Fourteen hours later, they landed in Vienna, where they were cleared through a special line at immigration then escorted into the arrivals hall to throngs of cheering Austrians. Some held up signs. Willkommen Refugees! Others reached out to shake their hands as though they were film stars. One woman gifted Mansoor a sandwich and a bag of chocolate coins. “We are very much sorry for your pain, sir,” she said. He didn’t want it, but he understood. She was only trying to welcome him to her country. He took the food and thanked her, though her gesture made him feel small. As if he was a beggar. Passing through the revolving door from customs into the arrivals hall had spun him back in time. He was exactly where his father had been when he landed on the shores of Zanzibar sixty years ago. A pauper with nothing to his name.

At the refugee camp in Austria, it soon became clear that only so many countries would take them. So many countries, like America, had turned their backs to the refugees, but not Canada. Pierre Elliott Trudeau generously opened the country’s borders to Uganda’s Asians, including the Ismailis. If it wasn’t for the prime minister, Mansoor doesn’t know what would have become of them.

At the time of Uganda’s independence, the British had promised to protect those who were worried about a fever of excessive African nationalism; they encouraged people to maintain their British passports. But without Ugandan citizenship, the new African government would not allow Asians to operate their businesses. So, what to do? Stay in the safe middle. Stuck in the middle, more like it. Let the wife maintain a British passport and the husband can get a Ugandan passport.

What bloody irony: Amin threw them out because Asians had split loyalties. Why hadn’t they chosen to become Ugandan citizens at the most critical time in the country’s history? You have milked the cow, but you did not feed it. Some said that Amin threw them out because an Asian family refused him their daughter’s hand in marriage. Then the Queen refused entry to those without passports even if their families had already been airlifted to London.

During one of their history lessons, he told Ashif that the prime minister had rescued him by pirouetting into the Vienna refugee camp in a red cape and beret with a maple leaf on it before he scooped him up and away like a superhero. Merci beaucoup, Monsieur Trudeau. Merci beaucoup. Since becoming a Canadian citizen, Mansoor insisted that he and Layla vote Liberal; she did (he hoped) even though she said there was no point in voting, especially during provincial elections. What difference could they make? There had been no change to Alberta’s Conservatives in decades. She may have been right, but that was hardly the point. Why couldn’t she understand such a simple matter?

Mansoor fishes out a ten-dollar bill from his wallet and hands it to the homeless man.