“For some time, he’d been stopping by to see if I needed help. I had that little car, remember?” Rania’s smile was nine parts misery. “Mustafa would check the air in the tires, that sort of thing. Sometimes he would stay and drink a glass of juice. We would talk about the village, about you and your new job. He would play with Hanan. I was lonely. He was too, away from the village.”

“You and Mustafa?” Huda stared at her, openmouthed. “How long did this go on?”

“It was only one night.” Rania forced herself to keep going. “But you know the type of man my father was—honor, reputation, the family name—nothing was more important to him. When I came begging and pleading for him to save Mustafa, it only made it worse.”

She stopped and dragged her hands across her face like she was wiping at a stain.

“If the regime had not done it,” she said, “my father would have killed Mustafa himself. And poor Ali, he was innocent of everything.”

“This can’t be.” Huda pressed her hands to her temples. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“You blamed me for Mustafa’s death—and you were right.” Rania sighed like it was her final breath. “If I had not been so weak, if I had more self-control, perhaps Mustafa and Ali would be alive today.”

“And you encouraged them to fight, to join the rebellion.”

“Mustafa had no idea I was involved with that. We never talked about politics, not till that night anyway. I remember the helicopters whirring overhead. From my balcony, we could see tracer fire over the Shatt al-Arab river like a thousand shooting stars.”

A gust of wind swept through the garden and made the trees dance.

“I let my emotions take over. But I didn’t tell Mustafa to go and fight. That was his doing.”

Huda shook her head.

“We were closer than sisters. Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

“My father threatened to kill me if anyone found out.” Rania raised her burning eyes. “Be honest. You would have blamed me too. So I packed up my things and moved to Baghdad. I thought it was best for everyone.”

Huda opened her mouth as if she was about to argue, but then she stopped and looked away: at the mansion’s patchy roof, the insects darting about the citrus grove, the statue of the woman curled around her child. She looked everywhere but at Rania, whose face had crumpled like an old paper bag. Above them, the crow rocked back and forth on his branch, moaning like he could feel their pain.

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 19