Nadeem Aslam - Maps for Lost Lovers

Shamas doesn’t catch the name or the beginning of the cascade of pleasantries that follows it because he is alarmed by the fact that the hand on his shoulder is holding a burning cigarette, an inch away from his cheek, his eyes. And in the second or two that it takes for it to become clear that what he has mistaken for a cigarette is in fact a pale-apricot Band-Aid wrapped around the man’s index finger, the name has been spoken; the ripple of panic on his face has also caused the man to remove his hand and take a step backwards, embarrassed at his over-eagerness, or perhaps offended by being rebuffed.

Shamas gives his name and, transferring the bundle of newspapers to the other side of his body, frees his right hand for a handshake. The man’s aftershave or cologne has a citrusy note, like raindrops flavoured by falling on lemon trees, like a room in which someone has recently eaten an orange. Didn’t he smell it earlier — was this man walking behind him, without him being aware of it? “What can I do for you?”

“Nothing, brother-ji. I saw you just now and decided to come over to say salaam-a-lekum, a little hello. I am well aware, Shamas-ji, of the kind help you have provided for us Pakistanis through your office and am a great admirer of yours. I just wondered if I could be of any help to you in this difficult time.”

For the briefest of moments but comprehended perfectly during it — as when a summer insect flies across a lit television screen in a room that is otherwise dark, the components of the insect’s flight seen in a sequence of perfect silhouettes — Shamas wonders absurdly whether this man is an apparition seen only by him, sent to bestow benevolence. But the moment passes and the insect disappears into the darkness it had come out of. “Difficult time?”

“I meant the difficulty you are having with your daughter and your younger son. They have left home, yes?”

Shamas takes a step back, in shock and incomprehension. “Forgive me but I have to leave.”

“We know these are delicate matters but we feel we have to offer you our services. We are aware that the girl and the boy have left home. The girl has cut off her hair and wears Western clothing now.”

These things are known to everyone, of course; there is nothing sinister in that. Such knowledge comes into the neighbourhood’s eyes innocently: it’s no different than Kaukab’s comment about a woman she doesn’t know but who walks by the house daily that she’s stooping more and more these days. No, everyone knows that Ujala and Mah-Jabin have left the parents’ house; but what “services” is this man referring to? Shamas wonders if this man has mistaken him for someone else. And who is this “we”?

The man has noticed his puzzled look and clarifies: “What I mean to say is that we can bring your children back. We run a small discreet operation: no one official will ever know about us — we have been so quiet even you hadn’t heard of us until now. We have ways of infiltrating women’s refuges where the girls go to hide, and by using the National Insurance numbers we can find which city the runaway boys are living in. Manchester, Edinburgh, Bristol, London: no place is far enough. We charge a small fee, to cover expenses, but we won’t ask you to pay anything, as a sign of our respect for you. We know you have helped people all your life; even back in the early days here in England you were helping the immigrant factory workers with jobs, housing, pay, unions, and learning English. It’s all well known.”

“It was nothing.”

“You are too modest, jannab-sahb. But now the Almighty Allah, fate, and our good fortune has arranged it so that we can be of some use to you. It’s our duty and your right. It doesn’t matter where the children are, we’ll find them discreetly: we could bring a chick out of its egg without breaking the shell. We made a few mistakes at the beginning, like the time we gave the address of the women’s refuge that a man’s wife had run off to, claiming he was violent towards her, forgetting that a woman should choose the poison being offered by her husband over the milk and honey of strangers — and then he broke in and put a bullet into her head. But now we are more careful.”

“I don’t need my children brought back from anywhere. They are not runaways,” Shamas states firmly, understanding everything now. The news of this gang of bounty hunters had come to him at the office last week and he had initiated enquiries, asking the office to gather information which could be presented to the police. This man has obviously found out that questions are being asked and is here to try and dissuade Shamas. Would he try to bribe him, believing that a dog with a bone in its mouth cannot bark?

Shamas looks him square in the eye. “I don’t need anyone to kidnap my children. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to be somewhere urgently.”

The man opens his heavy arms — the bones in them must be the size of monkey wrenches — with a glint of a gold chain at the wrist and, as though through a barrier of pain, says: “Kidnap? Shamas-ji, that is how white people would see it. They of course don’t understand our culture. The children and runaway wives have to be brought back.”

Standing here face to face, Shamas doesn’t wish to counter him or explain anything to him: he’ll dismiss everything Shamas says and soon it will be as though when the two of them opened their mouths they revealed not tongues but index fingers pointing and jabbing in the other’s direction.

“They must be brought back. Girls can become prostitutes if they are on their own and the boys drug addicts. They can be taken in by unscrupulous individuals. There is a saying in Urdu: Dhukhia insaan to sher ka bhi bharosa kar leta hai. A lonely and distressed person will trust even a man-eating lion. In the past twelve months we have saved forty-seven of our youngsters from such a fate, and six wives who had left their husbands. One boy had decided to become a. . a. . a homosexual— please don’t mind my bad language.”

In the past twelve months alone? How long has this been going on? There is a sickness and a tightening at the base of Shamas’s throat. He wonders what else this person is involved in. Contract killing? Did he have anything to do with Chanda and Jugnu’s disappearance? Shamas is sure no one at the office knew anything about this before last week: when people come to the office asking for help because a daughter has left home or a son, they are told plainly that since the children are of age there is nothing legal that can be done; nor is it legal to disclose addresses and telephone numbers of women’s refuge centres. Do they call this man and his associates after they leave Shamas’s office in disappointment?

The man seems not to have read Shamas’s silence as hostile. “We’ll need photographs of Mah-Jabin and Ujala, of course, and National Insurance numbers. Credit card details too prove useful. Very little force would be used, I personally guarantee that.”

Shamas’s skin has become chilled: the man knows Mah-Jabin and Ujala’s names. “I know where my children are,” he hears himself telling the man. “Now excuse me. I really must leave.”

“We’ll be gentle. We do what the parents say. One mother and father wanted us to bring back the girl — who had run away a week before her arranged marriage to a decent-enough cousin from Pakistan — and they said we could use as much force as we liked but were not to hit her face because that would show in the wedding photographs and video. If we had to we should hit the body — which would be covered up with the wedding gown — or we could hit the head — where the veil and the hair would hide the bruises.”