Momo is kicking furiously, but Zidan at nine years of age overmatches him effortlessly. So occupied is the little monster in his murderous task that he does not hear my approach; and such the surge of fury that comes over me that I am able to pick him up by the back of his neck and hold him off the ground by one hand. For a moment my own strength scares me – how easily I might squeeze the life out of him there and then; and how much I wish to – but it scares Zidan even more. Momo clambers out of the fountain and sits shivering on the tiled edge and I spy a terrible bruise on his forehead, which makes me even more furious. I shake Zidan as a lion might shake a puppy. ‘I will tell your father,’ I promise him fiercely. ‘And if you ever touch Mohammed again I will kill you myself.’ I put him down then and he just stares at me, eyes like ragged holes in his face, showing nothing but a void. Then he takes to his heels. I know exactly where he will go: straight to his mother. Well, that is something I will have to face later: for now I do not care.
