He had made no progress with the English girl’s deportation. If she was found guilty, she could be executed in public. The executions were the thing that bothered Miles most about the country: he felt he acquiesced to them, since he had no power to object. The guilty were drugged, which was some consolation, dragged up to the platform, staggering, and pushed to their knees. The executioner jabbed them in the back with a sharp prod to make the spine arch and tighten the neck muscles, and then the sword came down. If the man was lucky, it came down straight. They tended to shoot women, to avoid exposing the neck and back, but the girl could be beheaded; it had happened. The British prime minister had halfheartedly asked for her return, and the queen had said nothing. The girl had no connections at home, no one fighting for her. Miles slogged on in her behalf, not to redeem himself for Angelo’s hand, but because working late let him avoid Angelo altogether.

Three months into this new life, he received a letter and a package, delivered by a friend who had seen Christopher at a dinner party in London, and was on his way to Riyadh. The friend had brought the letter to Miles, and Miles had brought the letter to Eugénie. Someone was sent to look for it in her room. Eugénie feigned scruples about reading it to us, but in her excitement when the letter was found, she forgot them. It said:

Dear Miles,

I explained part of why I was leaving, but not all of it. Here’s the thing. Angelo didn’t steal your watch, or the cuff links. He didn’t steal anything from us. He must have stolen things before, to get two strikes, but I didn’t know about the strikes. I thought you’d just fire him the way you did Omar, I never thought you’d turn him in. But what I did wasn’t any better.

I stopped liking me, and stopped liking you—that’s what happened. I’m sending this with your friend (isn’t it funny how everyone we know is “your friend”? We don’t call anyone “our friends.” It’s always “Miles’s friends.” I keep noticing things like that lately. Someone corrected me saying “a mute point” yesterday and I realized I got it from you. Did you know it’s wrong?).

So, no love to you except the old love, and that was real enough.

Christopher’s signature was loopy, like an experimenting child’s.

In the package, padded with tissue, wrapped in letter paper and sealed with mailing labels, was Miles’s watch. The framing of Angelo made such sense and such little sense to him that he felt if he had been Christopher, he would cry.