One morning Anjum left the house, taking Zainab with her. She returned with a completely transformed Bandicoot. Her hair was cropped short and she was dressed in boy’s clothes; a baby Pathan suit, an embroidered jacket, jootis with toes curled upward like gondolas. “It’s safer like this,” Anjum said by way of explanation. “Gujarat could come to Delhi any day. We’ll call him Mahdi.”
