I know now what was happening to me, what was overwhelming me, what was about to consume and almost destroy me. Didier had even given me a name for it-assassin grief, he’d once called it: the kind of grief that lies in wait and attacks from ambush, with no warning and no mercy. I know now that assassin grief can hide for years and then strike suddenly, on the happiest day, without discernible reason or exegesis. But on that day, six months after my work in the passport factory had begun, and almost a year after Khader’s death, I couldn’t understand the dark and trembling mood that was moving in me, swelling to the sorrow I’d too long denied. I couldn’t understand it, so I tried to fight it as a man fights pain or despair. But you can’t bite down on assassin grief, and will it away. The enemy stalks you, step for step, and knows your every move before you make it. The enemy is your own grieving heart and, when it strikes, it can’t miss.
Salman turned to me once more, his amber eyes gleaming in the cast of his thoughts.
‘That time, when we had the war to get rid of Ghani’s guys, Farid was trying to be a new Abdullah. He loved him, you know. He loved him like a brother. And I think he was trying to
A white Ambassador stopped in front of us. Farid, Sanjay, Andrew Ferreira, and a tough, forty-year-old Bombay Muslim named Amir got out of the car and joined us. We shook hands as the car drove off.
‘Let’s wait a minute, guys, while Faisal parks the car,’ Sanjay suggested.
It was true that Faisal, who ran the protection racket with Amir, was parking the car. It was also true, and more to the point, that Sanjay was enjoying himself, standing in our conspicuous group on a warm afternoon and sparking furtive but fervent looks from most of the girls passing us on the busy street. We were goondas, gangsters, and almost everyone knew it. Our clothes were new and expensive and cut to the edge of fashion. We were all fit. We were all confident. We were all armed and dangerous.
Faisal loped around the corner and wagged his head to signal that the car was safely parked. We joined him, and walked the three blocks to the Taj Mahal Hotel in a single, wide line. The route from Regal Circle to the Taj Hotel crossed spacious, open, crowded squares. We held our line easily as the crowds parted for us. Heads turned as we passed, and whispers whirled in our wake.
We climbed the white marble steps at the Taj, and walked through to the Shamiana Restaurant on the ground floor. Two waiters settled our group at a long, reserved table near a tall window with a courtyard view. I sat at one end of the table, nearest to the exit. The strange and overpoweringly dark mood that had stirred in me with Salman’s little phrase grew stronger by the minute. I wanted to be free to leave at any moment, without upsetting the balance of the group. The waiters greeted me with broad smiles, calling me
Food arrived, and the men ate with good appetite. I, too, was hungry, but I couldn’t eat, and I just pushed at the food to make a polite show. I drank two cups of black coffee and tried to bring my troubled, storming mind into the run of conversations. Amir was describing the movie he’d seen the night before-a Hindi gangster picture, in which the gangsters were vicious thugs and the hero conquered them all, unarmed and alone. He described every fight sequence in detail, and the men hooted with laughter. Amir was a scarred, blunt-headed man with thick, tangled eyebrows and a moustache that rode the cresting wave of his full upper lip like the wide prow of a Kashmiri houseboat. He loved to laugh and tell stories, and his self-assured, sonorous voice compelled attention.
