A gharry drew up, harness jingling, on the promenade. A man got out, carelessly tipped the driver, and strolled toward me, his tie flapping in the sea breeze. I realized I knew him. It was Sébastien Khoury, a family friend. He’d been invited to the wedding but urgent business in Port Said had kept him away.

“Yvette,” he called. “Yvette Haddad, what are you doing out here when your sister’s in all her glory? You’ve abandoned your post!”

“Sébastien,” I said after a moment, when I had gathered my wits. “You’re back.”

He was older than me. The type of man who came with warnings, according to Célia. A phrase that had amused me highly, the first time I heard it.

“Yvette.” He came closer. “You’ve been crying.”

I shook my head. “Don’t worry about me. I must go back inside . . .”

“Darling, you look a mess. Come, walk with me and get some air, and then you can do your face and we’ll go in together.”

He took my arm. We walked together into the square, sat down on a bench under a stiff, sturdy palm tree that gave no shade. A roast corncob seller was doing a roaring trade nearby, little clouds of smoke puffing off his charcoal grill while children appeared from nowhere and thronged around him, some presenting their piastres carefully with both hands, others, slightly older, tossing the coins insouciantly into a clay dish. The smell of the corn made me ravenous. I took out my compact, renewed my powder and lipstick and did the best I could with my eyes. Actually Célia looked worse than I did after crying: she was so creamy and dewy, her eyes and nose turned the pink of crushed rose petals. By contrast my complexion was olive, my skin tough.

I was a tough, olive-skinned girl.

Sébastien took out a cigarette but didn’t light it, instead gazed out at the water, his eyes narrowed against the glare. “Look,” he said, “the king’s yacht.”

I glanced toward the sea. The boat was barely visible, a blazing wedge of silver in the spring sun. It was nice of him not to look at me, to speak of something inconsequential while I attended to my face.

Sébastien had extremely short hair, the color that I now know in English as mouse, but that would never do for Sébastien. How would he like it to be described? The color of the desert at its brief dusk, perhaps. It was cut short, I realized, expressly to show off his beautifully shaped head. His jaw was angular, his eyes a dark amber. He had a rather flat, pugilistic nose and an amused, thin-lipped, intelligent mouth.

He felt me looking at him and turned his head. “That’s better,” he said, smiling.