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Rabbit’s Foot

February 19, 2016 Dispatches

My dad’s black mutt slunk up to the front porch, looking slowly back and forth and crouching down low to the ground. I knew that body language: she was unsure of how a gift she had for us would be received. Her mouth was full of something. “Spit it out, girl,” I commanded. She gently separated her jaws and rolled a small brown ball of fur off her tongue. It was a wild baby rabbit, so small that at first I thought it was a mouse. But then I saw its ears and pink nose, and, as any nine-year-old girl would, I jumped and let out a squeak. Then I composed myself by taking a deep breath and patted my dog on the head. “Good girl, Macy. I’ve got it from here.”

Abu Musa

October 4, 2012 Essays

By TRICIA KHLEIF

I last spoke to Abu Musa in March 2003, the week the Iraq war began. It was late afternoon, Syria time, when I called from my apartment in Washington, DC. I waited several minutes while the shopkeeper across the hall—the only resident in Abu Musa’s building with a telephone—summoned my former music teacher from his apartment.

I might have caught Abu Musa in the midst of a nap; he made me repeat my name three times.

At last, he laughed. “It can’t be,” he said. His voice, low-pitched, buoyant, was thick with cigarettes and fatigue. “Where are you? Are you still in America?”

When I said I was, I felt him smiling in disbelief. “You could be next door,” he said. “You could be down the street.”