The narrator stays in the village during Hosna’s son’s circumcision ceremony. He thinks of marrying her and drinks too much. With Mahjoub, he goes to Mustafa’s house to finally use his key and look at Mustafa’s private room. He tells Mahjoub that “Mustafa Sa’eed was a lie,” and his friend responds that Mustafa was “in fact the Prophet El-Kidr” (89). They both wake up at home, unsure of what happened. The narrator leaves, journeying through the desert to Khartoum with thoughts of Hosna, his uncle’s black donkey, and the coercive effects of heat. He wonders if any men are as they appear to be, and laments the sun: “Where, O God, is the shade?” (90). On his journey, he encounters a broken-down government car and hears the story of a woman who has killed her husband. He realizes straightaway that they refer to Hosna. Thinking of Mustafa, who was described by the judge at his own trial as in “intelligent fool” (92), he decides to write to Mrs. Robinson.

As the sun sets in the desert, the narrator’s driver begins to sing. Other passing vehicles join in until they form “a huge caravanserai of more than a hundred men” (94) eating and drinking.