At the same time there was also an inner stirring and a sense of reckoning. It was time for Cleric J and his men to pack it in for the month and go south. But they were staying put. The capture of Mosul still seemed a long way away. Yet we had our slice of the war and would be damned to abandon it for flatbread and olives back home.

I finally wrote back to H: Do you not think that your usage of cell phones is detrimental to your occupation and well-being, seeing that you are a bona fide representative of our distinguished republic?

H: No need for your cynicism, Saleh. I have many phones. It is one of my occupations.

Me: What is it you want? I am certain you are not writing to me about Proust (I do not mean the writer and his book, but the man I have here with me).

H: No, I am not writing you in regards to him. Just have him remain there. They’ll send him some money and new identity if you tell me this is required.

Me: Why do you care so much what happens to him?

H: Shouldn’t I?

Me: It’s actually a beautiful thing that you do care. But it surprises me.

H: Without people like him and you, I would not have the job I have. I am a reader. This is a blessing.

In all this time, I had intermittently thought about that other “enemy.” Not the enemy that faced us right here at the Eye of the Horse. And not the Americans who were not really an enemy but more of an apparition and a nuisance, by turns obscenely generous and then stingy, and then generous again and without a comprehensible mission in Mesopotamia. This, rather, was the enemy that I had never seen in flesh and blood. It felt that the scholar had written that first e-mail to me ages ago. I opened my e-mail account and saw that H had been using it to be in touch with her. The back and forth, from his end, was written in questionable English. He had invited her to Erbil: Erbil is free territory Madam. Is safe. No danger for everyone. Even you come with good passport. No problem. Good food. Come here and I see you first. Then I research for you Jewish places in all old Tehran.