CHAPTER

32

• December 7, 1995, Syracuse, New York •

FRANCESCA WAS WORKING at the kitchen table. Before her was a stack of bills: mortgage, electric, water, and now this new invader, the cell phone. She wore a pair of glasses that had belonged to her grandmother—little lenses that cast crescents on her cheekbones. Her lopped-off hair startled Gabe yet again. She’d cut it while he was in Jordan. Now her hair glowed like a black corona and he’d discovered the back of her beautiful neck. When he first saw her hair so short, he’d felt it like the loss of a limb, and though he’d been back for a week, Gabe still wasn’t used to it.

She told him the stylist had braided and cut it off—and the braid almost made it worse for him—giving the loss form. But the banded braid kept the hair in one neat piece and she’d donated it to the people who make wigs for children. He recalled then she’d undergone a similar denuding about five years earlier, and also five years before that. Soon, she’d be dragging him in to give blood—that happened twice a year. And their driver’s licenses checked every box—that upon their deaths the doctors should feel free to come and dismantle their bodies for spare parts. Their neighbor, Mrs. Winslow, swore this meant they’d let you expire on the spot if you ever dared show your face at the hospital.

But this was the point of being alive, according to Francesca—to give yourself away. Whatever physical resource you had—blood, bones, hair—was meant to be plowed back into the shared planet. The only way to be truly alive was to let go of yourself. Smile and let go.

Gabe sat across from her in the terrible, uneven chair that he was going to fix—soon! And she looked at him, all lit up in the midday sun, Our Lady of Invoices. He went into the refrigerator, looking for lunch, pulling out bowls of cold things, half-things—leftover tabbouleh, hummus, some cheese and bread. He hummed as he assembled the food.

He’d told his wife two things after he got off the plane—two things that had been worrying him all the way across the water. First about Il Saif. When she learned he’d taken the knife to Jordan without telling her and given it to Amani, she had gone quiet for a moment. Then she’d said, “She’ll know what to do with it.” The other was something that Hafez had said to him on the day of the duel, while they’d waited in the backstage area in Petra. He’d told Gabe that he’d stolen Francesca away from him, that she had loved Hafez first, and that it was likely, he’d added with a shrug, that she loved him still.

Francesca was driving them home. She with her astounding new hair and neck. She’d placed her hand flat on her sternum and looked at Gabe. “He said that? Hafez did?”

Gabe, not trusting his voice, merely nodded, his chest aching.

She released her silvery laugh then, the magical one that made people fall in love with her, three notes, high and low. So like his mother’s. Light as water. “He said that?” She wiped tears away. “Oh my God. That guy. Will wonders never cease. You didn’t believe him? Oh, tell me you didn’t!”

His throat melted and his breath fell back into his lungs and his rib cage expanded and for what felt like the first time in a month, he was laughing too. “Of course not,” he said. “Never.”

“Oh my God, your brother!”

Now he was washing the lunch dishes, little puffs of suds clinging to his elbows, when Francesca came in with the mail. On top of the usual stack of flyers was a creamy oversized envelope, carefully sealed, stamped by a courier service. It said: Mr. Gabriel Hamdan, in English and Arabic.

He used the paring knife to open it. Inside, wrapped in an overleaf of tissue paper, there was an 8 × 10 photograph of two men and a handwritten letter in blue ink on fine stationery. He read:

ON BEHALF OF HIS MAJESTY, KING H OF JORDAN:

We would like to express our deepest gratitude, for the time, courage, and skill that you so generously contributed to the Jordanian cultural trust. The palace library will include narrated video recordings of your exhibition bout in Petra and we will be pleased to send you a copy when they are completed.

On a personal note, I would like to reintroduce myself. We met on the day of the fencing match, though in the day’s flurry of excitement, I doubt you would remember. I am the King’s cultural affairs officer and one of his personal secretaries. In this capacity, I oversee a wide array of planned events and also deal with all sorts of unexpected occurrences. I wear many hats in my position and sometimes I find myself working with the unlikeliest partners.

Such was the case on the afternoon of November 19, 1995, not long after the conclusion of the match. As you know, your relation, Mr. Musa Hamdan, had unfortunately become entangled in a situation outside the Petra Nabataean Theatre and was subsequently intercepted by security detail.

Mr. Hamdan was then released to the custody of your brother and my colleague, Hafez Hamdan. As Mr. Hafez was already exhausted by the weeks of planning and activity, I had grave misgivings as to the wisdom of this decision. When security informed me that your daughter was searching for Mr. Musa, I contacted private investigators.

From them, we learned that Mr. Hafez had escorted Mr. Musa to Wadi Rum—a UNESCO World Heritage site—perhaps so he might enjoy a late-day hike in those pristine surroundings. However, he inadvertently neglected to provide Mr. Musa with water or head covering. I was greatly relieved to hear that Mr. Musa was intercepted by local tribesmen while trekking through the protected wilderness area.

Our investigators eventually located Mr. Musa back at his home in the foothills behind St. Elias Monastery in Karak.

His Royal Majesty, King H, has expressed particular concern over Mr. Musa’s plight and I’m pleased to tell you that the Crown has created an exemption to grant him permanent residency above the St. Elias Sanctuary, and has started construction of a private dwelling for Mr. Musa, adjacent to his cave, with a view of the valley floor. In addition, the Crown has provided Mr. Musa new furnishings, as well as an excellent woolen Anatolian kilim. If you peruse the enclosed photograph, you’ll note that Mr. Musa has nicely positioned the furnishings about his cave. The sisters of St. Elias inform us that he has also moved two goats and several sheep into the construction area.

Finally, you are no doubt aware that Mr. Hafez has decided to step down from his governmental duties and enjoy a well-earned retirement.

His Majesty and I once again offer you more heartfelt thanks for all you’ve given us. Whether here or abroad, Jordanians like yourself are at the heart of our beloved country. If we can ever offer you any assistance in turn, we hope you will not hesitate to call upon us.

With admiration,
Very truly yours,

Rafi Bustani

Gabe picked up the photograph again—it wasn’t black-and-white, yet it retained an old-fashioned, almost sepia-toned quality. Propped on a carved wooden chair, one foot cantilevered against the opposite knee, was Musa. He gazed into the camera with his open face but Gabe could tell someone had posed him in that chair. His hand touched a tray of silver cups and a coffeepot that rested on a camp table with brass fittings and bamboo legs. A brass lamp hung from the ceiling. Putting the oversized photo to one side, Gabe removed the fragment of photograph from his wallet—Amani had taken it from an onionskin envelope filled with scraps of blue paper and given it to him just before he left Amman. He compared the boy’s face to that of the man in the cave. When he’d returned from Jordan, he’d pulled out his family photograph, the one with the missing corner, and found that the fragment fit exactly into that corner: at last, his three-year old hand closed around the fingers of an older sibling. Now as he compared the boy’s face in the fragment to the newer image, fifty-six years melted away. His breath shook inside his body. How to reclaim a childhood—how to reclaim a brother?

SOMETIMES THE COLD woke him. Even in winter, Francesca liked to keep the heat turned low at night—a frugal old habit. They had a comforter, buoyant with goose down; it usually slid off the bed and the cold wound in through his sleep. He opened his eyes in the still darkness, wondering. He tried to recall more clearly this Rafi Bustani who’d signed the note. A pale, nearly featureless face hovered in his thoughts.

Gabe fell back to sleep, then woke later with new sunlight. His dreams had been quiet. “Fawg.” Up, he murmured, Francesca still asleep beside him. She’d been doing this lately on weekends. Would they live long enough to ever retire and let the weeks soften into new shapes? He lay with his face against his pillow. He felt it again, Musa running into the street in Petra to save him from Hafez. He thought of how Musa had vanished from their family the first time. He considered the rules of inheritance. No. Hafez was capable of many terrible things but not murder. Gabe would not let himself imagine such a thing. The next time Gabe returned to Jordan, he thought, he would go to the cave with gifts—he would bring Musa a good warm jacket; the nights must be terribly cold in a cave—especially at his age.

He had to hurry and get dressed. It was just January, but already he was getting orders for decks and new windows and painted cabinets for springtime kitchen renovations. Still, he stayed in bed a moment longer, watching the way the light strayed across Francesca’s ankles. He tugged the comforter back over her feet. He wanted to brush the short fan of hair away from her face, but that might disturb her. There was time enough for waking. When her eyes opened, he would put his arms around her. It was strange, how you could live with someone for so long that you nearly stopped seeing them.

Other times, though, you might suddenly catch a glimpse, and then it was like seeing a waterfall. You might tell yourself that this person is like gold to you, melted gold, running through your arms, lovely and ungraspable.

When she woke, he would hold her: he would remember how infinitely precious she was. He would try to remember to do that every day and every hour—because they were limited, he knew all too well, the hours and the days.