Ally bent down to help.

“Covered what up?” She grabbed another frond.

“Careful!”

Too late, its serrated edge sliced Ally’s palm.

Huda tutted and pulled the last of the brush away.

A weathered slab poked from the earth. Ally remembered it from her first visit to the nursery. She leaned closer. The slab was made of sandstone, with two lines of Arabic script carved across its face.

“Is this a headstone?” she said slowly.

“Can you read it?”

“The second line says 1952 to 1972, right?”

“What about the line above that?”

Ally brushed dirt from the words carved into its face. Huda laid her hand on Ally’s shoulder.

“It says ‘Yusra,’” said Huda. “‘Yusra Hussain.’”

Ally moaned, so quietly it could have been the wind.

“Yusra’s dead? She’s been dead since 1972?” Ally touched the scarred marker. “How did this happen? She was so young.”

Huda squinted at the humid shadows of the nursery. The old man had disappeared. No insects buzzed. No lizards scrambled through the thorny grass. Even the river was quiet, its deadly currents hidden beneath a surface so smooth it could have been glass.

“Yusra was executed,” whispered Huda. “For treason.”

“Executed?” The word rang in Ally’s ears, so shocking she almost believed it had come from someone else’s mouth.

“From what I was told, Yusra joined the youth wing of the Iraqi Communist Party. Her cousin was already a member, and he convinced her to come to their meetings. She was not a high-ranking member. She was not important at all. But the party fell out of favor. It was banned, and that was enough for the regime.”

Ally’s throat constricted.

“You were right, Yusra did live on Eighty-Second Street,” continued Huda. “But the regime demolished her family home. That’s part of the punishment for traitors.” She glanced at the mound of broken concrete. “Rubble is all that’s left. That, and her gravestone.”

Ally asked herself, Could it be any lonelier, this small, sad slab buried under palm fronds and dust?

“The regime doesn’t care who it harms,” said Huda. “An innocent young nurse means nothing to them. It will do the same to Khalid and Hanan, unless you help us.”

“Tom won’t agree to this.” Ally wrung her hands. “I’m sorry.”

“Did you know traitors are forbidden proper burials?” said Huda. “Yusra was lucky to have her name on that stone. Most people don’t get that. ” She paused and eyed the burial slab. “I know this, because my brothers were called traitors. They were executed too.”

“Your brothers? Executed?” Once again, Ally’s voice sounded like a stranger’s in her ears.

“No one wrapped my brothers in burial shrouds. No one got to say prayers as they were laid to rest.” Pain eddied in Huda’s eyes. “For months afterward, my mother couldn’t leave our house, because if she cried in public the regime would have had her whipped.”