"Yeah, my father thinks these things are superstitious. Mum was always putting one of these things up in his car, and he would take it down, or put it away in the glove compartment. It's like a joke between them."

Sam smiles. "But why is a hand supposed to be good luck?"

"Well, this is known as Id Fatima, the hand of Fatima, who was the Prophet Mohammed's youngest daughter from his first wife, Khadijah. There are many beautiful stories about Fatima. She is supposed to symbolize strength and protection, but also abundance and patience. And heroism." I take a closer look at the hand with its fingers pointing down, realizing that it's fairly new because I remember there having been an older one here, with some prayer written on it, whereas this one just says mashallah. "People also call it khamsa because of the five fingers. You know, khamis is five."

"Right." Sam slips a hand towards her feet, and comes back with her open notebook. She jots down a few lines without saying anything.

"Are you interviewing me now?"

She clicks her tongue no, just like an Iraqi. "It just helps me remember things."

"Also, five is a very special number in Islam. We pray five times a day. Well, not me, maybe, but I should. I mean, I would like to."

Sam gives me the briefest of smiles and keeps writing.

"Also, we have the five pillars - starting with the declaration of faith, you probably have heard of this one, the shahada." I count the remaining ones out on my hand, opening a finger for each one. "Then sallih, prayer, zakat, giving charity, sawm, fasting, and hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca."

"Do you do any of that?"

In my mind I see Baba's doubting face. "Some of them. I would like to make hajj someday. Ah, and also many people, particularly Shi'ites, say the most important figures in Islam are five: the Prophet Mohammed, Fatima, Ali, Hassan, and Hussein."

Sam writes this down, too. When she sees me looking at her, she seems amused. "It's just interesting to me, that's all. Hey, keep your eyes on the road!"

I swerve in time to avoid some rubble that could have done a bit of damage to the underbelly of the car. "Sorry. Anyway, I can find out more for you sometime, if you want."

She winces. Sometime, as if I can just show up at the Hamra in a few days and find she is still there, waiting for me.

Sam cannot stand the quiet for long, I can see, and I am beginning to wonder: is this typical of women, of Americans, or just Sam? She flips through Baba's collection of tapes below the dashboard, one plastic clink after another. "Can I put one of these in?"

"My father has very old-fashioned taste in music. But go ahead."

She slides a tape into the deck. Of course, who will my father have in the car but Oum Kalthoum? Along with Munir Bashir and Ahmed Mukhtar, that is, the great oud musicians, who as a threesome make a complete music library, in his opinion.

"Is that a man or a woman?"

"You can't tell? This is Oum Kalthoum. Haven't you heard of her?"

Sam looks sheepish. "Uh, no. I don't think so. Is that the famous Lebanese woman?"

"No, you're thinking of Fairuz, maybe. Or a young one like Asala Nasri? Actually she's Syrian. There's also a Maya Nasri whom I like very much, and she's Lebanese. There are so many famous Lebanese singers now. Do you know which one you're thinking of?"

Sam's cheeks round up like two apricots. "I have to admit I really don't know Arabic music."

"Well, I don't like Oum Kalthoum that much, but she is probably the most famous singer in all of the Arab world. She's Egyptian. You can hear it in her accent." I turn it up a little bit. "Can you hear it?"

"The accent? You mean as opposed to an Iraqi accent?" She shakes her head.

"Actually, this is one of the few Oum Kalthoum songs I really do like. It's called *Inta Omri'. You are my life. More than life. Omr means the length of a person's life - the days and years. We use this term to ask how old someone is. But if you say inta omri, it means you are my everything - all of my days are about you. It's like the way a man will call the woman he loves hayati. It's saying, you are my life."

Sam bends forwards. I suddenly wonder if, when a woman is wearing hejab, her hearing is impaired by her ears being covered by cloth. "What's she saying?"

Illi shouftouh qabli ma tshoufak ainaih...Omri dhayea yehsibouh izay a'alaya?

Whatever I saw before my eyes saw you was a wasted life. How could they consider that part of my life?

Inta Omri illi ibtada b'nourak sabahouh.

You are my life which starts its dawn with your light.

"It's so...poetic," Sam offers.

"It kind of goes on like that. It's a love song, a very long one."

"I wish I'd learned Arabic instead of French."

"I don't understand. Americans only have room in their heads for one foreign language?"

"Apparently," she says, laughing at herself and glancing in the side mirror. "Come on," Sam teases. "Your translating duties aren't over yet, Mr al-Amari. Tell me some more."

"Of this song? Let me listen."

Ad eyh min omri qablak ray w a'ada... Ya habibi ad eyh min omri raah.

How much of my life before you was lost. It is a wasted past, my love.

Wala shaf el-qalb qablak farhah wahdah...wala dak fi el-dounya ghair ta'am el-jiraah.

My heart never saw happiness before you.

My heart never saw anything in life other than the taste of pain and suffering.

I clear my throat. "It must seem a bit uh, what's that word, melodramatic, for you."

"No, it's lovely," Sam says. "It's like an ode."

Ibtadait bilwaqti bas ahib omri. Ibtadait bilwaqti akhafla il-omri yijri.

I started only now to love my life.

And started to worry that the love of my life would run away from me.

Sam closes her eyes and leans back into the headrest.

"There's a long instrumental part now," I explain. "But the lyrics come back again."

"Hmm. Nabil, I want to take you to this great restaurant in Irbil," she says. "It's actually at a really beautiful hotel called the Chwar Chra. It's set on this gorgeous rolling lawn like the reception ground of some big banana plantation. You've got to see it. The food is amazing. Maybe we could even stay there. Unless you know of another place to stay."

I try to imagine what Kurdish food will taste like, but I can't conjure a flavour for it in my mouth. But in my head I imagine the meat of animals we never eat. Camels. Buffalo. Maybe even horse, which is probably not hallal. What do I know about Kurds anyway? Only that they're not Arab and that they want their own homeland, and that the goal of every Arab, Turk and Iranian is to stop that from happening. From the month she spent with the Kurds, before the war started, Sam probably understands more about them than I do.

"I'm not sure if we will go through Irbil," I say. "We can go through Mosul and then straight on towards Dohuk. It's shorter, for one thing." The truth is that I've been thinking that if, by chance, we found ourselves ahead of schedule, we could take a detour to Lake Dukan. Baba told me he took us there as children, but I don't really remember it. It's very enchanting, Baba said, and winked, while my mother packed in the food we'd nearly forgotten to put into the car. With that, we could have a nice picnic.

"Really? Oh, I was so excited about going to Irbil once more," she says.

"We'll see," I say, and realize that I like the feeling of being in charge, the captain of a small but important ship. Safin said going through Mosul is dangerous, but Baba wasn't so sure. Maybe there's just a part of me that doesn't want to go to Irbil, the city that turned on Saddam so many times in an effort to break away from the rest of Iraq. From the real Iraqis - the Arabs. Wouldn't Sam want to look up Rizgar's family, and what if the - and Allah! What a stunning pinging whizzing through the car and a crackling and shattering and too much air whipping and I think God, is it possible, mu ma'qul! It can't be!

But it can be and it must be. Someone is shooting at Baba's car and Sam is shouting Jesus! and holding on to the dashboard and what the hell's happening? and we're swerving now even though I know my hands are securely on the wheel and we're all over the road and oh my God help us and Sam is shouting Jesus, Nabil, pull over and I say I think we're hit and she says pull the fuck over and I can't tell her that something is pulling us and I can't control it and then we skid and fly into the air like we're weightless and then a harsh, metallic jangle and tinkling showers and sliding and Allah Yihmina God protect us in the skid that won't stop, can't stop, until slowly, it's over and we do.

I think I have been thrown on to Sam's body.

I can't see anything. No one is shouting or screaming anymore. Only the sound of glass falling like the drizzle of rain and Oum Kalthoum.

Hat a'inaik tisrahfi dounyethoum a'ineyyah. Hat eidak tiryah lil-moustahm eidaiyah.

Bring your eyes close so that my eyes can get lost in the life of your eyes.

Bring your hands so that my hands will rest in the touch of your hands.

The hands reach inside the car, many of them, pulling me out through the glass of the back window. And they're carrying me and I'm saying no, I'm fine, you have to get her out, you have to get Sam. And they say they're trying, and besides that I have a bleeding head and I should let them take me, but I can stand and I move back to the car and I am starting to blubber and telling them to get Sam out. And the men start to lift the car from the side it's lying on, but it's so heavy and our old family junk is scattered everywhere and they're having a hard time, and instead they go into the car through the front windscreen since it's gone anyway and they work on lifting out Sam. And they're all shouting and moving and then I hear Sam moan, a sound of pain like I've never heard before, and now she's crying that no one should touch her and I know it's my job to tell her that we have to, but just the sound of her being hurt has put tears in my own eyes and I'm hoping I won't lose it completely in front of all these strangers in long robes.

"Just breathe, Sam. Take in a slow breath like you do when you're angry and let it out slowly." I know she's listening because she tries, but her breathing is short and pained instead, with an occasional uh! like someone who was suddenly surprised, over and over again.

They pull her out of the car, her body looking like no part of it is moving, and as they do I can hear her taking quick short breaths every few seconds, and I want to help her but the other men are holding me up. Holding me back. As they lift her, the pillow falls towards her feet and then out of the bottom of her jupeh altogether. As they carry her I see her face which is as beautiful as the day I met her, except that when she opens her mouth to try to talk, there's a film of blood all over her teeth and on her front lip, and then I feel the nausea rising in me like a wave and floating over me, and I won't now, I can't let it...

59.

Floating The ceiling has a very beautiful lamp hanging from it, swinging by just a few centimetres in either direction. And that's when I realize that I've been out of it, like that first day when I met Sam. I look around and then move to sit up, and see the assembly of men, about ten of them in tribal dress and very similar facial features, staring back at me. One of them sitting next to me leans over me and puts his hand firmly on my shoulder, telling me I should rest. I start to search in a panic and then realize Sam is here, lying to my right, with pillows surrounding her head.

"Is she all right?"

"She's conscious," the man above me says. "But having trouble breathing. I think maybe she broke something," he says, pointing to his stomach and drawing a circle, "inside."

My head flies with fear. Internal bleeding? She might be dying. Baba would know what to do. "She has to get to a hospital immediately. In Baghdad-"

"We know. We have already called the army."

"The Iraqi army?"

He frowns and puts his hand on my forehead. "You should rest more. Mahfouz, bring him some water." I lay back, open and close my eyes several times, squeezing them shut to cut out the light, then letting it in again. Maybe it's another nightmare - one of my bizarre daydreams. If I force my eyes open again, I'll wake up and see it didn't happen.

Open, close, open. Still here, on the floor of someone's home in Samarra.

"...like there's any Iraqi army left." One of them sniggers at the other's comment. "He must have had a good bang in the head."

"Maybe that's why he passed out. You should have a doctor look at him, too."

"Him, he's fine. He was probably just upset to see his ladyfriend injured."

My head is swirling. I need to sit up, to take charge. I think I can do it. I roll on to my side and let some invisible force yank me upright, so at least I'm sitting up. They seem surprised to see me up again. I scan the room and count twelve of them, plus two women in abaya, tending to Sam. She is conscious, but seems out of it, a bit blank. Maybe she is in shock.

"Sam?" I turn to her. "Are you okay? Sam?"

She doesn't answer, but her eyes search around for my voice. Her throat passes a small, broken moan.

"Don't make her try to move her neck," one of them says. "It might be broken. They're sending a helicopter for her."

I lean over her, so that my face is above hers, directly above her eyes. "Sam, I'm here." Her eyes float up and focus on mine. Her irises are a muddier brown now, less golden than usual.

"My body hurts," she whispers.

"Which part hurts?"

She moves a fraction, as if she is trying to shift, and grimaces. "Everything," she creaks. "I, I can't take deep breaths." I notice that her mouth isn't bloody anymore, though her lip is a little swollen. Maybe the women rinsed it out for her. Maybe she isn't bleeding from inside. Maybe her teeth just hit against her mouth when we crashed.

"They said help is on the way, Sam. They called the American army. They're sending a helicopter to bring you to a hospital." I put my hand to her forehead, which feels hot, and pull out the dambab so I can unwind part of the scarf and let in some fresh air, ignoring a whisper of haram, shame, from one of the men.

How could God let Sam die? Take her away right before my eyes, like Noor? Please, don't let me lose her, too.

I turn to face the men sitting on a row of long floor cushions, staring as if they'd never seen such a scene in their lives and I'm suddenly aware of a pain in my right shoulder. I use the rest of my body to move me instead. "How soon are they going to be here, the medical people?"

"They said about fifteen minutes," says one in the middle of the group, who has coal-black eyes and what may be the most dignified grey beard I have ever seen. If I could have grown a beard like that, surely Baba wouldn't have disapproved. I can see from his gold-trimmed black robe that he must be a sheikh. The men to either side might be twins, perhaps twenty or twenty-five years younger - at most - than the man in the middle, surely their father. "I asked them to come right away. I told them we had an American woman here, a civilian, and they said they would hurry."

"How did you call them?"

The man smiles with a world of wisdom in his face, as if he could provide the answers to almost anything I'd ask. "We have our own mode of communications with the Americans."

"Do you have a Thuraya here? A satellite phone?"

He clears his throat. "Yes, we do." I begin thinking of all the people I should probably call - my parents, Sam's editors. But my parents - how would I call them? Sam said that the Thuraya phone couldn't make calls to landlines inside Iraq, because the landline system is totally out of order. They must take me back to the car at least to get Sam's bag with her most important things: camera, phone, computer, notebooks. I'm sure they would let me use their phone, if I knew a number to call. They have been very kind, so far. Who are they, anyway? And who do they think we are?

"May I ask your name, young man? Where were you and this American woman driving to?"

I look at him, and then my eyes trail across the nearly-matching faces, varied only in age, facial hair and slight differences in pigment. A receiving line, a tribal court. When my eyes meet his again, he stands up, thanking everyone for coming to help wish our unfortunate visitors well, and begins to give each of them farewell kisses. I can't stand them staring at me, and so I turn my back and wait for them to leave the room. Sam emits a half-moan and calls my name. A tear runs from her right eye, heading straight for her ear. I catch the tear before it gets far, wiping at it with my thumb.

When most of the extended tribal court is gone, the sheikh chooses a seat closer to me. His two look-a-like sons follow, flanking him like bodyguards.