January 5, 1990 — Hyderpur
By nightfall, Arslan had seventy thousand rupees tucked in an oil-stained bag. His hands clutched the Qur'an he had asked for first. And the world, stupid and blind and sinful, believed they had witnessed a miracle. A boy protected by Allah. A boy who bore grief like a prophet.
But Arslan knew the truth.
He had burned down a house of snakes. And he simply felt nothing—the same nothing they had felt when they had a choice between life and death and chose neither.
Now he would build a kingdom with the ashes.
---
Arslan wore white that morning. Not bright or pristine, but the kind of soft, sun-baked white that matched the dry dust of Hyderpur's winding paths. The shalwar was too loose around his ankles and the kameez sleeves covered half his palms. His shoes were rubbery, flat, and dull—no shine, no ambition. Just enough for respect. Just enough to belong.
"As-salamu-alaikum," he said to the men sitting at the tea stall as he passed. He didn't stop, didn't pause for acknowledgment. He didn't expect it. And they, distracted by the trivialities of weather and land disputes, didn't give it. A child saying peace to them was as meaningful as the wind whistling through the wheat fields. It meant nothing.
That suited Arslan perfectly.
Hyderpur was a quiet place by design—quiet in sound, but loud in contradictions. Everything here was both sacred and profane. The masjid's loudspeakers called the faithful with mechanical zeal five times a day, yet the very courtyard of God's house was littered with unpaid debts, harsh bargains, and secret sins. The men who showed up to bow toward the Kaaba had not bowed once in their lives to a woman they married or a child they raised.
Arslan knew this. He had once been their child. Now, wrapped in the flesh of innocence, he was something else entirely.
He walked the length of the village's main path, committing it to memory. The butcher's shop with its hooks and flies. The tailor's open doorway where an old man sat pumping a sewing machine with his foot. The stagnant pond where buffaloes wallowed, their hides the color of wet earth. The mosque's minaret, unfinished, with iron rods protruding from the top like the bones of a hand reaching for something it would never hold.
Every detail mattered. Every detail would eventually be useful.
---
Malik Riyaz was in the hujra—the village council room. It wasn't a room, really. It was a sun-scorched veranda shaded with a frayed khess curtain and carpeted with generations of crushed prayers. The floor was packed earth covered in worn rugs. Cushions leaned against the walls, their fabric faded to the color of dust.
Riyaz sat cross-legged in the center, broad-shouldered, spine straight. His presence was magnetic. Not because he spoke loudly or often—he didn't. But because his silence cost more than most men's words. When he looked at you, you felt weighed. Measured. Found either sufficient or wanting.
Arslan entered silently and sat near the threshold. Not too close to the elders, but not entirely out of sight either. He folded his hands in his lap, lowered his gaze, and waited.
It was his first full day in Hyderpur. He wanted to see it all: the disputes, the loyalties, the mechanics of power disguised as wisdom.
The first petitioner came before the sun had fully cleared the eastern horizon. An old man, turban stained from the sweat of years, his left leg dragging slightly as he walked. Behind him came another—younger, sharper, with the smug expression of someone who believed he'd already won.
"Malik Sahib," the old man began, pressing his hand to his chest, "this boy—my own nephew—has taken what is mine. Two feet of land. The boundary has been there since my grandfather's time. Everyone knows it."
The younger man snorted. "Everyone knows nothing. Your grandfather moved the boundary himself, twenty years ago, when my father was too young to stop him. The land is ours."
Riyaz listened with folded arms, eyes half-closed. He didn't interrupt. Didn't ask questions. He simply let them speak until they ran out of words.
Arslan watched from his corner. He watched how the men raised their voices but lowered their eyes when they spoke to Riyaz. He watched how they directed their arguments at him, not at each other—as if he were not a judge but a magnet, drawing the conflict out of them and holding it in the space between his hands.
When they finished, silence filled the hujra. Riyaz opened his eyes.
"Two feet of land," he said. His voice was quiet, but it carried like sound over still water. "Your grandfathers are buried in the same cemetery. Your children will play on the same streets. And you come to me over two feet."
Neither man spoke.
Riyaz reached for the cup of tea beside him. Took a sip. Set it down.
"Here is what will happen. You will divide the disputed land diagonally. Each of you will lose something. Each of you will gain something. You will shake hands in front of me, and then you will go to the mosque and swear on the Qur'an to accept this. If either of you breaks this oath, Allah will deal with you. I will not need to."
The old man's mouth opened, then closed. The younger man's smugness had vanished, replaced by something blank.
"Yes, Malik Sahib," they said together.
They shook hands. Riyaz nodded once. The audience was over.
---
After the jirga, tea was served in small, handle-less cups. Riyaz beckoned Arslan over with a tilt of his head. He poured a cup and set it before the boy—before his own cup. The gesture was small, almost invisible. But Arslan saw the way the other men noticed. The way their eyes flicked to him, reassessing.
Useful, Arslan thought. He's marking me as his. That means something here.
"You understood anything, bete?" Riyaz asked.
Arslan looked up, eyes wide, voice soft. "I think so, Nana."
"And what did you understand?"
Arslan tilted his head, frowning thoughtfully. " Nana didn't need to know which one. He just needed them to stop."
A few of the men nearby snorted in amusement. A child playing at wisdom.
But Riyaz's eyes narrowed slightly. Just enough.
"Hmm," he said. "Next time you sit closer. You'll learn more if you hear the lies better."
"Yes, Nana."
And just like that, Arslan's seat was upgraded. Closer to power. Closer to decisions. Closer to leverage.
---
He spent the rest of the day trailing behind Riyaz like a silent shadow. They walked through the village, past the wheat fields, past the irrigation channel where women filled clay pots and children splashed in the muddy water. Riyaz stopped to speak with farmers, with the patwari, with a widow whose son had run up debts in the city. Arslan stood a few steps behind, hands clasped, head slightly bowed, listening.
He catalogued everything.
The farmer who owed taxes he couldn't pay. The patwari who took bribes but pretended not to. The widow whose son's debts were less than the interest, but more than she could ever earn. The way Riyaz listened to each of them, asked the same quiet questions, and left each conversation with something—a promise, a debt, a piece of information that might matter later.
This is how it's done, Arslan thought. Not with fire. With patience. With silence. With knowing what people need before they know it themselves.
---
That afternoon, a boy approached him. Maybe eight years old, dusty feet, a gap where his front teeth should have been. He stood at the edge of Riyaz's courtyard, shifting from foot to foot, until Arslan noticed him.
"Salam," the boy said.
"Wa alaikum as-salam."
"You're the one from the fire."
Arslan said nothing.
"I'm Nadeem. My mother said to bring you this." He held out a cloth bundle. Inside were two chapatis and a small piece of jaggery.
Arslan took it. "Thank her for me."
Nadeem didn't leave. He stood there, studying Arslan with the frank curiosity of children who haven't yet learned to hide their stares.
"How old are you?" Nadeem asked.
"Five."
"Me too." A pause. "You don't talk much."
"No."
Nadeem considered this. Then he grinned, showing the gap in his teeth. "That's okay. My grandmother says people who talk too much have empty heads."
Arslan almost smiled. Almost.
"What do you do all day?" Nadeem asked.
"I watch."
"What do you watch?"
"Everything."
Nadeem found this hilarious. He laughed, a high, bubbling sound, and ran off toward the wheat fields, his feet kicking up dust.
Arslan stood there for a moment, holding the chapatis, watching the boy disappear into the flat expanse of green and gold.
He's real, Arslan thought. He's actually real. He laughs like that. He has a grandmother who says things. He'll grow up and die one day and never know any of it.
He pushed the thought away and went inside.
---
That evening, as the sun collapsed into the hills and the calls to prayer echoed over the farmlands, Arslan sat alone under the neem tree near the well. Knees to chest. Watching the sky turn from orange to purple to black.
He didn't smile, but he felt something close to contentment. He had not been struck today. He had not been questioned, not belittled, not broken. He had observed. He had catalogued. He had begun to understand the machinery of this new world.
When Riyaz called him in for dinner, he went.
Dinner was simple: dal, rice, a thin curry. They ate in silence, sitting on the floor of the small kitchen. Riyaz's servant—a young man named Bashir—ate separately, in the corner, his eyes down.
Afterward, Riyaz asked, "Do you want warm milk before bed?"
Arslan nodded. "Yes, Nana, if it's not too much trouble."
Riyaz chuckled—a low, dry sound. "For you? Never."
The milk came in a steel glass, warm and sweet with sugar. Arslan held it in both hands, letting the warmth seep into his palms. In the first life, milk had been for the uncles. For Rizwan, who drank it with honey while his keys heated on the stove.
He drank it slowly. Deliberately. Letting each sip be a small act of claiming something that had once been denied.
Riyaz watched him from across the room. His face was unreadable, but his eyes were doing that thing again—measuring, weighing, trying to understand.
"You're very quiet," Riyaz said. "For a child who lost everyone."
Arslan looked into his cup. "What should I say, Nana?"
"I don't know. Most children would cry. Would ask questions. Would want to know why."
"I know why."
Riyaz's eyebrow twitched. "Why?"
"Because Allah gives and Allah takes." The words came out flat. Automatic. He'd heard them a thousand times. "Because this world is temporary. Because they're in a better place now."
Riyaz was silent for a long moment. Then he said, "You don't believe that."
It wasn't a question.
Arslan looked up. Met his grandfather's eyes. "Does it matter what I believe?"
Something shifted in Riyaz's expression. Not anger—recognition. As if he'd just found something he'd been looking for without knowing it.
"No," he said quietly. "I suppose it doesn't."
He stood, walked over, and placed his hand on Arslan's head. Just for a moment. Just long enough for warmth to transfer from old skin to young.
"Sleep well, bete."
He left.
Arslan sat there for a long time after, the empty cup cold in his hands, staring at the spot where Riyaz had been.
He put his hand on my head again.
He didn't know what to do with that.
---
Arslan woke before Fajr. Not gradually—all at once, like a switch flipped. He sat upright in the darkness, the clarity of a philosopher and the grin of a gambler competing for control of his face.
The night had not ended. It had merely paused to ask: What will you do next?
There was no moon. Just silence, just cold, just enough fog to keep secrets wrapped politely. He lay back down, pulling the quilt up to his chin. The room smelled of mothballs and time. Through the window bars, he could see the silhouette of the mulberry tree, its branches stretched out like accusations.
He whispered into the darkness: "My father came to me in a dream."
A lie. A beautiful, symmetrical lie.
He closed his eyes and rehearsed the performance. His voice would be soft. Innocent. His tone would tremble, but not from fear—from practiced awe. The Qur'anic verses would come as seasoning, not the main dish. The dream would seem absurd and divine, both at once.
This was no longer about vengeance. That part of the book had ended in ash. This was the economic era now. The world, as it always had been, was currency-shaped.
He rose, padded silently to the kitchen.
Riyaz was already there. Sitting on a low stool, a brass cup of salty tea in his hands, staring out the wooden slats of the window like an aging hawk watching for movement in the grass.
"As-salamu-alaikum, Nana Abu."
"Wa alaikum as-salam." Riyaz set down his cup. "You're awake early."
"I couldn't sleep."
"Why?"
Arslan hesitated. Just long enough. Just enough to seem uncertain. "I saw something. In a dream."
Riyaz pulled out a stool. "Tell me."
Arslan sat, his legs dangling. He laced his fingers together, trapping something divine between them.
"My father came to me. He was wearing white clothes. His face... I don't remember it clearly. But I remember what he said."
"What did he say?"
"He said..." Arslan paused, frowning as if struggling to recall. "He said numbers. I saw them shining. Like light."
"Numbers?"
Arslan recited them slowly. Carefully. Three digits. The lottery. The ones he remembered from a lifetime ago—a winning combination from January 1990, filed away in the archive of useless knowledge that had just become very useful.
Silence stretched between them like a tightrope.
Riyaz leaned back. "Your father said this?"
Riyaz's eyes narrowed. Not in suspicion—in thought. He finished his tea in one long swallow, set the cup down, and walked out of the kitchen. No lectures. No doubt. Just footsteps echoing down the hallway and the creak of the front gate.
Arslan sat alone in the kitchen, watching the first grey light of dawn seep through the window.
Let's see how this works, he thought.
---
The tea stall at the edge of Hyderpur was already busy when Riyaz arrived. Men in shawls, men with turbans, men with nothing but time and the need to spend it somewhere. They sat on wooden benches, on overturned crates, on their haunches in the dust, sipping sweet tea and burning their tongues on chickpeas.
Riyaz didn't sit. He walked straight to the chaiwala—a thin man named Jamil with calloused hands and quick eyes—and leaned in.
"I want you to place a bet today."
Jamil blinked. "Lottery, Malik Sahib? What numbers?"
Riyaz handed him a scrap of paper. "Put the usual amount under your name. You'll get your cut."
Jamil looked at the numbers. Looked at Riyaz. Opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. "Sir, that's two hundred rupees—"
"Just do it."
Jamil nodded. Pocketed the paper. "As you say, Malik Sahib."
Riyaz turned and walked away. The men at the tea stall watched him go, then immediately began whispering.
---
By noon, the rumor had spread through Hyderpur like fire through dry wheat. The boy. The fire. The dream. The numbers.
Arslan sat in the courtyard with the Qur'an open in his lap, reciting Surah Yusuf in a soft, melodic tone. Loud enough to be overheard. Not loud enough to seem like performance.
When Riyaz returned, Arslan looked up. Closed the book. Stood.
Riyaz looked at him for a long moment. Then he nodded once and walked inside.
That was enough.
---
At dusk, they sat on the porch together. The villagers passed, nodding at Riyaz. Some threw odd looks at Arslan—the quiet boy in white, always watching, always greeting everyone in perfect Islamic decorum, never playing with the other children, never raising his voice.
His eyes seemed older. But villagers had other things to do. Nobody asked why.
Riyaz finally spoke. "What do you want to be when you grow up?"
Arslan considered the question. In the first life, he'd never been asked. The answer had always been whatever kept him alive another day.
"I want to be someone God never tests," he said.
Silence.
"And if He does test you?"
Arslan tilted his head. "I'll run away."
Riyaz chuckled—the first time in weeks, Arslan realized. A low, dry sound that seemed to surprise even him.
"Run where?"
"I don't know. Somewhere far. Somewhere He can't find me."
"And if He's everywhere?"
Arslan thought about this. Really thought. "Then I'll run somewhere He isn't looking."
Riyaz laughed again. Shook his head. "You're a strange boy."
"Yes, Nana."
They sat in silence as the last light bled out of the sky.
---
That night, Arslan knelt beside his bed. Not in prayer—in ritual.
He whispered to the darkness: "I fabricated a dead man in a dream, and sold the lie as divine."
He smiled.
"God's name works best when it's just vague enough to avoid blasphemy, and clear enough to bankrupt your enemy."
He lay down. Pulled the blanket over his face.
For once, he didn't dream of screams.
Just numbers.
And a ticking clock.