Washington reunites with Titch in Morocco after four years apart, but the encounter is no simple restoration of their former closeness. A guide who had once been expected to lead Washington and Tanna to Titch finds them by chance in Marrakesh, takes them into the desert, and brings them at last to a remote courtyard. There, the familiar face appears altered by pain; recognition arrives in a cry, and reunion in a quiet remark, while Washington still cannot bring himself to embrace his old companion.

The Unexpected Guide

Washington and Tanna are in Marrakesh when a slight, angular man approaches and asks whether he is Washington Black. The man’s broken English and flattened vowels make the question distinctive, but the greater surprise is his identity: he is the very person who had been meant to lead them to Titch earlier. He explains that illness had prevented him from coming; recovered, he had entered the city with only a dim hope of finding them. Their meeting is therefore less the result of a reliable plan than of a delayed coincidence that finally reconnects the search party with its intended guide.

The guide leads Washington and Tanna away from Marrakesh in a small, rattling caravan. The paths through the desert are vast and twisted, and the city’s noise recedes as the travelers feel themselves diminishing in the heat and light. Washington’s body registers the strain: his eyes itch, his lower lip cracks and bleeds, and he holds a damp cloth over his nose to breathe. Even after finding the guide, he is again being carried into unfamiliar country through circumstances he has not chosen.

Arrival at the Desert Compound

The journey offers little reassurance. Tanna’s blue shawl covers her head and face, conversation dwindles, and Washington grows increasingly certain that they are lost. The landscape seems to distort direction and perception: sounds appear to come from the wrong quarters, the heat presses in and then drops away, and night falls with startling speed. When buildings emerge, they seem at first too much like the shelter he wants to see to be trusted as real.

The travelers reach not the town Peter had described but a few scattered dwellings at the desert’s edge. Their surroundings convey distance from the city and uncertainty about what awaits them. A boy, no more than nine, steps from a courtyard. The guide calls to him sharply; a plaintive but tender exchange follows, and some understanding is reached. The boy gestures for Washington and Tanna to follow, while the guide’s nod confirms that the journey has arrived at its next stage.

Inside the courtyard, the atmosphere changes: it is cooler and stiller, with the smell of boiled peppers and clean fabric. A huge object covered by a tarp occupies the swept stone yard, but Washington cannot make out what lies beneath it. The scene holds recognition in suspense. A man crosses the courtyard carrying a live hen, apparently preparing to kill it for supper; the ordinary act of handling the bird becomes the occasion on which Washington finally sees Titch.

Recognition and Distance

Washington recognizes Titch before he fully understands what he is seeing. Pain passes through his body, and he calls Titch’s name. Titch turns in surprise and releases the hen, which flaps across the courtyard and vanishes into shadow. The dropped bird gives the reunion a brief, startled physical punctuation: both men have been caught off guard, and the animal’s sudden escape interrupts the expected routines of arrival and supper.

Titch watches the hen for a moment, breathing hard. Then he calls back that Washington is late for supper. The line treats the extraordinary return as if it were an ordinary domestic delay, a familiar welcome offered without explanation. Yet Washington steps forward and sees that Titch is trembling. The relaxed wording and the visible tremor sit uneasily together, suggesting that the meeting carries more feeling than either man can readily put into words.

When Washington sees Titch more fully, familiarity and change coexist. Titch still has bright green eyes and the white scar running from either side of his mouth; he wears wrinkled white linen and pale trousers. But his face seems older, and concentrated pain in his gaze makes Washington momentarily fear that they have come to the wrong place. Washington reads in him the effects of the four years since his disappearance and the darkness Titch seems to have come to understand. The reunion confirms that Titch is alive, but not that he has returned unchanged.

The Reunion’s Unfinished Welcome

Titch tells Washington that he dreamed Washington would come and remarks on how grown he is. After what feels to Washington like a lifetime of being lost to each other, the words strike him as almost empty. He wants to embrace Titch, but holds back, unable to close the warm, dim distance between them. The physical reunion is thus real but incomplete: they have found one another, yet the intimacy Washington longs for does not immediately reappear.

The scene closes on this hesitation rather than on a declared reconciliation. Titch’s trembling, Washington’s pain at recognition, and the withheld embrace give the encounter its mixed emotional force. The four-year separation has ended in the factual sense—Titch is present, alive, and speaking to Washington—but the passage leaves their unresolved history and the possibility of renewed trust open. As a turning point in Washington’s search, the reunion exchanges uncertainty about Titch’s whereabouts for the harder knowledge of seeing him again and discovering how much distance remains between them.