David and Jo kill Driss in a car collision

David and Jo Henniger kill Driss in a car collision after an argument and a sand-darkened stretch of road leave them unable to avoid two men trying to flag them down. The crash breaks their confidence in the future; its immediate aftermath brings Driss’s body to Azna, where the couple’s inability to identify him gives way to the practical and moral consequences of having taken him with them.

Causes and Approach

The collision follows a disagreement about the route. Seeing a sign for Tafnet ahead, Jo emphatically refuses to turn, while David insists that they must. She catches his arm; they argue and scream as he searches for the brake, finds it, and continues driving. The dispute is still unresolved when the road becomes difficult to see. Wind blows sand across it, dimming the view and obscuring the moon. David tells Jo not to be stupid, but her response changes from confrontation to an attempt to make the situation safer: she asks him to switch on the high beams.

That sequence places the crash between a domestic conflict and a sudden roadside emergency. The argument does not establish that either spouse intended to hurt anyone; the decisive fact is that David does not stop before reaching the sign, and the car continues forward as visibility deteriorates. Jo later understands the moment as a collision of opposing wills, but the narration also stresses how little time there was for thought. The event arrives not as a considered decision but as a fatal consequence of movement, conflict, and a road they could scarcely see.

The Collision

As Jo’s eyes adjust to the darkness, she sees two men at the left side of the road. They are running toward the car with their hands raised, and one is holding a cardboard sign advertising fossils. Jo regards the sign as an implausible roadside scam and calmly tells David to stop. He does not. The car passes the sign and strikes one of the men. The other man’s identity and actions are not established in this moment, and Jo cannot fully comprehend what has happened before it is over.

The narration gives the impact a lasting consequence beyond the immediate physical event: Jo’s confidence in the future breaks apart. Her sense of time becomes distorted, the instant seeming to extend even as it is described as too brief for thought. This contrast makes the crash a sharp reversal. A quarrel about where to turn and a suspicious-looking sign are overtaken by the fact that a man has been killed. The ordinary journey has become an irreversible responsibility for both occupants of the car.

The Body at Azna

The Hennigers do not leave Driss by the roadside. They bring him to Azna in the Camry, which is parked just inside the gate. When staff and guests’ attendants gather around the car, they find it empty except for the body sprawled across the back seat. The staff crowd around with flashlights and speak quietly; those present have no immediate answer to the question of who the young man is.

Richard Galloway examines him by flashlight. He sees a slender, tall young man of about twenty, with a slightly bearded face, a tattoo on his right hand, and an old diagonal scar on the left. Hamid identifies him as being from the south, but no one recognizes him. His sandals remain on his feet, and his robe is torn and marked with dried blood. These details make the stranger physically specific without giving the people at Azna the name that would explain his connection to them. The Hennigers, in a foreign country and unsure whom to call, have brought the victim with them because it seemed the logical thing to do; the practical choice also makes the death impossible to keep at a distance.

Immediate Consequences

The arrival of the body turns the collision into a crisis shared by the household. Richard tells the staff to remove the body from the car and place it somewhere guests are unlikely to wander, perhaps in the garages. When asked whether the car should be cleaned, he refuses and says the police in Taza must be called. His response redirects attention from concealment or tidying toward formal intervention, although the identification of the dead man remains unresolved in this scene.

The event therefore has two linked endings: Driss dies on the road, and his body is carried into the compound at Azna, where questions of recognition and responsibility begin. David and Jo’s arrival with him makes their role in his death concrete to the people around them, even before anyone can name him. The collision is the turning point that draws the Hennigers into the consequences of Driss’s death; what began as a disagreement about direction becomes a burden that follows them beyond the road.