Over the years, the events of those two months have slipped further and further from K’s conscious mind. He recalls Mr Sugar’s very beautiful gun more often than he does the tortures that were inflicted on him. In dreams, occasionally, or caught in the smells of certain foods — cabbage or mashed potatoes — K will intuit some flicker of memory. The house in the country. The fizz of spider webs in a type of forest. The old copper, where Mr Sugar’s wife washed clothes. A dirt floor. Sometimes he feels something like a belt pinch at his wrist, where Mr Sugar used to tie his hands behind his back. ‘Eat,’ Mr Sugar would say, and K would have to eat from the bowl like a dog. Even after he had vomited his food back into his own plate, he was obliged to finish everything. He was obliged to lick the plate clean to show his gratitude.

But there is something else too that intercedes now, as Hans comes towards K, with his long face distorted by his own incomprehensible hatreds. It is the muscle memory from K’s time in a cold boxing gym in Footscray. He was a teenager then, a gangly southpaw. Not a particularly good boxer. A smart-arse. The trainer had disliked him, and would set him up to get beaten by much bigger kids. And yet the knowledge of that old way of moving is still present in his body, and it returns now, as the German comes towards him. Feinting left, K snaps forward and hits him with a hard jab to the nose. There is a strange popping sound, and the man stops, surprised. He opens his mouth, which is filled with blood and lifts his hand towards his face as K hits him again, a left hook to the side of the chin. The German topples. It has taken less than five seconds, and if they really were in a ring, with rules, it would all be over now. K is off-balance, and there is no need to throw another punch. But there are no rules, and K falls, and lands on the man with his knees, and continues punching. The desire to kill is a powerful freedom. He does not know, nor will he ever know, how long this goes on for. Mere seconds, perhaps. Or many seconds. Then someone is dragging him backwards, and now he is standing again, as he once stood looking down at a kangaroo, many years earlier. The memory flashes through him. And there are flies here as well, and someone brushes them away from the soggy bowl that is the German man’s face.

K is standing by himself with his back to the padded wall.

Hans has been taken away, carried out the back gate of the ashram by four men, by Devam and Vikram and two others, and down the street to the ashram’s medical centre. Beyond that, it is not clear, to anyone, what has happened. If Hans is even alive.