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waves of verse, a poem that I am writing in my head. No matter how sad I look, I can feel Dr Mahmoud sneaking glances at me, to check if I am upset the way a man who lost his love would be. He says nothing, but I can read the words in his eyes, running like subtitles in a foreign film. Why didn’t you agree to marry her straight away? What was taking so long? As if it’s my fault. As if that would stop a war, or a bullet. As if, had I already said yes and married her, she would be alive now and ready to present him with a grandchild.
     
    Still, I should be ashamed. If I knew I didn’t want to marry her, what business did I have allowing my parents to drag me to a second meeting with her and her parents? If I hadn’t agreed to the date, maybe Noor would have been lying in bed reading a book. Lying, not standing at the front window. Maybe she would have been here at her brother Adnan’s house, close to the floor, playing with his baby son, her nephew. Maybe she would have been safe.
     
    The recording of an imam bleats through the house, churning out hadith, holy sayings of the Prophet. Al-mu’minima ft kulli halin bi-kheir. Believers are blessed in all circumstances. Is that meant to be comforting? But the gloomy melodies sound beautiful, a lilt so melancholy they might help me cry, help me prove that even if I failed to love Noor, I can still mourn for her.
     
    I go through the motions, the bowing and the turning and the mouthing of words, with a feeling of emptiness. I try to say a qunut for her in my own words, to wish her peace in the next world, but I cannot take to heart what I am saying. From the corner of my eye, I see her photograph on the wall, a professional picture taken when she was graduating from university. Her hair looks carefully styled, a lush swirl of black against the photographer’s red backdrop, and she is wearing too much makeup.
     
    One of the neighbourhood elders, presumably a sheikh judging from his long black robe, rises to offer traditional words of sympathy before leaving. Inna lil-lahi wa inna il-lahi raji’oon, he intones. We belong to God, and to Him we return. However trite, these are the only comforting words I have heard in the last twenty-four hours. When he has gone, one of Noor’s young cousins wants to turn on the radio to hear the news about the chaos and the Americans, the things people are whispering about in corners but never mentioning aloud. Dr Mahmoud signals no. It would be disrespectful, I suppose. And so we sit and listen to the mourning verses on the portable tape recorder, Adnan flipping the same cassette over and over until I have the urge to grab the tape and rip the dark ribbon to shreds.
     
    The young boys of the family periodically go out to open the door for new visitors and show them inside. So naturally, I’m expecting a few more neighbours when I look up and see the boys standing with a heavily bearded man, most likely from the south, and her. Her fire-hair stands out in the room full of darkhaired men, like a burning ember amid black coals, and I can’t even remember her name.
     
    “Nabil,” she says, and produces a smile that manages to convey sympathy. Hearing her voice helps me remember. Sam. Samara Katchens.
     
    “This is my driver, Rizgar. We wanted to come to offer our condolences.” So I am wrong about the bearded man, because Rizgar is a Kurdish name and not an Arab one, and therefore he’s probably from the north, not the south. I offer my hand to him and he takes it and he draws me to him and kisses my cheek several times and says Ila Rahmetu Allah, God’s mercy be upon her. And then he adds another: God avenge her blood. The words make me shudder. But I know that it’s an appropriate thing to say, and that it will please Noor’s relatives.
     
    Rizgar asks me which one is Noor’s father and I signal to Dr Mahmoud, and Rizgar offers more of the same. Allah yarhamha. God protect her soul. Dr Mahmoud nods and opens a hand in the