“This woman, she is—” Aziz lost his words. He looked at Rafik for help.

“This woman is Rita.”

Before Aziz could speak, Mourad was upon them. He shoved his cell phone at Rafik. “Heather is calling. Someone has come to the house. Someone who says he knows you.”

Rafik swung his eyes up to Mourad’s face. “You told her I was here?”

“You are.” Mourad’s face was rigid.

“Aziz,” Rafik began.

“Let me talk to Heather,” Aziz said to his brother.

“No. He will.” Mourad lifted the cell phone to his ear and said, “Here is Rafik.” A pause. “He thinks you are stupid.” He handed the phone to Rafik. Rafik took it and looked at it for the longest time. Then he threw it across the dance floor, where it bounced twice and disappeared into the crowd.

Chapter 12

12

His name was Taffounnout Belghazi. They called him Ghazi. Mourad took to him. From the first, even on the cell phone, Ghazi had made the wood goat smile. While Rafik was running home in a taxi fearing Heather’s wrath, Mourad was nodding and bobbing like a boat in a sunny sea. By the time Mourad and Aziz got home, Heather and this Ghazi were drawing pictures on the kitchen table in place of language. She already had taught him how to say fox bitch. Mourad laughed so hard that Heather touched Ghazi’s shoulder to make sure he was real. How had it been that Rafik had never mentioned him? He was not like the others. Heather had to drop her eyes; his looking at her was searching. Rafik said something in Arabic, and Mourad and Aziz and the Three and this Ghazi laughed and shook their heads.

“Aziz,” Heather kept on, “you never said anything about this Ghazi.”

Aziz upturned his palms. She turned to Lahouari.

Lahouari’s eyes were lit. “He is one who might win,” he answered.

“Win?” Heather cocked her head.

“The rules,” Lahouari tried.

“Ghazi finds ways where others find walls,” Rafik helped.

Ghazi had had fifty-eight days in the hold. No committee greeted him. No one called in a tizzy of worry to wonder if he arrived. He had shoes, socks, shirt, dry pants in a plastic bag, and American dollars in the pockets. He came in January, swam through ice, and hailed a cab to Brooks Street. He was older than all of them. He had served in the army long before Aziz. He was an architect, educated in Oran, the only one in his family with a university degree. His father was military intelligence. His brother was a high-ranking officer in Algiers. His mother and Aziz’s mother had been close friends since girlhood.