The Prophet's Ladder Read Online Free PDF Page B

strictly enforced “no electronics” policy at the dinner table.
    “How’s your Arabic coming along?” Anne asked, between mouthfuls of spaghetti.
    “So-so.” Todd replied. “I haven’t really had time to listen to those podcast lessons. But I do remember how to say hello and thank you. ‘ Ahlan .’ ‘ Shokron .’ How about you?”
    “Ummm, I’ve been focusing on planning my sabbatical.” Anne had requested a year’s leave of absence in order to follow Todd to the Gulf. She’d be guest lecturing at a few of the well-established biotech schools in the region, in addition to surveying the native desert flora with colleagues from some of the local universities. She’d set it all up so fast, like she’d been planning to do it before Todd had even gotten the offer from Al-Hatem.
    Todd guffawed. “Hah. All right. Well, from what I’m told there are a lot of westerners working in the UAE; English is becoming the lingua franca of the region, so we should be all right starting out. Oh, I got my work visa yesterday, too.”
    Anne nodded at him. “You know they rely on a lot of imported labor from South Asia. Have you read about that? Some say it’s just slave labor wrapped up in bunting.”
    “Yeah, but Al-Hatem is all high-skilled labor. There’s no brick-laying or dirt tilling there.”
    “If you say so.”
    After dinner, Todd continued the monumental task of packing his entire life into two footlockers and a carry-on backpack. He’d been told that the apartment at the complex they’d be living in was fully furnished with all the necessaries: a bed, linens, silverware, cooking implements, furniture, etc. Todd only really needed his clothes, his books, and his electronics. Anne and he were shipping what few household ornaments they valued.
    An hour and a half into the folding, the sorting, and the parsing of his life, a strange feeling came over Todd. It had little to do with the packing and boxing. Rather, it felt as though he were being watched, as if from a distance. He looked up from his spot on the floor of the bedroom where he was filling a lockbox with photos and sentimental trinkets. It was an absurd notion; the curtains were closed, there was nobody else in the room. Thor and Anne were down the hall. Still, the feeling didn’t go away, and he grew strangely nervous, unable to focus on the task at hand. Getting up from the floor, Todd decided he needed a break. He went to the back door of the house and stepped out onto the deck. A few of the neighbors were grilling, and the smell of hamburgers wafted over from the adjacent yard. The salty breeze that rolled in off the ocean a mile distant calmed him; it was a typical summer evening.  I’m just stressed from the move, is all, Todd thought.
    He watched the sun drop below the horizon of picketed fences and mundane, Floridian suburbia. Anne came and stood with him shoulder to shoulder, a glass of red wine in her hand.
    The night air washed away the sticky humidity of the day, and a throng of fireflies blinked on and off in the sky above the grassy yard. It was entrancing, the tiny flashes of lime yellows and iridescent greens, no set pattern, just minute chaos and unintelligible, alien communication. They walked back inside, abandoning, for now, the boxes and packing for the pleasure of one another’s company.
    ****
    “Ali you dumb shit!” his brother Abdel screamed at him through his cellphone. “Where are you? What have you done? You’ll kill our poor mother!” Ali, sitting outside the library, held the phone at arm’s length, face drained of all color. He was sure the phone’s speakers would bust from his brother’s outburst. After a few more expletives, the tirade slowed, his brother expecting a response.
    “I don’t know what you mean, Abdel. I haven’t done anything. Mother is at home, in bed.” Ali looked around, but none of the sidewalk pedestrians paid him any attention, intent on their afternoon trips to the souq or to the