In the cockpit’s small space, the blood punched over all of them. She would have staggered. Hoseyn did. His grip got loose, and she poured out from under him, reaching for Will, crawled, and as she was crawling for him got her hand on his. She pulled herself up and closer to him. He was still warm, possibly in the last seconds. But then Hoseyn was on her, pulling her up, and she was yanking herself free, him pulling. She slam-whacked for his nose, felt the cartilage suck and crack away from his face, but no sound came with it, it was gone, they moved in silence, slow-eyed motion coming in and out of the range of her deteriorated thinking. He sank back; she felt Baz’s body come between them, his boy foot in the way. She tried to feel for the metal Hoseyn had to have in his hand.

He was down. She saw that now, the gun lying in a black sparkle in the cockpit lights. She swooped for it and found another hand, not Hoseyn’s, then another on her waist, around her neck, someone, and then another, getting what her crash and mountain ice had not yet: her.

For many months in Evin Prison, Mary couldn’t tell. Now she knew it. The chair in this room was wood. She was not the first to sit in it. She felt the oil on the underside. It was ever so faint, but it was there. Our fingers gave out just the most insubstantial film of it. They could not take that away. She had that now.

In their white dresses, her victims were her instructors.

They said she was to be forgiven.

They said she was never pure, but she could be chaste.

In not many days, they took her to the trees to hear the leaves.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks go to my friends in Iran but most especially Amin and Hamid, to the many generous people who assisted me in Afghanistan and Pakistan, to those in the military who shared insight and suggestions, and to my tireless editor, Robin Desser. Deepest love goes to Richard Price, who wooed me from fearsome independence into several gardens of zooming, blooming light.

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lorraine Adams is a novelist, critic, and Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist. Her novel Harbor won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction, was a finalist for the Orange and Guardian First Book prizes, and was selected as a New York Times Best Book, a Washington Post Notable Book, and Entertainment Weekly’s Best Novel of the Year. She is a regular contributor to the New York Times Book Review and Bookforum, and was a staff writer at The Washington Post for eleven years. She lives in New York City.

Copyright

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

Copyright © 2010 by Lorraine Adams