Ali clasped the body by the feet and dragged it down the lawn toward the sea. Amira stood shivering. It occurred to her that this was all a nightmare. In the morning, it would vanish.

Ali returned, breathing heavily. He splashed water onto the blood beside the pool, then dived into the pool himself, climbed out, and walked into the house. That was all.

He’ll be caught, thought Amira. He’s a murderer, and he’ll be caught. But then it came to her that she was being stupid—perhaps it was the liquor she’d drunk. Ali had nothing to fear. Even if the police found him with the knife in his hand and the corpse at his feet, he was a prince of al- Remal, and the dead man had been an intruder. Any difficult questions could be answered with money and, if necessary, the transfer of the questioner to some outpost in the Sahara.

All the same, they returned to al-Remal the next day. On the long flight, not one word was said between them.

Part Five

Part

Five

18. Fear

Fear

“You’re a whore, aren’t you, a dirty whore. Admit it.” “Ali, please—”

“Say it!”

He pulled her head back by the hair. The pain was bad, but the fear was worse.

“All right, yes, I’m a whore. Please.”

“You want it, don’t you? You want it here!”

Fingers of his left hand prodded, stabbed painfully into her. “Oh. Don’t, Ali. I’m begging you—”

“Say it!”

Her scalp felt as if it would tear from her skull.

“All right, for God’s sake, yes, I want it there. Please just do it.”

He moved against her, and she braced for more pain. But nothing happened. He growled in frustration and shoved her face hard into the pillow. She couldn’t breathe. Am I going to die now? she wondered. She envisioned Karim’s dark eyes looking into hers.

Suddenly, the weight lifted from her head, and she heard Ali lurch from the room. She gulped air as his steps receded unsteadily down the hall. He was going to drink more. Good. If he sucked greedily enough at the bottle, he would pass out. But he might take more pills, too—the evil black pills that kept him awake all night. If he did that, he might come back, even more of a madman.

She knew this from hard experience. The two months since Alexandria had been a deepening hell. Ali had never shown the slightest remorse for the kill- ing. Instead, he seethed with anger. The liquor amplified it—the liquor and the pills. (Had he been taking them before? Had she simply not known?) He could still present a smiling, unruffled appearance to the world, but alone with Amira, things were different.