‘Can you give me half an hour?’

She’s moved to staid Charlottenburg.

We hug briefly, to subdue suspicion. We’re still not sure we like each other. We choose a table outside.

The restaurant’s cocooned by sheeting. We sit by an oven. The heat on my cheek’s intolerable.

‘So – is she better?’

She looks uncomprehending, more concerned with finding her balance on the chair.

‘Your mother.’

Her face lights up with a kind of relief.

‘Yes! She could have died!’

We study the menus, as if we’ve been told to.

A man steps up.

‘Can you give us two minutes?’

•

The restaurant’s smartly Orientalist; not like the derelict palaces Faqrul took me to. Very likely there’ll be more of these on Oranienburger Strasse; more flute and sitar.

I yawn.

‘Thank you!’ she says. ‘I didn’t realise I was so interesting.’

‘No, no – it’s the fire, I think.’ I check the embers. We’re in a battle tent. ‘I haven’t been sleeping well. It comes over me at some points in the day.’

‘I can’t imagine you’re a sound sleeper,’ she says, turning the hardboard page. ‘There’s something fitful about you.’

•

I’ve thrown off my jacket; she her scarf. My chest is sticky.

‘You remind me of someone.’ It takes a lot to say this; it’s come to me now.

She waits for me to complete the thought.

There’s korma and pilau in front of us. The cream subsumes other colours.

‘When you wear that scarf, I mean. I knew a girl in college who covered her head. I thought of her when I first saw you in Hackescher Markt.’

‘You’d know many women who wear headscarves, no?’

‘Not really.’

We turn the food over.

I tell her how we grew close – this woman and I. We deepened our friendship knowing it had no future – because of our religious denominations, and the fact that she wouldn’t transgress against her parents.

‘I like the story.’ Her eyes are pale.

We sit after the plates have been removed. It’s not laziness; we’re clinging to inertia. As if the battle starts tomorrow, and we’re engrossed till it does.

I want to make love but won’t say it outright. We wait without purpose on the street. I turn away to belch. The spices are from a journey made in a dream, hinting at another reality.

‘Well?’

‘Well?’

I defer to the thought of the mother – convalescing in a village near Hannover.

‘I hope she’s better soon.’

She looks at me, disbelieving.

‘Is that it?’

‘I hope not,’ I say. ‘I hope it isn’t.’

‘The last two weeks have left me tired.’

•

I wander off, a vagrant.

I gravitate towards the dome. I feel a pull; not to one thing – in different directions.