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Fortunately they had (given the Dard-e-Dil history) considered the possibility of twins, so there was a second name: Aliya.
    â€˜Don’t tell me that for this reason you think you qualify. As not-quite-twins,’ Rehana Apa snorted.
    Mariam and Aliya were supposed to be twins. And Mariam Apa and I entered a world, not
the
world I’ll admit, but a world – one inhabited by my parents and Dadi and Masood and Samia and Sameer and all the rest of them – on the same day. But that’s not all. Everyone I know grew more garrulous than normal around Mariam Apa, except for me. I’ve heard that twins communicate in the womb before tongue and throat and larynx form, so they know how to speak to each other without speech.
    Am I saying Mariam Apa was in Ami’s womb with me?
    Not quite.

Chapter Seven
    I fell asleep under the tree and woke up in the spare room of the Palmer House flat, with memories of a dream which involved Rehana Apa pulling out a mobile phone from her bag, Dadi asking me about the quality of Baji’s teaset, me lifting myself off the ground and stumbling into a cab with the help of Samia, and Ami saying, ‘But of course you’re twins; did I forget to tell you?’
    The scent of Samia’s perfume and a set of door keys were gone when the eddying noises in my stomach finally convinced me to get out of bed, but in their place was a still-hot
haandi
of chicken
karhai
on the stove and a note instructing me to ‘add whole green chillis and
pudina
– or is it
dhaniya?
That green thing, you know what I mean – and cook on medium heat for two minutes’. A spoon covered in spices and the juice of cooked chicken lay next to the
haandi,
but I ignored it and reached for a clean spoon to stir in the chillis and coriander. Masood always used to say that two hands on one spoon spoilt the flavour of a dish. I watched the clock for the two minutes to be up. (’How much time?’ I heard Masood’s voice, incredulous. ‘How can I tell you how much time it’ll take? When the spices and the meatdissolve the boundaries between them and flavours seep, one into the other, then it is time.’ The day he said that I added new words to his English vocabulary so that he could laugh at, ‘For the true chef, thyme is only a herb.’ English is the language of advancement in Karachi, and I taught Masood as much as was necessary to enable him to laugh at my jokes.)
    The chicken was good, but it wasn’t spiritual.
    Someone was calling my name. I looked out of the window into the parking lot, and it was him. Khaleel. Cal Butt from Athol, Mass. My knees buckled absurdly, and I pretended to be leaning into the sink to cover that moment of unsophistication. Although how sophisticated can you look while leaning over a pile of dirty dishes? I pulled a teacup out of the sink and waved it at him. Thumb hooked into the pocket of his jeans, sneakers replaced by brown leather boots, fingers twirling a pair of shades, he looked like an American cliché. I said to myself, ‘I’d like to be clichéd by him.’
    â€˜Hey!’ he called out. ‘These are for you.’ He held up a bunch of flower stems.
    â€˜Am I being stalked?’
    He laughed. ‘I promised myself if you didn’t get it, I’d leave.’ His expression changed to embarrassment. ‘I can still leave. I don’t mean it’s my decision to make.’
    â€˜Hang on.’ I grabbed the spare keys and ran down the stairs until I came to the final bend leading to the lobby with its glass doors, and then I ambled. ‘How?’ I said, when I was through the doors.
    â€˜Your luggage tag. From the airport. I remembered the address on it because I have a friend who used to live in that building.’ He pointed across the street. Adam’s armreaching towards God. When I first stood in the Sistine Chapel I wondered if Michelangelo was aware of his blasphemy. Who