But now he was away from Boston; he knew that. He was in a suburb. And even if he was able to call Rafik, he would be unable to tell Rafik where he was. He could not read the signs; he could not ask anyone. It had been a bad thing to leave the city. He should not have done it this way. He should have stuck to his plan about the church.

They were back.

They sat on a sofa opposite the computer. Aziz stood by the computer. He tried to remember what the best approach in a situation like this was. Was it better to level with them, to say, I know you are upset, I think it is because I am Algerian, I hope you know you have nothing to fear from me. Or did that make whatever was disturbing them more alive, because he would be putting it into words? Words made not yet real things real. It was undeniable. So, the other way. He would act as if the anger and the worry and the smart wife and the dumb husband were something he had not even noticed. Was that the better choice?

“We had considered taking you to the authorities,” the Egyptian said at last.

He let a silence lengthen.

“Because the Algerians, they are very dangerous. They are crazy,” he continued.

“You told my husband you were Moroccan?” the wife interrupted. She could not help herself. Aziz knew that this was the question. If he answered rightly, he would be talking to his mother that night. But what was right? To ally with the wife? To say, No, I did not tell your husband I was Moroccan. In that answer, she could be confirmed in her delighted assessment of her husband’s lying ways and thus feel kinship with Aziz and see Aziz as honest, most possibly strong. Or to ally with the husband? To say, yes, I told him I was Moroccan, which the husband could view favorably, because Aziz had covered for him in front of his wife. But the Egyptian knew Aziz had not claimed to be Moroccan. What if the Egyptian were a larger person than he appeared? He might be one who did not fear being exposed in a lie. He might be a principled person, a person who would then recognize, without any doubt, that Aziz was the kind of person who would say anything to appease. Aziz would be the kind of person who posed. That kind of person would not be from Morocco. A Moroccan was from a country of peace. A poor country, a desperately difficult country to come from, but it was not a country where people stuck neighbors’ heads on shovels beside front porches and went to their funerals crying false tears.