The Year of Rice and Salt

'She gives them something in exchange for food. She tells them what they want to hear. You tell people what they don't want to hear for your food, is that any better?'

'Why yes,' Kirana said, cackling again. 'It's a pretty damned good trick, now you put it that way. Here's the deal!' she shouted over the river at the world. 'I tell you want you don't want to bear, you give me food!'

Even Budur had to laugh.

They walked across the last bridge arm in arm, laughing and talking, then into the city centre, trams squealing over tracks, people hurrying by. Budur looked at the passing faces curiously, remembering the worn visage of the fake guru, businesslike and hard. No doubt Kirana was right to laugh. All the old myths were just stories. The only reincarnation you got was the next day's waking. No one else was you, not the you that existed a year before, not the you that might exist ten years from now, or even the next day. It was a matter of the moment, some unimaginable minim of time, always already gone. Memory was partial, a dim tawdry room in a run down neighbourhood, illuminated by flashes of distant lightning. Once she had been a girl in a good merchant's harem, but what did that matter now? Now she was a free woman in Nsara, crossing the city at night with a group of laughing intellectuals – that was all there was. It made her laugh too, a painful wild shout of a laugh, full of a joy akin to ferocity. That was what Kirana really gave in exchange for her food.

SIXTEEN

Three new women showed up in Budur's zawiyya quiet women who had arrived with typical stories, and mostly kept to themselves. They started work in the kitchen, as usual. Budur felt uncomfortable with the way they glanced at her, and did not look at each other. She still could not quite believe that young women like these would betray a young woman like her, and two of the three were actually very nice. She was stiffer with them than she would have wanted to be, without actually being hostile, which Idelba had warned might give away her suspicions. It was a fine line in a game Budur was completely unused to playing or not completely – it reminded ber of the various fronts she had put on for her father and mother, a very unpleasant memory. She wanted everything to be new now, she wanted to be herself straight up to everybody, chest to chest as the Iranians said. But it seemed life entailed putting on masks for much of the time. She must be casual in Kirana's classes, and indifferent to Kirana in the cafes, even when they were leg to leg; and she must be civil to these spies.

Meanwhile, across the plaza in the lab, Idelba and Piali were hard at work, staying late into the night almost every night; and Idelba became more and more serious about it, trying, Budur thought, to hide her worries behind an unconvincing dismissiveness. 'Just physics,' she would say when asked. 'Trying to work something out. You know how interesting theories can be, but they're just theories. Not like real problems.' It seemed everyone put on a mask to the world, even Idelba, who was not good at it, even though she seemed to have a frequent need for masks. Budur could see very plainly now that she thought the stakes were somehow high.

'Is it a bomb?' Budur asked once in a low voice, one night as they were closing up the emptied building.

Idelba hesitated only a moment. 'Possibly,' she whispered, looking around them. 'The possibility is there. So, please – never speak of it again.'

During these months Idelba worked such long hours, and, like everyone else in the zawiyya, ate so little that she fell sick, and had to rest in her bed. This was very frustrating to her, and along with the misery of illness, she struggled to get up before she was ready, and even tried to work on papers in her bed, pencil and logarithmic abacus scritching and clacking all the time she was awake.

Then one day she got a phone call while Budur was there, and she dragged herself down the hall to take it, clutching her night robe to her. When she came off the phone she hurried to the kitchen and asked Budur to join her in her room.

Budur followed her, surprised to see her moving so quickly. In ber room Idelba shut the door and began to pile a mass of her papers and notebooks into a cloth book bag. 'Hide this for me,' she said urgently. 'I don't think you can leave, though, they'll stop you and search you. It has to be in the zawiyya somewhere, not in your room or mine, they'll search them both. They may search everywhere, I'm not sure where to suggest.' Her voice was low but the tone was frantic; Budur had never heard her like that.

'Who is it?'

'It doesn't matter, hurry! It's the police. They're on their way, go.'

The doorbell rang, and rang again.