I rocketed after Saleem, caught up to him, and passed him. I ran like a horde of hungry, hungry hippos were at my heels. I ran for my life. After maybe ten seconds, never slackening my pace, I risked a glance behind me, just at the moment the man gave up the chase. He braked to a stop and set off in the opposite direction, as if he’d decided at last to follow Saleem’s instructions.
I stopped running and bent over, gasping, my hands on my knees.
“What are you stopping for?” Saleem demanded.
“Gone... he’s gone.”
We walked on quickly, hearts pounding, looking back every couple of steps.
“We have to call the cops,” I said.
“First let’s tell my uncle,” said Saleem decisively.
Soon we arrived at Saleem’s building.
“I’ll call up and ask him to meet us when we get off the elevator.”
I wasn’t used to Saleem taking the lead — I was always the one who made the decisions in our friendship — but the role suited him surprisingly well. Saleem thumbed the intercom button longer than usual, then shouted that Uncle Imran should wait for us upstairs at the elevator door.
As we stepped into the car, I worried that the man might rush in behind us and pick up where he’d left off.
“Were you afraid?” asked Saleem, as the elevator finally jerked upward.
“No,” I lied.
The car came to a stop, and the door was ripped open. A giant with his head shaved bald stared in at us.
“Uncle Imran,” Saleem cried, “I am so happy to see you!”
His bulk filled the entire doorway, and his broad shoulders and huge forearms were those of a man who had been blessed with extraordinary strength. If I hadn’t known he was Saleem’s uncle, I would have shrunk back against the elevator wall.
“What has happened, Saleem?” His voice was youthful and soft, in contrast with his intimidating appearance. “Did someone hit you?”
“No, not that.”
“Then what?”
“There was a man... he showed us...”
“Showed you what? Just say it, Saleem!”
“He showed us his thing.”
“His thing?”
Saleem nodded.
“What else did he do?”
“He...” Saleem fell silent for a moment, and I wondered if I should take over the telling of the tale. Maybe Saleem didn’t dare bring up this sort of thing in front of his uncle. “He was touching it. And when we ran away, he followed us.”
“Where? Where is the bastard now?” There was rage in Imran’s voice. Rage and a determination to take revenge.
“He rode off on his bike.”
“Where to?”
“Toward Hoogoord,” said Saleem. “He was lost.”
The elevator car shuddered when Imran stepped inside. “We’ll find him.”
Imran must have been at least six foot three, and with his apelike hands he looked like a laborer who spent his working hours hauling blocks of granite. Saleem had told me he worked in a garage. He played cricket like every Pakistani man, but he also boxed, and he was a star in both sports. One day he’d knocked out his sparring partner even though the other man was wearing a helmet. Since then, no one would spar with him anymore.
“Take me to the place where you last saw him,” he said. “I’ll teach him a lesson.”
Saleem looked at me gleefully, but for some reason I felt uncomfortable. What would happen to the man if Imran found him? He wouldn’t just politely ask the guy to give up his dubious hobby. No, he’d probably feed him a knuckle sandwich.
“Which way?” asked Imran when we got out of the elevator. Saleem led the way, walking quickly. We passed a group of black boys who stared at us in awe. “What you looking at?” snarled Imran, and they immediately turned away.
We approached the path where Saleem and I had sprinted at least three hundred yards. “He followed us on his bike all this way,” said Saleem.
Imran laid a hand on my friend’s shoulder. “Listen, you point him out to me the second you see him. Don’t be afraid, he can’t hurt you now.”
But strangely enough, I wasn’t worried about the man on the bicycle anymore. I was worried about Imran, about what he would do to the man. I summoned all my courage and asked, “Uh, what are you going to do when you find him?”
Imran snorted. “Like I said, teach him a lesson.”
The way he pronounced the word lesson, his dark eyes flashing with determination, I knew it had to mean something painful, something accompanied by screams and desperate pleas. I flashed back to the gangster movies I’d seen, where things never ended well for people who were taught a lesson.
“But,” I said hesitantly, “shouldn’t we just call the cops?”
“The cops?” Imran guffawed. “No, we definitely should not call the cops.”
Encouraged by his laughter, I dared to ask: “Why not?”
He shook his head and spoke to Saleem in Urdu. From his tone, I gathered that his words meant something along the lines of: What are you doing mixed up with a sissy like this?
Imran gave me a penetrating look. “Listen, boy, the police don’t do anything but write reports. That’s all they’re good for.” He tugged at his beard as if he wasn’t completely satisfied with his explanation. “In Pakistan, the cops would beat the shit out of a bastard like this guy. Then he’d never do such a thing again.” He pounded his palm with his massive fist to emphasize the thoroughness of the Pakistani police. “But the Dutch cops will sit the guy down, give him a cup of coffee and a slice of cake, and talk the situation over with him, ask him why he did it, explain the rules, tell him little boys are fragile creatures, that sort of bullshit. And then the dirty pervert gives them an understanding nod, and they offer him a ride home. But I’m telling you: you don’t solve a sickness like this with polite conversation.” He snorted, probably with revulsion and not just because he had something stuck between his throat and his nose. “If I’ve learned anything these last years in Holland, it’s that you don’t trust family matters to the cops. Let them write their traffic tickets and sit behind their desks scratching their fat asses until it’s time to clock out for the day.”
“Uncle Imran,” Saleem said suddenly, “the same man frightened Metin in the elevator.”
“The same man? In your building? The goddamn shitbag!”
“He asked Metin if he’d ever seen a grown-up’s penis,” said Saleem, suddenly without shame. “And then he showed it to him.”
“The bastard!” snarled Imran. “And next time it’ll be you in the elevator with him, or your little brother.” A new sort of rage welled up in him. “Fucking hell, man! This is too much, this bloody pedophile has gone too far!”
As we walked on, Imran appeared more determined than ever. He was terrifying me.
After a while, Saleem said, “Here! This is where he talked to us.”
Imran examined the place as if there might still be traces of the man to be found. He scouted the area like a detective investigating a case. Then he crouched down and pulled a loose brick from the pavement. “Let’s go on,” he said, the brick clutched in his hand.
Two hundred yards farther, I almost choked with shock. The man we were looking for was sitting on a bench on a jetty overgrown with weeds, gazing out at the canal. His racing bike was leaning against the bench. I couldn’t believe my eyes. What was he still doing here? Why wasn’t he long gone? Why would he take such a risk?
One leg crossed casually over the other, he sipped from a clear plastic bottle. And as he sat there drinking peacefully, looking out at the water, apparently enjoying the afternoon sun, for a moment I couldn’t imagine there was anything really evil lurking within him. He was probably nothing more than an ordinary pencil pusher.