Twenty minutes later Ben came quietly up behind the court and for a few seconds watched Ahmed. Ahmed took his racquet back with some extra ceremony, but otherwise his strokes were simple and relaxed, and Ben saw the rhythm of the smack off the front wall and the long slide against the side wall and the one-two bounce off the floor and the back wall and the new stroke falling easily through him. Maybe smoking pot didn’t harm his game; maybe it made it better.

Ahmed shanked a ball and turned to pick it up, and in seeing Ben, gave a restrained smile. Ben’s smile looked true to Ahmed; not patronizing or reluctant, or like Ben was doing something owed.

Without saying anything Ben changed into his court shoes, stepped through the door, and closed it behind him. Ahmed could see Ben showing off slightly, relishing the crisp volleys back to himself, but before going on for too long he knocked the ball gently over to Ahmed.

“Want me to feed you rails?” Ben said.

Ahmed nodded, feeling as though this would be beneath Ben but not wanting to contradict him.

And so they hit. Ben placed the ball a foot out from the wall two steps in front of Ahmed, and Ahmed stepped in and hit the forehand simply, and Ben put the ball back in the same place. They did it on the backhand side.

“Try bringing your racquet back even farther,” Ben said.

Ahmed did, and it was awkward for two strokes.

“Not just your arm; turn with your body a little more.”

And Ahmed did, and they both could feel the ball spring to the front wall with new life.

At that moment Ben remembered being on court with his dad so many years before. They were having a bad session. Ben felt like there wasn’t enough time to get his racquet back for each ball, and every part of the movement felt like a separate thing dropped into a sack and shaken, and he was near tears.

“Ben.” His father held the ball and looked at him. “Don’t worry about being good. It’s fine to be having trouble. Just do the thing we talked about—try to hit the ball with the butt of your racquet and then turn your wrist like a doorknob—and don’t even expect the ball to get to the front wall. It’s not your job to hit a good shot. Your only job is to make that movement.”

Ben was still young enough to think that his dad was the best squash player in the world. More than that, he murkily thought that his dad was squash, was the original source of the game. This act of releasing Ben from hitting a good shot had seemed vast.