It was another quiet morning in Salim’s house when he announced that his parents were moving back home. “The Jews can come out of hiding now,” he told Kathmiya since he had no one else to speak to. “Not because of any help from the British lackeys, but from Salih Bosh Aayan—”
“Bosh who?” she asked.
“Bosh Aayan—don’t you know him?” Salim asked absently, as though he were speaking to a fellow attorney instead of a Marsh girl. “Controls half the businesses in this town. And now he’s got his own militia. His forces are Iraqi, like they should be. So everyone can just calm down and go back to their own homes.”
“Do…do you want me to come along and help pack?” she asked, following Salim to the door.
There were hardly any people in Shafiq’s house this time, and at first Kathmiya resented being brought along without the chance to see him. But soon he appeared, looking at her with a warmth that felt like home.
“If we can drive out the imperialists, we can prove that Iraq is perfectly capable of running its own affairs,” Salim was saying to his parents. Reema had brought tea. Their banter would continue for at least a few minutes.
By silent agreement, Shafiq and Kathmiya met in the kitchen, the natural retreat for a maid.
But he didn’t want to stay there. “Come,” he said. “I have something to show you.”
Up on the roof, he opened the door to the aviary that Uncle Dahood had helped him build before the riots. The enclosed area used to be filled with junk, but now had woven metal strips over its small window and an open doorway. It was a sanctuary for birds, but more than that, it was an escape for Shafiq.
He found the tumbler—one of his most impressive pigeons. Among thirty or forty, only one could fly up in the sky and then start doing somersaults in the air.
“Watch this,” he said, releasing the bird.
Sure enough, the pigeon flew up higher than the nearest rooftops and then starting rolling like a professional diver, tumbling on his way down with a joy and vivaciousness that delighted Kathmiya.
“How did you teach him that?” she asked.
“He’s always been that way,” Shafiq replied. “They each have personalities—I could tell you all about them.”
“Personalities?” Kathmiya felt giddy. She understood; of course pigeons had personalities. In the marshes, she had known stubborn buffaloes, playful goats and fearless herons who grabbed their dinner right out of the water.
“See that couple?” he pointed to two pigeons, the male pure white and the female white with a light gray chest, walking near a stack of folded mattresses. “They always keep to themselves. I have a few like that. They’re pretty snobbish, but very dignified!”
Kathmiya’s laugh was like a shower of petals scattering.
“They hardly have any offspring—maybe one in their whole lives,” he added.
“No sisters or brothers?” she asked.
“No, but you don’t always want a big sister if you’re a pigeon,” Shafiq said.
Kathmiya felt a thought scratching at her mind. “Why?”
“The eggs hatch at different times, about two days apart. And the parents always favor the one that hatches first.”
Kathmiya frowned and the spring shower was replaced by a wintry quiet.
She was thinking: Do humans also favor the older one? Is that why I can’t marry?
But then she remembered that she was the only girl around, younger or older, who had been sent off to work before even getting married.
Shafiq began shooing his pigeons up in the air. He found a white towel he used to urge them to go higher, and as he waved it they did, flying ever upward but never far.
“Njum njum,” he said, using a verb from the noun nejma, or star. Reach for the stars, he was saying.
She watched the soaring birds aiming for the heavens, and wished that she, too, could be so free.
“I’d better go,” she said.
“But let’s meet again?” he asked sweetly.
Kathmiya’s breath caught in her throat.
But she managed to exhale: “Yes.”
Shafiq was humming with happiness that night. They were back to sleeping on the roof, and he pulled the covers over his head, grateful for the blackness that let him imagine seeing Kathmiya again.
…Watching the world with her from the rooftop…guiding her hands on a kite string…riding her on his bike down the sparkling river walk…
His unconscious started taking over and now Kathmiya looked like one of his Kurdish cousins, with flared sleeves and coins threading through her colorful dress, gently ringing like a melody…
Lulled into sleep, Shafiq did not hear his brothers approaching, until Naji’s voice shattered the tranquility. “Did you see Odette’s maid? She’s gorgeous!”
Naji had invaded Shafiq’s private thoughts.
“What?” Ezra asked.
“Yaba yaba,” Naji said, a kind of Arabic version of “Oh, boy!” Then he added: “What a piece. I’ve seen some pretty fine girls, but no one as beautiful as her.”
Shafiq wanted to explode in anger. Ezra did it for him.
“Are you insane?” he rasped, voice tight as a wire. “Don’t you know anything? She’s a Midaan. Her family will kill you, Naji, do you hear me? They will come here and kill you!”
Naji was silent, so Ezra drove the point home. “If anyone defiles the honor of a young girl, it is their duty—their sacred duty, Naji—to slice him into pieces. Don’t even think of going near the girl.”
“I guess so. Yeah. All right. I was just saying…never mind.”
Shafiq’s immediate reaction was: As long as Naji stays away, I can be the one, I can approach her and I don’t care if they come and kill me.
Until Ezra added, “Kha-tigh Allah, Naji,”—for God’s sakes—
“if not for you, think of the poor girl. They would murder her too, in a heartbeat.”