Maps for Lost Lovers

the town centre after closing up the shop at nine because the seat covers of the family van needed changing. It was the only transport the family had, and in addition to personal travel it was used for the twice-weekly visit to the abattoir. The meat for the consumption of Muslims had to be slaughtered in a specific way: the animal had to be alive when its throat was cut and blood had to flow out of its body while it was still alive—the animal could not be stunned unconscious before being killed, as was the practice among non-Muslims; and all butchering from start to finish must be done by only a Muslim. The previous week, after the brothers had killed the lambs and sheep in the abattoir and brought them home in the van, blood and fatty liquid had somehow leaked out of the plastic sheets and stained the seat covers. No amount of washing could remove the unbearable stench from the fabrics and it was decided finally to purchase new ones. Chotta had driven to a friend’s warehouse but they hadn’t been able to find the correct size. He was on his way to the pub when he met Barra.
    The pub he had been walking towards was a few streets away from the taxi office: it was known for its peaceful atmosphere, and the word was that the whites in there never displayed any unpleasantness towards the dark-skinned people; as a result, it was frequented by many Asians. However, after the taxi carried his brother away, Chotta decided to walk into a pub that was known for having bigoted people among its clientele, but it was nearer and he needed alcohol quickly. And although nothing untoward happened during the following hour or so, he remained tense and a little on guard. He was there until just before eleven, drinking alone, mourning his brother’s loss, thinking about Chanda.
    He drove home but did not go upstairs, where everyone seemed to be asleep. He went to the shelves and helped himself to a bottle of vodka and continued drinking in the dark, sprawled on the battered chintz sofa at the back of the shop, the smell of blood coming to him constantly from the old seat covers of the van which lay in a heap nearby. At around two, he came out of his stupor and went to Kiran’s house, the half-empty bottle swinging from one hand.
    Having let himself in with the key, he went upstairs and found Kiran naked on the bed with another man. He staggered down the stairs, shouting, and was out of the house before she could dress herself to follow him. Her father heard the noise from his bed of affliction in the room downstairs and added alarmed calls and enquiries of his own to it.
    Chotta made it back to his house but this time he didn’t go in: he went into the back garden and began to dig out the pistol he knew was lying buried there in a box, the pistol that he and Barra had acquired around the time they went into that heroin-smuggling deal. He put the loaded pistol in his waistband—it was too big for the pockets and he hadn’t known how to carry it but then he had slipped it there because he remembered that was the way it was done in the movies. He was on his way back to Kiran’s house, saying “bitch” and “whore” to himself repeatedly, when he changed direction and found himself going towards where Chanda and Jugnu lived; what he had been saying had changed to “bitches” and “whores” some time ago.
    He went around the back, cleared the stream in one leap, and climbed the slope with the hawthorns and sycamore trees. He didn’t know what his next step was going to be, and he fell asleep sitting in the darkness, the empty vodka bottle rolling quietly down the grassy slope and shattering on a stone jutting out of the stream. He didn’t wake up at the noise. The flock of peacocks rushing up the hill—after they had been shooed out of the way by the man on his way to the mosque because the cleric had just collapsed—roused him an hour and a half before dawn, just as it did Jugnu. He saw Jugnu appear in the window of his bedroom soon afterwards.
    He sat and watched as Jugnu came out of the house wearing nothing but bed linen around his waist, a reminder that he had been lying naked beside his sister all night.
    He watched him dig up the onion.
    He watched as Jugnu unsuccessfully knocked on the back door of his brother’s house. And after Jugnu had gone out of the lane (he stopped briefly to push away with his foot those shards of the broken vodka bottle that were lying in the middle of the lane), Chotta approached