“Ilived through beautiful times, Busayna. It was a different age. Cairowas like Europe. It was clean and smart and the people were wellmannered and respectable and everyone knew his place exactly. I wasdifferent too. I had my station in life, my money, all my friends were ofa certain niveau, I had my special places where I would spend theevening—the Automobile Club, the Club Muhammad Ali, the GeziraClub. What times! Every night was filled with laughter and parties anddrinking and singing. There were lots of foreigners in Cairo. Most ofthe people living downtown were foreigners, until Abd el Nasser threwthem out in 1956.”“Why did he throw them out?”“He threw the Jews out first, then the rest of the foreigners gotscared and left. By the way, what’s your opinion of Abd el Nasser?”“I was born after he died. I don’t know. Some people say he was ahero and others say he was a criminal.”“Abd el Nasser was the worst ruler in the whole history of Egypt.He ruined the country and brought us defeat and poverty. The damagehe did to the Egyptian character will take years to repair. Abd el Nassertaught the Egyptians to be cowards, opportunists, and hypocrites.”“So why do people love him?”“Who says people love him?”“Lots of people that I know love him.”“Anyone who loves Abd el Nasser is either an ignoramus or didwell out of him. The Free Officers were a bunch of kids from the dregsof society, destitutes and sons of destitutes. Nahhas Basha was a goodman and he cared about the poor. He allowed them to join the MilitaryCollege and the result was that they made the coup of 1952. They ruledEgypt and they robbed it and looted it and made millions. Of coursethey have to love Abd el Nasser; he was the boss of their gang.”

“I'll tell you, I now know why Jesus called himself the Good Shepherd. It was because he had such a deep and beautiful feeling of love for people like you, and among all the people he knew in Palestine, they were the ones he loved and worried about the most. And he made treatment of you and those like you the basis for how he will judge people when they die. He will say to people who are kind to you, 'Come, blessed of my Father, into the kingdom of heaven, because when I was homeless and hungry and naked and ill and in prison, you cared for me. As long as you did this for the least among you, you did it to me. So come into my Father's home, and those who are not kind to you, God will give them a hard time, a very hard time.”

“Then El-ahrairah knew that Frith was too clever for him and he was frightened. He thought that the fox and the weasel were coming with Frith and he turned to the face of the hill and begin to dig. He dug a hole, but he had dug only a little of it when Frith came over the hill alone. And he saw El-ahrairah's bottom sticking out of the hole and the sand flying out in showers as the digging went on. When he saw that, he called out, 'My friend, have you seen El-ahrairah, for I am looking for him to give him my gift?' 'No,' answered El-ahrairah, without coming out, 'I have not seen him. He is far away. He could not come.' So Frith said, 'Then come out of that hole and I will bless you instead of him.' 'No, I cannot,' said El-ahrairah, 'I am busy. The fox and the weasel are coming. If you want to bless me you can bless my bottom, for it is sticking out of the hole.”

“But not all Gaza residents were committed to the war. A reporter asked one of the Arabs what he most wanted. He was a taxi driver, father of ten. All he wanted was 'to eat and to work.' What did he think of Nasser? 'Nasser is good, Israel is good, America is good, Britain is good, Canada is good, India is good, Anything is good.”

“Travis doesn’t remember much about it, but he was close to his mom, and after we lost her he was never the same. I thought he’d grow out of it, you know, with him being so young. It was hard on all of us, but Trav…he quit trying to love people after that. I was surprised that he brought you here. The way he acts around you, the way he looks at you; “That’s what I thought. You have to be patient with him. Travis doesn’t remember much about it, but he was close to his mom, and after we lost her he was never the same. I thought he’d grow out of it, you know, with him being so young. It was hard on all of us, but Trav…he quit trying to love people after that. I was surprised that he brought you here. The way he acts around you, the way he looks at you; I knew you were somethin’ special.”“I know it’s hard not to blame him, but you have to love him, anyway, Abby. You’re the only woman he’s loved besides his mother. I don’t know what it’ll do to him if you left him, too.”“I’ve never seen him smile the way he does when he’s with you. I hope all my boys have an Abby one day.”

“Nothing, nothing mattered, and I knew why. So did he. Throughout the whole absurd life I'd lived, a dark wind had been rising toward me from somewhere deep in my future, across years that were still to come, and as it passed, this wind leveled whatever was offered to me at the time, in years no more real than the ones I was living. What did other people's deaths or a mother's love matter to me; what did his God or the lives people choose or the fate they think they elect matter to me when we're all elected by the same fate, me and billions of privileged people like him who also called themselves my brothers? Couldn't he see, couldn't he see that? Everybody was privileged. There were only privileged people. The others would all be condemned one day. And he would be condemned, too.”