The Girl Who Fell to Earth Read Online Free Page B

the imam for directions.
    Matar’s brother then stood up, long and tall in his charcoal winter thobe , and, puffing his chest out, declared, “Watch me speak English.” Mohamed strode across the street while Matar watched his brother attempt the dialogue they both knew from the their language-learning book.
    Each word was punctuated by a full stop. “Hallo! My. Name. Is. Mohamed!”
    Matar watched from a distance as the pink man and Mohamed pantomimed at each other. Mohamed returned with the man in tow and Matar brought out a thermos of tea. The man sat cross-legged on the reed mat, watching as Matar shoveled too much sugar into the already sweetened red tea and stirred nervously.
    â€œWho is your father and your father’s father?” he asked Mohamed and Matar in schoolbook Arabic. Mohamed recited their clan’s provenance while Matar urged a glass of tea on the man, wishing it were already cold since he knew that’s how the cowboys drank it.
    The man took notes, excitedly writing the names down in a little notebook. Then he looked around in his bag for something to give the boys and produced a can of Pepsi, a blue pencil, and a blank notebook full of graph paper. He gave the notebook to Matar and the can of Pepsi to Mohamed. By now the man’s Saudi guide was back in the truck and honked the horn, calling, “Mister Stark! Yalla! I’ll take you to the Bedouin camp now.”
    The pink man rose and said “ Ma’a salama ” to both boys, and just like that, the young anthropologist was gone. Matar sparked with a desperate wish to stop the Land Rover as it drove off. Later he would recognize the feeling as one that plagued everyone in the tribe. It was the urge to move on. Now as he lay in his dank motel room, tangled in superfluous sheets and an uncomfortably soft mattress, all Matar wanted to do was go back. The khayal from his boyhood returned, a ghostly smudge with its reflective face, standing guard in his periphery, holding a vigil until Matar slept and dreamed of his impossibly distant home.
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    Gale returned early the next morning to Matar’s hotel room. He opened the door in his sirwal , wearing the thermal blanket as a cape and still looking like a very lost little boy. “I brought you these.” Gale invited herself in and heaved a pile of clothes onto the bed: Wranglers and Levi’s and button-up cotton madras with pearly buttons. “You can get rid of that salmon disco ensemble.” She made a beeline for the refrigerator, picked out a can of Rainier, stuck her thumb in to crack the push-button top of the can, and sucked the froth off her thumb. Matar stood stunned in the threshold of his hotel room, half in and half out of more secondhand duds.
    â€œSo? You ready for your birthday present? Come on, let’s go,” she said, pounding down the rest of her can and charging out to her gold Volkswagen Scirocco.
    He wavered a few seconds before letting go of the horrible empty feeling that came when she left, and followed her out to her car. First she drove him down to the waterfront naval yards where cargo and battleships towered as high as the adjacent hills. Matar began to get panicky as she drove up close to the piers.
    â€œWhat’s the matter?” she asked.
    â€œNo. Water,” he tried to explain. She stepped out and walked down the pier, gazing out across the bay; it was clear and calm and the brimstone stench from the paper mill was mild that day. “Just have a look at it, will you?” she called to Matar. But he refused to look or even get out of the car. “All right, then, we’ll head straight for the hills.”
    They drove away from the shore, Matar calming down the farther they drove, eased by the peace of movement. She took the scenic route to the mountain. Windows rolled down, hair in the wind, a pair of leather driving gloves, and an 8-track of Waylon and Willie all the way. Gale stopped at the