Maps for Lost Lovers

last year.”
    “Another bus should have come along by now.” He is suddenly aware that they are on the outskirts of the town, alone and exposed, in an unfamiliar place—away from their neighbourhood. Women walk close to their men in other parts of Dasht-e-Tanhaii but allow themselves to dawdle on entering the familiar streets of their own neighbourhoods, falling behind without care. Although even there he had witnessed—just two days ago—two white men shout loudly and repeatedly, “Sieg Heil!” as they walked by a group of women and children outside the shop. He looks at her: “How do you know about the number of black deaths in police custody?”
    “I happened to hear it on the radio.”
    They fall silent, both of them entangled in the same fear. But then she is suddenly visited by inspiration: “We should have them transferred to another prison. We’ll ask Shamas-brother-ji to help arrange it.”
    He shakes his head, astonished.
    “Yes. He’s a good man. He’ll help us. I’ll talk to him myself,” she says animatedly, and looks in the direction where her husband had seen Shamas earlier: “I’ll talk to him right now! I won’t let my sons be in danger longer than they have to.”
    She looks as though she’s about to set out to look for Shamas. He grabs her by the upper arm. “No.”
    “He’ll tell us which forms to fill, where to go, who to see. We don’t understand the procedures, and with our lack of proper English we’ll probably make mistakes filling up the forms, causing useless delays.”
    “No. I know we have to find a way to ensure their safety—I am not blind, I saw how badly beaten up he was. But you are not approaching Shamas again. Just think about what you are saying!”
    She nods, defeated, so that he releases her arm. She inhales deeply to compose herself. “I wanted to ask my sons so many things today but my English isn’t very good. That prison guard kept telling me not to talk to them in ‘Paki language’ each time I felt like saying what I truly feel. ‘Speak English or shut up,’ he said.”
    “Your English is better than mine,” he says.
    She waves a hand dismissively. Dressed in blue, she stands under the cherry tree with him beside her: the immortal rocks and boulders watch them from across the road.
    She smiles. “Yes, in a month, when the mangoes begin arriving, we’ll see if we are allowed to take some to them. Brazilian mangoes are available now but I don’t get any music out of them.” Plum-stone, peach-stone, apricot-, mango-, cherry-: when the children were younger, each year at the beginning of autumn when she cut back the rosebush that grew in the corner under that window she found a heap of soft-fruit stones they had dropped there from above during the summer, the earth directly below the two boys’ bedroom.
    Seeing that he hasn’t said anything in response, she places her hand on his shoulder. “You mustn’t let your heart ache too much. Let’s trust Him to help us out of this predicament.”
    Where are you? You don’t even have the safety of a grave, lying somewhere exposed to the wind and the rain and the sun and snow.
    The sons say they didn’t do it but they are certainly said to have boasted of it. One said, “I’ll admit to anyone that I did it while wearing a T-shirt saying I did it with a picture showing me doing it.” And the other that, “They were sinners and Allah used me as a sword against them.” Chanda’s mother wants to go into their souls with a lighted lamp to look for the truth. People say they admitted to having done it, but people also say a lot of other things.
    “The bus is here.”
    Though the sky here is a taut blue now, it must be raining somewhere in that direction because the vehicle is wet. Climbing aboard, they exchange greetings with the Pakistani driver, pay, and take their seats. The group of boys that had been fishing on the riverbank up the road are occupying the back seats, giggling and talking noisily in a huddle, smelling of grass and mud and moss, rods and hoop-nets leaning at various angles between them. Chanda’s father knows the reason for their noise and the laughter they are trying to suppress but failing to, the shoulders shuddering like someone operating a road drill: they are looking at the torn pages of a pornographic magazine they had found scattered on the bank, assembling or rotating the pages, tilting their heads. They were looking at them earlier when he had walked up to