Yet she was ill at ease, visibly nervous. She said in a faltering voice, “I suppose you detest the very sight of me,” and of course Monica replied at once, “Don’t be ridiculous,” then added, more sharply, “Why should I detest you?—you take yourself too seriously.”

IV.

The Labyrinth

1

Sheila’s presents, from Morocco: a pair of silver earrings, finely wrought, that fell in exquisite loops and spirals halfway to Monica’s shoulder; a pale green scarf stitched with gold thread in arabesque designs; a necklace of chunky amethysts, topaz stones, and ornamental shells of various sizes. While Sheila watched closely Monica slipped the heavy necklace over her head, fingering the stones and shells, frowning in admiration. The necklace was exotic, she felt transformed simply by wearing it. . . . The shells resembled snail shells but they were delicately striated, and gave off a pungent odor, not at all unpleasant, that reminded Monica of brackish water. It crossed her mind too—hazily—the hour was late, she had had several glasses of red wine—that the shells might not have been thoroughly cleaned, that particles of decayed flesh remained inside, bits of nameless sea creatures, perhaps poisonous, unwise to wear so close to her face.

“Beautiful,” Sheila said, staring.

Nothing has changed, Monica told herself.

Then, in triumph: everything has changed.

Now she would be cautious—she would be in control.

Monica listened closely to Sheila’s talk of Morocco, Monica listened to discover what, precisely, had happened there; what secret adventures Sheila had had, if any. (But surely that was the purpose of running away?—to have adventures, secret or otherwise? And to speak of them, to hint of them, upon returning home?)

North Africa was a place of elemental facts, Sheila said.

Americans thought it primitive, unnerving. No doubt it was: whatever “primitive” meant. The air so remarkably dry, the sun so direct and forceful, so whitely hot, powerful . . . you spent a good deal of time watching the sky, with a sensation that something would happen there at any minute; that whatever happened on earth, even to you, must be inconsequential. A sort of communal dream.

Of course, Sheila said briskly, the North Africans, for all their religious devotion, are hardly mystics. Allah may be a mysterious deity inhabiting the sky but they themselves are nothing if not immediate, canny, physical . . . supremely physical.

The men, at least.

As for the women: Sheila hadn’t in fact become acquainted with any women Moslems. (There was a saying, which Sheila repeated with a bitter sort of zest: A woman goes out only three times during her life—once when she is born and leaves her mother’s womb, once when she marries and leaves her father’s house, and once when she dies and leaves this world.)

What about the men, Monica asked.