“Oh, no, don’t do that,” said Ally quickly. “But tell me, do you work much with this artist? Am I likely to bump into her in your garden?”

“Miriam Pachachi is her name. To be honest, these days I only see her at weddings or funerals.” Force of habit made Rania glance over her shoulder to check if anyone was listening. In the 1970s, Miriam had been active in political circles—too active for the authorities, even in that relatively liberal time. It was only her family connections that saved her from prison, or worse.

“Miriam has often been called a black sheep.” Rania patted the statue’s sun-warmed flank fondly. “Like many artists, she is driven by the desire to communicate. But sometimes you can’t put your message into words, so you paint a storm cloud, or you cast it in metal.”

“These things that can’t be put into words . . .” A shadow passed briefly across Ally’s face. Before Rania could ask what troubled her, the young woman removed a chunk of dinar from her handbag. “Please, let me pay you for this painting.”

She began to count out her dinar, flipping the blue notes over her finger, one by one.

“Malik al-Bashad was very chatty when I met him outside,” Ally remarked. “He said you have a lot of admirers at the Ministry, including him, I suspect.”

Rania wondered what else that bastard had said. Had he told Ally that she was painting the president’s portrait, that she’d taken money to make the tyrant’s eyes sparkle and his lips ruby red?

“Malik and I attended the Baghdad College of Fine Arts at the same time,” she mumbled. “It was before I went abroad to study in London.”

Ally glanced up from her counting.

“Have you ever thought about moving back to the UK?”

Rania gave a small shrug. She knew it was hard for outsiders to understand, but the idea of leaving Iraq seemed contrary to the laws of physics, as if asking metal to defy the pull of a magnet, or the tide to turn its back on the moon. Iraqis had given their lives for this land, men like Huda’s brothers, Mustafa and Ali. Didn’t she owe it to them to stay?

From the corner of her eye, Rania saw the curtain in Hanan’s bedroom window shift. She remembered the tiny studio she’d rented all those years ago in London’s Earl’s Court. She’d sit by the window, watch the parade of passersby, and try to imagine all the millions of different places they might end up. Perhaps, back then, she could have stayed in London happily. But now, it was too late. Like gravity, loss kept her pinned in place.