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with me to see the tomb in the hills? I need to get to the bottom of this before gossip starts. With two of us, it will go quicker.”
    “Of course,” I answered, and went to wash my face. The water from the well was cold and left dark green stains on my shirt.
    We traveled on Abdelkarim’s beat-up Triumph 21. The paint was worn on the body but the seats were comfortable, because the imam was careful to keep them well oiled. It was a good little motorcycle and more than fifty years old. As opposed to modern Chinese trash, this one could withstand the climate, the night’s frost and day’s heat. He kept it stored under rough horse-blankets in the courtyard; it was well maintained, and he beamed with obvious pride when it roared to life that morning.
    Abdelkarim drove, his robe blowing into my face when it caught the wind. We glided along, past the red hills; the black openings of the small caves looking like the gaping mouths of corpses. Red dust carried by the wind stuck to our sweaty clothing, leaving rust-colored streaks.
    For about half an hour we wound our way down the serpentine dirt road that led to the caves where the tomb was. Since the town graveyard had filled up, the Saada people began to bury their dead in the hills.
    Abdelkarim slowed down and came to a halt. The opening of the cave Abdul Muhyi had spoken about was in a hill above the road. We got off the bike and began to climb.
    “Do the dogs normally raid the dead?” I asked as we hiked up the incline.
    “More and more often. There are a lot of stray dogs. They go after the town’s trash as well. But at the beginning of the war, there was simply nothing to eat in the town, so they came out to the hills to hunt. It seems they have also begun to mate with the jackals.”
    “I didn’t think that was possible.”
    “A jackal is a dog as well, though we can say the stray dogs are more dangerous.”
    “Why?”
    “Because jackals are still afraid of men, but dogs are not.”
    “What did Abdul Muhyi mean when he said the dog was drinking blood?”
    “I believe it is just as he said. There is no natural water source, but where there are wells, there are also people. Any dog that dares to get near the drinking water is certain to be shot by the shepherds.”
    “That’s why they drink blood?”
    “That’s why.”
    “So they don’t die from thirst?”
    “Indeed. Blood is a kind of water.”
    The cave’s entrance was almost seven feet high; we both fit through comfortably. As Abdelkarim went ahead, I saw his hand poised on his robe. Over one of our dinners together he told me that he had been a soldier, and I knew that unlike the knives of people in the capital, the knife on his belt wasn’t for decoration. It wasn’t an especially ornamented dagger; the hilt of a red copper blade protruded from its simple leather sheath. The imam turned and took a gas lantern from the cave’s wall. He looked for matches in his pocket to light it with. The pungent smell of congealed blood filled the cave and mixed with that of the gas.
    Sand grated under the soles of our shoes as we went. Deep in the cave, spaces had been dug into the walls. They’d lay the dead there, and let the hot, dry air take care of the rest. The only problem was the linen sewed around the bodies. Since the offensive broke out, no new material had arrived in the hills, so what was left they used sparingly.
    “What exactly are we going to do here?” I asked.
    “It’s certain that pieces of the bodies have been strewn about. We are going to put them back in the their rightful places.”
    “Out of respect?”
    “Yes. And I don’t want people to start gossiping. In this area they are terribly superstitious. All we need is talk flying around about the devil.”
    The light from the gas lamp flickered against the wall as we traveled farther into the cave. Soon we could make out the contours of the chamber where the burial places had been dug. We found the first corpse on the ground before