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would be professional, and subject to perusal by anyone at the organization. Tessa wanted only personal missives. She began with the day of his death and worked backward.
    Most of the personal email was either to Tessa herself or to his mother and sister. Salah, faithful son that he’d been, had written his widowed mother once a week, and he and Tessa had visited Tunisia every October. Fatima had not been thrilled with Salah’s choice of bride. In fact, she’d been appalled. Conservative, still veiled when she left the house, she blamed Tessa for taking her only son away from his native country, and away from her. She had never said as much, but she treated Tessa with icy courtesy, never so much as smiling at Tessa’s attempts at friendliness in her stumbling schoolgirl French. For Salah’s sake, Tessa had never made an issue of this. Besides, Fatima’s disdain had been made up for by his sister, Aisha.
    As much the new Tunisia as Fatima was the old, Aisha was a doctor with the World Health Organization in Geneva. Aisha was wonderful, as lighthearted and adventurous as her older brother. Aisha had especially loved the emailed pictures of Minette. Salah wrote to Aisha in French and to Fatima in Arabic. His laptop was equipped with software to handle the Arabic characters.
    Among all the emails, Tessa found only three, all in Arabic, with addresses she didn’t recognize. Two were from [email protected], a United Kingdom ISP, dated a few days apart last August. The other was from [email protected], received two days before Salah died. If Salah had replied to either, he hadn’t saved the replies on his computer, nor entered the addresses in his address book, although he was sloppy about that, anyway. Tessa had no idea who either recipient was.
    Nor did she know if they spoke English. Querying them in French might be safer, although many younger Tunisians, especially those not rich, no longer learned French. France had, after all, pulled out of Tunisia in 1956. Still, it wasn’t as if Tessa had fluency in a dozen languages to choose from. Salah had been the one with the natural linguistic ear.
    â€œWhat language do you dream in, Salah?”
    â€œIt depends on the dream. If it is of you, I dream in poetry.”
    Her English-French dictionary was packed somewhere unknowable. Tessa settled for a scratch job, hoping whoever was on the other end would overlook her mistakes in grammar and vocabulary.

    Je suis la femme de Salah Mahjoub, avec qui vous avez communiqué l’année dernière. Peut-être vous avez apprendé que Salah est mort, depuis décembre. S’il vous plait, voulez-vous écrire à moi cette qu’avez-vous écrit avec lui l’année dernière? C’est tres important. Merci beaucoup. Aussi, pardonnez-vous mon francais; je suis americaine.
    Tessa Sanderson Mahjoub

    Did that say what she wanted, which was, essentially, “Tell me what you and Salah emailed about last year?” God, she hoped so. What if the correspondents weren’t even Tunisian? After all, one of the addresses was in the uk and the other could be anywhere. Well, then they’d email back “Huh?” and she’d take it from there.
    As she sent both emails, Minette whined to go out. The Cape Cod had no fence, although Tessa was planning to install an electric one eventually. She threw on a coat, fastened Minette’s leash to her collar, and left the house through the front door.
    Mrs. Kalik, her new neighbor, was hauling her garbage out to the curb. She took one look at Minette and shrieked.
    â€œDon’t let your dog out!”
    â€œNo, it’s fine, Mrs. Kalik, she’s harmless and she—”
    â€œGet her away from me!”
    Nobody but a true phobic reacted that way to a toy poodle. Tessa picked up Minette, who squirmed to get down and piddle.
    Mrs. Kalik glared at her. “Don’t you know? If your dog is okay, don’t let it go