Abu Salwan and his wife had one son and one daughter. The son is married and lives in the Gulf. The daughter married, had a daughter, and then died in childbirth with a second child, who also died. Her husband also worked in the Gulf and his parents were very old, so Abu Salwan and his wife raised Fawziyya, who is a few years older than I am.

Upstairs to the sitting room, then mensef to feast on, then the photo albums come out. The afternoon passes with vague memories embracing me. I see pictures of my mother I have never seen before. She looks young and happy and so very healthy. And pictures of the last time I was with this family, when they picked me up and took me to Petra, even though it was the middle of the tourist season.

My mother never visited Petra. She said that one time when she was in the States, she and Hamdi had gone to his professor’s house for dinner. He was German and very well traveled. When he learned they were Palestinian, he talked of his visits to Jordan, mostly about Petra. “You must climb the stairs to the top,” he told them. “You must go up to the top where the rocks meet the sky. The Nabateans have a place of sacrifice there. It is so incredible.”

My mother had always hoped to go, but for some reason never did.

Imagine that people built this city in the rocks and actually lived here!

“Abu Salwan, can we climb to the top?” I ask.

He turns to his granddaughter. “Fawziyya, take your cousin Hala up those stairs. Let’s see how far you can go.”

And so we climb, though it is not proper for two girls to be racing up steps with foreigners. Abu Salwan turns his lips inside his mouth to keep his words from coming out; he is a good host first, an uncle second.

We climb, my Bedouin cousin and I. Not too long after we start, we both stop to rest. I am already so tired I consider turning around, but if I don’t go now, I probably never will, so Fawziyya—obliging me because I am her guest and her responsibility—and I continue up the mountain with twists and turns and big steps, more than a thousand of them, and my feet touch each one.

All the people coming down are foreign and they all smile and say hello in English, and I answer each one because I have been around Americans so much. I think Fawziyya sees me as too western, but she goes along with everything and even says hi to the few women who pass us. I have never sweated more or felt air hotter. I worry about Fawziyya, but she giggles at the freedom.