would wear it, and then Grandpapy’s God would bring her good luck. She put the letter and the other envelope back into the sack, pausing only to look at a small photo of Mama holding her in her arms. “Please, Mama, don’t die. I’ll learn how to read, and then I’ll know. Wait for me, Mama, wherever you are.”
Rachid El Drissi watched from his window as Ali approached his apartment, walking easily through the maze of buildings in the Casbah. The night was black, but Rachid knew that Ali could find his way through this neighborhood blindfolded. Ali slipped onto the outside stairwell and climbed it, crouching like a cat ready to pounce on an unsuspecting sparrow. On the second floor he stepped through the window and pulled it closed behind him. The September air was heavy, suffocating, even at this late hour. Soundlessly he switched on the light, nodded to Rachid, and seated himself at an old, worn desk. He took out a manila folder.
“It must be done on Tuesday night. Look.” Ali put his finger on a hand-sketched map of several areas of Algiers. “Monoprix is here at the corner of the road.”
Rachid nodded. Everyone knew where the large department store was located.
“The bomb must go off here.” Ali drew a red circle around the street that ran in front of the store. “Everyone will be asleep, but word will travel quickly nonetheless. They will panic and run, and then boom !” He laughed. “It will be very convincing, yes?”
Again Rachid nodded, the sleepiness gone from his eyes. Tuesday he would test another of his little bombs. Small but effective. “Don’t worry, Ali. It’s no trouble.”
Ali turned to leave. As he closed the window behind him, Rachid brushed his fingers through his coarse hair and chuckled softly to himself. “Boom,” he whispered.
6
A lone swallow flew low to the ground outside Mme Leclerc’s apartment. From her second-story window, Gabriella watched as other birds joined their companion in weaving up into the air and swooping down to almost touch the ground. She thought of the French proverb she had learned in her childhood in Senegal: There’s sure to be rain if the swallow flies low. But she wished the rain would not come today.
David Hoffmann had asked her to join him for a picnic on the beach, with perhaps a ride on horseback through the marshes afterward. “The Camargue ponies are sturdy and sure-footed, even if you’ve never been on a horse,” he had said.
Gabriella had not mentioned that she once had a horse in West Africa; she only replied that she would go. She wanted to refuse, after their miserable afternoon on the Comédie, but she couldn’t. She felt drawn to him, as if he somehow needed her. “But I will watch what I say,” she told herself.
In spite of the ominous rumbling of clouds in a darkening sky, at precisely eleven the doorbell rang. The eager Mme Leclerc buzzed in their visitor, and Gabriella joined her teacher at the front door.
“ Enchanté, Mademoiselle Madison ,” he greeted her. Moments later he was hurrying her along the cobblestones to his car, an old pale blue deux chevaux that, he told her, did fine on flat ground but could not climb a hill. If he was aware that his every movement was being observed, he gave no hint of it to the three women watching from the boarding-house windows upstairs.
The sun poked its face through the disturbing gray clouds as M. Hoffmann spread out an old blanket on the sand and motioned for Gabriella to sit down. He placed a basket beside him and took out sandwiches, cheese, fruit, fresh vegetables drenched in vinaigrette, and a bottle of red wine.
“I wish you would have let me fix something, M. Hoffmann,” Gabriella said.
“Don’t think that I am the preparer of such a feast. Mme Pons, with whom I board, is determined to marry me off and insists on fixing everything comme il faut for a proper picnic. Can’t beat a ham and Emmental cheese on a French baguette.”
He opened the wine and set the