Back on the road, the city fell away and then they found themselves in a low maritime forest on all sides, until at last the state of New York ended in that series of cliffs cresting over the Atlantic. It was so august, this coastline, this indulgence of blue. Had Montauk always been this beautiful? Why hadn’t Sufien ever come in all of those years he had lived in Manhattan?

  Sufien stood out on the balcony of the house, the house which belonged to James’s boss, beholding that view. Sarah was gushing over every lampshade, oh the furnishings, the curtains, the bedspread, and had apparently already researched the value of the property. When are we gonna have a seven-million-dollar house? she pouted.

  So Sufien asked again why their daughter wasn’t with James’s boss instead. Or that Dr. Scott. Let her buy this house for you one day.

  Ask yourself that question, Sarah said.

  I’m done asking myself questions, Sufien said. I’m finished.

  You were her role model, Sarah said. And the bickering went on. Meanwhile, Layla and James were trying to be quiet in the downstairs bedroom, conceiving their first pregnancy, the one that would end in a miscarriage nine weeks later.

  * * *

  *

  Now they were eating dinner on the balcony. The moon was full and it seemed to illuminate a path back to the Old World across the sea. To return to Italy. That was enough. That was all Sufien wanted. It was too cold in New York. Sufien just missed the sun. Meanwhile, Layla and Sarah were chiding him, telling him he had to fight.

  I want to die like a man, Sufien said finally.

  You’re being a coward, Layla said. Don’t you want to meet your grandchildren?

  What grandchildren? Sufien said. You’ve made me wait so long I’ll die before I see them.

  We’ve decided to get a second opinion, Sarah announced.

  A second opinion, Layla scoffed. Who do you think you’ll get better than Scott? You know what he has.

  We’re not idiots, Layla, Sarah said. You always act so haughty. Let me remind you that your mother and father were the ones to send you to Columbia.

  How had Sufien submitted to this? To return to the place he had fled? How had he become this sort of father? He was supposed to be an Arab gentleman. Now he felt abused, trashed. When had his daughter become so disrespectful, so American?

  James, Sufien said, roll me a joint.

  Sufien, once stoned, was returned back to New York, the buildings crowding around him, where was his sky?, it was all closing in, as he relived the visit with Dr. Scott. Scott, slamming his fingers into Sufien’s ass followed by silence, that ugly, terminal silence. Couldn’t he just say it right then and there? No. Get dressed, sir, is what he had said. We’ll talk in my office. No one could tell a man he was dying, bare-ass naked in a fluorescent exam room. It had to wait for a desk, chairs, for a man to be in his trousers, and a doctor before his diplomas, with an iPad resting between them. Why were doctors always playing these sick games?

  * * *

  *

  And then Sufien really was back in New York, they all were, and even though he had threatened that he wouldn’t, he attended the follow-up visit with Dr. Scott.

  Well—the doctor rubbed his hands—I’ve got some good news.

  You were wrong and I don’t have cancer? Sufien asked.

  Unfortunately, you do, the doctor said. But I’ve been looking into your case. And the good news is that there have been some incredible medical breakthroughs.

  That’s incredible, Sufien said. Medical breakthroughs. And he couldn’t believe he was repeating the doctor’s words. He had the sensation of being a beggar in some ancient time bowing before a rich king.

  I think you’d be an excellent candidate for some of these experimental treatments my colleagues and I have been researching. We can fight this, Sufien. Dr. Scott smiled then like they were on a soccer team together.

  Oh, thank you! Thank you! Sufien said. He couldn’t stop saying it.

  And then some moments of discussion passed, and what Sufien almost heard was that they would give him shots, once a week, and that he would grow a chest, a woman’s chest, and gain weight, and lose the capacity to make love to his wife (not that he had in months, or was it years?), and he would have hot flashes, and feel weepy, and angry, and for a time that might work, and if it didn’t, then they would try chemo, which would deplete him, would rob him of his hair, would make him sick, make him weak, make him effete, and if that still didn’t work, they would try radiation, and his jaws and his bones and his legs would hurt and he would not be able to walk, and he would not be able to eat, and he would not be able to laugh, he would not be able to even cough, but no, none of that would kill him. There was no death there, in this oncologist’s office, not yet.

  Of course, nothing is 100 percent, Dr. Scott concluded.

  They all smiled. How clever this doctor was, how reasonable. Yes, he was a charmer. None of them were discussing the mushroom cloud spreading on the horizon and devouring all that had made Sufien Sufien, originating in his very manhood, the parts of him that had made Layla, that had loved Sarah, yes…He really couldn’t remember…How long had it been since they had been together? They would never be together again.

  But will it cure the cancer? Sufien asked.

  As you may have heard, cancer has no cure, Dr. Scott laughed. Oh, he was even funny. Why wasn’t Layla with this Dr. Scott, again?

  But it might go away? Sufien said.

  We’re gonna chase it off as best we can, Dr. Scott said.

  I don’t want to do chemo, Sufien said. I know what it did to my friend Daniel. He looked at Sarah. It did nothing. It just killed him.

  Oh, Sufien, never say never, the doctor said.

  We’ll do whatever you tell us to do, Doctor, Sarah said.

  Dr. Scott knew the path was likely already lost with this patient. Yes, he would die, within years, if they were lucky. But he was a salesman of hope, a slave to the pharmaceutical companies and his research. Besides, he had a special affection for Layla. He wanted to help. And sometimes, it was true, there were miracles. Ultimately, he believed he was doing a mitzvah on this day, when he said: Let’s not worry about chemo for now. You’ve got a long way to go. Some men live a decade after a stage four diagnosis.

  Stage four? Sarah shrieked.

  Don’t get caught up in these medical definitions, Dr. Scott said. Everyone is different. He was already standing up in that polite way of professionals. How blessed were schedules.

  We’re going to walk it back. We’re going to fight it, I promise. Listen, I’ve got to get to my next appointment now. Didn’t you say Layla was pregnant? We’ll make sure you meet your grandbaby.

  Mazel tov to her and to you, Dr. Scott said, escorting Sufien and Sarah back to the lobby. Please tell Layla I said so. I’m so happy for her and for—

  James, Sarah said. His name is James.

  Yes, James, Dr. Scott said. We will have much to celebrate together in the coming months, then. Mazel tov.

  60

  It Could Never Be Stopped

  Back in their rowdier days as father and daughter, Layla and Sufien would stay up into the middle of the night, smoking cigarettes and talking over vodka, wine, marijuana.

  And they stayed up one more time like that together, Layla and Sufien, the night of her miscarriage, a night passed between her painful trips to the bathroom, and when the dawn came, and Sufien was the only one still awake, they continued talking, Sufien playing verses of the Quran for her, for the fetus, their private funeral, and they smoked together, smoked and smoked.

  I just know it was a boy, she said.

  Sufien told her, as Abdul Jalil had once told him, that it was okay, it was okay to smoke in the presence of death. Sufien told her about the palace, about the movie he still remembered watching there, his first film, but he never told her about the palace wife, the baby washed up on that beach. In those final years, Sufien wished he had told Layla more about his life story, told her again how much he loved her. Once he was locked inside the muted rain of the afterlife, he tried and tried to make up for it. It was all he ever said.

  Yes, Sufien’s best friend in the end was his daughter.

  And what happened to Bernardo? Over a decade had passed since they had seen each other. The phone calls were so rare. Sufien hadn’t even told him about the cancer. Or that he had lost the house. Or even that he was back in New York. What would Bernardo say? Sufien didn’t want to know.

  Besides, Sufien was distracted. So soon after that long, sad night, Layla was pregnant again, and sober, and Sufien was sober now too, because he had begun the incredible medical breakthrough treatments, and the shots he had to take to fight the cancer were already hard on his liver. Alcohol would complete the job. So here was something they shared. And the two of them searched the city almost daily, for the best cherry juice they could find. Cherry juice because it resembled wine. They found themselves in Turkish markets and Russian groceries scanning the aisles like sommeliers. Sufien taught Layla how to make malfouf, saniyet batata, hummus his mother’s way. And also, they fought like mad, both hormonal, both overly consumed with the preservation of life.

  Then one day, Sufien put his hand on Layla’s belly, and there was an answer from the other side. Here and not here. This soul which Layla carried, which she was carrying into this world.

  The baby girl arrived in August, a Leo, a lion, and when Sufien saw her face, what he felt was a romance he had never known. He called her Mi amore. How had he forgotten this? Where was he when Layla was a baby? Out driving, like a moron. When in his arms, day after day and night after night, he held the key to life? By then, his granddaughter Najla was all that was left of amore. The treatments had put Sufien into a kind of menopause, and whether it was 40 degrees or 90 outside, he would break out into a deep sweat every half hour. He had never felt so hot, and so angry, like he could tear down the walls. He dared not look down, not at his chest, where he had grown breasts, nor down farther.

  After every shot, he said, Never again, I just want to die in peace. I want to die as Sufien. And then the week would pass, and he would ask Sarah if she didn’t mind taking him back to Mount Sinai, that he wanted another round, and she cooed at him, and helped him into the cab. Within months, Dr. Scott told Sufien he was in remission. Said, It’s a miracle with how advanced your cancer was.

  I’m cured? Sufien asked.

  The answer from the doctor was vague, or cautious, but Sufien wasn’t listening. He had heard only the word remission. And he couldn’t help himself. Life was only this: living or dying. It wasn’t manhood. Though he had lived all of his life believing it was. It was just living, the force of being inside a body seeing, hearing, walking, talking. And he was living and there was a grandbaby, his Najla, his amore. He was here, he was still here, and wasn’t that all there was?

  Somehow that night, after the appointment with Dr. Scott, Sufien walked the entire mile from the subway to Layla’s apartment beside Prospect Park, with its view of the lake, and when he arrived, sweaty, rageful, elated, he demanded his amore. He wanted to rock Najla, and when she fell asleep in his arms, he sang to her in Italian. And then he said, Laylooneh, bring me some wine.

  James, meanwhile, was staring out the window as if in mourning.

  Why aren’t you happy, James? Sufien asked. Did you want me to die?

  Sufien said again confidently, boisterously, I’m here to stay.

  James nodded his head and smiled. It was the anniversary of 9/11 and in the distance he had been staring at the ghostly impressions of the two towers which rose up year after year in the New York night. James was thinking of the bodies he saw that day when he was walking to work, the bodies which, at first, he thought were sparrows, the bodies leaping out from the burning windows. That was death, a fucking squall. It could never be stopped.

  61

  Hilal Moon Rising

  It took six months for the hormone treatments to fail. The cancer began to reclaim Sufien’s body like a conquering army. These houses of his, they were always being taken. Even the hot flashes faded. He felt so cold, so cold all of the time, and yes, there was the New York winter, but this was different. How could he explain it otherwise? The night was becoming him. He could not feel the sun on his skin. Sufien was losing weight again, and Dr. Scott, who had once gazed at his patient with enthusiasm, no longer held Sufien’s gaze at their most recent appointment.

  Unfortunately, your PSA is on a trend upward again, Dr. Scott said.

  Sufien was dumbstruck, still smiling gleefully. Then he felt like he might cry, like he was being broken up with, dumped by the doctor.

  But I’m in remission, Sufien insisted.

  Remission isn’t a permanent state, Dr. Scott replied. It can sometimes be something temporary. He was speaking very slowly, very articulately now, because speaking to the dying animal required a special sort of cadence.

  What Sufien wanted to do in response was throw something at the doctor, his beloved, the one who had cured him, maybe his briefcase, which he still carried with him to these appointments like he was going to a job interview, the leather one from the market in Firenze which he had kept always, the one from Malik. It had remained among his few sacred belongings in this life. He would die with almost nothing, so few possessions to pass on, but that briefcase.

  Now he was being fired. He had failed Dr. Scott.

  The treatment worked, and then it stopped working, the doctor explained, as if this made the pronouncement more reasonable. We see this. That doesn’t mean we can’t try something else.

  And here was the hope, the thread being dangled, that so many cling to, the dumb life raft, already pierced with holes. But the alternative, no, who can accept the alternative?

  What else? Sufien asked. (Or was it Sarah?)

  There is always chemo, the doctor said. And radiation too. Dr. Scott spoke for another ten minutes about statistics, numbers above Sufien’s head, and again Sufien castigated himself for not being a more learned person, one who could understand and respond to the conversation being hurled at him about his one and only life.

  A long time passed, what felt like a long time, before Sufien said anything. And meanwhile Sarah was talking at Dr. Scott and at the same time she was searching for something on her phone, like she might find the number for a lawyer who could win this case against cancer.

  I’ll do anything, Sufien said finally.

  Because it was true. After all those hours he had spent staring off that 37th floor balcony, and the nights driving in the desert, fantasizing about how it would feel to spin his steering wheel and let the car go flying off some mountain into the dust, and when he saw the ocean, yes, he had always wanted it with such desire—no, now he just wanted to live. He wanted to eat a boiled lamb shank and mujaddara, and bamiyeh, and spaghetti bolognese. What he wanted was to hold his granddaughter, hell, even change her poopy diaper, and stroll her piece-of-shit stroller through the piece-of-shit park soiled by used condoms and beer cans, where they could behold the swans on the evening lake, and the ancient turtles tanning in the sun, watch the clouds pass overhead, and in them draw shapes. He wanted life, God, life, to grasp his wife again, her legs, to kiss her feet. To see all the beautiful women the world over even if he was too old to touch them. To drink, to smoke, to read a fucking book. To wake from a dream and smell coffee, hear sirens, tether himself to the bonds of the morning, to have somewhere to go, even if it was for a chemo shot. To see Italy again. To return to Palestine.

  Finally, he understood he was all right down here after all. He had always been all right. Why had it taken him so long to understand this? So what if there was, beyond all this, galactic bedrooms, attended to by virgins with their lilac hair and lacy wings? And so what if down here he was a broken man surviving on food stamps and Medicaid, a refugee who had believed his failure was behind him but it was all over him and always would be ahead of him? He was alive! He loved this planet. This was home. He had found it at long last. Motherfucker. And now he was losing it too.

  Well, even with the chemo, the doctor said. There are no promises.

  Suddenly, there are no promises. Before, it was all promises, Sufien said. (Or had Sarah said this too?)

  But Sarah was the one apologizing. He doesn’t mean that, Doctor, you understand, this is very emotional.

  Oh, this is very normal, Dr. Scott said.

  He was even laughing, the doctor. Amazing. Layla had been right after all not to marry this fucking guy.

  An old conspiratorial feeling returned. Sufien wasn’t sick, but New York wanted him dead. New York itself was killing him. New York was killing him. It always had. It had bankrupted him; it had stolen him from Italy. And now it was finishing the job. It was a simple equation, just solve for X and X was New York. He never had cancer. It was a diagnosis confirmed here in this sick city. It was because he was a Palestinian. And Dr. Scott was a Zionist pig. He was going to say something. He almost said something. Then he thought of his granddaughter. Of Layla. Khalas. Khalas, Sufien.

  When do we begin? Sufien asked. I want to do it, the chemo.

  After the appointment was finished, he and Sarah walked down into the subway and the stench of it hit him, that old moldy smell, one of the oldest smells he knew, and he looked up from the descending staircase, and there it was, the hilal moon rising.