We lost connection for a minute. I looked around. In the time I’d been typing messages back and forth to H, a man had gotten blown to pieces. There was a lone tree and he’d gone there to take a piss and stepped in the wrong place. I closed my heart to that and did not go near to take a peek. There had been an explosion and I’d certainly heard it. But you get inured to it. Hard men were shouting hard words in Arabic. That broken tree was going to have pieces of the dead man hanging and dripping from it for a long, long time. It would be near impossible to get it all off. I already knew all this and forced myself to not be curious.

H: Any news from the enemy scholar?

I was confused for a moment and wrote, Enemy scholar?

H: You know, the OTHER enemy. Not those prehistoric fools in Iraq and Syria.

Me: YOU told me not to write to her.

There was silence. And silence from H meant this: Don’t you ever use capital letters like that with me, boy!

I wrote meekly, knowing full well that he already had the information and was just testing me: The answer is yes. This other enemy—she asks that since I will not answer her, perhaps I can recommend someone else who will do the research she needs in Tehran.

H: Tell the scholar to meet you in Erbil.

Me: What?

H: Do it. Erbil is a taxi ride away from you!

Me: What, take a cab through enemy lines?

H: Don’t play stupid. You know what to do. Do it!

Haji Yusuf came up to me looking glum. “I keep telling the young men not to just walk around as if this is their father’s backyard. To God we return!”

“To God we return, ya Haji Yusuf!”