She clutched her bag tight—a backpack stuffed so full the zipper strained at the teeth—and squeezed past a stall stacked with almanacs, astronomical charts, and Korans bound in leather and engraved with jewel-toned inks. A vendor waved her toward an atlas with lands that existed only in memory: Rhodesia, Tanganyika, Transjordan. Beside him, young men squatted over college textbooks piled atop plastic sheets on the ground. Rania caught a glimpse of a dissected heart, pink arteries and blue veins laid out over two pages. She wondered, If she hunkered down beside them, might she unearth a diagram of the soul, its purple bruises and rotten patches properly dated and labeled? More important, would she find dog-eared instructions on how to remedy these maladies?

“Professor, what a blessing to see you,” said Rania as she reached the steps of a whitewashed café. The clank and whistle of kettles on a gas stove drifted through the open windows. “Then again, where else would I find our nation’s most esteemed poet, but at the door of Shahbandar café?”

“You are too kind,” he replied. “Especially to an old man who does nothing but waste his days rewriting the same line fifty different ways.”

Behind him, a group of middle-aged men passed a burbling nargilah pipe back and forth while noisily debating the merits of eighteenth-century novelists. Two young women in blue jeans sat quietly on a cushioned bench sipping sweet tea.

“I hear talk of a new exhibition at your gallery,” said Adnan.

“The German Cultural Center is sponsoring some young artists. The theme is peace.”

“Peace?” He raised a gray bristling eyebrow. “I hope the artists had good imaginations, because they could not draw from their own experience. Perhaps next time you can convince the Germans to hold a poetry exhibition. We could call it The Gasbagging of Old Men. What do you think of that?”

Despite herself, Rania grinned.

“It would be a fine thing, I’m sure.”

Adnan limped toward the café’s heavy doors, gesturing for her to join him.

“I’m afraid I can’t stop, Professor.”

The old man raised his ponderous brow again.

“No tea?”

Rania reddened. “I have an appointment.”

Adnan snuck a glance at Rania’s bulging backpack. A sigh of recognition escaped his wrinkled lips.

“I pray that your appointment goes well,” he said. “After all, without you and your gallery, most of the Shahbandar’s customers couldn’t cobble together enough dinar for a single cup of tea.”

“Well, I, uh . . .” Rania blushed again.

Sympathy clouded Adnan’s rheumy eyes.

“You’re not the first person who’s had to sell off their books,” he said gently. “There’s no shame in it, my dear.”

“I’m not sure my father would have agreed.” Rania clutched her bag tighter. “I guess it’s a mercy that he’s not here to witness me trading off the last of his library for a handful of beans.”