“Let me tell you what I think. I think you expected it. Deep down, you knew what was going to happen. You knew that all that joy and celebration was just an illusion, that they’d never surrender so easily. That if they did surrender, then first they’d have their revenge. In a way, you deserve my congratulations. You turned your phone off at the perfect moment—just after you’d made sure that she thought you were out there on the street. A hero in the midst of battle. Bravo, Seif. A proper bastard. A bona fide runaway. Just like me.”

I gaped at him, half questioning, half taken aback.

“I’ve never forgotten that boy at the lake, but later I witnessed crimes for which there are no punishments under any law. For instance, no one’s going to throw you in prison because you turned your partner’s life into a hell of jealousy, resentment, and insecurity. No one’s going to lock you up because you did precisely what was required to drive those closest to you mad, or because you hid yourself away while people believed you were at the forefront of the battle. Or because you acted in a way that terrified the people who had opened their doors to you, who had lowered their defenses.”

Silence reigned once more. Dozens of questions rose to my tongue and died there. Bahr’s head lolled between his hunched shoulders, and, with astonishing self-possession, he began to doze.

I looked around us. Evening was falling. It felt like the stars could hear my heart. When I get back, I thought, I have questions for Leila. If I get back. And I told myself it was the fear that kept sleep so far away, much further even than the far edge of this desert.

But then, suddenly, I was waking up. The light in the sky was like dawn, and I knew I had slept for many hours.

You sleep heavier than the night itself. That’s what Alya used to say to me, and now, waking, the very moment I opened my eyes, I remembered everything. There was nobody there, and nothing.

All alone, without my bag, without papers. I was alone, without Bahr.

The phone in my pocket a silent corpse.

I got to my feet, still caught between sleep and the day, and began to move, to wander, to circle myself. Nothing but silence and sand.