“I told them, in Algiers, I had found you,” Nasim said. “I did not tell them to do this.”

Aziz stood on the prow. He waved.

Chapter 27

27

Aziz planned to wait one week for Mourad’s call. He spent his days at the cell-phone store. The owner made sure everyone knew Mourad’s name, and if Aziz was in the bathroom, or out of sight for any reason, they were to keep Mourad on the phone and find him. At night he slept on the floor on some pillows. He kept two of the store’s phones at each ear. One night the phone rang. It was a woman speaking Farsi. He tried to talk Arabic and French and English to her, but she only answered with sounds he did not recognize. He had no hint at even one word’s meaning, but he could hear she was frantic. It was rapid talk, and her voice sounded like the highest piano keys being hit out of order by a child.

He had schooled himself not to be upset if Mourad did not call. It was important to follow a plan, not slide into the anger he felt that day on Atlantic Avenue. Mistakes got made and problems multiplied with that kind of attitude. So on the seventh day of his vigil, with no call from Mourad received, Aziz quit his job at the Haha Smoke Shop. His boss was mad so he didn’t pay him for the last week. Aziz tried to get him to rehire him on the spot, but the man was too smart for that. The loss of this money was bad. He needed it for his bus ticket to Boston. He needed it for when he got there, because he suspected Mourad and Heather had moved. They might have even decided to go to Canada to find Ghazi. Heather could have gone to Virginia to her father. He couldn’t picture her leaving Lahouari behind, but after a year he had to be ready for anything.