“Can’t believe you’ll be gone this time tomorrow,” Thea said, clutching Kim’s waist as they posed for a photograph together.
“I’m so sorry about the cards. Seemed like such a neat idea. Now it seems irresponsible. Giving you false hope about Sachiv.”
“Oh, don’t, please. I’ve been an idiot, getting all loved up. It was just something he said when I was leaving that made me suspect him.”
Kim squinted at her. “‘Don’t be surprised. Don’t be surprised by what I do.’”
Thea turned. “You heard?”
“Sure did. I was right behind you guys. Couldn’t figure it.”
“It’s been going around my head these last months. Too much time on my hands, clearly. I’m sure I was no more than a fling to him.”
“You think?”
“Well, I’ll never know.”
“I know.” Kim turned to take in the view. “There’s something I haven’t told you about Sachiv.”
“Oh, God, you slept with him too?”
“I came across him one night, out by the pools, about six weeks after you’d left. I went out for a stretch, quite late, and he was sitting on the end of a lounger, jacket and tie off, his chest sort of concave . . . turned in. When he saw me, he blinked those lovely sad eyes in a hopeless sort of way, and said, ‘She will not come back, I suppose.’ I said, ‘I guess not.’ He didn’t say anything else, so I walked on by.”
“And?”
“He suffered too, is all I’m saying.”
“Good,” said Thea, as Kim wandered off to take photos. She stared into the thick canopy below her, where houses poked out, laundry fluttered on lines, air-conditioners hummed, and satellite dishes sucked in their programs.
Abid came to her side. “Jibril is a good person. A good man.”
“I know.”
“We must take care for all people. Whatever they have done.”
“Done?” Thea frowned. “Has he done something?”
Abid looked out, hands deep in his pockets.
“You mean his brother?”
A head gesture, approximating a discreet nod.
“I thought no one knew about that.”
“His sister told me that story before she went away,” he said. “She wanted that I should make sure he is okay.”
“And is he?”
Abid wobbled his head. “Sometimes.”
“And sometimes not?”
“There will be no peace for Jibril. Every time he has a little happiness, meets a nice lady, it is destroyed. She will not allow it. No one else can have him. This, she makes sure.”
Thea’s hand went to her neck. “She’s still with him?”
“I think, yes. She makes him think you look like her.”
“Oh, God. He really is cursed.”
“But someone like you, a strong person, even if she tried, you would repel her.”
“How?”
“Three times, you send her out. You say, ‘Leave him,’ three times and the jinn will go out. ‘Tell them three times to leave,’ the Prophet, peace be upon him, says in the Hadith, “and if they don’t, we can kill them.”
“That didn’t work when the exorcist tried it, apparently.”
“But you are her rival, and you are stronger than she.”
“Abid, I have a family, a husband.”
“Yes.” He nodded sadly. “This is his punishment.”
“And how was your journey?” Fatima asked, when she picked them up not long after their return from Nizwa. “Did you get enough material?”
“Oh, more than,” said Kim. “It was a wonderful trip, thank you.”
Fatima al-Kindi worked for the Ministry of Tourism and had organized Kim’s itinerary. A warm, cheerful woman, she had met Kim at a tourism conference in the States and extended the invitation to visit. They had hit it off and spent some time together—and it was she, it transpired, who had sent the misleading postcards to Thea, according to Kim’s instructions. For Kim’s last afternoon, she had invited them to join her and her husband, Salim, on their Friday round of family visits.
They drove first to Salim’s village, outside Muscat, where his family’s large house was buried in its own plantation. While his father entertained them in the yard, his mother and younger sister brought coffee and delicious squidgy dates. Fatima explained to Thea that the Omani way of drinking coffee was to slurp it, but not too much. “When you have had enough, you wobble the cup from side to side, like this.”
It was a fresh evening; the sky was pink and, through the tree fronds, Thea glimpsed a sliver of moon. When Fatima and Salim’s father went to pray, Salim walked Kim and Thea through the grove, explaining how the dates were harvested and dried, which trees were male and which female. “We have twenty-five different types of palm here. And you have seen the falaj around the country?” He pointed at a cement channel, through which flowed a thin trickle of water. “It is a very ancient irrigation system, but nowadays we use it on a time-share basis. In one oasis, each family will have running water for so many hours, and then the next farm will have it.”
Some kids ran about. Family life. Normalcy. A Sunday afternoon, or the equivalent thereof. Thea felt herself dropping onto firm ground, as if parachuted from a height. No roving Gabriel, no talk of jinn. She was reminded of Brona and the stories she told them when they were small. Before bed, they would sit around the fire to hear her tell of fairies, banshees, and the evil pookas; fairies lived under mounds and hills, and in the ring forts dotted about the countryside. They loved music and dancing, and although they could do good magic, like bringing babies to parents who had none, they could also be willful and play tricks if they were angry. This was why, Brona used to say, there was a tradition among rural folk to call, before throwing used tea leaves out of the door, “Uisce Salach! Uisce Salach!”—dirty water—just in case a fairy was passing.
Thea, like her brothers and sister, had longed, but longed, to see a fairy, to search the hillocks around Brona’s house or visit the nearest ring fort, but their aunt had advised that it was best to leave them to go about their business undisturbed so
