Lime green paint on the domes of the neighborhood mosques punctuated the khaki limestone in the Nablus casbah. Like tarnished copper tacks, they seemed to pin the Ottoman souk and the Mamluk caravanserai to the floor of the valley. Otherwise even the stones might get up and run away from this dirty town, Omar Yussef thought.

The distant siren of an ambulance rumbled in the stomach of the city and Omar Yussef felt the last crispness of dawn burn away in the sun. With his habitually shaky hand, he stroked the meager white hairs covering his bald-ness and clicked his tongue. These few strands wouldn’t save his scalp from sunburn, and he could see that the day would be hot. Sweat itched behind his tidy gray mustache. He scratched his upper lip petulantly.

He turned from the valley and contemplated the sparse spring grass stippling the rocky flank of Mount Jerizim. Let’s see who gets burned worse-you or me, he thought. The mountain arced, sullen and taut, to the row of mansions on its ridge, as though tensing its shoulders to endure the heat of the day.

A turquoise police car pulled up. The driver’s window lowered and a smoldering cigarette butt spun onto the side-walk. “Greetings, ustaz,” Sami Jaffari said. “Get in.”

Omar Yussef left the paltry shade of the lacquered pinewood canopy outside his hotel, opened the door of the patrol car and stretched a stiff leg into the passenger’s side.

“Grandpa, morning of joy.”

Bracing himself against the car door, Omar Yussef looked up. From the balcony of a second floor room, his granddaughter waved. In her other hand, she clutched a book. He wiggled his fingers to her in greeting. “Morning of light, Nadia, my darling,” he said.

“Don’t forget, you’re taking me to eat qanafi today.”