Sellami watched Aziz more closely than the rest. Aziz first noticed it the night they were in Had Chekala, close to Relizane, to take on government sympathizers from a local militia who had killed two FIS party members. Antar wanted to kill the family of the patriots; the patriots themselves were too hard to find. Families, in Antar’s soldiering, were the hill to be taken, the bridge to be blown. That night, Antar had decided to gain access to this family through a village nursery. The babies were there at midnight, tended only by old women, because the young women, many of them pregnant, were too weak by this late part of Ramadan to watch their children. It was at a mountainside, in houses of ground and sod; it was more than four hours’ walk to the first telephone. With them was a new addition: Ahmed Rahman, said to be an Afghan veteran. Ahmed had arrived malnourished, and that night he was light-headed— Antar’s men were also fasting—and Ahmed began his work ahead of them. He had no respect for those who kept the fast or for the djeddat who had delayed feasting to keep watch over the babies. He cut their throats, the djeddat’s, one by one, so some saw their fate played more than one time.

When Sellami and Aziz found him, Ahmed was throwing babies against a wall and standing among and on the ones he had flung into pieces. Aziz pulled him out and took him to Antar. Sellami had argued with Aziz over it. And Antar looked at Aziz oddly when they returned. Aziz had to say he saw one djedda escaping to warn the rest of the family. Sellami didn’t back him.

For days after, Aziz planted questions about Ahmed’s loyalty. He is a spy, Aziz told Antar. How did he arrive here? Who knows him? See how he sleeps apart. See what I found in his pack. One night, Antar woke suddenly to see Ahmed stabbed dead near his hammock, and Aziz saying he had caught him, gun in hand, poised to assassinate Antar. Antar believed Aziz had saved his life. But Sellami kept asking questions, Aziz learned afterward. Had anyone seen Ahmed with the gun? Why had Nazzar been awakened but not Antar?

Now, on this dry afternoon many months later, Sellami looked up to see Aziz’s sleepy face. Sellami smiled, shaking his head slightly, as if to say, Time for pantomime. Aziz was a wall. He stopped and crouched in the circle of men. They were looking at a copy of Vogue.

“From Boufarik?” Aziz asked, yawning.

“No. Three weeks ago. Blida.”

“A long time to hide such booty,” Aziz observed.

“The women are magnificent.”

The pages were glistening.

“He heard something,” Aziz said, yawning again.

One of them turned a page. There was the sound.

“In French,” Aziz said, looking at the word maillot upside down.