As soon as they entered the professor’s flat, Mina recognised the mouth-watering smells of Mrs Almeini’s cooking. The old scholar was almost toppled over by his grandchildren, who rushed up to the door to greet him. Their son’s children often stayed with them during the day while their parents were at work. Both parents were interpreters for the US army and had a heavy workload. Mina always felt a pang in her heart when visiting the professor’s home; there was so much warmth. It was very different from her own home, where her parents were busy trying to be ‘American’ and her mother rarely prepared Mosuli food. Despite the run-down location, the Almeini’s flat was tastefully decorated. Mina knew that most of the silverware, rugs and paintings had come from another house, which the family had been forced to flee in an emergency. No-one ever talked about it. Mina suspected that the couple had had another daughter who died there but she had never found the courage to enquire about it.

The professor’s wife, a delightfully warm and feisty brunette, was always impeccably dressed and constantly tried to fatten her up, ‘You must eat more Mina,’ she said, ‘you seem so unhealthy.’ To this, Mina ritually answered, ‘I assure you, Mrs Almeini, I never felt better.’

Mina was always amazed by the old couple’s ways. Although Almeini was a modern academic, aware of the latest theoretical twists in scholarship, he still lived traditionally at home. Mina had tried a few times to ask Mrs Almeini about her own thoughts on a variety of subjects but the old woman never engaged in intellectual discussion. Mina could not figure out if it was because she could not, or if she considered it inappropriate to do so in her husband’s house.

After dinner, while they sipped tea and nibbled on small crunchy biscuits, the professor turned to Mina. ‘Tell me about your research, Mina. Have you made any progress?’

‘I have and I haven’t. I applied for a travel grant from Columbia, to pursue my PhD investigations in Israel.’

‘I guess it will be easier to get this grant than a visa for Israel.’

‘Ah Professor, you forget I’m American!’

‘True,’ he answered. ‘So, have you had any luck?’

‘I don’t know. Nigel hasn’t given me much hope on this front. I think he feels that I’ve dropped out of ‘his’ programme since I’ve come here.’

‘Would you like me to write to him?’

‘No, thank you Professor. I’m sure things will straighten themselves out when I send him some substantial chapters to read. Until then…’

‘Until then you’re on probation!’

They both laughed.

In his office at Columbia University, Professor Nigel Hawthorn was pondering the letter of recommendation he had promised Mina he would write to the travel grant committee on her behalf. He was one of that peculiar brand of scholars who never left their office, certainly not to travel to the country they worked on. He deciphered cuneiform tablets from Nineveh but felt no need to know what Mosul looked like, or engage in joint projects with Iraqi scholars. He did not feel much of anything. In more ways than one, he was a sort of Victorian scholar stuck in the wrong century. He didn’t understand Mina’s need to travel, which he interpreted as an unscholarly pursuit. He remembered an email she had sent him when she had just moved to Iraq. It was full of descriptions of Mosul, its monuments destroyed by the war, the flavours and fragrances of the food. Her writing was more intoxicating than persuasive. She recorded the romantic beauty of ruined Abbasid homes in the old city and wrote at length about the piled-up houses that overhang the banks of the River Tigris. They seemed to her as though they had tried, at some point in time, to race for the riverbank and to have been stopped — just in time — by a magician’s wand.

Nigel was tired of what he saw as Mina’s inadequacies as a scholar. She had been a good student whilst in his care but he felt she had now strayed completely off rails and needed to face up to reality. He knew how damning his letter would be to Mina’s application, but he did not care that much. Picking up his fountain pen, he wrote quickly, and subtly in her disfavour. Without the support of her own PhD supervisor, any chance Mina had of getting this grant faded away.

Chapter 3

December 2nd, 2004

In the arid landscape of the Mosuli countryside, a young boy was running as fast as he could down a dirt track. The twelveyear- old was as scrawny as they came but quite resilient. He slowed down as he approached a group of workers, where he spotted his hero, the tallest, strongest, coolest guy he’d ever met. ‘Jack, Jack!’ he shouted.

The ruggedly handsome 35-year-old American turned around to greet the boy with a smile. Jack had a square jaw, thick dark hair and piercing blue eyes that always seemed to see and know everything. But what Muhad liked best about Jack was the crescent-shaped scar above his left eyebrow.

‘Muhad? Catch your breath and tell me what all this excitement is about.’