He was shoveling down the lamb, nodding and smiling in dopey heartiness. They began talking about the wondrous thing that had happened that day, but he had missed the first part of it, and now it was all a something or other of “and the thing about it was” and “that is what I had believed, all along.” The boy was throwing cereal. Some of it landed on Aziz’s now-empty plate. It was Cheerios, what his father’s hotel had for tourists and the French would not eat. Aziz tried to catch the boy’s eye, but the boy was too young and busy. Just then, he knew he had to go.

“I have a friend, a phone number. I must call it. I cannot impose on you one day more.”

“Oh,” said the wife.

“Well,” said the Egyptian. “That is good you have a friend.”

“Are you—” the wife began.

“You were in no shape when we found you, but now—” He turned to his wife.

“You are a little better,” she said slowly.

Something else was called for to be said, at least in Aziz’s family something would have been, but he could tell that this family operated under other rules. It was not any of their business what had caused his dereliction, his suppurating feet, his barely understandable excuses about having lost his home. He said the phone number to them, and the man said, “Come, I will let you talk at my desk.”

They entered the hushed order of his den. The computer was on, the screen making buzzing stars, and there was a shallow light over the keyboard. He could feel the pride the Egyptian felt at this den, and for a sliver, Aziz sensed the man was boasting or gloating, or going through something not nearly as virtuously kind as Aziz had assumed for him. But it was gone as soon as it came. “There is no need to dial the six one seven,” he was saying. “Just the rest.”

Aziz pushed the buttons, put the receiver to his ear, and listened. He felt an unexpected desolation because the receiver at his ear was almost familiar, but the sound of the open line, and the sound the numbers made when punched, and the ringing sound— they were unlike any phone sounds he had ever heard.

“Hey.”

“Rafik?”

“Cousin!”

“Oh, my uncle!” The old words opened him.

“You are all right!”

“I am!”

“Where are you?”

“I am here, in Boston, I swear to God.”

“No!”

“On my mother’s head, I swear it.”

“This is unbelievable. This is such good news!”

“My parents?”

“Oh, cousin, they called every day this week.”

“Can you come get me?”

“Tell me where you are, I will be there.”