Cover

PART ONE

WE WALKED ON WATER AND MET A STRANGER

1

HIS COMMANDS

From behind the glass the cold meat called to him, seemed to him in that moment—in the heat, midway through his fast—like a dollop of red Chantilly cream, set to melt in the mouth as soon as it was laid there. He thought he might cook it in the narrow alley outside his building, then tried to remember where he’d put the grill, and couldn’t. But when he got home there was a surprise: his mother, bustling about the kitchen between cutting boards and cooking pots. The first time she’d been in the kitchen since his father’s death.

She saw the bag of beef hanging from his hand. “Put it in the fridge,” she said wearily. “Your father said to cook duck.”

For one shaken instant Ahmed doubted his sanity. “He came to me in a dream,” his mother said simply. “He was sitting in the big chair in front of the television, wearing his Eid robe, and he tells me, ‘Let’s have a couple of ducks, Sayyida.’ I said, ‘Duck’s too rich when you’ve been fasting. It’ll give you indigestion.’ But he insisted: ‘I want ducks. They’re in season.’

“So I said, ‘Fine.’”

And his father had turned back to the television while she wept herself awake.

Then she’d gotten up, taken herself to the nearest town, collected the pensions (her pension and his), and, on the way back to the village, stopped by the window in the wall of the government store where she purchased the ducks and the ingredients she needed to cook them. Back home, she’d flipped the light switch in the kitchen and just stood there, knees trembling, in the doorway.

A whole life spent here, and now it felt as though she were a stranger to it; a newcomer.

Within minutes, though, the illusion of unfamiliarity had melted away, ceding its place to sweet and sweaty absorption in the cramped kitchen’s heat.

They broke their fast by wolfing part of the first duck, putting the rest in the fridge for later. The other duck she gave to a neighbor.

“He told you to do that, too?” Ahmed asked.

“No, no,” she said. “Raqiya’s been my rock. I promised myself she’d eat from the first meal I cooked.”

He nodded and went to his room to get some sleep before the night shift started.

Two days later he looked in on her to ask if he could get her anything, and she said, “What’s that shirt, Ahmed? Wear the blue one.”

She’d dreamed about him the night before. Him and his father. They had been laughing together and his father had taken something from his pocket and handed it to Ahmed, who’d peered down at the thing, a look of delight on his face. He had been wearing the blue shirt.