Harki, the old word for French collaborators. Now it was for anyone hated, and for Nazzar those were the Belcourt bombers. Bombers who despised the French. Who said the FLN who fought the French had become the French. Given enough time, Nazzar would be harki. Every last man in every last place would be harki.

Aziz opened the flap of the tent and felt the night coming at him in a cinnamon smell. What was that? He looked behind him. Sometimes the whores who visited the camp seemed to smell like candy; did they sprinkle cinnamon on their clothes? They were miles and miles from whores. He crouched. He put his ear right on the ground and lay down, just feeling and not thinking. He heard nothing at first, just an indeterminate abstraction of sounds. He relaxed all his muscles, starting at his forehead, and with each one, shoulder, ass, thigh, heel, the sound began to give way into its parts.

There was someone walking. Not close by. He estimated: maybe the next tent. He swiveled microscopically and considered the sound again. It was someone who was walking incredibly slowly. Or perhaps someone who was hitting the ground very slowly. The space between the hits—he decided to count. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.

“Aziz.”

He felt electrocuted. He suppressed a scream.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Nazzar demanded.

“I feel sick,” Aziz said, not far from truth this time.

“Fuck. Barfing?”

Aziz lay immobile. “Yes.”

“Listen, Aziz.”

Aziz could not believe this. He tried to imagine that he loved him, that he was a good friend from home. He did not want to radiate hatred. He willed himself to float a little in a happy state of loving Nazzar.

“My brother, I am not well,” Aziz said weakly—or so he hoped.

“I will get help.”

“No. No. I beg you. No.”

“Aziz, you will feel better in the tent.”

“Brother, sleep. I will lie here. It is not that bad.”

“I cannot sleep.”

Aziz made to retch and tried again. “Leave me, I beg you.”

A voice from the tent said something.

“You wake others,” Aziz said.

“You will come in soon?”

“I will. God willing.”

“God willing.”

Aziz heard the tent flap whoosh. He stayed on the ground, waiting for the sound he had heard earlier.