“Although she didn’t continue her education, her life was turned around. If she had stayed here, she would have been an ordinary and uneducated woman, like hundreds of others. But now . . .”

Amir is thinking about his friends, and with every sentence he looks at me. He is waiting for me to say something so he could talk more passionately about that other world. It’s enough to say, “But her husband got sick; he was depressed.”

Then he starts quietly and convincingly, “I know, they have their own problems too, but their issues are different.”

Then his voice becomes louder little by little. “You don’t understand what it means to find a finger behind the workshop. You don’t understand what seeing a thirteen-year-old girl who is a drug addict and is willing to do anything for money, does to you.”

Amir needs a nudge to pour out his heart. Silently, I go to the backyard. The sound of the tambourine has started, albeit late.

He says, “Shut that door. For one night don’t listen to the orchestra. Come here and sit down.”

I sit by him and ask, “Has something happened?”

I know that a breeze has stirred in his direction from another world, like the smell of barbecue that comes from far away and tickles your nose.

“What did you want to happen?” Gently, he puts his arm that is stiff like a wooden stick on his eyes. “You stay at home and have no idea what is happening out there. If you knew, you wouldn’t say these things.”

I don’t know what I have said.

“You are willing to live in this awful and hideous place even if you were to relive it a hundred times over. Isn’t that so?”

I want to scream “No,” but I feel like a convict whose confession or silence wouldn’t change her death sentence.

“Think about it. The kids will have good educational opportunities. They can use their talents. Nobody will put them down.”

At least if he takes his arms off his eyes, he wouldn’t look so much like somebody who is stuck under the rubble.