Kamila Shamsie - Burnt Shadows

There was a sound of footsteps on the other side of the door, and Harry stepped back as it swung open to reveal a young man — little more than a boy — in jeans and a faded red T-shirt and with facial features Harry immediately identified as belonging to the descend ants of the Mongol tribes — Hazara, probably. Maybe Tajik. Uzbek, even. The intensity of his disappointment startled him. Had he really expected to find the man he was looking for at an address last known to be accurate over twenty years ago? But perhaps — oh clutch those straws, Burton — the present occupants might know where he could be found.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I’m looking for Sajjad Ashraf. He used to live here.’

Raza just stared at the tall, green-eyed redhead, whose shiny bald spot and thickening waist did nothing to dissipate the glamour that attached itself to his Starsky and Hutch accent.

Harry repeated the question in Urdu, wondering which language the boy spoke, and what he was doing here.

‘I speak English,’ the boy said, his tone offended. ‘And Japanese and German.’ For the first time in months he had reason to boast, and that made boasting necessary. ‘And Urdu, of course. Pashto, also. What do you speak?’

Harry Burton couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so taken aback.

‘English and German and Urdu. And a little Farsi.’

‘I beat you,’ Raza said in German. There was no arrogance in the statement, just a muted pride which was unsure of its own right to exist.

‘Conclusively,’ Harry replied in English, feeling a ridiculous urge to pull the boy into an embrace. Then, switching to German, ‘I’m Harry. You must be Sajjad and Hiroko’s son.’

‘Yes.’ The boy smiled. ‘I’m Raza. How do you do?’ He extended his hand with the tentative air of someone executing a move he’d only ever practised in front of the mirror, and Harry shook it vigorously. ‘Come,’ the boy said, taking Harry’s arm with the physical familiarity of Pakistani men to which the American hadn’t yet become accustomed, and pulling him indoors. ‘I’ll tell Aba.’

Harry stepped through the vestibule and into a smaller version of the Ashraf home as he recalled it from his childhood: low-roofed rooms built around an open-air courtyard which was dominated by a large tree. But the flowerpots filled with marigolds, snapdragons and phlox which were clustered near the tree brought to mind another Delhi world.

A grey-haired man dressed in a white kurta pyjama was pouring water into the flowerpots, and Harry almost laughed out loud with joy at the sight. Of course it would happen this way. In this city, where tree roots cracked cement, and broad tree-trunks were canvases for graffiti, and branches became part of the urban architecture as sidewalk vendors draped cloth over them to create makeshift roofs, of course he would find Sajjad Ashraf in a sun-dappled courtyard, surrounded by flowers and leaf-patterned shadows.

‘Aba, Uncle Harry is here to see you,’ Raza said, unsure what to make of the expression with which this foreign stranger was staring at his father.

The grey-haired man straightened — instantly recognisable as the Sajjad of old, the laughter which always suggested its presence beneath the surface now inscribed on his face in fine lines around his eyes and mouth — and looked at the newcomer with no trace of recognition. It was Hiroko, stepping out from the bedroom, who saw in his red hair and the slight droop of his eyelids something familiar but before she could excavate Konrad’s features from her memory the man said, ‘I’m Henry Burton. James and Ilse’s son.’

Sajjad took a step forward, and then another one.

‘But you were a child,’ he said. ‘Really? Henry. Henry Baba!’

‘Just Harry now. I’ve been working in Islamabad for the last six months at the American Embassy. I’m a consular officer — you know, visas and things. And I couldn’t be in Pakistan without coming to see you.’

The American stepped forward and held his hand out to Sajjad, who laughed and said, ‘I used to carry you on my shoulders. Can’t we do more than shake hands?’ He clasped one hand against the small of Harry’s back and leaned his head forward so his chin was just above Harry’s shoulder, his ear inches away from Harry’s ear. Then he moved his head so that it was Harry’s other shoulder, his other ear framing part of Sajjad’s face. It was all too quick for Harry to respond before Sajjad was standing back, smiling. ‘Don’t you remember? You made me teach you how to gala-milao when you came to condole with my family at my father’s death. You walked into the courtyard, took your shoes off, stood up on a divan and embraced each of my brothers like that. They all thought you were the finest Englishman in India. You must have been about nine.’

‘Seven. I was seven. It’s one of my clearest memories of childhood. My first time in a home that wasn’t English. Why was I there without my parents? I don’t remember that part.’

Sajjad could barely contain his delight at hearing the Urdu sentences trip so lightly off the tongue of his former student. Unable to think of anything to say that wouldn’t strike a false note with this stranger who was not a stranger, he took off his glasses and cleaned the lenses with the sleeve of his kurta. When he put them back on he nodded as though he now had a better view of the events of 1944.

‘You wanted to come. You said, I wish to condole with your family on behalf of my family.’ Sajjad smiled and nodded at Raza as though imparting a lesson. ‘I was so proud of my Henry Baba that day.’

The tips of Harry’s ears reddened to be provided with such a good account of his younger self. He was spared having to think of a response by Sajjad holding out his hand to gesture to the woman who was walking up to them.

‘My wife. Hiroko.’

‘Hiroko-san.’ Harry bowed. He was not a man used to bowing and was conscious he looked as though he had been attacked by a back spasm.

Hiroko took Harry’s hands in her own.

‘Just Hiroko. It’s very good to meet you. Harry.’ Her smile recognised — and dismissed — Harry’s startled awareness of the associations she must have with that name. ‘There is a piece of my heart reserved for members of the Weiss family.’ She turned to her son. ‘Raza, this is Konrad’s nephew.’

‘Oh.’ The boy regarded Harry with new interest. ‘My middle name is Konrad.’

Harry nodded, as though there were only delight, not surprise, to be garnered from this revelation. In the months leading up to their daughter’s birth, still unaware of her gender, Harry and his ex-wife had searched the world around them for names that they could both commit themselves to for the rest of their lives (they already knew by then that their commitment to each other would crumble, but that only gave extra impetus to this desire to find a mutually loved syllable or two to which they could hold on long after they’d let each other go). His ex had been the one to suggest ‘Konrad’ for a boy after a weekend visiting Ilse in New York, but Harry had waved his hands at her in distress and taught her the Urdu word ‘manhoos’, meaning ‘bad-omened’. And yet here was Sajjad, who had taught him that word, smiling as his son claimed the name of the man Hiroko had loved first, who had been eradicated from the earth’s surface before he turned thirty.

‘So are you at school or university, Raza Konrad?’ Harry turned back to the boy — something about the discovery of his middle name allowed Harry to feel avuncular.

Raza’s head dipped forward, hair tumbling over his eyes.

‘My father never went to university. Why should I have to?’ He spoke in German, and Harry was aware of a strange tension in the air, and of Sajjad looking sideways at Hiroko for a translation that was not forthcoming.