I wasn’t listening. My mind was all angry arrows, whistling backward to a much earlier time and place. I was searching for Karla-for the Karla I knew and loved-but every moment with her began to give up its secret and its lie. I remembered the first time I’d met her, the first second, how she’d reached out to stop me from walking in front of the bus. It was on Arthur Bunder Road, on the corner near the Causeway, not far from the India Guest House. It was the heart of the tourist beat. Was she waiting there, hunting for foreigners like me, looking for useful recruits who could work for Khader when he needed them? Of course she was. I’d done it myself, in a way, when I’d lived in the slum. I’d loitered there, in the same place, looking for foreigners just off the plane who wanted to change money or buy some charras.
Nazeer walked up to join us. Ahmed Zadeh was a few paces behind him. They stood together with Khaderbhai and Khaled, facing me. Nazeer screwed his face into a scowl, and scanned the sky from south to north, calculating the minutes before the snowstorm hit us. The packing for the return journey was complete and double-checked, and he was anxious to leave.
‘And the help you gave me with the clinic?’ I asked, feeling sick, and knowing that if I unlocked my knees and let my legs relax, they would crumple and fold beneath me. When Khader didn’t speak, I repeated the question. ‘What about the clinic? Why did you help me with the clinic? Was that part of your plan? Of
A freezing wind blew into the broad plateau, and we all shuddered, unsteadied, as the force of it whipped at our clothes and faces. The sky darkened swiftly as a dirty, grey tide of cloud crossed the mountains and tumbled on toward the distant plain and the shimmering, dying city.
‘You did good work there,’ he replied.
‘That’s not what I asked you.’
‘I don’t think this is the right time to talk of such things, Lin.’
‘Yes, it is,’ I insisted.
‘There are things you will not understand,’ he stated, as if he’d thought it through many times.
‘Just tell me.’
‘Very well. All of the medicine that we brought here to this camp, all of the antibiotics and penicillin for the war, was supplied to us by Ranjit’s lepers. I had to know if it was safe to use here.’
‘Ah, Jesus…’ I moaned.
‘So I used the opportunity, the strange fact that you, a foreigner, with no connection to a family or an embassy, set up a clinic in my own slum-I took that chance to test the supplies on the people in the zhopadpatti. I had to be sure, you understand, before I brought the medicines into the war.’
‘For God’s sake, Khader!’ I snarled.
‘I had to be-’
‘Only a fuckin’
‘Take it easy, Lin!’ Khaled snapped back at me. The other men tensed on either side of Khader, as if they feared that I might attack him. ‘You’re way outta line, man!’
‘
‘No-one got hurt,’ Khaled shouted back at me. ‘The medicines were all good, and the work you did there was good. People got well.’
‘We should get out of the cold, now, and talk about it,’ Ahmed Zadeh put in quickly, hoping to conciliate. ‘Khader, you’ll have to wait for this snow to clear before you leave. Let’s get inside.’
‘You must understand,’ Khader said firmly, ignoring him. ‘It was a decision of war-twenty lives risked against the saving of a thousand, and a thousand risked to save a million. And you must believe me, we knew that the medicines were good. The chance of Ranjit’s lepers supplying impure medicines was very low. We were almost completely sure that the medicine was safe when we gave it to you.’
‘Tell me about Sapna.’ There it was, out in the open, my deepest secret fear about him, and about my closeness to him. ‘Was that your work, too?’
