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kitchen?” he wanted to yell at Yassine.
    “And, Monsieur Richard? Do not touch it.”
    WHEN RICHARD GOT BACK TO THE GATE, HE TOLD THE BOYS to send on a carafe of chilled water to the Hennigers’ rooms. Soon Hamid came trotting up.
    “Mr. Dally, Monsieur was very upset. One of the other boys must have told him. He has gone down to the garage.”
    “I must see the Hennigers first. Is the party going okay?”
    “They are all drunk and happy.”
    “Perhaps,” Richard wondered aloud, “I should calm the Hennigers down and get them into the dining room. There’s nothing they can do about it now.”
    “The others will be getting up from the dinner soon. Coffee and smoke.”
    “What we don’t want, Hamid, is a panic and a scene. They mustn’t know that there’s a body on the premises.”
    “Naturally not, Monsieur!”
    “Can you see to it?”
    The paunchy Hamid stiffened. “Count on me.” But to himself he thought, with disengaged fatalism, “Piece by piece the camel enters the couscous.”
    RICHARD WALKED THROUGH THE KSOUR TO THE LITTLE whitewashed house where they had put the late arrivals. Most of the houses were still ruined, and they formed picturesque streets like those of a bombed city. Twenty were renovated and turned into guest rooms, each one subtly individual. Chalet 22—they called them “chalets”—was near the walls, with a small desert garden around it. The windows and door were wide open, and from the interior came the sound of a difficult argument, the voices forcefully lowered but hissing away vigorously. He hung back for a minute or two. Not because he wanted to hear what they were saying, but because he didn’t want to embarrass them. Then the wife began to sob.
    The husband let it flow for a while, and drifted to the open door. He lit a cigarette and said nothing. Cicadas purred in the rosebushes and around the hairy boles of the palms. The party could be heard easily. David was breathing heavily, confused, indignant. He was sure it wasn’t his fault. He was certain of it, and he couldn’t talk himself out of his own innocence, not even when he was truthful.
    “ I HEARD WHAT HAPPENED ,” RICHARD SAID AS HE WALKED out of the shadows and up to the door. Behind them, Jo lay curled on the brocaded tribal cushions of the bed. Richard closed the door behindthem and went to put his arm around her. “It’s all right,” he said. There was a smell of sweat and dust in the room, of misery and disputes, and the bags had not yet been unpacked. It was a family scene, a scene of coupledom at its worst.
    He had never quite understood how men and women could get on anyway. It seemed so unlikely that deep down he didn’t believe in it. “Women,” he thought dourly, “are born recriminators.” Yet he had always liked Jo immensely. She was beautiful, spirited, a little mad, and she had that passive-aggressive, almost androgynous nobility that upper-middle-class British women often possessed, a hint of vast tenderness that could never arrive on your plate. She was a complete enigma, and he respected anyone resolute enough to be an enigma. She looked at his tuxedo with a hangdog trustingness. So people were dressed for dinner, which meant that the world was still normal. She dried her eyes. This slender, dry gay man in his perfect tuxedo seemed more authoritative than her deflated husband still covered with dust and another man’s blood.
    “I think you should change, David. Both of you. I’ve heard it was an accident. There’s nothing you can do. I think you should have showers and go down to dinner. The police will be here in an hour, but they’ll want to see the body first, and it will take time. They know you’re not going anywhere. And they’ll know you’ve done nothing criminal. It’ll be sorted out. The police officer told me to reassure you.”
    “Did he?” she broke out.
    “He did. I know him. It’s all a formality. Perhaps Jo should shower first. You need to get out of those