The City of Your Final Destination by Peter Cameron

outside the fence and watched her. She was moving down the row in a slow, shuffling squat, gently pulling the weeds out of the earth, shaking the dirt from their roots, and tossing them into a metal bucket she nudged along in front of her. She reached the end of the row and stood up, put her hands on her hips, and arched her back. She saw Omar.
    â€œGood morning,” she said. “So you’ve arisen.”
    â€œYes,” said Omar. “Good morning.”
    â€œDid you find the bread and jam?”
    â€œYes,” said Omar. “Thank you. It was delicious.”

    â€œI hope it was enough for you.”
    â€œIt was plenty,” said Omar.
    She walked down the row she had just finished weeding and stood near him, just inside the fence. “Did you sleep well?” she asked. Her face was a little dirty and the hair around her temples was moist. She smelt of earth.
    â€œMarvelously,” said Omar.
    â€œGood,” she said. She smiled, and touched the back of her wrist to her temple. “You can come in if you want. There’s a gate over there.” She pointed. “Are you interested in gardens?”
    â€œWell, I do not garden myself,” said Omar. “But I have always had a fondness for gardens.” He walked around and tried to open the gate, but could not. It seemed to be locked, or stuck.
    â€œYou’ve got to hold the clasp down and lift the latch up and push,” said Arden. “It needs to be forced.”
    After a bit of a struggle, the gate opened, and Omar entered the garden. “It is a very big garden,” he said. “Do you manage it all yourself?”
    â€œNo,” said Arden. “Pete helps me.”
    Omar must have looked baffled, because she added, “Pete is Adam’s partner. His boyfriend, I suppose. Adam is Jules’s brother.”
    â€œAnd they live near here, you said.”
    â€œYes,” said Arden. “Just down the road a ways. You passed their house on your way here. It’s the round, stone building. It was a millhouse.”
    â€œI wasn’t very alert, I’m afraid. In fact, I was dozing. I must have seemed rather stupid when I arrived.”
    Arden shook her head.
    â€œI hadn’t thought I would meet anyone—I mean any of you—so quickly. I had hoped I would be able to collect my wits before meeting you. But there you were.”
    â€œYes,” said Arden. “There I was.” She picked through the
weeds in the bucket, as if she had lost something among them, or as if some might not be weeds after all and should be reinserted in the earth.
    â€œPerhaps I can help,” said Omar. “Now, with the garden. I think I can manage to pull the weeds and spare your plants.”
    Arden laughed. “You’re dressed much too nicely to garden,” she said. “And besides, I’m ready for a break. You haven’t had any coffee, have you? Or did you make some?”
    â€œNo,” said Omar.
    â€œWell, come,” said Arden. She set the bucket down. “We’ll have some coffee, if you like.”
    They sat at the kitchen table and drank their coffee.
    â€œHow did you become interested in Jules’s work?” asked Arden.
    â€œWell, I read The Gondola in a class I took on literature of the Diaspora.”
    â€œI see.”
    â€œI liked the book very much. Perhaps because of who I was—having left Iran, coming to Canada at the age I did … I don’t know. It’s a beautiful book. It touched me very deeply. I know that sounds sentimental, but it is true.”
    â€œYes,” said Arden.
    â€œThe other books did not move me so much. I liked the gentleness of The Gondola . Its grace. To come so far, to bring so much with you, and to be nevertheless traumatized, devastated …”
    â€œYes,” Arden repeated, a bit vaguely, as if she were in a trance.
    â€œSo,” said Omar, “I became interested in Jules Gund. I