The young cheese they ate crumbled over the beans, but the hard cheese that had been aged for six months to a year was so delicious they ate it on its own, slice after translucent slice, and Quinn grinned when he thought of what a San Francisco specialty store would pay for this organic goat cheese cured in a cave in the mountains of the Sinai. The hipsters would go nuts.
After three weeks, his fingers had healed to the point where he could take off the bandages. His tattoo, on the same hand, had also healed: delicate, curling lines he loved to look at. Now he was able to help in the fields, hoeing and weeding, moving through the rows of peppers and eggplants with a small basket hooked over his arm.
As he worked, the sisters and brothers chatted with him, and slowly his Arabic improved t
