby? What if I could go to see her, actually talk to her after all these years?

Should I put off going to the passport bureau? No, I decided. I was afraid of being stranded here, of not being able to get out as quickly as I wanted. Years ago, when I had come to the same office, the clerk had said—and had repeated it for months—“You come back in a few days.” For weeks I had been tense with frustration.

At the passport bureau I entered a hall that was crowded with people filling out forms or waiting. Clerks were busy behind a wooden counter. The air was heavy with odors of sweat and cologne. I stood on a line leading to the counter with the first letter of my last name.