CHAPTER

21

“LOOK—DO YOU SEE? Way up in the third section—to the left of the center aisle?”

“Okay. Oh my God. I do see.” Staring, Amani finally turned to Omar. “But why did you bring him here?”

Her cousin rubbed at the side of his neck. He’d just come from a public competition, testing himself against one of the club fencers. Dripping with sweat, he wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist. “It wasn’t my choice, cuz. I called the housekeeper when Musa and I were driving back, to give her a heads-up. And she was like, Absolutely not, no way are you bringing this random guy in the house without your dad’s permission. And by then it was already getting late.” He mopped off his face with his towel. “So, we just came here. He crashed in my hotel room.”

“Well, awesome. And what the hell are we going to do with him now?” She squinted at the still figure in the audience.

“Amani, I’m sorry but what can I tell you? At first, I couldn’t even get him out of the cave. It wasn’t until I said that Uncle Gabe was going to be in this big fight—that finally got his attention. Maybe he thought your dad needed help.”

Amani lowered the hand shielding her eyes and turned toward her cousin. “Does he know he can’t go back to his cave? Did you tell him?”

“Oh, I told him, yeah.” Omar said. “But I don’t think he gets it. Like, at all. Ya maskeen.” Poor guy. “Jesus, you should’ve seen him getting into my car.”

The air was turning wintry and sheer. She rubbed her hands together. They’d only been in Jordan a few weeks, but it was long enough for the clothes she’d packed to become inadequate. “Still, better we got him than the police,” she murmured. She crossed her arms, trying to warm up. Where would they put him if Farouq said no? “We should tell my dad.”

“Yeah, but after the match,” Omar said. “Let’s not freak out Gabe even more than he is.”

TO GET INTO the audience, Amani had to duck under the low stone archway and skirt the back of the curtained-off stage where she could hear men talking and warming up; their shouts as they charged at each other, then laughter, a coach correcting their form. She recognized some of the men from Eduardo’s team, resting from a morning of exhibition fencing; a few nodded to her again. One lifted his foil. Eduardo came over to greet her, then kissed her rather closer to the jaw than her cheek, then placed another nearly on the neck. She felt a current down her back. “I thought about you,” he murmured, “all night.”

Her breath sped through her. She wanted to say so did I, but instead, she shook her head, smiling and pulling back. “Edo.”

Omar slipped between them to introduce himself and gave Eduardo his card. “Hey, man. Like, maybe you want to bring someone in? Help strength-training your fencers? That’s a specialty of mine. I hit nutrition, flexibility, balance, power. I’ll give you an awesome rate.”

Eduardo thanked him, then pointed to Amani as he was called away. “But later, yes?”

Out front, she waited for her breath to calm, then walked around the youth orchestra and started up one of the side steps into the crowded amphitheater seating. This was supposed to be an invitation-only event, but clearly no one had told the Bedouin. Men in jeans and T-shirts, women swathed in black, and wild-haired children had flooded in, filling the upper sections where there were no cushions, only bare, rock-carved rows. They visited with one another, passing around knives and fruit. Amani waded up into the third tier, trying not to step on picnic blankets, excusing herself as she shuffled in front of people—afwan, afwan—and managed to wedge herself in beside Musa. His face had been scrubbed clean; his hair appeared to be wet and channeled by a comb. He looked startled and years younger, as if he had no clear idea of how he’d come to be there. He looked at her fearfully before his features relaxed and she saw he recognized her.

“Hello, Musa?” she said gently. “Marhaba. Ahlain. Are you all right?” she asked, as clearly as she could in her simple Arabic. He smiled, his lips cracking, and said something she couldn’t understand. “I’m so sorry—Ana asifa kteer!” she said. “You must be so confused. Your cave . . .” What was the Arabic for “cave”?

He gestured toward the performance area below, asking something in Arabic. He seemed to be focused on the events.

“Aboui oo il Malik,” she said slowly, gesturing toward the dueling piste where the two men would appear. She wanted to explain what was happening, but struggled to think of the words. She started to say, It’s like a match—then stopped mid-sentence when she realized she didn’t know the Arabic for “duel” or “match.”

“Mobaraza,” the young man in front of them said, swishing his index finger in a sideways eight. His eyes appeared to be darkened with black liner and she could see a gold tooth at the back of his smile. Several of the people sitting nearby nodded and leaned closer. A woman, her face outlined by a headpiece and veil, laughed and said something to Musa, who nodded gravely.

Musa asked Amani something and the older man beside the first one said, “He wants to know if there is great danger.”

“Laa’,” Amani said to Musa. “Ma fi khatar!” She made a crossing-out motion with her hands. The others around them chimed in, patting Musa’s arm or knee. “It’s a just a show—a game,” she said in English.

“La’beh,” the young man translated for Amani. “Bas.” A game only.

“Moubarat,” the older man beside him said. A match.

Musa said something urgently to Amani. She understood the word “king” and nodded.

He settled back with a wide smile. There really was an unusual sort of sweetness in him, an untouched quality, in balance with the place itself. She looked past the edges of the amphitheater’s horseshoe toward the prehistoric landscape—smoking mountains and the raw, marbled land, and above, the sky shocked blue without snow, clear and cold and flawless. She felt washed in it, in the cold light and the orchestral music. She realized the young musicians were playing “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” which filled her with nostalgia and longing for her mother. And yet the beauty of this place was vast; it reached into her. She thought again of Eduardo’s startling suggestion that she remain and shook her head as if to reassure herself.

Musa put a hand on her shoulder and said something in Arabic that she realized was listen. At first she thought he meant the music, but then she understood he heard something else. There was a ruffling sound to the wind, a high, distant surging sound, like that of waves. Amani heard him say the Arabic word for fifty. The people in front of them laughed and the woman said, “He thinks there’s a khamseen. A windstorm.”

Musa said something else and the young man said, “He says he can taste it.” He argued with Musa for a moment, then told Amani, “He’s dreaming. Khamseen mostly springtime. They say khamseen for fifty days of blowing.”

Amani thought of the glimmering mist of the night before, how it had altered the things it touched. And it did seem to her now that there was a tint to the air like that of pollen, a yellow veil. She held Musa’s hand, the wind steepening and washing through the pink canyons. There was a surge of applause for the orchestra. As soon as the musicians departed, stagehands rumbled out to clear the stage. Two of the Desert Patrol emerged in their long, khaki-colored uniforms, the tails of their keffiyehs flung back, bandoliers crossed over their chests. The fencing consultants—a young instructor, a Jordanian referee, and two foreign coaches—carefully unrolled the rubber piste, the white rectangle scuffed and scraped from the morning bouts. Two men on their hands and knees scrubbed at the mat, rose-colored Petra dust clinging to everything.

One of the Desert Patrol came to the center and welcomed them, though Amani couldn’t hear him above the chattering audience.

Another man in a white jacket, knickers, and white socks walked out to the circular stage, his face open in an over-wide smile: it took her a moment to recognize her father.