“Sit here, like this.” He made a place for her under his arm, then picked up her wineglass and gave it to her. “Your head goes here.” He pulled her head to his chest. “We’re going to get drunk. We’re going to sit on this couch and get absolutely fucked up. One thing.”

He waited. She was taking a sip of wine.

“Yeah.”

“Do you remember the first word you taught me?”

“I don’t know. Hello?”

“Think about it. That night. Rafik was at the club with Aziz. And you answered the door and it was me.”

She lifted her head. “Fox bitch. It was two words.”

He needed something to feel it was her. They started laughing. She drank some more of her wine.

Chapter 26

26

Aziz rode a bicycle out of the garage. The open door, the empty driveway—he had the search for the vodka-soaked Sellami to thank. After following one macadam path and then on to another driveway, Aziz saw a trail through trees, away from the stadium lights, toward the road in front of Benane’s house. He heard sprinklers and the rustle of palms. He was calm, almost nourished. For the first time in a long time, he understood what had happened to him. It occurred to him that he should be more wary. He was still trapped. There were walls and guards and most likely dogs. All he could feel was free.

At the end of the trail there was a small house. Was it for the dark man? The boy? He got off the bicycle and walked it on the soft dirt. There were no lights, just cicadas, and their loud came faster as he realized he couldn’t see where to go next. The windows were open; a curtain flapped against a screen. He passed a seesaw and a baby pool. Finally by a clothesline he saw a rutted driveway grown over with roses.

The disappearing driveway had been invaded by olive trees. He weaved between and around on the bicycle, coming into clearings and then back into foliage. After a while, he thought he saw a stone wall in the distance. Closer, he saw it was at least ten feet and had concertina wire coiled at the top. He sat there, looking at it twinkling in the dark. How badly, he calculated, would it injure? Painful, yes, but not fatal. Then he remembered he had the pill the doctor had given him. He reached in his pocket. It was there. He had bandaging from the doctor around his arm and his ribs. He could stop the bleeding, what bleeding there was, with some of it. That left the bicycle.