Back in the terminal, Mother, no doubt detecting my anxiety, had asked a mischievous question. “Who’s returning?” she said. “Suleiman el-Dewani or Nuri el-Alfi?” Suleiman el-Dewani and Nuri el-Alfi are the exiled protagonists of my novels In the Country of Men and Anatomy of a Disappearance, respectively. She wanted to cheer me up, but also implicit in her question was a warning against what she knew I was intent on doing: searching for my father.
