Ahmed sighed. “It is the only time I feel relaxed. Everyone looks at me. All the time I am supposed to be calm and prepared for everything. All the time there are more things I should be doing, more I should be trying to be. When I am nimbo I get to sit back.”

Ben had never heard the word “nimbo” before, and not knowing it rattled him.

“But, I mean…what if you get caught?”

Ahmed didn’t answer right away. “Mr. Markson, he gave you ‘Decision-Making’ to read?”

“We’ve talked about this.”

Ahmed paused for long enough that Ben wondered whether he had lost the thread of the conversation. “Well,” said Ahmed, “when I was home, in Dubai…” He paused again.

“Yeah?”

“Well…my family lives in a complex. A group of buildings with a pond in the middle. And another complex is being constructed next to ours. We were driving home, waiting behind several cars at the gate, and we were stopped near the construction zone.

“And I looked over to watch the workmen pouring concrete. I have always been fascinated by concrete, how it will not harden if it always moves, and so I watched the barrel spin on the back of the truck. There was a large spout attached to the end of the barrel, and out of the spout came concrete, a great deal of it very quickly. Two workers guided it into a narrow trench.

“I looked at their faces and clothes and hands. They were so dusty. Their skin, their pants and shirts, even their hair below their helmets was covered, so it seemed that their clothes and bodies were all dust.

“The concrete was coming very fast, and the spout seemed very heavy, and the men were trying hard to move it to a new position. And then it seemed that the whole truck moved, and the spout swayed into the chest of one of the men, and I saw him fall forward into the trench.

“Just then our car rolled forward, and I tried to keep looking back, tried to see them pull him out, but another truck was in the way. But just before the car pulled forward I could see, and the concrete did not stop coming. Maybe they pulled him out, but still they did not stop the flow. It kept coming.”

They were quiet, and then Ben said, “Ugh.”

“On the way there,” Ahmed said, “on the plane, I had been reading that book.”

“The Companion.”

“Yes.” Ahmed was quiet for several seconds. “And when this happened, I didn’t know what to do.”

“Like should you have helped him? The worker?”

“Yes, that.” His tone was almost dismissive. “Yes, I should have helped him. But also, how—” Here Ahmed trailed off again, and Ben felt a pulse of impatience.

“How…?”