“Dhakir, I believe you. Just the package by tomorrow morning. That is all.”

“There will be one in North America. I will be that one.”

“One of what?”

“The group. I will be near the top of it. But here, in Montreal.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You will see.”

“Just send this one FedEx.”

This was the anniversary of the day he left Arzew. Aziz harbored some joy because of it. But it was hard to get others to understand his small happiness. Maybe it was meant to be a private one. After all he had known and felt, he could not find words to explain how he had found it. It was not the Persian poet’s lines, or the old Yemeni, or the turning faces on the Bonanza bus, though he continued to see them like hallowed portraits from a dignified museum. It was not anything as ridiculous as forgiving himself, or anything as false as the word Americans had for the end of grieving. They called it something like closing. How could grieving close? Grieving lived inside him whether it showed itself or not, and he had no powers to summon it or banish it. This new joy came from allowing that there were distinctions, that running from all—or loving all, he had to see that too—was little improvement over renouncing the subtlety of discernment because it led to excuses. Some explanations were footnotes. But some were a lens that focused.

Mourad, for instance, had lived too long in Aziz’s mind as the unfeeling one. Algeria had been permanent unfathomable confusion; America was prettiness walled off from his touch. Women were only signposts pointing to Soumeya, Rafik only hijinks to be overlooked. Kamal was vengeful evil; Aziz would have to admit him to some larger understanding, as impossible as that seemed.

Only Ghazi had pushed through in fuller contradictions. He was a man Aziz could say he knew well and loved easily. Ghazi’s remoteness, now that they were reunited, disappointed, but it also was familiar. Two nights ago, Ghazi had been happy, pouring sparkling wine on Aziz’s head, dancing Heather through the hall in mock tango. It reminded Aziz of the night Ghazi had first arrived, because they were spilling thoughts and stories, eager for Ghazi’s. This time, when Ghazi’s stories of Montreal didn’t come, Aziz remembered how long it took for Djamila, the one intended for Ghazi, to surface.

Now, looking for Mourad’s Escort to come down Brooks Street, Aziz was smoking many cigarettes, maniacally greeting strangers on the sidewalk, offering to carry groceries for the infant- and toddler-burdened Sikh woman who lived two houses down, only to spill them on her front stairs in his distracted glee. But then, just as he had finished picking up the detergent and formula and canned peaches, the Escort appeared at the end of the block.