The Dove's Necklace

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THE BIG RED X ON THE SIDE OF THE HOUSE MEANS IT’S GOING TO BE DEMOLISHED soon. Demolished to make room for a parking garage to house those strange four-wheeled creatures that look as if they’re about to take over Mecca, just like in the stories of the apocalypse. When we were kids, the words “And gold will be strewn along the byways” seemed like the most far-fetched nonsense we’d ever heard, but with the astronomical prices people pay for the cars that are fast outnumbering the population of Mecca, gold’s being strewn right and left before our eyes. And hills are being leveled, too, disappearing just like the old buildings, one of which was my grandfather’s house. The house stood at the summit of what used to be called Sanctuary Portico, in the Istanbul neighborhood. That guileless past is gone now and it’ll never exist anywhere again, except in the pages of this book.

I’m telling this story to my great-great-grandfather Yusuf Alem of Mecca, who could make bread appear from beneath his prayer rug when he was praying in the Sanctuary, and if that seems like no big deal to us now, it’s only because sending a message from Mecca to China with the click of a button is no big deal to us now either. Yes, my ancestor was one of those people who could cross great distances in the blink of an eye.

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