She nodded. She could see it now, in her mind. She needed all the details. I’d come to realise this; she needed the small details so that she could see it all, so that she could pretend that it was her eyes that saw it all. She nodded again, urging me on.
‘So, I came up behind two armed men and overheard them taking bets on something. They were planning to use something for target practice. When they agreed the bets I realised they were talking about an eight-year-old boy who was playing alone on the road. I don’t know what he was doing there to be honest. Why his mother would let him—’
‘What was he wearing?’ she said. ‘The eight-year-old boy. What was he wearing?’
‘A red jumper and a pair of blue shorts. They were jean shorts.’
‘And what colour were his eyes?’
‘I didn’t see his eyes. I suppose they were brown.’
‘Was it a boy I would know?’
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘I didn’t recognise him.’
‘And what was he playing?’
‘He had a toy truck.’
‘What colour?’
‘Yellow.’
She was postponing the inevitable, holding on to the living boy for as long as possible, keeping him alive. I let her sit in silence for a few moments, while she turned it around in her mind. Perhaps she was memorising the colours, the boy’s movements. She would keep them.
‘Go on,’ she said.
‘I realised too late,’ I said. ‘One of them had taken the bet and shot him in the head. Everyone else ran and the street was deserted.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I couldn’t move. The child was lying on the street. I couldn’t move.’
‘You could have been shot.’
‘It wasn’t a clean shot and he didn’t die right away. His mother was inside the house on the same street and she was screaming. She wanted to go to him, but the men kept firing into the street, shouting. They were shouting, “You can’t get to your child. You can’t get to your child.”’
I cried into my palms. I pressed my palms against my eyes. I wished I could take it away, what I saw. I wanted to take it all away.
Then I felt arms around me, and the smell of bread around me.
*
A bomb dropped in the darkness and the sky flashed and I helped Afra to get ready for bed. She knew her way around the house by now, feeling the walls with her hands, palms open, feet shuffling, and she could make bread, but at night she wanted me to undress her. She wanted me to fold her clothes, to place them on the chair by the bed where she used to put them. I took off her abaya as she lifted her arms over her head like a child. I removed her hijab and her hair fell onto her shoulders. Then she sat on the bed and waited for me while I got ready. It was quiet that night, no more bombs, and the room was full of peace and full of moonlight.
There was a huge crater in this room; the far wall and part of the ceiling were missing, leaving an open mouth into the garden and sky. The jasmine over the canopy caught the light and behind it the fig tree was black and hung low over the wooden swing, the one I’d made for Sami. The silence was hollow though; it lacked the echo of life. The war was always there. The houses were empty or home to the dead. Afra’s eyes shone in the dim light. I wanted to hold her, to kiss the soft skin of her breasts, to lose myself in her. For one minute, just one, I forgot. Then she turned to me like she could see me, and as if she knew what I was thinking she said, ‘You know, if we love something it will be taken away.’
We both lay down, and from beyond came the smell of fire and burnt things and ashes. Although she faced me, she wouldn’t touch me. We hadn’t made love since Sami died. But sometimes she let me hold her hand, and I circled my finger around her palm.
‘We have to go, Afra,’ I said.
‘I’ve already told you. No.’
‘If we stay—’
‘If we stay, we’ll die,’ she said.
‘Exactly.’
‘Exactly.’ Her eyes were open and blank now.
‘You’re waiting for a bomb to hit us. If you want it to happen, it will never happen.’
‘Then I’ll stop waiting. I won’t leave him.’
I was about to say, ‘But he’s already left. Sami’s gone. He’s not here. He’s not here in hell with us, he is somewhere else. And we’re no closer to him by staying here.’ And she would reply, ‘I know that. I’m not stupid.’
So I remained silent. I traced my finger around her palm, while she waited for a bomb to hit us. And when I woke in the night I reached out to touch her, to make sure that she was still there, that we were still alive. And in the darkness I remembered the dogs eating human corpses in the fields where the roses used to be, and somewhere else in the distance I heard a wild screech, metal on metal, like a creature being dragged towards death. And I put my hand on her chest, between her breasts, and felt her heart beat, and I slept again.