Then they told him. How no letters from him had scared them. “You wrote every week; then this silence.” How when they called the army, all they would say was Aziz was stationed near Biskra. “Again and again your father called, always the same thing.” How others from his unit had come home on leave, and one of them said Aziz had inexplicably disappeared. “It was the friend of the pharmacist’s son. We asked him what was said about your absence in the unit, but he recalled nothing. He was not even sure it was you that was missing when we showed him your picture.” How when they called the army and told them that, they said they would look into it. “This will take first priority, I assure you.” That was the lie they told. “We will be reporting back to you at regular intervals.” But they never called back, and after a while they would not take his father’s calls. “They were rude. They said a son not writing letters home was not a national emergency.” How they begged Ghazi’s father, in military intelligence, to see what he could find out, and he told them there was no record of Aziz going for basic training at all. “You saw him go with your own eyes!” Aziz’s father exclaimed.

While they talked, his mother kept pulling at the hem of her sleeve; her fretting was starting to take out the stitching. His oldest brother kept interjecting, “Let him talk.” His next oldest brother tapped a domino on a domino. Mourad was sullen. His older sister, Hazar, was rocking a fussing Asa in her arms. Her husband had his hands on his hips. His other sister, Anissa, was trying to get their mother to sit down. Her husband, who worked for Algeria’s nationalized energy firm Sonatrach, which everyone believed gave him special knowledge of inner workings of all mysteries, was waiting like a marabout to be consulted.

“What happened?” His father was gentle when everyone quieted. He had seated himself next to Aziz on the piebald couch.

“What happened doesn’t matter,” said the oldest, Latif, trying to be too level headed for hysterics.

“It is obvious to me,” said the Sonatrach sage.

“You!” said his wife. “You have said nothing before now.”

“Does no one in this dewdrop family pay mind to anything outside their corner of Arzew Harbor?” Aziz’s brother-in-law demanded. “You are petals dancing on moonbeams while Algeria staggers and burns. These Salafists are slaughtering our children, and you, you are nothing but flute players for French tourists. And here, your own son, haunted and broken, has come to you from what was no doubt the most secret, most honorable mission, only to be hounded by these jihadist madmen and harried by his hopelessly naïve family.”

“Was this so?” asked his father. “This mission Ghaleb describes?”

Ghaleb preened. “He cannot answer you, you old fool.”