Tabish Khair - How to Fight Islamist Terror from the Missionary Position

After this discussion, to be fair, Ravi went back to saying khuda-hafiz to Karim Bhai. But Karim Bhai either did not notice the switch or obdurately continued replacing the Persian “khuda” with the Arabic “Allah” in his responses.

Lena’s parents had one of those flat-roofed, yellow-brick houses that appear to have been built in clusters all over Denmark during the 1970s. They are neither ugly nor attractive. They are convenient and nondescript. Like Denmark, Ravi would have snorted in the past. But flippancy was not on Ravi’s mind when we alighted from the large Ford that Lena’s “far”—dad—had driven to the bus stop to fetch us.

Far was tall and lean, impeccably dressed, with grizzled blonde hair: he spoke—no matter what the language—with such precision that it was easy to locate the source of Lena’s drive for perfect poise and control. Apart from that, he did not resemble Lena. Mor—mum—was a broader and older version of Lena, but she exuded the kind of natural warmth that Lena lacked to my mind. No, Ravi would not agree with that. He always saw Lena as a person capable of more than she allowed herself.

We entered the house through the kitchen. It was large and comfortably furnished. The sitting room was big enough to contain two sets of sofas. There was a piano. There was art on the walls: mostly lithographs and watercolors. It was tasteful but not the sort of serious stuff that hung in Claus’s flat: one had to be an art fanatic to have dinner under a painting by Michael Kvium, Ravi had once observed, and I agreed. A white PH artichoke lamp hung in the dining room.

It was the kind of house—comfortable, polished and predictably domestic—that would have elicited scathing comments from Ravi in the past. But he was on his best behavior now. He could not refrain from indulging in the occasional quibble, but he consciously avoided commenting on Danes or Denmark. I had never imagined him capable of such restraint.

After tea, we went for a walk in a neighboring forest—the trees had been planted in straight lines, crisscross, and Ravi could not help quipping that Danish forests were remarkably well-behaved. When we returned to the house, Ms. Marx had arrived. She was sitting in her station wagon, listening to the radio and waiting for us.

Ms. Marx and I were given the main guestroom, in the basement, while Lena and Ravi put their bags in the other guestroom, which had once been a sauna and still had florid yellow wood paneling everywhere. Ravi and Lena disappeared into the sauna-bedroom for a short while: they had not been alone for hours. All through the walk, I had noticed their hands fluttering like butterflies over each other, restrained only by the fact that Lena’s parents were walking with us. In this, both Lena and Ravi were surprisingly conservative. They seldom kissed and never fumbled in public. But it was difficult not to notice how they automatically drew together as they walked, how their eyes swept each other relentlessly, caressing the sight of the other.

Dinner was cooked by Lena’s parents. It was roasted duck in brun sauce, a Christmas specialty, which was the only meat dish Lena allowed herself. Ravi had offered to make something Indian—he had brought some of his powders and curries along—but Lena’s parents would not hear of it. He was to cook tomorrow night instead.

“Why don’t you two stay on, ba…?” he said to me, managing to stifle the customary “bastard” out of consideration for the sensibilities of Lena’s parents. But both Ms. Marx and I had classes on Monday morning, and we needed to get back and prepare the next day.

What do I recall of the dinner?

Not much. It was a brilliant evening, probably: Lena and Ravi kept the conversation going, and Lena’s parents were unusually well-informed and articulate. Ms. Marx, like me, is a quieter person; we needed to add only the odd bit of response or query. The food was good, the conversation was pleasant; the wine flowed. Ravi made a rare exception to one of his unspoken rules and played the piano—some lively Mozart, I assumed, though I have little knowledge of European classical music—with bravado and aplomb.

But what I really recall from that evening is something different. It took place after dinner. We had retired to the more comfortable set of sofas for coffee. Ravi, or was it I, brought up some reference to Baudelaire. Lena, whose French was as good as Ravi’s, quoted a line in the original. Lena’s father was uncertain about the pronunciation of a word. I do not recall the word; my French is not good enough to enable me to remember conversations in that language. But I recall Lena’s father correcting her pronunciation and then, to be certain, consulting two heavy dictionaries.

It was a minor matter and it was done kindly, if much too efficiently, by her father. But for an instant, Lena looked panic-stricken. Her green eyes sought refuge in different corners of the room. There was only one other time when I saw her mask of confident poise slip—it was back up in an instant on both occasions—and that was to come much later, under circumstances easier to read. At that moment, though, as her father looked up the correct pronunciation of the French word, Lena glanced with something like fear at Ravi. It was as if she was afraid of falling in his esteem.

The next morning was Sunday and Ravi did something uncharacteristic. Despite his strictures against walks in nature on Sundays, he went out for a walk after breakfast with Lena and her parents. I tried not to smile.

“That was a very pleasant stay,” said Ms. Marx, driving us back in her station wagon, after an early lunch. I agreed. I was too busy watching her steer to disagree with anything she might have said; I have always found it incredibly sexy to watch a small woman drive a large car. But I remember thinking that it was good Ravi was not with us: the word “pleasant” would have made him squirm. Or at least, it would have in the past, before he fell in love with Lena.

Great Claus was leaving Karim’s flat when I got back. He looked irritated and almost forgot to respond to my greeting. Inside, Karim was obviously irritated too. I knew that Claus and Pernille often confided in Karim. I assumed they had disagreed about something. But I did not want to ask. I had a novel to re-read in time for my class on Monday. It was not a novel I wanted to re-read.

Sometimes I feel that there is a strict rationing of happiness by nature or providence or whatever you decide to call it. Some dark-coated bureaucrats sit there, dour and rule-bound, and flick the switch when light gets too abundant: let’s cut the power, they grumble; let’s ration the water, they whisper; time to switch off the happiness, they chuckle grimly. With Ravi’s cup brimming over and mine around the halfway mark, which is all I have ever expected, a scarcity of happiness was to be expected in other quarters. The quarters where providence cut corners, for the sake of good governance, were those of Karim and Great Claus.

It strikes me that I am probably letting my current state of knowledge influence my narrative of those weeks to some extent.

But not entirely, let me assure you. I might not have noticed that Karim was going through a period of anxiety and restlessness, perhaps linked to those mysterious phone calls and disappearances. It might be that I noticed this about Karim only a bit later, perhaps as late as the Friday Quran session in which I had to intervene. But the unhappiness of Claus was quite obvious to all of us even then. He had lost his bounce. He dragged his feet up and down the stairs. He even forgot to greet us with his trademark “sob kuch teek-taak, na?”

It all came to a head a few days after Ravi got back. I could have ignored Karim’s obvious irritation at Claus—he frowned every time the name cropped up in our conversations—but the aunties in Ravi would not be silenced. The glory of Lena’s love had dazzled them for a while, but nothing could muzzle them for good. Soon they were busy working on Karim, mining for information. Karim was rocky territory. He was difficult to penetrate. But the aunties in Ravi had various tricks up their sleeves. Just when, after a few sallies, I thought they had given up, Ravi came up with the right approach. I am sure he still had belief in words as the key to all locks in those days: he must have been dying of curiosity by then, for it was a wild gambit.