‘I’m afraid we never managed to get in contact with Mahnoosh after we came back from the US,’ Saba lamented. ‘She was a teenager when we left Iran. But we had as much friction with the family as she did.’

Martin said, ‘She mentioned you fondly, just a few days ago.’

‘Oh.’ Saba grew distraught; her daughter put an arm across her shoulders comfortingly. Nasim said, ‘I was ten when we left, and I have to admit that I didn’t get on with her parents even then. If I’d realised that she was fighting with them too I would have tried harder to stay in touch with her.’

Javeed looked up at her. ‘Are you fighting with my grandfather?’ He sounded more intrigued than affronted.

Nasim looked at Martin guiltily. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have-’

‘It’s okay.’

Nasim addressed Javeed. ‘Not really fighting, but we weren’t good friends.’

‘What brought you back from America?’ Martin asked.

Nasim said, ‘My mother had a job with the Ansari government. I came back thinking I was riding the same wave, though I’m afraid I ended up with less lofty ambitions.’

Martin had heard that story before. ‘I expect everyone who returned has helped the country in some way. So long as you’re not sending out spam.’

‘Actually I work for Zendegi.’

Javeed had lapsed back into shyness, so Martin spoke on his behalf. ‘My son’s a big fan.’

‘Really?’ Nasim turned to Javeed. ‘What games do you like?’

‘I only went once,’ he said. ‘Mama was going to take me.’

Martin said, ‘I’ll take you again, as soon as I can.’

Nasim dug her notepad out of her handbag and did something in a blur of thumb movements. Martin’s own notepad chimed softly in response. ‘Use this certificate,’ she said. ‘Unlimited access; it won’t cost you anything.’

‘I can’t accept that,’ he protested.

‘I insist,’ Nasim replied firmly. ‘It’s done.’

‘Thank you.’ Martin looked down at Javeed. ‘Say thank you to Aunty Nasim.’

‘Thank you, Aunty,’ he said.

At dusk, Martin lay down beside Javeed in Omar’s guest room. ‘I want to tell you something, but you have to promise you won’t get upset.’

‘What?’

‘Promise me first.’

‘I promise.’

‘I need to go back to the hospital tomorrow, so they can make sure I’m completely better.’

Javeed did not look happy, but he struggled to keep his word. ‘I want to go with you.’

‘No, pesaram, you stay here with Aunty Rana. Or you can go to the shop with Farshid and Uncle Omar.’

‘But you won’t come back!’ Javeed was crying now, snot running down his face. Martin fished out a tissue and wiped it away. ‘Shh. Of course I’ll come back.’

‘Everyone wants to leave me alone,’ Javeed sobbed.

‘Don’t say that.’ Martin forced himself to keep his voice steady. ‘You know Mama didn’t want to leave you. She would have done anything to stay. And this is just… the doctors put some Band-Aids inside me for my cuts, and now they have to check that they’re okay.’

‘They put something inside you?’ Javeed sniffed, his curiosity piqued.

‘Absolutely.’ Martin hesitated; would it frighten him more, or would it help him to understand? ‘They had to open me up to put them in.’ He lifted up his shirt and twisted to show the stitches along his side.

Javeed gazed at them unflinchingly. ‘Did it hurt?’

‘No, I was sleeping. And now they need to make sure everything’s okay. Like when you cut yourself: we always change the Band-Aid a few times, to make sure it’s clean and the cut’s getting better, don’t we?’

Javeed pondered this explanation. ‘I want you to get better,’ he conceded.

‘So I can go and see the doctor?’

Javeed said, ‘You can go.’

In the darkness, Martin felt Mahnoosh beside them, close enough to touch. If he’d been alone with her he would have lost himself to grief, dancing with her memory halfway to madness.

But she wasn’t a wild spirit, begging him to dash himself on the rocks beside her. He heard her voice calmly, in their child’s slow exhalations. And she asked nothing else of him but to do what she could not.

Martin woke before dawn and managed to extricate himself without disturbing Javeed. Omar insisted on driving him to the hospital. As they parted at reception Martin tried to thank him for everything he’d done since the accident.

Omar cut him off. ‘What do you expect? You think I forgot who broke me out of prison?’ Martin wasn’t at his sharpest; he almost opened his mouth to protest that he’d done nothing of the kind before he caught the self-deprecating joke. Omar wanted no praise for what he perceived as ordinary decency.

Martin spent an hour sitting by his bed before a doctor appeared. His stitches were examined and the area palpitated; it was all over in a matter of minutes.

The doctor addressed him in Farsi. ‘There’s something more we need to discuss.’ He’d told Martin his name, but Martin had forgotten it immediately.

‘All right.’ Martin prepared himself for a lecture on post-operative wound care.

‘After the accident you were bleeding. We did a scan in order to locate the source, and I’m afraid we also found a problem with your spine.’

Martin laughed. ‘That? I’ve had that for years.’ He had never entirely recovered from being landed on when that man had jumped out of the tree during the siege of Evin Prison. ‘It’s been treated as much as it can be, but I’ve been told it’s not worth an operation on the discs.’

The doctor glared at him reprovingly. ‘I’m not talking about a minor disc problem. I’m talking about a mass lodged next to your spine.’

Martin didn’t reply. He was tired, and he wanted to get back to Javeed. He couldn’t understand why people insisted on putting needless obstacles in his path.

‘At this point,’ the doctor continued, ‘we believe it’s a secondary growth from a cancer in your liver. We need to operate immediately, to remove the spinal tumour and to try to resect the primary tumour.’

‘How long will that take?’

‘Maybe four or five hours. We’ll do it this afternoon.’

‘And then I can go?’ Martin pressed him. Javeed would start fretting if he wasn’t home by nightfall.

The doctor switched to English. ‘Have you understood what I’ve been saying?’

‘Of course.’ Martin was offended. ‘What do you think I am, a tourist? I’ve lived here for fifteen years; my wife’s Iranian.’

‘You have cancer, Mr Seymour. We need to operate on your liver and your spinal cord. I can’t say how long it will take to recover from the surgery.’

Martin’s skin tingled with fear, as if the gruff, middle-aged man seated in front of him had just brandished a knife in his face. It wasn’t that he’d lacked the vocabulary to understand the message the first time, but for him, sarataan carried none of the terrible resonance of its English equivalent.

‘I have cancer?’

‘Yes.’

‘But it’s operable?’

‘The operation will help,’ the doctor assured him.

‘How much?’ Martin understood how absurd it was to demand certainty when he’d barely been diagnosed, but he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. ‘Can you cure it? If you cut out what you’ve found then follow up with drugs and radiation, will that finish it off?’

The doctor said, ‘We’ll see.’