Huda scanned the dim reaches of the garden: the orange and lemon trees, the vegetable patch in the corner, the wrought-iron swing seat that rocked back and forth on squeaky hinges. Abdul Amir raked his hands through his hair. In the moonlight, his fingers were pale as bone.

“What do you know about this woman?”

“Ally seems nice enough,” mumbled Huda. “But it can’t be long before she packs up and returns home. The heat and the sun always prove too much for the embassy wives.”

And the loneliness too, thought Huda. She remembered meeting Ally a month ago, at the end of her ten-hour drive from Jordan to Baghdad. The young woman had stumbled from the embassy Land Cruiser, hand raised to ward off the sun, legs wobbling like a sailor stepping ashore after months at sea.

“All the way here, I kept looking for white sand dunes and camel trains.” Ally laughed awkwardly. No one had the heart to tell her that was some other country.

Huda remembered when women like Ally had flocked to Baghdad: British nurses, French school teachers, and the plump wives of American oilmen. Tourists filled the cafés and strolled the banks of the Tigris. But nowadays, the expats were gone. So were the tour buses. The rail line to Istanbul was severed, and NATO jets shot down any planes that entered Iraqi airspace.

These days, only a handful of diplomats and United Nations workers ventured through the wide western desert to Baghdad. Very rarely did their wives join them—and like the exotic parrots at al-Ghazl pet market, the women soon went off their food, drooped, and plucked out their own feathers. Then they disappeared back into the desert, pale-skinned gypsies in four-wheel-drive caravans, leaving nothing behind but a trail of dust and perhaps a forgotten sun hat. Eventually, their husbands were posted elsewhere and life resumed happily. At least, Huda assumed it was happily. It was almost impossible to stay in touch with those outside Iraq’s borders. Unwise, even, to embark on such friendships in the first place.

“What is she like, this Ally?” Abdul Amir paced back and forth. “Is she one of those arrogant foreigners who knows nothing of history and believes we’re all savages?”

Huda shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Will it be difficult to befriend her?”

The moon slid behind a cloud. Huda was glad of the darkness.

“I don’t know,” she lied. Ally wasn’t standoffish at all, and Huda sensed it would be easy to draw her close.

Until this evening, Huda had thought she could handle the obligatory visits from the mukhabarat. She kept her answers brief but true and made it a rule to avoid gossip. She was only a secretary. She had nothing to hide. Besides, her Australian bosses weren’t fools. They told their Iraqi staff only what they were happy for the government also to know. The rest they kept to themselves.