Crouching on her heels, Masha-il let go and kissed him full on the mouth. Darkness covered the window in the tiny room, and beyond it, crisp hot air, fields of sand and heat, sandy dunes rising like ramparts into a moonless sky. Sex He might be cold, she reasoned, even though the fever was almost gone and he had stopped shaking like he had malaria. Did he know, she found herself wondering, that Abdel-Nasser was even alive? So baggy she could unbutton it without touching him. Was he dreaming behind his eyelids? Anxious to be of some use, she would sing to him, lullabies she remembered from her childhood, ones she had sung to Nahar when he was a baby. During those early days they weren’t even sure if he would live. A habit when she was near him. Not a Saudi, in fact, but an Egyptian army officer—declared by the copper Saladin Eagle insignia on his military beret. Pain resurged as he entered her from behind, lessening when he reached between her legs to that place only she had touched before.
