Teenager Ali works at a filling station in a desert. He sleeps there too. The old boss Jack and his twenty-something daughter Emily live 100m away in a caravan. She's not allowed out and isn't allowed mirrors. Her knowledge of sex is limited to what she's learnt from her father's porn. She's watched Ali from a distance. One night she sneaks out and seduces Ali, saying she'll come again but only if he doesn't look at her face.
Ali, a Muslim, grew up in another desert. He left when he was 6 with an older boy, also called Ali. They separated when the older Ali became fundamentalist. Young Ali's more interested in football. He discovers that his new country (USA?) is at war with his old one (Iraq?). He imagines arriving in his home-village on a US tank. He wonders what wearing a suicide belt may be like.
Five Hells Angels arrive threateningly. Jack scares them off with a gun. They promise to return the next day. When they do, he shoots them. Jack's put in prison - he had terminal cancer anyway.
Emily has a facial disfigurement. She decides to get a burqa and call herself Fatima. Ali gets a phone call from a hospital - his uncle Ali who'd emigrated to the States years before is gravely ill. So Ali and Fatima catch a train to visit the uncle, who's become westernised - he has a carpet firm. After the visit, the couple pop into a sex shop, then the beach, which Emily/Fatima has never seen before.
Less than 120 pages. See also al Sahara.
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