Kamila Shamsie - Kartography

‘Damn you, Zia, call.’ I curled up, my head resting uncomfortably on the edge of the step above me, and let hot tears spill on to my sleeve. ‘Call, so I know you’re OK. Call so that I can call Karim. Aba, come home. Please come home.’

Over an hour later Zia still hadn’t called and no one answered his phone. No sign of my parents either. And again and again in my head: they cannot protect you from this. When I tried to force myself to think of something else, something silly that would mean nothing, I thought: the hippo told the rhino piggledypoo and smartypants and what else? But only part of that stuck. They cannot protect you from this. And what else? So I called Karim. All I said was, ‘This is quick, in case Zia tries to call. But we went for a drive in his neighbour’s car and someone shot at us and we’re OK but he went to the police station and he should be home by now but he’s not.’

An improbably short time after I hung up and went to the dining room to look out of the window, Karim climbed over the gate and jumped down into the driveway. I think that was the first real moment, the first inkling. If I had to start this story again, perhaps that would be the place to start. Stars, moon, blue-black sky, and a boy’s head easing into the frame. He was not attractive, not well-proportioned, and he half fell over as he landed, but when I saw his head appear over the gate I clutched the curtains tight and said, ‘Thank you, God, thank you.’

When I went out to meet him, he held my hands very tightly, and we just stood there, looking at each other, rocking back and forth on our toes, like birds. When he spoke it was to say, ‘Which police thaanaa did he go to? Do you know?’ I shook my head.

I got into the back seat of his car, and Karim sat in front with Altaf, his driver, who kept yawning as he drove, his eyes narrowing into squints, not yet reconciled to being awake. We spotted the Mercedes, after what seemed an interminable while, parked outside the third police station to which we drove. Karim had said only three things during our search for Zia: ‘That fake driver’s licence won’t fool anyone’, ‘If only there was a map with police thaanaas marked on it, so we could do this efficiently’ and ‘You don’t know how much money he had on him, do you?’

Outside the station, Karim and Altaf ran their hands along the pockmarked Mercedes door. Altaf inserted a finger into a bullet hole, just below the passenger side window. His finger disappeared almost down to the knuckle. I didn’t feel anything when I saw that. I wondered if I was in shock. Karim knelt down by the mudguard and vanished from my line of sight. I walked around the car to see him staring down at his blood-streaked fingers. ‘Cat,’ I said.

‘Did it die?’

I pictured a bloodied and bleeding feline dragging its shattered limbs along the road. ‘We have to go back there.’

‘Zia first, OK?’

‘You go in,’ Altaf told Karim. ‘I’ll stay here with her.’

Karim glanced at me, expecting an objection to this moment of ‘Let’s protect the girl from unpleasantness’, but I felt only gratitude towards Altaf. ‘Sack boon,’ Karim said.

I don’t know if he really was back soon or not. It could have been two minutes or twenty that I lay in the back of his car, trying to remember how to breathe evenly, before he opened the door and said, ‘You’ve got to come inside.’

I thought, cat homicide. Fleeing the scene of an accident. I thought, it wasn’t cat fur but human hair on the mudguard. I thought, I wasn’t driving. I’m not responsible for anything.

‘It’s OK,’ Karim said, taking my hand. ‘They only want you to confirm you were in the car with him.’

Then they’d say, what were you doing alone in a car late at night with a boy who is neither brother nor cousin nor husband?

‘I’ve told them you’re his cousin,’ Karim said. ‘And I’m your brother.’

He leaned to a side and the street lamp lit up the back of his head. ‘You have a halo,’ I said with a laugh and found myself able to step out of the car.

Inside the police station a grey-shirted, mustachioed policeman, whose resemblance to Pakistan’s wicketkeeper, Saleem Yousuf, was immensely reassuring, asked me if I could confirm my brother’s claim that I had been in the Mercedes with my cousin. I nodded and, laughing, he shouted to someone to bring the boy out. ‘Sorry for this,’ he said, spreading his hands. ‘But he kept insisting he was alone in the car.’

A door opened and Zia emerged, his upturned collar looking absurd. When he saw us he tried to reassemble his expression into something approaching jauntiness, but it crumpled into relief instead. The Saleem Yousuf lookalike threw the Mercedes car-keys in his direction and gestured towards the door.

‘What happened?’ Zia and Karim said to each other in unison when we exited.

‘You first,’ Karim said. We got into the Mercedes — the front door was still jammed, so I climbed in through the window — and Karim signalled Altaf to follow us in his car.

‘I don’t know. I don’t know what was going on. I went in, reported that someone had shot at my car, and they asked what colour the car was and where it happened. I said, “Near the Arab Sheikh’s palace, and it’s a Mercedes.” One of the cops looked out, saw the car and said, “It’s red,” and then they demanded to know who had been with me. Well, I didn’t want to drag Raheen into it, so I said no one. Next thing I know, they’ve got me in this room and this big guy with really bad b.o. — who looks like Mike Gatting, there’s some weird cricket thing going on there — is telling me I can’t leave until I tell them who I was with. So now I’m completely confused and don’t know if it’ll make matters better or worse if I admit my original story wasn’t true, so I decide just to wait. I knew you’d get worried, Raheen, when I didn’t call, and that you guys or my parents would come in search of me.’

‘They didn’t hurt you or anything, did they?’ I said.

Zia shrugged. ‘Nah. I mentioned Uncle Wahab’s name.’

‘He’s been suspended on corruption charges.’

‘I know that, Karim. That’s why they didn’t let me out at the first mention of the first syllable of his name. But they’re underlings, you know, and everyone knows the suspension won’t last. They wouldn’t let me sleep, though. Shook me awake when I tried heading into the land of Z. I tried mentioning another few names to them, of friends of my father’s, but I think I overdid my list of connections and they were sure I was making it up.’ He pulled up to Tony Paan Shop — which was not called Tony Paan Shop at all, but had somehow acquired the name even though no one named Tony worked there — and beeped his horn to signal for a packet of cigarettes.

A young boy standing outside the shop (more a cubbyhole with shutters than a shop) raised his hand to acknowledge the signal and Zia said to Karim, ‘Pay him when he brings it, will you. I’ve left my wallet at home.’

Karim held out his empty wallet. ‘Had to give Saleem Yousuf everything I had.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you’re months away from turning fourteen and the minimum driving age is eighteen.’

‘Oh, shit.’ Zia leaned out and yelled to the paan shop boy: ‘I don’t have any money.’

The boy came over with a single cigarette. ‘Take this.’

Zia looked at the brand name stamped on the cigarette. ‘I can’t smoke this.’

Karim made a noise of disgust and got out of the car. ‘I’ll borrow some money from Altaf.’

Seconds later, Zia lit up and sat back in his seat. ‘Your turn, Karim. What really happened?’

‘Can you drive us home?’ I said. Tony who wasn’t Tony was pulling down the shutters of his shop, and even the beggars had gone home — or gone away — for the night.