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I AM SIKUNDER!

C.B.KHAN

Copyright © 2020 C. B. Khan

All rights reserved.

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

First paperback edition July 2020

Book cover design copyright © by Mayfair Creative

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Acknowledgements

To my wife Anna for liberating me.

To my sons for showing me the way.

To the people of Pakistan for inspiring me.

Special thanks to Emma Ward for her diligence.

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"Like the season's first butterflies, they danced around us,

dazzling us with their charm and beauty.

And then, with a flutter of their wings,

they were gone,

forever."
Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

### 1

PAKISTAN 1971, Peshawar City, NWFP.

Looking back on it now, my troubles first started with a man I came to know as Professor Pfeffer - a psychiatrist-wala with a probing interest in the minds of overactive children.

Another hot and lazy afternoon. My bed. Sanctuary. A place for dreams and, in time to come, sweaty nightmares. My bed, slouched against a bare wall, its metallic bones as restless as mine. I turned my attention to what lay beneath it, swinging my head over the side. In the gloom and the sudden rush of blood, I saw the glinting eyes of a gecko staring back nervously at me. It skittered away, muscling itself up the wall. There amidst the dust and creeping life was a small wooden crate. Somewhere to keep my things – the artefacts of this story of mine. Hidden away between its splintery walls, and of no consequence to anyone...but me. Now, where was it...that little racing car? The toy had been a gift from my English grandmother, par-avion all the way from London just for me. I remember when it arrived, ripping it out of its box with excitement. Then I ruined it. I bent its axel which made my mother, Elizabeth, furious, the toy now as confused as I was.

And though I was far too old to be playing with such things, I'd often feel an urge to get it out of its tatty box and hoist it above my head, spinning its wheels, zooming about the streets and the roads of our City, up to the ridge of that mountain. Vroom, vroom.

For now, I am the boy again, not dissimilar to the wild boy in that book, you know, the one lucky enough to have been friends with the cleverest of animals – or so I liked to imagine. For all I had was my imagination. Imagining, in the palm of my hand, the Professor. Vroom, vroom. Speeding in his sporty green Volvo, the Professor – ah, and of course, his American wife, the delightful if not flighty Mrs Barbara Pfeffer - just before the accident. Did I mention the accident? How careless of me. No. How careless of Mrs Pfeffer. Vroom-vroom.

That's how my father, Dr Shere Khan, and the Professor first met: The Professor, his wife, and her frightful accident. Father, Mother and the inexplicable state of their son's mind. Coinciding and conspiring to fatefully bring me to where I am today.

For as it happened to be, the Pfeffers were staying just around the corner from us, at Dean's hotel - a once-famous colonial establishment boasting luxury rooms (with proper mahogany beds), a really nice garden and spectacular views of the mountains beyond.

One morning, awoken by those pesky sparrows (around 5 am in summer), our red-bearded Professor and his blonde-haired wife helped themselves to a rather expensive breakfast, downed a cup of top quality Arabic coffee (Dean's speciality), hopped into their foreign sports car and sped towards the rocky outcrop they'd admired from their balcony the night before. Vroom, vroom.

Directed by a helpful guidebook, a section on 'Things to do in Peshawar' correctly advised the intrepid couple to keep the muddy waters of the Kabul River to their right and just keep going all the way to the sleepy town of Jamrud. Their first trip to a place as foreign as this and the start of Barbara marvelling and pointing excitably at the wondrous scenes, no doubt. Vroom-vroom.

Like Mother, Barbara sees what she thinks she sees. In the cinematic blur of yellow rape and swaying sugarcane - poor farmers and their terribly skinny wives toil over broken earth; awfully sad buffalos turn out water from a snaking canal; oily smoke rises above bleached shacks where underage fixers tinker with oily machines; unyielding ox whipped by cruel masters, and surely not, an entire family on a motorbike heading towards certain death. Vroom-vroom.

The Pfeffers reached the turreted archway of Bab-e-Khyber, waved on by the friendly guards. It was hard to believe this place had ever amounted to anything more than its yawning bazaars, swirling dust, and traffic polluted air. The helpful guidebook was full of historic significance, bearing tales of once upon a time – this land snatched from the Persians by Alexander the Great, later the City of Flowers for the Great Mughal Akbar, and much later, a frontier home for the British Empire, their soldiers risking it all at the foothills of the very range the Pfeffers were now destined.

Welcome to White Mountain, Spin Ghar, the southernmost edge of the Hindu Kush. Vroom-vroom!

Watery air shimmers across hot asphalt. A horizon of caustic blue. The sun was now at its zenith as I sent our firm-gripped Professor and his wife accelerating through the thinning air. Sporty tyres squealed around a crumbling elevation. Climbing higher and higher, where giant boulders threatened to do their worst. Barbara would have been nervous. Black-winged kites soared patiently, whistling their eerie tune. But predatory birds were not the only life up here. Chiselled from the rock armed tribesmen appear, out of the shadows, sharpening their sights on two wannabe conquerors. Disconcerting? Totally. Even to a native like me. Will they shoot? Quite possibly. You just never knew.

Relax, it's just a couple of tourists admiring our splendid view. A veritable panorama. For the Professor and his wife had found themselves in a divided land – geographically, and historically too. Gazing out from this hilltop. To your left Peshawar Valley, a colourful patchwork of farming endeavour as far as the eye could see, home to the Pakhtun, not to be confused with the Pashtun who reside next door on the parched and hilly tribal lands of Afghanistan, distant cousins split acrimoniously along a shared royal bloodline almost half a millennia ago – Pathan tribes such as the Afridi, Durrani, Rabbani, Levani, all with their special ways, shawls and hats, and a shared code of life as old as religion itself.

Oh, look! Cheeky mountain girls \- the _Pavindah_ , wicked girls with hair as thick as horse mane, their noses pierced with gold, bells and bangles jangling as they shriek at me to marry them. I was a good looking boy I was told. A curse I now surmise, my prospective spouses in their bright, colourful dresses, harrying their hungry goats towards the lush grassland below.

Barbara fires her camera, snap, snap, pointing it at the men with their guns.

"This is beautiful, darling," she says, "it'll look great in our album." And then suddenly the mood changes. "Why is that man looking at me like that?"

The answer to which our Professor wisely does not pursue. "Let's go!" The doors slam shut. Vroom-vroom. Gleefully, I send the little racing-car spiralling in an ever decreasing elliptical plane, Barbara Pfeffer with both hands on the dash (for the last time), down, down, to the very bottom. Down here where she would have felt a lot safer. Blessed, thankful. Just relax. Time to snap one more photo for her album titled 'What the Pfeffers did in Peshawar'. Because it was then that things got more interesting.

The Pfeffers had found themselves on that notorious stretch where bedizened trucks flew by, red-eyed mercenaries gunning their overladen beasts relentlessly up and down the winding hills. There were no warning signs here, except, littered by the roadside carcasses of twisted and charred steel rusting in the yellow earth. Mother knew the place well. For it was at this exact spot that a fateful accident led her to Father and now a decade later brought the Professor to me.

If there was a lesson to be learned, it was that this was certainly no place to act like a tourist - which was precisely what Barbara did. Hurtling uncontrollably towards her, her future, and with it mine too, the conception of this coincidence appearing just in time in the shape of a big, blue Bedford - sides as sharp as a Mughal's curved sword, 'Allah is Wonderful' splashed across its bonnet. Relieved as Barbara must have felt heading back to the comfort of Dean's, it was her right arm that became complacent. With her palm happily against the breeze, the brazen truck suddenly swerves across the helpful white line. The Professor tries to pull away but he's too late. The unavoidable clash of metal and the sound of cleaved bone as one soft, white, American pointing arm is sheared off and tossed into the air.

That's how they first met, the Professor discussing the loss of his wife's arm while Father deliberated no doubt over the state of his son's mind.

Hmm.

I threw that broken toy, smashing it into the wall. It would soon be time to meet the Professor.

###  2

"He's here!" shouted Mother.

A favourite daydream interrupted, again: I stand tall on the very same hilltop, on the tips of my toes. My arms outstretched, teetering over the edge. They're laughing at me, the birds. I'm ready to join them. I lean forward and let myself go, falling at first, my feathery wings firm against the rush of warm air, as I dive, down, down, and just when all is lost, with a thrust of my head I rise, gliding effortlessly upwards, to their surprise and amazement. An eagle I become. Under a glittering sun, the cool air streaming, the mountain now a purple silhouette of a sleeping fat-bellied giant. Ahead of me is the ancient City which from up here looks like some kind of dusty mirage – the old walled city appearing more like a frayed Persian rug, its borders the crumbling walls, its tatty silken threads the myriad of wondrous bazaars and streets. I tilt this way and I go this way, I tilt that way and I go that way, crisscrossing old stones, bricks and fluttering awnings and bleached wooden fenestrations...

"Go away!"

Mother had ordered me to put on my best clothes. These amounted to a pristine white shirt, an oversized pair of khaki trousers that I was assured I'd grow into, and a leather belt with a ghastly brass buckle. I looked like an idiot. What was wrong with my shorts and nicely worn in T-shirt? And bare feet were certainly not allowed, not in polite company. So I forced on those stiff black shoes and struggled with the fiddly laces.

Anu the cleaning girl was impressed. She paused from her sweeping, the dust neatly piled in a corner.

"Who is he, hah?" she whispered, hopping onto my bed.

My hair was damp and parted to one side. She thumbed down my cowlick. Pretty, dark eyes peered into my soul. How was I to explain the Professor to an illiterate cleaning girl? Anyway, it was too late for that.

The door burst open and Mother's sharp nails guided me into our living room where a crane-like man had made himself quite comfortable.

"Yah, yah, kommen sie," he said patting the seat next to him. Gold-rimmed glasses magnified his remarkably blue eyes. The Professor was a German from America. How intriguing.

Weak Darjeeling trickled from an old pot.

"Tea, Professor?" said Mother politely. Would he notice the china chipped and cracked from the angry night before?

No, but she forgot, he was a coffee man. His big white hand put a stop to the pouring. Then he turned to me with a cautious smile.

"I will call you Alexander, yah?" he said.

Mother twitched. "Yes, yes, his name is Alexander," she said firmly.

The Professor's hand shot up again. "Elizabeth, you must allow your son to speak."

What? Speak?

"Oh?" said Mother glancing across at that book of his. A photo of his face grinned back at us, a signed copy of 'Problems for Mothers' gleaming on our coffee-less table.

Speak? Well, I had to be careful. The burning question, the single most important thing on my mind at that precise moment, went something like: "Please, Mr Professor, sir, if you don't mind, would you happen to know the exact whereabouts of your wife's severed arm...you know, at this present moment?"

Mother certainly wouldn't tell me. "No one's looking for it!" she snapped. And God help me if I uttered a word about it to the Professor. Well, that hadn't stopped me from thinking about it. Maybe a family of jackals were happily tucking into it, or perhaps a remorseful driver said a prayer and buried it, or could it be that Barbara's arm would forever hang from a wire fence waving at drivers as they rushed by.

As I thought about what I was expected to say, I caught Anu grinning at me through a gap in the kitchen door. She was sticking her tongue out at me. I stifled a laugh and smiling at the Professor I slowly turned my eyes back to Anu to see her swinging from a noose, her eyes rolling, her tongue hanging loose. Exceedingly funny. She was too much.

I burst out laughing.

"Do you see what, I mean!" Mother almost jumped out of her seat.

The Professor's gem-like eyes darkened. He was a soft man though I sensed a slow, burning anger welling up inside.

"I think it would be best if you left us alone, Elizabeth," he said.

Mother nodded, her lips were thin and tortured. Vindication, finally. Rattling china floated away, but not before one last thing. "Alex, answer the Professor."

And with that, she was gone.

"Alexander, that is fine, sir," I replied with a toothy grin.

Alexander, Sikunder, I didn't mind.

The Professor's brow rose wearily as he relaxed into our soft cushions. "Very good, Alexander."

You see, Mother wanted no Mughal name for her firstborn. "What you mean is 'Alexander'," she argued with Father. She was, of course, referring to the great Macedonian. And so was he. Qissa Khwani was the old Mughal bazaar of storytellers where an old man squatted under a tree spinning tales for a few small coins. The leathery storyteller sang a Pashto rhyme, reliving the legend of Sikunder the Great, a Greek warrior king who became one of us when a beautiful girl from the hills stole his heart. Sikunder was a fine Muslim name, said Father. Mother wanted nothing to do with it. Their first battle I suspect. So rather than let it confuse me, I took their baby-name-indecision and made it into a thing. Somewhere along the way, I became 'Alexander' to the Christians who knew me, metamorphosing appealingly into 'Sikunder' for the Muslim world we lived in. I was in effect Sikunder-slash-Alexander, the choice of God was theirs.

And before I knew it, the Professor was doing the listening while I did much of the explaining. I was allowed to say whatever I liked, he assured me. Our conversation was to go no further than the room we sat in, he reassured me. After all, this _was_ all about me, he said. This German psychiatrist was swearing himself to secrecy, a Hippocratic oath of sorts - I didn't know him and he didn't know me and that was just going make things so much easier.

So I shared with the Professor quite happily what I thought I should, and thought a little more deeply about what I shouldn't.

"Your English is very excellent," he said.

"Oh. Thank you, sir."

Living in Peshawar as I did, I learned to speak more than one language - a total of three to be precise. How I came to acquire them I have no idea. They were just there in my head, the words shooting out of my flexible mouth with considerable ease - English, Urdu and Pashto. The construction of English translated: subject, verb, object, in that order, 'the dog chewed the bone' translated neatly to 'the dog, the bone he chewed'. The English language I reserved for Mother and my Catholic school. Urdu was the nation's official language spoken during play with the boys in the street. The language of Pashto was the preserve of the Northwest Frontier Province and useful on trips to the bazaars and for listening in on Father's telephone conversations.

The Professor's questions were easy enough.

Did I play cricket? he asked. Yes, but not very well, I replied.

Did I like my school? No, I did not.

Did I know what I wanted to be when I grew up? Yes, I did. No, not a doctor, definitely not.

Then something more worrying came up.

Was I lonely, he asked?

Sometimes, I replied. It was difficult to explain the feeling I carried around with me.

And then he asked another more confusing question.

Did I feel loved?

I shrugged, the universal sign for 'it's too complicated'. My legs began jittering.

I sensed the Professor was building up to something. And somehow I was expecting it. Because, if this was about me, then it was about her too.

He came out with it and without any warning.

"Do you think your Mother is unhappy about something?" he said.

Unhappy? Mother? There were times when I'd look at her and wonder. Who was she really? Where had she come from? Who was Elizabeth Priestley? Mother was from England. Her home had been a large, detached property situated in a province called Sussex. I'd seen the house in a photograph. It was made from bricks and its strange roof, blanketed in thick snow, looked much like the mountains beyond. Mother's father died unexpectedly when she was twenty-one. Soon after, she had a furious row with her mother. So she packed her bags and ran away to London to a place called Earls Court where she bumped into a band of adventurers who happened to be on their way to India. And for reasons which still remain a mystery, she happily climbed aboard their bus and headed off in search of what they called the mystical east. It was the summer of 1960. She and her new friends had made it to all the way to Afghanistan, and crossing the border into Pakistan, they wound their way up and down the hills headed for Peshawar when their smoke-filled vehicle suddenly swerved, crossed a helpful white line and crashed into an oncoming truck – yes, the very same spot as the Pfeffers. That's how Elizabeth Priestley, with a fractured leg and on the back of a motorbike, landed right into the arms of Shere Khan, who just happened to be the doctor on duty at the hospital that night.

Of course, Father could never be happy with this story, not at all. That his wife had any kind of past seemed to prey on him. Those hippy friends of hers were all hashish-smoking-good-for-nothings, he declared. They were not hippies, Mother contested, nothing like the roughly dressed westerners who arrived here in their flowery vans wandering about the bazaars in a haze. And anyway, Mother was adamant she'd never smoked hashish, although she wished she had.

Until recently we'd been living on the outskirts of the City in a Pakistani neighbourhood close to an area of farmland designated for modernisation. Rows of identical houses, two-storey concrete shells hastily white-washed inside and outside and laid to an American style grid in sectors labelled alphabetically, the streets numbered but never named. A neighbourhood of Urdu speaking families where traditional mothers cooked all day while fussing over their children, meticulously planning their schedules, sitting diligently over them while they recited the Quran, and by evening obediently welcoming their civil servant husbands with a cold glass of lassi after a long day at a desk working for a faceless government department.

Mother was unhappy. Unable to find a way to assimilate into this alien culture, she began to rail against it. This became a continuing source of contention for Father, in particular, for her refusal to adhere to one very strict rule with which she became most conflicted. If Father was to pass his wife off as a respectful member of Islamic society then she had to be very careful about what she wore in public. To conduct herself in society with any degree of freedom, Mother would have to adopt the uniform of the modern Pakistani woman - a long _kurti_ , baggy cotton trousers, and a dupatta to cover her face - a dress designed to discourage the lascivious males of the population (which amounted to all men in Father's opinion) from gazing at her mouth, her arms, her legs, and especially her breasts. Peshawar was known as the City of Men – if ever there was a clue, it was right there. But every now and then Mother would slide back into her English ways, and woe betide her if she were caught by Father, for it sent him into a thunderous state - which was rare for him.

"How do you think it makes me look if you wander around the streets naked?" he shouted.

Mother was crafty. She acquired a sewing machine which she taught herself to pedal and cunningly drove that wicked needle over those shapeless garments, up and down and around, until she'd transformed them into a curving compromise. One afternoon, I caught her admiring her stylish figure in the mirror, a dupatta over her shoulder, her golden hair glistening in the sunlight. Then she stepped fashionably out into the street and went for a quick chukka around the block. And that should have been that.

Except, late that evening a neighbour knocked on our door. He spoke to Father who listened quietly, his pipe smouldering, to a story about how his seemingly licentious wife had been seen wandering the streets, drawing the attention of some young, excitable men who'd been told off for whistling at her. Father thanked our neighbour profusely and then calmly closed the door, withdrew his pipe from his mouth and threw it violently across the room, scattering ash everywhere.

Mother ran up upstairs, but rather than cry into her pillow she tossed open her English suitcase, took out her English skirt and fancy English high-heeled shoes, threw them on and ran out into the moonlit street shouting angrily, "Go on then, take a good look!"

Of course, Mother's unwillingness to adopt the ways of the Frontier may have had its roots in something much darker. I was only two when my brother was born. A year later he passed away. All I remember of him was his platinum blonde hair and rosy face. Or maybe that was just my imagination playing tricks. I'm sure I recall him sitting on Mother's arm, waving to his admirers, the world cooing over my beautiful brother.

If there was a bridge to cross over this crashing river, Mother hadn't found it. So she went about creating her own world which she started by shaping her thoughts out of wet clay gathered from a boggy field nearby. A farmer had allowed her to help herself, as much as she wanted, there was plenty he said. She collected the mud in plastic bags, and once the worms had crawled away, it was perfectly safe for her to shape into anything she cared for. She started small, working a brown lump into fine coils, smudging her celestial nose whilst singing a tune like "Percy pig is plump and pink, I like a nice plump pig I think." Her dainty hands pressed out Percy, complete with ears, snout, curly tail and a small slot cut into his back. A piggy bank for me.

The pinnacle of Mother's powers came in the form of a large double handled Greek urn which grew to be almost as tall as me and fit for the King of Macedonia. It had taken her months and was a devil to lift outside where it lay for days cooking and cracking under the sun. One evening, I caught Father puffing on his pipe pondering this unusual sight. I rarely got to see him except when gazing at him in bed as he snored, or sharing an early breakfast behind the rustling sheets of his morning newspaper. He would leave home before sunrise and arrive late in the evening so Mother found ways of occupying herself. From the boundary of our home, she looked out across the landscape and began painting, in oil, watercolour, pastel, chalk, and charcoal, and when she was done with that, portraits of the people she had known, reacquainting herself with them through photographs she kept in a special album. The walls of our home were covered in her creations. Her finest was an oil painting of my baby brother which she would occasionally glance at and then let out a sigh.

But it was her music that would truly reflect how she was feeling. She owned an upright piano which she'd uncovered in the bazaar and surprisingly still in tune she would play it late into the evening, nothing more convincing of her unhappiness than her performance of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, her fingers stabbing again and again and again at the melancholic triplets, night after night.

Life with Mother was unbearably slow, calculated in its solitude and somewhere along the way, I abandoned her. While she amused herself, I let myself out the back door and clambering over the gate, I was gone, like a puff of smoke. There was a life to be had out there. As though awoken from some kind of blurry childish daydream, a dependable sun began fuelling in me an extraordinary, muscle springing drive for freedom. The streets very quickly became my friends, and door by door I conquered the neighbourhood, drifting in and out of their lives, not like a friend but a voyeur of their ways and words. Happily neglected by Mother, I would soon come to understand their ways and habits though I would never feel a sense of belonging. After all, I belonged to the odd family at the end of the street. As far as they were concerned, Mother had arrived from the moon.

"I can't believe she's your mother," they'd say. Strangely, this simple, seemingly innocuous statement made me feel angry inside. If she wasn't my mother, then who were they thinking of? Then for some reason, I found myself on a campaign of wilful and serious naughtiness. I began stealing, grapes from their precious vines, mangoes from their prized gardens, and then I engaged in sudden, consuming acts of violence, smashing their windows, growling at their dogs, bloodying myself in fights with their children. I became wild, a Jungli - the trees, feral dogs, foul words, sticks and stones, and the wickedest of boys became my playmates. I wandered the streets with a slingshot I made myself, directing my anger indiscriminately and then singling out, to my shame, the peculiarities in my human targets. I was a bad, bad boy – a _badtameez_. I wanted to grab hold of everything, shake or break it until it did what I wanted. Not a day went past without some neighbour or other swearing to God that something had to be done about the boy who couldn't possibly be the spawn of that shy, white woman holed up inside.

"Hmm," said the Professor thoughtfully. Beads of sweat had gathered on his forehead. He drew out a handkerchief from the top pocket of his safari suit.

"What I mean to say is...do you think your Mother is angry about something?"

Angry?

Mother rarely got angry. Days went by with not a word passing between us. But the ensuing loneliness of our existence had a habit of magnifying things, sometimes out of all proportion. I cast my mind back to one of my earliest and most coherent memories. It was around the time of my sixth birthday when I began to realise things weren't right for Mother. One night, I heard her arguing with Father. She'd got an idea into her head. She wanted to throw a party and she was going to invite all the neighbours. The day of my birth seemed to coincide with her sudden desire to reach out across that bridge. I had no reason to consider my passing years. A day in the calendar went by without me knowing it was more special than the next. Mother never celebrated her birthday and Father certainly didn't. He wasn't sure which year he was born as no one kept a record of the births in his village. That Mother had remembered the day of my birth was a surprise in itself.

I began to worry. "I don't want a party!"

Thoughts of our neighbours' eyes on me brought me out in a rash.

"You're having one whether you want it or not," she said, threatening to give away all the gifts.

What? Gifts?

Our neighbours would come bearing gifts, she replied, just for me. That's what a party was all about.

What kind of gifts? I asked.

Guns, she said, she knew I loved guns, and she left it at that, happy in the knowledge that I'd be there for my own birthday party, or so she hoped.

Mother pushed on with her plan and ignored Father's warning that there was a right way to go about these things. She wanted to do it the way she knew, the way it was done in England. Father did not like the sound of that. One afternoon, clutching handmade invitations she'd embellished with her floweriest writing, my fair-haired mother went on a walkabout in her baggiest clothes, wandering the streets from gate to gate in anticipation of our neighbourhood's warm embrace. Not one answered her call. Curtains twitched, a passer-by leered at her, and then a mad dog chased her back into the house. I witnessed it all, and so I told Father. But he was always one step ahead, and not long after, a conversation with a friendly neighbour yielded a list of promises. There was no stopping the celebration now.

There was going to be a cake, candles (six of them), food and soft drinks and party games our guests were going to have to play and which she tried to explain to me - like pinning the tail on a donkey? She'd rented chairs and tables to fill our modest garden, the tree and bushes she was going to decorate with coloured paper chains, and so on, her ever-growing to-do list viciously pencilled through with her little victories until finally, she had everything organised.

Well, almost. It was always 'almost' as far as we were concerned. At the bottom of her menu of surprises was the word 'BALLOONS!' We have to have balloons, she said. A birthday was not a birthday unless there were balloons. She became maniacal about balloons. "We need balloons!" Mother's ambition became infectious. The idea of this party began to consume me. The prospect of our guests bearing gifts now filled my dreams and yes, if there was no party without balloons then we had to have balloons.

I'd never encountered a real balloon before. They were certainly there in my Peter and Jane books, shiny, ethereal objects designed for just such occasions, two perfect children forever playing happily with brightly coloured balloons and...buying balloons.

Mother insisted we went shopping. There were many things to be found in the whirling bazaars of Peshawar City, things for every occasion. Well almost. I recall Mother wanted to buy me a 'piggy bank' once. This was before she decided to make me one. Like the one she had as a child. She described a little china pig with a useful slot in its back for dropping in money. For a rainy day, as she put it. Well, rainy days were rare here and as for little pink pigs, well, Father explained, these snouted animals were not a Muslim thing. Pigs were haram, forbidden by Islamic law, he said. What was she thinking? It turned out balloons were just as unobtainable - perhaps an insult to Islam for all she knew.

I led Mother along the toy section of the bazaar with hope in my heart. "Tell him we're looking for balloons...baa...loons," she said raising her voice at the first seller. She always did that. Why she wouldn't learn the language I do not know, and the few words she did know she pronounced atrociously. Perhaps it had something to do with her stiff upper lip. To get through to this difficult man, which were all sellers as far as she was concerned, she mimed a balloon, blowing at him through her fist, tying it up and then floating away with it back to England. I shook my head at the shopkeeper in embarrassment. He looked bemused. It was the same story along the length of the bazaar. No one was selling balloons.

But Mother wouldn't let it go. Father had been at a loss, and even Mr Azeez the bookseller, a man with fingers in many pies, couldn't help. There was no market for balloons, not in this part of the world, he regretfully advised. And that would have been that had it not been for the keenness of my eye.

Every so often purveyors of all manner of things passed through our streets. Particularly memorable were those men who made a living out of the misery of animals – the snake charmer charming young children out of their pocket money, in his basket a black cobra, hissing and swaying to a bleating tune; a chained bear made to dance; little monkeys in dresses climbing our shoulders. And amongst these men were a ragtag bunch of sellers whom the mothers on our street had time for. It was the day of the party when from my window I caught sight of such a wanderer wheeling his wares along the street. Mother was getting ready and I ran outside and caught him just as he was turning a corner.

"What do you want?" he said gruffly. He'd been unlucky today.

The Urdu word for balloon I discovered was 'gubbara'; one of the more worldly boys on our street had spelt it out for me.

"You sell gubbara?" I said. My eyes rested hopefully on his trolley of surprises.

The seller spat. A streak of sloppy red paan wounded the pavement.

"No, gubbara," he said.

"Are you sure?" I said desperately. Men like him never missed an opportunity to make a quick rupee.

"Oh, you mean gubbara," he said. "Why didn't you say?"

I didn't hear it but something clicked inside his head - a profitable calculation.

"Really?"

My eyes widened. Out of his wooden crate emerged a sealed cardboard box. He placed it between us, a big, red cross stamped on its sides. Perhaps a make of balloons?

"There, gubbara," he said, lifting the folds.

I peered in. The fresh-smelling box was packed full of coloured foil packets.

"Gubbara, yes?" he said. He pressed one of the small, shiny squares into my palm.

The silvery wrapper glinted in the sun with something promising sealed inside.

"How much?" I said, thumbing the thick rubber profile.

"How much you got?" he said cunningly.

I handed him every last coin and with a handful of the foil packets in my pocket, I ran home. Our sitting room floor turned out to be the perfect place to blow up balloons. I could barely contain my excitement. Ripping open the foil packet with my teeth, I fleshed out the contents. I knew it. I'd been duped. An excuse of a balloon lay limply across my palm, a translucent, oily thing. I sniffed a strange, clinical odour. I tore open another and then another. They were all the same. I took hold of one, placed the thick rubber opening against my lips, and began blowing. The limp elastic skin offered up little resistance. With every puff, the odd-shaped balloon just got bigger and bigger and bigger until I lost my patience and tied it off. I worked through the rest until half a dozen of these things were now gliding amorphously across the floor. I rounded up the imposters with some effort and with some cotton string from Mother's sewing box tied them into a bunch.

The party had started. Outside, I could hear a buzz of excitement. Our guests were all gathering in our garden, and I stepped out into the sun to join them. Mother had covered tables with white cloth and laid out jugs of orange squash and plates of savouries and sweets. There was also a small pile of wrapped gifts. She was serving our guests as my balloons trailed behind me, those curious translucent shapes rising wistfully in the warm air. The damp thudding they made got the attention of our guests.

"Oh my God!" someone yelled.

The happy chatter that filled our garden turned silent in an instant. Mother happened to be talking to someone when she spun around to see what the fuss was about. I recall the blur she became in the second it took for her to make the connection between her wilful son, his red-raw lips and those heinous things floating above his head.

She shrieked, a look of utter horror and determination on her face. She grabbed hold of a knife and ran at me. In my panic I set them free and watched as she scrambled about the garden, stabbing the life out of every last one of those slippery fiends. Our guests fought their way out of the back gate.

"He's a bad boy," I overheard one say.

Mother and I found ourselves alone. Fragments of white rubber lay strewn across the garden. My lips were burning. Out of breath, Mother stood there staring at me with an expression of utter disgust. She was convinced I'd gone out of my way to play some kind of joke on her. As soon as Father arrived home from work she started crying.

"They were laughing at me," she sobbed.

Mother never looked at me in the same way again.

Father's training led him to conclude that my condition was genetic - that his son was suffering from the same biological curse that his father's brother had suffered too, a great uncle of mine residing on the dark side of our family tree who fulfilled his destiny in one last act of unholy defiance, running off as he did with the family's gold all those years ago.

Mother started playing a little game with me to gain some sense of control over the whirling dervish she'd conceived. She would remove a chair from the dining table and place it at the centre of the room, squarely in the middle of a frayed Afghan rug. Strapped to her wrist was a ticking gold watch given to her by her father. She would tap the glass face with a polished nail, and I'd nod and she'd close the door, stranding me on my wooden island for what seemed like an eternity. Five long minutes and the promise of one whole rupee, if I could stay perfectly still, as though the act of it would rewire me.

"Let's see if you can sit still, just for five minutes?" she'd say.

Sitting still meant not a sound, not a twitch, not a peep. I'd never managed it. With my hands clamped under my thighs, I rocked nervously, staring at my scarred knees. Perhaps I _was_ like him, the one who ran off with the family gold? I learned to count in my head. 1.....2.....3....4...5..6.7. I counted sixty, and again, and again, but no matter how slowly I counted or for how every long I sat, I always lost this game. Shaking her head at me I vowed I would own a ticking watch one day. After all, I too had dreams.

Our battle lines were soon hardened. Father enrolled me in a local Catholic mission school for boys where it was hoped their strict discipline would bring me to my senses. Corporal punishment was the way they dealt with boys like me. It had certainly taught me to think twice. But it hadn't stopped me from getting into trouble. I just became someone else's problem. Mother and I drifted further apart.

And then one afternoon, everything changed.

I made the mistake of wandering beyond my usual boundary, further than I'd ever done before, through narrower streets until I arrived at a place where the houses were smaller and grubbier. On this treeless strip, I could see a group of older boys were gathered. They were playing _Pittu Garam_ , or Seven Stones, a fiendish game I'd grown to love and the finest way to kill a dull afternoon.

The game starts with a search. Seeking out seven small, well-formed stones was an art in itself. Usually one of us would spirit away a terracotta pot, and with no questions asked, smash the thing apart, the perfect source for a neat set of stones. The rules of this street game were simple enough. Two teams fought it out with the help of an old tennis ball – a game similar to cricket except in this case the thrower became the wicket. Within a chalked circle seven stones were stacked one on top of the other. Lining up for your turn, the objective was to throw the ball at the tower of stones as hard as you could and rebuild it before the opponent sent that ball flying back with interest. The best players would smash the tower as hard as they could, sending the ball spinning away into the long grass and thus buying them plenty of time to re-stack the stones. Restacking all seven stones ensured your entire team stayed in play. A bruising sting was payment for having a go. The threat of mild injury made it all the more exciting. It made me feel alive!

I'd been hanging around long enough. They could see I wanted to play. "Let the young boy have a go!" someone shouted and a heavy ball was pushed into my hand. I felt its weight as serious mouths spouted seven-stone wisdom.

"Yes, yes", I said arrogantly. I knew how to play this game, and with good aim, I knocked down that tower on my very first throw surprising them all. The ball spun away out of reach.

"Let's see how good he is," said one as his friend chased after it. I quickly gathered up the stones scattered around me. Caught up in the thrill of stacking them, I imagined my usual two-fisted leap of joy and a congratulatory pat on the back.

But it wasn't to be. The boys on this street were bigger, stronger...angrier.

As I huddled over a wobbly tower, stacking one stone on top of the other about to lower the last, the ball struck me hard in the face. I fell backwards, shocked at the force of it. The boys jumped up and down with delight. A high pitch whistle rang in my ears. I could feel my lip bleeding. Then the thrower, a tall boy came running over. My hand was covered in blood. He was apologising, sorry for what he'd done. The others were now berating him. He shouldn't have thrown the ball so hard, not at the young boy. I would have happily forgiven him, had I been given the chance.

But in the midday heat, some kind of madness took hold.

What I hadn't realised was Mother had followed me to this place. Forgoing her nap in these hottest of hours, for whatever reason she had decided to shadow me to this dusty street. She'd been watching, and seeing me so viciously downed by this older boy now towering over me, she ran over and started barking at him.

"What's wrong with you people...can't you see..."

All the anger that had built up inside her came steaming out. She wouldn't let it go, shouting at them all. Her who-do-you-think-you-are English manner began to rattle these boys.

"Who does this _gori_ think she is?" said one.

"Go back to your country, kafir," said another.

Dark eyes flashed at Mother like exploding bullets.

"No, no," I said, my hand up against the boy as they pushed forward.

We'd stumbled into the wrong neighbourhood. 'Kafir' was a heinous word that let everyone know they were in the presence of a non-believer. I could see Quranic words daubed in black on a wall. In the aftermath of last year's general elections, the first of their kind in the country, an Islamic political party rode a wave of popularity right here in the Frontier. The white woman yelling at them was a mullah's prophecy - these boys had been promised as much.

I grabbed hold of Mother's arm and the boys followed us chanting, 'Kafir, kafir!' The dogs began barking and Mother and I started running when someone threw a stone and just missed her, and then another and another, more than seven I assure you as they shouted "Death to the kafir!"

We owed our escape to a stranger, somebody we were never able to thank who led us away from what would surely have been an impromptu stoning. We'd heard stories of angry mobs targeting westerners. Mother never thought it could happen to her. She couldn't stand it any longer.

A few weeks later we packed up and left the neighbourhood.

### 3

A busy businessman lay on the Pakhtun doctor's consulting table and listened with interest to the sad story of his English wife - suffering from a sentimental heart and in a moment of true generosity, the kind man gifted us our ticket to paradise.

Our new home was a small rented bungalow nestling in the palmy grounds of the old British Garrison Club. Situated on the ridge of the vale high above the City, Mother would be safe here. And it was right here that I met the Professor. Concluding his soft interrogation, he shook my hand firmly and wished me good luck. I thanked him, for what reason I don't know, and quickly left the room.

And a few minutes later I heard Mother sobbing again.

"Very good, let it all out," said the Professor.

She was not to worry he assured her. Everything would be just fine, he reassured her, and a few days later I stumbled into the very same room to discover three more strangers had made themselves quite comfortable.

"Ah, Alex, there you are," chirped Mother. "I was just telling Mariel how much you love reading."

What? I thought I'd walked through the wrong door.

"So this is your Alexander," said Mariel Devane, fluttering her sooty lashes at me. "I should have guessed."

I suddenly felt very self-conscious. Mariel was pretty. Her thick black hair stood out from her head, set with a pink band and shaped stylishly.

"Hey, Mikey, what do you know?"

A boy about my height was browsing our bookshelf.

"What is it, Mom?" he said. Mom?

"Alex here likes reading too. Looks like you two will get on just fine."

Mikey seemed unconvinced. And there was someone else in the room, a sullen-looking girl, scrutinising one of Mother's paintings. She turned and stared at me.

"Don't mind Angel," said Mariel. "She's in one of her moods."

Angel sent her mother to hell.

"Damn you, Mother!"

To my surprise, Angel stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

Mariel seemed unfazed.

"I do love this little cottage of yours," she said, casting a discerning gaze across the room.

"Oh? Thank you," said Mother.

"Yeah, it's so...cosy."

"Oh." Mother's neck reddened.

Our new home was basic even by modern Pakistani standards. The living room of this single-storey dwelling contained most of our furniture including a sofa-set and a dining table which Mother placed against the bay window. The dull walls had been brought to life with her art and the best of her pottery pieces homed in the various nooks and crannies. There was a small kitchen with a leaky sink and a two-ring oven cowering in a corner. We had two bedrooms, mine just wide enough for my bed, and a shower room that housed an ancient toilet with a high metal chain I had to swing on to make it work. The property had been uninhabited for so long that Father was convinced a snake was living in the rafters. Bungalows like ours were dotted across the Club's grounds, once the temporary lodgings of British officers returning from duty in the Afghan hills; after Partition, the Club was handed over to the Pakistani Army for them to do with as they pleased.

"You don't mind if I smoke, right?" said Mariel.

A fancy gold lighter sparked into life.

"No...yes, I mean that's fine," replied Mother as she scrabbled for something to double up as an ashtray. She hated Father's pipe.

Mariel lit a cigarette. She drew on it and then let out a plume of smoke through the side of her mouth.

Mother choked. "So how do you know the Professor?" she said swatting away the smoke.

"Through Janice," said Mariel, carefully ridding a speck of tobacco stuck on the tip of her tongue.

"Janice?" said Mother curiously.

"Oh, that's right, you don't know Janice. She and Barbara were both clients of the Professor."

"Oh," said Mother, "is that how Barbara met the Professor?"

Mariel let out a wicked laugh. "Yeah, I guess Barbara got to spend a lot more time on his couch, right."

Mother swallowed a fly. "How...how is Barbara?" she coughed.

"Wouldn't you know it. She's in Amritsar right now meeting some guru guy she's whistling about."

Mother seemed impressed. Mariel changed the subject.

"Hey, you play the piano?"

Mother nodded cautiously. The upright stood in a corner adding a touch of elegance to this dim space. She hadn't played it since we arrived. It had been a devil to move from our old house. The removal men almost broke the thing in two. It was a wonder it survived.

"That's great," said Mariel. "I'll introduce you to some people I know."

The world of the Americans ran parallel to ours - right here in the NWFP. Pakistan's leaders had laid out the red carpet for an American diplomatic army eager to engineer a place in the world for the new nation of Islam. America had gleefully established relations with Pakistan soon after the country's partition from India in 1947. The common ground between the Islamic Republic and the leader of the Free World was capitalism, a pact that had spurred on relations between India and the Soviet Union - even under a melting sun the Cold War would be a long way from thawing. Military bases, barbed wire and magnificent high walled houses were all signs of a new future. Sleek, air-conditioned cars glided about the place, from here to there and back again only ever stopping at traffic lights but their windows never wound down no matter how often I smiled back. And sometimes I saw a glossy yellow bus packed full of children who never waved back, on their way to and from a school I'd never seen.

Mikey had placed himself next to his mother, a book in one hand, the other combed through his thick, straw hair.

"Hey, why don't you two go play outside?" said Mariel. "I'm sure Alex would love to show you around." She winked at me.

How could I refuse her.

"You could show Mikey the pool," said Mother.

I bounced out of the room.

Mikey - my new, reluctant friend.

We found Angel under the old loquat tree. She'd got hold of a sharp stone which she was using to scrape her initials into the soft bark. She dropped it at my feet.

"Your mother sure likes to paint, doesn't she?" she said rudely. Her eyes were mean green.

"Oh?" I said, sounding a lot like Mother. I couldn't argue with her.

"So who's the kid with the blonde hair?"

"My brother," I said firmly. Even in death, he was charming the girls.

"You don't look anything like him."

Mikey barged past his sister. "Just leave it, Angel."

"Humph," she said.

Humph to you too I thought as I sidled up to Mikey.

"Hey, want some gum?" he said. He handed me a thin strip covered in foil.

I carefully unpeeled the shiny wrapper and folded the gum into my mouth. Strong, minty vapour cruised the passages to my brain. I've never tasted anything like it. It smelt so...so American.

"Very nice, thank you," I said, chomping on it like a happy goat.

"You're funny," said Mikey.

Then he did that thing that boys do when they need to get somewhere really fast. He threw back his arms and flew away, and I followed after him weaving along a winding path and in through the back of the fortress shaped Clubhouse, whooshing past the kitchens, across the reception's cool tiled floor, through the main doors and down the many steps where he screeched to a stop.

My jaw dropped. "Is this yours?"

"Yup."

A four-wheeled monster gleamed under a dazzling sun. Acres of tinted glass curved around a futuristic capsule. I ran my hand across its huge chrome mouth and shark-tail fins.

"Chev..ro...let," I said deciphering the chrome badge.

"Chevro...lay. It's French."

"Chevro...lay," I said in awe.

The door clunked open. "Get in."

I shuffled across a stadium of white leather. Mikey pulled the door shut. It smelt intoxicating. He reached into a pouch at the back of the seat and drew out a stash of American comics. He thumbed through them.

"You can have it," he said.

A square-jawed man in a red cape stared back at me. "And, this one, and..."

A small pile began forming on my lap.

"Aw right. Check this one out."

A glossy cover revealed two pretty cartoon girls. They were lying on a sandy beach dressed in bikinis. "That's Betty," he said, stabbing a finger at the fair-haired girl. "She loves him." A red-headed teenage boy was gawking at the girls, his eyes bulging out of their sockets. Love-heart shaped balloons floated above his head. "But he loves her." Lying next to Betty was a dark-haired girl with an arrogant expression. "But he's too poor for her. Man, they're always fighting." He tossed the comic over his shoulder. "Who needs girls anyway...right?"

I laughed. Then he did something very odd. Altering the register of his voice, he brought one of the girls to life. "Isn't this bikini adorable? It's been banned in Boston."

"Is this what America is really like?" Mikey's eyes narrowed. "What is it?" I said.

He grabbed me in a headlock and tried to force my mouth open. "You swallowed it, didn't you?" I tore his arm away. "You idiot, you're supposed to chew it...like this." A squirt of gum appeared between his teeth.

Before I could contemplate this revelation, Angel suddenly appeared, staring angrily at us through the glass.

Mikey flew at the window and slammed the lock shut.

"I'm gonna tell Mom on you!"

"Go ahead. I'll tell on you."

Angel kept banging on the roof until we'd had enough. We got out and followed her into the Clubhouse, and as she passed through the polished brass doors, Mikey whispered to me.

"Hey...do you like my sister?"

What? Like her? She was a pretty girl but she was unhappy and that made her look ugly.

I shrugged.

"Just so you know. She's used to getting her way."

Crystal-clear water lapped against white tiled walls. My spirits soared at the sight of the blue jewel in the crown of the Garrison Club. We'd been very lucky. The only one of its kind in the entire City, this glittering pool was a mecca for diplomats, well-to-do Pakistanis and high ranking officers from the Pakistan military. Fried oil and chlorine tinged the air. Little puffs of steam seeped out from the kitchen, hidden from view behind a clipped hedge. Here at the shallow end, a small group of western mothers occupied themselves with their young while Mother and Mariel relaxed on sun loungers. Mariel was in a bikini looking much like the girls in Mikey's comic. At the shadier end of the pool, a group of army officers in dark sunglasses sat around a table enjoying the show. Mother wore a wide hat, sunglasses and a long white, cotton gown she'd sewn herself. She only entered the water for a few hours a week when the Club drew a black curtain around the pool and put up a chalked sign which read 'Women only'; not even the bearers got to peek.

"Liz, can I get you something?" said Mariel.

A bearer in a fan hat stood over her, ready to take her order.

Mother passed up on the offer. She couldn't afford to return the favour. We were as poor as church mice, she once said.

"One gin and tonic for me...and a coke for the boy," said Mariel winking at me.

Things were looking up. The man taking our order smiled. I'd got to know most of the Club's bearers, well-groomed young men from poor villages who'd acquired a good a grasp of menu English and could usually be found at the back of the kitchen, smoking, and chewing over their woes.

Awaiting my decadent treat, I watched as Mikey dived effortlessly in and out the pool, his white skin rippling under the water. Angel had dropped in stealthily and the two were now chasing each other with clean, powerful strokes, up and down the length of the pool.

"The twins are great swimmers," said Mother.

What? They were twins?

The bearer reappeared with our drinks.

"Mikey and Angel are twins?" I said taking hold of a curvy bottle. "Who was born first?"

"Alex! Don't be rude," said Mother.

Mariel didn't seem bothered. "Mikey popped out first," she said. "He's been playing eldest ever since."

I raised my drink to Mikey resting at the pool's edge, flush and eager. He waved back. "C'mon, whaddya waiting for? Get in!"

I took a long draw. Black, fizzing liquid poured deliciously down my throat. My heart started racing. With the heat of the midday sun bearing down on me, pure, white energy began surging through my body, and this time it wasn't that feeling I was used to, welling up inside me, the one that usually consumed me. A short fuse had been lit, coke bubbles sparking inside my nose as my brain counted down to an explosion. Mikey's words echoed from the middle of the deep blue. "Get in, get in!"

"I'm coming! I'm coming!"

I shot past Mother and Mariel, sprinting across the hot, wet stone. A moment later I'd launched myself in an act of complete abandonment clear over Mikey's head, smiling as I did so, still clinging to the bottle, and splashing down quite merrily somewhere in the middle of the giant, twinkling bath. And somewhere along the way, I may have heard Mother shout, "He can't swim!!"

I found myself in peaceful freefall, sinking dangerously close to the bottom. Enveloped by a nice, warm, bubbling blanket, I made no attempt to save myself. It was a lovely feeling. Like a dream - a watery sky, wobbling trees and familiar faces twisting above me. I think I may have been drowning, and dare I say, it was quite a nice sensation.

Mikey's determined face arrived just in time. I don't recall him dragging me out.

"I am so sorry," said Mother. "I don't know what gets into him."

"What the hell were you thinking, man?" said Mikey, towelling my back.

I could see the army officers shaking their heads and the bearer standing over us looked very confused.

"Are you _sure_ I can't get you a drink?" said Mariel.

Mother didn't hesitate. "Yes, yes please," she gasped.

"Two gin and tonics. Large. As quickly as you can."

The man hurried away and Mariel got up, threw on her gown and informed Mother she'd be back in a minute. She returned promptly.

"A little gift from Professor Pfeffer," she said handing Mother something out of her bag.

"Oh," whispered Mother.

Mariel slipped off her gown and lay back down on her lounger. "They work wonders on him," she said waving at Mikey.

Mother's lips pursed in concentration as she communed with the contents of a dark bottle of pills.

"Thank you, Mariel. Thank you so much," she said.

*

By the afternoon I felt a lot calmer. Under a softening sun with the sound of water lapping against the pool's edge, Mother and Mariel were getting better acquainted. I lay on my elbows acquainting myself with an intriguing character in one of Mikey's comics.

"I know exactly what you mean," said Mariel, landing another round of drinks.

Mother let out a sigh. "I just couldn't bear it," she said. "Life was just so...predictable. I mean...the way my future was all mapped out for me...I just had to find myself."

"You must have been very brave," said Mariel.

"Brave? In what way?"

"For Pete's sake, Liz, you know what I mean?" she said lowering her voice.

"Know what?" said Mother.

"Marrying a Muslim."

Mother returned to the paperback parked on her lap. Mariel whipped it away playfully. "C'mon, Liz, you know he's allowed four wives."

"If you must know, he was betrothed when I met him."

"Whoa. So you stole him, huh?"

"Not quite. He'd never met the girl."

"What happened?"

"The only way out was for him to marry us both."

"I knew it!" said Mariel.

"It's sad," said Mother. "He has nothing to do with his family anymore."

It was sad. After marrying Mother, Father had been unable to face his family. Reneging on an arranged marriage had dishonoured the family. All I knew was that a little more than fifty miles away was a remote village on the banks of the River Indus populated with people directly related to me, and I'd never met any of them.

Mariel was suddenly quiet. Something Mother had said had sent her deep into thought.

"Are you alright?" said Mother.

Her eyes had glazed over, just like Father's did when he'd had too many 'drinks'. She fumbled for a cigarette, lit it and took a deep breath.

"He'd been _screwing_ around," she said suddenly.

"Oh," said Mother in surprise. She turned sharply to me as though I'd done something wrong.

"What is it?" I said.

"Nothing. Go back to your reading."

I shrugged.

"When I told him I wanted a divorce he went nuts," said Mariel.

"Oh, but I assumed John was..."

"No, John and I met last year. The twins' real father is the one and only Harry Devane. I hung on to his name. It's worth something in certain circles. I guess I should be grateful. I've got the kids now and John's a good man." She let out a throaty guffaw. "What do you call it, Liz? Staid? Yeah, that's my John. Blissfully staid."

Mother chuckled.

I drifted in and out of their curious poolside conversation, lured ever deeper into the compelling comic-strip world of the Spider Man. The outfit he wore was thoroughly desirable, and how I wished I could swing across the City like he did, clinging to ceilings with ease, webbing luckless crooks. Mikey was right. Who needed girls when you had the Spider Man.

That evening I clambered up our bookshelf and sought out the most useful book of the lot - an English dictionary. Edging my way down again, I thumbed through it looking for some words. 'Staid' I discovered was not the revelation I'd hoped for. The dictionary offered up 'respectable' and 'unadventurous', meanings I surmised were the perfect summing up of my own father. As for Mariel's 'screwing around' - it would take me many more years before I came to appreciate the subtlety of that dysphemism.

### 4

My father maintained what one might refer to as a tribal mentality. There were few people he would refer to as close friends. However, there was one man he spoke of warmly. His name was Inspector Shah, and every so often Father would drive us over to his house where we'd have to spend a few hours on a comfortable sofa enduring another social evening with the Inspector and his wife.

We pulled up outside the Shah's house where the Inspector was already waiting for us. Father got out of the car and embraced him in the way Pakhtuns did – a three-times hug and some Pashto words reaffirming their link to a common ancestor. The Inspector's ancestral village was not far from Father's. They both belonged to the Yousafzai, a tribe with no special hat or shawl and renowned for getting on very well with the British during their Raj years.

The Inspector was a giant of a man. He sported a lustrous army moustache and in the perfect whiteness of his broad smile, a gold tooth glinted menacingly.

"Ah, Lizbet, how are you?" His eyes lit up at the sight of Mother.

Then a happy shriek greeted us from inside. I braced myself. Mrs Shah rushed out into the evening light and hugged Mother.

"Oh, Lizbet, so nice to see you again." She was dressed in her silkiest sari. "Wah, wah, look at you, Sikunder, how tall you've become," she said, squeezing my cheek.

A medical conversation with this couple had brought us all closer. Mrs Shah couldn't have children and insisted I call her Aunty.

My surrogate Aunt hurried us into the kitchen where I was plied with biscuits and forced to listen to the sort of thing that seemed to consume homely women like her. She'd had a new kitchen installed and a shiny new oven which caught Mother's attention. A conversation about the virtues of an automatic timer had her enthralled, and after an exhaustive inspection of this over-specified room, we were finally ushered upstairs.

The Shah's had recently altered the house. The bedrooms on the first floor had been converted into a large sitting room with the windows extended for a better view of the street. I sank into their soft velour sofa. The two men were already seated, cradling tumblers of whisky and soda, and discussing politics – one of Pakistan's favourite pastimes. On the wall above the mantel was the gaunt face of Pakistan's founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, looking down benevolently on us. Beneath the picture of the elder statesman on a sill joss-sticks smouldered to ward off the mosquitoes. A tall mahogany cupboard with a glass face housed Inspector Shah's medals and cups from his time as a polo player.

"This is the trouble, I tell you," said Inspector Shah.

"Hah," said Father.

The two men were debating the latest instalment of Pakistan's political woes. Father's newspaper, The Daily Jang, delivered a feast of these catastrophes to our dining table. Venting his frustration he would slap the page with the back of his hand, muttering in Pashto. The country's troubles were rooted in its creation. In 1947 Pakistan was born, the year of its partition from India and the end of British rule, an amalgamation of the Muslim-majority eastern and north-western regions of British India. It comprised the provinces of Balochistan, East Bengal, the North-West Frontier Province, West Punjab, and Sindh. To create the new Islamic Republic, two regions of the old India were negotiated away. A map on my classroom wall showed these two landmasses looking like moth-eaten ears on that Indian elephant. Bengal on the eastern border of India became East Pakistan, and a long, wide strip torn from India's western border was now West Pakistan, a clumsy attempt to amalgamate a Muslim diaspora, joined together and separated by a thousand miles.

East and West, America, Russia, Indira Gandhi, Nixon, and Kissinger were topics for adult conversations on soft sofas while sipping prohibited drinks.

"Yaar, its Bhutto, he's stoking up those mullahs, that's the real problem," said the Inspector.

Father nodded cautiously. He was much more circumspect when it came to offering his opinion on Islamic politics. Last year's general elections had seen Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, based here in West Pakistan, lose in a landslide victory to a Marxist party based in East Pakistan. East Pakistan was now pushing hard for independence from West Pakistan, an ongoing and violent struggle that was now openly supported by India. There was talk of war with India. The newspapers here in West Pakistan were clamouring for a jihad, a holy war. What I didn't know was that some thousand miles away, the country was already at war with itself.

Mrs Shah could always be relied on to lighten the mood. She'd bought me a gift.

"Oh, you shouldn't have," said Mother.

No, she shouldn't have. I tore through the coloured paper, and to my disappointment, a promising box revealed a simple, childish toy. Mrs Shah had bought me a spinning top, and for a brief moment, I became the child she always wanted. She brought the tin toy alive. It whistled eerily through tiny holes in its side, and as the evening wore on, I concluded that I was far too old for soirees of this nature.

Father must have read my mind. He smiled at me through the bottom of his glass.

He waved me over. "Come, come. Sit next to me, son."

I got up, grateful for a change in scenery and sat down next to him. He put his arm around me, nodding at the Inspector as he refilled his glass.

"Tell him the story, yaar," he said.

"Which one is that?" said the Inspector wryly.

"You know. The one about the kidnapping."

"Oh...you mean _that_ story."

I sensed collusion. A recent spate of kidnappings had brought out Mother's maternal instinct. The back pages of Father's newspaper were filled with stories of children lost, their smiling faces staring back at me over my breakfast. Children from respectable families, stolen from right under their mother's noses, was worthy news. Mother had got Father to give me a lecture, and one night, borrowing a metaphor from his childhood, he reminded me of the fields beyond our old home where the jackals lay in wait. At night their shadows shifted in the dark, luminous eyes creeping up on me as I watched from my bedroom window. From then on, kidnappers seemed to lurk everywhere - a stranger smoking a cigarette lingered too long on a street corner; another loitered under the shade of a tree, taking a cool drink from an earthen pot placed there by a kindly neighbour; a beggar drifted past, the dogs barking at him; maybe the snake charmer was a kidnapper in disguise with the power to hypnotise little children; or what about the hill-folk, clattering through the streets on their way to market their goats, snatching up a child on the way as they disappeared in a cloud of dust.

"Kidnapping is big business," said Inspector Shah, leaning up against the mantel.

He operated from a colonial building on the University Road, situated between the American Consulate and the police training school. He and his men had been hunting down a suspected kidnapping gang operating with impunity across the region.

"But, sir, why don't the children just run away?" I said.

The question had dogged me. I had imagined myself cornered by one of these child catchers and certain I could have easily given them the slip.

"Not that easy, son," replied the Inspector. "Cut off your legs!" He made a slashing motion.

"That's dreadful," said Mother.

Inspector Shah explained that these stolen children were turned into beggars, a highly lucrative business.

"Much more money for a maimed child, you know," he said.

A child cradling a half-torn limb could earn far more begging for these gangs. I'd seen them for myself. Amongst the able beggars working throughout the City, there was always one laid out by the side with an open wound, hand outstretched, crying 'baksheesh, baksheesh'. My heart went out to them. But it never occurred to me these children were placed there by their captors, their injuries deliberately inflicted.

Mrs Shah was getting impatient. "Tell them the story," she said.

"Yes, yes, woman, I'm getting to that. Don't rush me."

The Inspector poured himself another drink.

"To be honest, I thought the whole thing was some kind of joke," he said. "A few weeks ago I got a call from this man. He says his name is Mr Pervez, the owner of the clothes factory, you know, the one on Jamrud Road."

"He is a very rich man," interjected Mrs Shah.

Father was clearly impressed.

"Yes, yes," said the Inspector. "So this Mr Pervez has called to tell me that his son has been kidnapped...I am very sorry to hear that, I tell him, but he needs to fill out a report at the police station."

"Haah...but," interrupted Mrs Shah.

"But...you don't understand says Mr Pervez. My son was kidnapped ten years ago."

"Haaah," said Mrs Shah nodding excitedly, "he was kidnapped ten years ago."

"Yes, yes!" said the Inspector. "I am thinking this Pervez chap has left it a bit late to be reporting his son's kidnapping. Isn't it?"

Mother looked confused. "What happened to the boy?"

"This is the thing. Pervez's son was no older than Sikunder when one day he went missing. He was walking to school minding his own business and then gone. Vanished into thin air, just like that." The Inspector snapped his fingers.

"So sad," said Mrs Shah.

The Inspector knocked back his drink. "So Mr Pervez is now sobbing over the phone. I tell him, look, there's nothing I can do, yaar.

Then he grinned at Mother. "I must confess, Lizbet, I was thinking to myself maybe this man is a little mad, you know," he said, circling his temple.

Mother forced a smile. "Then would you believe it, as I was about to put the phone down, he tells me he is not crying for sadness, he is spilling tears of joy."

"Haah...but," said Mrs Shah.

"But!" said her husband, "this is the thing. Mr Pervez was trying to tell me that his son is no longer missing. He is no longer kidnapped."

"I don't understand?" said Mother. Father nodded knowingly.

"Let me explain, " said the Inspector. "This boy, this son of Mr Pervez had turned up totally out of the blue. After ten years. Can you believe it?"

"Haaah," said Mrs Shah, "and the boy is now back with his Mother...so nice." She dabbed her eye with her dupatta.

Inspector Shah went on to explain a most peculiar coincidence, 'total kismet', as he put it. Mr Pervez's long lost son had been found working in his father's factory. A chance encounter between the boy and his mother had brought a happy end to her grief. As soon she saw him she recognised him. A birthmark confirmed it was him without a shadow of a doubt.

"Dear me," said Mother. "Did you discover what happened to him all these years?"

"Afraid not," said the Inspector. "You see, the boy cannot speak. Not a single word. He is as you say, muted."

"How awful. Is he okay?"

"Not really. The boy is marked. On his arm."

"Marked?" I said, a little too excitedly for Mother's liking.

"Well, not a mark exactly." Inspector Shah turned to Father. "What do you call it?" They shared a word in Pashto.

"Yes, branded, like cattle."

Mother's hand went to her mouth.

"What does the mark look like?" I said unable to contain myself.

The Inspector shaped it with a finger in the air. A letter 'I' and entwined around it was the letter 'S' shaped like a snake, he said. He went on to tell us how he and his men had scoured the streets looking for children marked in the same way. It wasn't long before they discovered one and then another. Their detective work finally led them to the country home of a respectable landlord. The whole thing ended in a gunfight, a total mess as the Inspector put it.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Shot dead," said the Inspector, pointing his trigger hand to the ceiling. "There you have it."

Mother wanted to know if that was the end of the kidnappings. The Inspector shook his head gravely.

"Severing the head of one snake is no guarantee. But don't worry, Lizbet, Sikunder is smart, he can look after himself."

He smiled at the funny, mixed-up boy gazing starry-eyed at him. The idea of the Inspector's gun whirled around in my head. Where was it now? Did he keep it in the house? I imagined him blasting the fatal shot.

A little voice spoke up.

"Where do you keep your gun, sir?" I said.

Mother almost spilt her tea.

"You want to see it, hah, Sikunder?" said the Inspector. He winked at Father.

"No," said Mother who was now staring hard at Father. There was an unwritten rule that decreed all Pakhtun boy's over the age of ten were entitled to a gun of their own. I'd seen children smaller than me with air-rifles slung over their shoulders. Mother was having none of it. The thought of her wild child waving a gun about the place was inconceivable.

"Let him see it," said Father. I could have kissed him.

Inspector Shah unlocked the door to the cabinet and out it came – a red leather holster carrying a silver revolver. He slowly drew out the gun and placed it on the coffee table.

"Don't worry, it's not loaded. Mrs Shah's house rules."

All eyes were on the beautiful chunk of machined steel. "Go on, Sikunder, don't be scared. Pick it up."

I wasn't scared, not at all. The prospect of the gun's weight in my hand was too impossible to imagine. Just how easy would it be to pull the trigger? I'd watched plenty of shoot-em-up movies at the Picture House. It wasn't hard to imagine what I would look like waving one in the air like a hero.

Mother's eyes were pleading with Father. As I reached for the gun she exploded, "No!" which was enough for Mrs Shah to park her tray, step causally up to the table and scoop up the gun. She dashed out of the room holding it out like a dead rat, and before I knew it, Mother had made her excuses and we were swiftly out of the door.

"You stay out of trouble, Sikunder," said the Inspector, laughing as he waved us off.

The evening was not quite over for Father. As I lay in bed, Mother was arguing with him for letting things get out of hand. My parent's voices drifted away with the sound of rain pattering on the leaves outside my window. An unexpected shower had taken the heat out of the air. A feeling of wellbeing washed over me. The thought of the bold Inspector Shah out there at the ready with his gun, protecting us all. In my mind, his story of the kidnapped boy was being nicely embellished for a fine retelling. Now I really had a story for the boys back at my school.

### 5

Perched on the highest step, Principal O'Hara, preparing to make a short speech. Tall and angular and dressed in black, his white collar always the wrong way round. Gazing down on a thousand schoolboys, grey trousers, white half-sleeves, shoes polished, hair short, standing to attention. That was me over there in Mrs Habib's class, the one with the grubby shoes and long hair.

Our Principal tugged at his collar, cleared his throat and proceeded to deliver some carefully chosen words - just in case we'd forgotten from the week before. It went something like this:

"We were the fortunate ones," he said, "our education was a gift not to be squandered," he went on, "we were an example to those who came after us" and with that, all eyes were directed to the large, grey building looming up behind him. "There's the door to your future, boys. Make good use of it. Bless you, one and all."

"Bless you, Father O'Hara!" replied the unified voice of the children of Pakistan.

A loudspeaker high in a tree crackled to life. A stirring drum roll echoed out the national anthem, chests swelling to the first line of the first verse, "Pak sarzamin shad bad". 'May the holy land stay glad'?

A weather-beaten flag jerked up a wooden pole. Sleep seemed so long ago. My school days began drowsily in the dark. Awoken by Father, I'd throw on my uniform, eat a hardboiled egg, wash it down with a glass of warm sugared milk, brush my teeth, and dash outside to meet the _tongawala_. The sun would break as his painted, two-wheeled carriage towed by a flatulent horse clattered along the highway spiriting me to the school gates from where I would sprint to the main building and fall in line.

And as the last line of the last verse rang out, "Flag of the crescent and the star", we peeled away, forming one long marching line headed for a sun-baked field at the far end of the school. Row after row shuffled into position in readiness for morning PT, a sweltering hour of on the spot physical training at the hands of an ex-military man known to us as Sergeant Bastard.

"Aaa...ten...tion!"

His voice boomed across the field, his only purpose in life to shake our sleepy heads awake in preparation for a long morning tethered to a desk. A family of crows burst out of a tree as our feet hammered the dusty ground.

We stood rigid in anticipation while Sergeant Bastard inspected our lines. Then he began barking at us, an entire hour spent jumping up and down to instruction, a physical struggle exacted upon us every morning under an unforgiving sun.

Of course, there were ways of dealing with such adversities. I survived the painful ritual by simply mimicking the actions of the boy in front and with a sufficient degree of enthusiasm to keep Sergeant Bastard satisfied. With his back turned I'd let my pace drop and ignoring the warnings of the boys behind me, I flapped my arms feebly here and there allowing me enough time to get my breath back before the sergeant circled back again, his bloodshot eyes weeding out the malingerers.

Hungry buzzards orbited high above, watching, perhaps wondering why one of the boys down there wasn't working as hard as the others. I must have drifted off. Suddenly, the hardened Urdu soldier man screamed a halt to our drills.

"Whart is this?" he growled.

He'd crept up behind our lines. The metal tip of his cane landed heavily on the back of my head. I froze as he drew his cane along my scalp and down the length of my hair.

The boy next to me turned for a better look.

The point of Sergeant Bastard's cane caught him in the belly.

"Who said you could move, hah, boy?"

His name was Bhoo. His loyalty was unquestionable. My hair was long, wavy and indefensible.

"Sergeant, sahib, please?" he Bhoo.

"Whart is it, fatty?" Bhoo enjoyed his food.

"Sergeant, sahib, he is from England."

A good excuse, but untrue.

"Ingalaand? Ingalaand!" shrieked the sergeant. "Whaart is your name, boy?"

"Sikunder, sir," I replied nervously.

The sergeant pondered this, his brow softening momentarily. "Sikunder, hah?" he said. "That is a good name." Then he stiffened as though sensing he'd been duped. "You get your hair cut, you hear me!"

I nodded violently. He slammed his cane against my backside. "Hair cutting!"

I hated getting my hair cut. The barber Father insisted on shearing me was a brute. He would wrench my head in his vice-like grip this way and that, nicking my ear with his sharp scissors, scraping my neck red-raw with his razor, and when he was finished, he'd spin me around to face a cracked mirror and I'd despair at the sight of my old self lost to the scowling stranger staring back at me, my reddy-black hair with its fine strands of gold tossed to the floor and swept away into the gutter.

Sergeant Bastard made us all suffer that morning. For my flagrant abuse of school regulation, we spent the rest of PT standing to attention. We wilted under the sun while the family of crows hopped about laughing at us until finally we were dismissed, and we marched, left, right, left, right, my arm now bruised by older boys meting out justice on the way back to the school's main building.

The stark practicality of raw brick and concrete. A row of classrooms stretched out either side of a tall atrium, repeating itself on two more floors with gaps where windows and doors should have been. Dotted along the building's extremities were clumps of dusty, privet bush with little prospect of achieving their full potential. The permanence of the place made me shiver. We crashed into our classroom chairs screeching against a stone floor in a tussle for a view of the playing fields.

"Quietly, children, quietly!" shouted Mrs Habib chalking something on the board. The class settled down.

"Good marning, my children," she sang out, her colourful sari rustling as she moved, her hair tied in a bun accentuating her round, kind face.

Obedient faces grinned back at her. "Good marning, Mrs Habib."

An oversized fountain pen got to work ticking off a register.

"Present, Mrs Habib."

A ceiling fan rotated soporifically above our heads. The framed image of the country's founder gazed down solemnly at us. I sighed. A colourful map of the world seemed to offer some hope.

"Farooqi?"

"Present, Mrs Habib."

"Hussain...Hussain?"

There was no answer.

"Where is Hussain?"

A hand went up. "He's ill, Miss."

There was a sharp intake of breath.

"In English, in English, for goodness sake child, how many times do I have to say this to you?!"

Hussain's friend had committed a cardinal sin. Front-row tongues clicked knowingly. The boy slid his chair back and steadying himself, stumbled over his words.

"Hussain...iza..."

Mrs Habib shook her head. "Iza what?"

The class groaned. He went looking for inspiration on the ceiling. "Iza...nart..."

"Yes, yes," urged Mrs Habib.

"Hussain iza nart...werry...well, Miss?"

There was a round of applause and the boy dropped to his seat, exhausted.

This was our last English class of the academic year. Over the past few weeks, Mrs Habib had been trying to educate us on the art of story writing, the highlight of my week. She was determined to make one final push before the summer recess.

"Who can tell me what this means, hah?" she said nodding optimistically. She double-underlined the word 'simile' on the board with a chalky flourish.

A hand flew up.

"Yes, Kirmani?"

"Miss...smile?!" A boy with more confidence than sense.

There was a roar of laughter.

Kirmani's grin melted away.

"Stupid boy," said Mrs Habib.

"Miss, Miss!"

"Yes, Ahmed?" Ahmed-with-the glasses was sat in front of me. He stood up.

"Miss, this is like a...you know...like when one thing is a...you know Miss...is compared to the other thing, isn't it, Miss?"

"Very good, Ahmed, sit down," sighed Mrs Habib.

Encouraged by Ahmed's bravery, eager hands shot up like spears.

"Yes, you," said our teacher, singling out an athletic boy.

He sprang to his feet.

"Miss...eh...cricket...is like a...the best game in the world, hah, Miss?"

Miss Habib nodded. "Yes, good...what? No! Don't be silly, boy!" she said, placing her hand against her forehead in resignation. "Where is the comparison of this thing to that thing...are none of you listening to me."

The cricketer looked perplexed.

"Miss, Miss!"

Mrs Habib braced herself. "Okay, okay, just one more."

Young Hassan cleared his throat.

"You...you smell _like_ a rose, Miss!"

There was a collective groan.

"And you smell like Bhoo!" someone shouted followed by a chorus of "smell like Bhoo, smell like Bhoo!"

Bhoo was sitting right behind me. Bhoo wasn't his real name. The word meant 'stink' in Urdu, a nickname he'd acquired after an unfortunate accident. Bhoo got very nervous during exams. Boys took great pleasure in sharing the story of the time he soiled his trousers during a history test - the sudden stench in the air, the awful sight of a wet, brown patch seeping through his trousers and the inevitable flies congregating on his backside. The name stuck. Even the teachers called him Bhoo.

Mrs Habib finally gave up on us. Her attempt to explain the difference between a metaphor and a simile sent the class into a spin. In the dying minutes of our lesson, she ran down the clock, her nose buried in an Urdu novel, her hand poised over a bag of peanuts concealed in a drawer as the class sat in silence working away through a list of spellings.

I buried my head in my arms and fell asleep.

### 6

The summer holidays were finally upon us. The boys were all shouting 'Allahu Akbar!' joyous at the prospect of the long, lazy days that lay ahead. Bhoo and I were sitting in the shade watching uninhibited brown limbs tear into another game of Seven Stones. The smell of eucalyptus hung heavy around us. Bhoo lived just a few streets away close to the military airbase where his father worked. American Sabre jets flown by Pakistani pilots would often scream overhead and disappear behind a row of trees shielding us from the base's perimeter. Bhoo's mother had been moaning at him again. The newspapers had identified another missing child and she wasn't happy with the idea of Bhoo hanging around on the street corner. I'd convinced her that her precious son would be fine as long as we stuck together. Of course, that hadn't stopped me from reminding Bhoo of Inspector Shah's story of the kidnapped boy.

"Tss! Like this," I said stabbing his chubby arm. The macabre thought of a boy branded fascinated me.

"Why do they do this?" said Bhoo, rubbing the thought off his skin.

"Like cattle. You know," I said.

Just then, a boy I'd got to know ran past us on the other side of the road. I waved at him. He waved back hurriedly. His name was Chawtoo.

"C'mon, let's go," I said heaving Bhoo up.

"No man...it's way too hot."

"You're way too fat. Get up."

We followed Chawtoo to the main road and as he ran across, a lorry flew past. Roadside grit caught in its wake came to rest by a familiar shadow – a dead dog. Buzzards circled overhead, the sure sign of an easy meal. Bhoo grimaced. A handful of bluebottles worked a neat, bloody hole in its side. We never got used to the sight. It was a tough life for strays. There was a terrible fear of contracting rabies so the local authority delivered a gunman onto our streets, his shots ringing out late at night to let us know another one of these soulful looking creatures wouldn't be bothering us again. Their bodies lay festering for days awaiting the rubbish collector who would hop out of his open-top truck, toss the animal over his head and drive off again to who knew where.

Bhoo moved faster than usual and we caught up with Chawtoo squatting under a tree, a shoot of ryegrass between his teeth. He was a short, muscly boy with a black, silky face that would appear bronze in the right light. Chawtoo belonged to a family of _Dhobiwalas_ , descendants of the original British Garrison domestics. Their home was situated right across the road from the Club in a crowded earth dwelling overlooking the Kabul River. They made their living cleaning clothes, sweeping floors and streets and anything else that no one fancied doing. Despite their hardships, they were a friendly race.

Beyond a wooden style, a muddy buffalo circled wearily turning out water into a gully snaking along the edge of a field. We clambered over and followed Chawtoo along a grey, silty path. Chawtoo moved purposefully in a straight line while my mind wandered towards the possibility of seeing a tiger in the leafy undergrowth. Bhoo puffed his way behind while chewing on the remnants of a breakfast roti tucked away in his pocket. Ripe sugarcane arched over us, shading us from the midday sun. We were an odd, six-legged creature making its way through the jungle. It wasn't long before we were out of the shadows facing a horizon of blue sky and fields of luminous yellow rape. I glided my palm over the delicate buttery flowers, startling a bumblebee. We arrived at the bank of a shallow pond.

Bhoo slumped to the ground. Chawtoo and I skimmed stones across the water.

"That's a good one," he said.

A carefully chosen stone threaded its way across the mirrored stillness. Just then, a white heron landed amongst the reeds.

"Bagla, bagla," Chawtoo thrilled.

"Beautiful," I said.

The heron got on with what it did best. We watched as it stalked its prey, its wings raised over its head to hide its shadow and then suddenly it speared the still water to reveal a silvery fish struggling hopelessly in its sharp beak. With a flick of its long neck, it swallowed the fish whole.

Bhoo was on his elbows, scoping the pool's edge when a cool breeze shook a plume of bulrushes.

"Look, Sikunder, over there," he said.

A mother duck popped out. A line of downy yellow ducklings skittered behind her. Bhoo handed me a piece of bread. I threw it at a straggler.

"What are you doing?" hissed Chawtoo.

The crafty heron was now lurking in the reedy margins. One of the ducklings darted for the bread I'd just thrown it and stumbled into its path. The sneaky heron didn't hesitate and snapped up the little fluffy bundle.

"No!"

I rushed into the water hoping to panic the opportunistic predator into loosening its grip on the chick. The heron calmly flapped its wings and cruised over to the other side, the duckling still trapped in its bill, kicking its little webbed feet in desperation. The mother duck circled the pond in vain. Out of reach, the heron flipped the yellow ball into the air and swallowed it whole.

I stood there up to my knees in water. Chawtoo gave me his hand as I clambered up the bank, my leather sandals now wet and slimy. Chawtoo looked disappointed. The heron was gone, a white spec in the vast blue. I was overcome by the deviousness of this seemingly unnatural act. How was it that the nature of things could be hidden behind the mask – could nothing in life be trusted?

Bhoo placed his arm around my shoulder. We followed Chawtoo and it wasn't long before the little horror I'd witnessed had been washed clean out of my mind.

"Oh my God," exclaimed Bhoo.

Chawtoo put his finger to his lips. Hidden behind a farmer's ramshackle shed was something truly magical, one of nature's greatest acts. Carved out of a thick carpet of bright yellow was a leafy green patch of giant watermelon. Our Punjabi friend had led us to a lifetime's supply of one of the sweetest, juiciest things our countryside had to offer – the antidote to a hard day's play under a scorching sun. The crop had been lovingly tended over the months, a farmer's personal supply, hidden far enough away from hungry eyes. The water had to be carried by hand from the canal, poured carefully on ground cleared and tilled and fed until it bore fruit tender and more succulent than anything found in the local market.

My new friend had excelled himself. It was time to show our appreciation. We crawled on our bellies under a rusty barbed wire across the crumbling earth until the three of us were huddling around the glossy green giants. Chawtoo selected the most promising candidate, tapping the casing with a knife he kept in his back pocket. He gave it his approval and quickly sliced through the thick skin, grinning as he presented us with the first of many bloody slices of ecstasy. Bhoo would have kissed Chawtoo if he hadn't pushed him away, and the gorging began. We devoured whatever Chawtoo threw at us. Watery red flesh melted in our mouths, sweet melon juice dripping down our cheeks as we spat black seeds at each other. It wasn't long before my belly was swollen. Bhoo pushed on insatiably, surrounded by broken shells in smiling heaps. I caught my breath and lay on my back next to Chawtoo. We stared up at the sky.

"Alexander, sahib?" he said, "Are the melons this big in Ingalaand?"

"Much bigger," I said embracing the sky.

"One day I will go to Ingalaand," he said.

"Sure," I replied.

Chawtoo and I first met at the Club. I was sitting on our kitchen doorstep when he introduced himself. Did I want my clothes cleaned, he asked. He was on his rounds pulling a trolley piled high with dirty laundry. I misunderstood him. My clothes were just fine, I said. No, you don't understand, he replied, and then he explained who he was and what he did, and so I introduced him to Mother, and he managed to convince her that Father's shirts and trousers and my school uniform would be safe with him, washed and dried by the river and beautifully pressed by his mother which he insisted would be her greatest pleasure.

Chawtoo was an inquisitive fellow.

"But please tell me, sahib. What is Ingalaand like?"

Boys often wanted to know what England was like. To accommodate them, I would conjure up stories from the picture books I read when I was younger, the stories of two well behaved, happy, English children I knew as Peter and Jane who lived with their generous Mummy and Daddy in a magnificent English home and wore fine English clothes and played with their bright, shiny English toys. They lived on an island where there were no snakes or scorpions, where dogs were their friends, where the sun was kind and the grass dewy soft and where the rain kept the streets glistening clean and free of dust all year round.

A serious expression came over Chawtoo.

"Alexander, sahib," he said, "one day I am going to go to Ingalaand and I am going to marry a pretty lady just like your mother and I will make a thousand rupees cleaning..."

But before I had time to express my surprise at my friend's sudden interest in my mother, not to mention my bewilderment at the revelation that my mother was 'pretty', Bhoo started groaning.

His shirt was now a sticky see-through pink, black seeds stuck fast to his chubby cheeks.

"Too much, hah, fatty?" said Chawtoo.

Bhoo drew in his legs, curling himself up into a ball. "Terrible p...pain," he cried.

"Quiet," said Chawtoo. "The farmer will hear us."

An ominous rumbling began to emanate from Bhoo. The buttons on his shirt looked ready to pop. In the bird-chirping quietness of this heavenly field, he decided it was time to honour the occasion. Living up to his reputation, he let out the most ridiculous sound from his backside, arriving as it did in one continuous, trumpeting note.

Chawtoo and I recoiled as though a live snake had been dropped on our laps. And before we knew it the farmer was on us like a mad dog.

A single gun blast sent the birds flying past us. Chawtoo and I tore through those fields. My feet barely touched the ground. We ran and ran and I didn't look back until we were safely on the other side.

"What about Bhoo?" I said, gasping for air.

We heard another gunshot. I jumped. This time it sounded purposeful, as though the farmer had carefully and slowly aimed his gun and pulled the trigger.

I glanced over my shoulder. The dead dog was still lying there now covered in flies. Chawtoo turned ashen.

"Where is he?!"

"Over there," I shouted.

"Get me out," cried Bhoo.

Bhoo had got himself tangled up in the weeds. We pulled him free, and later, sitting on the kerb of a familiar street we listened to him as he gloated about how clever he'd been to give the trigger-happy farmer the slip.

"How did the farmer not see you?" said Chawtoo scratching his head.

"I kept very still," said Bhoo, "very, very still," a story he was going to tell his children one day undoubtedly.

"That's very clever," I said rolling my eyes at Chawtoo.

"So how did you get away?"

Bhoo shrugged.

I nudged Chawtoo in the ribs. "Of course the farmer couldn't see him, yaar. How could he when Bhoo was the fattest melon in his field!"

Chawtoo almost wet his shorts. It wasn't difficult to make him laugh.

### 7

I had a dream about Mariel Devane - no, not like that.

I was in a field playing cricket with the boys from my class. Gasping for water, I decided it was time to head back home. To my surprise, I saw Mariel's car parked by the side of the road - mysteriously as though Chevrolay had followed me.

Sweaty palms slammed against the paintwork.

"Wah, wah. Look at it, yaar!" the boys shouted. Wide-eyes marvelled at the inconceivable angles of this American beauty.

"Chev..ro...let," said one, spelling out the badge.

"No, Chevrolay," I said. "It's French, yaar."

The boys nodded in awe. "Sikunder is so knowledgeable."

"I know," I said.

Then one of them tried to ruin my dream.

"Who needs eight lights on the front, yaar?"

"Idiot. Umreecans, that's who."

"Is this really your car, Sikunder?" said little Ahmed-with-the-glasses.

"Of course." I had the keys in my pocket, didn't I?

"Please, Sikunder, please!"

There was a satisfying clunk and we piled in, brown skin on soft white leather, a heady combination. Ahmed-with-the-glasses jumped into the driving seat, his little hands clamped around an outrageous steering wheel.

"C'mon taxi driver, step on it," I said. I'm sitting regally in the back seat.

Ahmed swerved this way and that.

"Wah, wah," exclaimed the boys admiring the scenery. "You are very lucky, Sikunder."

"I know."

And, then the dream got serious.

"Turn it on, turn it on!" they shouted.

Something got lost in Urdu translation. A crafty little hand snapped the engine alive. Chevrolay started moving. Backwards, rolling uncontrollably when out of the dreamy haze a cliff edge appeared, typical of my dreams, a long fall, a recurring theme.

My friends, masters in the art of self-preservation, made a break for it, abandoning me and my driver through a perfectly wide-open window – a precipice beckoned.

No. This was a good dream. The boys, Ahmed and I discover, had not abandoned us. What they had become was a singular, wiry mass of straining sinew, their heels digging into the dusty ground as they clung on, taming the Chevrolay beast before it was all too late.

"Hit the brake. Hit it!"

Ahmed, my why-didn't-we-think-of-that-before friend, drove his little foot against the big, wide pedal bringing Chevrolay to a nice springy, bouncing stop. Which should have been the end of this particularly fine dream had it not been for Mother who for no explainable reason made a sudden appearance. The sight of a frowning English woman was enough to worry Ahmed and so he waved me goodbye, and as he made his exit he must have nudged a lever. Chevrolay jerked forward and began accelerating towards Mother who was now standing in its way, laughing at me, a wicked laugh - a blur between dream and reality.

I was sure I could hear the sound of Mariel Devane's voice? I jumped off my bed and bounded into the living room. Mother was at the front door, talking to her. They were arguing about something. No, not arguing. Mariel was complaining, about Mikey? She was on her way to the Swat Valley, about a hundred miles or so north of us, with the promise of wonderful scenery and crystal-clear waters, the perfect refuge from the scorching summer heat. Mikey wanted none of it. Mariel drove off without him.

Chevrolay screeched out of the Club with Mother in the front seat, her hair blowing free in a moment of unplanned abandonment. I'd convinced her and her new friend that I and my new friend would be perfectly fine without them, and of course, neither of us would ever dream of wandering beyond the fortified boundary of the Garrison Club.

As luck would have it, today was Wednesday when Anu, Chawtoo's sister, cleaned our bungalow, her last stop before her weekly trip to the City.

"Please, please!" I pleaded with Anu.

"Okay, okay," she said, "but you better be a good boy, you understand. And you tell this Umreecan also."

I swore on my life. We were now in her perfectly unqualified hands - Mikey was in for a treat. With my hand in Anu's and Mikey by my side, we left the Club by the main gates and crossed over to the other side of the road. There was just the little matter of our ride to consider.

If she could, Anu avoided spending a single paisa getting about. A taxi was out of the question and with no official bus stop nearby we just had to wait.

Mikey and I stood under the shade of a tree watching the muddy buffalo, going round and round, a bell round its neck clanking as it turned the wheel. Noisy crickets roasted in the dry grass.

"I don't get it," said Mikey.

"Just watch," I said.

Anu loved to dance and sing as she swept our floors, the radio on full-blast, the bells around her ankles jingling to happy-sad Punjabi tunes about unrequited love - beware all bus drivers!

A passenger bus flew past us, packed to the roof. The Punjabi beauty stared alluringly over her dupatta at the driver. He blasted his horn at her. She waved back. Delighted passengers whistled at her in the speeding wind. Anu was wearing a bright, tight-fitting _kurti_ , her hair tied in a long, thick braid, girlishly draped over her shoulder. It wasn't long before another bus appeared when Anu began her seductive dance, the driver now in view as she hummed a melancholic tune, her curvy hips swaying, her hennaed palms rising like serpents above her head - hypnotising.

Huge tyres screeched to a gravelly halt. Sleepy passengers jerked out of their slumber and the door hissed open.

Anu hurried us up the steps.

"What the heck?" said Mikey.

"This is not a bus stop!" someone shouted.

"Shut up," said the driver, a bald, overweight man with wild, bushy eyebrows.

Ogling Anu, he fought with the gearstick and then accelerated away. Mikey and I clung to a metal post rattling against the ceiling. Anu held on to the driver's seat, the road's surface winking at us through a gap in the floor.

"I've never been on a bus before!" shouted Mikey over the noisy engine. "Mom drives us everywhere."

I flashed my eyes excitedly at him.

A small fan spun aimlessly above the driver's head while a sign with the words 'Long Live Pakistan' swung deliriously from a chain. The rickety old bus was packed with folks from the hills accompanied by their animals. Geese and chickens sat crammed into wooden cages under the seats and on the racks above, and there was a small billy goat in the aisle. Its owner seemed most put out by our presence.

"Hey, you," he said wagging a finger at us.

Anu tore herself away from the driver.

"Are you talking to me?" she said.

"Where are you going with that one, hah?" he said gruffly.

The sight of Mikey's fair hair was an exotic rarity especially to villagers from the hills, another reason why Mother avoided the City where she was regularly mobbed for a stroke of her locks.

"Can't you see?" replied Anu, ruffling his hair. "He's my son, of course."

There was a loud guffaw. The goat strained at its leash.

"What's she saying?" said Mikey.

"Nothing," I replied.

The goat-man wasn't impressed. He stared suspiciously at us. "Then what about that one?" he said pointing rudely at me.

"This one?" replied Anu, placing her hand on my shoulder.

The goat-man smiled wryly suspecting he'd got the better of her.

"Can't you see, old man? He's mine also!"

There was another round of laughter. Her boldness must have rubbed off on me.

"And where are you going with that one, hah?" I said, singling out his horned beast. Curiously, it was sporting a shabby, yellowing beard just like its owner.

Our audience leaned in for a better look.

"What are you saying, boy?"

"He looks like one of yours, hah?!" I replied. I stuck my tongue out at him. The hot tin box erupted sending the poor goat on to its hind legs. It started head-butting its master, unleashing another round of jokes to compound his humiliation.

We'd earned our ride and were almost at the City terminus when the traffic came to a sudden standstill. I could see a familiar, immovable shape up ahead blocking our way. The bus driver punched the steering wheel in frustration. A huge white ox had collapsed in the middle of the road. Its keeper was whipping it in a show of bravado. It wasn't uncommon to find cattle dead by the roadside pushed to their limits by unworthy masters whose only way of saving face was to beat the animal, blaming it for the inconvenience.

Rickshaws beeped at the dying beast as they squeezed past. A horse was being whipped as its master forced his carriage across the muddy overhang. The engine was overheating and the cabin started shaking. We were being cooked alive.

"Open the door!" someone shouted.

The door hissed open and I hopped onto the standing plate for a closer look. Mikey joined me.

"Why's he hitting it?" he said.

"He's an idiot," I said.

"Yeah. Goddam idiot!"

Anu had had enough. She waved goodbye to the driver and hold to us as she led us over the carriageway, through the chaotic and smoky bus terminus. We arrived at a bustling street lined with noisy vendors firing out hot tea, sizzling pakoras, spicy hot cobs, steaming tikkas and kebabs, sticky sweetmeats, and freshly squeezed orange, mango and sugarcane juice. Tinny radio music vaporised into the steamy air.

A kulfi seller appeared out of nowhere.

"Salaam beautiful!" he said.

Anu giggled as she handed him a couple of coins. He reached into his icebox. Pistachio for me and mango for Anu, a good choice. Mikey declined, drawn to the vast billboard above Peshawar's Picture House showcasing the latest Punjabi movie. In a hand-painted depiction of a startling scene, a young woman in distress, heavily made up with blue eyeshadow and long curving lashes, struggles in the arms of a heavily moustached criminal, in his giant hand a giant revolver warding off a blaze of gunfire. Mikey was going to love it.

Anu and I finished off the last of our sweet kulfi and we passed under the heels of the movie stars to a box office where a toothless man chewing paan handed over our tickets for a few coins. A sign above his head read: 'No Guns, No Knives, Absolutely No Food'.

Anu led us into the dark towards a smoky beam of projected light. Packed to the rafters the male population of Peshawar clamoured for the highlight of their week.

"Move up, come on, move up you oafs," said Anu, squeezing up some rowdy men at the front. Our silhouettes disappeared as we took up our places. Behind us cigarettes glowed like a plague of blazing insects while a sweaty man in a loincloth ran up and down the aisles selling the distinctive green Pakola, Pakistan's flag coloured answer to a fizzy drink, dousing the unwary with iced water sploshing from the tin bucket on his head.

The movie was about to start, a sequence of adverts ending in a declaration of the greatness of Pakistan's official brand of manly cigarettes, the blue-boxed K2. A swaying helicopter scenic of the very mountain it was named after launched a cheer of approval. A thousand eyes shone brightly in the flickering light, hardened faces softening as we soaked up a moving story about love, fortune and revenge, a combination that went down very well here in the Frontier. Anu squeezed my hand as the heartrending story played out. A young village girl is orphaned by a gang of bandits. Her village is burned down and having lost her family she's forced into the City. Innocent and destitute, what she soon finds in this unforgiving place is someone to love her. But our heroine then discovers the man she has fallen in love with is a very bad man. And to our surprise and horror, it turns out this is the very same man who burned down her village and murdered her family all those years ago - the gun-toting bandit on the billboard!

"I told you!" someone shouted.

"Shut up!" came the reply.

A gun battle had the audience whipped into a frenzy. Our female star was not so naïve after all, now transformed from the peasant girl into a dazzling, stylish woman who infiltrates the gang of bandits enticing their notorious leader into a gunfight and finally getting her revenge. Bang! Bang!

The closing scenes were predictable - an inevitable happy ending, the girl finds true love in a swirl of orchestral bliss, _tabla_ drumming, straining violins, a rose-filled garden, a three-tiered water fountain, the full package. Anu dabbed her eye on her dupatta as the audience clapped thunderously, the best-spent twenty-five paisa for a brief respite from the harshness of the world outside.

"Did you like it?" I asked Mikey as we stood outside squinting in the bright light.

He shrugged. "It was alright," he said as he gazed towards the bazaars.

And then it dawned on me. How could I have been so stupid? I'd made him watch a Punjabi film and he'd sat through it barely blinking and without a word of complaint. Feeling a little embarrassed, I tugged at Anu's sleeve.

"Can we take him to the bazaar?" I said nodding in their general direction.

"No. Not today. I have to see my friend. Then we go. Before Memsahib gets back."

Anu led us to a house on the corner of a side street. She banged on the wooden door. A wary eye appeared through a peephole. A woman in a burka hurried us inside. A roofless atrium spiralled in a series of wooden balconies up towards a blue, cloudless sky.

"This is cool," said Mikey.

A water fountain trickled under the shadowy light of an open courtyard.

"Cool? What is cool?"

"Neat, great. You know?"

"Yes, I know. It's cool. Cool!" My voice echoed like an American.

Anu's friend appeared on the top floor. Her name was Noor. She waved us up. Mikey and I trudged up the creaking staircase behind Anu, the two women unable to contain their excitement at seeing each other again. Anu apologised for not visiting sooner, mentioned something about a trip to their village and the birth of a boy.

We reached the top where the two embraced. Noor had a doll-like face. Her black-lined eyes were wide and welcoming, her cheeks powdered pink, and her _kurti_ was thin as tracing paper. It was difficult to know where to look.

She caressed my chin. "How are you, handsome, hah?" she said. "And who is this?"

"Umreecan," replied Anu.

Noor stroked Mikey's hair. "Hello Umreecan, how are you?"

Mikey backed away and they laughed.

Noor led us into a grand high-ceilinged room smelling of jasmine and cigarette smoke. An ancient four-poster bed took up most of the space. Sheer drapes fluttered against a shuttered window. There was a sink on the wall and an Afghan rug over the blackened floorboards.

The two women hopped on the bed and started babbling indecipherably in village Punjabi. When I turned around Mikey was gone.

"Yes, yes, don't worry, we'll wait downstairs," I assured Anu.

I found Mikey in the corridor. "What is it?" I whispered.

He grinned at me. He was peering through a keyhole into the room next door. I kneeled on the floor next to him. "Let me see."

There was an odd sound coming from the room. He pushed my head up against the door. The sound was getting louder. I could see a man. He looked as though he was shaking, and there was a woman with him and she was..."Oh!"

Mikey and I ran down the stairs laughing. We dropped into a couple of chairs by the water fountain. "You know what this place is?" he said.

A boy appeared, probably no older than me. He wanted to serve us tea. I thanked him and he bowed, and as he left, a sudden gust of wind swirled across the courtyard, rattling the huge front door.

"Hey, Alex, look."

The doorkeeper was fast asleep on the floor.

"Let's go."

I gently slid the metal bolt and we squeezed through the gap and into the bright sunlight. Mikey surveyed the building. Some girls were chattering like morning sparrows up on the balcony above. They were all dressed just like Noor. One of them caught me staring.

"How much you got, hah, boys?"

"Thirty dollars," shouted Mikey, thumbing a collection of crisp new notes at them.

"How much?" I said, holding open the leather fold of an expensive wallet. I panted at him like a hungry dog. What he had in his possession was a fortune's worth of Pakistani currency. I'd never seen so many of the distinctive purple fifty rupee notes gathered in one place. The possibilities were endless. I knew exactly what I would do with this amount of money.

"You want to buy a gun?" I said.

I singled out a passer-by, a pistol holstered at his waist.

"What? You mean a real one?"

"Yes, yes."

There was a little backstreet I knew where a gang of boys worked under a dim light sawing and hammering metal into exceptional imitations. To get there we had to make our way up the gentle rise of the street, past an upmarket section of the bazaar where smartly dressed purveyors with a smattering of English, sold things like fancy linen, precious pots and dazzling jewellery.

Mikey spotted a cardboard box packed with foreign books. I crouched down next to him. Turning over the vivid covers, the images seemed to consist mostly of men and women in a passionate embrace.

I chuckled as he held out one of the more explicit covers.

"What is America really like?" I said.

He scratched his head. "Snafoo."

"What?"

"SNAFU. Situation Normal, All Fucked Up."

I liked the sound of the words. "What is 'fucked up'?"

"The dream is, man, the dream."

The dream?

The shopkeeper made an appearance, concerned we were doing too much talking and not enough buying.

"One rupee for that one," he said.

Mikey tossed the book back.

The shopkeeper frowned. "Be careful with it, boy."

"Dream? You mean the Umree...the American dream, yes?"

I'd heard of this somewhere before. I wasn't quite sure where. Maybe Father had mentioned it, or perhaps he'd questioned it? But, I did remember this thing called 'the American dream', a vague notion that somewhere out there, far away, on some another continent, was a nation of people who were having a far better time than I was here in the Frontier. Mikey's comics certainly seemed confirmation of this.

"You're funny," he said.

Mikey's presence was attracting attention. "Where are you two going, hah?" said the shopkeeper. He glanced up and down the street, possibly wondering where our parents were.

"Mind your own business," I said. I grabbed Mikey's arm. "C'mon, we have to go."

We turned a corner and then another following a narrow path until the asphalt ran out. We'd arrived outside a dingy workshop. I relished the thought of showing the owner I meant business this time.

"Whoa!" said Mikey.

A boy in an oil-stained shirt worked a length of metal pipe, the beginnings of a gun barrel. Hanging on a wall behind the counter was exactly what we came for.

"There, that one. That's my daddy's gun."

"He has a gun?"

"Yeah, he was in Vitnaam."

Before I could quiz Mikey, the fat-bellied proprietor made an appearance. He was wearing a fine salwar kameez and looking very pleased with himself.

"Look what we have here," he said. "A couple of warriors, hah? Where are your mothers?"

"Very funny?" I said. "I have money."

"Sure, sure," said the gun seller, "maybe enough to buy a few bullets, hah?"

No one laughed. "Show him, Mikey."

Mikey patted down his pockets. "It's gone? My wallet's gone."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure."

Then it dawned on me. A couple of beggars had bumped into us on the way here. They must have run off with it.

The gun seller shooed us away like a couple of errant goats.

"Go on, get out of here!"

I backed Mikey out of the shop. "I'm sorry," I said.

He seemed more concerned about his wallet. "My Dad gave me that."

I led him back the way we came and as we turned a corner I realised something wasn't right. I knew it. We were being followed. Two men dressed like westerners, in trousers, well-cut shirts and dark sunglasses had stood out from the crowd at the bus terminus. They were far too well dressed to be hanging around the smoky station. Then after the movie, I saw them again, loitering outside. And here they were again?

I held Mikey back and stepped out of the shadow of the narrow lane. "Wait here," I said.

I strolled towards them. Two men, one tall and the other, distinctive, his face severely pockmarked. The tall one was leaning against a wall while the pockmarked one sat on a step smoking a cigarette. Pockmark saw me first. He looked me straight in the eye, tossed his cigarette and sprang to his feet.

"Run, Mikey, run!"

I darted back and twisting and turning through the streets I guided my friend towards Anu as quickly as I could.

"Through here!"

A fabric shop conveniently spanned two streets. We flew out the other end. The City was built on a vale. As long we ran downhill we would end up roughly where we needed to be. We ran straight down the gentle hill and into the path of an angry crowd.

"Why are we running?" said Mikey, catching his breath.

We were on the street that joined the City's jail to the courthouse. The sound of rattling chains could only mean one thing. Spectators spat and shouted at a line of chained prisoners trudging past us on their way to court. Policemen lashed out with cane sticks at anyone who dared to cross their line. Justice had to be shown to be working. What better way to do it than to present the guilty bloody and bruised on their way to be sentenced.

A gap opened up. I grabbed Mikey's arm. "Quick, through here."

We ducked under a policeman's arm and right into the path of a convict. He didn't even notice me. His hands were manacled to his feet, his clothes and the ground beneath him spattered in blood. The sight of him sent us rushing to the other side, and turning a corner we were back at Noor's place.

I banged on the door and we were let in. I was relieved to hear the heavy bolt slam shut.

Mikey looked confused.

"They were right behind us," I said.

Anu slapped me hard on my back. "Where have you been?!"

She wouldn't stop shouting all the way home. "Why did I bring you, hah? I told you to wait for me! Am I crazy, and what about the Umreecan. What if something happened to him? Do you know what they would do to me? I must be mad! Never, never again."

A rickshaw whisked us away, dropping us off a few streets from the Club main gates.

"How much?" said Anu to the driver.

"For Noor's friend, free of charge," he replied happily.

We walked back home in silence. Mikey said nothing and Anu wouldn't look at me and when we got home I found Mariel and Mother were back.

"Where you've been," said Mother.

Mikey and I stared at the floor. "Nowhere."

Angel eyed her brother suspiciously. "I was looking all over for you."

An argument broke out between the twins and Mariel swept them up and was gone. I guessed this would be last I'd see of Mikey, and as the evening crept up I started to worry that he would come clean about our trip, the consequences of which I dared not contemplate.

That evening, the unnerving stillness of our home was suddenly shattered by a ringing phone. It rang and rang, louder and louder. Mother was busying herself in the garden planting daisies.

"I'll get it," I shouted.

She beat me to it. It was Mariel, and after what felt like an eternity Mother finally put down the phone.

"What have you and Mikey been up to?" she said.

I felt my blood drain away. "Nothing," I said.

"Nothing? It didn't sound like 'nothing' to me. "

"Well, we..."

"Well, I don't know what you two were up to but according to Mariel, Mikey thinks you're great."

"What?" I muttered incredulously.

"Isn't that wonderful?"

I felt sick.

"Are you alright, Alex? You don't look very well."

### 8

There was going to be a competition! A sign at the Club's reception said so. Crudely typed leaflets announced an annual swimming gala with a bold promise of medals for winners and prizes for all. Word had got out amongst the diplomatic colony. The swimming pool was now alive and bubbling with healthy, fair-skinned children practising their strokes for the big day. Mother and Mariel were in their usual spot relaxing under the shade of a parasol. The twins were motoring up and down the pool's length, cutting through the gleaming water in powerful effortless strokes.

I slipped into the shallow water. The prospect of 'Prizes for All' had me heading towards the darkest corner of the pool. How difficult could this be?

I edged my way along the slippery ridge and arrived at the deep end with a peculiar notion of how the world must have learned to swim. A number above my head confirmed the depth - twelve feet! I took a deep intake of breath and reaching out threw myself across the dark, murky corner. I landed hard against the tiles. Okay, that wasn't too bad, and so I did it again, backwards and forwards between two slippery walls, widening my leap across the black chasm.

It wasn't long before my antics got noticed. Mikey swam up from under my feet. "Hello Mr Alex," he said as he broke the water's surface. His sister jumped in after him and before I could scuttle back to the shallows they grabbed me. Angel emptied the contents of her mouth into my face. Blinded, I felt their limbs tighten around me as I thrashed to free myself, and before I knew it, a two-headed octopus with an American accent had prised my whitening fingers off the wall and dragged me out into dark water. I was about to scream for Mother when their warm bodies faded away and abandoned to a cold abyss, frantically, I paddled back to the wall.

Mother's lily-white feet came into view.

"Do you think he'll be okay?" she said.

"Sure, he'll be fine," replied Mariel.

With my arm wedged in the overrun, I braced myself for another twin attack. Angel's watery shadow shifted beneath my legs. Distracted by her, Mikey pounced, and the two dragged me away again, further this time.

This went on all afternoon. The twins wouldn't leave me alone. A devious collaboration, one clapping the other for luring me back into the water for another near-drowning. I pleaded with them to stop. Angel mimicked my desperation spurring on a young audience now pointing at me and laughing at the spluttering joke I'd become. Like an animal sharing a watering hole with a predator, there was just no way of avoiding them. Angel seemed to thrive on my misery. It was the best fun she'd had in ages, she said.

Then Mariel told them off and Mikey and Angel promised not to do it again. I didn't believe them, not for a minute. It got to the point where I was seriously beginning to think the twins didn't like me. Perhaps that's why I allowed this game to go as far as it did - I really wanted them to like me.

As usual, I hadn't quite understood what was happening. I discovered there was a purpose to their silly game. My struggle and the gallon or so of chlorinated water I swallowed had not been in vain. In their unforgiving, confident way, the twins had taught me a lesson. By forcing me to fight my way out of trouble, a little more desperately each time, I'd become more proficient and a lot more confident in the water. I was now quite happily navigating the sides of the pool, my bravest attempt now extending to an unimaginable diagonal, at almost half the pool's entire width.

I called out to Mother and when I was certain she was watching I paddled out as far as I dared, made a nervous U-turn and frantically paddled back again.

"Well, done, Alex!" she cried. I beamed.

Angel clapped. "You swim like a baby," she said.

At that moment, a girl probably half my age dived over my head and landed in the water with barely a splash.

"You're doing it all wrong," said Mikey.

"Well...you show me then," I said angrily.

"Well...why didn't you say so?"

"I'm saying so!"

"Five bucks he can't make a length," said Angel.

"You're on."

"What did she say?"

Mikey said I was to stop paddling like a dog and learn to kick my legs like a frog, unless of course I wanted to race a dog, and I would still lose, he said because dogs knew how to kick all four of their legs and that was the damn point of it all.

"Where did you learn?" I asked him.

"My...Dad taught me," he said wistfully.

Would I ever be able to swim like him, I asked. No way, he said. But what he was going to do was show me the quickest way to learn.

Mikey and I joined the babies at the shallow end. He began with my legs, making me push them against the water as I gripped the side of the pool. I nodded in wonder at him. The force was propelling me forwards. This American boy was very clever. Then he grabbed hold of my legs and made me use my arms. This was the 'Breaststroke', he said, a swimming style that would be much easier for me. Then he held me up at my waist and I splashed madly, waving my arms and legs through the water.

"Just relax," he said, the key to being a good swimmer. The calmer I was, the better I would be. Then he let go of me and I sank. Then he propped me up by my chin and soon I got the hang of the breaststroke, my legs and arms showing vague signs of cooperation.

"You're fast learner," he said.

"You're a fast teacher," I puffed.

My transformation from a panicking dog to something closely resembling a holidaying frog was one of the most satisfying achievements of my young life. By the end of that week, my palms were wrinkled, my hair matted and my skin stunk of bleach. Bliss.

I called Angel over.

"Watch," I shouted.

It was time to win that bet. She watched as I swam purposefully across the width of the pool, thrusting past the babies bobbing around me in their silly orange armbands until I reached the other side. Gasping, I stuck my thumb up at Angel.

She started laughing. "I said a length, not a width!"

She pointed towards the deep.

Oh! I'd been an idiot.

"Okay, Alex, you can do this," said Mikey.

"I can't!" I said a little too loudly.

I was going to have to do it. Angel informed me that the rules of the swimming competition required all participants to complete not one but two lengths of the pool!

"I can't do it!"

"Stop being a wuss!" said Mikey.

I had no idea what a 'wuss' was but this feeling of fear was new to me. I don't what had come over me recently. In the past I would have happily jumped into the water and just got on with it, perhaps shouting "to hell with you all".

I rarely considered the consequences of my actions and I certainly wasn't accustomed to thinking twice about things. And now here I was, and all I saw ahead of me was an ocean of blue and the white wall far, far away.

So I decided to cheat. I tip-toed in the shallow end doing a good impression with my arms, and certain I'd fooled Angel, the floor suddenly ran out, now a cliff's edge, and as the bottom disappeared, I found myself in open water, opaque and worryingly cold. I lifted my legs and began kicking. I felt my heart pounding. An old lady in a frilly swimming cap, oblivious to my drama, drifted past me.

"I can't do it!" I shouted.

"Yes, you can!" Mikey shouted back, "think of something else."

The urge to paddle was too much. I jerked ahead nervously. Mother was up on her feet.

"Is he going to be okay?"

I was well past the halfway mark and now struggling to keep my head above water.

"He'll be fine," said Mariel.

Mikey shouted at me to maintain my stroke. Children playing at the deep-end looked on expectantly. I'd become a little side-show or perhaps an opportunity to witness a drowning.

Though I seemed to lack any real power at least I was moving, slowly and in the right direction. Think of something else? What did he mean? I was exhausted, more through fear I suspect than anything else. What else was there to think about?

"He's not going to make it," said Angel.

Mikey rushed over to the deep end. My arms were feeling numb. My legs felt like lead weights.

"Come on, Alex, come on. You can do it!"

The other children began jumping up and down. "Do it, do it!" they chanted.

Mikey kept shouting, the fair-haired children willing me on. My heart started pumping. The weight seemed to fall away. Of course I could do it. I wasn't a baby. What was I waiting for? I drove my arms and legs across those last few yards, fired on by the sound of those who believed I could, and though the last yard felt like a mile I'd made it.

I dragged myself out of the pool. Mikey greeted me with a warm towel. "Well done, man."

Dripping and happily exhausted, I smiled at the few who'd witnessed the minor spectacle, and by the time we were packing up our things, I was just another child enjoying a day in paradise. Mikey wished he didn't have to leave. Mariel promised him they would return, and Mother and I saw them off, the twins on the backseat of Chevrolay waving back in anticipation of us all being together again for another wonderful afternoon by the pool.

That was the summer I wished would never end.

It was surprising how in a few short months I'd forgotten my old life. When I first arrived at the Club I felt like an imposter. I confess I felt happier in the company of the bearers than lounging guilty with westerners by the pool. Now a more curious feeling snuck up on me. The world outside, beyond the striped grass and tall, iron railings, resembled a place far less desirable to me. Dare I say, the land I'd been born to and its people who I knew so well now appeared decidedly foreign to me.

Recalling my afternoon with Bhoo and Chawtoo, as we lay drunk on melon juice, I wanted to tell them something. I'd been looking for a way to let them know how much they meant to me. But none of that mattered anymore, now that I had Mikey.

### 9

Life was about to get even better - for Mother.

Mariel had invited us both to lunch. One afternoon, Mother and I hurried over to the Club's dining room where we found Mariel with the twins.

"Hey, grab a seat, " she said.

The Devanes regularly ate at the Club. If they weren't by the pool, they were being fussed over in this chandeliered room with its wood-panelled walls, red-carpet, and tall, arch windows overlooking the grass tennis courts.

"This is nice," I said perusing the typed menu.

The eating here was an unparalleled luxury crafted by a Pakistani chef rumoured to have trained in Paris. Father had treated us to breakfast the day we moved in. We couldn't afford it but Mother wanted to celebrate, my first taste of cornflakes, toast, marmalade and scrambled eggs.

"Steak for me," said Mikey, smacking his lips.

A bearer in a claret jacket hung on our every word.

"Very good choice. And for you, sir?"

"Me?"

"Yes, you," said Angel.

Mother's don't-embarrass-me eyes were in full glare. I grinned awkwardly at Mikey. The main courses were in some strange language. What was stake?

"Yes...I'll have stake also, please, just like him."

"Very good, sir."

Mariel selected something unpronounceable while Mother went for the salad and oddly, Angel just wanted a glass of water. When our drinks finally arrived Mariel picked up her fork and tapped her glass.

"Listen up kids," she said, "I've got some great news."

"Oh, do tell."

"Shut up, Angel," said Mikey.

"PATS have asked me to play the lead. Isn't that fantastic?"

"That's awesome, Mom," said Mikey.

She patted his hand. "They think I'll make the perfect Josephine."

"That's wonderful," said Mother.

"PATS," spat Angel.

"These people know what they're doing, darling," said Mariel.

PATS I discovered was the Peshawar Amateur Theatrical Society, a loose association of diplomats and their friends who enjoyed staging plays and musicals twice a year at the American school. Mariel was the latest recruit for their forthcoming production of Gilbert and Sullivan's HMS Pinafore.

"Amateurs," said Angel.

Mariel slammed her fist down. Heads turned sharply in the busy dining room.

"I'll have you know the ambassador is playing the Captain."

"She used to be an actress," whispered Mikey.

I knew it. There _was_ something about Mariel. She had star quality - glamourous and shameless in equal measure.

"Used to be," purred Angel.

Mariel had some good news for Mother.

"You're in too, Liz!" she said. "It's all arranged."

Mother looked confused.

"I know, I know, I should've mentioned it," said Mariel. "It was all so sudden."

The PATS had lost their pianist. They were desperate.

"But I don't think I can..."

Father would not be happy with the idea of his wife getting involved with these acting types. He had his doubts about Mariel. Where was this all going to end, he said, rather dramatically I thought.

What Mariel did next was to let Mother know that she was "under no pressure at all" and by the time I'd placed my knife and fork neatly together and our plates had been ushered away, Mother had come to her senses.

"I'll do it," she said, "I'll do it."

Mariel lit a celebratory cigarette, ordered a round of drinks, and a few days later, I found myself in another one of the Club's impressive rooms. Intrigued by the notion of meeting a troupe of actors, amateur or not, I followed Mother to the dance hall. The Club's administrator, an elusive man called Colonel Shokut, had offered Mariel the use of the space, an ideal venue for the PATS to hold their rehearsals. When we arrived, Mariel introduced Mother to a lady called Janice Hoffman. Janice was the PATS director which explained why she was ordering everyone about.

"Okay, okay, let's begin," she bellowed, clapping her hands like a teacher. The cast were already gathered on the stage in a circle. Janice pointed Mother to a grand piano at the side. She sat down, familiarising herself with the keys.

"Okay, Doris, we'll start with Little Buttercup," said Janice, clapping loudly.

A plump lady waddled to the front. Janice nodded at Mother.

"Ready when you are, Elizabeth!"

Mother adjusted her stool. Perfectly capable of reading music by sight, she launched into a simple, waltzing melody.

"Excellent, excellent," boomed Janice.

Accompanying Doris' warbling rendition of a quaint song that began 'I'm called lit-tle Buttercup, dear lit-tle Buttercup', Janice waved Mother to stop.

"No! No! No!" she yelled. "More conviction, Doris. I'm _poor_ little Buttercup!"

Doris looked like she was about to cry. Janice told her to sit down. Then Mariel walked to the front clasping her hands nervously.

Janice nodded at Mother again and she started playing, a gentle, rising melody. I turned to Mikey. He looked pensive, his mother and mine now consumed in an unexpected musical collaboration. Mariel had a beautiful voice which transcended the grey, old stage, and as she sang and Mother played, they faces were aglow, Mother deep in concentration, raising her head now and then to smile at Mariel who seemed consumed in the passion of the song. The two women radiated, transported to a far happier place, a place they must have known once before.

Janice broke the spell. "Wonderful, wonderful!"

"It's a love story," said Angel, sneaking up behind me.

"What?"

"Mariel's playing the Captain's daughter. She falls in love with a sailor but she can't marry him."

"Why not?"

"Because he's not good enough for her."

"Good enough?" I said rather loudly.

Just then a large boy bounded through the door and dropped heavily next to Mikey.

Angel rolled her eyes. "Bunny Hoffman."

Bunny was Janice's son. I could see the resemblance. They shared the same close-set eyes and red, wiry hair. He had one of those foreheads that cast a shadow.

"That's his dad, William," said Angel, nodding at a fair-haired man standing at Mother's side. He was turning the music for her which I noticed he was doing with considerable ease. He had his hand on her shoulder.

"What's he doing?" I said angrily.

Angel giggled. "He's playing Dick Deadeye."

"Well, he's an idiot!"

I hadn't realised Bunny was standing right behind me.

"What did you say?"

"Cool it, guys," said Mikey.

"Yeah, shut up, Bunny," said Angel.

A scuffle broke out. "Your boyfriend gonna do something about it?"

Janice had had enough.

"Children! If you can't be quiet, get out!"

Mikey and I headed out into the Club's grounds.

"Don't worry about him," he said, "he's just a big lunkhead."

Caught up in my thoughts we just kept walking until we arrived at a play area for little children. It had a slide and a couple of swings. We hopped on.

I was still angry.

"You know, you and I...we're the same," said Mikey trying to console me. He reached over and straightened my collar. "We're not like the others, you know what I mean."

"Others?" I said.

I was suddenly distracted by something in the distance or someone. The gates on this side of the grounds were never guarded. For some reason, they'd been left wide open.

"What I mean is, we don't fit in...right?"

I grabbed Mikey's cuff. "Get down."

He dropped down next to me.

"What is it?"

I pointed at the gate. "It's him."

"Yeah, very funny, Alex."

Mikey thought I was playing some kind of game. When I turned, the man was gone. I recognised him. It was _him_ , Pockmark, from that day at the City. I saw him briefly as he waved at a car parked across the road. I know I saw him. I would never forget Pockmark.

"It was him, I tell you," I said.

"Who cares. Anyway, we've got the swimming competition to think about." He ran back towards the Clubhouse.

I glanced back at the road. "Honest to God, he was right there..."

### 10

An unseasonably cold breeze carved little seahorses on the water's murky surface. The afternoon of the swimming competition had finally arrived. The Club's bearers were gliding backwards and forwards along the poolside now overrun with excited little children. Their anxious chitter-chatter was making me nervous.

"What are you looking at?" said Angel.

She'd just got out of the pool wearing a silvery swimsuit I'd not seen before. Her hair lay dull and limp over one shoulder. She looked like a mermaid. For some odd reason, my heart was beating faster.

"Nothing," I said rather too quickly.

"Yes, you were."

"Wasn't."

Mariel was flicking aimlessly through a magazine.

"Be nice, Angel."

Janice had joined her. She was fussing over Bunny, smearing his face with thick, white cream.

"Stop it, Mom."

"Behave Bunnykins. You know what your skin's like." She turned to Mariel. "He's very sensitive."

"Yeah, sure," replied Mariel.

A gap had opened up in the clouds. Shining rays of hope transformed the grey water into a dazzling strip of blue, lifting our spirits just in time for the competition.

And then out of thin air, Colonel Shokut, the Club's administrator appeared. He wasted no time greeting us through a small megaphone pressed up against his mouth. He delivered a short, obsequious tell-all-your-friends speech and declared the swimming gala open. There was a round of applause and then he ordered the competitors (that was us) to gather around so he could make sure we understood the rules.

This was my chance to get a better look at him. It just so happened I was the only child living permanently in the Club and so whenever a window got broken or something went missing, Mother was always the first to hear about it. Mother didn't like him. He made her shiver. There was something of the night about him, she said.

Colonel Shokut was a tall, dark man distinguished by a jagged white line that tore through the middle of his crow-black hair. Deep black circles accentuated his penetrating eyes.

"Put your hand up," said Mikey.

I hadn't been paying attention.

"Why?"

"He's dividing us up," said Angel.

Bunny elbowed me. "Shoulda listened, stupid."

Bunny certainly looked stupid in his bathing suit. It had straps that went over his shoulder and was far too tight for him. He was also wearing a yellow swimming cap giving him the appearance of an overweight genie.

All those competitors aged ten and under were told to line up at the shallow end, a group Angel referred to as the 'Shrimps'.

I edged away from them.

"How old are you," said Bunny eyeing me suspiciously.

Angel and Mikey were almost twelve I discovered. Bunny was twelve going on thirteen.

"Eleven," I replied without flinching - which of course wasn't true.

A piercing whistle got the first row of Shrimps swimming furiously towards the deep end. The water boiled with the energy of their purposeful little bodies, the adults who'd brought them here now as possessed as they were, willing their little ones on. The competition began to make sense. The first three children to finish their race were hurried onto a podium, congratulated and cheered. Children posed for photographs as the others raced for their prizes. What I gleaned from Mikey was that we had to choose from one of three swimming styles: Front-crawl, Breaststroke, and something called Freestyle which Angel said I would be best at as I didn't possess any style. Where had these children learned to swim like this, and at such a young age? It was interesting to see them muddle through, some gasping and bedraggled, while others were so obviously desperate to win. It wasn't long before we were down to the remaining few contests and as the excitement waned, hot food came rushing out of the kitchen.

Shokut sweated as he tried to make sense of our 'grown-up' group. There were just six of us left to race. Mikey, Angel and two blonde boys from Australia chose to race first. That just left me and Bunny who was now staring at me with his just-you-and-me eyes. The Australians with their pink swim caps and alien eye-protection never stood a chance against the twins. Their race was over in what felt like seconds. The shrill of Shokut's whistle echoed against the walls sending Mikey and his sister ripping through the water. Bunny and I looked on in awe as they flew through the first length, then rolled off the wall with acrobatic efficiency and passed the Australians on their way back to the finishing line. Angel was certainly the better swimmer, barely ruffling the water's surface in a perfect rhythm of clean, calculated strokes. Mikey was more aggressive, working much harder it seemed.

"C'mon, Mikey, c'mon!"

With Mikey on Angel's shoulder, Mariel was up on her feet shaking her fist in a show of Devane can-do spirit. His mother's cry of expectation seemed to spur him on. They approached the finish neck and neck, and it was on the very last stroke that Mikey reached out and caught the wall right in front of Colonel Shokut. He slapped the water and punched the air. The strong American boy had won. Mariel blew him a kiss for everyone to see. He hopped up on the podium to a round of applause. One of the Australian boys stood quietly on the lowest step while Mikey flashed the shiny, gold medal around his neck. There was an awkward space where Angel should have been. I saw her toss her consolation prize at her mother and tell her 'she knew what she could do with it'?

That just left Bunny and me, and by the time the two of us lined up for our race, most of the guests had either left the poolside or were packing up to go. Bunny had elected to start with a run-up and was stretching his limbs with a towel over his shoulder which gave him an air of entitlement. He looked like he knew what he was doing. I clung to the wall's edge, treading water, my heart now pounding in anticipation of the whistle. Mikey was on his knee offering me a few last words of advice, insisting I could easily beat Bunny. I'd felt like this once before, during a school sports day when I had to ready myself for a race between two chalked lines - it was the bit in the middle I struggled with.

"C'mon Bunnykins, you can do it," shouted Janice.

Shokut blew his whistle and I kicked off the wall, forcing my arms out like an arrow just like Mikey had shown me. Bunny landed with a huge belly flop in front of me. Buffeted by the waves, I was expecting to see him fly through the water. It turned out he could barely swim. Whatever swimming style he possessed was not so much free as ponderous. Overtaking him, I couldn't help thinking how much he resembled a bleached log lolling in a slow river current. I was suddenly overwhelmed by a sudden sense of urgency. It dawned on me - there were just two of us in this race - one of us could barely swim, and the other was just a little better. The idea of winning a medal sent me gasping into the first length, my movement shorter, jerkier and of course purposeful. Janice started shouting which must have propelled Bunny forward. He was either speeding up or I was tiring. It was hard to tell. Surprisingly we arrived at the shallow end together when Janice went berserk. She screamed at him to get a move on. Someone started mimicking her voice. It may have been Angel.

"Go Bunnykins, go!"

I turned and kicked off the wall heading back to the deep end. Mikey shouted at me to keep my head down when I heard a howl of laughter. Bunny had simply stood up, waded through the shallow water and launched himself ahead of me. We arrived at the deepest section of the pool together, both exhausted. His pale arms were barely breaking the water's surface. Janice was waiting for him at the finishing line, pleading with him to get a move on. My legs were spent. In the build-up to the competition, I'd made sure to practise two whole lengths but now it felt as though I was going to sink without a trace. I'd worn myself out but I was almost there. The idea of winning had to be enough. I edged past Bunny. A few more strokes and I'd be there. But what I hadn't counted on was Janice's capacity to inspire her son. As we approached the finish together, Bunny grabbed hold of my waistband, dragging me backwards. The opposing force miraculously sent him lurching ahead, his flailing arm, clubbing me as he went past. Janice's squeal of delight confirmed everything. I limped in to see Bunny do a little jig up the podium. He'd won.

Now I knew how Angel felt. I wandered over to our corner and sat with a towel over my head, a bruise welling up over my eye. Mikey and Bunny were congratulating each other, admiring their medals while Janice and Mariel were busy snapping pictures. The consolation prize I discovered was a tin of talcum powder wrapped in an alluring gift box.

A solitary cloud appeared out of nowhere, blotting out the sun's rays.

"I saw what happened," said Angel. She sat down next to me. "He's such an oaf."

I shrugged. A well-chosen Punjabi swearword or two directed at the boy and his mother would have sufficed. This was different, complicated.

I felt the warmth of Angel's skin against mine.

"Here, take it," she whispered, closing my hand around a warm metal coin.

"Where did you get it?"

"You deserve it," she whispered.

And with that, she dived back into the water as though nothing had happened.

That evening I lay on my bed, running my thumb over the smooth metal edge, trying to make sense of the day's events. It seemed wrong to have the medal in my hands and yet curiously I began to feel an unexpected sense of wellbeing. Exhausted from the day's excitement, I reached under my bed and slid out the wooden crate.

This was a memory I wanted to treasure.

### 11

Mariel thought it would be a good idea for everyone to get to know each other - her and John, William and Janice, Mother and Father. Tonight was Tombola night right here in the Club, an event for westerners and well-to-do Pakistanis to dance and drink with the thrill of chance prizes as a wooden barrel of raffle tickets tumbled well into the early hours.

William and Janice needed no excuse for a night out. John would have to be dragged kicking, said Mariel. Father, of course, had no time for such frivolity so it came as a big surprise to Mother when he said 'yes', though he made it very clear he had absolutely no interest in dancing or gambling away his money on fancy raffle tickets. Father was more interested in meeting John, he said. After all, it was people like him who were truly helping make Pakistan a better country. John was an engineer, recruited to work on the construction of Tarbela Dam, a gigantic endeavour to harness the power of the Indus River and convert it into electricity, the answer to the region's infuriating power cuts.

Of course, all of this meant I had company – Angel, Mikey, and Bunny too to my disappointment. Mariel had made him apologise to me and grudgingly he'd muttered 'sorry' insisting it was all an accident. I was never one to bear a grudge and so we left it at that although he wouldn't shake my hand.

Angel and I sat squat on the rug occupied in a game of cards. Bunny had made himself quite comfortable on our sofa.

"I need liquor!" he kept shouting. Angel had had enough.

"Shut up, Bunny!"

Mikey was slouched over Father's chair thumbing through a notebook I thought I'd thrown away, the one with 'My Stories' ambitiously scrawled on the front.

"Hey, this ain't bad," he said.

I tried to hide my embarrassment. It was a simple story about a boy who steals a jet plane and flies around the world. I'd been thinking of showing it to Mrs Habib but had lost my nerve. "Maybe you'll write about us one day?"

"Aw, how sweet," said Angel.

Bunny leapt off the sofa. "Lemme see, lemme see!"

As he did so, the ceiling light started flickering. There was a pop and then the familiar clank of the Club's fuse box.

"Oh no, not again," said Mikey.

Bunny stumbled into the coffee table. "Ow, ow!"

We'd been thrown into darkness. As my eyes adjusted, I could make out the fortress shape of the Clubhouse looming in the moonlight. Ghostly candles floated purposefully along its corridors.

Bunny fumbled his way back to the sofa. "This country's rubbish, man," he muttered.

I rummaged about looking for a small torch that had served us well over the years. Mikey was standing next to me.

"What was that?" he whispered ominously.

I froze.

"You messing around?" said Bunny. He let out a nervous laugh.

"There it is again?" said Mikey.

I heard it this time, a scratching sound as though something was trying to get in through the front.

"What the hell?" said Bunny.

It got louder. Something was trying to get in.

"Christ, Bunny, go check it out, man."

"Why me?"

"You heard it first...you scared, huh?"

Bunny's hefty outline moved cautiously to the front. Mikey and I crept out the back and ran around to the front where we found Angel grinning wickedly at us. Mikey grabbed the torch out of my hand and signalling his sister, pressed the light up under his chin.

I could barely contain myself, his face now lit up like a nightmarish monster. Angel drew her sharp nails against the woodwork.

"Who is it?" said Bunny timidly.

I bit down on my knuckle as Mikey started howling. "Guys, if that's you, I'm goin' to..." Bunny's squinting eyes appeared behind a creaking door.

"Boo!" The twins rushed him.

"Very funny, very funny."

And like moths drawn to a distant light, we found ourselves travelling along a worn path. The faint beat of western music was just audible above the sound of crickets maddening the still, humid night. I led the boys to a grass ridge where we had a bird's eye view of the pool and its surroundings. The moon's twin rippled in its water. A generator was whirring somewhere nearby. There was the vague whiff of fuel in the air. Framed against the dark, a band played while couples embraced in a slow dance. Spying on the adults like this was intriguing. I could see Mother and Father alone seated at a table.

"Hey, there's my Mom," said Bunny.

"What the hell? She's dancing with your Dad."

Mikey punched him. "I told you, man, John's not my dad...hey, what the heck, my Mom's dancing with your Dad?"

Mariel was instantly recognisable. She had her arms around William Hoffman. But before there was time to reconcile this confused coupling, I spotted a bright light bobbing towards us.

"Who is it?"

"Get down."

I peeked over the mound. The light was getting brighter, angrier, its bearer the unmistakable silhouette of Colonel Shokut. I couldn't be caught here, certainly not by him.

"Run!"

Mikey was off his knees in a flash. I ran after him, not towards the bungalow like we should have done, but deeper towards a region of the grounds I'd never explored before.

Bunny stumbled in behind us.

"Who was that?" he said catching his breath.

"Shokut," I said.

Mikey flicked on the torch. We had our backs against the wall of what looked like an abandoned outhouse covered in ivy. A tree loomed threateningly above us, glowing in the halo of torchlight.

"You don't wanna get caught with him man," said Bunny.

Leaves shivered in a warm breeze. He was right. There was something very sinister about the man.

"He's a frickin' vampire, that's what he is."

"Jeez," said Mikey.

"What's a 'frickin' vampire'?" I said.

Bunny swiped the torch from Mikey. He pointed it into my face. "Shit man, you never heard of vampires. You really know nothing. Shokut's a blood-sucking bat. He's gonna swoop down and stick you with his fangs."

I couldn't stop myself from laughing.

Bunny forced me against the crumbling brick. "It ain't funny, man. Shokut's coming for you. He's gonna hole you with those daggers and suck every last drop 'til you're just a husk for the wind."

"Get off you idiot."

Mikey jumped. "What was that?"

"I'm not falling for that again," said Bunny releasing his grip on me.

"Gimme the torch."

Mikey had found a small barred window at the base of the wall, a portal into what looked like a basement. He sent the light deeper. Water dripped onto rusting iron. "What the hell is that?" he said. He winked at me.

"Oh my God," I said, as dramatically as I could.

Bunny's eyes widened as he peered over Mikey's shoulder. "What is it?" he whispered.

Then suddenly something slammed against the glass. Mikey was thrown backwards. The light spun away and he scrambled to his feet. Bunny crashed through the bushes like a hunted animal. I ran after Mikey, unable to keep up with him. Chancing my luck in the dark, I darted through the trees, the shadow of a hideous monster rising behind me, ready to pounce and drive its fangs into my neck. And then, as if by magic, with a loud clank the Club's buildings and grounds snapped back to life. The power was back. The path leading to the bungalow was lit up again, moths spiralled madly, the plants and bushes glowed luminously. Looming monsters were now just trees relegated to the shadows.

Mikey had found Bunny. I breathed a sigh of relief. Bunny was curled up at the base of a tree, groaning. He'd run straight into it. We heaved him up and carried him back to the bungalow.

Mikey hammered on the door. "It's us, open up!"

"How do I know it's you?" replied Angel.

"Open the damn door."

The living room was lit with candles. Angel had made the place look very cosy. We dumped Bunny on the sofa and she brought him a glass of water.

"What the heck was that...thing?" he said gasping. There was a nasty graze on his forehead.

"You idiot," said Mikey, "I dropped the torch thanks to you. You'll have to go back for it."

"No way," said Bunny. "There's no way I'm going back there."

I had to agree with the big lunkhead.

### 12

There were times in life when one needed the intervention of a greater force, a force above all forces, an almighty power, one capable of so much more, more than simply moving mountains, shaping planets, creating stars and galaxies or even conjuring up an entire universe. Conveniently that summer, in my own very special way, I discovered just the thing.

An iron cross shot up to the cloudless sky. Beyond a padlocked gate, just a catapult's reach away was a gothic, buttressed building we knew as St John's church. Set back from the main road, this yellow stone monolith went unnoticed most days. But on Sunday mornings, as I lay on my bed I would hear the bells of St John's ring out, silencing the wood pigeons.

Sunday saw a transformation for it was the day when the Christian _Dhobiwalas_ changed out of their humble work clothes and metamorphosed into their colourful best. Every so often I would catch a glimpse of them, gathering outside in the church grounds, the men dressed in smart, pastel suits, the women in blouses and flowery western skirts. You see, Chawtoo believed in a God, he was a devout Christian, and that was how I found my way into _his_ church. His church - that's what he called it.

Once the property of the British Raj, St John's was now theirs, a place for them to worship a God they'd adopted from their past masters. From behind the cool bars of the padlocked gate, I saw them disappear under a huge tower, with its four witch's hats, only to reappear an hour or so later when the bells came alive again and the _Dhobiwalas_ spilled out into the sunlight wearing the widest of smiles, chattering and laughing as they ambled back to their mud home by the river.

Except on one particular Sunday, the bells sounded very different. A single, doomful note rang out. I jumped out of bed, threw on my clothes and ran to the gate. To my surprise, I found Chawtoo sitting under the shade of a tree by the gravestones.

"You, okay?" I said. His face was gaunt with sadness in his eyes.

His sister had died, he said.

What? I'd never seen him like this before.

I climbed over the gate and followed him, into St John's, through the towering archway and past the huge wooden doors when I suddenly felt small and insignificant staring up at the high vaulted ceiling. White-washed walls were streaked in sweat, long wooden pews worn and greasy. I joined Chawtoo and his family at the front and looking over my shoulder, more sad faces. The entire congregation was dressed in black and at the front was a disappointed looking man nailed to a cross. Shards of coloured light stained his alabaster skin. And beneath his bloody feet was a small white box. Inside it was a little girl, lying with her hands crossed as if she was asleep. I shivered. The feeling of anxiety started welling up inside me again. I felt my chest tightening. What was I doing here?

The doors slammed with a resounding thud. A familiar face was now peering over the pulpit at me. Dressed in black, his eyes narrowing, Reverend Devlin. I knew shouldn't have come. I cursed my curiosity. He now looked very tall, stood on the highest step looking down at me. Tall and angular, his white collar the wrong way round. We knew each other. Yes, I put a hole through his precious window, an accident. He complained to Mother.

Reverend Devlin turned and, gazing across at the little girl in the white box, closed his heavy book and began to tell us a story. The poor little girl was Chawtoo's sister. She'd drowned in the river nearby. She was only four years old. Reverend Devlin spoke about the sadness of losing a child so young. But she was in a much better place now, he said, somewhere beyond the mountains, beyond the sky, a place where she would be much happier. He was trying to make sense of the nature of things. The cold, powerful, river that Chawtoo and his family relied on for their livelihood had proven to be a deadly enemy.

"The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away," declared the reverend.

His words must have been reassuring as Chawtoo and his family were now smiling, perhaps a testament to their faith in a power to make things right again. Surely that had to be a good thing? The way I saw it, facing death was an everyday fact of life: a stray dog shot in the night; a gunfight in the City, streaks of blood marking the spot; a metal twisting accident on the highway; a worn-out buffalo whipped to death; a drowned girl asleep in a box. My mind began to wander. Maybe my brother was somewhere up there beyond the sky? It was difficult to comprehend. Maybe I would see him again one day and then I could really get to know him. That feeling began welling up inside me again. My heart started pounding as if it was about to burst. Then Chawtoo and his family got up from their seats and one by one approached the little girl and kissed her forehead. The silence was unbearable. Seated on the long pew all on my own, there was a clash of wings in the rafters above. Contained and constrained in the presence of death, I was suddenly driven to a wild, childish impulse. In a fit of utter madness, I hooked my fingers in my mouth and pulled at my cheeks, stretching them to an improbable width. Then and unforgivably, I stuck out my tongue and let out a terrible sound. The Reverend swung around. I grimaced shamefully as he glared at me over his glasses. Blue eyes unmasked some kind of English anger. Who was this bedevilled boy in the stained T-shirt? For though I didn't know the reverend, it turned out he knew me, better than I knew myself, it would transpire. With the precision of a flaming arrow, he fired these words at me.

"To know where you are going," he cawed, "you must first know where you come from."

If he was spitting man I'm sure he would have spat on my grave. Punjabi sounds of approval rumbled off the walls. Finally, the doors opened and the light flooded in and I found myself caught behind the little girl in the white box now balanced over her father's shoulder as we slowly made our way out.

I pushed my way past, relieved to be free under the life-giving sun again. I ran as fast as I could, vowing never to venture into that place ever again. And later that evening I found myself obsessing over those mysterious words. I pulled out my notebook and began writing them down, pushing hard on my fountain pen nib, joining up the letters as neatly as I could. What was it again?

'To know where you are going...you must first know where you come from'?

Hmm. I pondered these words. They sounded clever. But what did they mean? Did the angry reverend want these words to hurt me?

Hah! I tossed my book away. Stick and stones.

### 13

Mother decided to make a cake. She hadn't done that in a long time. It was a circular affair consisting of two sponge layers which she glued together with lemon curd and covered in white icing. It looked delicious. I wasn't allowed anywhere near it. My consolation was a thorough lick of the bowl as Mother's baking was destined for a more worthy cause - a nice sweet thank you to those people from the PATS - for making her happy again.

The cast of HMS Pinafore was making good progress particularly Doris who'd finally found her voice. They devoured Mother's cake. The icing dripped in the heat, not than anyone complained. They clapped Mother, thrilled and relieved as they were to have found such a talented pianist and just in time too – the story of the previous incumbent was not for my ears.

One afternoon I found Angel spying in on them.

"Hey, you wanna meet someone?" she said.

I followed her out of the Clubhouse into the bright light. She looked pretty today. She was wearing a white dress with lacy sleeves, her hair now curling and bleached at the ends. We walked along a curving path shaded by the trees. I wasn't sure where we were going but it didn't matter. Here I was walking with an American girl and no one seemed to mind. Angel seemed completely at ease to have me by her side. It was hard to believe. The thought of it made me gulp. In the awkward silence, I suddenly felt I had to say something.

There _was_ a girl I knew once. Her name was Roxana. She lived in the pink house at the end of the street in my old neighbourhood, the one with the mulberry tree outside. One summer, while playing with the boys in the street, I'd see her under the tree sitting with a book on her lap. She was a Pakhtun. She kept her hair in a braid which fell endearingly over her shoulder and she wore earrings which made her look older. Every so often she would look up and I'd smile at her and she'd quickly look away. I tried to make her notice me and over the days to come, her eyes lingered on mine just a little longer and then she smiled. Boys and girls beyond a certain age were not allowed to play together. So there was no point in dreaming. Then one day I called in on her brother to come out and play. He said he couldn't, it was Roxana's birthday, and then to my surprise, his mother came to the door and said I could join them. Roxana and her family were in the garden, eating sweetmeats, sipping tea and listening to music. Then her father sang a Pakhtun song and everyone clapped. And the strangest of things, my turning up at the door as I did was good luck said her mother, and they made me sit next to Roxana and everyone seemed happy that I was there to celebrate her special day, and though we didn't say a word to each other, she kept smiling at me. Over the days that followed, Roxanna continued to sit under the mulberry tree while I played, and every now and then she'd look up from her book and wave at me and I would wave back knowing that her brother didn't mind one bit, not at all.

That was then. This was now and I think Angel really liked me. I couldn't be sure though. I was contemplating saying something when she started humming. I didn't know where to look. We passed some ants bridging the path on their way up a tree. I needed to say something important. A blackbird winked at me as it went about roughing up the undergrowth. Something to impress her. A black gecko skittered under the dead leaves and then a wild parrot squawked as it flew past. My eye was drawn to the pleasing symmetry of the leaves, and up to the sky, blue...blue, more blue. Yes, I knew what I wanted to say. I just had to make sure the words were straight in my head I cleared my throat. This was my chance to show Angel just how smart I was. I coughed, clearing my throat again.

"Are you okay?" she said. "You don't sound well."

I stopped her in her tracks and smiling anxiously I blurted out the cleverest thing I could think of.

"To know where you are going, you must first know where you come from," I said nodding wisely.

She punched me in the ribs.

"Ow."

"You're funny," she said.

Funny? I wasn't trying to be funny?

"Where are we?" I said.

We'd arrived at someone's house.

"I told you. Miss Bavington's."

The walls and windows of the building were veiled in a purple flowering vine cascading over a covered porch. A wild, picket-fenced garden was bursting with colour. Bumblebees buzzed unnervingly in a lavender bush.

Angel let a rickety gate clatter behind us setting off a dog somewhere inside. A mosquito door flew open and a sharp-eyed creature came bounding out, closely pursued by a man in a wheelchair.

I recoiled. "Don't worry 'bout him. Bark's much worse than his bite," said the silver-haired man.

Angel greeted the dog like a long lost friend.

"His name's Tiger," she said with her arm around its neck. The dog had reddish-brown fur with black stripes. His tail swung wildly.

The man's name was Daniel but his friends called him Danny. Danny worked behind the Club's reception desk, smartly dressed in a half-sleeved shirt, tie and rolled up khaki trousers pinned to his stumps. There was a rumour he'd lost his legs in a battle on the Afghan hills. Mother said he was a proper Englishman though he had a strange accent which sounded lyrically comical in the way Punjabi could be compared to Urdu.

I backed away from the dog. His drooling mouth was packed full of sharp, pointy teeth. Dogs were not creatures to be petted or played with, not in this part of the world. They guarded houses, warded off beggars, and protected children from kidnappers, and they certainly didn't have names. Although, I could see how this creature had endeared itself to Angel.

"Come on you silly mutt. It's time for lunch."

We followed Danny inside. The dog skidded excitedly along a polished floor into the kitchen.

"Eats better than I do."

A wet nose followed a silver tray heaped with scraps. Danny closed the door on the hungry creature. The place became eerily quiet, his wheels squeaking as we followed him along a corridor lined with impressive, colourful paintings.

"Me legs need oiling," he said, chuckling to himself. Angel giggled.

Then Danny did something very strange. He stopped, turned and saluted a painting of a soldier on a horse.

"Major-General Norman Bavington, Commander of the 1st Peshawar Division 1904," said Angel reading out the inscription impressively.

"Sir Norman," said Danny, "King's finest."

Hmm. I'd seen the 'Bavington' name before, in the Club's smoking room. Rows of framed photographs showed military men on _shikar_ with one very memorable one capturing Sir Norman with a gun in his hand smiling next to a pile of dead tigers.

"She's pretty?" said Angel, turning her head admiringly to an elegant woman under a parasol.

"Terrible shame," said Danny shaking his head. "Died of malaria. Gawd rest her soul."

Angel grimaced.

Malaria? I'd heard about malaria. It had something to do with those cursed mosquitos who couldn't wait to suck my blood at night.

We came to the end of the corridor where Danny knocked on the door and opened it cautiously.

"Visitors for you, Lilly, you decent?" he said smiling apologetically.

We followed him in as he wheeled across to the window and threw back the curtains with impressive dexterity. The sepia light revealed an old lady sitting upright in bed. Miss Bavington I presumed. The place stank of mothballs.

"She's had one of her turns," said Danny, adjusting her bedcovers. He raised his voice. "The girl's here to read to you, dear."

Miss Bavington didn't respond. She had curly blonde hair and peculiarly she was wearing dark sunglasses so it was hard to tell if she was awake or not. Danny handed Angel a book from a cabinet by the bed. Then he simply reversed out of the room and closed the door behind him. The sound of his wheels faded down the corridor.

Angel didn't seem concerned. She seemed to have something else on her mind. She dropped the book lazily onto the bed, drawn to the dressing table by the window. I looked quizzically at her.

"She lets me," she said and she sat down in front of the mirror and went straight for Miss Bavington's jewellery box. She lifted the lid and drew out a necklace.

"If I read to her I get to put them on." Her reflection stared back at me. "You can put them on me if you like."

I fumbled with an infuriating catch and eventually secured the glossy white beads around her neck, her sweet smell relief from the room's nasty odour.

"How do I look?"

I shrugged. Miss Bavington was stirring.

"Water," she groaned.

Angel slammed the jewellery box shut and ran over to the sink by the bed.

"Here you are, Miss Bavington," she said holding a glass to her lips.

"Oh, that's better...thank you, dear," she gasped and pulling herself up, she leaned across to retrieve a pair of spectacles.

"This is Alex, Miss Bavington." Angel faked a smile.

Miss Bavington's bony arm reached out to me. "Come closer," she said. Her eyes were grey and lifeless.

I edged as close as I dared to see a very old face covered in white powder. There were deep creases in her skin and she was wearing bright red lipstick which had missed its mark. Yuk.

"What are your intentions, young man?"

She gave Angel a wicked smile.

Angel giggled. "Oh, Miss Bavington, you're so fresh,"

The book had found its way into her hands again. Miss Bavington curled her lip. "Put it away, dear, I don't feel like it today?"

Angel had another idea. "Alex can play cards with you if you like. He's good."

What?

The old lady promptly ordered me to sit by her side.

"She plays for candy," whispered Angel, alerting me to a bowl brimming with wrapped sweets.

A deck of cards appeared from nowhere. Angel returned to the dresser, content with amusing herself with the contents of the jewellery box while the creaking adult took charge of proceedings, her liver-spotted hands fumbling with the cards in a slow one-for-you-one-for-me.

The game plodded along. Miss Bavington grinned wryly as she guarded her cards.

"There you have it," she said turning over another winning hand.

"Well done, Miss Bavington," said Angel.

I'd underestimated the old lady. As the game wore on, she became more dexterous, guardedly shuffling, arrogantly dealing, passing and discarding. Her eyes gave nothing away and in the drudgery of it all, I was suddenly overcome with a sense of foreboding. I started to imagine being locked up in this mouldy space, trapped with this old woman forever, never to feel the sun on my skin again. The tick-tock of an invisible clock seemed to be getting louder. Maybe I was to be imprisoned in this room, ensnared in a perpetual game of chance and vigilance, my mind so weakened and addled that I would lose all desire to escape this place.

Miss Bavington dealt another slow deal. I turned over my hand and fanned my cards close to my chest to reveal the damning evidence. So that was how our host's luck was holding out so exceptionally. She was cheating.

I glanced over at the bowl of sweets.

"What are you waiting for, boy?"

I stared into her eyes. Frailty had not hindered this devious mind. Miss Bavington must have had another pack of cards concealed under her bedcovers.

"You're cheating," I said.

Angel turned around in surprise.

"She's cheating." I held up the evidence.

"How dare you, boy?"

Miss Bavington's bony hand shot out from under her covers. She grabbed my wrist, squeezing the offending cards out of my hand.

"Let go!"

Her sharp nails were digging into my skin. Angel rushed to my side. I pulled myself free.

"It's okay, Miss Bavington, just calm down."

The old lady tore into her.

"Calm down? Calm down? Who do you think you are?"

Then something caught her eye. "You're wearing my necklace." She started coughing. "You...you little vixen...put it back."

Angel rushed back to the dresser and slammed the jewellery box shut. Miss Bavington became incomprehensible and then let out a gasp and slumped against the bedrest.

Danny must have heard the commotion. He crashed into the room.

"I'm so sorry," he said, "she seems to be getting worse."

Angel told him it was fine, and that she was happy to come back and read to Miss Bavington again sometime. We rushed out of the house and when we were out of sight we dropped to the ground laughing.

Angel didn't seem disappointed at all.

"That went well," she said.

To my amazement, she leaned over and pecked me on my cheek. Then she hopped up and skipped away leaving me behind, a muddled rabbit nursing his sore paw. She disappeared behind a tree and was gone.

That evening I told Mother everything - well almost. It turned out she knew a lot more about the old lady than I realised. Miss Bavington was over ninety years old, she said. She was born right here in the Garrison Club, an English woman who'd never been to England. It took me a while to figure that out. The world had moved on around her, closing in on her, shrinking until all she had was the comfort of that bed of hers, here in this gated island, the only home she'd ever known.

I told Mother about Angel and she was pleasantly surprised to learn what a nice girl she was for keeping the old lady company. However, I didn't say anything about the kiss. Perhaps I was too embarrassed to say or maybe a retelling of the sweet moment would sully the memory. It was my secret. Either way, things seemed to be getting better, a lot better, for me.

### 14

The haunting call of the muezzin carried far across the City, reaching out to us up here in the Cantonment. It was the day of prayer when the male population stopped what they were doing and made their way to City's main mosque. It was just another Friday as far as I was concerned. It marked the point in the week when the streets emptied and the boys I knew were locked indoors reciting verses of the Quran with their mothers. Even the noisy sparrows went quiet on prayer day.

Mother had decided to have a rest before her big night, and as she slept, I wandered the grounds contemplating the evening ahead. Butterflies danced inside my stomach. Chevrolay would be on its way soon. A stage had been set for a sold-out performance of the PATS production of HMS Pinafore, the story of a ship captain's daughter and her love of a lowly sailor. That summer our lives revolved around the Club and its life-affirming pool of water. Since arriving at the Club, we'd become blissfully oblivious to the other story unfolding, beyond the gardens and gates of our happy little oasis. That evening a group of young men spilled out of the mosque, their hearts filled with hatred. It would turn out to be a night of throwing stones and burning flags and by the time these men had made their way up to the Cantonment, smashed some windows and torn down the sign to Dean's Hotel, a rumour had spread that a white woman happened to live just around the corner in the old British Garrison Club, just the opportunity these men were looking for to show they really meant business.

Whoever they were, the sound of their fists on our door was so loud I thought my heart would be torn off its hinges. They were shouting for the white woman to come out. What we didn't know was the man who guarded the Club's main gate lay beaten and bloodied in the street. Mother and I hid under a bed as the angry men demanded she faced them outside. Then they smashed a window and after a lot more shouting things went quiet.

"Have they gone," whispered Mother.

We heard the sound of the kitchen door creak open. Someone was inside. Mother held on to me but I pulled myself free and crept out from under the bed and into the living room. I recognised the shadow. To my relief, I found Father rummaging about in a drawer.

He walked over to the front door.

"What are you going to do?"

He stepped outside and I stood next to him as he faced those men under a starry night. They stared back at us angrily. This made no sense at all. Why did they hate us? I mean, these men didn't even know us.

I looked up at Father wondering what he was going to do. A bead of sweat run down his temple.

A young, bearded man stepped forward.

"Who do you think you are?" he said.

His eyes darted between Father and the door we were guarding. I sensed Father's grip tighten behind his back. Moths swirled madly around the porch light above us. He looked right at the man standing in front of us.

"Go home," he said. "This is not a day for martyrs."

To my surprise, the angry man visibly shook. He now looked a lot less certain. Father had put it to him in a way he would understand.

But it was too late. Someone at the back shouted 'Allahu Akbar' which was all that was required to send even the most rational of hotheads into battle. They surged forwards, crossing an invisible line. It was then I realised Father was hiding something behind his back.

The Pakhtun was often accused of being unpredictable and dangerous. Insulted Pakhtun guns frequently blazed in the City in an ask-questions-later kind of way. The exception to the rule was my Father, no gun, no blazing. He was about to fulfil his genetic destiny.

"He's got a gun!" someone shouted.

A delicious feeling of hysteria took hold of me. Father slowly raised his arm, his finger on the trigger of a revolver. The hapless gang froze as he pointed it directly at the forehead of their startled leader. What happened next reminds me of another story.

I recall a man arriving at our home one day. He'd been invited by Father to conduct the hideous task of beheading a live chicken. Father had been gifted the bird by one of his patients and though perfectly willing to pluck and draw it for our supper, what Father wouldn't do was kill it. Father hated the idea of killing. The man he'd hired had convinced him he was perfectly qualified for the task and having been introduced to the chicken he set about dispatching it. The amateur butcher turned out to be a swindler. And what a terrible mess he made of the job. Having severed its head, the animal fought back, and he dropped it and with its legs still spinning the chicken ran across our yard, darting wildly this way and that, before it flapped its wings and flew over the wall never to be seen again.

The sight of a gun sent the mob scattering into the darkness. Like headless chickens, they ran this way and that, a mass of desperation, their leader, surprisingly the quickest of them all, leapt the high boundary wall, and they were gone, headed for the hills with not a single 'Allahu Akbar' between them. Those deluded young men left us as quickly they'd arrived.

Father looked pale. He placed the gun on the dining table in front of us. His hand shook as he poured himself a drink.

"Would you really have shot them?" I asked.

Mother had her head in her hands. This was not the way she'd expected to prepare for her first performance.

Father unclipped the magazine from the gun. It was empty. Not a single bullet. Mr Azeez the bookseller had tipped him off. He'd guessed there was going to be trouble, handed him the gun and told him to get himself back home as fast as he could.

The enormity of the situation must have been captured in my expression. Father laughed and put his arm around me. I looked across the table at Mother.

"We're going to be fine, mummy, just fine."

Mother tried to compose herself. She and I stood outside the Club's gates. Father kept guard as we looked out for the familiar outline of Mariel's car. The distinctive "honk" of Chevrolay's horn filled me with hope. Mother couldn't have looked more relieved.

"You have no idea what a day I've had," said Mariel, greeting us.

Mother listened calmly to her woes while I sank into the soft leather seats, icy air from the splendid air-conditioner enveloping me as Chevrolay's' powerful beams led us away to another world. Maybe that's how we coped with life back then. No matter how crazy things got, we always had a sense that we were on our way to something better. The madness that came out of this cauldron just made us stronger.

Mariel drove us deep into the American military district, a high-security enclave with an airstrip, houses and shops, and a fine school – a place I came to know as the American School. Through the perimeter of barbed wire, I saw a cluster of buildings lit up and silhouetted against the dark. Two American soldiers in white helmets stood guard. Mariel drove up to the checkpoint and one of them inspected her identification. The other flashed a torch into my eyes. Blue eyes peered in on me, a question mark transformed into a smile. The soldiers waved us through and past a sea of gleaming cars we parked up. Angel and Mikey were waiting for us outside the grand, pillared entrance to the American school. As Chevrolay's tyres came to a stop on the gravel, Mariel informed us this was to be Mikey and Angel's new school.

"Really?" I said. I'd assumed the twins were here just for the summer. The prospect of my friendship with the Devanes coming to an end was not a thought I wanted to dwell on.

"Whaddya, think?" said Mikey leading me in.

"My God, this is amazing," I replied, my heart now pounding for all the right reasons.

I'd never seen anything like it. We entered a vast auditorium where a beautiful red carpet covered the floor throughout. I worried my shoes weren't clean enough. Row upon row of yellow velvet chairs cascaded towards a vast stage. Ornate lights, enough it seemed to power the entire City, were arranged in wonderful sweeping arches that drew the eye towards a huge gold curtain, behind it a world of possibilities.

Like an idiot, I kept saying "amazing" at every new thing which had Angel mouthing 'a-ma-zing' at me. She finally shut me up. And suddenly I felt ashamed, unable to look Mikey in the eyes. To think I'd been trying to impress him with a trip to the City. And then my heart sank.

Bunny came trudging up the steps.

"Hey, what's he doing here?" he said.

"What do you think, you idiot," said Angel.

Bunny barged Angel out of the seat next to me.

"C'mon leave it out, you two," said Mikey. "This is Mom's big night."

The four of us sat down at the back as the seats began to fill up. There was a strong smell of bubble-gum. I'd never seen so many fair-haired people in one place before, and they were dressed so glamorously with bright, toothy smiles and endearing accents. Just the sight of them was enough of a show for me.

Mikey handed me a programme. He'd found Mother's name. It was printed in bold on the first page to let everyone know that the show was relying on the very talented woman now sitting at the piano. Every seat was now occupied by a smartly dressed westerner ready to be entertained. We didn't have to wait long.

The lights dimmed and the sophisticated American chatter became a whisper of anticipation. Seeing Mother at the piano under a solitary lamp, I realised I'd forgotten to wish her good luck.

Janice walked on to the stage. I almost didn't recognise her.

"Hey, that's my Mom!" shouted Bunny.

"Shush!" came the reply.

Janice was wearing a long, flowing dress with her hair done up. She welcomed us all, explained who the PATS were, and then revealed that this was to be her last show and how sorry she was to be leaving after three wonderful years in the country. She ended her speech by telling everyone to sit back and enjoy the show. There was a round of applause. I smiled at Bunny. He smiled back, showing me his middle finger.

As his mother left the stage, the curtains parted and there was an audible 'wow' as we stared at something quite magnificent.

"Amazing," I whispered. Bunny elbowed me in the ribs.

A huge wooden ship had been built just for the show, the HMS Pinafore, rigged with white sails that billowed across wooden masts which disappeared out of view, and running along the ship's side were life-like waves that truly made it look like a ship ready to sail. Draped across its broadside was the American flag with its many stars and stripes.

If Mother was nervous she wasn't showing it. But it was Doris who became a sensation, singing her heart out as 'Little Buttercup' in the first of far too many songs which I drifted in and out of, and alerted by the sudden clapping and changes in tempo I'd lean forward to see Angel's face glowing in the magical light and wonder what she was thinking.

With the first act over, Mikey thought it would be a good idea to have a wander. He was keen to show me around his new school. A steel door clanged open and the four of us stood inside a huge, dark space. A line of strip-lights flickered one after the other illuminating a sports hall. There was a strong smell of polish and sweat. Bunny had found a basketball and the walls were now echoing to the sound of it bouncing on the shiny floor. Angel and I watched as he and Mikey fought over it, and then without warning Bunny tossed it to her. She caught it.

"Not bad for a girl," he said.

She threw it back at him. "Not bad for a boy?"

"We should go back," I said. I could hear the music starting up again for the second act.

"Forget it," said Bunny. "I've got something much better."

"Whoa," said Mikey.

"Don't be silly," said Angel.

Bunny was holding up a handmade cigarette. "Come on man, it's a gas."

Angel stomped out and I followed her.

"Hey Alex, you gonna be a girl?" said Mikey.

Bunny lit the cigarette, drew on it and let out a puff of smoke. His face went bright red. He drew on it again and then passed it on to Mikey. There were places in the bazaar where narcotic cigarettes could be bought for just a few paisa. Boys who worked the streets would pass them around amongst each other.

"Man, I can't wait to get back home," said Bunny. "How long you guys gonna be stuck here?"

Mikey let out a puff, "Depends on John."

Shrouded in a cloud of sweet-smelling smoke, Bunny started giggling. He lay on his back staring up at the lights. I placed my lips around the thin paper and took a long draw. I started coughing. Bunny let a roar of drunken laughter. I started to feel tentacles of the smoking leaf warming me inside. My head felt as light as a balloon. I drifted away, floating up to the ceiling, dizzyingly. Up here I could see the boys down there, three of them – Mikey, Bunny and me, dancing, holding hands, going round and round in a circle, a song from HMS Pinafore caught up in the rigging of my blurred imagination. Bunny, Mikey and me slurring the words to a rendition of the sailor's song, three little children singing:

"For he might have-been a Roosian,

A French, or Turk, or Proosian,

Or perhaps Ita-li-an!

But in spite of all temptations,

He remains...an Englishman!'"

"Yeah, man, yeah, an Englishman!"

"I love you man, do you know that?" said Mikey.

"I love you too...man."

"Friends forever."

"Forever."

"Yeah, man, an Englishman!"

I felt his lips on mine and I floated away, up towards the stars twinkling in the black, the evening lost to the universe.

### 15

A bad dream.

"Water, water!" I cried.

"Are you alright?" Mother held a glass to my lips.

I felt sick. The lingering effects of Bunny's funny cigarette from the night before may well have been in play. Other mind-bending forces were also at work. The dream I'd had was of the three of us: me, Mikey and Angel. I couldn't recall where we were or what we were doing, or maybe I didn't want to. But I did know how I felt - a very odd triangle of confusion.

"What's that smell?" said Mother, her nose buried in my hair.

I dived under the blanket. "Nothing."

A while ago I'd been sitting with Bhoo and Chawtoo outside the local covered market. Chawtoo had mentioned something about boys who loved boys, the kind of love that went beyond playtime camaraderie, beyond brotherly feelings, the kind of love between a man and a woman, a boy and a girl.

"It's true," said Chawtoo, "one boy can love another boy."

He was very serious.

"He's trying to tell us something," said Bhoo.

Chawtoo thumped him. This was no joke.

A few moments earlier a wedding procession had passed by. At the centre of this celebration was a band of musicians leading a troupe of dancing girls. The bridegroom and his entourage showered us in rose petals, happily clapping to the _tabla_ beat. The wedding party had attracted a crowd and in all the excitement, one of the dancing girls flashed her painted eyes at Bhoo. He got to his feet and began dancing and clapping with her. When she took him by the hand Chawtoo tried to pull him away.

"They are not girls?!" he shouted.

I couldn't hear him over the commotion. The crowd started laughing as Bhoo wiggled his hips at the girl. "Not girls!" Chawtoo screamed at me.

"Oh!?"

These dancers were men, known then as _Khusra_ , dressed up to look like women, an ancient tradition that no one seemed too bothered about until our friend got involved. Bhoo came bounding over flushed with excitement. Chawtoo soon took the smile off his face.

HMS Pinafore had been a huge success. A week-long run of shows had come to an end. According to Mariel, everyone was raving about it, and with the great ship now dismantled, the PATS had started talking about their next production. Janice, Mariel and Mother rewarded themselves with a well-earned, self-congratulatory afternoon lounging by the pool. Under a lazy sun, Mikey and Angel passed a ball about on the grass while Bunny weaved backwards and forwards in the water practising his backstroke. No one had dared mention that evening. I certainly had no intention of bringing it up and I was more than happy just lying on my front revisiting the adventures of my comic-strip superhero.

And then Bunny spoiled it all.

"Jesus, no!! No! No!"

Janice sprang to her feet. A child squealed as though she'd been struck. A commotion broke out in the shallows. Mikey and Angel stood by the pool watching Bunny as he splashed away the water, driving away some invisible force that seemed to be attacking him.

"Get it away, get it away," he shouted.

Angel was the first to spot it. A floating abhorrence bobbed shamefully on its way towards the deep.

"That's just great...well done, Bunny," said Mikey.

Bunny clambered out of the water.

"Gross," said Angel.

"It wasn't me!"

"Hush!" said Janice, towelling him down.

A chalked board was quickly erected informing us the pool was closed until further notice. Colonel Shokut stood by apologising to the guests while the bearers stacked up the chairs. Our precious water was allowed to drain away, slowly revealing a big rectangular void.

"Well, that's that then," said Mikey.

"What do we do now?" said Bunny.

Mikey had an idea.

"Forget it," said Bunny, "it's spooked."

"We gotta get Alex's torch."

Mother had been asking about it. I had no intention of returning to that place, not on my own.

"Did you see the size of that turd," said Mikey.

We headed across the grounds and found the brick building. It wasn't at all scary in the daylight. Peering through the small window, we saw nothing more than a place for rusting tools. The trees were now silent and this damp, shady place was little more than a home for the birds. We circled the outhouse a couple of times. There was no sign of the torch anywhere. Painted red, it should have been easy enough to spot.

Bunny whistled us over. "Hey, any of you guys wear a size thirteen?"

We stood around the soft earth trying to make sense of a heavy boot-mark stamped across our old tracks.

"Maybe someone's taken it?" I said.

Suddenly, I felt the light in this gloomy place shift. A tall shadow had crept up behind us. I froze. It was Colonel Shokut.

"Looking for this?" he said holding out Mother's red torch.

I was in big trouble.

Mikey came to my rescue. "Yeah, that's mine," he said.

Shokut fawned over the westerners. Mikey knew he could get away with anything.

But in the privacy of this shady corner, the sycophant became a predator. A little smile formed in the corner of his mouth. "Come on, take it," he said, holding out the torch as though he were daring Mikey to step closer.

As Mikey reached for it, Shokut did something very odd. He took hold of Mikey's hand and whispered something to him.

Bunny looked confused. "Just give it back," he said.

Shokut made the mistake of ignoring him, his eyes fixed leeringly on Mikey.

Bunny flew at Shokut, unleashing a lexicon of abuse at him, the 'f' word, the 's' word and other words I'd never even heard.

Shokut staggered backwards in surprise. "I know your mothers," he shouted as he hurried away.

"I know your mothers!" replied Bunny. "Get out of here, you creep!"

We turned to Mikey.

"You okay?" I said.

He said nothing. He handed me the torch and walked away.

Bunny took out his anger on a tree. I kicked the dust in sympathy, trying to make sense of things when in the corner of my eye, I spotted something in the grass. It looked like a handkerchief. The cloth glistened as I turned it over. Shokut must have dropped it. The dubious man's initials were stitched into the fabric. I'd have kicked the thing away had it not looked so impressive. I stuffed it into my pocket and found myself by Bunny's side, ambling aimlessly through the grounds, lost in our thoughts.

As luck would have it, a wispy cloud led us to an opening and a familiar building. My heart leapt. We found Angel standing outside Miss Bavington's home.

"How do I look?" she said, perking up a flower she'd fixed in her hair.

Bunny was busy marking his territory.

"Do you have to do that here?" she said.

He pulled up his zipper. "What are you doin' here?"

Bunny Hoffman was an infuriating character. He vaguely knew right from wrong but I knew something else about him. Mother tried to explain that Bunny's behaviour was not his fault. Intriguingly, Janice had been married once before. Her first husband was a military man whose wartime exploits had left him very angry, so much so that he saved a little of his war for his son. William Hoffman was Bunny's stepfather, a much friendlier person by all accounts.

Angel led us into the house. There was no sign of Danny or Tiger though she didn't seem too concerned. Bunny shouldered his way into the kitchen.

"There's nothin' here," he said rummaging in the cupboards. I wasn't sure what he was looking for, but whatever it was he didn't find it.

We followed Angel past Miss Bavington's framed history and into her bedroom. She didn't bother to knock. Miss Bavington was exactly where we'd left her, slumped against the headrest. Her curly hair had slipped over her brows. Yuk. It was a wig!

"Is she alright?" I said.

A thread of drool ran down her powdered cheek. Bunny took hold of her wrist.

"Ah, jeez, dead as a dodo," he said.

"Don't be stupid, Bunny." For some reason, Angel was busily searching the dresser. She jumped in surprise.

"Looks like you're 'avin a good time," said Danny.

We didn't hear him enter the room.

Angel giggled nervously. "I've finished reading," she said hurriedly, turning to the old lady.

Danny looked puzzled. "Not sure how you could have done that, dear. She only just had her medication."

He turned to Bunny, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. "I know you, don't I? You're the one caused all that trouble in the pool."

Bunny had had enough. "Screw this," he said and barged past Danny.

Angel backed up towards the door, taking me with her.

"We have to go as well," she said hesitantly. "I don't think we'll be coming back. Isn't that right, Alex?"

I nodded nervously. Angel waved at the old lady. "Goodbye, Miss Bavington."

Danny saw us out. He seemed disappointed Angel wouldn't be returning and started muttering about Miss Bavington.

"You know she was a real beauty in her time," he said. "All them gentlemen were after her. Course, I had no chance, did I? What chance does a drummer boy have with the likes of a Bavington? But that all changed...after what happened to her."

"What do you mean," said Angel. Curiosity got the better of her. "What happened to her?"

I wanted to get out of this dark, musty house.

"I don't know if I should say..."

"We don't mind," replied Angel, "do we, Alex."

We stopped briefly in the corridor. Danny was keen to show us a picture of a young Miss Bavington.

"She was very pretty," said Angel.

It was then I realised that Danny was an old man. He seemed frail and his eyes had lost their shine. He started muttering to himself.

"She loved him, you know. She told me so. Of course, when she had the child, they said he put himself upon her...it's not true, he was good 'un, a proper Indian soldier. But that's just how it was back then. Sir Norman could never thank me enough."

We said goodbye to Danny. He stared up at the building and then laughed to himself. "Funny how things turn out, eh? I used to say that I'd give my right arm to own a place like this."

Angel was behaving very strangely. What were we doing in Miss Bavington's home and why had she lied to Danny about reading to her? I had a bad feeling about things. My expression must have given me away.

"You can't tell anyone, do you understand," said Angel.

She looked deadly serious. Green eyes peered into my soul, seeking out weakness.

"I promise," I said without knowing what I'd committed myself to.

"Swear on your mother's life."

"What?"

"Swear on her life."

"But..."

"I'll let you kiss me," she said.

"I swear. I swear," I said hurriedly.

Angel slowly unbuttoned her blouse. I felt the blood rush to my cheeks.

"I know I can trust you, Alex."

Around her slender neck was Miss Bavington's precious necklace.

### 16

I'd been having dreams about Angel. Nice dreams, with promising scenes of just the two of us, though infuriatingly, every one of these ended with a sudden interruption from the noisy sparrows and bright sunlight in my eyes, just as she was about to plant a kiss on my lips.

One afternoon, Mikey caught me gazing dreamily at her as she lay by the pool. He looked puzzled. I had a sudden pang of guilt. I put my arm around him and told him we were best friends, weren't we? I tried to encourage him back into the pool but he wasn't feeling well, he said. Fate became my conspirator that afternoon - Mikey was taken ill. The heat had been too much for him, and now bedridden, I would have Angel all to myself.

And in the days that followed, she led me to a place where no one would find us. Who said dreams don't come true. Bhoo I think. Under the dappled light of a cherry tree, I soon discovered Angel had fallen in love. Not with me, but with Miss Bavington's necklace and they were beginning to glow even brighter.

"Every girl deserves to wear pearls," she said as she sat down on the warm earth. I stamped the ground to ward off the snakes long grass. While she toyed with the necklace, I found the sharpest of stones and began scratching the tree's soft bark.

"Bet you don't know who said that?"

I shrugged.

"Jackie Kennedy of course. She wouldn't be caught dead without her pearls."

"Who is that?" I said, stepping back to admire my handiwork.

She sighed. "Oh, Alex, what am I going to do with you?"

Jackie Kennedy? Hmm. The name sounded familiar. Wasn't she the lady who came to our city those years ago. I was sure Mother kept newspaper clippings of her visit. Sometimes I wished I wasn't so slow when it came to such things, or maybe it was just that these Americans were too fast.

Angel made me sit down next to her. She took my hand and stroked it against the smooth, glistening beads. I tugged at the necklace.

"Be careful," she said, and then she started talking about some creature that lived in the sea, an animal so timid that it cried tears and when these tears hardened they became the very iridescence beads now lying innocently against her fair skin.

I tried to look impressed. A more worrying thought began to nag at me. However I looked at it, Angel had done a bad thing. She'd stolen someone's jewels. No good could ever come out of it. The story of Ali Baba and the forty thieves was a childhood lesson for me, not to mention the price one paid these days for such a crime. It didn't bear thinking about. These were dangerous times. Religious law enforcers had introduced _Sharia_ to the Province, a precise and unforgiving law imposed on even the smallest of crimes. I'd heard of children who'd had their hands severed for running off with a lot less than a string of shiny white beads.

"When are you going to give them back?" I said.

She stared wildly at me. "Why should I give them back? She doesn't need them anymore."

I didn't want to think too deeply about it. Perhaps at this very moment, Miss Bavington was hunched over her dressing table, her veiny hand shaking as she went fishing for them. A vision struck me. A man in a wheelchair hurtling towards us, his dog on our trail, its sharp teeth ready to do their worst.

"What about Danny?" I said with some urgency.

Angel got up to go. "You don't understand, Alex. You're just a boy."

I shouted after her in desperation.

"I know how Danny lost his legs," I said, hoping to impress her.

She stopped and turned. "Really, how?"

Father was often cornered for his professional opinion, a drawback of being a doctor I concluded. On one of those rare occasions, when he and Mother sat on the Club's lawn to enjoy an evening drink, Danny approached him for some medical advice. What I discovered rather disappointingly was that Danny had not lost his legs charging into battle as I'd hoped. His legs had to be amputated in a surgical operation due to a disease called Diabetes, a common procedure for the worst of cases. Life could be so disappointing sometimes. A more enthralling version of Danny's wartime exploits ran wild in my imagination, and imparting them to Angel, she laughed and then made me close my eyes.

"Properly, no peeking."

I covered my eyes with my hands, just able to make out the pretty American girl in denim shorts. Then she made me turn around to face the tree and told me to count to ten, loud and slowly. She had a surprise for me she said.

A surprise?

"Ten...nine...eight," what kind of surprise?

"seven...six...five..." maybe she...count faster "four...three...one!"

I opened my eyes.

"Angel?"

She was gone. I circled the tree, calling out to her. This donkey had been left standing in the woods, all alone.

That evening, I went looking for Mother's special album and flipping through the pages, sure enough, there was the beaming face of an American President's wife. Around her neck was a string of pearls. Hmm. I had to admit, she looked very glamourous indeed.

### 17

I'd never felt anything like it. Why did my heart yearn so at the thought of her? She was rude, unkind and above all, she was a thief! And yet, just the thought of Angel now filled me with a sense of everlasting hope. Sleeping had become a joy. I couldn't wait to meet her again in my dreams. Deep into the night, when I'd finally succumb, my head against a soft pillow and having closed my eyes and pulled my knees close to my chest, willing myself to sleep, unshackled by the weight of the world, I'd concentrate, conjuring up every detail of her face - her cute dimpled cheeks, the sweet freckles that ran so adorably across the bridge of her nose, her green, mischievous eyes, and I could smell her, intoxicating, lingering, she was on my clothes, on my skin, and even in my hair.

The Angel of my dreams was lovely and perfect. Miss Bavington's pearls were beginning to wear me down. As long as Angel remained under their spell, all we could ever amount to was the few words we shared beneath the branches of that tree as I sat patiently between the long silences, listening to the leaves shiver in the warm, summer breeze. And no, I hadn't kissed her yet!

"Don't you think I look lovely?" she said, fawning over them again.

"Yes," I muttered - how many times I don't know.

As was the way with things, the answer to my problems it turned out, was right there, under my nose.

The dark, delightful Anu, Chawtoo's crazy sister, was busy cleaning the bungalow, her radio blaring out a rather catchy Punjabi song. She'd shifted a week's worth of dust from one room to the other wiggling her backside as she swept the floors with her _jharoo_. She'd scrubbed our sink until it shone and scrubbed and polished our oven so it now gleamed. The bungalow stunk of bleach.

I caught her admiring herself in the mirror, a gold necklace glowing brightly against her silky, black skin.

"Pretty, hah?" she said.

"It's okay," I said.

"Okay? And what do you know, ha, ha."

She made me feel the weight of the gold chain.

"My girlfriend has a necklace," I muttered.

Her toothy grin became a question mark.

"Girlfriend? Listen to him. He has a girlfriend. I don't know what your ' _girlfriend'_ ' is wearing, but if it's not made of gold it's nothing."

"It's pearl," I said.

"Ha. Purl, smurl."

I hopped back onto my bed. What did this Punjabi cleaning girl know about necklaces anyway? I'd lost interest in everything. Angel was away visiting some American friends staying in Lahore on their way to India.

I decided to go for a walk and found myself ambling towards the covered market a few streets from us. I'd not visited the place in a while. I shuffled through the mall, quickly passing through the cold, fly-infested section of just killed animals. The smell of death gave way to fruit and vegetables where Buddha-like sellers were stationed high on mountains of produce, vying for the attention of the customers. I made my way to the upmarket section of glass-fronted shops and one in particular, dedicated to every possible boyhood activity. On display in a gleaming window were sporting goods of all shapes and sizes. A cut out of Pakistan's top-scoring cricketer, the bespectacled Zaheer Abbas, smiled warmly. He was showcasing a cricket bat on the dream-list of every self-respecting boy in my class. Boys who owned cricket bats were the most popular in class. But I was never able to save up enough for one. I wasn't far off. All I needed was the courage to open up another negotiation with the man who owned this fine shop. Sellers in this market doubled their prices and then generously halved them in the haggle.

I had my life savings safely tucked away in my back pocket which I accrued from last year's Eid celebrations, a recent pay-out for good behaviour and the sale of a couple of childish storybooks. As I sent myself into a spin at the giddy prospect of parting with my money, I was suddenly aware of the window next door. I never noticed it before. It sparkled with possibility. Neatly cossetted on an array of glass shelves was an assortment of fine, gold jewellery. I ran my finger across the glass, searching for one that looked more like Anu's.

An old crow cawed at me from inside.

"Don't touch!"

"How much is that one," I said.

She tapped on the glass and shooed me away. I'd spotted a gold chain just like Anu's.

The grouchy old women came shuffling out. There was a rumour the place was run by two spinsters.

"What do you want with that one?" she said.

Her look of disdain prompted me to lie.

"It's my mother's birthday," I said.

Her eyes lit up and as she hurried me inside her sister appeared through a narrow door behind the counter.

"What does he want?"

"It's the English woman's son. He wants to buy her something for her birthday."

"No, no," I said. "I just want to know how much...for that one, that's all." I pointed at the chain.

She removed it from the window and placed it on the counter.

"Three hundred rupees for this one," she said smugly.

"What?" I said. I could have bought ten cricket bats for that.

"He's wasting our time," said her sister.

"How much have you got?"

I drew out every last rupee and paisa from my pocket and laid it on the counter.

Her sister clicked her tongue pitifully counting up my money.

"I'll have to go to the back," she said and she disappeared into the wall.

What was I doing? Had I lost my mind? I'd handed this crow every paisa I owned. I resolved to shake my head at everything and she re-emerged, this time with a heap of gold chains.

"What about these?" She deposited them on the counter. "Very good quality."

I shook my head. No. These were not the same. They didn't have the same lustre as the ones in the display. I reached across the counter to rescue my money.

She pinned my hand to the counter. "Wait," and she flew back into her little cave, rummaged about furiously and finally re-emerged.

"Real gold plated," she said holding up something quite exceptional.

She handed it to me. My eyes lit up. I could see this one was different. It was more than a simple chain. There was a small hollow heart secured to it with a thread of gold. It was perfect.

"Yes, yes, this one," I said excitedly.

"Very good choice," she replied.

Her sister scooped up my money and slowly counted it into the till while she packaged up my new acquisition. She handed it to me and I left quickly without looking back.

"What a lucky mother to have a son like that," I heard her say.

"He better not want his money back."

### 18

Mother had found pieces of clay pig in the dustbin. She wanted to know what I'd done with all my money. I'd bought a cricket bat, I told her. Then where was it? She told Father. He had his suspicions. Days by the pool, pandering to those Americans had made me a lazy boy, he said. It was time I was put to good use. I didn't dare argue with him. Life was complicated enough.

Under a spectacular hope-filled sky, an unfinished concrete building shouldered its fragile neighbours at the less desirable end of the Khyber Bazaar. Father's clinic occupied a modest space on the ground floor where a line was already forming outside. Father threw up the metal shutters and with a flick of a switch brought the unpromising space to life. He slipped on his white coat, took his place at his desk and made me call in the first of patient of the day. I had no idea what I was doing.

A humble-looking farming man moved cautiously towards us. He held out a large yellow envelope which I passed to Father.

"Please, sit down," said Father.

He remained standing. Men who worked the land didn't sit in chairs. The yellow envelope was familiar to me, a sleeve to contain an X-ray film. Father removed the film and quickly examined it. He shook his head disapprovingly and a viewing box flickered into life. Father wedged the film onto the viewer and the then reached into his drawer to retrieve another X-ray which he secured next to it.

"You see the difference, hah, Sikunder?" he said.

I scrutinised the illuminated images, comparing them. It was obvious. The X-ray of the farmer's chest was blurry, almost unrecognisable. Father's was crisp and sharp, every bone and organ in clear focus. The farmer shifted uneasily. Uneducated men like him had no idea of the purpose behind these magical images. What I learned was that Father was being kept busy by unscrupulous medical professionals capitalising on the ignorance of their patients by palming them off with shoddy X-rays that were of no use to anyone. Poor men like the farmer would arrive at Father's clinic clutching the same yellow envelopes to their chests with the belief that the very act of taking an X-ray was a cure in itself.

"I'm sorry," said father addressing the farmer. "You will need another X-ray."

The man looked confused. "How much will it cost?" he said wearily.

Father told him not to worry. My second lesson – now I understood why we were poor as church mice. The farmer couldn't have thanked Father enough.

We led him into another room where Father positioned him on a table, placing him on his back as he adjusted a metal plate containing the X-ray film. The business end of a crane-like machine was pointed at his chest. Then we retreated and Father made me stand behind him as he worked a set of the controls. The farmer was told to take a deep breath and with a press of a single button, there was a loud clank followed by a burst of purple light. That was it, all done. The farmer looked relieved. Father advised him to come back in a couple of days when his X-ray and diagnosis would be ready. It went on like this all day. Different cases, a variety of complaints, but the same routine, another hopeless X-ray, a medical complaint, a flash of dangerous light, and by the end of my first day, one long line had been substituted for another, the X-ray exposures Father had processed in a darkroom now drying on a clothes-line ready for him to examine.

A typewriter clattered late into the evening as Father checked and rechecked the images, singling out little worrying shadows which he was keen to point out to me on the glowing box.

"There, see it," he said.

Grey medical books lay scattered over his desk. Father had uncovered something. All I could see was a vague grey spot neatly contrasted against the dark outline of the farmer's lung.

"What is it?" I said.

"Cancer," he said ominously.

It went on like this all week. My duties were simple enough. I was to keep the queue moving forward, as politely as I could, make simple journal entries for every patient, get them to sign their name for the record and in case they weren't able to, a simple 'X' would suffice. I was to offer them a drink, and if they wanted one all I had to do was whistle at the boy selling tea in the road. I also had to keep out the dust with a broom and to shoo away pesky beggars and the sellers if they became persistent. In the heat of the afternoon, a noisy fan was little relief. To make things worse my feet ached. There was nowhere for me to sit. I certainly wasn't allowed near Father's chair and the other was reserved for his patients. So during a brief respite, I decided to do something about it. Mr Azeez the bookseller was right next door. When I approached him, he laughed. Boys these days were too soft, he said. But he did point me in the right direction. Down the street was a place where they sold furniture. It wasn't a shop exactly, just a small section of the street cordoned off and shaded under a tattered awning. I ran over to see what was on offer and grateful to find a stack of bamboo chairs gathering dust against a wall. I struck a deal with the second-hand furniture man and that evening I convinced Father of the merits of converting the space opposite his desk into a reception area. To my delight, the very next morning we purchased the bamboo chairs. Father's consulting room now looked much better. We stood back to admire it. Now it looked like a proper office, he said. I dusted down my new chair and placed it next to Father's. Now I had something to smile about.

His patients took a little more convincing. Yes, please sit down, I said politely. Yes, this chair is for you. Yes, you are allowed to sit down here. No, it's no bother. These chairs are for you. No, you will not lose your place, I'll make sure of that. Please, do sit down.

I was also a witness to the less glamourous side of my father's work. An overweight man had turned up complaining about his belly. I was witness to the indignity of a grown man sat prone on Father's X-ray table with his rear-end pointing towards the ceiling. What happened next in my short medical career belonged to the realms of the unthinkable. I couldn't watch but when I turned around, Father had lodged a rubber catheter into his anus, the quickest and most direct route to his bowels. I watched as Father went solemnly about his business pumping a bucket of bright, white solution through the rubber tube. The man was clearly in discomfort as embarrassing gaseous sounds emanated through the catheter. Father explained that this is what it took to get a good, clear X-ray of a patient's gut. When he wasn't looking, I crept out of his office and turned into a side street where I burst out laughing.

I composed myself and returned to my duties.

"You must be proud of him," said the man. I walked in on him doing up his trousers and glancing down at the contents of the bucket, I almost threw up.

Father shook his head smiling. I lost count how many times I washed my hands that afternoon.

My week with Father had almost come to an end. I sensed he was pleased with me. Perhaps my natural enthusiasm was the sign he was looking for, that this was the beginning of something. Sadly, I couldn't imagine myself ever able to do what he did. His working life was spent dealing with illness and disease and though he joked he'd become immune to it, maybe I'd missed the point of it all. What he did was not exciting and certainly showed no sign of making him rich. But he did stand to gain something from it at the very least. I could see just how grateful his patients were. Grateful to the man in the white coat who cared about them and would do his best to help them. And that appeared to please Father the most which had to be why he turned up to this place week after week.

I contemplated the end of these longest days of my life waiting for Father as he typed up his last report. The sun was just setting and the road was empty when to my surprise a big American car cruised by. Hmm. That was odd. Then it screeched to a halt and reversed up in front of me. A man in a suit got out.

"I need to see the Doctor," he said in good English.

He seemed to be in a hurry.

"Sorry, we're closing now," I said. Father had promised me an ice-cream.

The man looked nervous. "Do you know the Doctor?"

"I'm his son."

He shook my hand. "My name is Mr Pervez," he said. "I'm the owner of the clothes factory, you know, on the Jamrud road."

I pretended I knew. His car was a black Chevrolet. There was a young man in the back seat.

Father's hand fell on my shoulder.

"Good evening, can I help you?" he said.

The man looked relieved. "Doctor sahib, good evening. Please, my name is Mr Pervez. Inspector Shah recommended I speak with you."

"Oh." Father was taken by surprise. He glanced over at the young man in the car.

"Can we speak privately, please?" said Mr Pervez.

Mr Pervez? The name sounded familiar.

"Of course," said Father and he led Mr Pervez into his office. I kept an eye on his passenger and he returned with Father a few minutes later.

"This is my son, Imran," he said, helping the young man out of the car.

Imran didn't say anything. He looked tired and gaunt. Father and Mr Pervez helped him into the X-ray room.

I cornered Father.

"Who is he? Why has Inspector Shah..."

A sudden realisation. "Oh!"

Father said nothing. He saw in it my eyes and nodded. I quickly followed him into the X-ray room where Imran was sitting upright on the table. He stared blankly at the wall. Mr Pervez carefully unbuttoned his shirt as though the very act of it might cause him injury. Imran's body revealed the young man that he was. So this was the boy from Inspector Shah's story.

I stood by, helpless as Father prepared Imran for an X-ray.

"Okay, take a deep breath please," he said.

Mr Pervez and I stood behind Father as he was about to fire another blast of rays.

Imran lay on the table in front of us with his eyes closed tight. Then suddenly he opened them, sat up and started whining like a child. Mr Pervez ran to his side and began comforting his son as though he'd woken from a terrible nightmare. Father did his best to calm him down. I moved a little closer. I was trying not to give myself away as I went looking for a telltale sign. Was this really the boy from Inspector Shah's gruesome story? And there it was. I leaned over to see Imran's arm had been branded just like the Inspector had described. My hand shot up to my mouth, shocked at the sight of it. This was no ordinary scar. Imran's honey-coloured skin carried the mark of a kidnapping gang. Red, hot iron had been used to create something so hideous. I couldn't stop staring at it. It was so beautiful. Burned into his arm was the distinctive coiling shape of an evil serpent.

Father caught me staring and nodded crossly at me to get back. Mr Pervez had coaxed Imran back into position and we took our places. This time he lay perfectly still as a blast of purple radiation lit up his skin. There was a flash of light and I snapped my eyes shut, certain that snake had come alive and hissed at me.

I was glad to wave Mr Pervez goodbye and as he drove off I couldn't help imagining what Imran must have been through. The thought of it made me realise how lucky I was. That evening Father drove me to a brand new market where they served soft ice-cream from a machine late into the night.

"That wasn't so bad, was it, son?"

Warm chocolate trickled down my chin. I didn't know how to convey what my time with Father had meant to me. It had been good to get to know him better, to understand why he got up at the crack of dawn to deal with that queue day in day out, his unflinching desire to help others inspiring him to seek out dangerous little shadows where others had failed. There was also another story, one I learned much later, explained to me by someone who knew my father far better than I ever could. Father was the youngest of twelve children and of all his brothers and sisters there was one who had been special to him. Her name was Sophia. She was eighteen when he was about my age. She doted on him like a mother. Then one day she became very ill and no one knew what was wrong with her. In those days, they relied on the medicine of a local Sufi who recited religious verses and burned incense to ward off evil. Sophia suffered a long, painful illness and after her burial in the family graveyard, Father became angry with the Sufi. Reciting words over his sister and burning leaves from a rare plant from the mountains had amounted to nothing. Sophia was gone and he'd been powerless. Perhaps the was the real reason Father dedicated his life to his patients. This way, by saving others, he was somehow saving his beloved sister, over and over again, so that one day he could finally be reconciled with her untimely death.

As I gazed up at the universe a shooting star flashed across the black unknown. There was only one thing left to do.

### 19

Angel drove a knife through my heart.

"I doubt we'll see each other again," she said casually, as though she were ordering another drink from one of the bearers.

"Why not?" I said desperately.

"Well, what's the point?"

I'd been trying desperately not to think about it. The happiest of seasons was rapidly spiralling towards its conclusion. Angel would be returning to her world and I would have to trudge back to mine. The prospect of school filled me with dread. There'd been talk of new shoes (I'd grown over these hot months), of wild hair being cut short, of daunting new books, on history and geography and science, and a great expectation, that this year I was going to have to work hard if I wanted to amount to anything.

I cried into my pillow. Angel had been my lovely, painful heartache, throbbing happily day after day. All I was left with was a cruel weight bearing down on my chest, crushing me until I could barely breathe - and misery of miseries, I was slowly drowning too, awoken from muddled dreams in pools of sweat.

We'd not heard from the Devanes. I spent hours by the main gate looking out for Chevrolay, wearing out my heart in anticipation. I headed back to that tree and lay under it for hours every day. But Angel never came back.

The month of August was rapidly drifting by in a malaise of hopeless, restless days, and long sweltering nights. I began to feel unwell. I lay on my bed, a fan blasting warm air into my face, my warped expression staring back at me in the spinning chrome nose.

"Where...is...she?" replied the metallic voice.

What a strange place we lived in. The Club?

"Claaaabbbb."

What an odd word, club? Someone, please club me over the head. I'd lost track of time. The woodpigeons were cooing and then St John's bells started ringing. I had no reason to return to that place but on that Sunday I found myself back again within its cool, high walls, sitting next to Chawtoo and his family soaking up the utterings of the old priest - a welcome distraction from wistful thoughts.

And in my own peculiar way, I discovered there was more to this place than stone, statues and stiff seats. The Church was a place for stories and it was one story in particular that got my attention, relayed by the Reverend in a flowery, almost unrecognisable English.

The gospel according to Matthew?

"For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."

My thoughts whirred at the possibility of transporting the distant icy peaks a little closer to my front door. But what was this business about a mustard seed?

The stony-faced Reverend's purpose I calculated in my childish wisdom was to explain the meaning behind these ancient and important words. Though I was still somewhat confused, I could attest from my own observations that a mustard seed certainly was a small thing, dried up they were black and tiny.

The congregation nodded enthusiastically.

Chawtoo grinned at me.

And then the reverend revealed his hand.

"All things are possible with God," he announced. "Everything is possible for one who believes."

The reverend closed his big book and told us to pray. Everyone prayed. In the thoughtful silence, even Chawtoo had his eyes closed, concentrating on something. Then Reverend Devlin blessed the congregation and told everyone to go away and do it peacefully. The big wooden doors opened and we were set free. Chawtoo and I ran out into the bright light chasing each other around the gravestones.

"What did you pray for?" I said.

"For my family, of course."

I begged him to show me and my Punjabi friend knelt on the ground, closed his eyes, and placing his hands together with the tips of his fingers to his forehead, humbly and politely asked God to please keep him and his family safe, forever and ever, Amen.

"Is that it?"

He nodded, his eyes wide and trusting. That was how God liked it, he said particularly if you wanted to be heard.

How could it be that easy? Surely if it were, then everyone would be doing it, and then where would the world be? What kind of universe was it where all I had to do was pray for something to happen by the simple act of placing my palms together and whispering a few words? But if that was all it took then I needed to get on with it.

That night I knelt by my bed and began praying.

"Dear God, please...um." I knew genie's granted wishes, a maximum of three. "Dear God, please grant me this one wish...please," I begged. In return I swore I would truly believe, I promised, if He could sort out this one little problem of mine then not only would I swear to believe, I swore to do my very best at school and to be doubly certain, I would absolutely guarantee never to get into trouble again.

I fired my little prayer up to the sky and waited...and waited. An hour went by, then another, and a few more long hours, and then a whole day. Nothing, not a sign. Then I began to experience a rather odd sensation, a tightening in my chest, and a knot in my stomach. Mother had started behaving very suspiciously. The next morning, as soon as Father had left for work, Mother got dressed up, in her western clothes, lined her eyes, prettied her mouth and slipped away quickly through the back door.

"Where are you going?" I said.

"Never you mind."

She was gone for hours. It was the same the next day and the next. It went on all week. I was thinking of telling Father. It was on one of those rare occasions when the three of us came together around our dining table that she revealed her secret.

She was laying the table. Father seemed preoccupied.

"This is the problem you see," he said. He was holding up an X-ray, the familiar shadowy image of a patient's insides. The man's pelvis hovered over our dinner.

"Can you see it, Sikunder?"

"Not at the table," said Mother.

Father ignored her. "You know what these are, hah?" he said.

His patient was suffering from kidney stones, an obvious cluster of calcified spheres caught on film, the result of not drinking enough water during the hot months.

Mother had made Shepherd's pie, She spooned a portion onto our plates and sat down. While I played with my food Father strangled the peppermill, covering his meal in a layer of grey dust. Mother's meals were never spicy enough for him.

Mother hadn't touched her plate. She seemed pensive.

"I need to tell you something," she said.

I knew it. Something was wrong. I should have warned Father. That night at the American School, I caught Mother and William Hoffman talking and laughing after the performance. Maybe that's what this was all about – the Devane's disappearance, why Angel had been unkind to me. Bunny's father? What had Mother done? Oh, my God.

"Tell me what?" said Father,

"I've been meaning to tell you for a while," she said.

His jaw tensed. "What is it, woman?"

She'd met someone, she explained.

Oh, God, God. I couldn't breathe.

His name was Principal Lafretti, she said.

I knew it. What?

"I've got a job," she said.

She's got a job! A job. What's a job?

The muscles in Father's jaw twitched. "What are you saying?"

Mother explained.

The American School needed a piano teacher. Principal Lafretti was so impressed with her performance in HMS Pinafore that he wanted her to come to his school and show the children there just how it was done. I breathed a sigh of relief. My head whirred. Mother was going to teach the Americans how to play the piano!

Father pushed his chair back angrily. "No," he said.

"What do you mean 'no'?" I blurted out.

He glared at me as though I'd been colluding with Mother. "Be quiet, Sikunder. You know nothing of these things."

"You don't understand," said Mother.

"So these American cast-offs are not enough for you, hah?" he said, staring angrily at the big-eared mouse on my T-shirt.

"The school are going to pay me. It's three months to start with and if it all goes well then..."

Father didn't want to know. He slammed the door behind him. Mother gathered up the plates and threw them in the sink.

"We need the money!" she shouted after him.

To the outside world, we must have looked like veritable kings living here in the Garrison Club. Our situation was more complicated than I realised. Father's business was not going as well as they planned and a sizeable sum Mother had acquired from an inheritance had been spent on a brand new X-ray machine.

To my amazement, there was more good news. Not only had my talented mother found a job for herself she'd also secured me a place at the school.

"Oh my God, I can't believe it," I said, skipping across the living room.

It was true, she said.

"Am I really going to the American School? Me? I can't believe it!"

Our good fortune I discovered had nothing to do with a force beyond the skies, no higher power nor any mustard seed. All that had happened was that Mother had politely begged the sure-can-do Mariel to put in a good word with the nothing-to-lose Janice who convinced the rules-are-there-to-be-broken Principal Lafretti to spare a place at his fine school for one extra boy. And no ordinary boy, they were talking about the new piano teacher's son of course who it was said would make a very good student and would, of course, be no trouble at all. And, hey presto, it was done.

I gave Mother a big hug and a kiss. She was amazing!

Now I had to tell someone. I had to share my good news.

The next day I went looking for Bhoo. I couldn't wait to tell him.

"Honest. Khuda Ki Qusam," I said, swearing to God it was true. I would not be coming back to St Mary's.

He didn't believe me. Only Americans went to the American school he pointed out, and I wasn't American. I knew he wouldn't understand, and as we parted we promised we'd still be friends. But of course, we both knew that was a lie.

### 20

Principal Lafretti had a wife

Her fleece was white as snow

Everywhere Principal Lafretti went

His wife was sure to go!

Principal Lafretti was raving about Mother. His new acquisition was exactly what the school needed. There was talk of a choir, an orchestra and even the possibility of the school's first production. A brand new piano had been ordered all the way from America. According to Mariel, the Principal's wife was very keen to meet the alluring pianist of HMS Pinafore fame.

And so it was arranged. Mother was going to be introduced to Betty Lafretti by the pool and she thought it would be a good idea I accompanied her if only to make a good impression on the Principal's wife.

I was overcome by a moment of healthy hysteria. The thought of a formal adult gathering sent me scrabbling for the ceiling.

"Fretty Betty, Fretty Betty!" I bellowed.

Mother reached for that ghastly bottle of pills.

She held one out in the palm of her hand.

"Gone," I said gulping it down.

"Show me," she said.

I hated them. In return for cooling my brain came a sore stomach and drowsiness. I'd spit the things out whenever I could.

So, dressed in a starched white shirt, sharply creased khaki trousers, my new school shoes, and that silly belt, Mother and I arrived at the poolside. My heart started to thump against my ribs. Mariel had brought Angel with her. Shyly, I sat down opposite her. Seeing her again was almost unbearable. She looked grown-up and prettier than ever. Janice had also been invited which meant Bunny was somewhere nearby. Seated between Mariel and Janice was a plump, fair-haired lady whom I assumed was Betty Lafretti. Mariel introduced her to Mother and with the pleasantries out of the way the subject quickly turned to the PATS' next production.

"What about The Mikado?" said Mother.

"Not another Gilbert and Sullivan," said Betty curtly, "what we need is something more...American."

"Yes, yes, of course," said Mother.

Betty, it turned out was taking over from Janice. It was just the challenge she needed, she said. The conversation droned on to the sound of children splashing and laughing in the sun. I wished I could have joined them.

Angel patted her mouth to let me know she was bored. I stifled a laugh. Betty wasn't impressed, not at all. Something about my presence confused her.

"I don't know how you've done it, Elizabeth," she said. "I mean, this country is pretty and all, but how've you managed to cope."

Mariel came to our rescue. "Why don't you two run along and play, huh?"

Angel and I leapt out of our seats.

"If you see Bunny, send him over," said Janice.

We headed as far away from the pool as possible. Taking the longest route to ensure we avoided bumping into Bunny, we circled back until we were under our tree again. Things would be very different now. It seemed Angel felt that way too.

"Did you miss me?" she said.

I shrugged bashfully, though my heart was racing. Then it dawned on me. I'd completely forgotten. In the wooden crate under my bed was an envelope with something very special inside. But if I left her now to fetch it, maybe I'd never see her again. Another thought crept into my head. What if she hated it? And what if...

I heard the sound of someone creeping up behind us.

"What you guys doing here?"

Bunny had discovered our hideout.

"What do you want?" said Angel.

This wasn't the first time we'd hidden from Bunny. He often came looking for us which made my time with Angel all the more exciting. She always seemed thrilled to have given him the run-around. Watching him aimlessly circle us like a lost child was revenge in itself.

Bunny looked confused at the sight of Angel and me together like this. I avoided his stare. Thank goodness he was leaving the country soon, and to think how miserable he would have made my life. You see, Bunny liked Angel, a lot. Mikey told me. It started to become clear, seeing him chasing her around the pool, the name-calling and the way he kept following us. But he had a funny way of showing his feelings. Even I had the sense to know than an arm around a girl's neck was not the best way to go about these things.

Bunny sniffed around our hideout.

"You're just a bitch, you know that," he said.

"You just shut up Bunny...you...you...asshole."

"I know what you two have been up to," he said, cocking his nose at me.

Angel bared her teeth. "You're disgusting."

"And you're just like your mother."

"What did you say?"

"She's a whore and so are you."

Angel ran at Bunny, her blows glancing off his raised arms. She hit him hard in the belly. Bunny doubled over, winded. It was as though all her outbursts had been preparation for this very moment. Seeing her take him on like this filled me with admiration. But Angel's anger was the result of something much deeper. She ran off teary-eyed. With Bunny briefly incapacitated, I was tempted to hit him, and then run as quickly as I could of course. But the two of us just stood there, and in the brief, hateful silence I heard something familiar squeaking towards us. It was Danny in his wheelchair.

"What are you two up to," he said, "looks like you're plotting something?"

"We're just...admiring this tree," I said stupidly.

Danny surveyed the canopy. "Don't see nothing special about this tree?"

And with that, he wheeled himself back towards the Clubhouse. How could he know this was indeed a very special tree.

### 21

It was good to see Mikey again. Mariel had brought him over to sit with us by the pool.

"Missed you, man," he said, looking like an unhappy pirate. The effects of sunstroke had left him temporarily blinded in one eye.

"Missed you too," I said, feeling another twinge of guilt.

Mariel Devane and Betty Lafretti had been busy all morning on the PATS next production, a musical called Oklahoma. It was Betty's favourite. Mother had been practising the score all week and a little earlier I'd waved her off, taxi-bound for the American School. She was on her way to meet Principal Lafretti to finalise the terms of her new job. She wouldn't stop singing, "Oh, what a beautiful morning, oh, what a beautiful day, I've got a beautiful feeling, everything's going my way."

Bunny was sitting on the table next to us. He looked as though he was straining for a fight. Angel was still angry with him.

"What's up with you guys?" said Mikey. Even with one eye, he could see something wasn't right.

"Maybe you should ask Angel," said Bunny.

She slammed her fist on the table. "Just shut up, for God's sake! Why don't you just go away and die."

"You'd like that wouldn't ya," said Bunny.

Mariel had just got out of the pool. Still dripping she grabbed Angel's arm. "The quicker you get used to things, the easier it's going to be for all of us. Do you understand? You apologise to Bunny."

Angel flew out of her chair. "I hate you, I hate you all!"

Without thinking I ran after her.

"Hey, where are you going," said Mikey.

I chased Angel back to our tree.

"Not now, Alex. Can't you see? I'm upset."

"But...I bought this."

I'd been dreaming of this moment. I let the gold heart swing hypnotically in front of her eyes.

She stared it briefly and then let it sit on her hand.

A smile broke through the gloom. "Oh, Alex."

"Do you like it?"

Miss Bavington's pearls were still around her neck. "Be careful with them," she said as she handed them to me. I forced the pearls deep into my pocket.

"It's gold," I said. The little filigree heart was now happily nestling in the groove of her neck.

"I love it," she said. Then she took my hand and told me to close my eyes again. Only she promised this time she wouldn't run away.

"Promise?"

I felt her arm coil around my waist and she drew me towards her, and with her back against the tree, I felt my weight press up to her warm body. This was it. I tasted her sweet breath as her mouth closed in on mine. Our lips touched...

"Told ya!" shouted Bunny.

What?

Angel slammed me in the chest. I staggered backwards, caught my heel on a tree-root and fell.

"What the heck are you doing, Angel?" snarled Mikey.

"He tried to kiss me!"

Bunny rushed over and clubbed me. "Crazy half-breed."

"Just shut up," said Angel and she stomped off.

Mikey just stared at me and then walked off with Bunny who dared me to lay my hands on his friend's sister again.

I have no idea why I followed them back to the pool. I arrived to an awkward silence. Mikey was flipping angrily through a comic. Bunny was stabbing the table with a knife left behind by one of the bearers.

"Glad to see you're all getting along," said Mariel.

She was seated with Betty and Janice on the other table. They didn't look so sure.

I willed Angel to look at me. She offered me the hint of a smile as she thumbed the little chain I'd given her. Maybe things weren't so bad after all. Bunny would soon be out of our lives forever and I was sure Mikey would get used to the idea of me and his sister. And then I heard that familiar sound of a squeaking wheel.

"Right, where are they?" shouted Danny.

He screeched to a stop, dangerously close to Angel's legs.

"I beg your pardon?" said Mariel.

"Not you. Her!" he said, aiming an accusatory finger at Angel. His face had gone red as a radish. Sweat seeped out of his forehead.

"What on earth are you talking about?" said Mariel.

Angel shrunk into her chair.

"You better ask your daughter."

Janice turned to Bunny. "You know anything about this?"

"I don't know nothin', Mom!"

She looked relieved.

"Lilly let her put 'em on and Missy here said she'd carry on reading to her so long as she could wear 'em. And now they've gone."

"What are you saying?"

"She's got Lilly's pearls," said Danny.

"Is this true, Angel? Answer me!"

The colour had drained out of Angel's face. Mikey found the perfect moment to stab his sister.

"I saw them on her, Mom."

"I knew it," said Danny. "I've been looking all over for them. She knows Lilly's not been well...now what've you done with them?"

Mariel grabbed Angel's arm and if it weren't for Betty there was no telling what she'd have done.

"Hang on, Mariel," said Betty.

Betty Lafretti became a hawk. She'd been quietly observing me.

"Alexander?" she said calmly, "do you happen to know anything about the pearls this gentleman's referring to?"

"The girl took 'em," said Danny, "I know she did."

"Just a minute, sir," said Betty. "Alex? You'd tell us if you knew wouldn't you?"

I smiled at Angel, her loyal donkey. This was my moment to put everything back to where it should have been, reuniting Miss Bavington with her silly string of beads and Angel left in no doubt about how I felt about her.

I fished out the pearls from my pocket.

"Well, well, well," said Danny.

"I knew it," said Bunny. "He's a goddam thief. And he's a liar. I know he is 'cos..."

"Hush your mouth, Bunny," said Janice.

"Well, it's true. He lied. He even said he was eleven when he's not. He's just ten years old and he knew it all along."

Angel started bawling.

"Be quiet," shouted Mariel.

Bunny smirked at me. "You're gonna get it now."

### 22

To look back and wonder, the past, the future, twins in time, one to cry about, the other to cry for. Should I have told the truth? How easy would that have been? Blame it on the pretty girl? Blame it on the boy? What did it matter? No one had died. Far worse things happened beyond the walls of our little paradise. What was all the fuss about? Here you are Danny, take it, end of story. Did anyone give a damn? Apparently, the Americans did.

"I don't understand, what's wrong," I said as Mariel hurried me back to the bungalow. She said nothing, her eyes were cold.

As we approached, I prayed Mother was out. She opened the door. My heart started beating fast as Mariel said as much as she had to. The blood drained out of Mother's face, her pained expression brought on by Mariel's parting words.

"Perhaps we should let things cool off for a while."

Mother said goodbye, closed the door and then telephoned Father.

"No, it can't wait, she said. "You have to come now!"

She sat and waited, her hand pressed up against her forehead in anguish over the tangled mess I'd conjured up for her.

Father crashed through the door.

"What's happened?"

He'd assumed the worst.

"Ask him!" she said, staring at me as though I was a stranger.

"What is it, Sikunder? You can tell me."

I shrugged. It really was complicated.

I followed him outside and we stood under the Loquat tree where I promised to tell him everything as long as he assured me he'd say nothing to Mother. We sat down and with our backs against the tree he listened to my sorry story - about an unhappy American girl who I'd tried to rescue, and how had Mother been there with me at the pool, rather than chasing after Principal Lafretti, things would have been very different – I regretted saying that but from the way Father was looking at me, I was left in no doubt about the seriousness of my predicament.

Then to my surprise, he patted my knee and said, "Alright, _kissa khatam_ ," which meant 'okay, I've heard all I need, end of story'.

It was time for me to grow up, he said. There were more important things in life than lounging about and chasing after girls. I replied that it was only one girl, and he laughed and reminded me that my new school term was fast approaching and that I was to work hard. It was up to me to show him what I was capable of, he said.

The situation was much more complicated than I'd realised. Mariel had left Mother in a daze. Mother had just got back from the American School, happy in the knowledge that she finally had the confirmation she needed. In her hand was a letter from Principal Lafretti, i's dotted, t's crossed, signed and stamped – a total resetting of her future and mine.

Mother tried ringing Mariel. Maybe there'd been a misunderstanding. But Mariel wasn't returning her calls and nor it seemed was Principal Lafretti. The lady on the other end said he was busy. Then he called the next day. I heard them speaking. She listened, for an age, it seemed, avoiding my eyes, agreeing with everything he said, and dabbing her eyes she told him she was very sorry and put the phone down. Then she took hold of my arms and started shaking me.

"Why? Why?! I don't understand! Is it my fault? Is that it? Is it something I've done?" She ran out and didn't return home until dark. And that night, when Father arrived from work she had a few words left over for him. "It's all my fault, isn't it? Why don't you just say it? So, it is my fault. I am to blame."

That evening, I crept out and made my way back to the poolside. In a rewinding of time. There they were, the Devanes. I imagined them happily lounging under the sun, waving at me to come and join them. The pool was now deserted. In the stillness came a sudden breeze. There in the shallow, bobbing aimlessly, one of those silly lifesavers, abandoned by a little Shrimp. My heart ached. What did I have to show for this American adventure of mine – a winner's medal I didn't win, a shirt with a smiling mouse that still smelt of her, and...the bitter memory of a sweet, sweet kiss...and what about Mikey? He'd been so kind to me and I never thanked him.

I stifled a sob.

### 23

My promise to Father was tinged with sadness. Would I ever see Angel again? I had tried to harden myself. Father's rhetoric offered me some comfort though his assumptions about the Americans just made things worse with Mother. I held out for a ray of hope. Surely Angel was still thinking about me?

The time had finally come for me to return to St Mary's. I hurried through the school gates and joined my class under the shadow of the school building. I stood there unable to mouth the anthem as a chain of whispers circled me, the boys I knew turning their heads as we marched towards that field. They were right to be confused. Even Bhoo was keeping his distance. I didn't blame him. He was used to being lied to. In his mind, we were all in cahoots, playing some kind of prank on him, a way to make him look like a fool again.

I drifted through my lessons with no one to sit next to. The oddest of feelings crept up on me that first morning back. If ever I felt like I didn't belong, it was now. I'd have been grateful for just one smile. The sound of the bell filled me with dread. The boys crowded around me in the playground. Things were worse than I expected.

"Our school not good enough for you, hah, Sikunder?" said one.

"He's too smart for us, yaar," said another.

Had I been gracious in parting? No. Goodbye my dear friends, goodbye, I'm off to a much better place. One door closes, another opens, slam! Sorry, but that's just how it goes. I hope life treats you well but this one is certainly not for me. My new destination one fine, shiny, little America, right here in our City. Have you met my new friends? No. of course not. They are very impressive, and they promise to take me higher than you could ever contemplate, oh, and by the way, I forgot to mention - I've fallen in love! Yes, with a beautiful American girl. You don't believe me? Well, here she is. Say hello, darling. And, yes, I have kissed her. You have to believe me. How do I explain love to you, my friends? Imagine your heart leaping when nothing else matters in the world but her and when she's not there, the warm glow in your heart slowly turns to cold, a melancholy consumes you, promising to never go away, churning your stomach like hunger so that you want more. So you seek it out, again and again, the pain and pleasure, all wrapped up in one bitter-sweetness. It's great! Do you know what I mean, hah? No, you don't. That's because boys like us never find love, do we?

The boys started pushing me. There was only one option. I started laughing.

"Yaar, the American school is rubbish," I said.

The boys look surprised. "What are you saying?"

"Everyone knows that, yaar," I replied.

"Really?" said Bhoo cautiously.

"What do you think they do there all day?"

The boys stared at their feet.

"Hashish! All they do is smoke hashish over there."

"Hashish?" said Bhoo incredulously.

I coughed. The memory of Bunny's cigarette hit the back of my throat. The boys howled and started dancing around Bhoo, shouting and puffing through their fingers. "Bhoo smokes hashish, Bhoo smokes hashish".

Just then the bell rang and as I made my way across the yard an older boy approached me.

"Those Umreecans need to go back to their own country," he said.

I nodded shyly. There was a seriousness in his eyes. His name was Jahangir. I found myself drawn to him, and over the coming weeks, we became close. One day after school, as we waited for the bus, he insisted we headed for the City centre.

He carried around one of those pocket radios, listening to it through an earpiece. He cupped his ear as he tuned in to something.

"What is it?" I said over the clatter of the bus.

"Wait, I think I can hear it."

Then he smiled at me. We arrived at the bus terminus and headed towards a bustling intersection where the traffic spun around a roundabout travelling in and out of the City. To my surprise, it was now completely deserted. Where was everyone? The shutters had been brought down on the entire strip of shops. Families had gathered on the balconies above.

"Over there!" shouted Jahangir. "Let's go!"

In the distance, a human mass was marching towards us. Jahangir and I ran towards them, the horizon now overwhelmed by an unstoppable wave.

I could hear them shouting. No, they were chanting.

"Pakistan Zinda-bad, India Murda-bad! Pakistan Zinda-bad, India Murda-bad!"

It was as though a dam had burst. They were gaining on us, getting closer, louder, angrier until the ground under my feet shook.

They were chanting "Long live Pakistan, Death to India!" So it was true. War was coming. The story of the divide between East and West Pakistan was real. In support of East Pakistan's struggle for independence from West Pakistan, India had gradually started its invasion, increasing its military activities across the border.

Jahangir and I got swept away, caught up in the torrent. "Pakistan Zinda-bad, India Murda-bad! Pakistan Zinda-bad, India Murda-bad!"

As we flooded the main road, someone pushed a banner in my hand. I held it up high, firing off my mouth to the very memorable rhyme "Pakistan Zinda-bad, India Murda-bad!" I grinned at Jahangir, overwhelmed by the groundswell of uncensored, uninhibited, full-on war of words. A real war was coming. Citizens were being called on to commit Jihad, a holy war against the number one enemy. When? Soon. This month next month. No one seemed to know, and as we turned a corner, Jahangir and I were spat out.

I laughed, flushed with excitement. I couldn't believe what had just happened. Jahangir nodded knowingly. Then he put his arm around my shoulder and we made our way home.

Back in the playground, Jahangir hung back as I recounted my story to the boys. I was there I told them. I really was. The demonstration had been captured on the front cover of all the newspapers. I scrutinised one, seeking out the white flag I'd been waving. The boys were impressed. That's how I got to know Jahangir, and with the hot, humid months long gone, my school days quickly passed by, one merging into the other.

Jahangir I discovered was a model student and regularly came top of his class. He was doing so well at school that on one occasion while waiting outside his classroom I caught his teacher and classmates applauding him.

My homework was piling up higher with each passing week, my class now regularly subjected to a new regime of written tests which required the skills of a highly proficient parrot. But it didn't matter how hard I tried, I always seem to fall below average.

Then one afternoon after school, Jahangir invited me back to his home. The bus dropped us outside a shabby government apartment block on a busy street market. The only other significant structure was a mosque, its minaret rising out of the melee like a space rocket.

We climbed the stairs to the floor at the top and Jahangir let me into his modest home which he shared with his mother. There was one bedroom, a small kitchen but no toilet. The living room doubled as his bedroom. I waited quietly as he changed out of his uniform into his salwar. He had to say his prayers, he said and prostrated on a mat he went through the familiar motions. I sat quietly, feeling a little awkward, and when he was done he offered me a drink of water and we sat down together by a window and got on with our homework. I had a history test to prepare for. The reason I followed Jahangir home was a suspicion I was harbouring. How was it that this older boy was so proficient at his studies? No one had ever taught me how to do well at school and yet some boys could make it look so easy. What were they doing that I wasn't?

I sat in Jahangir's living room for two whole hours preparing for my test. I was exhausted. I'd done as much as I was able to. I would have to leave the rest to chance. Jahangir laughed. Two hours was nothing, he said. He kept reams of notes which he made during class and which he embellished and kept organised and read and reread, rocking on his chair in the way the boys do studying the Quran at the _madrassa_. Jahangir lived for his studies, I discovered. It was like this most days, he said. He would come home after school, say his prayers, eat a simple meal, and then work late into the night before one last prayer and straight to bed. He would wake before dawn, say his prayers and back to school soaking up everything he could. There was a lot to admire about him. But it was his sincerity and dedication to his religion that I found the most enchanting. The way he whispered Quranic verses brought a kind of peace and tranquillity into his humble home. There was no velour sofa-set, dining table or piano in his living room. All he had was a narrow mattress in the corner where he slept, a few cushions around a low table where he dined with his mother and nothing on the walls, no pictures, no paintings, except one single, framed Arabic verse praising Allah hanging boldly above his bed.

What Jahangir said next took me by surprise.

He broke off from his studies. "Is your father a Muslim?" he said as though he'd been giving this question some thought.

Well, as far as I knew. Though I'd never seen him go to the mosque he certainly fasted during Ramadan.

"Yes," I said quickly.

Jahangir looked pleased. "That makes you a Muslim too."

"What?"

"Of course. You are the son of a Muslim. That makes you a Muslim."

"Really?"

After we finished our homework Jahangir made me recite a simple verse called the Shahadah, the first of the five pillars of Islam. That would make me a proper Muslim, he said.

I repeated after him, really concentrating.

" _La ila-ha ila llah...muhammad-un rasu-lu llah_."

"Very good," he said.

Rhyming Quranic verses made it easier to remember. But that wasn't enough. I had to know the meaning of these words, he said.

"There is no god but God," he said, "Muhammad is the messenger of God."

"Is that it?" I said. Becoming a proper Muslim was easy.

He shook his head. It was more than that, he said, and so one bright, cold, morning I found myself accompanying him to his local mosque. He leant me his white salwar kameez and with my hair cut short, I fitted right in. The muezzin's call echoed out across the marketplace. A gold crescent on top of a white dome glinted against the blue.

"Just do as I do," whispered Jahangir. We lined up behind the other worshippers queuing for a water fountain bubbling peacefully in a courtyard. The sound of running water was soothing. This was a different kind of pool intended only for purifying. I stood behind Jahangir as we waited our turn. A space became available and we took off our shoes. I placed mine next to his with a little fear and trepidation brewing in my stomach. Not shaking fear. More like the fear of an imposter excited at the prospect of making it to the end.

I did my best to keep up with Jahangir as he went through his ablution which he called _Wudu_. He splashed water over himself, repeating the word _Bismillah_ each time. I did as he did, cautiously repeating _Bismillah_ as I cleaned my right hand, three times, and then my left as many times again and then wiping my mouth, with my finger rinsing and rubbing my teeth clean, washing my arms and my elbows, and then thoroughly between my fingers before moving on to my ears, feet and toes. Jahangir was going far too quickly. I worried someone might have noticed the fraud amongst us. But by the time we were finished, a feeling of calmness had washed over me. My skin felt nice and cool. I'd known this feeling before.

Jahangir and I made our way under the huge dome, greeted by giant pillars that arched upwards into a vast curving ceiling that had been painted gold and blue. There were no pictures or paintings, no statue of an impaled man, no divisions or divides or wooden pews. This was very different from St John's. I walked across the cool silk carpet in my bare feet and took my place next to my friend. Then without any warning, the _imam_ appeared and with his back to us he led the prayer. I was now completely on my own, much like my school PT drill with rows of bowing heads in front and either side of me. I dared not look behind and kept my eyes firmly on the man in front and to the rhythm of the imam's soft voice, I did as he did, raising my hands to my ears, for what reason I didn't know, then bowed, towards Mecca, which I did know, the rustling of cloth echoing as we prostrated. Then I had to fall to my knees, my forehead landing gently on the fine silk carpet, my toes straining, my senses alert to the heels of the man in front. And suddenly I was back on my feet again, then prostrate again and then back up again, and without warning, all heads turned one way in a whisper of prayers and then the other way. And finally, we turned to greet each other with a Bismillah, the man to the left and then Jahangir to my right, _Bismillah_. That was it, I'd done it – my first trip to a mosque. And the good thing was that no one had noticed the imposter.

I turned to Jahangir again, but he wasn't smiling. All eyes were facing the front. We sat down and waited.

The imam's beard was neat and black. He was a tall man and a lot younger than the religious men I'd grown accustomed to seeing who dyed their beards and so obviously loved their food. He wasn't fierce or angry, his belly wasn't swollen. He had a kind, thoughtful face and the sermon he delivered didn't require a book. What I recall he said bore no resemblance to anything I'd ever heard before. Maybe that's why I remembered it. It was strange to have remembered it. But then, these were strange times, with the threat of war on the horizon, and for the Northwest Province, a growing sense that the country's identity was not its own and that something had to be done about it.

And of all that the imam said that day, what I recollect is this:

"You don't know who you are," he told us. "You have forgotten yourself. You have lost your self-respect. You have lost your sense of nationality. You stand by silently while your traditions and your honour are trampled upon." I turned to Jahangir. He was nodding. "Do you wonder why our streets have Western names? Why our colours are Western colours? When you express an idea, you do so not on your behalf...you do this on the behalf of a Westerner, do you not see." Jahangir could see. "Never forget your honour...Have pride in yourselves....Allahu Akbar."

A thought struck me. Dressed in Jahangir's salwar, I now felt invisible. I sat there listening to the imam, surrounded by all these men in their salwar. The man to my side could have been a farmer, a beggar, or a rich factory owner. There was no way for me to know, no way for me to judge any of them. Maybe that's what the imam meant when he said that only Allah could judge you, that praying in the mosque, all dressed in the same, simple clothes, Allah would have to look deeper to truly discover your true worth.

I wasn't aware of it at the time but I'd become confused. Whatever message the Imam had conveyed had had a strange effect on me, manifesting itself in a simple act of destruction. That evening I slid my crate of things from under my bed. It was where I kept the little pile of comics Mikey had given me. I took them outside and arranged them at the back of the bungalow, ready for a fire. It didn't feel wrong. I set them alight, watching them as they transformed into a heap of grey ash, those odd costumed fellows I'd become obsessed with consumed in metallic green flames. No, it didn't feel wrong, and as if to vindicate my action, a sudden gust appeared, swirling around the yard. Like an invisible hand, it took hold of the burning embers and sent them floating, far away.

### 24

I never expected to hear from the Devanes again but Mother hadn't given up on them. One afternoon, Mariel telephoned to say they'd been involved in a serious car accident. No one was hurt, she said, except Chevrolay, although she was convinced it was deliberate – and Mariel was certain I knew something about it.

Mother pulled up outside my school gates just as I was about to board the bus home.

"Get in," she said, and she explained.

"But why does Mariel want to see me?"

"You tell me?"

Mother sped along the Grand Trunk Road, overtaking my battered school bus. The back seat was now packed with boys from my class. I waved at them as they pulled faces at me and then Mother turned off the road and headed north to the Devane's new home. Eventually, we found the place along an unmarked residential road. Their house was a huge detached property with a view of the hills.

Mother drove up the steep drive where a nervous woman-servant greeted us and hurriedly unbolted the gates. We pulled up behind a row of neatly parked huge American cars. I could just make out the sound of laughter bubbling up from somewhere at the back.

"Wait here," said Mother.

I watched as she disappeared through a side gate. The Devanes home was modern and stark in its marble and glass box geometry. Exaggerated by an overhanging veranda, the harsh edges of the frontage had been softened by glossy mango trees and a neatly cut lawn, its curving borders filled with manicured shrubs and tall blooming flowers.

I unbuckled my satchel. There was going to be a test. A book on the history of Mughals had sat in my bag unopened. I fanned the pages. The smell of new print filled me with dread. Our teacher was a fearsome, wiry chap who thrived on our ignorance, and regularly threatened to flog us all. His cane landed against our backs as a reminder that we would never meet his exacting standards. I was hopeless at history. I simply couldn't memorise facts, those so-called important dates and events: When was this emperor born? Why did he do this why did he do that? When did he die? Which battle? Territories conquered, wives married, his children, his fights with his children, his death, his children's wives, their children, their fights with their children, their deaths, and everything in between. I just couldn't find a way to remember any of it which is the reason why my teacher frequently made me stand in front of the class.

"Tell us all, boy," he said. "What do you know about Akbar?"

"Sorry, sir?"

Chalk flew across the room.

"Akbar boy, Akbar. The gerrate Mughal Emperor. Do you know nothing?"

I admired our teacher's obsession with the past, though it would take me many more years to appreciate the significance of studying about things gone by.

I'd drifted off. Sensing I'd been abandoned, my thoughts suddenly came crashing around me. There was a loud metallic thud above my head. Something landed heavily on the roof.

"Oh, man, where'd it go?"

Oh, no. I saw the distinctive silhouette of Bunny Hoffman lumbering towards me. Hide.

I joined the Mughals in the foot-well.

"Hey, that's Alex's car?" said Mikey.

"What's this shit heap doin' here?"

Mikey appeared at the window. "Alex!"

Bunny peered in. "Well, look who it is."

Mikey opened the door for me and I got out.

"Where've you been?" he said.

What? Where had I been?

He put his arm around me and walked me towards the sound of laughter and clinking glass.

"Who invited him?" said Bunny.

It turned out Mariel was having a party.

"I did," said Mikey.

The drone of adult conversation went uninterrupted. I forced a smile.

Smartly dressed diplomats and their wives were caught up in a juggling act of talking and drinking. We were in a garden lavishly laid out with food and drink. Linen covered tables were spread with more food than I'd ever seen in one place. There was a hot and cold buffet and tiers of white bread sandwiches, pastries and little fancy cakes, and bottles and cans of drink floating on ice. The flies must have thought they'd landed in heaven. A woman-servant was doing her best to keep them at bay.

Looking across, I recognised the cast of HMS Pinafore. John and William were also here, and I could see Janice and Betty in the corner talking to Mother? But where was Angel?

Then I noticed a large pile of gifts wrapped in the shiniest paper and bunched together on a table of their own. Was this a birthday party?

Mariel was fussing over the woman servant when she took hold of a wine glass and started tapping it.

"Everybody! Can I have your attention please...thank you."

The guests fell silent as the woman servant staggered towards us, carrying what looked like a large cake. In the whisper of anticipation, I noticed all eyes were now on Mikey. He looked nervous. Mariel put her arm around him and when the cake landed, the guests clapped, prompting her to make a short speech. What she went on to tell us was an endearing story about Mikey, recounting the day of his birth, of how he was the perfect child and how thrilled she was that we were all here to celebrate his special day.

There was a round of applause and then everyone started singing. "Happy birthday to you...Happy birthday dear Mikey, happy birthday to you."

Mikey looked pained.

"Where is she?" I heard Mariel say.

My heart started pounding. As the guests sang I looked up to see Angel standing in the window. She stared back at me. I was about to wave at her but I kept my hand by my side. She looked like she'd been crying.

With the singing over, everyone started clapping and there was audible 'wow' as Mariel cut into the extravagant cake. Some of the guests drew nearer for a better look at the work of edible art. The words 'Michael and Angelica' had been spelt out on it in large letters. Angelica? I slapped my forehead. Of course, Angel and Mikey were twins. How could I have forgotten?

When I looked up again, Angel was gone. Mariel drove a knife deep into the sugary sponge and the sophisticated chatter started up again as she dished out large slices of the cake onto paper plates.

Mikey looked relieved. He sidled up to me. "I'm sorry the way things turned out," he said, "since Mom left Dad it's been a major SNAFU. You know what I mean?"

I nodded. I had no idea what he meant. It seemed as though every family had one problem or another to deal with, and the way they dealt with it was to give the impression that everything was fine and that it was better to keep a brave face on things rather than go mad and shout about how they felt. The real conversations, the ones that mattered were being had somewhere else rather than with the people who needed to hear it.

Yes, I was confused but it was good to see Mother getting on well with Mariel again.

"Hey, you and your buddy wanna play?" said Bunny wiping cake off his mouth. He had one of those American footballs under his arm.

We wandered over to the front of the house and passed Chevrolay. There was a nasty gash in its side. Mikey didn't seem bothered.

"C'mon pass it, man," he said.

Bunny showed off his mastery, the boys throwing the ball back and forwards, its peculiar egg-shape coming into its own as it spun effortlessly through the air.

Mikey tried to show me how it was done. "Put your fingers inside the laces...like this," he said.

My throw landed feebly by Bunny's feet.

"They teach you nothing at that dumb school of yours," he said.

We carried on passing the ball and Mikey tried to show me how to kick while Bunny did his best to show me just how incapable I was.

"C'mon, give him a chance," said Mikey.

"I'll give him a chance," shouted Bunny.

He coiled up and launched the ball, sending it deliberately beyond the boundary wall. "Go get, it."

We heard it skip along the road outside.

"Oh, man. What d'ya do that for?" said Mikey. "My Dad gave me that."

Bunny didn't seem bothered.

"Don't worry, I'll get it," I said. The gate looked easy enough.

"Yeah, you get it," said Bunny.

"Thanks, Alex. Since the accident, Mom won't let us out."

I clambered over the gate and ran down the steep drive. The sun was disappearing fast behind the hilltops, now an outline of jagged gold. I scanned the road flanked by woodland, the grazing land beyond it appearing like dark water under the shadow of the hills. Something about the stillness of this place made me feel wary. A solitary car was parked up on the dusty overhang. Something just didn't feel right. Someone was sitting in the front seat and as I got closer I could hear the engine running and in the fading light, I saw the silhouette of a man. He'd found Mikey's ball.

"Hey, give it back," I said.

"C'mon, take it. You think I can throw this thing?"

He held it out like a lure, willing me to come closer. As I approached, the other man got out. He closed the door quietly and began walking towards me. I froze. He was now smiling at me if only to let me know he'd remembered me.

"Hey, what's your name, boy?" he said.

I couldn't move. "Sik...under," I said quivering.

I recognised him. It was Pockmark. The man who'd chased after us in the City.

"That's a good name," he said. "Here, take it, Sikunder."

He tossed the ball to me, jolting me out of my skin. I caught it and ran as fast as I could up the drive unable to look back, fearing that Pockmark would be there on my shoulder.

I flew over the gate, relieved to see the boys waiting for me. My heart was racing. Maybe this time he'd believe me.

"Mikey, Mikey!"

"That's a good boy," said Bunny. He greeted me with a wry smile. "Now hand it over. Woof, woof."

"C'mon, Bunny, go easy on him."

"When you gonna learn, Mikey, you gotta let these people know who's boss."

"What do you mean?" I said catching my breath.

"I mean fucking look at you. What the hell are you wearing?"

I was still in my school uniform. I stared down at my shirt. There were ink stains on it and my trouser knees needed patching again. I certainly hadn't come dressed for a party.

"Cool it, Bunny," said Mikey.

"Or what? You gonna sic your mongrel on me."

Mongrel? The shock of seeing Pockmark, to have been within his grasp, sent me into a rage. I still had the ball and I aimed it at Bunny. I wanted to hurt him, but as I drew my arm back it slipped out of my hand, landing behind me.

The boys started laughing.

"What an idiot," chortled Bunny.

"C'mon, Alex, that was funny," said Mikey.

"Woof, woof," barked Bunny. "No wonder Angel's laughin' at you."

What? Angel was laughing too? I looked up. She was standing on the veranda. So that's what she really thought. I should have guessed. I was just a big joke, someone to make fun of. No, we weren't as clever as these Americans. We were stupid and simple, and that meant they could make fun of us because we didn't have their money and their fancy clothes and big, fancy cars and impressive schools.

Bunny suddenly stopped laughing. He glared at me.

"What did you just say?"

Mikey looked confused.

"Say that again," said Bunny, "I dare you."

"C'mon, Alex, that's not right," said Mikey. He started to walk away. "Just leave him, man."

"No, I want to hear him say it."

I stepped up to face Bunny. "I'm sorry, didn't you hear me, Mr Bunnykins?"

"Yeah, I heard you. Say it again. I double dare you."

Every sinew in my body was straining. I was ready to unleash a hateful force consuming me since the day I met this boy. It was time to make him angry.

"Death to America. That's what I'm saying. You hear me now?"

I started chanting. "Death to America! Death to America!"

Bunny lunged at me. But this time I was ready for him. I clenched my fist and gritting my teeth I drove my knuckles into his face. There was a loud crack that seemed to echo off the walls. Bunny stood there visibly shaken. I'd hit him hard, harder than I could have hoped for. A drop of blood emerged from his nostril. I watched it trickle off his lip and onto his shirt.

Mikey looked shocked. "What have you done, Alex?"

Bunny had gone grey. I looked up to see Angel. I was a stranger to her, no longer welcome. I didn't belong here. As she turned her back on me, I picked up the ball and kicked it as hard as I could. I sent it flying over the wall.

"My name is not Alex," I shouted. "I am Sikunder!"

I returned to the car. I slammed the door and curled up on the backseat. They could all go to hell.

Which is exactly where we found ourselves. What I had no way of knowing, as I lay asleep, was the tangled nightmare unfolding around me. I'd lost track of time. Illuminated by the garden lights, shadows moved along the perimeter of the house in a frantic game of hide-and-seek.

"Have you seen him?" someone whispered.

I rubbed my eyes. Who?

The servants had gathered at the end of the driveway staring out into the woods. The road glistened under a bright moon. I saw Mariel. She was clinging to Mikey's ball as her guests searched the woods. The car was gone. Someone had found its tracks.

"He did it!" shouted Bunny pointing at me. "I saw him. He kicked the ball over the wall and made Mikey get it. You can ask Angel."

Mariel looked haunted.

"He hit me," yelled Bunny, "he's an animal."

Mikey was gone. Pockmark had taken him.

### 25

Mother pinned me to the backseat demanding I told her everything I knew.

"Yes, I kicked it!"

"Why would you do that?"

"Because Bunny made me!"

"What has this got to do with Bunny?"

What had this got to do with Bunny? It had everything to do with him – didn't it? Go fetch it you Americans, I hope Pockmark gets you!

I became stone, unblinking, deaf to her interrogation. I didn't utter another word, and later that night, I lay quietly on my bed as she and Father argued in the living room.

"I don't know what to do anymore?" she said.

"What about Inspector Shah?" said Father. "He will know what to do."

Mother laughed hysterically.

Memories of the summer whirled around in my mind. The fair-haired boy with the loveable accent was gone. Mikey had been nothing but kind to me. And what had I to offer him? Nothing, except the skin of a snake.

The days went by in a haze. Images of Mikey consumed me in dark, heart-wrenching nightmares. I pictured him out there somewhere and inside my mind, my imagination serving up scenes of torture, burning skin, and severed tongues, a boy muted, unable to scream for his mother, just like Mr Pervez's son. I became trapped in these nightmares jolting awake to discover the hideous dream and reality were the same and that the whole thing just wouldn't stop pounding at my head – I just wanted it to go away.

I locked myself in my room. I refused to go to school, hitting my head against my bedroom wall in the hope that I could damage out of existence that fragment of my brain still holding on to the horrid memory. Then I'd started shouting at the ceiling and at then at the sky pleading for his rescue from the clutches of the creature that had him trapped out there somewhere.

The grief that had come with losing Mikey would fade sooner than I could have imagined. His disappearance gave way to my own loss. That was the summer Mother left us. If she'd been looking for a way out, she found it, returning home to England to be her mother who was now very ill. A letter had confirmed it and a week later she was gone. Her bags packed, she took the first plane out of the country. In her hurry to leave I didn't say goodbye properly. The way I felt about things I was angry with her. This was all her fault. Wasn't it?

As time went by I began to miss my mother. The memory of her had me doubling up in agony, a sickening, bitter taste rising in my throat, symptoms of the worms of guilt. I was overcome by a growing sense of uncertainty over my future. She'd always been there for me. When I was little she would lay out a daily routine for me which I soaked up, all wrapped up in stories and games, our only battles back then over a chessboard or a deck of cards. It was she who taught me to read and write, to join up my letters and learn my numbers and all before I was six. And along the way she shared her ups and downs with me, of how when she was very young she'd been sent away to school and a story of a special friend she spent her summers with, the things they did and their dreams of adventures together in faraway places. I loved her for these insights into her past and whilst much of her deeper thoughts were unfathomable to me, I did revel in the grown-up sharing which I'm sure looking back on it now fuelled in me my desire to search for the sense in things.

Father did eventually call Inspector Shah. He arrived at the bungalow one evening and knocked on my bedroom door.

"Hey, Sikunder, c'mon, open up."

He sat me down in the living room, trying to make sense of it for me. I wasn't to blame myself, he said. It could never be my fault. The kidnappers would have got to Mikey one way or another, whatever happened.

"Will you find him?" I said.

He sighed. It was out of his jurisdiction. The Americans were handling the case. But he promised he would do whatever he could to help find him.

Not long after had Mother left us, we moved out of the Club to a place not far from where the Shahs lived. The weeks passed by gloomily, and in a grey shifting sky, the month of November heralded a brand new moon. A month of fasting had come and gone and the festival of Eid al-Fitr was upon us. Children dressed in their festival-best darted along the street greeting our neighbours in anticipation of a small monetary gift.

"Eid Mubarak, Eid Mubarak!"

I held Father's hand as he knocked on the Shah's door. A blue woollen jumper Mother had knitted me was holding up against the wintery chill. Mrs Shah came running out and hugged me like a long lost son.

"Very sorry about Lizbet," she said, consoling Father.

Father appeared stoical. "Her mother is very ill," he said. "It's for the best."

Mother had written to him. Her letter had left him sobbing quietly in the kitchen.

"Hah," nodded Mrs Shah sympathetically. "Mothers know best."

"How are you Sikunder, hah?" said Inspector Shah.

I couldn't bring myself to smile.

"Why don't you take the boy to the festival," Mrs Shah advised Father, "it will do him good."

Father said nothing as we drove.

"I don't want to go!" I said.

He looked weary. "It's time to grow up, Sikunder."

We headed north for about an hour or so to a town called Charsadda situated close to where the Swat and Kabul Rivers met. Tribes from across the province had gathered on a grassy, treeless plain surrounded by hills, an ideal location for a festival. Silk flags strung out across the skyline fluttered like birds trapped on a line. A troupe of men accompanied by a band of musicians danced on a stage whirling their swords that glinted in the low winter sun. At the centre of this exhibition was a giant Ferris wheel turning slowly, its occupants offered a unique view of the greatest show in the region. Tribal folk from across the Indus valley, distinguished by their hats and turbans, many armed to the teeth, were making their way towards the raucous, medieval scene. Father and I joined them and made our way towards the far end of the field where I could just make out horses and their riders racing wildly back and forth. We weaved through the crowd helped by some women in blue burkas parting the way for us also headed for the main attraction.

In an ancient game of polo, ruddy-faced men with Mongolian faces clung fearlessly to their saddleless ponies, charging at each other in gruesome competition. Hooves thundered past us in a chase for what looked like a muddy ball but which I soon discovered was a severed head of a goat. It bounced in front of me. I was going to be sick. I turned away just as a caravan of animals bounded past behind us. A huge elephant was on its way to a big tent, its tattered ears flapping wildly, behind it a train of camels and behind them, a huge, muzzled tiger straining at its leash. I grabbed hold of Father's hand and we followed a safe distance behind, past the _chaiwalas_ pouring milky tea from huge urns, the boys running up and down tossing handfuls of sawdust to pacify the mud, past the food stalls of spiced rice and frying meat covered in flies and wasps, and the sideshows, a troop of jittery monkeys dressed just like tribesmen with their very own guns, cobras hissing, conjurers piercing themselves with knives without a drop of blood, half-naked men slapped each other shouting kabaddi, kabaddi as heart jolting gunshots were fired exuberantly into the air while a band of dervishes whirled around and around, faster and faster, turning as the music became louder and louder, the show spinning in a kaleidoscope of colour, all swirling around me.

"Sikunder, Sikunder...you okay?" said Father.

I must have passed out.

"I'm okay."

He held my head in his lap. "Take a deep breath, you'll feel better." He handed me a piece of toffee he'd bought from one of the sellers.

I sucked on the sweet, breathing in the fresh Swat air, glad to be away from the crush of the crowd. Father must have carried me away from the melee. Along a stone wall, barbers were busily working away, a line of steel butterflies snipping and skittering in the bright light. Squatted next to us on a rug was a man selling fortunes.

"You want one?" he said.

Father waved him away.

A sign read, 'Fortunes, one rupee only' next to a gilded cage. Trapped inside was a small green bird. A group of young women caught sight of the sign. They swooped down on us, with their eyes unveiled and wide in anticipation. The fortune-teller grabbed their money and hurriedly dealt out a row of well-thumbed cards. He placed them face down on his rug. Then he unlatched the cage door and the miniature parrot hopped out.

"Tell him your name," said the fortune-teller.

One of the women obliged and the pretty bird began arching its neck up and down as though it were mediating with the future. It tapped its beak on a card and then hopped back into the cage. The fortune-teller flipped the card over and handed it to the woman.

"None of us can read," she said.

He snatched it back. A few passers-by gathered around. The young women giggled as he read it out.

"You will find love very soon," he said dryly. The women went wild. The fortune-teller couldn't have looked less interested. "He will be wealthy and you will bear him many sons." He snapped the card back into the pack. "Okay, next."

The women flew away in fits of laughter pushing their way past a small crowd now blocking the narrow thoroughfare. A sickly old man was next in line.

"Give way to baba, come on show him some respect," said the fortune-teller.

The crowd made room for the old man and helped him onto the rug where a shaky rupee changed hands. The parrot hopped out again, cocked its head at the old man, picked a card and then hopped back inside its little prison.

"Read it," someone shouted impatiently.

The old man squinted, his sallow face warming as he slowly read out his fortune. There was good news. His eyes sparkled as he savoured a fortune promising health, wealth and a long life. There were a few chuckles. He must have been a hundred years old.

Father motioned it was time.

"Can I have a go...please?"

He finally relented and I handed over the crisp one rupee note Mrs Shah had given me for Eid.

"Don't touch the bird. Do you understand?" said the fortune-teller.

I nodded, he unlatched the cage and the little bird was on show again. I'd been watching it, wondering what it might have been thinking. I wasn't stupid. The bird could no more predict the future than I could. The animal was being caged for profit. What kind of existence was this for an animal, especially one with wings. Our eyes met as I pondered its destiny. Sad blue eyes stared hopefully at me and then blinked. It was as though it had read my mind. I reached out to stroke it.

"I told you, don't touch it!"

I ran my finger across its silky green feathers.

The fortune-teller slapped my hand away. "Is there something wrong with you, boy?"

That was Father's cue. The anger caged up inside him came charging out. He became the chained tiger unleashed, and I'm sure given the chance he would have torn the man limb from limb. The bird dived back into its cage as the crowd rushed to rescue its master. They grabbed hold of Father and wouldn't let him go until he came to his senses.

"Alright, alright, let me go."

Father dusted himself off, apologised and led me away. He said nothing on the way home but as we approached he stopped the car and told me he was sorry. He wasn't proud of himself, he confessed. Things just hadn't worked out very well for us.

I pondered his admission, recalling our time together last summer. There was something I wanted to tell him. I'd just not been able to say it, not to his face.

"I'm proud of you, Daddy."

He smiled. That day at the festival had brought some relief to both of us, in ways I couldn't have imagined.

### 26

November 1971 - President General Yahya Khan declares a state of emergency - the citizens of Pakistan are told to prepare for war.

East Pakistan's violent and unsuccessful struggle for independence from West Pakistan was now in the hands of the Indians. West Pakistan was at war with India.

A siren wailed most days, warning us of impending doom. We waited and waited and then one afternoon a helicopter circled the City, dropping white paper bombs. Out of the sky, little heaps of typed orders landed in the trees, in the streets, in the fields and even in the canal. Government leaflets commanded us to turn our lights out at night, to black out our windows, and whenever we heard the siren to hide under the nearest table to avoid the exploding, crushing consequence of an inevitable Indian bomb.

My school was now closed, the gates padlocked and none of us knew when we would see each other again. Noisy traffic headed out of the City. A rumour had spread that civilian targets were being strafed by enemy jets. To avoid being seen, many drivers had been wise enough to cover their vehicles in mud. The City began to settle down and life, though a little strange, was not inconvenient.

Then the explosions began. I heard them, out there somewhere, at night and in my dreams, perhaps a mile or so away, the sound of a giant Indian elephant lumbering slowly towards us, pounding the earth, one step, then the another, flattening everything in its way. Boomph...Boomph.

Pakistani pilots patrolled the skies in American Sabre jets, thundering above the rooftops in a show of strength before disappearing behind the clouds. I would wave at them, and one time I heard the sound of machineguns in the distance and clambering up onto our roof I caught a glimpse of two glinting triangles threading the air in a dogfight.

Then one day, Mrs Shah caught me waving my fist at an aerial battle playing out right above our street.

I punched the air. "Long live Pakistan, long live Pakistan!"

"Get inside, Sikunder, get inside!" she screamed.

A round of bullets ricocheted off a neighbour's roof. The planes darted away.

That evening, Mrs Shah told Father and a few days later a stranger arrived to take me away - my cousin Salaam.

"Wake up, Sikunder, wake up," said Father shaking me as though my life depended on it.

I'd fallen asleep in my clothes. Salaam had arrived. I was ready. Everything I needed for the trip I'd stuffed into a small leather case which had belonged to my English grandfather, George Priestley; it had the letters 'G.P' printed in gold on its side. I'd been allowed to fill the case with a few clothes, though I'd grown out of most of them, and some toys which didn't seem so important anymore, and memories from the wooden crate under my bed. Rummaging through my things, deciding one over the other, I came across a forgotten memory buried away. I had no idea how it got there. A white handkerchief caught up in the bright childish colours. Stitched into the fabric of the fine silky cloth, thread over thread were the initials of its owner. So beautifully shaped, the letter 'S' in the form of a snake coiling around the letter I.

"Sikunder, hurry up!" shouted Father.

I tossed it under the bed.

It was time to go. It was dark and cold outside where an anxious _tongawala_ was waiting, steadying his horse as it strained nervously, its glossy coat shuddering under the moonlight.

I clambered onto the carriage next to Salaam.

"Be a good boy," said Father.

I hugged him. Salaam promised to take good care of me. I had no idea when I would see Father again. We had no way of knowing when this horrid war would be over.

The _tongawala_ took his money and with a crack of his whip, the jumpy horse wrenched the carriage forward and had to be steadied before swiftly carrying us away along an unlit street. I watched Father's silhouette disappear, waving at him one last time. We were on our way out of the City bound for the tribal land, our path lit by the moon, the only sound the soporific clip-clop of the horse hurrying us through the frosty night. Salaam placed a blanket around my shoulders and somewhere along the way I fell into a deep sleep.

### 27

Munara Village, District of Mardan, NWFP.

Fine rays of sunlight pierced a timber wall. My clothes were damp and my neck was sore. A down blanket smelt of wet hay and to my silent horror, I could see through the glowing haze a big black eye peering at me. Hot breath crystallized in the frigid air. I was in a room for animals!? Or at least one as far as I could see – a buffalo. Thick black skin shivered against all that was keeping us apart. In the musty stillness, I heard someone shout.

"It's late, he can't sleep all day."

The door burst open. My roommate jumped.

A stocky little woman hurried me outside into an earth courtyard. Veiled in a ghostly mist, a leafless tree clawed the dismal sky.

"You drink," she said, sending a hide bucket deep underground.

There was a splash and then silence. Muscly arms worked a creaky wooden wheel. I peered over the side as she strained against the weight. The slippery bucket emerged glistening and swollen with crystal clear water.

She emptied it into a stone trough. "Drink."

I cupped my hands and drew on the freezing water. It was icy, icy cold – as cold as her stare. The woman was my Aunty Bastaja. She was married to my father's brother, and it was with good reason that she glared spitefully at me. After all, she was the girl in Father's story from all those years ago, the one who'd been betrothed to him. Forsaken for my mother, the family had been spared the loss of honour by marrying her off to Father's brother. Bastaja would of course always bear the deep, unhealed wound of shame. Had I known it then, I'd have backed away from the deep dark well, for she would happily have let me drown, by all accounts, had she been able to get away with it.

Bastaja, my uncle, their four children, my grandfather and my grandmother lived in this humble compound. A single-storey, whitewashed building spanned one end of a high-walled earth courtyard, a stable for the animals at the other. There was no electricity, no kitchen, no cooker, no sink, no taps, not even a toilet or at least not as I knew it. There was a goat tethered to the tree and chickens ambling about inspecting the floor. An open tandoor crackled in a corner. Aunty Bastaja was sat squat fanning the flames, still glaring at me. So it was no surprise when cousin Salaam's mother, my father's oldest sister, arrived hurriedly from the neighbouring village and rattled the huge wooden door demanding to be let in. The women were loud, Salaam's mother insisting she took charge of my welfare. Bastaja smiled wryly as she gave way to her flaming oven. My grandmother, a frail old lady, shuffled towards me. Bent double, she hugged and kissed me and pushed some money into my hand and before I could say anything meaningful to her she vanished back into her room. Salaam's mother had set about cooking my breakfast, the village staple - paratha and egg. She quickly mixed up flour and water, pressing it out into layers which she spread with ghee. Then she dropped the flattened dough into hot oil bubbling in a pan where it sizzled. The smell was divine. My belly burned with hunger. Then she mixed up a couple of eggs and poured them between the layers of flaky pastry and left it to cook. I couldn't eat it fast enough. Sat squat under a winter's sun, I tore through the flakey pastry and omelette. As it melted in my mouth, I realised there was no one to tell me off for licking my fingers.

I was soon joined by my five sleepy-eyed cousins, three boys and two girls, who introduced themselves in the way children do, and once the pecking order was established, we amused ourselves chasing each other around the courtyard, chasing the chickens, running around the tree, petting the goat, and laughing and giggling but not saying a lot.

The blue jeans I was wearing amused them. The boys thought my legs looked like skinny twigs and charmed by the two girls showing off their gold bangles, it was the youngest of the boys I found the most engaging.

"My...name...is Topeek," he said testing his English on me.

"Very good," I replied in Pashto. "My name is Sikunder."

He beamed. "You teach me English?"

We shook hands, and then, to my surprise, our playtime was abruptly ended. My cousins had chores to do, a concept I was unfamiliar with. The boys went outside to gather up wood while the youngest, a four-year-old girl, disappeared into the stable and returned with the huge buffalo ambling behind her. She tethered it to the tree and set about working the patient animal sat on a stool, her little hands squeezing jets of milk into a tin bucket. Very soon she'd filled the pail and I helped her heave it over to the fire where she spent the rest of the morning with her mother helping prepare lunch.

Later that morning Topeek introduced me to my grandfather. A very old man sat on a _charpai_ leaning on his cane, his eyes closed soaking up the morning rays. Dressed all in white, he had a long white beard and a religious cap pinned over his crown, the signs of a village elder. His face was sun-beaten and rough as tree bark. What caught my eye were his hands. They were the size of shovels, weathered and worn. My grandfather was the founder of Munara. He'd spent a lifetime transforming the sandy soil of this region into thriving farmland, deep, deep holes he'd dug with those hands of his, over thirty wells, pouring life into the soil and the mouths of a fast-growing population, he built houses for himself and his children, rented land to tenant farmers, he constructed a _Hujra_ for the elders to settle village disputes over hookah pipe smoke, a school for the youngest, a mosque with a fine minaret, decades spent tending maize, wheat and sugarcane to sustain the generations to come.

The expression on my grandfather's sleeping face was that of a contented human being though now inconvenienced by our shadows. He stirred, opening his eyes. They sparkled dimly as he stroked his beard contemplating the two boys brave enough to disturb him.

His expression remained unmoved at the sight of me. I had no idea what to say to him. He didn't know me and I didn't know him. But I was spared the embarrassment of a shy tongue when a family of chickens began fighting over the last of the grain, tossed angrily at them by Aunty Bastaja.

"Which one do you like?" said Grandfather, pointing his cane. The animals clucked brazenly around our legs.

I didn't understand.

"Chose one?" said Topeek, nodding at the chickens.

I surveyed the birds happily pecking the ground. "What about that one," my cousin whispered.

As chickens went they all looked nice enough. There was a brown one with reddish wings, a pure white one and another that looked very elegant with feathers covering its feet. I wasn't sure. Looking into the old man's fading eyes it was hard to believe he really was my grandfather. Was this humble farmer really related to me? I couldn't imagine my father being born in a place like this, the very same man who wore a three-piece suit and sat in an office taking dangerous pictures of people's insides? How did the son of a farming man find himself so far from this world?

What about that one? Yes, the one there with the fine pattern of greys and whites, the sort of thing Mother would have loved to paint. "That one?" I said.

"Hmm. Good choice," said my grandfather and then with surprising dexterity he scooped up the unsuspecting bird. It struggled briefly in his lap. He gently stroked its head until the creature's eyes became heavy and it fell asleep which was when things took a more worrying turn. The sound of a knife being sharpened. Aunty Bastaja stood with her hands on her hips waiting impatiently while Grandfather, in a mark of respect for the bird, whispered verses over its head before it was about to give up its life for our lunch.

What my grandfather had done was to afford me the Pakhtun honour of selecting our next meal. I couldn't bear to look. And then I peeked. I couldn't help myself. With a flick of his wrist, it was over. I'd inadvertently condemned to death the prettiest of these courtyard birds. I was suddenly confused. Aunty Bastaja chuckled at my discomfort, spitting feathers as she gutted, sliced and diced, throwing pieces of pretty chicken into her pot.

The meal was for our visitors. Word had got out. The residents of this village, and beyond, were eager to get a good look at the pale, underfed son of the English woman who'd stolen the heart of one of their sons. That afternoon, women swirled in and out of the courtyard casting aside their fashionable red and white polka dot burkas, a local style and embraced me with endless kisses, on my cheeks and my lips – yuk. Consolation came on a tray, sweetmeats accompanied by gallons of sugary tea. Spicy chicken bubbled on the open flame, and one by one, I was introduced to my extended family: this one is your Aunty from Dhok village, this one is from Moosa Banda, and this one is from Marghuz just north of here, and so on.

I met most of my cousins. The girls giggled, the boys sized me up and shook my hand, and as quickly as they said their names I forgot them, names like Azmaray, Balbala, Munawara, Noomyalay, Naseeya, Sabawoon, Zalaan. But where was Salaam? And then he walked through the door. I was pleased to see him again. Salaam was the youngest son of Father's oldest sister, the Aunty from Dhok, the one who'd cooked me my breakfast. Salaam had fair skin and dark brown eyes. He embraced me and then insisted on a tour of the village.

We weaved our way along the narrow alleyway between the high earth walls of my grandfather's house and the house next door, home to one of my uncles and his family. Spat out into the bright light the wheat fields were blackened and burnt to stubble and in the distance, I could hear the faint rumble of rushing water. I followed Salaam and we weaved our way through the fields and on to the sandy, grey bank of the River Indus where I stood transfixed. The water roared past us on its way down to the next village.

"Fish, fish!" shouted Salaam impressing me with his English.

I cocked my thumb at him excitedly. The glassy water was moving so fast it had risen above the bank making it possible to see the distinct outline of fish shooting past like arrows.

Salaam wanted me to meet his friends. We caught up with a group of boys loitering at the edge of a sugarcane field.

"This is Sikunder," said Salaam proudly.

"How are you?" I said with my best Pashto accent.

"Is he Pakhtun?" said one, turning his nose up at my jeans.

"How old are you?" said another.

I straightened my shoulders. They laughed. These boys like all the other residents of this village were related to me by varying degrees of ancestral separation.

We walked together arriving at a wide opening carved out of the cane. A vast, black cauldron sat on an open fire, brimming with a gloopy, red syrup. The smell of stewing sugar was intoxicating. Above us on a bamboo scaffold, two men were working a press. The juice from the crushed cane trickled gently down a gutter into the cauldron, fibrous white husks discarded in a growing pile around us.

The boiling liquid bubbled away producing a thick, brown concentrate shaped by hand into round sweets known as 'Gur'.

"Taste," said Salaam.

The soft, warm treat melted in my mouth. I grinned. "Good, very good!" I'd spoken too soon. Bits of peppercorn added to spice up the sweet exploded on my tongue. I gasped for water. All the boys could do was laugh.

We thanked the men working the cane and headed out of the shade of the cane and along a path guided by a minaret in the distance, our next stop an orchard of orange trees. As we approached there was a strong smell of citrus. I'd never seen an orange on a tree before. Mangos yes, but for whatever reason never an orange. But we weren't here to eat fruit. The boys were all carrying catapults which they had slung around their necks. One of them began gathering up fruit that had fallen. He began positioning them in a neat line along the ridge of a crumbling stone wall. The others scanned the ground for ammunition.

Salaam showed me what to do.

"Like this," he said and let his catapult fly.

The boys yelled 'Allahu Akbar' as a hail of stones clattered against the wall. Then Salaam pushed a catapult into my hand. It was my turn. Holding my breath, I drew back the catch back as far as I could and let the smooth stone fly.

"He's rubbish."

"No, like this!" said Salaam, grabbing my hand. "That's it, from your eye to the target."

Yes, yes, I knew how. I sent a nice, ripe fruit skidding off the edge. Salaam looked relieved.

"He's not bad for a white woman's son," said his friend.

"His father's a Pakhtun, what do you expect," said another.

Crude village-boy jokes streamed out of their innocent mouths as a volley of stones struck their mark like bullets. The boys made fun of each other in the way Pakhtun's do, one son-of-a-donkey accusing the other son-of-a-goat for daring to question his prowess. They made fun of the new mullah and his ugly wife and swore on the Quran about this half-truth and that obvious lie, but of course, never causing offence.

The neat line of oranges lay smashed to bits. The boy resetting the targets held one up above his head.

"How do you say this in English?" he shouted.

"Orange," I said.

The boys laughed at the alien word. "Aringe!"

"No. Orange." I mouthed the big, round vowel.

They cried out. "Aringe, aringe."

It was time to go. The boys circled me in a farewell, seemingly excited at the possibility of seeing me again.

"Listen Sikunder," said one of the older ones. "You take me to Ingalaand with you, okay?"

I promised him I would. Salaam and I waved them goodbye.

"Do you think he will take us?" I overheard them say.

We circled an enclave of houses, high walled in the same mud and hay. The farmland stretched out as far I could see, most of which was leased now to tenants. Our grandfather had been wise enough to plan for his old age. His world would soon be gone. The generations to follow would have little or no interest in working this land. A few had already left the country to seek their fortunes and Grandfather would spend the rest of his days between the _Hujra_ and his _charpai_ and every so often indulging his grandchildren with difficult decisions like which chicken would look best in the pot.

As we approached the family compound from the front, Salaam's mood changed. "Keep your head down," he said pointing at a house about a hundred yards away. "They'll shoot you?"

The family who lived there were distant relatives. A low boundary wall offered a perfect line of fire. Shots were fired regularly as a reminder of an ongoing feud. A grudge over the ownership of a strip of land had been playing out like this for almost a hundred years. It was not uncommon for Pakhtuns to resolve their disputes this way. Every Pakhtun family had its vendetta or feud. Nothing was ever forgotten and very few debts were left unpaid.

That evening I changed into my salwar and joined Salaam around a fire warming ourselves while sipping tea. I stared up at the black sky. The universe was an inexplicable twinkling display.

"What is it?" I said. Salaam seemed agitated.

My presence seemed to have brought a deep, sense of uncertainty for him. Flames from the fire flickered in his thoughtful eyes.

"What you said to the boys. Did you mean it?"

A glowing ember spun away into the night.

"I've never been to England," I said.

This strange little lie of mine had to end somewhere.

"Never?"

I shook my head, suddenly gripped by the thought of Mother being far away. I missed her terribly.

"That's okay," he said.

"Okay?"

"Look at you," he said tugging at my kameez. He was pleased I'd changed out of my jeans. "This is where you come from."

"Where I come from?" I said.

"Yes. This village. Like your father and our grandfather. This is where you come from. Yes?"

"This is where I come from?"

He seemed surprised at my confusion. "Yes. And one day you will know where to go."

I almost choked on my tea. "Where am I going?" I asked him.

"Ingalaand, cousin. Ingalaand!"

### 28

My time at Munara ended sooner than I could have imagined. The war with India was over. It had lasted less than two weeks. Backed by India, East Pakistan was finally able to gain its independence from West Pakistan. In surrendering the territory, West Pakistan had effectively handed India more than half the country's land and population. In turn, India secured an agreement that would see the creation of a new and independent country – East Pakistan would soon be renamed to become the nation we know today as Bangladesh.

My own story like that of the country was mired in the events of that year. During that summer of '71, I too discovered what it was like to hate. When those boys threw stones at Mother, I was made to feel the true power of hatred \- a singular, immutable expression of rage - I pitied them. And then I began to pity myself for the hatred that had consumed me.

No, I didn't hate Americans - far from it. I loved them. I still do. I just happened to hate one of them, and perhaps that's all it had taken to hate them all.

Four moles at the nape of my neck are all I have to show for my time under a Pakistani sun. Salaam's prophecy would come true. I left Pakistan early the following year bound for another land, one that no one had prepared me for, a land that I would eventually call my home. And though more than three decades had passed, one memory from that time found shelter in a little dark place somewhere deep in my mind. Now and then it would creep up on me, threading its way in cinematic flickers of light revealing disturbing images that appeared in my thoughts and in a recurring dream that left me shivering and cold.

What happened to Mikey Devane? What happened to that kind American boy I got to know the summer of '71?

The story of the missing boy still haunted me. I'd never uttered the word until now. Pockmark. To know that he was a kidnapper and that I had deliberately orchestrated events that lead Mikey right to him. Pockmark. His marked face and the confident glint in his eye. And Mariel staring in desperation and that hideous boy, Bunny, pointing an accusatory finger at me.

I was just so angry that I wanted to teach them a lesson. But the reason for my anger was momentary, a flash of rage that would mean nothing the next day. And yet it would trigger a horrifying outcome that would haunt me for years to come. Knowing Inspector Shah had done everything he could, was no consolation. Mikey had disappeared without a trace and as far as I knew, he was gone, never to be seen again. I found myself reading stories about kidnapped children. The misery their families went through. How in time all they wanted to know was what had happened to their child. That the horror of finding the child dead would be better than never finding them at all. I clung in hope to the idea that somehow, somewhere Mikey had escaped the hell I'd conjured up in the story of a disappeared boy. But I was to blame with no way to take it back. Strangely, I would come to attribute a moment of devious, hateful calculation to all that was wrong in my life. This was my penance. I deserved my troubles. That's how I dealt with it. Atonement for the evil in me.

Then one day I was found. A single, simple message crossed the ether:

Dear Sikunder,

Is it really you? How are you? Is life treating you well?

If this is the Sikunder I knew from Peshawar, please get in touch.

Your old friend,

Rizwan Saeed, aka Bhoo :-)

Suddenly, I was that boy again. My childhood friend had found me. The world had changed so much since. A few keystrokes typed on a computer screen had revealed the answer to my whereabouts. And Bhoo's message, reaching out from the past, forced me to consider another possibility. Could I dare to turn the last page of this chapter in my life?

Yes, it was time. I was no longer that child. It was time to cast light on the lingering, cancerous shadow. And so I went searching. Typing the words 'Mikey Devane' into my computer. But there was no Mikey. No Mikey. Nothing. Mikey? That's what we called him. No. He wasn't Mikey. His real name was Michael. That was his name wasn't it, Michael Devane? I ran the search again and there it was. Michael Devane. Investment Banker. New York, USA, and a picture of a man looking smart in a jacket and tie, very professional. It was him, wasn't it? I stared at the image. It was the boy, I could see it in his eyes. My head started to spin. I'd not had the feeling in a long time. Maybe I wanted it to be him. How could I be sure? So I went digging further and what I uncovered in my search was a revelation, that this same boy, no, this man, was the son of one infamous Harry Devane - the very same man Mariel Devane had once claimed to be screwing around?

I was suddenly angry with myself. Mikey looked healthy and happy. Why had I left it so long? I had no doubt it was him, and it just so happened that New York was exactly where I was destined that year.

How strange, the way the vividness of my past seemed to fade away. I'd found Mikey Devane. My heart started pounding as he waved at me from across a busy Manhattan street. I was going to be sick. I'd never felt anything like it. Fear, elation wrapped up in a bag of nerves. It really was Mikey! And after all these years, I recognised his boyish smile.

"Hey, Alex! Where the heck have you been?"

What? Where had I been?

We found a quiet bar nearby and over a drink he recounted his life's adventure, to my relief his skin unscarred, his story unfolding, a man rich beyond most men's dreams - but then, that was his story – after all, this was all about me.

####

The End

#####

Dedicated to Mr Sheather

my first English teacher
