No, said Tahir. They are nomads, he said, pointing to the men in jellabiyas and the women in black veils. Saba slumped back into the seat as the Rashaida’s tents flicked by, the city fading in the side mirror, the fragrance of ripe mangoes and ripe bananas waning. The road in the middle of the desert, its black tarmac shimmering under the sun. Express buses were overtaking the lorry. Each carried a promise of rapid arrival to the capital painted onto its sides. Their advertisements were meant for free people. Saba already felt trapped inside a moving prison.

A lizard raised its head and stared at Saba. A gatekeeper in graceful pose. Saba walked into the field, towards the rock she often sat on. With each foot pressing, the blades of grass leaned forward. A ladybird flew and landed on her hand. Saba wanted to make a wish when the bug flew off. She stretched her arm in a vain attempt to catch it.

Once deeper into the field, she sat on her rock – wheezing and out of breath – where she closed her eyes, imagining herself in the future, in a classroom in a school built in this field, surrounded by the smell of books and ink. Saba hugged her knees and rocked back and forth as she looked out over the plumes of grass that lapped against each other in the wind. Something rustled in the grass next to her. A girl’s manicured hands appeared through the thick grass. Saba jerked back on her rock. Her eyes followed the long fingernails digging into the dry ground.

Saba retreated to the other side of the rock, hiding behind a cactus plant. The girl moaned.

Stop, Saba heard a girl’s voice say, sounding as familiar as the other one who asked: Why?

Well, my love, until you marry me, you are not allowed to put anything up my pussy. I didn’t make up the rules. Now, go back to where you were, Athlete. Behind me.

Snorting laughter.

Silence.

Slurping kisses. The moans returned. If she could only see the lovers who made a bed out of this overgrown field, see the girl whose moans reminded her of the early mornings in her own bed back home. When the girl stood up, half her body appeared between the gaps in the grass. One kohled eye, half of her red lips, half of her chest, her dark nipple protruding like a bud. Saba saw it was Samhiya.

When Saba arrived home, Hagos was sitting on the blanket. He didn’t ask where she’d been. Around him she was free. Unlike her friends back home, she had never had to report her every move to the man in the house.

At times, his silent presence in her life made Saba think he was a figment of her imagination. An ideal brother made up in the mind of a lonely child. He was perfect. And perfection didn’t exist. And if it did, it was bound to shatter. Saba shuddered at the thought, quickly knelt by his side and embraced him. Soaked by her sweat, Hagos took off his shirt and lay back on the blanket, his head on his palms. From his oversized shorts protruded his long, smooth legs. Stripes of light fell on his chest. Saba stretched next to him. His bare skin smelt of jasmine fragrance. He always smelt this way, as if he was a jinni that had burst into this world out of a perfumed bottle.