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THEY EMERGED in a bedroom with a view of the night sky and furnishings so expensive and well<br />
made that Saeed and Nadia thought they were in a hotel, of the sort seen in films and thick, glossy<br />
magazines, with pale woods and cream rugs and white walls and the gleam of metal here and there,<br />
metal as reflective as a mirror, framing the upholstery of a sofa, the switch plate for the lights. They<br />
lay still, hoping not to be discovered, but it was quiet, so quiet they imagined they must be in the<br />
countryside—for they had no experience of acoustically insulating glazing—and everyone in the hotel<br />
must be asleep.<br />
As they stood, though, they saw from their full height what was below the sky, namely that they<br />
were in a city, with a row of white buildings opposite, each perfectly painted and maintained and<br />
implausibly like the next, and in front of each of these buildings, rising from rectangular gaps in a<br />
pavement that was paved with rectangular flagstones, or concrete laid in the manner of flagstones,<br />
were trees, cherry trees, with buds and a few white blossoms, as though it had snowed recently and<br />
the snow had caught in the boughs and leaves, all along the street, in tree after tree after tree, and they<br />
stood and stared at this, for it seemed almost unreal.<br />
They waited for a while but knew they could not stay in this hotel room forever, so eventually they<br />
tried the handle of the door, which was unlocked, and emerged into a hallway, leading to a staircase,<br />
one flight down which led them to an even grander staircase, off which were floors with more<br />
bedrooms but also sitting rooms and salons, and only then did they realize that they were in a house of<br />
some kind, surely a palace, with rooms upon rooms and marvels upon marvels, and taps that gushed<br />
water that was like spring water and was white with bubbles and felt soft, yes soft, to the touch.<br />
• • •<br />
DAWN WAS BREAKING in the city and still they had not been discovered and Saeed and Nadia sat in the<br />
kitchen and pondered what to do. The refrigerator was mostly empty, suggesting no one had eaten<br />
from it in some time, and while there were boxes and cans of less perishable food in the cupboards,<br />
they did not want to be accused of stealing, so they brought their own food out of their backpack and<br />
boiled two potatoes for breakfast. They did however take two teabags from the house, and make<br />
themselves tea, and each used a spoonful of the house’s sugar as well, and if there had been milk in<br />
the house they might have helped themselves to a tiny splash of that too, but there was no milk to be<br />
found.<br />
They clicked on a television to see if they could discover where they were, and it was soon clear<br />
to them that they were in London, and as they watched the television with its intermittently<br />
apocalyptic news they felt oddly normal, for they had not watched a television in months. Then they<br />
heard a sound from behind them and saw a man was standing there, staring, and they got to their feet,<br />
Saeed hefting their backpack and Nadia their tent, but the man turned wordlessly and headed upstairs.