Sohrab raised his arms and turned slowly. He stood on tiptoes, spun gracefully, dipped to his knees, straightened, and spun again. His little hands swiveled at the wrists, his fingers snapped, and his head swung side to side like a pendulum. His feet pounded the floor, the bells jingling in perfect harmony with the beat of the tabla. He kept his eyes closed.
“_Mashallah_!” they cheered. “Shahbas! Bravo!” The two guards whistled and laughed. The Talib in white was tilting his head back and forth with the music, his mouth half-open in a leer. Sohrab danced in a circle, eyes closed, danced until the music stopped. The bells jingled one final time when he stomped his foot with the song’s last note. He froze in midspin.
“Bia, bia, my boy,” the Talib said, calling Sohrab to him. Sohrab went to him, head down, stood between his thighs. The Talib wrapped his arms around the boy. “How talented he is, nay, my Hazara boy!” he said. His hands slid down the child’s back, then up, felt under his armpits. One of the guards elbowed the other and snickered. The Talib told them to leave us alone.
“Yes, Agha sahib,” they said as they exited. The Talib spun the boy around so he faced me. He locked his arms around Sohrab’s belly, rested his chin on the boy’s shoulder. Sohrab looked down at his feet, but kept stealing shy, furtive glances at me. The man’s hand slid up and down the boy’s belly. Up and down, slowly, gently.
“I’ve been wondering,” the Talib said, his bloodshot eyes peering at me over Sohrab’s shoulder. “Whatever happened to old Babalu, anyway?”
The question hit me like a hammer between the eyes. I felt the color drain from my face. My legs went cold. Numb. He laughed. “What did you think? That you’d put on a fake beard and I wouldn’t recognize you? Here’s something I’ll bet you never knew about me: I never forget a face. Not ever.” He brushed his lips against Sohrab’s ear, kept his eye on me. “I heard your father died. Tsk-tsk. I always did want to take him on. Looks like I’ll have to settle for his weakling of a son.” Then he took off his sunglasses and locked his bloodshot blue eyes on mine.
I tried to take a breath and couldn’t. I tried to blink and couldn’t. The moment felt surreal--no, not surreal, absurd--it had knocked the breath out of me, brought the world around me to a standstill. My face was burning. What was the old saying about the bad penny? My past was like that, always turning up. His name rose from the deep and I didn’t want to say it, as if uttering it might conjure him. But he was already here, in the flesh, sitting less than ten feet from me, after all these years. His name escaped my lips: “Assef.”
“Ainir jan.”