We passed through a corridor and entered another courtyard where a simple beautiful mosque stood. I could see men and women lined up in separate chambers inside, praying.

“Do you want to join them?” Mahmood Majid whispered.

I shook my head.

“You never pray, do you?”

“No, do you?”

“I did even when I was in the United States. It makes you stop everything a few times a day, be alone with yourself.”

“I wish I could pray,” I said, believing it at the moment.

He began to give me a history of the place, how old everything was, the significance of each niche, dome, or decoration. I nodded.

“You’re not listening to what I’m saying,” he said, sounding slightly irritated.

“I’m looking. There are so many things to see.”

“And there’s so much more.”

We went through more passageways and came out in front of the shrine with a gold dome and gold and mosaic decorations on its walls, all brilliant in sunlight.

We decided to go in and left our shoes with a man at the door, receiving tickets for them. The several adjoining rooms inside were dim, lit only by a few candles. The wall around the sarcophagus of the saint and all the other walls were covered with silver circular knobs. People walked around, kissing the walls, whispering prayers and crying. Echoes, faraway, vibrated in my head, my whole body. Surges of memory, of going from chamber to chamber in mosques and shrines, clinging to my mother, flowed over the surface of my mind. Suddenly, in spite of myself, I stopped, leaned my head against a wall and kissed it, tears filling my eyes and rolling down my cheeks.

After the shrine we went to the bazaar to eat. Between arches on the ceiling there were occasional gaps, revealing the sky. A pale, late sun mottled the faces of the passers-by. Mahmood Majid stopped often to look at shops, a stairway leading to an ancient water storage tank, mosaics on doorways. He examined everything as though this were the first time he had been there. A few times he offered to buy something for me from a shop and I refused. We reached the restaurant he had in mind, tucked behind a little garden just outside of the bazaar.

We went to the second floor and sat by a window, overlooking the garden. The room had only a few tables, and except for several posters of local mosques, it was bare.

“They have excellent food here,” Mahmood Majid said. “I know the waiter—I can tell him to go easy on spices for you.”

“Good,” I said. “This is a very pleasant place.”

“I knew you’d like it.”

The waiter came over and greeted him deferentially. After taking the order, the waiter left to come back with a tray of food—yogurt and cucumber, kebabs, rice, salad, and doogh.

“I’m sorry you can’t eat everything,” Mahmood Majid said. “If you’re careful for a while the ulcer might go away.”