A shorter shake of the head, ashamed now. It had always been there just out of the corner of his eye, the knowledge of “enhanced interrogation techniques,” but he had never looked closely. Because he didn’t want anyone to ask why he was so interested. That was the reason he’d always given himself.
Farooq rested a hand on his shoulder. “It’s all right. You were a child, alone. You weren’t ready for it. But that’s changed now, hasn’t it?”
A child, alone. He’d never been alone. There had always been Aneeka. Even when she was different, she was still there. He looked at the iron bolt in the floor, thought of Aneeka saying they should sell the house. She was unlinking the chains that held them together, casting him into darkness without the accompanying sound of her heartbeat for the first time since his heart had clenched in terror to find itself dividing into chambers, becoming an organ with the capacity to feel, then relaxed, knowing there was another heart experiencing every moment of fear, every second of wonder alongside it.
Legs still wobbly, he stood up. “I have to go.”
Farooq stood with him and drew him into an embrace. “You’re strong enough to bear this. You’re his son, after all.”
Parvaiz pulled away, walked out without saying anything. Please come home, he texted his twin while going down the stairs.
He was on the 79 bus home, just a few minutes later, when she texted back. Urgent? Class ends in 20.
He rested his temple against the window of the bus and watched the familiar world pass by. “Sicko,” “creep”—those would be the words she’d use about Farooq, and she’d make him swear on their mother’s grave never to see the man again. But the farther the bus took him from Farooq’s flat the more he felt he was in the wrong place. The ache in his back had begun to recede and he remembered how, before the pain had become too unbearable for any thought beyond his own suffering, he had turned his head toward the wall, toward the photograph of his father, and there was this understanding, I am you, for the first time.
He texted back: Haha just testing your devotion. Don’t make me have another night of takeaway and Isma.
Idiot, you worried me, she responded. Paper due tomorrow so working late in the library. Will stay at Gita’s tonight.
He slid the phone into his pocket. Near the front of the bus a man was tapping his wedding ring against a yellow handrail. The sound, metal on metal, was chains unlinking.
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Parvaiz sat down on the stool near the till in the greengrocer’s, wiping the back of his hand against his mouth, surrounded by a lie. Asparagus and plantains and okra and Scotch bonnet peppers and bird’s-eye chilis and samphire and cabbage and bitter gourd. Nat, the greengrocer, said the world was divided into two kinds of people: those who regularly ate fresh food, and those who didn’t. With each new influx of migrants to the neighborhood, he’d ask, What do they eat? and add to his stock accordingly. Pakistanis, West Indians, Albanians—they were all fine by Nat. His shelves bursting with freshness and color, the promise of family meals and welcoming neighbors.
Parvaiz set Nat’s phone down on the weighing scale, surprised by how light it was. In his hands it had felt like an iron bar. He’d taken it out of the pocket of Nat’s winter coat, which hung in the back room, when Nat went to the café next door for his morning toast and tea. He’d switched the browser into private mode and typed “Bagram abuse” into the search bar. Then he’d read, and looked at images, until he’d had to run outside and throw up in an empty crate that smelled of cabbage.
He’d always told himself a story, which came from nowhere he could now recall, that said Guantánamo was the place where really bad things happened, and at least his father had been spared that. Such a clever little lie, neat as the piles of fruit and vegetables he’d so carefully arranged this morning, as if the placement of a pear were something that mattered.
Nat returned, took one look at him, and said, “What’s happened?”
Parvaiz stood up. “Not feeling well. Can I go?”
“Of course. Should I call Isma? You need something from the pharmacy?”
He shook his head, unable to bear Nat’s kindness.
A short while later he was at Farooq’s flat. He walked over to the shackles, lifted their weight in his hand. The cool steel harmless in his palm, link clinking against link.
“Tie me again. I want to feel my father’s pain.”
“My brave warrior,” Farooq said, as Parvaiz knelt down and waited for the agony to resume.
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“Are you finally ready to tell me about her?” Aneeka said, perched on the arm of the sofa, her foot tapping against Parvaiz’s ankle inquiringly as he lay prone beneath his favorite blue blanket, a hot water bottle against his back.
“Her who?”
“Really? You going to tell me you aren’t lying here looking so wounded because of whoever you’ve been going off to meet every afternoon and texting deep into the night for—what—a couple of weeks now? Longer? Who is she? Why all the secrecy?”
“Why the law?”
“What?”
“Why is that what you’ve decided to do with your life? What does the law count for? How did the law help our father?”
She raised her eyebrows at him, unbothered. “You could just say you aren’t ready to tell me who she is. Is she married? Oh god, she’s not from one of those crazy honor-killing type families, is she?”
“Why are you pretending I’m not asking you a valid question?”
“Well, you aren’t, really. What has Adil Pasha ever had to do with our lives?”
He turned away from her, his face pressed against the sofa cushions. “You’re just a girl. You don’t understand.”
She held his foot in her hands, pressing her thumbs into his sole. “Don’t get your heart broken.”
“Shut up. Leave me alone. You don’t know anything.”
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