“No, no. Wait till everyone’s asleep so no one panics. I don’t have answers, so I don’t want questions.”
Through the window, she watches the walls of Lailan’s bedroom. “But—we don’t tell Miriam? Anyone else?”
“Tell them what? I don’t know anything. If I tell them to put the books in the ground, there will be panic, and it will spread. Someone, he said, in my family is an informant. He doesn’t know who, but it got to him.”
“But you said no one in your family would do that.”
The anger is swift and focused. “Because they shouldn’t. But the mokhabarat, they want names, information. People tell them anything to make it stop. I was lucky when I got out. They threaten anything, anyone someone loves to get them to spy. To turn. What if I lived here? If I had a family and nowhere else to go? Would I throw someone innocent aside to save my parents? My children? You?”
There is, for a moment, a surge of hope completely out of line with their talk. Relief from the word you, from being included as someone he would still try to save. Maybe nothing is over. Maybe he was taken and in some ways just needs to come back.
But now he’s waiting, and she’s trying to decide what the right answer would be when she understands it doesn’t exist. You cannot make a perfect choice here. What he’d said when they arrived. But then she thinks of him taken and knows her choice, as flawed as it might be.
“I would,” she says. “I would lie, even if that makes me horrible. I would save you.”
In his eyes, she sees the same resolution.
“So you know,” he says, affirming. “The threat is real. Keep Lailan close. Tomorrow I’ll find a way to tell Miriam.”
The night is hot and the power off more than on, fans rendered useless. Because of this, they will all sleep on the roof. Delan tells her he’ll put the books in the ground himself so no one catches them disappearing together.
Outside, the air is still, and an overlay of Kurdish rugs on the roof lends a rustic refinement. Oil lamps and mattresses with thin sheets. A breeze that catches with the sweet of oleander. Across the street, another family shakes out their bedding before they sit, disappearing from view.
Olivia’s wearing her red sweatpants and T-shirt, lying on top of the covers. Truthfully, everything is beautiful, even with the heat, and so she tries to feel the night as a sort of festivity, a slumber party with a family gathered under the open sky—but every sound bangs like a fist on a door, and every dog barks a warning. Not feeling the threat, it doesn’t take long for the lights to be turned down and Delan’s family to fall asleep. Next to her, Gaziza turns onto her shoulder, a pillow beneath her head and her arm outstretched, palm open to a sky that looks like braille, like something that could be understood. On the floor by Olivia’s bed, a glass of water holds the moon in a polished glare.
All day she wanted to touch Delan’s hair. To run her fingers over his wrist or lean into him and tuck herself under his arm. Anything. And though there were moments of promise, the rest was marked with distance. Emotional and physical. Have they even touched? Once? She reminds herself that after what he went through, he’s allowed. Let him be. All that matters is that he’s home.
Now he sits across the roof. Leaned against the low wall, watching her, a glass of wine in his hand. With the shadows, she can’t tell if he can see her face, if he sees that she’s watching him in return, so she openly stares, willing him to come to her, to talk to her, to let her help. For a while, he doesn’t look away, and neither does she. The rest of the roof falls from her vision so it’s just him, until at last he tilts his head back and faces the moon. With that, she closes her eyes, trying to think of work, of the photographs she’s taken, wondering if anything is good enough.
When the roof creaks, she wakes to see him at the door that leads to the stairs. Quietly she follows, finding him at the bookshelf. With a shake of his head, he motions to gather a certain stack, which she carries to the garden. Arms aching, bare feet warm on the still sun-soaked path. There, in the distance, is the mark on the wall, the place where a hand had been chiseled. Drawing closer, the air thickens with the powerful, apricot-like scent of oleander, that dangerous sweet. Everything around her is motionless. The garden still and patient, as if part of a peaceful time that’s slipped from between the pages of chaos.
She’s just opened the trapdoor when Delan appears with his stack of books. He pauses upon seeing her and then is by her side, his shoulder touching hers. She wants to freeze the moment. To simply sit beside him, the closest they’ve been. Olive oil and laurel oil soap, sandalwood and oleander. She breathes in, trying to plant the scent within her.
“You knew where it was,” he says quietly.
“When you were away, I was out here a lot.” She places the books inside. “It helped me not think, to do work. I couldn’t think, or—” She stops and glances at him. “I know it’s nothing compared to what you went through. But I wasn’t okay. When you were gone. Because you were gone.”
He watches her, and she thinks he’s going to tell her something, anything, but instead he nods. “There’s another stack, maybe two. Next to the radio.”
There are no lights on in the house, and as she starts
