As she sped on, Rania caught an occasional glimpse of the Euphrates River, wending like a green ribbon through the Mesopotamian floodplains. Mostly it was scrubby desert, but every now and then she passed fields of rolling wheat, just like in the old days of picnics and swimming parties. The Volvo clattered past a sign pointing the way to the ancient ziggurat of Aqar Quf. The mud-brick pyramid was built three millennia ago to honor the ancient gods. Many times, invading forces had hacked at its crumbling sides, but it remained over 150 feet tall, weathered into the head of a great stallion overlooking the wide desert.

If she was a loyal Iraqi, Rania would have kept Aqar Quf and the glories of Mesopotamia in mind, but on the inky highway, returning from Basil’s farm, she allowed herself to revisit Iraq’s other history. The history absent from school textbooks. The unspeakable, unprintable, unthinkable past. The damage done by their own. She sucked it up. Swallowed it down. Over and over, a bulimic on a sorrowful binge.

Rania’s eyes were veined and swollen by the time she reached the first of the sandbagged machine-gun nests on the outskirts of Baghdad. She removed her ID card from the glove box and rested it on her lap. It took two hours to negotiate the multiple checkpoints. The process required everything she had: her languid smile and cooing voice, her family name, her charm. At the third checkpoint, a young man with oil-black eyes took the last of the money she’d earned selling her father’s books.

By the time she turned off the smooth highway and onto the potholed backstreets, Rania was hollow as a drum. The Volvo puttered past concrete apartment blocks, moldering mansions, and graceful mosques, until, finally, Rania pulled up outside her gate. As she slid her key in the gate, insects turned frantic circles under the streetlight. Once inside, she secured the latches and bolts behind her. Only then did she notice the front door was ajar.

“Hello?” Rania’s voice wobbled in the gloom.

She pushed the door wider. At the far end of the hallway, yellow light leaked from the kitchen.

“There’s nothing worth stealing,” she cried. “Unless you want a painting for your wall.”

The kitchen door creaked. A shadow flickered, then morphed into flesh.

“Hello, Mother.” Hanan extended her arms. “Are you going to welcome me home?”

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 12

Huda’s eyes watered as she waited on the bench in Abu Nasser’s photography studio. Khalid pressed his nose into her shoulder.

“The smell from the darkroom is worse than rotten eggs,” he muttered. “Almost as bad as Bakr’s farts after a lunch of lentil stew.”

“Hush!” Huda pinched his arm. “Abu Nasser may have lost all sense of smell, but he’s not deaf.” She leaned close to Khalid’s ear. “And remind me never to serve Bakr lentils.”