They turned inland at Barka Fort and crossed the plain to reach the foothills. Children dallied by the roadside, sometimes waving, sometimes scowling, at the passing jeep, the girls in flowing patterned dresses, the boys big-eyed and curious.
“Where are we headed?”
“The Ghubrah Bowl. You’ll see. It’s quite amazing.”
The countryside dipped and humped as they made their way into a wadi—the Wadi Mistal—with foothills closing in until they were in a narrow gray gorge. Gabriel went with the sway as Rolf negotiated boulders and steep ridges along the zigzagging watercourse, but suddenly the limestone walls fell back to reveal a vast natural amphitheater.
“Wow.” Gabriel gaped at the surrounding rim of mountains and mishmash of hills. “I understand why you get so fidgety to come up here.”
“This is nothing. The view from Jebel Shams, now that—that view belongs to God.”
They headed out across the plain. Already Gabriel was impatient to stray between those bare ridges, where the creases, plump with greenery, were flush with goodness: streams and fruits and flowering trees. A small village was perched on the flank of the southern mountain, but Rolf parked before they got there and began to prepare for a hike.
They followed tracks, scrambling over scree and sliding rocks, while Rolf looked for his spot and Gabriel, in his wake, breathless and unfit, tried to keep up. Whenever Rolf stopped to photograph or sketch, Gabriel perched on a rock to rest, then dragged his feet when his grumbling brother-in-law scurried on in search of a more suitable viewpoint. He was a grumpy, irritable companion on this and other outings they would make over subsequent weeks, but Gabriel liked this Rolf—the one who was not in control; the one who had to be cared for, babied almost. He liked to make him tea on their burner and persuade him to put down his tools and his frustration. It was easier man-to-man, with no Annie, confusing the fact that they were friends as well as brothers-in-law. Out here, in Oman’s best wilderness, they were pals again. It was like going fishing together as they had in Ireland—Rolf hissing and fussing as he failed to get his catch; Gabriel calm, flinging his fly forward, absorbing the scenery, the feel of his boots in the cold river, while the trout, caught or not, were incidental to the day’s pleasures.
But that first afternoon, when they were trekking up a shambling hillside, Gabriel made one last stab at the subject that preoccupied him. “About the girl, Rolf,” he said, panting. “What’s the story?”
Rolf threw out his free hand in an irritated flurry. “Why do you keep on about this? There is no one coming into the house! I don’t know why you insist, but I wish you would leave it. Annie is worried already about you and this talk only makes her worse.”
“But I’ve spoken to her.”
Tapping his camel stick—the short hooked stick that many Omani men carried—against his thigh, Rolf turned. “Gabriel—”
“Look, I’m not kidding and I’m not thick either. There’s a woman in that house, Rolf, and you bloody well know there is.”
“There cannot be!”
“Why not? No one locks the doors—she could come in from the street any time.”
“But the women of this country would never do such a thing.”
“She isn’t Omani, she’s a Westerner, who parades around me like some kind of marauding prostitute, and I don’t understand why you allow it. What’s the point? Am I supposed to be learning something? I mean, is she there to tantalize me, like in some Hitchcock film?”
Rolf was looking down at him from a few meters up the track. “You’re dreaming, that’s all. Sleepwalking.”
“In the middle of the day?” Gabriel wiped sweat from his neck. “You’ll have to do better than that, Rolf. Sleepwalking, my arse.”
“What else can I say when we are only three of us at home?”
“Most of the time, yes, but you have a regular visitor. I’ve spoken to her. For Christ’s sake, I’ve even kissed her! So won’t you tell me, please, who it is that I’ve kissed?”
After a moment, Rolf turned away with a dismissive “She must be a jinniya then.”
“What?”
“This is jinn country.” Rolf hiked on up the track.
“You mean . . . some kind of ghost?”
“Jinn are not ghosts.”
“Well, do they have knobbly toes and legs as long as—?”
“You are exasperating me, Gabriel! It was a good joke for a day or two, but enough now.”
The slate-like hills threw back the dazzling light and the only sound—of stones rolling away from Rolf’s tread—scraped against the still air. Some of the rocks had faces like grinning gargoyles.
As they scrambled on, Gabriel had to wonder: Jinn country?
The journey back to Muscat seemed interminable. Gabriel couldn’t wait to get to the house. He hoped she would come and he hoped there would be no hint of her, and when finally they stepped into the dimly lit front room, he knew she was there already, ahead of him.
The following evening Annie’s tone had quite changed when she asked him if he had seen his jinn lady that day.
He never knew from which direction she might come, or when. At night, he lay on his back facing the door, nervous and expectant, like a virgin bride, or if he stood on the roof he faced the stairwell, because he wanted to see her coming. She never did it that way, though—creeping up like some kind of spook: she was either there or she was not, and yet he grew fidgety for fear of missing out, missing even her fleeting passage across a room. He wanted to see her, any time, every time.
Annie, noticing his distraction, became irritable one evening when they were having dinner in the diwan. “Gabriel, what is it with you? Even when I’m speaking to you, your eyes are jumping around and you keep wandering from room to room. You’re hardly ever still!”
“Just trying to keep track of your occasional guest.”
Annie stared. “You still think there’s someone here?”
“I know there is.”
Rolf tore up some bread. “So where is she now?”
“Excellent question.”
His sister shook her head. “You really think there’s some woman coming in and out of our house without us knowing about it?”
“Either that or you do know about it.”
“But it isn’t even possible! I mean, who is she? I’ve asked around, you know. No one knows anything about an expat on the loose, and she can’t be in Muscat on her own. She’d either have to be working or married to someone, or she’d never have got into the country.”
“I’m neither working nor married and I got in.”
“Yeah, and it wasn’t easy either. Sometimes I wish we hadn’t bothered!”
“Hey, don’t get miffed with me, Annie. How the fuck am I supposed to know what gives? This is your town, your house. You tell me what’s going on.”
“I don’t know.” She screwed up her paper napkin and threw it onto her plate.
Stalemate.
“I don’t like this,” Annie said quietly. “It’s this bloody house.”
“How do you mean?”
“There might be something here . . . a presence or . . .”
“Oh, not the jinn thing again! Look,” said Gabriel, “she