Sheikh Mumtaz looks over to his sheesha pipe sitting in the corner. "Do you smoke?"

"Occasionally," I say, holding up my hand. "I don't think I could right now."

"That's fine. You are invited to come and enjoy with us some other time. What I wanted to say is that people have different ways they like to smoke. Some like cigarettes because it is a quick rush, and easy to arrange, you just put it in your mouth and light it up. Instant pleasure."

"For some people."

"Yes. And some people, like me, would rather prepare and smoke sheesha. It's a lot slower and requires much more maintenance. You must fill the bowl with water, keep the pipes clean, stoke the coals gently and wait for them to heat the tobacco. And then, even the process of enjoying it is much slower. It is not a smoke for a man in a hurry."

It's true. On the few occasions I've had any with friends at university, it seemed to be an hours-long affair, and I sometimes found myself wishing I was home, reading a book.

"Ultimately, sheesha is much healthier than cigarettes. You don't have people getting cancer from smoking nargila once, twice a week. It is a smoke for solving problems, not making rash decisions. Do you see the difference?"

"Yes."

"So this is a lot like the difference between tribes, like ours and the Al-Sud. Our brothers in the Al-Sud - and you should know, they are much larger in number than us - they are cigarette smokers. They have chosen to resist the Americans with violence and more violence. Sheikh Talal is their chief and he thinks that attacking all foreign forces in Iraq is the only answer to the occupation. He is building a whole tribe of people who say they are going to be the new resistance, to chase the *infidels' out." His dismissive frown says what he thinks of this plan.

"We think otherwise," he says. "We will invite the Americans to sit and drink tea with us. We will listen to what they have to say. We will smoke our sheesha and wait. And then we will decide. Do you understand what I mean?"

"I think I do."

"Good."

I stand and he stands with me. "I don't know how I will ever repay you for all you have done," I say.

"Be a sheesha smoker," he says, putting an arm around my shoulders and giving them a manly squeeze.

I don't remember what happened after this, but it is now clear to me that I must have passed out once more. When I come to I find myself lying on the floor again, with the sheikh nearby. "Don't worry," he says, "we're bringing a local doctor to have a look at you."

"Did I - faint?"

"Something like that. One minute you were okay, then your eyes fluttered, and well..." He makes a gesture with his hand, upright, and then falling to horizontal.

I suddenly am aware of the pain in my shoulder again. I try to move it in a circle but it sends out a horrible shock. "I think maybe I hurt my shoulder when the car flipped over," I say. "I'm sure it's nothing serious."

"Still, if you're injured, you shouldn't travel. The doctor will see you. Stay and recuperate here for a few days."

"I should really get home," I say, though the thought of rushing back to Baghdad to tell my family that we never made it past Samarra, and that the family car is gone, fills me with dread. What will Baba think?

The doctor who comes doesn't look like a doctor to me. He isn't dressed in a white lab coat like my father when he's at the hospital, and his huge, intense eyes, set in a face full of wrinkles, make him look more like a fortune-teller than a physician. He examines me and concludes that my shoulder has been dislocated. "This will hurt a little," he says, and manipulates my arm and shoulder with a force and swiftness that leaves me aghast. I can hear the pop of the bone returning to its socket. "Fixed," the doctor declares. I feel woozy, but being conscious of it helps to stop me from going under again. He tries to make a sling for my arm out of the ghutra he was wearing on his head until a minute ago. He shakes his head no and takes the cloth off. "These don't really do much anyway. Just take it easy and get a lot of rest."

Sheikh Mumtaz, sitting on a chair in the corner, concurs. "Doctor's orders. You rest here a while."

"Actually, it's probably going to hurt more for the next few hours, just from the shock of it," the doctor predicts. He reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out some tablets in a miniature envelope. "Take two of these painkillers now, then again in four hours."

I spill some into my hand and eye them suspiciously. I don't see a name on them. "That's not necessary," I say. "I'll be fine."

"Just take one, then," he says. "Don't worry."

Every time someone has told me not to worry in the last week, I wonder if I should have worried more, not less. But what does Sheikh Mumtaz and his doctor friend have to gain by drugging me? Nothing I can fathom. And the pain in my shoulder is more unbearable by the minute.

In and out. Awake and asleep. A kind of torpor in-between. I awoke at some point having had a dream about arguing with Sam over translations, like we did in our first days working together. Now, as I lay here in the middle of the night, I find myself trying to tell Sam that there's no easy way to translate fixing. It's impossible to find just the right word for "fixing" in Arabic. There is islah, but that's more commonly used as reform. We also have the word thabbata, which could be said to be fixing. There is also inqadh, which is either saving or salvation. There is shifa, which means healing. And then there is i'ada and jadada, which are like restore and renew. I'm not even sure now if that's what we argued about in the dream, or if that's just me continuing the conversation. I just know that I can't think of one word in Arabic to fit everything that I want the fixing to be, or which describes what my job was supposed to have been.

I wake up feeling confused, but better. My shoulder is tender, but not so painful. I'm not sure now if I saw the doctor today or yesterday, if it's already tomorrow. I go to my wallet, where I find Sam's business card. It seems humbler now, having lost its hard edges. On it, I notice a number at the newspaper office in Washington. I promised her I'd call Miles.

When Sheikh Mumtaz comes down to check on me, I tell him I'm better, and that I must leave now. He says it's very late, but I can go with his son Hassan in the morning. In the meantime, I ask, could I use his Thuraya to make a call to America, to reach my ladyfriend's employer? Of course, he says, and leads me upstairs and into the courtyard of their home, where the reception is good and the night sky is a riot of stars.

"Tribune."

"Oh, I'd, could I speak to Mr Miles, please?"

"Please hold." Classical music at the other end, warped by the odd, distorted quality of the satellite call. "Sorry, no listing for a Mr Miles here."

"Oh, I meant, Miles, the international editor? Miles is his first name."

More music. "You mean Miles Crowe. One moment." Another few bars of Bach, or someone who sounds like Bach, and then, that voice.

"Crowe," the voice declares in a syllable.

It takes me a moment to find mine.

"Hello? Someone there?"

"This is Nabil al-Amari. I've been working with Samara Katchens here in Iraq."

"Yes, Nabil! We know all about you."

"Sam wanted me to call because we were...in an accident. The US army came to get her and took her to a hospital in Germany."

"Yes, yes, we know all about it. She's going to be transferred to a hospital here in Washington by the end of the week, we think."

"So she's okay?"

"She's in a stable condition," he says. "She broke a few ribs and they're probably going to do surgery for a torn spleen before flying her back here."

"I see." I try to remember where the spleen sits and how it could tear.

"We know you did all you could to help her. And we really appreciate the work you've been doing there for us. In fact, this isn't such a good time to talk because we're on deadline, but if you call me again tomorrow, a little earlier, we can talk about your continuing to work with us. With one of our other correspondents."

"Did the story run? About the Jackson documents?"

"The story? Yes, yes. Yesterday. Highest number of hits we've ever had in a single day."

"Sorry? Come again?"

"I mean, the web traffic to the Tribune site because of the story. Look, Nabil, I wish I could talk more, but I gotta move a story. And listen, be careful over there. Our main priority is making sure our staff are staying safe, and that includes our fixers and drivers."

60.

Staying In the car, Hassan asks me if I'd prefer to take a back road, which might be safer.

"Actually, I want to see what condition my father's car is in."

Hassan smirks. "I doubt it's still there, but we can see."

He's wrong, and at the same time right. The car, or what remains of it, is lying on its side about twenty-five feet from the road.

"I'm sure I could get it fixed. It can be towed to a garage, can't it?" What could I possibly tell Baba? That it was stolen at gunpoint? That would be better than telling him I crashed it, gunshots or no.

He clicks his tongue. "It's totally destroyed. Can't you see they've already picked it clean? Fine, I'll pull up so you can see it," he says, veering off the pavement and on to that flat, soil-less earth that covers this part of our country, half sand and half rock, a little bit of the moon right here on earth.

All is silent except for the crunch of our feet on arid ground as we approach the car. "Look," says Hassan. "They've already taken the engine and the two tyres that didn't get shot. Here," he says, poking his head inside. "They even ripped out the leather seats and the wooden parts around the dashboard, anything of value. And the body - it's like an old tin can now." He swishes something around in his mouth, perhaps a wad of tobacco chew.

There is no exaggeration in Hassan's description. My father's car is a skeleton, the flesh and blood of its insides already gone. I stick my head inside to find a hollowness, like the feeling of walking into an abandoned building you once knew well. The looters - I wonder if they are the same as the shooters? - have indeed removed almost the entire interior of the car. On the floor is a mess of papers and junk that would have been in the glove compartment, which is no longer there. I sift through the papers, checking to see if there is something important. Baba's car registration, for example.

Nothing. Nothing but old receipts, dead pens, an insurance bill he must have intended to pay at some point. Bits of the food my mother had sent with us. Shreds of fabric and lots of glass and a few bullet casings. And, somewhere in the mess of trash, the mashallah khamsa.

How did they miss this one? Or did they deem it worthless - a mashallah khamsa that failed to bring its passengers good luck? Perhaps they left it on purpose.

The sound of banging on the roof startles me and makes me bang my head as I move to stand.

"Y'alla!" It's Hassan, his arm resting on the roof. "Satisfied? Let's go."

Behind the wheel, he puts his foot down and flies past other cars - I assume to get out of town quickly. After a few miles he slows down.

"There was nothing you could do."

"My father'll kill me."

"Your father should kill them. He'll be glad you're alive. You both could have died in a wreck like that. Did you see those bullet holes in the back of the car? How is it that they didn't succeed in shooting either one of you?"

"Who are they? The Al Sud tribe?"

"Is that what my father told you? Who knows. The Al Sud tribe has 30,000 people in Samarra. You may as well have been nearly killed in Sadr City and said *the Shi'ites did it.'"

That's also possible, I want to say. What if Ali did follow us? What if he knows I got out? My head vacillates with other worries. I'll tell Baba what happened, but somehow, he'll think it was my fault.

"It would have been better if they had killed me."

Hassan scoffs with amusement more than surprise. "Don't speak nonsense." He glances at me and trains his eyes back on the road. "You're still in shock. What a mess back there, sending off your ladyfriend like that, in so much pain. What could you do?"

Nothing, I want to say. As usual, nothing. And then the tears fill my eyes, and I feel like I might just not bother stopping them. I can feel that salty-sea taste underneath my top lip, where my moustache should be. Should be. If I were letting myself be an Arab. If I weren't trying to be a Westerner. If I wasn't trying all the time to please Sam. To please someone.

Let them fall, anyway. I turn towards the window, wipe them away with my hand, wishing that the tears would fall only out of my right eye, and not from my left.

I can feel him checking me over, watching me cry. So this is how city boys are, I want him to say. Go on, say it. But he says nothing, nothing at all, and for that I want to thank him more than anything. And so we roll silently back to Baghdad, quiet but for my periodic sniffling, and his sucking at the bits in his teeth with a tsk tsk.

I consider asking Hassan to drop me off somewhere else. Maybe at Saleh's. He never should have sent us to Mustapha's in the first place. He should know what a disaster he got us into with his tips and leads. Or maybe I should go to the Hamra, to tell Joon and Marcus or some Tribune reporter what happened to Sam.

Instead, I ask to be dropped off at the school. This way, he won't know where I live. Why that matters at this point, I don't even know. But maybe it will mean trouble for me, for my family. Maybe men from the Al Sud tribe will have followed us, and when they're looking for people who work with the Americans, they'll come after me.

It's only 2 o'clock, but the school is already locked up for the day. They are now having three hours of class, I understand, and ending by 11 a.m., so students can get home before the spate of afternoon bombings.

"Here?" he asks, looking up at the building with its stately design, perched somewhat higher up than the average school. "They won't be open now."

"I know," I say. "I have to pick something up, though. I'm a teacher here. I have a key."

He shrugs and reaches out his right hand, and places it in mine with a little bit of a slap, with much more levity than I feel in my heart. Then he pulls me close to him and gives me a hug. I seem to be like a doll in his hands, falling into him with no resistance at all. "Take care, brother," he says. "Like my father says, God is forgiving."

I nod into his shoulder. Forgiving of what? Does he think I've done wrong? Does he think I should somehow feel responsible?

"Thank you for your help. I hope someday I can repay you," I say.

"You already did," he says. "You allowed my father to show all our brothers and cousins that not all of the Americans are horrible people, and not all of the Iraqis working with them are, either. And I think that's what he's been trying to tell us all along."

We pat each other on the back and I leave the car, deposited into the hot afternoon air. I suddenly feel a dizzy dread. I wish I'd told him to drive me somewhere else, like Najaf, where I could pray for Sam, and be surrounded by crowds of people I don't know, and not have to go home for quite some time.

I can't expect the building to be open, and despite what I told Hassan, I haven't carried the key to it in weeks. I lean my head against the window and look in, the darkness of the hallway ahead like a cavity beginning to rot around the edges.

I begin the walk home, trying to pretend nothing is wrong, trying to walk that walk like any man from Babel or Adel, Zayouna or Ummal. As I walk I can feel it, this strange thing pulsing in my body, a shaking, a feeling of shivering in the cold even though it is hot. I lift one of my hands and see it is trembling. I shake them both, shake them hard like you do after washing in a sink where there is no towel. Shed it, shake it off. But don't cry, Nabil, for the love of God, don't you let people on the street see you crying.

A poem, a poem will keep me focused. Especially an air-typed poem, which will give my fingers something to do, instead of shaking. There is one I love by the Persian poet Hafez, about the girl in red who was lost.

She's gone underground.

She is red and disreputable.

If you find her, please bring her to Hafez's house.

If you find Sam, please send her back to me.

Up Damascus Street, the shops are mostly shuttered but a few still open, their metal shutters pulled down to knee-height, so that it isn't so easy to do a quick grab and run. Please bring her back to me.

Oh, Nabil. Silly. She's never coming back. You had to know that all along. You had to know that for all the times she told you how much she cared about this country, that she was never, ever, going to be here for good. How did that American pop song go, the one that Christian guy at the CD shop on Arasat Street introduced me to when I was at university? She's got her ticket, think she's going to use it, think she's going to fly away.

That's it. Tracy Chapman, the one with the dreadlocks. She knows where her ticket takes her, she will find her place in the sun. Her ticket out of here was always in her hand; it only depended on which day she chose to use it. She was always going to fly away, Nabil, always. And still my hands can't stop their shaking, so much so that my air-typewriter is now far out of reach.