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can’t fire them. It would be unkind.”
    There was silence.
    â€œHello. Are you there?” I stammered.
    â€œYou’re going to be eaten alive,” said François.

T HREE

    An old cat will not learn how to dance.
    A SMALL ADVERTISEMENT PLACED IN A local newspaper attracted a good crop of applicants. I went through the résumés with care, whittling them down to just two. Giving directions to the Caliph’s House was so extremely difficult that I decided to hold the interviews at the nearby Café Corniche. I had begun to frequent the establishment, attracted by espresso so strong that it coursed through the intestines like crude oil surging up from the wellhead. Nothing gave me more joy than sitting at a shaded outdoor table, watching the world rage by. In Britain I used to feel at fault for whiling away more than a couple of minutes in a café. You felt you needed an excuse to be there at all. But in the Arab world, there is no pursuit more honorable for a man than sitting, hour after hour, staring out at the street, sucking down tarlike café noir.
    The first candidate for the position of assistant was a prim, well-spoken girl of about nineteen. She was called Mouna. Her hair was covered neatly by the
hejab
scarf she wore, and her dress had full-length sleeves, tight at the wrist, and a hem so long that it dragged along the floor behind her. As soon as I set eyes on Mouna, I knew that someone was trying to protect her from the kind of staring men who patronized the Café Corniche.
    When I asked if she had brought her genealogy, Mouna handed me a roll of thick paper. I unfurled it and glanced at the many lines of Arabic names.
    â€œVery impressive,” I said.
    â€œMy family are proud of their heritage,” she replied.
    I asked what jobs she had had before.
    â€œMy father doesn’t like me working,” she said softly. “He would kill me if he knew I was even here.”
    â€œI’m sure he wouldn’t go that far,” I said, laughing.
    Mouna’s russet eyes looked into mine very hard. She was silent for a moment.
    â€œOh no, you are wrong,” she said solemnly. “He would.”
    There was an uneasy silence. Mouna sipped her orange juice.
    â€œSometimes my father becomes very enraged,” she said. “If he found me here now, he wouldn’t just kill me, he would kill you as well. You see, it’s a matter of my family’s honor.”
    I handed Mouna back her family tree and came out with a list of clumsy excuses. I imagined her father stalking me through the streets of Casablanca. For all I knew, he was already on his way.
    â€œI’m sure you would make an excellent assistant,” I said, “but I have given the job to someone else.”
    Mouna was disheartened for a moment. “It’s always the same,” she said mournfully as she left. “No one will employ me when they hear about my father.”
    The second applicant was a man named Adil. His résumé informed me he had lived in New Orleans for five years, where he had managed a cemetery. Despite the oppressive heat, he was wearing a thick leather jacket lined with sheepskin, with a bloodstain on the collar. He was close shaven and had a mop of greased black hair, a broken nose, and small darting eyes. During the twenty minutes we sat together, he knocked back three double espressos and smoked five cigarettes. He shook like a crack addict going cold turkey.
    I asked him first how he had liked the U.S. It’s a good solid question, one that tends to loosen people up.
    â€œLots of bitches,” he said.
    â€œYou liked the girls?”
    â€œNo, the hookers.”
    He ran his hand up his nose, sniffing it. “I can smell ’em now,” he said.
    â€œWhat about work at the cemetery?”
    â€œWhat about it?”
    â€œWell, wasn’t it gruesome?”
    Adil pulled the bloodstained collar of his jacket tight to his neck. “The