Soon she would live in this compound. Hagos too. It was Saba’s only condition for accepting Eyob’s proposal. She didn’t want a dowry. She wanted Hagos. His presence around me is worth more to me than a gold ring on my finger, Saba wanted to tell them. He is a crown on my head, a lush white dress around my body. His smooth skin is mine in place of what you burnt on me. He is my peace that you took away. He is not forbidden, because as the religious men had said, he’s heaven and in heaven all is allowed.

Hagos smiled his quiet smile. But Saba could hear a storm between his ribs as the bones of his chest strained when he hugged her.

How could she have underestimated the impact of their separation on him, even if she was only moving from one part of the camp to another? They were twins. Born from the same womb in different years but bound together by circumstances, the war between their parents’ countries and the one waged on their bodies.

Yes, it would be my absolute pleasure, indeed, if Hagos moves in with us, Eyob said, promising to build a new hut for Hagos.

But when Saba requested a fence be built, the businessman raised his eyebrows as his eyes scanned Saba, as if lost in a maze of thoughts. Saba curbed the temptation to explain the need for confinement within a confined camp, for exile within exile. There was no need. The businessman would understand in time.

Okay, he said. If you want a compound, I’ll set it up.

And here, in this compound, Saba would live with her husband, Hagos and Tedros. All the huts next to each other. Fenced. At the foot of a hill, where Jamal had started constructing his cinema.

Tedros emerged from their new latrine, a hole in the ground located at the back of the compound. Saba followed him with her eyes as he fetched a towel from the clothesline and strode behind a small wall made of thatch, sewn with ropes, the gaps blanked out with leaves. Complete privacy. Only God could see this shower room from above.

In weeks, after her wedding, she too would disappear with a bucket of water into that tiny shower room, on her own. She had long craved moments like these. When she stood instead of hunching up inside a bucket. She imagined her wet body under the sky, the direct sun, the wind, the rain, the stars and the moon.

Soapy water streamed from under the thatched wall of the shower room. Tedros came out with a towel wrapped around his waist. He jumped over a puddle and stuttered into the hut without a glance at the throng outside the compound.

Saba waved back at Eyob, at the same time as her brother, as if the businessman’s wave was intended for both, as if he too finally understood that they were each other’s double, two who only made sense together.