The Arsonists' City

by Hala Alyan

Ava met Nate when she was twenty-nine. It was an odd time to start a relationship; she’d already

There was a whiteness that seemed to transcend race in these spaces; they conferred whiteness upon anyone inhabiting them.

Though Mimi hasn’t seen it in nearly two decades, the house is etched in his memory, the mental blueprint as clear as the one he has of his parents’ house in California. Bricks

He could be the adult, the one who recognizes, given the sheer number of years he’s spent breathing and fucking and walking on this planet, that not all itches need to be scratched, that sometimes you have to look desire firmly in the eye and say, Not today. Instead, he lunges for her.

Back home, she never thought of her own, save when she heard the occasional admonishing from her mother to avoid the sun—her complexion darkened easily. But here, she gawks in wonder at the black skin of the highway toll collector, the pale forearms of her doctor. Neighborhoods are arranged by skin. Jobs. Schools. Here, her skin is darker than many, but not the darkest. Most people think her Mexican, and she often has to apologize when flustered strangers speak to her in Spanish.

Mazna hadn’t known how much she didn’t know. Especially about this country. Sometimes Kit tells her about the history. The tribes. The land before reservations, the men that arrived with their Christianity and warfare. How they renamed everything: the children, the land. They slaughtered millions. The number is astounding and yet Kit says it plainly, accustomed to it. She is patient with Mazna’s questions.

“They handed out blankets teeming with lice and smallpox, diseases the body didn’t know how to fight against,” Kit explains. “They raped the women. Then they changed the history of it.” It reminds Mazna of Zakaria, of his mother and Palestine. He’d told her that his family was from Jaffa, that sometimes his mother whispered the name. If she forgot it, she would ...

“I had a friend,” she tells Kit. “Zakaria.” It’s the first time since moving to America that she’s said his name aloud, except to Idris; it feels sacrilegious. “He was Idris’s friend, actually. He was Palestinian and lived in this camp. A refugee camp in Lebanon. He told me...

May you never see your people like this, he’d said to her. Even one of them. That’s all it takes. Then it might as well be all of you.

I’m so grateful. Forgetting is worth the pleasure of remembering. الحمد لله.