A dozen flimsy watercolors had been strung up on a line to dry, all with the same snorting horse galloping through sand dunes, watched on by a dark-eyed woman in a translucent veil. Miriam eyed them disdainfully.

“A first-grade art student could produce this rubbish, but it’s the only thing that sells nowadays.” She stopped short. “That’s not what you’re here for, is it?”

Clumsy with nerves, Ally rifled through her handbag and removed the figurine of a woman transforming into a dove.

“I bought this recently.” She held it forth, like a peace offering.

Miriam plucked a pair of spectacles from a pocket in her caftan. She turned the figurine upside down and squinted at the markings on its base. A small snort of recognition escaped her lips.

“I don’t work much with brass anymore. Too expensive.” She glanced at Ally. “Is that what you want? Another figure like this?”

“Uh, not exactly. I have something else you created.” Ally pulled the photo of her mother from her bag. Her fingers trembled. “Do you remember taking this picture?”

Miriam inspected the photo quietly. She flipped it over and read the inscription, then eyed the faded image again. Ally’s blood rushed in her ears. The twirling dust motes reminded her of musty light in her mother’s bedroom. The turpentine and moldering newspapers smelled like disinfectant and despair. She remembered her mother reaching out to stroke her face and almost cried out at the memory of how she turned away.

Miriam glanced up at her.

“I should have seen it earlier.” Her eyes glowed like tiny torches. “You’re Bridget’s daughter, aren’t you?”

“You remember my mother?”

Miriam took another long look at the photo, then returned it to Ally’s hand.

“I didn’t know her well. Not really.”

“But you took the photo, right?” Ally refused to let this turn into another dead end. “Do you remember anything about that day?”

Miriam began to pace back and forth, caftan swishing at her feet.

“If I recall, I took that photo the first time I met your mother. A group of us had gathered at the promenade along Abu Nawas. We were celebrating the launch of a new literary magazine. I still remember the slogan: ‘Radical art and radical politics.’” She glanced at the door, then lowered her voice. “It was published by the youth wing of the Communist Party.”

Ally blinked in surprise.

“A communist magazine? In Iraq?”

“It was communist for a while, then socialist, then democratic socialist, then back to communist again.” Miriam redoubled her pacing. Watercolor horses fluttered in her wake. “The British colonialists were gone. We’d overthrown their puppet king. For a brief moment, we believed we could create a new world.” Her chin jutted forward at an angry angle. “We were young. We didn’t realize that moment of daylight was just the eye of the storm.”

Ally struggled to digest the news.

“I had no idea my mother was involved in politics.”