The door to the spare bedroom hung slightly ajar. Gabriel opened it the rest of the way and peered inside. It had once been his studio. Now there were two cribs, one with pink bedding, the other with blue. Giraffes and elephants marched across the carpet. Plump clouds scudded across the walls. Gabriel felt a stab of guilt; in his absence Chiara must have done the work herself. As he ran his hand over the surface of the changing table a memory overtook him. It was the evening of April 18, 1988. Gabriel had returned home from the assassination of Abu Jihad in Tunis to find Dani suffering from a ferocious fever. He held the burning child in his arms that night while images of fire and death played ceaselessly in his thoughts. Three years later the child was dead.

Apparently, it had something to do with a man named Tariq . . .

Gabriel closed the door and entered the master bedroom. His life-size portrait, painted by Leah after Operation Wrath of God, hung upon the wall. Beneath it slept Chiara. He placed his bag on the floor in the closet, removed his shoes and clothing, and eased into bed next to her. She lay motionless, apparently unaware of his presence. Then suddenly she asked, “Do you like it, darling?”

“The nursery?”

“Yes.”

“It’s beautiful, Chiara. I only wish you would have let me paint the clouds.”

“I wanted to,” she answered. “But I was afraid it might be true.”

“What’s that?”

She said nothing more. Gabriel closed his eyes. And for the first time in three days he slept.

When finally he woke it was late afternoon and the shadows were long and thin upon the bed. He swung his feet to the floor and ambled into the kitchen for coffee. Chiara was watching the war on television. An Israeli bomb had just landed on a Palestinian school filled exclusively with women and young children—or so claimed Hamas. It seemed nothing had changed.

“Do we have to watch that?”

Chiara lowered the volume. She was wearing a pair of loose-fitting silk pants, gold sandals, and a maternity blouse that hung elegantly over her swollen breasts and abdomen. Her face was unchanged. If anything, she was more radiantly beautiful than Gabriel remembered. Suddenly, he regretted the month of time he had lost with her.

“There’s coffee in the thermos.”

Gabriel poured a cup and asked Chiara how she was feeling.

“Like I’m about to pop.”

“Are you?”

“The doctor says they can come at any time.”

“Any complications?”

“I’m starting to run a bit low on amniotic fluid, and one child is slightly smaller than the other.”

“Which one?”

“The girl. The boy is fine.” She looked at him for a moment. “You know, darling, we’re going to have to choose a name for him at some point.”

“I know.”

“It would be better if we did it before they were born.”

“I suppose.”