One Hundred and One Nights (9780316191913) by Benjamin Buchholz Page A

I thought it would have water for our tomatoes but it has oil, not water. Useless oil.”
    “You shot the Kalashnikov?” I ask. “How’d you get it from the guard?”
    I look up, see the man fast asleep on his stool. My question seems suddenly silly. The rifle rests an arm’s length away from him, leaning against his tent.
    “He has only one bullet, you know,” she says. “So returning the gun isn’t as difficult as taking it.”
    “You need a bath,” I say.
    “I look like the black soldiers in the American Humvees.”
    “But stickier,” I say.
    I run a finger through the smear of oil her elbows leave on the front counter of my shack. I picture Bashar’s daughters, fuller, heavier, fleshier than Layla. And cleaner. The difference between them, though, is the difference between the sand and the sandstorm. I think of asking Layla to sing again, to sing the Close Encounters song. But I can’t imagine the semidivine sound of that song coming from a face so covered in filth. I can’t imagine any sort of saintly presence emanating from a girl so happily dirty.
    “Is the oil still leaking?” I ask.
    I look up again, under the overpass, toward the pipeline and toward what I imagine must be Layla’s home, her family’s tomato farm. It’s a rundown shack half hidden behind the far embankment of the overpass. Like every other Iraqi farm, it is dun-colored, low-slung, thick-walled, with a scruffy palm tree sprouting on the edge of the hole in the earth that serves as an irrigation well. I see a flurry of activity nearby, just beyond the house: U.S. Humvees and British Land Rovers gathered around the leaking pipe.
    “You’re a terrorist,” I say. “You’ve ruined the economy.”
    “I’m a jihadist,” she replies. “And I’m moving to Beverly Hills tomorrow! Do you want to come? You would make a fine butler for me!”
    I take a swipe at her, as if to hit her in reprimand, but she skips away. I am glad for it. My dishdasha would have been hopelessly soiled by the dripping crude oil she wears. I shake my head and my fist at her instead. I decide to speak no more to her, at least not this evening. I send her away, quite forcefully, telling her she had better wash herself and look presentable if she should wish to visit me again, telling her she had better treat her elders with more respect. I think I go so far as to call her a little urchin or maybe even a little devil but perhaps that is just the voice in my head, my conscience, as compared to the words I actually spoke.
    Whatever I have said, Layla leaves, as quickly as she had come, running and sliding back under the overpass and keeping a wide expanse of desert between her, the broken pipeline, and the assembled multitude of U.S. and British vehicles.
    I shut and lock my shop and walk into Safwan.
    Bashar asks me about the oil on my finger and whether I had any interesting visitors today. I tell him about the broken pipeline and the hullabaloo it caused. I do not gratify him by mentioning Ulayya’s visit, but I order my tea and my falafel and ask him why he does not call himself Abu Saleem in honor of his healthy, smart little son. I know it is because he has a girl as his firstborn. His feelings are delicate about the matter and he pretends not to hear me, touching his mustache once, nervously, and then flitting away to help another customer.
     * * *
    A few mornings after Nadia and I found the kitten, Yasin thumped down the back stairs into our kitchen to give me his typical surly good-bye. He didn’t look as bleary-eyed as usual. He didn’t look as if he had only gone to sleep a few hours earlier. In fact, his face glowed with what I took to be excitement. The idea crossed my mind that he might offer to walk me to school. I felt in my pockets for spare change in case the opportunity presented itself to buy us daheen cakes from a street vendor.
    Yasin waited in the corner of the kitchen until my governess, Fatima, left with a plate of breakfast for our