THE LOOK THAT SAOUD GAVE ME when we reached the campfire spoke volumes. I watched as he struggled to appear annoyed with us, before giving up and all but collapsing under the weight of his laughter. Tariq and Arwa stared at him, but Zahrah laughed too, and I couldn’t help but smile.
“You are no help at all,” I told him, and he laughed even harder.
Zahrah had to explain the joke to the others, because I couldn’t, and when she was done, Tariq only raised his eyebrows at me, while Arwa sighed and said that she had known all along.
“Well, at least somebody knew,” Saoud managed to croak, regaining some measure of control over himself.
“Be nice to him, Saoud,” Zahrah said. “He has a honeycomb from the bees.”
I cut it into pieces and passed them out while we waited for the rabbits to finish roasting. They were not particularly well fed, I noticed, but they were a welcome change, and the honeycomb was even more welcome. It was a meager feast, but I was happy for it, and happy for other things besides.
Arwa went to get more water from the well, and Zahrah went with her. Tariq made himself busy at, as far as I could tell, nothing. Saoud stared into the fire, and for the first time in as long as I could remember, I couldn’t read his face.
“Thank you,” I said. “For figuring everything out and fixing it for me. I don’t think I ever would have.”
“You would have,” he said. “Someday. But it would have been too late.”
“Your confidence is stirring,” I told him. Then I sighed. “I wonder how many things my mother tried to tell me and I didn’t hear them, because I turned her words to my own understanding of them.”
“I don’t think it matters,” Saoud said. “You had other teachers, and you’re not closed-minded. You still learn, and you’re willing to learn from anyone. If Arwa had been the one to hit you over the head with this, you would have listened to her.”
“Arwa is very clever,” I reminded him. “And she knows all sorts of things that I don’t. I would be foolish not to listen to her.”
“Arwa is barely twelve,” Saoud said. “Do you think that there are many who would take her seriously?”
I counted the days in my head and realized that we had missed Arwa’s birthday. She hadn’t said anything. I couldn’t even count the honeycomb as a gift for her, because I had given it to everyone.
“And now you’re upset that you missed her birthday,” Saoud said. “Which we all did.”
“I remembered,” Tariq said. “But too late.”
“That’s not my point, Yashaa,” Saoud said. “My father worried about us, all of us, because we lived in that camp and never left it. We learned about Kharuf and we tried to learn about Qamih, but we never went out and tried to do anything. My father left me behind because it was safe, and because he needed to travel more quickly than I could go when I was a child. When I grew older, he left me behind because of you, all three of you. But he hoped that we wouldn’t stagnate at the crossroads.”
“We weren’t sick, like our parents were,” Tariq said. “But we would have stayed at least until Yashaa’s mother died.”
“And look at the mess I’ve made,” I said.
“It’s a good mess, I think,” Saoud said. “It’s a mess that might lead somewhere good, somewhere better. We’re willing to chance it with you.”
“Still?” Now it was my turn to stare at the fire.
“Of course, idiot,” Saoud said. “Do you think a person can only be one thing?”
“My mother is,” I told him. “She loved my father, and he loved her, but they had their tasks, and they did them.”
“You are luckier than she was, then,” Tariq said. “Your task and heart are in the same place.”
“And you share your heart,” Saoud said. “You always have. You can share it now.”
I looked away from the fire. My eyes were dazzled by the light, but they cleared soon enough, and I saw the truth in Saoud’s face. We were brothers still. Tariq passed me a knife and the smallest cooking pot, and I set to stripping the rabbit bones so we could boil them for broth.
“What did she say to you, anyway?” Saoud asked. “To get your attention?”
I smiled at him in a manner I hoped was truly infuriating. “She didn’t say anything at all.”
Saoud groaned and then laughed again, and then Arwa and Zahrah came back and we turned to more serious discussion.