Between the Assassinations Read Free

money into Zia’s hands. “You deserve even more.”
    Ziauddin took the money; he looked at the stranger’s face. “Are you really a Pathan, sir?”
    The boy’s body shivered at the stranger’s answer.
    “Me too!” he shouted, and then ran like crazy, yelling, “Me too! Me too!”
    That night Ziauddin dreamt of snow-covered mountains and a race of fair-skinned, courteous men who tipped like gods. In the morning, he returned to the guesthouse, and found the stranger on one of the benches outside, sipping from a yellow teacup.
    “Will you have tea with me, little Pathan?”
    Confused, Ziauddin shook his head, but the stranger was already snapping his fingers. The proprietor, a fat man with a clean-shaven lip and a full, fluffy white beard like a crescent moon, looked unhappily at the filthy porter before indicating, with a grunt, that he was allowed to sit down at the tables today.
    The stranger asked, “So you’re also a Pathan, little friend?”
    Ziauddin nodded. He informed the stranger of the name of the man who had told him he was a Pathan. “He was a learned man, sir: he had been to Saudi Arabia for a year.”
    “Ah,” the stranger said, shaking his head. “Ah, I see. I see now.”
    A few minutes passed in silence. Ziauddin said, “I hope you’re not staying here a long time, sir. It’s a bad town.”
    The Pathan arched his eyebrows.
    “For Muslims like us, it’s bad. The Hindus don’t give us jobs; they don’t give us respect. I speak from experience, sir.”
    The stranger took out a notebook and began writing. Zia watched. He looked again at the stranger’s handsome face, his expensive clothes; he inhaled the scent from his fingers and face. This man is a countryman of yours, Zia, the boy said to himself. A countryman of yours!
    The Pathan finished his tea and yawned. As if he had forgotten all about Zia, he went back into his guesthouse and shut the door behind him.
    As soon as his foreign guest had disappeared into the guesthouse, the owner of the place caught Ziauddin’s eye and jerked his head, and the dirty coolie knew that his tea was not coming. He went back to the train station, where he stood in his usual spot and waited for a passenger to approach him with steel trunks or leather bags to be carried to the train. But his soul was shining with pride, and he fought with no one that day.
    The following morning, he woke up to the smell of fresh laundry. “A Pathan always rises at dawn, my friend.”
    Yawning and stretching himself, Ziauddin opened his eyes: a pair of beautiful pale blue eyes was looking down on him, eyes such as a man might get when he gazes on snow for a long time. Stumbling to his feet, Ziauddin apologized to the stranger, then shook his hand, and almost kissed his face.
    “Have you had something to eat?” the Pathan asked.
    Zia shook his head; he never ate before noon.
    The Pathan took him to one of the tea-and-samosa stands near the station. It was the place where Zia had once worked, and the boys watched in astonishment as he sat down at the table and cried:
    “A plate of your best! Two Pathans need to be fed this morning!”
    The stranger leaned over to him and said, “Don’t say it aloud. They shouldn’t know about us: it’s our secret. ”
    And then he quickly passed a note into Zia’s hands. Uncrumpling the note, the boy saw a tractor and a rising red sun. Five rupees!
    “You want me to take your bag all the way to Bombay? That’s how far this note goes in Kittur.”
    He leaned back in his chair as a serving-boy put down two cups of tea and a plate holding a large samosa, sliced into two and covered with watery ketchup, in front of them. The Pathan and Zia each chewed on his half of the samosa. Then the man picked a piece of the samosa from his teeth, and told Ziauddin what he expected for his five rupees.
    Half an hour later, Zia sat down at a corner of the train station, outside the waiting room. When customers asked him to carry their luggage, he shook