He had never been in a fistfight and didn’t really know what came next.

Should I hit him? If so, where should I hit him? Jesus, he’s huge.

Big as the guy was, the two men in black shirts and trousers weaving their way through the room towards them were even bigger. They pulled the fatty off Eram, put an armlock on him and then marched out in about five seconds flat, the guy in the middle still yelling about the unfairness of it all.

Later, after he had bagged and tagged his stack to collect on Day 2 and was waiting for the ferry, Eram caught a glimpse of the fat guy. He was cooling off in an inside office, still guarded by the security guys, but calmer now. He had his head in his hands, mumbling something incoherently about his savings and his wife.

The game, reflected Eram, can be a cruel mistress.

15

It was 10.30 p.m. and Eram was aimlessly kicking around the hotel. Since getting back from the jetty he had had a shower, called for a room-service burger and rung the bell to Gehna’s room on three separate occasions. Each time it had felt like he was going unprepared for an exam, and each time he had felt a curious mix of relief and disappointment when she hadn’t answered. It was nerve-wracking. Calling on her phone was beyond his powers; in his mind, he saw Gehna pull out her phone, see that it was him calling and press the red button with a sneer or possibly a few vicious curses.

He followed the cobblestone path that wound around the hotel until he came to a fork. The path to the left led to an open poolside bar. To his right was a rock garden that was either kitschy or comical, depending on how charitable you were feeling. Eram didn’t want any human company, but he did like the idea of people being around at a reasonable distance. He chose the path to the left.

What’s the point of doing anything if you can’t share it with someone?

The trouble was, it wasn’t just anyone Eram wanted to tell his stories to. It was a highly specific someone. Though he knew this, Eram tried to prove it wrong by calling Faizl instead.

‘Hi, it’s me.’

Silence.

‘Eram. It’s Eram.’

‘Eram, yes,’ his father said with a forced laugh. ‘Of course. Eram-Eram-Eram. Did you know that in Farsi it literally means “a landmark that helps those who are lost in the desert find their way”?’

Eram took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Faizl, while unreliable when it came to everyday stuff like remembering he had a son, was a vast storehouse of arcane knowledge. He often sounded off like this when he was trying to buy time. Another second and he would be educating Eram on the etymology of his name in about a dozen dead languages.