It was the first week of May when she didn’t return home. Mrs. Elderfield woke us at dawn, demanding we tell her whatever we knew about Soraya’s whereabouts. Marie shrugged and looked at her chipped nail polish, and I tried to follow her cue until Mrs. Elderfield said that she was going to call both Soraya’s parents and the police, and that if something had happened to her, if she were in danger and we were withholding any information, we wouldn’t be forgiven or be able to forgive ourselves. Marie looked scared, and, seeing her face, I began to cry. A few hours later, the police arrived. Alone with the detective and his partner in the kitchen, I told them everything I knew, which I realized as I spoke—losing the thread, confusing myself—was not so much. After they interrogated Marie, they went to the back bedroom and combed through Soraya’s things. Afterward it looked as if the bedroom had been ransacked: everything, even her underwear, strewn across the floor and bed with an air of violation.

That night, the second Soraya was missing, there was a huge storm. Marie and I lay awake in my bed, neither one of us speaking of the things we feared. In the morning, the crunch of gravel under the wheels of a car woke us, and we jumped out of bed to look out the window. But when the door of the taxi opened, it was a man who emerged, his lips drawn tight below his heavy black mustache. In the familiar features of her father, some truth about Soraya’s origins was revealed, exposing the illusion of her autonomy.

Mrs. Elderfield made us repeat to Mr. Sassani the things we’d already told the police. He was a tall and intimidating man, his face drawn into a knot of anger, and I think she wasn’t brave enough to do it herself. In the end, Marie—emboldened by her new authority and the sensational quality of the news she had to deliver—did most of the talking. Mr. Sassani listened in silence, and it was impossible to say whether what he felt was fear or fury. Both, it must have been. He turned toward the door. He wanted to go immediately to the Hôtel Royal. Mrs. Elderfield tried to calm him. She repeated what was already known: that the banker had checked out two days before, the room had been searched, nothing had been turned up. The police were doing everything they could. The banker had rented a car that they were working to track down. The only thing to do was to stay here and wait until there was some news.

In the hours that followed, Mr. Sassani paced grimly in front of the windows of the living room. As the royal engineer to the shah, he must have ensured against all kinds of collapse. But then the shah himself had fallen, and the vast and intricate structure of Mr. Sassani’s life had crumbled beneath his feet, making a mockery of the physics of safety. He’d sent his oldest daughter to Switzerland because of its promise to restore order and safety, but even Switzerland hadn’t kept Soraya safe, and this betrayal seemed too much for him. At any moment, it seemed he might shout or cry out.