She could see that it was true—there were no girls in the pictures, no women even—and she knew it in her heart, as well. “I want to go,” she said. “When I’m eight, I’m going to go.”

Malik tousled her hair. “You can’t, Little Sister.” “Yes, I can!”

Just at that moment, Jihan, their mother, walked in. “What’s the fuss?”

“Mama, Malik says I can’t go to Victoria. Make him stop saying that.” “Aren’t you happy your brother’s going to such a fine school?” “Yes. But can’t I go, too, when I’m old enough?”

“Well, we’ll see, little princess. It’s not something you should be worrying about. It’s a long time away, and all things are arranged by God.” Amira knew when “we’ll see” meant maybe, and when it meant no. This “we’ll see” was like a door closing, but she stubbornly chose to interpret it otherwise. When Malik went to Cairo, she clung to the dream that someday she would join him there. She begged Jihan to read his letters over and over so that she could absorb every word.

Many famous men had gone to Victoria, Malik boasted, even royalty—for example, young King Hussein of Jordan. The professors all dressed like Oxford dons, whatever that was; apparently, they wore long black thobes—Amira pictured them as Bedouins. The schoolwork was very difficult, one letter said with a hint of despair. The history courses endlessly detailed European kings and conflicts that made no sense in Remali terms.

The language courses apparently were even worse. When Malik came home for Ramadan, he showed Amira some of his textbooks, the incomprehensible English and French letters bearing no resemblance to the flowing characters of Arabic. Proudly, if haltingly, he read her a quotation from a renowned British poet whose name translated as “brandish a lance.” The English words were only noise, but she made him point to each one as he read it.

Despite the difference of over two years in their ages—just right for engendering incessant squabbles—Amira and Malik had always been close. Even adults commented on it, not always approvingly; an aunt had once said sadly that it was because there were only the two of them—two children, one of them a girl, not being considered much of a family in al-Remal.

Now, with his veneer of cosmopolitanism and education, Malik was a hero to his little sister. She counted the weeks till his return on holiday or for the long summer break when the British professors fled the Cairene heat, and when, at last, he did arrive, she pestered him mercilessly to tell her all about Victoria College and all the things he had learned.

One incident that first summer both terrified Amira and, if it were possible, magnified her admiration for her brother.

O