Excerpt from The Orchard of Lost Souls by Nadifa Mohamed, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

A few moments pass and then a twinkle enters Nasra's eyes and her smile answers the question.

*   *   *

Deqo crouches down by the roadside an hour later, chewing on a lamb baguette; the bread is stale, the lamb cold, but she doesn't care. In her mind she goes over and over her exchange with Nasra. If she is a whore then China must be too, so why had she kept her child? If it wasn't necessary to abandon him then why had her own mother abandoned her? Deqo swallows with difficulty as the notion that her mother might have kept her enters her mind. Did she see something wrong with her? Was she running away from a child whose bad luck was written across its face? As if to punctuate this thought a car drives past and sprays dirty water from a puddle over her legs. She rises and brushes the drops and breadcrumbs away, kicking a stone in frustration at the back of the car. Sour-faced and melancholic she walks back in the direction of Nasra's house.

The heavens break open and she trots forward, skipping and sliding. The rain smells fresh, heady and green; it cleans the town and makes the paintwork on the buildings shine again. On a wall beside the market is a portrait of the old man with protruding teeth, the President. She has noticed it many times, but the raindrops now falling over his face look like tears and she stops, suddenly arrested by the sad expression on his face; despite the military khaki and gold braids he looks out to her with infinite loneliness. The dark clouds and the empty street drag down her already low spirits; in this kind of weather you should be at home with a family, dozing, playing and sitting snug by a fire. She feels cheated, cheated and spurned by the world. She wipes the tears off the portrait and continues up past the main market and antenna-eared radio station, along the perimeter wall of a large school loud with loved children and through her faqir market.

She reaches Nasra's street shivering and with rivulets of water running down her nose and the inside of her dress. The street has changed entirely; it is full of wild children dancing half-naked in the rain and lifting wide-open maws to the sky. Chickens flap between their feet and goats are forced to dance on hind legs in their arms. A cacophony of music blasts from each dwelling: songs from the radio, others warped by over-played cassettes and a few trilling from the women inside the homes. The previously thick waste in the gully is now flowing away in a small stream and the plastic bags caught in the tree branches shine like balloons. A girl of about eight with hair plastered to her face runs up to Deqo and drags her into the melee; holding her tight to her chest she spins like a whirling dervish, cackling. Deqo laughs too, enjoying the delirium; her sadness floats above her, hanging there for the moment, then the girl slips and they both crash to the mud, limbs intertwined.

'What's your name?' Deqo pants.

'Samira, you?'

'Deqo.'

'I haven't seen you before.' The girl smiles and reveals small brown teeth.

'I am from far away.' Deqo knows the way smiles fade when she tells people she is from the refugee camp.

A woman with bare feet leaps towards them; she is thin and angry. 'Samira! Samira! Get up off the dirt, you little pig!'

'I have to go.' Samira rushes to her feet before the woman can slap her bottom. She runs into the shack and the woman follows, her feet like a wading bird's as she navigates the mud.

'Deqo, is that you?'

Deqo lifts her head from the mud to find Nasra squinting at her. She slides up and wipes the stripes of dirt off her face.

'Come inside, you'll get sick,' Nasra orders.

*   *   *

An incense burner heats up the room as Nasra rubs a towel over Deqo's hair and body. 'There isn't any water at the moment, you'll just have to stay a little dirty for now,' she says.

Copyright © 2013 by Nadifa Mohamed