Free The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

sally forth from so grand a castle.
    It was against this backdrop that I saw Erica again. Six weeks had passed since that afternoon we spent together in Central Park, and when I called I thought Erica might have other plans, but she suggested we meet that very evening, which is to say the evening of my first full day back in New York, as soon as I was done with work. I was waiting on the sidewalk as she stepped out of a taxi. A peculiar odor lingered in the air; the smoldering wreckage downtown made its way into our lungs. Her lips were pale, as though she had not slept—or perhaps she had been crying. I thought in that moment that she looked older, more elegant; she had an element of that beauty which only age can confer upon a woman, and I imagined I was catching a glimpse of the Erica she would one day become. Truly, I thought, she is an empress-in-waiting!
    “My mom was saying,” she said over dinner, “maybe we should leave the city for a bit. Go out to the Hamptons. But I told her the last thing I wanted to do was leave town. I didn’t want to be alone. The attacks churned up old thoughts in my head.” I nodded but said nothing in response. I felt we were encountering one another at a funeral; one never knows what to say to those who have been bereaved. “I keep thinking about Chris,” she went on. “I don’t know why. Most nights I have to take something to help me rest. It’s kind of like I’ve been thrown back a year.” I suspect I looked alarmed because she smiled and added, “It’s not that bad. I mean, I’m eating fine. I haven’t lost it. But I feel haunted, you know?”
    I considered her choice of words. “I have an aunt,” I said, “my mother’s most beautiful sister. Her marriage was arranged, so she had only met her husband a few times beforehand. He was an air force pilot. He died three months later, but she never married again. She said he was the love of her life.” Erica appeared moved, both touched and troubled by what I had said; leaning forward, she asked, “What’s she like now?” “Mad,” I said, “mad as a March hare.” Erica stared; then she started to laugh—a surprised and delighted guffaw—and when she was done she placed her hand on mine. “I missed you,” she said. “It’s good to have you back.”
    I wanted to slip my fingers between hers, but I held my hand completely still, as though I was afraid any movement on my part might dislodge our connection. “Is she really mad?” Erica asked, raising an eyebrow and imitating my pronunciation of the word. “Yes, I am afraid,” I said with mock solemnity, “utterly.” This made her smile; she suggested we order another bottle of wine. We lingered at our table until the restaurant closed for the night—by which time we were rather pleasantly drunk—and then strolled out into the street. “I love it when you talk about where you come from,” she said, slipping her arm through mine, “you become so alive.”
    I did not say that the same could be said of her when she spoke of Chris; I did not say it because this fact elicited in me mixed emotions. On the one hand it pleased me as her friend to see her so animated, and I knew, moreover, that it was a mark of affection that she took me into her confidence in this way—I had never heard her discuss Chris when speaking to someone else; on the other hand, I was desirous of embarking upon a relationship with her that amounted to more than friendship, and I felt in the strength of her ongoing attachment to Chris the presence of a rival—albeit a dead one—with whom I feared I could never compete. The aunt I had mentioned was unlike Erica in almost every way: she was plump, insisted on traveling only by scooter, wore a backpack frequently crammed with goodies for her young nieces and nephews, and lived on a widow’s small pension. But this was my aunt at forty-five; the woman who stared jauntily out of her photographs at the age of twenty-two was cocksure and