That did it. Proust was off again, crying. The three of us like lost baggage from a shipwreck in that sea of humanity that was the Arbaeen pilgrimage of Iraq.

“But why Samarra?” I asked again.

Her breath was light but she spoke clearly. “We decided to come to where you were. To where the war is. The pilgrimage was fine. But it was a carnival. It was not what I wanted. This is as far as we got. I could not go on.”

Proust added, “And the roadblocks north of here wouldn’t let us.”

“I could get you a doctor,” I said to her.

She dismissed my suggestion with a wave of her hand. “Saleh, do you think the Mahdi, our hidden Messiah, really vanished right here in Samarra? Do you think when he comes back he’ll reappear here after a thousand years?”

“We don’t know, Miss Homa. All we know is his father died here.”

“A place of mysteries then, Samarra.”

“I did not realize you believe in these things.”

“It’s never late to believe, Saleh. It’s like being asked for a dance. I always liked to dance when I was younger. I’d like to believe my paintings are dance.”

The barber stuck his head in the back room, his green skullcap like a vintage attachment to his body. He gave a nod, grunted, and retreated.

I knew the color of death. Miss Homa would die tonight. Or tomorrow. Or the next day. She was paler than ever. She had made sure to squeeze the last of life out of herself during this pilgrimage. I’d sometimes see it with other pilgrims of her age too. A sort of counting down until the light went out, as if they were here to secure a spot for their own funeral march. And in doing so, they became angels. She was glowing. That familiar glow above the head. The glow I’d seen on all the martyrs up and down this country.

* * *

At dawn I opened my eyes at the foot of the Askari shrine. Somebody had stuffed my shoes under my armpits while I was asleep so they wouldn’t vanish. Later, when I looked in at the shop, the barber had gone out and in his place Proust had taken up the Moser to cut the hair of the pilgrims. He seemed to be doing just as fine a job of it too. Two days passed like that. Our nontalking barber, Proust, me, and Miss Homa in a town where our Messiah may or may not have disappeared for his centuries-long absence. Tradition had it that when he returned, none other than Jesus Christ would be accompanying him. The two of them together would set the world right again.

Meanwhile, we waited.