Born Under a Million Shadows by Andrea Busfield Page A

because all of us would swap it in a heartbeat for just one moment’s peace, and it’s high time the sorrow that came to plant itself in our soil just packed up and went away to terrorize someone else.
     
    When I got to the house, all the lights were on and I could see James and May through the back window fixing colored paper to the walls. A strong smell of alcohol was coming from the kitchen, and when I went in to investigate I found my mother there stirring a large pot of oranges and herbs swimming in hot red liquid. The radio was belting out a Hindi love song, and she was dancing as she worked.
    “Is that alcohol?” I demanded, startling my mother into a halt.
    “It’s only forbidden to drink it, Fawad, not stir it.”
    She started laughing, and I wondered whether she wassuffering from its fumes, in the same way Spandi had been knocked senseless by the smoke of Ismerai’s cigarettes.
    “Fawad, my boy!” James came bounding into the kitchen. He had glitter in his hair. “Come, help!” he ordered.
    I followed him into the large living room, which was now a mess of tattered paper hanging from the walls and ceiling. A small plastic tree had been placed in the corner, and candles covered every spare space on the window ledges, tabletops, and cupboards. May was now sitting on the floor next to the wood-burning
bukhari
, keeping warm as she glued lines of paper together. She smiled when I came in, which confirmed what I already knew: everyone had gone mad.
    “Where is Georgie?” I asked James before he could get me involved.
    He pointed upstairs and brought the corners of his mouth down, pretending to look sad. I nodded and left the room. I needed to show her that I was on her side now. And Haji Khan’s.
    Although I’d never been to the top of the house before—well, not from the inside—I climbed the stairs and walked straight to Georgie’s door because my bearings were good and in my first few weeks I’d made a plan of the house in the notebook she’d given me.
    I knocked gently and waited.
    “Who is it?” she yelled from behind the closed door.
    “Fawad!” I yelled back.
    From inside the room I could hear some drawers being opened and closed again. Then, after a few seconds’ pause, the door opened, and Georgie stood there looking like she’d just woken up. Her hair was all over the place, she had no makeup on, and her sweater was on backward.
    “Fawad,” she said, flatly surprised to see me.
    “Sorry to disturb you, Georgie.”
    She shrugged and opened the door wider for me to comeinside. As she did so, I saw a large photo of Haji Khan sitting on a table by her bed.
    I shook my head to tell her I wasn’t coming in. Carefully, I reached for her hand, which hung like a dead thing at her side, and told her, “Don’t worry, Georgie. He’ll call you.”
    I then turned and walked back downstairs to help James with his decorations.

6
    T HE BIRTHDAY OF Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) is called Mawlid al-Nabi, and we celebrate the day on the twelfth of the lunar month of Rabi al-Awwal, although the Shia celebrate it five days later. During this day, rice is cooked, and milk and butter are collected. We then visit our neighbors to share what we have, even with those we don’t like. If we manage to find someone poorer than us, we share food with them as well. During the afternoon, the men and the older boys walk to the mosque to offer up prayers, while all the cars remain parked and the television and radio sets stand silent. As this is also the day the Prophet died, we neither laugh nor cry because we are happy that he came and sad that he went. Therefore we mostly spend the day just remembering him.
    What we don’t do, however, is drink alcohol from the moment we get up until the moment we fall into bed—or, in James’s case, on the stairs. And after attending my first celebration of Jesus’s birthday, I now understand why everybody needs two days off work to recover.
    Jesus—or, as we