Mr. N subsequently returned to Bourj Hammoud. Not a week passed before he made the trip, following the same route and carrying in his hand the same broken bit of plumbing that needed replacing. The previous time, he had abandoned his errand when his mind started racing after running into a certain person he thought he had recognized. He now ambled along, following the same route, putting his feet precisely in the tracks left by his previous journey. He crossed the bridge, choked on the fetid smell, and turned off toward Arax. Again, he took Armenia Street. He lost his way, however, in the narrow, branching alleys, soon feeling as though he’d entered a labyrinth and was doomed to wander until he couldn’t remember how he’d gotten in, let alone how he might get out again. At last he followed the advice his neighbor had given him and started asking the people he saw about where to buy plumbing supplies. Mr. N got several apologies in foreign accents until he found a teenage boy who gave him directions to a shop run by an Armenian that sold all sorts of sundries: “That way. Take a left, and then it’s the third alley on the right. Ask for Muallem Fahih. He’ll have what you’re looking for.”

Mr. N hesitated, then asked, “Is there also an internet café nearby?”

“Of course,” replied the youth eagerly. “I’m on my way there now. Follow me!”

Mr. N’s color changed, his lips trembled, his legs were weak. The young man stepped forward to keep him from falling. He asked earnestly whether the stranger wasn’t feeling well. Did Mr. N need anything?

“I’m fine,” Mr. N said, trying to force a smile onto his face. Could the youth really be headed to the very same internet café? What were the odds? Mr. N had returned to the area on the pretext of replacing a toilet part, but deep down, he realized that his real motive was that face, that face that answered to such an uncommon name. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I think it’s the heat.”

The boy suggested he accompany Mr. N to Fahih’s shop, and from there to the internet café. But Mr. N objected, saying, “It’s best that I rest first in the café. I’ll go to Fahih’s afterward.”

When he had descended the two steps that separated the street from the level of the internet café—having first confirmed the absence of the man on whose account he’d come—Mr. N felt as though he had cast himself into a pit. His eyes, used to the riot of lights outside, had to acclimate to this room where the only illumination was that cast by the computer screens filled with the violent images of video games. He found himself lost among these strange shades, hunched over on their chairs, exhausted, wearing headsets to cut them off from the world around them. It would be fine to sit in the corner near the door, Mr. N figured. If he sensed any danger, he could slip out and flee.