Nasrat, intrigued, leads us to his windowless office, in which a two-shelf bookcase is crammed with texts and unbound manuscripts.

As Clay watches, I reach into my bag and pull out this most precious item. My voice does not break as I open the box and reveal the paired stones of the ring, as I tell the young curator that this piece was excavated by the French at Ai-Khanoum and should join the other treasures. Nasrat blinks slowly, looking from the ring to me to Clay—allowing plenty of time for me to have second thoughts, but I do not.

Nasrat rises, closes the door, and wipes his forehead with a handkerchief when he returns to his seat.

“As if this were just another day,” he breathes. Nasrat pours us each a small glass of green tea from a thermos on his desk. Tendrils of cardamom-infused steam soothe my senses. He holds his cell phone, his finger hovering over the buttons for a long beat before he begins to dial.

Nasrat speaks to an official from the Ministry of Culture on the phone. A message goes out to a representative of UNESCO. The proper channels have been notified. The ring is in good hands. I stand and slide the strap of my bag over my shoulder, taking one last look at my talisman.

“You must tell me how you came to have this,” Nasrat entreats. “You could not have been more than a child when Ai-Khanoum was excavated. Surely you did not dig this ring out of the earth yourself!”

“No,” I reply, thinking of the way I’d clung to the ring, like a drowning girl holding on to a life preserver, and how we’d floated out of the castle together. “It was the other way around.”

Chapter 59

“We leave in thirty-six hours,” I say, hanging up the call. With the help of people at the embassy, Mom has booked new tickets for us. As much as I wanted to leave early, I do feel a bit disappointed to be turning away so soon.

But what more is there to do? I have seen the ruins of my family home and the gleaming new stores. I have walked through streets guarded by soldiers from a dozen countries and seen bright-eyed children chat up those soldiers like old friends. I’ve visited the triumphs of the many empires that ruled this land as well as the deadly munitions left behind. There are addicts shooting up in the desiccated bed of the Kabul River and women vying for seats in a resurrected Parliament. The shopping malls are new, the music is old. The people are paradoxes as well, wizened and doe-eyed, hopeful and traumatized.

“Will you come back?” Clay asks. He has brought me to a teahouse where young men and modestly dressed women congregate, a small rebellion against conservative traditions.