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of the millions of youths who did menial work across the land – almost invisible, poor but resourceful, the lines on the palms of their hands shifting and realigning hourly. Their mother had had tuberculosis, and their father was an imam who had been cast out of his mosque for drinking alcohol, swaying a little while making the call to prayer, taking quick mouthfuls from a bottle of sugarcane liquor before giving his brilliant and far-famed Friday sermons, saying he needed it for inspiration and eloquence. When their parents died, the boys continued to drift on their own.
    As Wamaq got the motorbike running again, Qes walked to the edge of the path and positioned the music box on a large stone. ‘Do you think it can be seen?’ he asked his brother without turning around.

    ‘Yes, I am sure someone will find it. Let’s go.’
    They resumed their journey. Qes had lost count of the number of music boxes he’d dispersed around the province, all issuing the same song when operated.
    ‘We are hoping to find work,’ Wamaq said to the man on the bicycle who was going in the same direction as them. He had reduced the speed of the motorbike to be able to converse with the stranger.
    ‘There aren’t many good jobs here,’ the man replied, adding, ‘You are young – try Dubai. Or a Western country, if you can get in.’
    They were gliding side by side. Wamaq and Qes introduced themselves and after being silent for a while the man asked, ‘What kind of a name is Wamaq?’
    ‘I was named after a poet.’
    ‘A poet?’ The man looked at him.
    ‘ At night my lost memory of you returned .’
    ‘That’s a film song.’
    ‘It’s a poem of his turned into a song for a film, yes.’
    The man gave a frown. ‘I am sure I heard somewhere that he was a …’ He struggled to recall the word. ‘… a socialist. Allah annihilate them.’
    Wamaq didn’t know what a socialist was but he felt compelled to defend his name. ‘So what if a person is a socialist? As long as he keeps the promises he makes.’
    The man did not respond and soon went down a side path, raising a hand in farewell.
    The brothers were taken aback by the transformation the mosque had brought to the riverbank. It was a combination of a small bazaar and a circus of holy attractions. Things were being weighed and measured with a view to profit in either this life or the next. There were twenty boats for pilgrims wishing to cross the water. The mosque itself had been expanded and was large enough to be clearly visible from the bank, almost occupying the entire middle of the oval-shaped island – a handsome marble facade attached to a wide complex of prayer rooms and verandas, and courtyards that incorporated many of the ancient banyan trees. The original dome, a fibreglass replica of the one on Muhammad’s mausoleum, which had been ferried across with difficulty on the last night of construction, had now been replaced with several varicoloured tiled domes, all with milk-white doves sitting on them.
    The ascetic as well as the ambitious; men of genuine piety as well as those who just hoped to rub up against women and good-looking boys; gentle mendicants as well as jihadis who fantasized about nothing but what they’d do to the American president if ever they got hold of him. Wamaq and Qes explored the throng on the riverbank, drinking chilled Pepsi-Colas and sharing a packet of savoury cumin biscuits. The precarious wandering life had instilled in them a reluctance to interfere, and so they didn’t say anything when they learned that the mosque was believed to be the work of angels.
    Within the hour they had both found jobs – Wamaq as a boatman, rowing back and forth between the riverbank and the island, and Qes as a manual worker, digging and lifting. They rented bedding and sleeping space at the caravanserai and were given a locker for their rucksacks, and a safe space at the back to park the motorbike. As they were having their lunch at a roadside