The girl stands with her at the window. After a few quiet moments, she turns and says in a voice that will not interrupt the morning, “I want to tell you a story, Sitti.”

They walk to the bed and the old woman lies down, something she does not often do so early in the day. The girl settles her oversized body beside her, leaning back against the pillows and taking her grandmother’s hand in hers and rubbing it.

“They say—it may be true, it may not be—that there was a young boy named Jamal who lived in Jerusalem and threw stones at the soldiers one day. The soldiers saw him do this and began chasing him, but he was young and fast so he eluded them as he raced through the Old City, dodging tourists and women with their groceries and all the merchants who stood around trying to sell their wares.”

The old woman turns her head so she is facing the window as her granddaughter’s words pour gently into her ear.

“He was running everywhere, down this alley and then down that alley. His cheeks were getting hotter and one of his legs was starting to ache, but he kept running anyway. Then he turned down an alley and stopped at the end because it was a courtyard and there was no exit. He panicked because he could hear the shouts of the soldiers not far behind him, but he was not alone in this courtyard, which was actually the back of someone’s house. There was also a woman around the age of his mother, wearing an old roza that was pulled up, showing her loose shalwar pants. She was bent over a vat filled with suds and next to her sat a fat basket of clothes.”

The old woman turns and watches her granddaughter as she speaks, wondering at her clear eyes that dance as they tell this story.