Aziz looked at this Rita. She was small and dark. She reminded him of someone, but for now he could not place her. She was not beautiful. She was not ugly. She had one thing he wanted, so badly, to touch. It was her hair. It was like the hair of girls from home. It was blue-black. He started to feel his eyes moisten. And she was not agitated. Like the girls from home, she was unruffled, made out of stillness.

“Rita,” Aziz said to her.

Rafik turned to him and said, “This is not Rita.”

Aziz could not believe Rafik had said this. “This, this—is not?”

“This is not.”

She was walking away from their table.

“I want—” Aziz began.

“You can have her.”

“You have had this woman and you do not want her anymore?”

“No, I don’t. I want Rita.”

“Let us think of something else,” Aziz offered.

“You need a woman,” Rafik said.

“Rafik.”

“Seriously. The last time was what? When that whore blew you in the living room. A year. More.”

“If she was a whore, what are you?”

“A man who takes what he wants.”

“A man who has forgotten his mother’s love.”

It was then they saw the Saudi. A shirtless man in black vinyl pants was removing the reservation sign from a round table next to the dance floor. Beside him were Americans, but boys again. There were chunks of watches on tan wrists. One of them had on a white button-down and had rolled up his sleeves. He looked like an Italian sailor Aziz had seen once on a yacht in Arzew. The Saudi, as always, was in a suit. There were ten or more of them. Within moments, bottles of wine arrived, though it was clear they had already been drinking. One of them was quickly asleep with his head on the table. He was chubby.

“Fuck.”

Aziz looked at Rafik. “What?”

“One of them will have Rita.”

“I would think that all of them will have some kind of Rita.”

“Yes.”

“Which may affect your prospects. But then, pickiness has not plagued you.”

“They are from Harvard.”

“What is this Harvard?”

“It is the Sorbonne of America.”

Aziz stared, interested now.

“They are smart—even this Saudi?”

“Rich.”

“So it is the school of playboys.”

“Those are the playboys, at that table. The smart ones do not come to Reach.”