He learned where to go to get the government check and decided it would be best to be himself, a man who had come over the border with his own real name. He showed the paperwork his beautiful agent had given him to a man taking his application for assistance, and true enough, he was given a check every two weeks and a thick manila envelope with information on affordable housing, food vouchers, and job training. He wondered if he could go to school to be a chef, a good one. He would figure it out. Maybe he did not even need to go back to Boston. But as soon as he thought that, he missed Aziz. Not the others.

The apartment the government subsidized was small, but it was close to where Ghazi liked to be most, a coffee shop that had newspapers from the world. He spent his days reading them. No one spoke to him. No one looked at him. If there was one thing he knew how to do, it was wait.

It had taken Aziz a long phone conversation to get his father to comprehend what had befallen them. Aziz had to count on his father’s not knowing American ways, because Aziz had to leave much unsaid. He could not speak of Rafik’s crimes. He could not speak of secret police grabbing Ghazi. Aziz also had to explain that Mourad was not able to call home and that his father could not reach Mourad in Boston anymore. Aziz could not say that Mourad was certain his phone was being tapped, because of course that would make his father and his mother fall down prostrate in tears and recriminations at why they had let their sons make dangerous journeys only to have them fall into treachery.

So he told them that work was hard to find in Boston. Mourad had been fired from his security job. That’s why he didn’t have a phone anymore. Aziz and Ghazi had lost their jobs at Del Fuegos. Aziz had heard of work in New York. Ghazi had heard of work in Canada. Rafik had gone to Rhode Island after his job at the moving company ended. They had to leave Boston; they had no money.

“No money?” his father exclaimed. “You were sending us so much money. Is it all gone?”

Yes, Aziz related. Since they had sent all their money home, they had no money saved.

To which his father would say, more than once and over several phone calls, “You left here for no jobs and no money to go to no jobs and no money!”

Aziz had to tell him, several times, “The economy is very bad. It is not good at all.”