'Why don't we get the engineers to turn it down?' she suggests, looking at it.

'We could,' I say, looking at it too.

'Or they might ruin it,' she says.

'Let's not,' I say. It's a new addition, a modernising touch, and she and Am Madani are very proud of it.

'We don't mean to wake you,' she says.

'I wasn't asleep,' I say. 'Let's make some tea.'

We go into the kitchen and she says 'You rest', so I sit at the table while she fills the kettle. 'Abd el-Rahman follows us, back to crawling now because of his plastered leg. He settles on the floor in front of my father's tall dresser and opens the lowest drawer. This is where the coloured plastic clothespegs are kept.

'Look at this for me,' she says while we wait for the tea leaves to settle. She puts a large brown envelope in front of me. I open it and pull out an X-ray - no, a scan. I read the tiny English writing and look up at her tired, pretty face; the brown eyes lined with kohl, the eyebrows plucked thin, the blue kerchief tight across her forehead: 'Again?' I say. 'Again, ya Tahiyya?'

'By G.o.d, I never wanted to,' she protests. 'We said four and we praised G.o.d and closed it on that. It's G.o.d's command, what can we do?'

'But hadn't you put the loop? I thought -'

'Yes, I had put it, but I had blood, blood coming down on me and they took it out and said take a rest for a while - and you know what men are like. Then G.o.d's command came to pa.s.s.'

She tests the tea. It is the colour of burgundy and she pours it into our gla.s.ses and spoons in the sugar.

'There are some biscuits,' I say, and she brings the plate to the table and hands a biscuit to her son.

'By the Prophet, I can't keep up with them all,' she says. 'Yesterday the little girl had a temperature and was fretful all day and at night this boy kept me up all night coming and going. The plaster - you'll excuse me - makes his leg itch. All night I'm carrying him and patting him and calming him down until Madani was about to say to me, "May G.o.d help you." '

'That's good of him,' I say.

'What can he do, ya Daktora?' she asks. 'All day he's working, and he's got diabetes. His health isn't what it used to be.'

I can hear Isabel: his diabetes didn't stop him getting her pregnant. When his health was what it used to be, did he wake up and soothe the kids at night? But is it Isabel? Or are these my thoughts in Isabel's voice? Of course termination doesn't even come into it. 'Haraam ya Daktora,' Tahiyya would say, 'it's a soul after all.'

'How far gone are you?' I ask.

'I'm not sure.'

I look at the scan. 'Eleven weeks,' I tell her.

'Look at it for me,' she says, 'and read it for me. Tell me everything it says.'

'It says you're eleven weeks pregnant and the baby is normal.'

'Praise G.o.d,' she sighs.

'What does Am Madani say?'

'What will he say? He says "How will we feed them?" and praises G.o.d.'

'G.o.d provides,' I say.

'It's known,' she agrees, and gets up to wash the gla.s.ses.

'Yakhti, laugh,' I say. 'What do we take from it all?'

'Nothing,' she says. 'Man is destined for his G.o.d.'

'And they'll be five in the eye of the enemy -'

The buzzer goes again and I get up to answer it.

Isabel comes in as Tahiyya is collecting the clothespegs and wiping the crumbs from the floor. They smile at each other.

'Hallo,' Tahiyya says loudly in English, straightening up and smiling, raising her hand to her head, miming a greeting in case Isabel doesn't understand.

'h.e.l.lo,' says Isabel. 'Izzay el-sehha?'

Tahiyya's eyes widen as she turns to me: 'She speaks Arabic!'

'See the cleverness,' I say.

'Yakhti brawa aleiha. She looks intelligent.' Tahiyya beams her approval. 'Is she married?'

'No,' I say.

'Like the moon and not married? Why? Don't they have men in Amreeka?'

'Maybe she doesn't want an American,' I joke.

'Khalas,' says Tahiyya. 'We marry her here. You find her a good bridegroom among your acquaintance and we'll make her a wedding that shakes the whole country.' She bends to pick up Abd el-Rahman. 'Shall I do anything for you before I go?'

'Thank you, Tahiyya, there's nothing.'

'Then I'll excuse myself,' she says. She settles her son on her hip, manoeuvres his plastered leg around the door. 'Salamu aleik.u.m.'

'She's always so cheerful,' says Isabel, 'and she works so hard.'

'Yes, she does,' I say.

'She was washing down the stairs the last time I was here. Of the whole building.'

'It must have been Thursday. Do you want - shall I get you a drink?' It's just after seven.

'I thought we might go out,' says Isabel. 'Let me take you out to dinner.'

'I've got some stuff here -'

'Let's go out. Do you never go out?'

I shrug.

'There must be some place you like?'

'Come to New York,' Isabel says. 'Come and stay with me.'

'No,' I say. 'Thank you.'

'You can do your own thing,' says Isabel. 'There's a lot of s.p.a.ce. We'll only meet when you want to.'

I shake my head.

'You can see your brother.'

'I'll see him when he comes to Cairo.'

'But he doesn't come often.'

'I know.'

'Have you taken a vow or something?'

'I just decided to come home. I've had enough of travelling.' And would I go to New York without stopping in London? And would I stop in London without seeing my husband?

'You'll come one day. I'm sure of it.'

'Will I?'

'You'll come when they're showing my film.'

'Sure.'

'I'm serious.'

'Isabel. You don't even know the rest of the story yet. You don't know how it'll turn out.'

'It doesn't matter. I can see it. The way you describe it, I can see it.'

I shake my head. I seem to be always shaking my head. But it's brave of me to come even here, just across the river; to this restaurant where we had dined together. Where he had kissed my hands and I had pretended not to notice the stares of the waiters.

'You want to bet?' she asks.

'No.'

'There you are, you see. You won't bet.'

'How are you doing with your work? Your millennium?'

She glances up at me, and we pause as the waiter loads the table with stuffed vine leaves, houmous with a sprinkling of oil, baba ghanoush, cheese and tomato salad, soft bread and toasted bread. 'Did I feel a loaded p.r.o.noun there?' she asks gently.

I smile. 'She looks intelligent,' Tahiyya had said.

'Well, it is more yours than mine,' I say.

Isabel helps herself to two vine leaves and some houmous. 'You know,' she says, 'I know there's an awful lot I don't know. That's a start, isn't it?'

'Yes,' I say. 'I'm sorry.' And I am, for I - with my banners of 'fair-mindedness', of 'no prejudgement' - have been always, primarily, seeing her as 'the American'.

'How is it going, though, your paper?' I ask.

'I'm not sure. People I've spoken to have been very cautious. They talk mainly of technology and I have this feeling they're not telling me what's really on their minds.'

'It's very difficult.'

'But why? Why is it so difficult?'

'Because you're American.'

'But I can't help that.'

'Of course you can't. But it makes it difficult to talk to you about some things.'

'But it shouldn't. I have an open mind. What kind of things?'

'It'll be OK. Listen, we'll find a way,' I promise.

'Anyway,' Isabel says after a short silence, 'I've gotten interested in so many other things now. I'm not giving up on it - but there are other things I want to do.'

'But, Isabel, may I ask you this? You - you manage? With all this travelling and everything?'

'Oh, my dad left me some money. And I'm selling my parents' apartment. I'm not wealthy, but ...' She smiles and her perfect teeth sparkle in the light of the gla.s.s-covered candle on the table.

A candle-shade of opaque gla.s.s. Bell-shaped. Frosted. It was Anna's brush that, dipped in aquamarine ink, traced the cunning, curving letters: gliding with the stem of an 'alef' bursting into flower, following the tail of a 'ya' as it erupts into a spray of fireworks that scatter the text with diacritics. She knew enough by then to make out the characters, but she could not yet readily tell where one word ended and another began.

I lift my head and look at Isabel, beautiful in her dusty pink velour top across the table. A dead father and a mother as good - or as bad - as dead. We are both orphans, she and I. A dead brother and an absent brother - I touch the underside of the wooden table quickly, secretly: my brother is absent but alive. A broken marriage - we share that too.

'You know,' I say, sounding casual, trying it out, 'we used to come here, my husband and I, whenever we came to Cairo. It was our favourite restaurant. This is the first time I've been here without him.'

'You're divorced?'

'No. But we've been separated for a long time.'

But I have sons and she hasn't. Though my sons are not with me and I try not to spend my days waiting for them - waiting for the phone call: 'Mama, I thought I might come and see you -' Isabel's hair falls glossy and straight to just below her jawline, and around the graceful neck lies a thin silver chain. She is at her beginning and I am close to my end. I smile at her.

'You know, I'm really glad I got to know you,' she says.

I reach out for a moment and pat the hand lying on the table between us. 'You amazed Tahiyya with your Arabic,' I say.

'I've learned the alphabet and they're giving me lists of words,' she says, 'but ...'