I saw night and, in that night, the form of a black dog moving through the darkness. It was followed by a second dog, then a third, then two more until there were five. Five dogs standing on a street corner I thought I recognized, and now on the move, trotting quickly in formation toward the entrance to a building, like a military patrol. An entrance that made me sit up straight.

It was the apartment building I’d grown up in, my place of play and sanctuary. I saw the five dogs pad up the stairs to the fifth floor where we’d lived and pause for a moment outside our apartment, and then I heard the first dog howl, quickly joined by the others.

Then I remembered. I saw and I remembered.

I had been asleep in the living room when I was woken by the sound of someone calling my name. I saw my father’s big dark body in its white vest emerge from his bedroom and walk to the front door. He peered through the peephole and recoiled, muttering in shock and surprise. Then, taking a deep breath, he threw the door open.

My father had thrown the door open and stood in the entryway of our apartment. Facing him, the five dogs, now silent. The leader had yawned, a final, unvoiced howl as though delivering a message, then had turned and padded down the stairs with the others following noiselessly behind. We only understood the message a week later, when my mother died.

I felt my shoulder being gently shaken and I looked up to see Bahr, a smile of sympathy on his lips: “You slept?” This time, I didn’t tell him what I had seen and he didn’t ask. Looking around, I saw there were no women anymore, no children, no one. The deserted space was filled with sun, and by its bright light the temple seemed like a normal tomb; the carvings I’d thought pharaonic reduced to the idle scratchings of visitors.

As we were leaving, Bahr held a whispered conversation with the man who had beckoned us in earlier and seemed to hand him something—or was he taking it?—and then we were back on the path we’d climbed, the heat of the day penetrating our clothes and pricking us with sweat. As the ground leveled off, Bahr turned and started to go a different way than the one we’d come by, following the dictates of a scheme whose madness, at least, was becoming clearer to me with every passing day. From time to time I would watch him from the corner of my eye, and would be invaded by a sudden terror. The reality of my situation: I was in the company of a total stranger, in places that were quite isolated and strange to me.