A little less than an hour later, Dan and I exit the T and take off down the street. We skid around the corner, and I burst through the door without stopping for breath. The owner’s in his usual place, car magazine laid in front of him. He doesn’t even glance up until I reach the counter. Then he frowns.
“I have it,” I pant. “I have the money.”
The owner shifts in his chair. “Sorry, kid.”
My heart falters. “What?”
“You’re too late.”
A beat passes. I stop breathing, stop existing, for one long moment.
“W-What?” I repeat.
“Someone bought it on Friday.”
“But—but that was last week,” I stutter, trying to make sense of it. “You told me you’d hold it until today.”
“She paid more. Plus she traded in that beauty.” He nods toward a guitar on the wall. It looks pretty normal to me. “I said from the beginning: I’m not running a charity. She had the better deal.”
“That’s not fair,” Dan growls beside me. “You made a promise.”
“Yeah, well.” The man shrugs.
I open and shut my mouth. My whole body burns, and I can’t find the English words I want to yell at him. But now’s not the time for yelling anyway—I need him to work with me. “Where does the new owner live?”
“That’s confidential.”
I breathe in through my nose, forcing myself to count to five. Dan snorts and wanders away, examining some of the instruments on display near the counter. He’s the quick talker—I almost wish he would help me right now, but he also has a temper, so I’m not sorry he’s stepped aside.
“Listen, you broke your word—the least you could do is give me a hint. I have to have that rebab.”
“I can’t go giving away personal information. I have the law to uphold.”
“You have no honor!” I shout, clenching my hands into fists. “You bought a stolen rebab—how is that upholding the law? And then you went back on your promise!”
“Sure, okay.” He closes his magazine. “Go on, kid. I need to close up shop.”
My blood sizzles. I want to smash his guitars. I want to throw them through the window.
But Dan reappears at my side and takes hold of my shoulder. “Yes, sir, we’ll get out of your hair. Come on, Sami.”
He drags me toward the door. When I look back, the shop owner is locking up his cash register, probably rich off his earnings from selling my rebab.
“He can’t get away with this,” I say as soon as the door closes behind us. “There has to be some way to get the information—”
“Already solved it.” Dan shows me his cell phone. On the screen there’s a picture of the shop ledger, focused on a name—Maliha—and an address. “I had an idea: If she traded in a guitar, she would have recorded her address, just like you did. So I stole a peek at the ledger. And I was right!”
I stare at him. “You are—”
“Brilliant? Gifted?”
“Going to get into serious trouble someday.” I grin. “Okay. How do we get to her?”
It takes a minute for us to find the address on Dan’s map app. Maliha lives near Boston Medical, which means we’re only a thirty-minute bus ride away. We run to catch the next bus. Though it’s after rush hour, we still have to squeeze in and stand the whole time. The ride stretches on and on, my head playing through all the ways this could end. We’re so, so close to the rebab. So close to everything being right for Eid.
When we arrive at our stop, we wiggle around the other passengers and get dumped on the sidewalk. Dan turns to his map again and leads the way.
We end up going down a quiet street shadowed by trees on both sides. In the early evening, the light turns everything soft and gold tinted. It looks completely different from my part of town, where there’s trash everywhere and grit coats the buildings. Here, the redbrick townhouses are placed back from the street, behind bushes and sprouting trees.
“Here’s the place—201,” Dan says, turning in to a walkway and stepping through a short iron gate.
My pulse beats in my head. I step in front of Dan and press the buzzer. While I wait, I stare at the green-painted door.
It swings open after a few seconds. A young woman wearing a colorful porlaney is in front of me, her scarf covering her hair and lifted to hide her nose and mouth. Her eyes are gray-brown, like my mor’s, and I make a connection I should have made in the shop.
Maliha. It’s an Afghan name. She’s from Afghanistan.
“Assalamu alaikum, khor,” I greet her, using the Pashto word for sister. I continue in Pashto, “Tsenga yeh?”
Her eyes widen. In halting English, she asks, “You—Afghan?”
I nod.
She drops her porlaney and grins widely. But I don’t notice the grin right away.
Because the skin on her face is melted.
Where it should be normal, it slopes in waxy smears. Like it burned and then froze. Seeing it makes me feel like I have no skin at all, and my first instinct is to back away.
Dan gulps audibly.
I half expect her to lift the porlaney again, but she does not. She does not apologize, either. Her eyes flick to Dan and then to me, the smile still on her misshapen lips.
“It appears I have scared your friend,” she says in Pashto. “What is your name?”
“Sami. This is Dan.”
“I’m Maliha. Would you both like to come inside?”
I try not to stare directly at her. The rebab is in there. And if her face is scarred, it doesn’t matter. Maliha is of my same-language people.
I lift my chin. “Yes, thank you.”