Because I was quietly jealous, I threw myself into work more than ever. The Middle East was in flames, Iran was utterly broke, yet Tehran was bursting with art galleries and art shows. Women and men were making their fortunes overnight. There were exchanges of money that boggled the mind even as our currency plummeted right into the sewer. In such a world, why not make cartoons of people? Maybe I would never even return to the war.

But I knew that sooner or later the war would return to me.

* * *

And it did.

The impossibly tedious diary of the war in Syria that I had inherited for editing from the martyr Moalem was put into circulation just as fast as the Abbas episodes were coming out on the O Channel. Overnight the diary became a best seller in the provinces. I was sure the government was buying up all the copies to make the thing a quick hit; it made for good propaganda. I did not care one way or other; I would not even get a “thank you” for my labors except the regular editor’s fee, which was a joke. But the publisher would score a fortune and so would the martyr’s family.

And what about the other martyrs of that fight in Syria?

Even in death some people were luckier than others.

At the Citizen, Mafiha seemed chirpier than ever. All the young women at the literary desk paid him more attention now that he was at last married and supposedly unavailable. He bantered with them and went to the gym and then to the sauna with the heads of the Censorship Department every afternoon to plead our cases. He was a hero, because everyone assumed that he fought for us to be less censored by the powers that be.