There was much to admire in the clinic. It was big, clean and well equipped. Minor surgery was performed here, as well as medical consultations. There were no patients now, but that was because the clinic closed in the middle of the afternoon. In the evening, after Amir had his siesta, it re­opened, and he worked late into the night. He would happily schedule a patient in for midnight and not get back home until two a.m. All this he had told her on the phone. She had coaxed the mundane details of his life out of him. What he considered dull, she considered nourishment. What he saw as matter-of-fact, she saw enhanced and plumped up with nostalgia. She let herself slow down, allowed herself to linger and indulge her curiosity. She looked at the rows of chairs, she noticed the calendar on the wall. She smiled at the stack of magazines in the corner, the water cooler next to them. A receptionist or even two worked here, nurses who were young and pliable. Did he flirt with them or lead them on? Envy made her skin damp, her cheeks flushed. And there he was when she turned, at last, wearing his red T-shirt, just as she had imagined him, just as she had thought he would be. All there, skin, height, smell and smile. The bulk of him. Not only the voice but flesh and blood.

She walked into his arms and that was the end of it. The end of the chase and the waiting, the speculation and the games. She would never be the same again.

Afterwards, when he left, she lay flat on her back on the operating table. She looked up and counted the circular lights beaming down at her. One, two, three, four, five, six. She closed her eyes and she could still see a blurred equivalent of them, also six. She tried to move her arms, but she couldn’t. She tried to move her legs. She turned her head to see where all her strength had gone. There was a pail and it was full of muscle tissue.

She screamed until her voice was larger than the pain, bigger than her anger. It flooded her, and she passed out. Even then she could see the surgical scars and the stiches all along her arms and thighs.

‘Salma, Salma.’ She thought it was one of her friends come to rescue her. They owed her this at least.

But the face looking down at her was neither Iman’s nor Moni’s. ‘Mum,’ said Salma. It was Norma as Salma had never seen her. The loose sixties dress, the beehive hairstyle, the warm red in her hair.