Chapter Text
On mornings when the weather was clear, Riyamn came up to the roof with me to breathe the clean morning air while I fed the chickens. The year we were seven, we were finally tall enough that we could see down over the wall around the roof, if we held onto the edge and stood on our toes and pulled ourselves up a little. We looked down into the alleys, and watched the egg seller go by, and the firewood seller, and white-robed men in hats on their way to work and children on their way to school.
There was a scrap of bright blue visible in one direction, and I thought it was the sea. Riyamn said that it was probably a roof, the sea was not in that direction, but I made up stories about sailing across the salt sea and the pearl sea and the green sea, and he didn’t stop me. Riyamn looked over another wall and spotted the white dome and minaret of the masjid nearby, where he wanted to lead prayers one day. We had been looking at the minaret for years and I wasn’t that interested in the sight of it, but Riyamn made sure to pick it out every morning for most of that year. He was going to school there after the holy month, and he had talked of little else all summer. I asked Baba if I could go too, and he said it was for boys, and Maghris needed me to help her, but if I was very good he might take me one day.
One morning while it was still early and cool, I was kneeling in a corner of the courtyard with my hand in a kettle, which I was supposed to be scouring with sand. There was burnt rice stuck to the bottom. But I had stopped scrubbing some time ago and was talking with a silver lizard who appeared sometimes.
‘…they do not!’ I whispered.
‘They do! They fly right into boats at certain times of year.’
‘It’s birds that fly.’
‘And occasionally fish.’
‘That’s not what fish do. They swim.’
‘Yes! But sometimes they take to the air. They have special fins like wings, it’s a remarkable thing to see. On my honour as a lizard.’
Baba unlocked the gate with an audible clank and stood rattling the keys and yelled at Riyamn to hurry up. He must’ve come out of his shop without my noticing. I ran across the courtyard, bare feet slapping on the warm stones, and wrapped my arms around his legs. He swung me up and tossed me in the air and caught me again.
‘How’s my little gazelle this morning?’ He asked. ‘Good?’
‘Yes! Ba, do you think fish fly sometimes?’
‘Not usually.’
‘But sometimes?’
‘I’ve heard that some do, and maybe it’s true, but I never saw it myself. Abel would know.’ Abel was Dr. Kanafani. ‘Why?’
‘Oh. I just wondered.’ Maghris was the only person who knew I talked to the lizard. She had said I might, as long as I did not let anyone know I was doing it.
‘You wonder too much,’ Ba said.
Riyamn appeared in his crisp beige robe and white tasselled hat, and Baba set me down. Maghris touched my hand and began to sign, It’s time for Riyamn to go, come away - and while I was looking at her, the gate slammed shut. I was in the courtyard with Maghris, and Ba and Riyamn were on the other side of the wall, and they'd left me behind.
‘Maghris, let me out, I'm going too!’ I jumped up to try to reach the lock, but it was too high, and I didn’t have the key. I threw myself against the gate, but it barely even rattled. Maghris pulled me away and signed at me to come do the sweeping.
‘No, Ba said I could go! He said, let me out!’ I threw myself against the gate again. Maghris hmphed and walked away, and I threw my shoulder against the gate until it hurt too much and then sat on the ground and cried. Maghris swept the courtyard herself and ignored me.
It had never occurred to me that I might not be going to school with Riyamn. Of course I was going! We did everything together. We had never been apart before, and I was terrified they had taken him away and I would never see him again.