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the doors. And under the guise of police work, they had carted away sacks of premium and dirty weed, which later turned up with some other dealers elsewhere. Such an occurrence, commonplace as it was elsewhere, was as astonishing as it was unprecedented at San Siro.
    He went in and slumped on the mattress that was pushed against the wall, beneath the huge poster of the entire AC Milan squad, whose grounds the place was named after. Because the rogue with spiky hair, lord of this San Siro, was a fan.
    â€˜Reza, what’s up?’ Babawo, his friend and right-hand man, stood shirtless by the door, his knotted muscles glistening with sweat.
    His friends called him Reza, a corruption of razor, a title heearned after weed had given him the courage to cut his half-brother on the arm with a blade he had been carrying for months under his shirt. That was eleven years earlier, when he was just fourteen.
    â€˜Give me a stick, Gattuso.’ Reza pulled off his shirt, dumped it on the mattress beside him and collected the proffered cigarette.
    Babawo drew back and waited while Reza smoked. Because he was short and stocky and kept a beard, they called him Gattuso, after the rugged Italian footballer. He had been living at San Siro since he was seventeen and had never, in the eight eventful years that had passed, talked about going back home. Home was a distant memory for him, a flickering image of him smoking hemp in the bathroom and his father coming at him with a belt. He remembered wrestling down the old man and running out. When the news caught up with him that his father had broken his hip in that encounter, it was easy for him to decide not to return, since his mother had died when he was two. He drifted for a couple of months until he arrived at San Siro and met Reza.
    â€˜You understand, Gattuso, there is a reason for everything.’ Reza leaned back against the wall.
    Gattuso assumed Reza was in the mood to dispense his peculiar philosophy, which often came on the wings of cannabis-scented meditation. So he leaned back on the doorjamb, scanning the room for something to keep his hands busy.
    â€˜What happened?’ Gattuso slapped his feet together. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a roll of hemp. He put it back and folded his arms across his chest.
    Reza took his time puffing on the cigarette. Then he shook his head. ‘I robbed this woman who reminded me of my mother. She had this gold tooth, you know, just like my mother, you understand.’
    Babawo’s eyes popped. It was the first time he had heard Reza mention his mother. He patted his pockets with accustomed agitation, and finally settled on cracking his knuckles.
    â€˜Just go now. I want to sleep.’ Reza seemed tired of speaking. He picked up his shirt and dusted the mattress with it. Then he sat waiting for Gattuso to leave.
    But Gattuso sat on the worn blue rug instead and yawned. ‘I think I will catch some sleep too.’
    â€˜Go to your room!’
    Gattuso sighed and rose. He slapped his pockets for no particular reason, and went out humming.

    Hassan ‘Reza’ Babale was ten the first time he saw his mother. His father, sitting next to him in the car, turned to him every other minute, patting his head, asking if he was tired. He plucked the boy’s cheeks and turned his head this way and that, inspecting the hollows on his face with his one good eye, as he often did with the cows he traded in. Each time, a shadow would crawl across his face and he would urge the boy to eat more of the biscuit he was holding.
    The boy had been in class when his teacher, with his usual animated gesticulations, announced that his father was waiting for him. That he could take his bag along and he wished him a safe journey. When he came out, his father was standing in the sun, beaming.
    â€˜Come, we are going to see your mother.’ He took his arm and led him away.
    They went home and his father made him take a bath and put on