For the first time Khafaji is happy to sign in at the reception desk. For the first time he also comes bearing gifts. In one of the corridors of the palace, he found fresh roses in a vase. He looked around quickly before grabbing the stems. Then he went back for the vase and took that too.
Mrouj sits up in bed when she sees Khafaji walk into the room. Even her eyes smile. “Good afternoon, Baba. Are all those for me?”
“Just don’t ask where I got them,” Khafaji laughs. He looks around the room for an empty place, then sets the flowers on the windowsill. Mrouj grins the whole time.
“And what’s that, Baba?”
“This is the book I’ve been forgetting all week. I finally remembered to bring it today.”
“Will you read?”
“That’s why I’m here, Mrouji. Where shall I start?” He pauses, then adds, “But before I do, I have bad news. I can’t find Nazik anywhere.”
Mrouj begins to speak, then hesitates.
“But I will find it, and when I do, I’ll bring it here and read as much as you like.”
Khafaji opens to the title page. “Poetry Primer. Volume 2. The Moderns.”
“You brought a textbook, Baba?!”
Khafaji attempts to make her laugh. “Don’t interrupt, me, Mrouj. Let me read the rest of what it says here: ‘Ninth Edition. Approved by the Ministry of Education, 1978.’”
“That’s not mine. Let me see that, Baba.” And Khafaji hands it to Mrouj. She opens it and looks at something. The book falls out of her hands. She closes her eyes.
When Khafaji looks at the page, he sees the handwriting in the margins. He looks more closely, and sees it’s not Mrouj’s. It’s not his either, or Suheir’s. He flips the pages until he sees Uday’s signature. Tamim Middle School, 1982. This was not Mrouj’s copy. He reaches out for her hand and holds it. He closes his eyes and listens to her as she sobs. Finally, she takes a deep breath and then another and wipes her eyes. Then she whispers, “It’s OK, Baba. Read.”
“What would you like?” Khafaji begins reading the names from the table of contents. “Mahmoud Sami al-Baroudi. Ma‘ruf al-Rusafi. Hafez Ibrahim. Ahmad Shawqi.”
Mrouj moans, “No mummies please!”
“Khalil Mutran. Abu Shadi. Abu Shabaka.”
Mrouj groans, “If I wanted poems about trees, I’d read French.”
“You don’t even know French…”
“That’s what I mean!”
He keeps reading names, and Mrouj keeps dismissing them. When he calls out, “Abul-Qasim al-Shabbi,” she finally relents.
“Just the first stanza or two. The rest is just tree poetry.”
Khafaji closes the book. As he starts, Mrouj recites the lines with him:
“If, one day, a people wills to live, then fate will answer the call.
And their night will then begin to fade, and their chains break and fall.
For he who is not embraced by a passion for life will dissipate into thin air,
At least that is what all creation has told me, and what its hidden spirits declare…”
After the first stanza Mrouj scowls at Khafaji, but doesn’t stop him from reading. In the last stanza, she finally objects. “I told you I only wanted the first stanza. But now that you recited it, I want you to start over and read it. And read with more passion please.”
Khafaji begins again, this time dutifully only reading from the page. After a few stanzas, Mrouj interrupts him again. “You skipped something, Baba.”
He looks down at the page and rereads the same stanza. She nods. He rereads the stanza just before it, and then she shakes her head. “No. That’s wrong.”
He holds up the page. “Look for yourself.” She glances at the poem for a moment, then puts her finger on one line and says, “OK, found it. Listen to me and tell me what’s wrong.” She begins to read from the book while Khafaji listens with his eyes closed. He stops her and says, “You missed a line: ‘Then comes winter, season of mists, season of rains, season of frost. The enchantment of life is extinguished, and with it sapling branches, blossoms and fruit are all lost.’”
Mrouj hands the book back to him. “Keep reading, Baba.”
“Should I really stick to reading?”
“Yes. But when something’s missing on the page, it’s your job to correct it.”
“Think what would happen if everyone ignored what was on pages!”
As he reads, he watches her lips soften and her breathing slow. He continues reading for an hour. Rereading poems they both know by heart. He doesn’t stop until long after she’s fallen asleep. He closes the book and stares out the window at an empty building nearby.
“I’ve been thinking, Baba.” Mrouj’s voice wakes Khafaji. Outside, night has fallen. He stretches his arms and stands up, then sits back down.
“About what?”
“I’ve been thinking about the story you told me. There’s something that doesn’t make sense.”
“What do you mean ‘something’? Nothing about the story makes sense.”
“No, what I mean is that first you go out looking for Sawsan. Then you go out looking for this other girl. What’s her name?”
Khafaji thinks for a second, then answers, “Zahra Boustani. I think. Supposedly.”
“Then when you’re looking for Zahra you stumble across Sawsan. And then the only way you can identify Sawsan is by the name on her ID, which isn’t hers at all. I mean, practically the only thing that makes you think it was Sawsan is that she’s got a made-up name.”
Khafaji says nothing.
“From our perspective these look like coincidences, right? But from another perspective maybe they aren’t.”
“I’m sure you’re right!” Khafaji laughs. “Tell me about the other perspective.”
“I don’t know, Baba. I am just thinking about it. Both girls went to college. Did this other girl also work for that professor?”
Khafaji says nothing. He thumbs through his notebook to keep his eyes busy.
“You didn’t ask, did you? So, Citrone asks you to find the missing interpreter, right?”
“Right.”
“Even though she’s supposedly not in the CPA. So how does he know her?”
“What do you mean?”
“How does he know this girl? Zahra?”
Khafaji tries to remember their conversation, then admits, “I don’t know.” He thinks again, then says, “Maybe he knows her in some other way. He took a special interest in the case, but that’s because he wanted me to talk to the other interpreters about it.”
“He’s the one who gave you her picture?”
“Yes. Him or his assistant. I don’t remember which.”
“So he knows what she looks like, at least. And you can assume he didn’t give you the only copy of the photograph he had. So does the assistant know this girl then?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, you might ask, Baba,” Mrouj says in a raised voice. “If I were you, I would begin by asking.” She closes her eyes.
“You’re right, of course. What’s wrong?”
“I’m not upset, I’m just frustrated. I sit around here all day with nothing to do. Every day.”
Khafaji laughs. “OK, I’ll bring you things to read. You’ll see how exciting things can get!”
“It’s not that. Some days I feel better. Not much, but a little better. But most days I feel the same. I’m not sure if this is doing any good.”
Khafaji puts down his notebook and strokes her cheek. Mrouj sits up and asks, “So, Citrone knows what this girl looks like, right?”
“I guess.”
“And Citrone was one of the first to arrive at that house, right?”
“Yes.” Khafaji picks up his pen.
“He could have easily identified Zahra Boustani by himself.”
After a pause, Khafaji says, “You’re right, Citrone didn’t need to send me on that errand at all.”