The only thing that suited Rafik was Heather’s innocent love for Lahouari. It freed him to do a new wrong, finding a new woman almost every night. He went to these women’s beds and was home before three. He never gave them phone numbers. He never told his true name. He had only one rule. He never saw the same woman twice. Heather and Lahouari were not lovers, but Aziz knew Rafik, in his own mind, pretended they were, so he could love his own lies. Mourad had not uprooted the wrong. The weeds were still in the ground.

How had he thought Mourad would make Rafik leave and their lives straighten? Many nights he listened to his brother’s alcohol-stiffened breathing in the bed next to him and wondered when a certain kind of punishment would come.

“Her breasts were like buds,” Rafik said, joining his fingers into a compact blossom. “I feasted on them for hours. She could come this way, I swear to God.”

“Rafik.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“I believe you, I believe you.”

“The small tit is underrated.”

“Can we talk of other things?”

“The smaller, the more feeling.”

“You are crazy.”

“Aziz, look, look.” Rafik was motioning with his cigarette toward the door. Mourad was arriving, for the first time with friends. “He has brought someone!”

“It is that shithead from work.”

“Which shithead?”

“Bob something.”

“An American?”

“Of course an American.”

“He has a woman, this Bob.”

“Rafik, I swear to God, on my mother’s grave, if you go near to this Bob’s woman, I am not helping you when he comes to kill you.”

“Look at her. She is not beautiful.”

“No, she is not. So leave it alone.”

“But she has the small tit, I believe. Yes, look at her. I am sure she yells like a cat. I would love just to hear her. Just once.”

“On my mother’s grave.”

“Oh, I will not have this one.”

“You are sick.”

“I won’t have her.”

Mourad and Bob and his girlfriend were almost at their table. Rafik got up and pulled out a chair. In his own head, Aziz hit him. He watched Rafik bounce down and up to the ceiling and back, smile gone from his smirksome face.

“For the lady,” Rafik said grandly. Mourad glanced. Bob shrugged. “That ain’t no lady.” Bob was still in uniform. The pink of his neck peeked out over his collar, and the soft of his waist did the same over his belt. He turned away from his girlfriend, who looked at Rafik appreciatively. Rafik was dark and slim, and he was now sitting himself next to her, a woman so unremarkable that she was speechless at Rafik’s intensity. He was particularly gifted with the plain. Lately he had been saying that it was nothing to love a beautiful girl. It was something to make a plain one believe she was loved.