“Go, son.” Govindji lifted Mansoor off his chair and placed him on the floor. “Go say goodbye to your mother.” He pushed him forward.

Mansoor ran to his ayah.

Badur removed an ink pad and a set of forms from his canvas bag and smoothed them out on the kitchen table. Nelly held Gulzar by the elbow and helped her to the table like a nurse escorting a patient after surgery. Badur lifted Gulzar’s hand, which hung limp in his. He pressed her thumb to the ink pad, then pushed it down on the port papers.

Later that day, Badur accompanied Gulzar on a train to Mombasa where he ensured she boarded the SS Bombay, reversing the trip she had made across the ocean four years earlier. Soon after the ship set sail, Gulzar jumped overboard and drowned. “That’s too bad,” Govindji said when he was told the news. “She was a good woman.”

Weeks later, a new wife arrived, this time hand-picked by Govindji himself, this time from Uganda. She was fifteen years old.

“This is your new mummy,” his father said. “Say hello.” Mansoor stuck his thumb in his mouth instead. He wanted his mummy. The real mummy. Where was his real mummy?

His father yanked his son’s tiny wrist away from his mouth and held it up to his new wife. “Say hello or else!”

“Hello,” Mansoor whimpered and shook the girl’s hand.

“Anything else?” the waiter asks Mansoor.

It takes Mansoor a second to hear him, to reorient himself. He looks down at his half-eaten steak. Across the table, a bowl of granola and yogurt, hardly touched. “Just the bill.”

“Your son has already taken care of it,” the waiter says with a wink.

“No, no. I will pay.” Mansoor fumbles. His fists are wrapped in napkins, like bandages. He casts them off and they fall to the floor. He roots through his wallet, hands the waiter a credit card.

“But it’s already been paid for, sir.” The waiter hands the card back.

Mansoor refuses to take the card. “There has been some sort of mistake. This card is good.”

“It was a pleasure serving you, sir.” The waiter puts the card down on the table. “We hope to see you again soon.” He picks up Mansoor’s plate and leaves.

Mansoor puts his card back into his wallet. He gathers up both copies of his presentation, the two calculators, the two pens, the silver-plated business-card holder. With trembling hands, he drops them back into his briefcase. He leaves the cheque with his name on it where Ashif had put it, between the salt and pepper shakers. He weaves through the tables of businessmen. It’s the host who finally stops him from circling the lounge. He points him toward the elevator.

“That way down, sir.”

Chapter 14

LAYLA ARRIVES AT JAMATKHANA with Shamma and Almas for the Night of Power on the northeast Calgary Ismaili mini-bus, which brings community members, mostly seniors, to and from jamatkhana for their morning and evening prayers. She tucks her chin to her chest, against the cold wind, and shuffles to the entrance of the prayer hall. She wishes Mansoor would come to jamatkhana with her. It would give him some peace of mind. But he hasn’t been in years, decades even. She recently suggested that he should at least come tonight. “Lailatul Qadr is no ordinary night,” she reminded him. “Our prayers tonight are equivalent to one thousand nights of prayer.” Mansoor just laughed. “Sounds like Ali-Baba and One Thousand and One Arabian Nights!” he said. “What kind of a fool believes in that hocus-pocus?” Layla continued, undeterred. “It’s the night Allah seals our fates for the coming year. We have to pray and ask for mercy and forgiveness.” “Oh-ho, Layla. How many times can I tell you? Religion and story. They’re one and the same thing. Fiction. All fiction.”