The new cemetery of Samarra was a straight shot down the road. The barber had already made arrangements. I left a sizable wad of money on the dresser for him.

Noon prayer would begin soon.

I had expected Proust to weep. But I never saw him weep again. Nor did he take his book of poems along. He left it for the barber and his shop.

Chapter Thirteen

13

H wrote: Our terrors don’t always match the dangers that inspire them.

It was the second time he had sent these words. Now I was sure he had lost his mind. There is something not right with the world when the man who is supposed to be your interrogator, your anchor, your nemesis, starts to get overly literary. These men should be the bastions of equilibrium. A steady ship in their occasional cruelty. What had happened to H? What did he want from me?

Proust and Abu Faranci had become inseparable. Sometimes they spoke in whispers, in French, for long hours. They also went from somberness to occasions of downright boisterousness that were out of character for both. They would, for instance, join the Arab men in their nearly daily routines of one-upmanship in the impromptu war-poetry slams. It was breathtaking, the Arab predilection for verse at any moment anywhere. Standing there watching Abu Faranci and Proust at those times, I had to wonder what was going on in each man’s mind. Did Abu Faranci truly not think about his son anymore? Was this it for him? And what of Proust? Miss Homa had only just died, and Proust had seemed to reach some sort of an end with it. Yet now it looked like he had fresh lease on life next to Abu Faranci.

In all this time I never broached the subject of what Abu Faranci had done about Cleric J’s request at Tal Abta. He’d carried out the execution, I knew that much.

It was his business.

The mokeb itself was in a bit of a lull, though the smell of some looming battle was not far. It came from the north and the east, and sometimes even from the direction of Syria. A few times we caught groups of enemy men coming right up to the Eye of the Horse, probing our defenses, looking for weakness, trying to figure where to hit. I did not know of the information that the interrogation of such men brought, and capturing them alive, I imagined, was still rare here. They were rabid things, consummated with a purpose that could make you question your own resolve and spirit.