The woman smiled, as if given permission, and left with the radio cradled like an infant.

They say that if you stand under the red arch on a rainy night and tune a radio just so, you can hear something like a hand being offered—a list of small things to do that might make your life softer. Whether the voice is Rahatu, or a chorus of neighbors, or the city itself learning to repair its heart, matters less than the listening.

People called Rahat a good man. He was good in the way a lamp is good: steady, useful, willing to be handed over. But the truth was simpler—he had learned to listen.