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him over centuries and continents. Against the reddish brown walls of his eyelids, he tried to picture the holy Kaaba, which one day, Inshallah, he hoped to visit. (Sometimes the image would come to him clearly, edged with silver like a storm cloud: a thousand people kneeling in brotherhood to touch their foreheads to the ground in front of the black stone, fellowship like he longed to know.) Today, all he could see was Farah’s face, alight with the ironic smile that, at one time, used to infuriate him.
    Farah. She had entered Tariq’s life innocuously, the way a letter opener slides under the flap of an envelope, cutting through things that had been glued shut, spilling secret contents. Her name was like a yearning poet’s sigh, but even Tariq was forced to admit that it didn’t match the rest of her. Boyishly thin and too tall to be considered pretty by Indian standards, she was smart and secretive, with the disconcerting habit of fixing her keen, kohl-lined eyes on you in a manner that made you suspect that she didn’t quite believe what you said.
    The daughter of Ammi’s best friend from childhood, Farah had come to America two years back on a prestigious study-abroad scholarship from her university in Delhi. (Tariq, whose own college career was filled with stutters, was a senior then, trying to finish up classes he had dropped in previous semesters.) In spite of her brilliance, though, Farah almost had not made it to America. Her widowed mother, blissfully ignorant of what occurred with some regularity on the campuses of her hometown, had been terrified that American dorm life, ruled as it was by the unholy trinity of alcohol, drugs, and sex, would ruin her daughter. Only after a protracted and tearful conversation with Ammi had Farah’s mother given Farah permission to come. These were the conditions: Farah would live with Ammi for her entire stay; she would visit the mosque twice a week; she would mingle only with other Indian Muslims; and she would be escorted everywhere she went by a member of the Husein family. Since Abba was busy with his janitorial business, which was growing so fast that he recently had to hire several new employees, and Ammi’s day was filled with mysterious female activities, this member most often turned out to be the reluctant Tariq.
    From the beginning Farah got under his skin. Though she was polite, a disapproval seemed to emanate from her, making him wonder if his disheveled lifestyle wasn’t quite as cool as he’d thought. Hecouldn’t figure her out. Unlike other girls who had visited them from India, she wasn’t interested in the latest music, movies, or magazines. Brand-name clothing and makeup didn’t excite her. One day, feeling magnanimous, he had offered to take her to the mall—and even clubbing, later, if she could keep her mouth shut. She needed to see what made America America . But she had asked if they could go to the Museum of Modern Art. What a waste of an afternoon that had been. He had trailed behind her as she examined, with excruciating interest, canvases filled with incomprehensive slashes of color or people who were naked, and ugly besides.
    On the way back, she had been more exuberant than he had ever seen her, going on and on about how innovative modern Indian art was, too, with Muslim artists like Raza and Husain in the forefront. She had made him feel stupid because he had never heard of these so-called artists, not even the one with the same last name as his. In retaliation, he had listed for her all the things he had hated about India from his duty visits there. She was angry; he could tell that from the way her nostrils flared quickly, once. She said, “It’s easy to see the problems India has. But do you even know what America’s problems are?”
    He was stung into that hackneyed retort: if America had so many problems, she was welcome to go back home. Right now. She had turned her face to the car window. After a few minutes, her hand had