“It’s a Rudolph Valentino classic.” They approached City Hall, which squatted at the intersection of Market and Broad Streets—solid, square, its white stone carved with figures that formed a Pantheon-like facade. They passed through the Market Street entrance to the building’s central courtyard, where the moon shone down on the sundial etched on the floor. They sat on a small ledge, off to the side, holding hands.

“It’s the movie that made his career,” Alex continued. “A silent movie, where this desert sheik lusts after an English girl and kidnaps her. He keeps her in his tent and basically makes her his sex slave, although it’s not as obvious as that. It turns out well,” he reassured her. “They actually fall in love at the end.”

“Fall in love? After he’s kidnapped her?” She dismissed it as a cheesy romance fluff novel plot, but Alex brought the film to her apartment the next night. She had made tabouleh, another of Alex’s favorites. It had consumed most of her afternoon, chopping the tomatoes, parsley, and onions into the seedling-size proportions required by the recipe. She served it with mint tea, for which Alex kissed her hand and declared that he was “in paradise with a houri.”

“You’re crazy,” she said, laughing. “Let’s watch the movie.”

Chagrined, he asked, “A good Muslim man gets seventy houris in heaven, right?”

“I guess.”

“So what does a good Muslim woman get? Like, what will you get in heaven?”

She answered wearily, “I get to be somebody’s houri?”

He pushed the play button and fell onto the couch next to her. He kissed her deeply, and pushed his hand into her hair. When he pulled away, he gazed down at her, his voice ragged this time. “You’re my houri.”

She only pondered those words when she and Alex were well into the film. Valentino, wearing a turban and a white cloak, crept stealthily and lustfully toward the unsuspecting Agnes Ayres, who wept for her stolen freedom in a corner of his tent. “Watch his face when he sees her crying,” whispered Alex.

Rudolph’s face crumpled, dissolved from lust to guilt and shame. Reema glanced at Alex’s face in the semidarkness: entranced, fixed on the scene, as if he were Valentino himself, suffering a sudden pang of conscience that he’d terrified this beautiful woman.

“How many times have you seen this film?”

“At least twenty times. I know every scene.”

When it was over, he wanted her opinion. “You’re an Arabian,” he prefaced.

“Arab.”

“Arab. Sorry. What’s your take?”

What could she say to him? That she was somewhat offended by it? That it was full of stereotypes? She tried to express this tactfully, so as not to hurt his feelings.

“You must be kidding.”

“Alex, it’s horribly racist. Why is there not one decent Arab in the whole movie?”

“What about the Sheik himself—Valentino?”