one that likes to go wandering, that can draw them out. So the fence. The stake.”
Laila asked him which foothills. “Pir Panjal, Pakistan,” he said. “Where I live is called Murree; it's a summer retreat, an hour from Islamabad.”
“It's hilly and green, lots of trees, high above sea level. So it's cool in the summer. Perfect for tourists.”
The British had built it as a hill station near their military headquarters in Rawalpindi, he said, for the Victorians to escape the heat.
You could still spot a few relics of the colonial times, Tariq said, the occasional tearoom,
tin-roofed bungalows, called cottages, that sort of thing.
The town itself was small and pleasant. The main street was called the Mall, where there was a post office, a bazaar,
a few restaurants, shops that overcharged tourists for painted glass and hand-knotted carpets.
Curiously, the Mall's one-way traffic flowed in one direction one week, the opposite direction the next week.
“The locals say that Ireland's traffic is like that too in places,” Tariq said.
“I wouldn't know. Anyway, it's nice. It's a plain life, but I like it. I like living there.”
“With your goat. With Alyona.” Laila meant this less as a joke than as a surreptitious entry into another line of talk,
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