She shook her head. That’s cowardice, Ahmad.
It doesn’t matter. I broke the promise we made.
He waited for her anger, but she only glanced sideways as the Amherst’s windows flashed by, taking in the arches, the platforms. It’s nearly perfect, she said. There’s just one thing missing.
He frowned. What is it?
She said nothing, only smiled. The alley reached up to them, gathering them close—
The pane slipped from his hands.
It was long past midnight when a sleepless Maryam Faddoul rose from her bed, buttoned her coat over her nightgown, and walked up Washington Street to the Amherst.
Never in her life had Maryam been out alone this late, on an empty street. Nervously she glanced around the shuttered storefronts and curtained bedroom windows, feeling as though the entire neighborhood were staring at her. And in truth, she didn’t even know what she meant to do at the Amherst. She only knew that she had to go there.
As always, the Amherst’s paper-covered windows made her want to shudder, as though the building itself had been blinded. She considered knocking on the door, but then decided against it. She didn’t want to confront the man, or berate him. Whatever instinct had brought her here, it wanted something else.
She stood in the doorway for a moment, feeling awkward and unsure, and then sat down in the corner, with the door beside her and her back to the wall. Hopefully anyone who noticed her there would mistake her for a vagrant. It was more comfortable than she’d expected—and considerably warmer, too, the sort of heat that brought to mind sleepless summer nights, and bricks that had baked for hours in the sun. Could it be from the forge?
The hinged brass door to the letterbox was only a few inches from her hand. Cautiously she lifted it. Sure enough, she could hear the forge nearby, its strange, voice-like murmur. The air, too, seemed a good deal warmer inside than out.
Then, from the depths, there came a man’s strangled curse—
Crash.
A fusillade of breaking glass; the skittering hiss of shards upon the floor. A deep groan, of frustration and anger. A long pause. Then, footsteps, growing nearer—and he was sitting down next to her on the other side of the door, only inches away, his back against the wall.
Maryam froze, not knowing what to do. She was still holding the letterbox open. If she closed it, he’d likely hear it; if she didn’t, it would be a sin.
She heard him rub at his face and let out a long and weary sigh. She began to grow ashamed. It felt wrong, to spy upon him like this. At last she took a deep breath and said, “Ahmad?”
He yelped in surprise and scrambled away. Then he stopped and crouched down, peering at her through the narrow opening. “Maryam,” he said. His face darkened with anger. “What do you want?”
“I don’t know,” Maryam said.
He stared at her, baffled. Then he snorted, stood, and walked away.
She sat there holding the letterbox open, listening to him sweep up the broken glass. “Go away, Maryam,” he called.
She smiled at that, but didn’t move. A few more minutes passed; then he came back and crouched down again. “I cannot work,” he told her with exaggerated patience, “if I know that you’re here.”
“Why? You worked for years behind these windows, in front of the whole neighborhood.”
“That was different. That was before—”
Abruptly he went silent. She peered through the letterbox—she was certain he’d been about to say, That was before Arbeely died—and saw him bent in on himself, head in his hands, like someone on the verge of fainting. She was about to ask if he was all right—but then all at once he unfolded, and walked away again.
For perhaps ten minutes there was nothing. Once or twice she thought she heard him muttering to himself, though it might have been only the forge. She leaned her head against the door, one arm outstretched to keep the letterbox from shutting. She wished she had a stick, to prop it open with.
She’d nearly drifted asleep when he spoke next to her ear. “Maryam,” he said, his voice a murmur of insinuation. “Does Sayeed know you’re here? Ought I to telephone him, and let him know?”
She chuckled. “If you did, he’d suggest that you listen to whatever I had to say, and then he’d hang up and go back to sleep.”
“Is he so very trusting, then?”
“This won’t work, Ahmad. You can’t shame me away from your door.”
He made a noise of frustration. “All I want is to be left alone. Is it truly so much to ask?”
“Yes, it is,” she told him. “And I’m afraid that you’ve been left alone for far too long.”
A suspicious pause. “What do you mean?”
“The neighborhood is talking about you, Ahmad. You, and the Amherst. They want to know what you’re doing in here, alone in an empty building. Soon they’ll form committees, and hold meetings, to discuss what ought to be done. And then, they’ll come knocking.”
A short, angry laugh. “And what business is it of theirs? Of anyone’s? Did you put them up to this?”
“Ahmad, I’ve spent the last three years keeping Little Syria away from your door.”
A surprised silence from the other side.
“But I can’t do it anymore,” she said. “You’re simply too large of a mystery. They’ve convinced themselves that you’re a threat, that anyone who hides from sight as you do must have a reason.”
“I’m not hiding, Maryam. I’m—” He stopped, and then sighed deeply, and leaned his head back against the wall with a thump that reverberated next to her ear. “These committees,” he said, his voice weary. “What will they say, in their meetings?”
“They’ll make much out of little,” she told him. “They’ll say that, aside from the briefest of glimpses, no one has seen the Amherst’s owner in years. They’ll lament that he refuses to rent out the factory floors when so many Syrian businesses are looking to expand. They’ll ask why all the windows are papered
