‘Once upon a time, a naïve young man fled his wretched beginnings to start a new life in a fabled metropolis. The loftiest of all cities, where the great thinkers of Europe had trodden on hallowed ground: Voltaire, Descartes, Rousseau, Sartre. To walk those same streets, to breathe the rarefied air, was all he’d ever wanted. What our young man did not understand, however, despite the bloodshed and turmoil from which he’d fled, is that once he set foot on the sacred ground of his dreams, he would be viewed as an alien creature, someone to be despised and feared.

‘One day, not long after he arrived, the boy was invited to have a drink at the cafe table of three young women. International students, just like himself, embarking on the great adventure of their lives. He readily accepted, anxious to belong, even accepting a glass of wine though he’d never touched alcohol before. He was so enamoured of his beautiful new friends that when asked where he came from, he readily named the place of his birth. What he didn’t expect, what he could not have imagined, was what happened next. Two of the girls looked shocked and instantly rose. Terror was stamped on their faces as they rushed to get away. In his mind, he was an innocent young boy, eager to embrace the riches of life that had long been denied him. But to those girls, he was… what? A white slaver, a terrorist? An evil creature intent on slitting their throats the moment they dropped their guard. Even after all these years, their fear and disgust has remained with him. A constant companion, never fading.

‘Spat on in the Metro, cursed by cab drivers, it became clear that the city of Rousseau and Voltaire was not for the likes of him. To survive, he learned to stay in the shadows and keep his head down, though sometimes during lectures when the greats of Western civilisation were discussed, he wanted to shout at his professors, “Why do we not learn about Al-Khwarizmi, the great mathematician and astronomer? Or Ibn Sina, Avicenna, the brilliant Persian physician upon whose works modern medicine was built?” Those great men, and many others, dismissed as nobodies and forgotten in their graves, all because they happened to worship a different god or wore a turban on their head.’

Gessen had yet to move a muscle, afraid to disturb the rush of memories he’d waited so long to hear. The mystery of how Malik’s emotions had hardened into stone, so many years ago, was at last coming into view: feel nothing, reveal nothing, let no one in. Now, with nothing left to lose, he tossed with abandon at Gessen’s feet the bone he’d been chasing for weeks.