“I will send out a flyer that people are not supposed to do that.”

Fatima picked up the package, which Rania glanced at. The refugee smiled—perhaps the first such expression she’d shared with anyone here, other than her husband or Muna. She indicated the wrapped paper parcel. “A miracle! My mother sent some tea from Tripoli. It was addressed to me at the ‘Cappuccino’ Reception Center in Naples.”

“Cappuccino?” Rania laughed.

“Yes. Yet it arrived.”

“That is quite amazing. The Italian post has been known to misdeliver mail with even the accurate addresses.”

The women exchanged parting nods and went their separate ways, Fatima laboring under the backpack. She returned to the tent and, setting down the burdens, greeted her husband, then scooped up her daughter and hugged the girl. Khaled had a pleased look on his face. Also, one of conspiracy.

“What, my husband?”

“I have just learned of some chance for work, after our asylum is approved. There’s a Tunisian who’s lived here for years, who owns an Arab-language bookshop, and he might want to hire me.”

Khaled had been happiest as a teacher—he loved words, loved stories. After the Liberation, when that was no longer possible, he had become a merchant. That was both unfulfilling and unsuccessful (largely because the men in the streets would rather loot than build a democracy). Fatima smiled at her husband but then looked away…and did not share with him that in her heart she knew it wouldn’t work out. All that had happened over the past month told her it would be impossible to simply restart a content, pleasant family life here in Italy, as if nothing had happened.

Impossible. She felt a mantle of doom ease down upon her shoulders and she clutched her daughter more tightly.

Yet her husband was so naive, she couldn’t destroy his hope, and when Khaled said that the bookseller would meet him for tea, outside the camp, would she join them, she said yes. And struggled to put aside memories of drinking tea with him on their first evening together, near the massive plaza in Tripoli that was, ironically, built by the Italians in the colonial days, originally called Piazza Italia. Now, Martyrs’ Square.

Liberation…

She shivered with rage.

Fools! Madmen! Who are ruining our world, who…

“What, Fatima? Your face, it seems troubled?”

“Ah, nothing, my husband. Let us go.”

They stepped outside and delivered Muna to a neighbor, who had four children of her own. Her tent was an informal child-care center.

Together, husband and wife walked to the back of the camp. Here was one of the impromptu gates—really just a cut in the chain link. The guards knew about these exits but no one made much of an effort to keep people from slipping out to make purchases or to visit with friends and relatives who had been granted asylum and moved out of the camp. They now ducked through the cut portion of the fence and walked along a row of trees and low brush.