The three novellas in The Emptiest Quarter find their inspiration in the sands and streets of Abu Dhabi, where author Raymond Beauchemin lived for four years, a time that overlapped with the building of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums and the opening of Sorbonne and NYU campuses, the convulsions of the Arab Spring and the eruption of civil war in Syria. The characters who populate The Emptiest Quarter live at both the centre and the fringes of the conflict between preservation and progress, including sheikhs, western oil-and-gas men, burned-out journalists, pearl divers, and Filipina caregivers, all striving to find themselves, to find love, to find balance in ever-shifting sands.

Watch the trailer >>

from Identity

Hadeel gets up from the spent and sweat-stained mattress on the ground and bends forward. She drops her palms to the floor and stretches her hamstrings. Exercise is good. Yoga's good. Keeps her limber. Pushes away the fear, the loneliness, the longing, the uncertainty, the anger. For a time. Everything now is for a time. She works her way back into a jackknife position before standing straight as a mountain again. She raises her arms above her head, reaching, reaching. Looks up. Hadeel hears the scratching sound of a loudspeaker coming to life and then the familiar "Allahu akbar" calling the faithful to end whatever they're up to because God is greatest and there is no greater activity in life than prayer. Since they took away her BlackBerry and watch, the adhan is how she tells the time of day. From the faraway rooms come a scrape of chairs on the floor and the sound of water splashing in the sinks and the floor, and when the muezzin has stopped his call, she notes the muffled male voices of the kids praying. She imagines them on their rolled-out rugs, playing being Muslim, pretending being righteous, acting out a fantasy life of purity and prayer. From her upright position, palms together in front of her heart, she swoops her arms in an arc over her head again, bends, jackknifes, drops again with a heavy head and loose neck, then rises to begin the sun salutation again and again and again until she's focused on her breathing and has blocked the sound of these phonies, these imposters, and their pretend prayers in the room next to her. In the distance, a deep, rumbling thunder. Planes from above the clouds will rain bombs, anti-bunker, cluster, barrel. Rain, rain, rain.

When the men are done praying, she hears footsteps in the hallway and her door is opened.

"What are you doing?" asks the kid who smells like camel fur.

"Praying," she says, "like you."

He glances. "Then where is your rug?"

"You never actually gave me one, did you?"

He advances toward Hadeel.

The slap is hard enough to turn her head. Hadeel raises her arms to protect her face as the kid raises his hand again. But it's a feint. To scare her. He laughs. Hadeel reaches for her hijab, which she adjusts as she tucks her hair back under the fabric. The kid puts his hand to his side. Master Camel looks hard at Hadeel, then at her bedspread. Then at Hadeel. She backs away and lowers her gaze, her head.

Thunder.

"Why do you act this way?" he asks. "We treat you well, with food and water. With a bed. You are our guest here."

"I'm your guest?" Hadeel mocks him. "Fuck you! I'm not your guest. Fuck you." The kid looks angry enough to seriously harm her, but he turns and walks out. Slams the door behind him.

Hadeel crumples onto the mattress, her body folded over her knees, and cries. Can't believe she spoke with the Camel this way. It goes against everything she'd learned in the conflict-zone reporting course and all the advice from Marc. Do not antagonize. But dammit! Who were they to do this? This one, the kid, the youngest one. Blond hair, light brown eyes, shaggy Salafist beard. Pimply. To treat her with such disrespect. I am your equal, she wanted to shout at him. Hadeel, who had been taught at a young age that whatever her brother Hamsa did she could do. And she did. School, riding a bike, going out with friends, university abroad, travel. She doesn't know how long she cries, but the tears turn into prayer, something she hasn't done in a long time. God, let me see Zayd again, and Hamsa and Marc and Mother. Even Father, change the hearts of these men, these... these... boys, these kids, these kidnappers, to let me go, and if that isn't in the plans, then--but Hadeel can't go there, can't think of what she must do or ask for if she is not allowed her freedom.