Other Names for Love by Taymour Soomro

Author:Taymour Soomro
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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THE BOY WAS FOUND, of course. Those who made it their business to know knew all along where he was. He sent word that he’d meet his father, why should he have anything against it, but he wouldn’t come to the embassy, or to the Dorchester, or to the flat. They could have dinner somewhere. He’d bring a friend.

He chose a restaurant in Mayfair. ‘These boys,’ Rafik said to the driver, as they made their way there, ‘what can one do? Rascals.’

It was a famous place, the driver said, made to look like a ship inside, that famous ship that had sunk all those years ago. There was a film about it too.

It was on a street corner, with a doorman in a top hat to guide Rafik in, a pretty girl to take his jacket. He was the last to arrive, she said, guiding him down a wide curving staircase, into a bustling room with mirrored walls that made it appear like an endless warren, glittering and humming with figures.

‘Pretty girl,’ he said to her. ‘Good work.’

She led him to a table. ‘Oh, no,’ he said, ‘not this one.’ He gave the boy’s name again. He scanned the room but now the people at the table were standing, one pushing past a chair to greet him—garishly dressed, a gaudy silk shirt, rings in the ears and chains round the neck, hair like Liberace.

He waved his hand in Rafik’s face, flapped it at Rafik. ‘You’re looking everywhere,’ he said, ‘but here.’

‘Is it?’ Rafik said, the figure in front of him resolving into a face that he recognised, that sharp nose, that petulant chin, the fragments reassembling into—it was—into the boy. ‘Looking like somebody else. Completely different. All this. What is this?’ Rafik laughed. ‘Dressing up. Like a gigolo. But you should do what you want.’

The boy introduced his friend, a much older man, who was so heavy he struggled to stand and was breathless with the effort.

‘Aaah,’ Rafik said, resting his hand on the back of the chair that had been pulled out for him, studying the boy still, the boy’s face shining so that it looked almost white, tight as a bladder. ‘I’m only showing you,’ Rafik said, gesturing at his own face so the boy should know what he meant, ‘how a man should be. He should not appear vain.’ But the boy would only look at his friend, dabbing at the corners of his lips with his napkin though there was no food on the table.

The friend invited him to sit, as though Rafik were attending at his invitation.

Rafik glanced around, glancing at the staircase that had brought him there. ‘Your friend must take care of himself,’ he said to the boy, sitting finally. ‘Not good to have all this excess weight at his age.’

Menus were brought. He ordered Scotch, imagining Mousey in the empty seat across from him. ‘Your uncle would have liked the place,’ Rafik said.

The boy thrummed his fingers against the table, staring at his friend.

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