In the oak-paneled study of a comfortable Georgian home in the prosperous Westmount neighborhood of Montreal, Edward Al-Masri stops packing papers into his briefcase when he hears the doorbell. His rimless spectacles and academic tweeds are belied by a certain brooding intensity: His jaw is set, his eyes narrowed. Covered in a close thatch of premature gray—he is not yet forty-five—his large, handsome head is planted at an angle from shoulders that have never known physical work. His body seems a bit too small to hold it.

“Mr. Al-Masri?” Snowflakes the size of coins flood in with the Arabic. The taxi driver holds a wheeled suitcase high above the snow. It is the largest suitcase meeting the regulations of international airlines, but to judge by the way it swings from the driver’s hand it is clearly empty.

“You’re late.”

“Praise Allah, a flat. Imagine. In this storm. First to take off the chains, then—”

“Late is late, habibi.” The word—it simply means my friend— is uttered in a tone of near-feudal condescension. Al-Masri takes the suitcase from the driver. He looks at the snow coming down, the all-white street. In the taxi, a small flame momentarily lights up the dark rear seat, a lighter, not a match. He knows the man in the rear seat. He knows the man’s gold lighter.

When he turns back to the driver, Al-Masri’s reluctance is palpable, but the snow cannot be ignored: Arabs are taught hospitality from an early age. “Wait inside.”

While the taxi driver stamps his boots on the grate and shakes off the snow that has already covered his shoulders and the stocking cap that warms his shaved head, Al-Masri rolls the suitcase into his study. He places it next to an identical one, a subtle tan plaid trimmed in blue piping, transfers his neatly folded clothes and a dozen books from one to the other, then disposes of his own empty suitcase in the rear of a closet. He locks the closet. Some things must remain secret, even from his wife. He wheels the new suitcase out of the room.

In the foyer, where the driver examines the book-lined walls with the awe of the barely literate, Genevieve Al-Masri holds their son. She brushes the fawn-colored hair from her face.

“Kiss Daddy good-bye, honey,” she says in the heavily metallic French of the Québécois. Many years before, Al-Masri published a book, adapted from his doctoral thesis, called The Political Dimension of Language: Anti-Colonialism in Patterns of Inflected Speech. It sold only a few copies, but was a beginning.

As Al-Masri embraces them, the toddler, suddenly aware that his father is leaving, begins to wail.

“Be careful, Edward,” Genevieve tells her husband in English. “Those people . . .”

He winks, and follows the driver out the door.

The suitcase wheels are useless in the snow. The driver slips twice. Al-Masri does not reach out to steady him. He knows this much about himself: He loves his people in the abstract, less so when it comes to individuals. He knows this as well: He hates himself for it. This is why he will do what he is about to do.