Paradiso 17

The novel opens after the death of its protagonist, Sufien, a Palestinian man whose life spans seven decades of exile. His spirit visits his daughter Layla in a dream, appearing first as the young father she knew in childhood, then as the skeletal figure he was at the end, and finally as a radiant being. A jinn, a supernatural spirit from Islamic tradition, beckons him into a valley where he dances in a never-ending spiral until the sky opens and he falls. The only sentence Layla retains is Sufien telling her it is the most beautiful dance.

The narrative moves to Sufien's deathbed in the desert, where he is dying of cancer. Confused by morphine, he wishes to go back to the beginning. The story shifts to his childhood in Safad, a city in northern Palestine, where he was born around December 1943. In early spring 1948, the young Sufien jumps from a rooftop believing he can fly after hearing a jinn whisper to him; an olive tree breaks his fall. Weeks later, the Nakba, the mass displacement of Palestinians in 1948, reaches their door. Soldiers force the family from their home on Jebel Kan'aan, the family's ancestral mountain in Safad, at gunpoint while Sufien's father, Abdul Jalil, is away fighting. His mother, Um Sufien, leads the children north, still bleeding from the recent birth of Sufien's brother Firas.

The family reaches Damascus and enters a refugee camp. Despite the misery, Sufien later recalls the camp with paradoxical nostalgia as a place where life was stripped to its essentials. Abdul Jalil returns from the war transformed, grey-haired and shaking. The family relocates to Kuwait in 1953, where Sufien excels in school and falls in love with Nefisa, a Palestinian girl, but panics and runs when she asks him to walk her home. On his deathbed decades later, her spirit greets him.

At seventeen, Sufien leaves for Italy. He arrives in Perugia in 1960, desperately lonely and unable to speak Italian. He adopts the alias Franco Leone and has a brief affair with Lila, a local girl on the eve of her arranged marriage. A painting he makes of her becomes the only artwork he ever completes. He moves to Florence to study engineering but drops out when his father's money runs dry, taking a commission job selling leather goods with Malik, a Palestinian Catholic from Nazareth who becomes a lifelong friend. He also meets Bernard, a wealthy Jewish American who rechristens himself Bernardo and joins the stall. Their friendship becomes the most enduring of Sufien's life.

The 1967 Six-Day War shatters Sufien's Italian equilibrium. He takes an Israeli lover named Eden, is denounced by Palestinian comrades, and in a drunken rage on the night Jerusalem falls, attacks her verbally and physically. Bernardo, returning to New York with his pregnant girlfriend Sandy, invites Sufien along. Seeing Manhattan from the air, Sufien murmurs in Arabic that he is lost.

New York is brutal. Sufien works at a bodega and rents a tiny Harlem room. His father dies of a heart attack in Kuwait; Sufien does not learn of it for weeks. He drifts through apartments, briefly finding belonging with Paulette, who introduces herself as Paul on the phone but greets Sufien at the door in a pink boa and bright lipstick. Paulette's vibrant social circle becomes Sufien's first real community in the city. By 1973, he is homeless in Central Park. He hears his dead father's voice telling him to call Bernardo. Reluctantly, he does, and Bernardo sets him up again. A pattern establishes itself: Sufien struggles, Bernardo rescues him. The FBI interrogates Sufien over a former comrade's hijacking attempt; Eden, now a belly dancer, vouches for him. During a housesitting stint in a high-rise, Sufien nearly climbs over the balcony railing before a voice pulls him back. He descends into heavy drinking.

In the early 1980s, Sufien secures a Green Card and drives a taxi, a job he loves. He meets Sarah, a Jewish American woman, at a Tribeca bar and whispers that she will be his wife. Their courtship is swift; they marry in Andalusia, Alabama, Sarah's hometown, with Sufien's mother and brother Firas flying from Kuwait. Overcome, Sufien can barely speak his vows, managing only the word "home." Their daughter Layla is born in April, roughly four decades after Sufien lost Palestine. He is the happiest and most frightened he has ever been.

The marriage strains under financial pressure. Sarah grows embarrassed that her husband drives a taxi. Sufien opens a leather goods store called Impressionné on Broadway, but it fails amid the Gulf War recession. Bankrupt, he follows Malik to Phoenix, Arizona, and persuades a reluctant Sarah to relocate. In the desert, Sufien finds his true landscape. He also begins a secret affair with Donna, a troubled woman with a drug addiction who blackmails him with a fake recording. Despite this, the family enjoys its best years after Sarah starts a successful publicity business. They buy a house at 1740 Andalusia Road in Scottsdale, with a blue door and an olive tree that echo the lost family home in Safad. Layla grows up, leaves for Columbia University, and the house empties.

The 2009 economic crash destroys them. Sufien has secretly taken out predatory loans and maxed out credit cards. The bank forecloses on 1740; they end up in a motel. For years, Sufien has ignored his doctor's calls about blood work indicating cancer and, on Donna's advice, has taken testosterone supplements that unknowingly accelerate his tumor. He collapses trying to tell Sarah the truth. Scans at the Mayo Clinic reveal tumors. Layla invites her parents to New York, where she lives with James, her partner. Before leaving Arizona, Sufien says goodbye to Donna, who has overdosed, cupping her face and weeping.

In New York, Dr. Scott, an old college acquaintance of Layla's, confirms stage four prostate cancer spread to the bones. Hormone therapy achieves temporary remission, and Layla's daughter Najla is born. But after six months, the treatments fail. Chemo and radiation ravage Sufien's body. In his final weeks, he is wheelchair-bound and delirious, drifting between present and past. James brings a joint to his lips for a last smoke, and Sufien smiles. During a brief rally, Sufien asks about Lila and Nefisa, pointing toward Prospect Park's lake and saying he saw them waiting. He is wheeled to Layla and James's small wedding beside the lake, managing only "Through sickness and in health."

On his last day, a Saturday in October, Sufien wakes ravenous, asking for espresso, soup, and cigarettes. His consciousness drifts through Florence, Kuwait, Damascus, and finally up the old road in Safad to the blue door marked 17. His last words are "Siamo amici," meaning "We are friends." Layla answers, "Sì, per sempre." Yes, forever. He is buried in Alabama; only Layla, Sarah, James, and Sufien's youngest brother Talal attend. Bernardo, absent, pays for everything. At Pensacola Beach, Layla goes into labor and names the baby Leone. Months later, she finally dreams of her father, healthy and whole, presiding over a grand feast. They walk through shifting landscapes until she must return to her children. When she looks back, Sufien has already passed beyond the blue door.