Home Fire(15)

“I’m not saying that makes it okay,” he said. He touched two fingers to his temple, rubbed. Perfect half-moons in his fingernails. “I’m not very good at this. He should be the one explaining. I’ll tell you what—next time you’re in London, you two can meet. I’ll set it up. Confront him with this—make him account for it. He’d be up for that. My guess is, you’ll feel more favorably about him at the end.”

“Me? Meet Karamat Lone?”

Mr. British Values. Mr. Strong on Security. Mr. Striding Away from Muslim-ness. He would say, I know about your family. You’re better off without your brother, too. And Eamonn, his devoted son, would sadly have to agree.

“Don’t sound so worried about it. He’ll be nice. For my sake.” He took hold of a strand of her hair, pulled it lightly. “Now that I’ve seen your head uncovered, I’m practically your brother, aren’t I?”

“Is that what you are?”

“Sorry, is that too presumptuous?”

She stood, turned, shrugged. “No, it’s fine,” she said, making her voice light, making him seem absurd for sounding so serious about it. “Oh, look, I never made you that cup of tea, and now I have to go out. Appointment.”

“Will you come to the café after?”

“Probably not today. Actually, maybe not for a while. A friend has invited me to come and spend the rest of spring break at her place.” Not strictly untrue. At the end of their meal the previous night Hira had said, You’re welcome to move into my spare room for a few days if you want company. Don’t be heartbroken alone.

“Oh, but then we won’t see each other. I’ll be leaving in the next day or two. News cycle already moving on from my father. And to tell you the truth, I think I’m cramping my grandparents’ social life.”

“Well, then. I’m glad we cleared the air,” she said, holding herself straight-backed, upright.

“Me too. Well. Good-bye. Thanks for being such a fantastic coffee companion.” He stepped forward and held his arms out slightly awkwardly. What followed was not an embrace so much as two bodies knocking into each other then moving away. He smiled, pushed his hair back from his face in a way that already felt as familiar to her as the tics of people she’d grown up with. She watched him put on his Wellies, button up his coat, smile again, turn to go. His hand reached for the doorknob, and then he paused.

“Isma?”

“Yes?” The trace of hope still working its way through her veins.

He picked up the padded envelope from the kitchen counter, which was filled with M&M’s—there was a long-running joke between the neighboring households about Aunty Naseem’s sweet tooth for American confectionery after a vacation there in the 1980s.

“This the same package you had in the café last week? Weren’t you going to the post office with it?”

“Keep forgetting,” she said.

He tucked it under his arm. “I’ll post it from London.”

“There’s no need.”

“It’s really no problem. Cheaper and quicker.”

“Oh, okay. Thanks.”

“Bye, sis,” he said with a wink. Then he stepped through the door and closed it behind him.

She ran over to her balcony. Moments later, he stepped out onto the street, rolling back his shoulders as if released from the weight of her company. He walked away without looking up, his stride long.

Isma knelt down on the snow-dusted balcony floor and wept.





Eamonn





3




A KAYAK GLIDED high above the stationary traffic of the North Circular Road, two ducks paddling in its wake. Eamonn stopped along the canal path, looked over the edge of the railing. Cars backed up as far as he could see. All the years he’d been down there he’d taken this aqueduct for just another bridge, nothing to tell you that canal boats and waterfowl were being carried along above your head. Always these other Londons in London. He typed “canal above north circular” into his phone, followed a link that led to another link, and was soon watching news footage of a bomb planted on this bridge by the IRA in 1939. When the newsreader came to details of what would have happened if the bridge had been destroyed, he clicked pause mid-sentence, and hurriedly strode on.

But today was not a day to worry about the precariousness of things. It was the start of April, and London was bursting into spring, magnolia flowers opening voluptuously on the trees in Little Venice where he’d entered the tow path. Now he was walking along a wilder terrain, weeds and bushes growing in all directions, sometimes tall enough to hide the industrial blight that lay beyond, sometimes not. And then it changed again, became beautiful, almost rural—swans on the bank, yellow buds studding the trees, a man and his dog both snoring on the roof of a canal boat, the sky an expanse of blue smeared with white. Isma the invisible presence walking alongside him, her expression intense except when he could make her smile. He wondered if she would get in touch next time she was in London. Probably not. Despite their attempt to clear the air, the history of their fathers had made things between them far too strange. He tried to imagine growing up knowing your father to be a fanatic, his death a mystery open to terrible speculation, but the attempt was defeated by his simple inability to know how such a man as Adil Pasha could have existed in Britain to begin with.