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consider the question. I know I was a dutiful son. As for my wife, she was a familiar presence in my house and in my bed, but I had no recollection of burning desire.
"Children! Come here, children!"
Tariq Mia's call brings two young scholars running into the veranda, their loose white pajamas flapping at their ankles.
"Fetch the gramophone. You will find it on top of the green almirah. There is a record in a brown folder on top of the gramophone. Don't drop it. The gramophone needles are in a box in my desk."
Tariq Mia lays a thin hand over mine. The skin is so transparent I can see the pulsing veins beneath as we wait for the students to return with the gramophone.
A scholar hands Tariq Mia an old brown folder, and he releases my hand to slide the record from its cover. He gently polishes the vinyl disc with his sleeve while the students crank the gramophone and fix a new steel needle into the ancient arm. The turntable revolves, then a high voice pierces the morning silence.
    '7prostrate my head to Your drawn sword. O, the wonder of Your kindness. O, the wonder of my submission
    "In the very spasm of death I see Your face. 0, the wonder of Your protection. O, the wonder of my submission. "
    The clarity of the voice, even through the hissing of the old record, is so extraordinary, each note hanging in the stillness like a drop of water, that it is some time before I decipher the savagery of the lyrics.
    "Do not reveal the Truth in a world where blasphemy prevails.
0 wondrous Source of Mystery. 0, Knower of Secrets.
    "I bare my neck to Your naked blade. 0, the wonder of Your guidance. O, the wonder of my submission. "
    Seeing my reaction to the song, Tariq Mia laughs and removes the arm from the record. "Drink some tea, little brother. How can you say you have given up the world when you know so little of it?"
    He places a fresh cup of tea by my side. For a moment he stands at the edge of the veranda watching the water flowing under the bridge. Then he turns back to me. "Let me tell you another story, little brother. Perhaps it will help you understand the ways of the human heart."
    He walks back to the chess table and slowly lowers himself onto his cushion. "This tale begins two years ago during the festival that celebrates the anniversary of Amir Rumi's death. I am an old man and can no longer keep vigil with the ecstasies of our Quawwali singers. You know how they can continue all night—nine, ten singers at a time. When one tires the other takes the song, inebriating them all with his devotion until they become drunk with singing and no longer remember fatigue in their praise of God."
    I nod in understanding. Tariq Mia often speaks to me about the ecstatic songs of the Sufis, which can even move their listeners to dance with religious rapture.
    "But, as I say, I am an old man and too close to meeting God myself to exhaust what little energy remains to me in singing to him all night, so I was fast asleep in my bed, my dreams filled with the richness of the music, too tired to hear the knocking at my window. Also, it was not a loud banging, just an insistent tapping on the glass that must have been going on for some time before it finally woke me.
    "I opened my eyes and saw a face peering at me through the glass. I reluctantly got out of my bed to open the window. A man was standing outside, dressed in a close-collared jacket and a white dhoti. His thin gray hair was receding from his forehead and heavy-rimmed spectacles magnified the frightened expression in his brown eyes as he apologized again and again for disturbing my rest.
    ' "It was some time before I was able to convince him to come inside. When at last he entered my room, I lit the lantern and poured him a glass of water, unable to understand why he was here. From his dress I could see he was not from this part of the country. Also, grief seemed to seep through his clothing although he was not weeping. I urged him to tell me what was troubling him.
" 'The boy! 1