He smiled to himself at the thought of her. Four months ago he had not even seen her face; now its beauty lingered with him like a perfume. She was a good wife as well as a beautiful one; she had learned quickly how to run the household, even though she had only been in England for a few months. She was very bright – not much formal education, but full of a curiosity that Salim found exhilarating. The likes of Abdi Bakri would not approve, but Salim thought she should go to college.
Malik had been right about Jamila’s beauty, but he was wrong about many other things – so badly wrong that Salim had no compunction about spying on him, and on the others at the mosque who thought the same way. To Salim, violence was not only futile, it was also wrong – and utterly alien to the true spirit of Islam. He’d been taught this as a little boy, by his parents and by his grandmother, whose brother had been one of Pakistan’s most distinguished clerics, revered for his interpretations of the Koran. So how dare these others claim that Allah condoned what they wanted to do? Islam, in Salim’s view, would only conquer the world through its beauty and its truth, not through force.
The bus was crowded and he went upstairs, where he managed to find an empty seat halfway down the bus. He sat next to an older white woman with a nose the colour of beetroot; when he smiled at her she shuddered and looked out of the window. Ignoring her, Salim was soon lost in his own thoughts.
He had been trying to see Malik for days because he wanted to find out more – about the strange Westerner in London and about where Malik would be going after Pakistan. And he wanted to find out about the young man in the photograph he’d been shown – the man called Amir Khan. He could tell that K had been particularly interested in him. The face had certainly been familiar, though Salim hadn’t known he was called Amir Khan. But he did know the young man wasn’t around any more; he was one of those who had just disappeared from the mosque. If he could find out where he’d gone, K and the lady he’d brought up from London with him, his boss, would be pleased.
But Salim hadn’t been able to talk to Malik, so he’d decided to approach the one person who would surely know the answer to his questions – Abdi Bakri himself. When the meeting of the study group had broken up the previous day, and before prayers started in the large assembly room of the mosque, Salim had lingered in the small classroom with its cracked plastic chairs and cheap Formica-topped table, until only he and the imam were left in the room.
Bakri was tall and very dark, towering in his long white robes; his big sepia-coloured eyes were staring out from behind simple gold-rimmed spectacles. Salim had heard he was Sudanese, but he had never spoken to the imam alone before, and felt nervous in the presence of this daunting figure. He hoped the cleric would put his nervousness down to his being alone with him, rather than to anything else.
‘Yes?’ Abdi Bakri’s voice was mild.
‘Forgive me, but I was wondering if you had ever had a student called Amir Khan,’ Salim replied, stuttering slightly.
Abdi Bakri’s eyes studied him carefully. Then he said, ‘The name is not unfamiliar.’
Salim nodded and tried to smile. ‘I was hoping to make contact with him. It turns out he is a cousin of mine.’
Abdi Bakri did not return the smile. ‘We are all brothers here, as I have taught you.’
‘Of course,’ said Salim hastily. ‘But I thought… it would be polite to say hello.’
The imam shook his head. ‘I do not know where he is now. He left the city some time ago.’ He paused then said pointedly, ‘I would suggest you make no further enquiries.’
Salim felt the strange sepia eyes scrutinising him, and sweat beaded his upper lip. He thanked the imam and left the mosque in a hurry, not waiting for prayers. He was sure now that the imam knew where Amir Khan had gone; sure also that he was not going to pass the information on. But at least Salim could tell K when they met the following evening that, yes, Khan had definitely been a student at the mosque.
