He invited me to his flat for dinner. It was a two-bedroom on Eisenacher Strasse. The walls were lined with books, among which was a volume of nude photos of Madonna. He encouraged me to look. I turned its pages as he went in to get food. I found a photograph on the shelf, of a long-haired man, a child in his arms. Faqrul returned with a bowl of rice. ‘That’s me,’ he explained, with the kind of pride a father takes in a son. ‘With my nephew.’ ‘You?’ I juxtaposed person with image. The man was smiling, and I realised I was looking at Faqrul’s real teeth. ‘Here you’re really looking like a poet,’ I said. His shoulders shook as he laughed, incredulous.

•

The doorbell buzzed when we began to eat.

‘That must be Christiana,’ muttered Faqrul. He prodded the daal. ‘Take, take,’ he instructed.

He went to open the door. A woman entered after two minutes.

‘Amar bandhobi.’ I don’t know what Christiana made of this. She was warm-looking – in her fifties, with frizzy hair. But Faqrul had already told me he had a bandhobi – an Englishwoman called Miriam.

‘Hi Christiana,’ I said. She seemed amused.

‘I’ve heard about you from Faqrul.’

‘Christiana is in the World Bank,’ said Faqrul in his radio voice. ‘She gets held up at meetings.’

‘Faq-rul! Such a lavish spread! When did you find the time?’ She was from the East Coast.

Faqrul shrugged casually, like a patriarch.

•

When I saw him again, I said:

‘Didn’t you say your bandhobi is called Miriam?’

‘Miri-yam,’ he said with affection.

‘Who’s Christiana?’

He chuckled, like an adult being challenged by a child over a magic trick.

‘Christiana is a very old friend.’

‘Bandhobi in what sense?’

‘Well, she’s a woman, isn’t she? A woman . . . friend.’ He said, ‘Sometimes we – aar ki . . .’

Noticing my disbelief, he added: ‘You can have her if you want.’

Faqrul – in the excitement of being in your company – was a man who liked to share. He gave you food; he stood next to you in solidarity when you tried on jackets; he would have shared cigarettes and his flat if I’d been a smoker or needed a room; he might offer his woman. He didn’t create a boundary round himself, saying, ‘This is mine; not yours.’ As long as he was with you, he was in a state of transport. Walking towards Zoologischer Garten, he waved to the doors on the left and said, ‘You want to go in?’ I hadn’t noticed the sex shop, so unprepossessing was the entrance. I wondered, ‘Who is this man? Pandarus?’ Then I realised – he’s giving me the benefit of the doubt, in case I’m the kind of yokel he was when he arrived. The first time, I demurred; but the second time I did go in, as if I were dropping into a supermarket to get some cheese.

•