“You’re back,” she said, walking rapidly towards me. “What happened?”

I came out and sat on the steps by the doorway. “Nothing happened,” I said. “I just wanted to stay with you for a while.” So much had happened and yet nothing that I could easily put into words.

Two days later I ran into Mahmood Majid near a mosque. It had rained that morning and the heat had abated somewhat. The buildings sparkled. Children played noisily on the streets, relishing the change of the weather.

“Feri, Feri.”

I turned around. Mahmood Majid stood in the midst of a crowd of people rushing out of the mosque and scattering in different directions. I waited until he caught up with me.

“What are you doing here? I came over one day and your mother said you had left.”

“I decided to stay here, for a while.”

He looked at men who stared at me as they passed by. “We’d better get away from here.”

I followed him to a quieter street.

“Would you like to sit somewhere?”

“O.K.”

We walked to a tea house a few blocks away.

We sat in the little courtyard in the back, where a fountain splashed into flowers and bushes. A feathery old hen hopped around in the water. From a room across the yard a woman came out and began to sweep the ground.

“This is a lovely place, isn’t it?” Mahmood Majid said.

“It is.” A pleasant lassitude had come over me.

Two children came out of the room and began to run up and down the stone steps in front of it, making a clop-clopping sound with their wooden slippers. The woman told them to go back in. They ran in, laughing hard, almost out of breath.

The waiter came over and greeted Mahmood Majid. We ordered tea.

“A family runs this place—different sons take turns working. He’s the oldest son.”

“I like restaurants like this—family and business combined.”

“Some of the restaurants in the United States are like that.” He thought for a moment. “It’s odd how dreamlike the United States seems to me now—not as though I spent twelve years there.”

“You’ve never gone back for visits?”

“No.” He shook his head. “Every year I’ve thought of going but when the time comes I get involved with something else. I guess I don’t particularly want to go back.”

“You seem to have made a life for yourself here.”

He took a few gulps of his tea and said, “You know, when I came to your mother’s house and you weren’t there I was really disappointed.”

He was looking straight at me. I was weakened with desire. His eyes were so clear and unflinching—the eyes of a young boy almost, unperturbed.

In a flash, I saw my mother years ago going to meet the man she loved. She meets him on the shadowy corner of an alley, a dark stairway, or behind a hidden tree. He looks something like Mahmood Majid but more dapper, wearing a dark-blue suit with a red handkerchief in his breast pocket. They greet each other warmly. The air is moist and sweet-smelling. They stand and look at one another for a long, long time. Then he whispers, “You come with me and I promise to make you happy, happy forever.” The sheer sound of his voice makes her tremble. There is fear and confusion in her eyes. For once she lets her chador slip down over her shoulders and they kiss, shivering in each others’ arms.