Outside, the sky is an endless patch of white and blue. The parking lot is a mess of snow and mud. As Mansoor crosses it, a man in torn clothes and long, knotted hair steps out from behind a Dumpster. He reeks of urine. Mansoor steps back, startled.

“Spare some change?” the man asks.

Mansoor hesitates, then he remembers Uganda.

Days after Idi Amin’s deadline to leave expired, Mansoor boarded one of the last U.N. charter flights out of Uganda. He found his seat through a haze of cigarette smoke. The flight was packed with stateless Asian men, men who now belonged nowhere.

Soon after Layla and Ashif left for England, five army officers had stormed into one of his shops, brandishing machetes. They demanded money and the keys. Mansoor wanted to resist, but he was overcome with an intense fear. It was as if he were leisurely swimming at the Aga Khan Sports Club when he suddenly realized that he wasn’t in the pool, but in Lake Victoria. Bulging crocodile eyes surfaced all around him. He complied with the officers and quietly walked out of Visram P. Govindji & Son, Inc.

He’d rushed home through the city’s back streets and packed within minutes. He then drove to the gurdwara with his house servant, Joseph, in the passenger seat. The Sikh temple was now the only safe haven for people who hadn’t been able to get out before Amin’s deadline. At the temple, Mansoor removed his suitcase from the trunk, then gave Joseph the keys to his Mercedes and the family house, too.

The plane taxied down the runway and soon they were airborne. A few men became boisterous, yelling slurs out to Amin, “Good riddance, General Dodo.” Some, though, were certain he’d rescind his policy and ask them to come back. Not that they knew where they were going. Others spoke to each other in whispers, but most, like Mansoor, sat quietly in their seats and stared out their windows. In the distance, Mansoor could see the vast blue of Lake Victoria and below him, the city of Entebbe. Though Kampala was too far in the distance, in his mind’s eye, he could see the houses where he had lived as a child, each one larger than the last as his father continued to expand his empire. He could see the jamatkhana on Jinja Road where he played in the garden courtyard as a child; the primary school that he used to walk to with his friends early each morning, carrying his lunch of chapati and dhal curry; the years in secondary school with that same group of friends; the countryside where the family picnicked each Sunday, roasting sticks of spicy mishkaki on an open fire; his father’s first store on Martin Road, opened in 1929, and which he was allowed to manage by himself when he turned sixteen. He could see the Aga Khan Hospital where Ashif was born; City Bar where he celebrated the birth with a roomful of men; the Ismailia Cemetery where his father was buried. Soon, Uganda vanished under a screen of white clouds.