Listen to this!”
She bolted upright, a blade of grass caught in her messy bun, which had lightened to burnt umber. He felt a mild breeze; she was waving the book over his face. Lethargically, he slid an eye open.
It was all she needed. She plopped the book on his chest. How could she be so energetic after such a lunch? How could she read in this heat? It seemed to fall on them in buckets. Her cheeks were so sunburned they looked like freckled peaches. She wore big Holly Golightly shades, but even through the amber-tinted glasses he could see her eyes dancing. He shielded his with the back of his hand.
“Hadi!”
“I’m listening!”
She read: “The first time I was ever on an airplane was in 1955 and flights had names. This one was ‘The Golden Gate,’ American Airlines. Serving Transcontinental Travelers between San Francisco and New York…”
She paused for a reaction she did not get. That third helping of paneer makhani had been two past too many.
“Did you fall asleep?”
“No!”
He forced his eyes to open. Behind her, dark shimmering leaves, outlined against an impossible blue. Her shadow over him would have offered a brief respite from the light, if she would hold still.
“I was listening! She was on a plane—”
“That’s not the point!”
She just couldn’t hold still, could she?
“Flights had names! Not numbers, names! How utterly magical is that?”
Magical, a Sama word. She was practically effervescent.
“How come you never read books in Arabic?”
She seemed not to hear. She read on:
“The next summer I went back on ‘The New Yorker,’ United Airlines, and had a Martini-on-the-Rocks and Stuffed Celery au Roquefort over the Rockies…”
She let herself swoon back onto the grass and moaned:
“I want a Martini-on-the-Rocks and to be on a flight somewhere… I don’t think you’re allowed to fly in the third trimester.”
He rolled his eyes behind closed lids. Maybe if he kept really still… but no, of course. She said:
“If you were a flight, what would you be named?”
He hated these games. He was terrible at these games. It was too hot for these games. There had been too much cream and hot chili in that paneer.
“I don’t know, Sama…”
The Syrian government had conducted two chlorine attacks in less than two weeks: one bomb on Saraqeb, one on Aleppo. Hadi was going to be a father. Hadi was still reeling from the image of the brown-eyed girl, who could not have been more than four, whose eyes were bloodshot like a cocaine addict’s, over an oxygen mask, which kept sliding because she was mothering her little brother. He was trying to remove his mask. They had the same eyes, big and round and curving slightly at the side like walnuts, but his irises were lighter.
Now Sama propped her elbows onto his belly. He winced and felt his lunch move quite the wrong way. Her nose scrunched at him. It was starting to peel. Her lower lip curled. She said, “Fine, I’ll give you an easier one. If you could fly anywhere, right now, where would you go?”
“Well,” Hadi snapped, “that depends. In this la-la world of yours, would I need a visa?”
It came out more bitter than he had intended but seemed to ease the heartburn. And there was more of it.
“I don’t think too many exotic places are welcoming Syrians with open arms these days. Or have I magically turned into one of your birds, or an American?”
She was too stunned to speak at first. They both were.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“I can’t go anywhere, Sama!”
“I was just playing—”
“There are people dying at home, Sama! And you’re just playing!”
The sunglasses stayed on. She sat up and closed the book and was quiet and looked straight ahead at the children running through the sprinklers. An actual breeze, faint but real, had picked up from the west. Speckled shadows of chestnut leaves danced on her, trickling down her neck and shoulders and the book’s blue leather cover.
“I should take this back to the library.”
He had married the most beautiful girl in the world, he thought. Sunlight caught on the thin gold band on her finger. It had been just the two of them the day he slipped it on. And a clerk with a stained blue tie, no photos or family. Just the two of them, alone in a wild wide world, and now…
“I’ll meet you at the apartment. I just have to finish that chapter for Mendelssohn—”
“I’m sorry.”
He touched her arm.
He sat up and placed his other hand tentatively on hers. She did not remove it. They watched the children, soaked and squealing, be lured away, to the gelato shop across the street. He opened his mouth to say I love you and said, “Let’s get gelato.”
Because she loved gelato. He could barely move, barely breathe, and would never eat Indian food again, at least for a month, but she loved gelato, fior di latte and nocciola in a cone.
“Then I’ll walk you to the library?”
She nodded.
The queue outside the shop wrapped itself around the corner. He was melting and held her hand. Her wedding band was cool.
He said, “So where would you go?”
He could see only the chin crumple, then the smile. The queue snailed on as she thought. Finally, she said, “I’d go everywhere. I’d keep flying around the world and never land.”