He got out of bed and walked down the hall. There Ghazi was, at the kitchen table. It was so cold his headphones were under a wool cap; he was wearing mittens. The kitchen, because of the never-fixed leak, rarely got warm in winter. There was the blue bucket at Ghazi’s elbow, catching slow drips of water. It was the only place to sit, apart from the bathtub, because everyone else was sleeping. Ghazi was trying to say the word refrigerator. He missed syllables and tried again. It came out refugator. Now it was oven. That was worse; Arabic had no v. He seemed to be saying oben. There was silence. Then sink. Aziz felt a sudden eddy of sorrow. Let this be. Let Ghazi be what he appeared: the smartest one who had not stopped hoping. He thought of his father’s words over the phone on Ghazi’s motives. “An architect forced to sell vegetables on the sidewalk? Of course Ghazi left.”

Ghazi was studying a cookbook. “You know this word marinate? ”

Aziz had no idea.

“Combine?” He said it like French: Combien.

Aziz thought. “Maybe for hair,” he said. “In English there is comb. It sounds like that.”

Ghazi frowned.

Heather and Rafik were gone. Mourad had the day shift. The Three had gone to see someone from Lahouari’s garage who said he had a minivan, very cheap.

“Fuck this.”

Ghazi threw down the book and disappeared down the hall.

Aziz picked it up. It was thick. There were photographs and drawings. Many pictures of hands holding a knife and an artichoke. Pictures of a fish, a knife cutting away the tail, then the head, fingers lifting the backbone out like lace. He felt awful and curious at once. There were photographs of kitchens, with silver counters and silver ovens, big shining slicers and grills. This was for restaurants: how to run them, secrets for cooking. They had made a radish into petals. There was a fan made from a carrot.

Ghazi walked into the living room. Aziz looked up. Something was wrong. Ghazi was excited or scared, or—no, not those things; he was proud.

“I have found it,” Ghazi said, bringing a silver key into Aziz’s line of vision.

“Three tries—under bed, first drawer near bed, under pebbles in aquarium—bang, bang, bang,” Ghazi said. “The aquarium is the one.”

He had not forgotten about the storage.

Aziz’s mouth was dry. “The aquarium. I would have left that alone.”

“Rafik’s mind, easy. I see how he thinks.”

Ghazi picked up a phone book from the floor. “I will find where this keys goes,” he said.

“Uncle, why? This should rest. We find out, then what?”

“We know for sure what he does.”

“Yes. Then we are in it.”

Ghazi was paging through. He stopped. “The hash. You let that rest?”

“That was here. In the house. Different.”

Ghazi began turning the pages again. “Maybe I am curious.”