The Butterfly Mosque Read Online Free PDF

once have been water buffalo. “But be very careful, especially in the summer—it’s easy to get bad meat. When you find a butcher you like, stick with him.”
    Neither of us had an appropriately profound response.
    â€œChickens and ducks and doves come from poultry sellers,” continued Omar. “Pick whichever bird you like and they’ll kill it for you. Fruits and vegetables should be easy. For bread, go to any bakery. Most are fine. For cheese or oil or olives, anything like that, go to a
duken.
” He pointed to a small shop similar to the deli near our building.
    â€œSix stops for five food groups?” I muttered in Jo’s ear. She giggled.
    We wandered through the maze looking for fresh spearmint to use for tea. As we walked, I felt increasingly dizzy and nauseous, stifled under the long shirt and jeans I was wearing. Despite the sun beating down on my head, I began to shiver. I had a feeling that this was not a good sign.
    â€œAre you okay?” Jo asked. “You look really pale all of a sudden.”
    Little points of light danced in front of my eyes. “I’m fine,” I said, inwardly swearing not to faint in front of all these people. “But I should probably find some shade soon.”
    Jo turned and said something to Omar, who looked over her head at me, concerned. He spoke at a rapid tempo to a man crouched beside several boxes of greens. The man handed him a bundle of mint. Omar turned to me.
    â€œDo you have fifty piastres?” he asked. “I have a pound but I’m out of change.”
    I didn’t and neither did Jo. The man didn’t have change for our twenty- and fifty-pound notes. He said something to Omar, who thanked him in a long-winded way I didn’t fully understand.
    â€œHe says it’s okay. You can give him the fifty piastres next time.”
    I looked at the man, swaying on my feet. He was grinning at me from under his turban, amused by my obvious discomfort, my out-of-placeness, maybe both.
    â€œThank you,” I said in English, forgetting where I was. Jo took my arm and steered me away from the crowd, toward the shade of the tree-lined square opposite. Omar stood between me and the light like a sundial, casting a slim shadow across my face.
    â€œFeeling a little better?” he asked.
    â€œYes. Just not used to the heat. I didn’t sleep very well last night, either.” At some point, the insomnia caused by adrenal exhaustion had become a physiological tic. Though I was healthy now, it sometimes cropped up again when I was stressed.
    Omar quoted a few lines from Macbeth’s sleep-no-more speech, smiling in a half-blithe, half-bitter way that I would come to associate with moments like this, when his considerable knowledge of western literature showed through. It was knowledge he did not particularly want. He had been educated in the British system, the last cultural and linguistic outpost of the colonial era. In order to learn more about his own society’s literary history, he searched through the shelves of underpatronized Arabic bookstores and taught himself. This was the smile of a man who, like so many inthe Middle East, wished his intellect could be put to better use.
    Feeling a little cooler, I looked up and smiled back.
    â€œWhen the hurly-burly’s done.”
    â€œWhen the battle’s lost, and won.”
    In the weeks that followed, I fell in love with the back of Omar’s head. A family matter called Jo home briefly just before the start of the school year, leaving Omar and me to roam the city together. I can still hear his exasperated voice, in some dark vein of a crowded street, saying, “Please, Willow, walk in front of me or beside me but not behind me. I am nervous when I can’t see you.” I would inevitably lag behind, lost in thought and unable to navigate without following him. I couldn’t take his arm; we touched only to shake hands. That is how I came