Finding work with another firm in Baghdad would possibly be detrimental to her health and her heart, since she doubted her conscience would allow her to mess with Sachiv’s family and position again. She had no right to him. It had been short, intense, and although she had been pulled down deep and had known love for the first time, it was a wasted love, good for nothing. Rather than struggle backward down an upward escalator, should she not simply walk on?
One afternoon she decided to go out toward the lighthouse, along the goat tracks between the hills. She promised Brona she would be gone no more than ten minutes, but as she clambered along the ridges, her energy rose to the task. She could feel herself beating. The blood was pumping through her and the wind was stinging her face, and the ocean was silver. So she went on, following tracks that went down into dips and up over ridges, until she came past a reedy brown lake, feeling good, almost happy. She sat on a rock, high over the dark, still lake.
Ripples on the water; ripples on her mind.
Sachiv had sat very close to her, on the side of the bed, fiddling with her fingers.
“I should thank you for helping to get me home,” she had said, “but I hate you for it.”
“We made a mistake.”
“Don’t be hard on yourself.”
“I mean we wasted too much time.”
“We’ll have more time,” she said, “when I’m better.”
He looked down at her. “This is a serious thing you have, and Baghdad is no place to be sick. You could not recuperate in the heat. It asks its price, this place.”
“So I’ve discovered.”
“You must get well, that is the important thing. But we will see one another again, here or somewhere.” He looked at her hands, squeezing her fingers. “Until then, every time the elevator opens—a hundred times a day—I will look for you.”
She ran her thumb across his eyelid. “No tears,” she said. “I have no tears. Too dehydrated. You’ll have to cry for both of us.”
Later that evening, the young man who had agreed to travel with her had turned as Reggie and Kim, supporting Thea—dragging her almost—helped her from the elevator. He was unable to disguise his shock. Christ, he seemed to be thinking, she’s this weak?
He was jittery, full-on—a good man doing a good thing, who wished he didn’t have to—and behind them, near the desk, another good man hovered. They were running late. Like an extra piece of luggage, Thea wasn’t even introduced to Alex. They had to get to the airport and, in an awkward jumble, they made straight for the door.
Sachiv went ahead and stood by the jeep. Thea slipped into those eyes one last time. “Don’t be surprised,” he said, helping her into the car. “Don’t be surprised by what I do.” He kissed the back of her hand and let her go.
On the way to the airport, Reggie had talked to the stranger in the front seat, while Kim’s tight grip on Thea’s wrist betrayed her own apprehension. What a lousy, sickly end to their adventure: Kim friendless in Baghdad, while Thea was being pulled from Iraq, like a clam from a rock. The journey was at last under way, but she was scared. The night stretched out, an unlit highway.
Resting her head on the back seat, she lifted her heavy eyelids to catch a last glimpse of Baghdad, but the low white city and the slow river were hidden in darkness. The headlights illuminated only the palm trees. Lines of them, along the roadside, like a guard of honor bidding her farewell.
She too bade farewell, to this strong country and its brave people, to the donkeys and camels, and that blue onion monu-ment, dancing with itself. Images hurried forward, sharp but alluring: the dusty plain between the rivers; old typewriters with heavy keys; women in navy suits; tracer bullets in the night sky. Soldiers and spies. Palms and palaces. White villas and mud houses. Hummus and tabbouleh.
Iraq. Iraq.
I will come back, she thought. I will, though she knew, with certainty, that she would not.
III
Meet Me in Muscat
And there she stood.
Exactly as he had imagined, expected and foretold—he turned, and she was there.
It seemed odd that he hadn’t noticed her coming down the long white steps since he was the only other person by the sinkhole, where the slightest sound echoed and sunlight poured in, like tea into a copper urn. The crystalline water, glassy green and still, had dazzled him perhaps. He had been contemplating shattering its mirror-surface by throwing himself in, when his peripheral vision picked her up, right of field.
Her slender fingers lightly holding the hem of her skirt, her shoulders rounded beneath an almost see-through cream shirt, she was staring across the pool, apparently mesmerized by the pitch-perfect reflections of rim upon rim of sandstone curves. She kicked off her sandals and stepped into the water, past clumps of silky seaweed. So familiar, the way she moved. Crouched near the entrance to the cave, where the channel disappeared, like a train into a tunnel, he watched her paddle.
The years had scarcely touched her. Without even turning, she reached into his chest and squeezed his heart so tightly that he let out a grunt.
She had come back, as he had always known she would.
“Christ,” he whispered. She twisted around and looked up at the rim of the sinkhole high above them, where three tourists stood near the steps, hesitating: it was a long way down and an even longer way up, given the heat.
No doubt feeling his eyes on her back, she glanced over her shoulder, saw him, but carried on paddling. He walked across the stones toward her,
