“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her hands against the folds of her caftan, “I have another appointment. You better go now.”

“You want me to go?” Dismay dragged at the corners of Ally’s mouth. “Did I do something to offend you?”

“I’m tired, that’s all.”

It was obvious that wasn’t true. Miriam opened the door to the roof terrace. A rectangle of light slanted through the opening, illuminating a shelf of plaster heads, hands, and rounded hips. Behind the body parts, a portrait of the president, plump-lipped and smiling. Turpentine fumes caught in Ally’s throat.

“Would you at least give me Yusra’s address or a phone number?” Ally pressed her palms together. “I don’t need to mention your name. We can keep this between you and me.”

Miriam laughed sourly.

“Didn’t anyone ever teach you? Two can keep a secret only when one of them is dead.”

* * *

The wind had picked up by the time Hatim turned onto Eighty-Second Avenue. Grains of sand bounced off the windshield and scratched at the Passat’s rusty flank.

“This doesn’t make sense.” Ally peered at a grimy oil depot ringed by razor wire. “We should be near the river.”

“This is Eighty-Second Avenue.” Hatim frowned slightly. “But there’s no river out here.”

Ally scanned a smattering of houses surrounded by gray sand. None looked like Yusra’s home. A guard post appeared on the side of the road. It was a little larger than a phone booth, with a thatched roof being slowly shredded by the wind. The young soldier on duty shielded his eyes as they approached, and Ally pulled her scarf higher over her hair. Hatim threw her a skeptical glance.

“You really know someone out here?”

“Not exactly,” mumbled Ally. “I’m looking for a woman who lives on Eighty-Second Avenue. At least, she used to.”

“Does she have a name?”

“Yusra.” Ally paused. “Yusra Hussain.”

“Hussain?” Hatim shook his head. “There’s got to be half a million of them in Baghdad.”

Ally searched for a flash of purple tamarisk or a glimmer of silver water.

“This is not the most scenic route.” Hatim glanced in the rearview mirror. “Maybe we should go back to Arasat Street.”

“But she said Eighty-Second Avenue. . . .” Ally squinted at what appeared to be a scrapyard. No one moved about in the wreckage-strewn compound. She wondered if it had been bombed by the United States or Iran, or if its owners went out of business after the sanctions hit and abandoned their plant to the sun and the wind. In Baghdad, it was hard to tell what had been destroyed and what had simply been forgotten.

“If we keep going,” said Hatim, “we’ll end up near the Rasheed Airport.”