By the time he entered university, Saeed’s parents prayed more often than they had when he was younger, maybe because they had lost a great many loved ones by that age, or maybe because the transient natures of their own lives were gradually becoming less hidden from them, or maybe because they worried for their son in a country that seemed to worship money above all, no matter how much other forms of worship were given lip service, or maybe simply because their personal relationships with prayer had deepened and become more meaningful over the years. Saeed too prayed more often in this period, at the very least once a day, and he valued the discipline of it, the fact that it was a code, a promise he had made, and that he stood by.
Now, though, in Marin, Saeed prayed even more, several times a day, and he prayed fundamentally as a gesture of love for what had gone and would go and could be loved in no other way. When he prayed he touched his parents, who could not otherwise be touched, and he touched a feeling that we are all children who lose our parents, all of us, every man and woman and boy and girl, and we too will all be lost by those who come after us and love us, and this loss unites humanity, unites every human being, the temporary nature of our being-ness, and our shared sorrow, the heartache we each carry and yet too often refuse to acknowledge in one another, and out of this Saeed felt it might be possible, in the face of death, to believe in humanity’s potential for building a better world, and so he prayed as a lament, as a consolation, and as a hope, but he felt that he could not express this to Nadia, that he did not know how to express this to Nadia, this mystery that prayer linked him to, and it was so important to express it, and somehow he was able to express it to the preacher’s daughter, the first time they had a proper conversation, at a small ceremony he happened upon after work, which turned out to be a remembrance for her mother, who had been from Saeed’s country, and was prayed for communally on each anniversary of her death, and her daughter, who was also the preacher’s daughter, said to Saeed, who was standing near her, so tell me about my mother’s country, and when Saeed spoke he did not mean to but he spoke of his own mother, and he spoke for a long time, and the preacher’s daughter spoke for a long time, and when they finished speaking it was already late at night.
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SAEED AND NADIA WERE LOYAL, and whatever name they gave their bond they each in their own way believed it required them to protect the other, and so neither talked much of drifting apart, not wanting to inflict a fear of abandonment, while also themselves quietly feeling that fear, the fear of the severing of their tie, the end of the world they had built together, a world of shared experiences in which no one else would share, and a shared intimate language that was unique to them, and a sense that what they might break was special and likely irreplaceable. But while fear was part of what kept them together for those first few months in Marin, more powerful than fear was the desire that each see the other find firmer footing before they let go, and thus in the end their relationship did in some senses come to resemble that of siblings, in that friendship was its strongest element, and unlike many passions, theirs managed to cool slowly, without curdling into its reverse, anger, except intermittently. Of this, in later years, both were glad, and both would also wonder if this meant that they had made a mistake, that if they had but waited and watched their relationship would have flowered again, and so their memories took on potential, which is of course how our greatest nostalgias are born.
Jealousy did rear itself in their shanty from time to time, and the couple that was uncoupling did argue, but mostly they granted each other more space, a process that had been ongoing for quite a while, and if there was sorrow and alarm in this, there was relief too, and the relief was stronger.
There was also closeness, for the end of a couple is like a death, and the notion of death, of temporariness, can remind us of the value of things, which it did for Saeed and Nadia, and so even though they spoke less and did less together, they saw each other more, although not more often.
One night one of the tiny drones that kept a watch on their district, part of a swarm, and not larger than a hummingbird, crashed into the transparent plastic flap that served as both door and window of their shanty, and Saeed gathered its motionless iridescent body and showed it to Nadia, and she smiled and said they ought to give it a burial, and they dug a small hole right there, in the hilly soil where it had fallen, using a spade, and then covered this grave again, pressed it flat, and Nadia asked if Saeed was planning on offering a prayer for the departed automaton, and he laughed and said maybe he would.
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SOMETIMES THEY LIKED to sit outside their shanty in the open air, where they could hear all the sounds of the new settlement, sounds like a festival, music and voices and a motorcycle and the wind, and they wondered what Marin had been like before. People said it had been beautiful, but in a different way, and empty.
The winter that year was a season that had splashes of autumn and spring mixed up in it, even an occasional day of summer. Once as they sat it was so warm that they did not need sweaters, and they watched as the sunlight poured down in angled bursts through gaps in the bright, roiling clouds, and lit up bits of San Francisco and Oakland and the otherwise dark waters of the bay.
“What’s that?” Nadia asked Saeed, pointing to a flat and geometric shape.
“They call it Treasure Island,” Saeed said.
She smiled. “What an interesting name.”
“Yes.”
“The one behind it should be called Treasure Island. It’s more mysterious.”
Saeed nodded. “And that bridge, Treasure Bridge.”
Someone was cooking over an open fire nearby, beyond the next ridge of shanties. They could see a thin trail of smoke and smell something. Not meat. Sweet potatoes maybe. Or maybe plantains.
Saeed hesitated, then took Nadia’s hand, his palm covering her knuckles. She curved her fingers, furling the tips of his around hers. She thought she felt his pulse. They sat like that for a long while.
“I’m hungry,” she said.
“So am I.”
She almost kissed him on his prickly cheek. “Well, somewhere down there is everything in the world anyone could want to eat.”
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NOT FAR TO THE SOUTH, in the town of Palo Alto, lived an old woman who had lived in the same house her entire life. Her parents had brought her to this house when she was born, and her mother had passed on there when she was a teenager, and her father when she was in her twenties, and her husband had joined her there, and her two children had grown up in this house, and she had lived alone with them when she divorced, and later with her second husband, their stepfather, and her children had moved off to college and not returned, and her second husband had died two years ago, and throughout this time she had never moved, traveled, yes, but never moved, and yet it seemed the world had moved, and she barely recognized the town that existed outside her property.
The old woman had become a rich woman on paper, the house now worth a fortune, and her children were always pestering her to sell it, saying she didn’t need all that space. But she told them to be patient, it would be theirs when she died, which wouldn’t be long now, and she said this kindly, to sharpen the bite of it, and to remind them how much they were motivated by money, money they spent without having, which she had never done, always saving for a rainy day, even if only a little.