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this world,” he adds. “Even if every imam up and down the Tigris tells you it is God’s will that innocent martyrs die in this war, don’t believe them.” He stares at me in the dark. For a moment, his eyes seem brighter than the torch. “Would God let an innocent girl like Noor die? And the whole Alusi family?” The Alusis were a family of five who died last week, when the Americans tried to get Saddam while he was out at lunch with his sons in Mansour; Baba had once mended a hole in their twelve-year-old daughter’s heart.
     
    I nod and say nothing. Tonight is not the night to challenge my father’s absence of faith. He reaches over and puts his hand on mine, clutches it to the sofa’s armrest. I want to feel thankful for the gesture. But another part of me feels trapped. Pinned, not consoled.
     
    He sits back. “It’s a nightmare, isn’t it? The evening started like a dream and it turned into a nightmare.”
     
    I cannot remember my father ever speaking in such terms. Since when did he ask after my dreams? The clock clucks slowly, marking our silences.
     
    “Nabil, you know it was one of ours, right?”
     
    “What was?” I ask.
     
    “The bullet that hit her. It was Saddam’s fadayoon shooting at the American helicopters. Can you imagine? Bullets at helicopters. So we have our own brilliant defenders to thank.”
     
    “For...Noor’s death?”
     
    Baba sighs. I think he’s still afraid to say anything directly, even in our own home.
     
    “I think I’ll go to bed.” I lean forwards to stand.
     
    “You didn’t seem sad when that foreign woman came in.” I lean further and turn my head from him, glad it’s dark.
     
    “No, Baba, I was just — surprised. I didn’t expect her to come.”
     
    “You were very keen to help her at the hospital. You were practically flirting with her.”
     
    “She was desperate for help! I was only trying to help. Her, and her friends. She wasn’t alone.” I hate sounding like I’m trying to justify myself, but it’s too late.
     
    This is one of my father’s oldest tricks: a brush at being understanding, an opening, followed by censure. It’s a boxing match that’s been fixed: I will always lose. But now it’s pointless for me to hide the real reason she came.
     
    “She wants me to work with her.”
     
    “With an American lady? In the middle of this?”
     
    “What should I do? Sit around at home all day? What are we going to live off? Who will pay the salaries at a government hospital when there is no government?”
     
    “Keep your voice down.”
     
    “And school, Baba. When do you think it’s starting again? Did you hear what they did to my school today? There isn’t a window left intact. All the books are gone. Burned, stolen, I don’t even know. Gone! They looted almost every desk, every chair.”
     
    His face is full of disbelief. “It’s true,” I say. “It’s to be expected. It was seen as a school for the elite — everyone knows that it’s mostly for wealthy Sunnis. What am I going to do until they repair the school? It will be next September if we’re lucky!”
     
    “It’s only what? April.” My father squints at his beloved clock, as if to figure out the month, and maybe the year as well. “What about all the boys who need to finish the school year?”
     
    “None of the schools are going back until the autumn, only some universities.”
     
    My father breathes in deeply, and lets out a full belly of air. He takes the torch off the table and slaps it into the palm of his left hand, sending a whir of light against the wall. “Who did you say she works for?”
     
    “I don’t remember. The Tribune?”
     
    “In London?”
     
    I consider lying. “No, in America.”
     
    My father puts two fingers on each eye and rubs his eyelids in and out, like he might be able to erase something from sight. “What will your mother say?”
     
    ~ * ~
     
    I lie in bed with her card, bending it back and forth, listening to