“Then I will get a taxi.” Ghassan headed for the gate.

“No, don’t,” said Ally quickly. She might be safe out on the street, where the regime was keeping watch. The backseat of a stranger’s car was another matter. “No taxis.”

“But, madam, you can’t—”

“I need the exercise.” She cut him off. They’d had this conversation many times before. “I’m going for a walk.”

Ghassan positioned himself between Ally and the tall metal gate. His eyes skittered briefly across her face, then returned to the driveway. She stepped forward.

“I’m leaving now.”

She took another step, wielding her strange foreign femaleness like a force field and compelling Ghassan to retreat. He grumbled under his breath and pushed open the gate. Outside, a knot of plastic bags somersaulted through the traffic circle like a tumbleweed at high noon. High above, golden dates dangled from palm trees. Others rotted in treacly heaps on the sidewalk.

Ally tugged her scarf above her collar and strode toward a set of traffic lights. They flashed amber. On and off. On and off. No one ever came to fix them, so they shone amber every day, never indicating whether to proceed or to stop, only urging caution, endless caution.

Unlike the teeming market of Mutanabbi, most of the businesses in Ally’s neighborhood didn’t open until the cool of the evening, so she was alone on the sidewalk, except for a woman wrapped in a black abaya selling newspapers by the traffic lights. A hoot of laughter echoed through the warm air. The newspaper vendor’s three-year-old son slipped from the shadows of a cobbled alley and made a beeline straight to Ally.

“As-salaam alaikum.” She squatted at eye level with the boy. “How are you, Mohammad?”

Mohammad immediately launched into their customary game of peekaboo mixed with silly faces. Ally crossed her eyes and flapped the corners of her ears. Mohammad cackled and did the same. After a few minutes, Ally pretended to steal Mohammad’s nose, returned it to him, and continued on.

At the spot where the newspaper vendor stored her meager supplies, Ally paused and opened her handbag. She removed a plastic bag containing canned tuna, crayons, and a coloring book, and set it next to the newspapers. She continued past a pair of carpet shops, a tired photography studio, and a juice bar. A row of public-housing blocks loomed ahead, the same mustard hue as the desert that lapped at the city’s hem. On pocket-size landings, laundry roasted on lines, socks and undershirts stiff as kindling. A black Oldsmobile cruised past the towers. The wind carried the throb of its engine toward her. The sound held no urgency: the driver had time on his hands.