Free Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie

into the steam that rose from the teacup, its warmth a pleasant contrast to the chill of Delhi’s winter-morning air, and hoped Sajjad wouldn’t arrive soon. It was rare, and welcome, this feeling of being alone in the Burton house, no need to modulate her expressions so that nothing in them would give cause for concern or offence. When either James or Elizabeth was around she always had to look busily engaged with something to avoid provoking a panicked stir of conversation or activity; they behaved as though she had lost Nagasaki only yesterday, and their joint role in her world was to distract her from mourning. It was kind, but trying.
            She rubbed her thumb along the interlacings of the green cane chair. And this world, too, was ending. A year or two, no more, James had told her, and then the British would go. It seemed the most extraordinary privilege – to have forewarning of a swerve in history, to prepare for how your life would curve around that bend. She had no idea what she planned to do beyond Delhi. Beyond next week. And why plan anyway? She had left such hubris behind. For the moment it was enough to be here, in the Burton garden, appreciative of a blanket of silence threaded with vibrant bird calls, knowing there was nothing here she couldn’t leave without regret.
            She was less than halfway through her cup of jasmine tea when she saw Sajjad enter the garden from around the side. He seemed surprised – almost disappointed – to see her there, but all that was just a flicker of the eyes before his polite smile settled into place and removed all expressiveness from his face. She wondered if her own face had revealed and concealed exactly as had his.
            ‘There’s a lot of dew this morning,’ she said, watching his footprints turn the silver grass green.
            ‘Yes.’ He felt he should add something intelligent to that comment so he said, ‘The spiders like it. On dewy mornings they build elaborate webs. Or perhaps the webs only become visible when dew is captured in their threads.’
            ‘The spider is beloved of Muslims.’
            ‘Yes.’ He smiled, pleased beyond measure that she should know such a thing, as he stood beside the bridge table and waited for her to rise from her chair and join him there.
            ‘Konrad told me that.’ The day they stood together on Megane-Bashi and his heart had leapt into hers in a blur of silver. She couldn’t recall the moment itself without an accompanying memory of remembering it as she lay on a hospital bed in the hours after Yoshi told her no one near Urakami Cathedral had survived the blast.
            ‘Mr Konrad was—’ Sajjad pulled his ear-lobe, trying to find a way to express himself. ‘I liked him very much.’
            Hiroko smiled as she sat down at the bridge table. It was so easy to see why Konrad had said this man was the only person in Delhi worth seeing.
            ‘He mentioned you. He said you were lovely.’
            ‘Lovely?’
            ‘Yes.’ She watched him take in the compliment as though it were a feast. ‘Why didn’t you want me to say anything to you in front of the Burtons the day I arrived?’
            Sajjad set down the lined exercise book he had bought with his own money for the lesson, wiping his cuff against the remnant of a tea stain.
            ‘I didn’t know what you were going to say. But it didn’t seem right.’
            ‘What didn’t?’
            ‘I work for Mr Burton.’ He quickly added, ‘Not like Lala Buksh. I’m not a servant. I’m going to be a lawyer, one day. Already I know all there is to know about . . .’ He stopped, aware he was boasting. ‘I’m not a servant,’ he repeated firmly. ‘But I’m . . . you’re  . . .’
            ‘Yes?’
            ‘You had just walked in. A link to her dead brother. It was not the time for you to stop and talk to me.’ What he meant was,