Andrew

Andrew is a young Goan associated with Abdel Khader Khan’s circle, depicted at a moment when the group is reorganizing after Khader’s death. His resentment toward Lin surfaces in a dispute over who will join an operation and who must look after Tariq. The conflict nearly becomes physical, but Nazeer removes Andrew from the confrontation; later, Andrew makes a specific apology for insulting Lin’s mother, and Lin accepts it. Across these scenes, Andrew is shown as both combative and capable of acknowledging a wrong.

Place in the Group

Andrew is present among the men preparing to move out, while Raj and Mahmoud wait near the cars. When Tariq’s presence becomes an issue, Andrew explains that Nazeer had brought the boy along because he did not want to leave him behind at Abdel Khader Khan’s house after Faisal and Amir arrived with news. Andrew says he had advised against bringing the child, but recognizes that Nazeer would not easily be dissuaded once he had made up his mind.

The proposed arrangement sends Nazeer and Tariq to Sobhan Mahmoud’s house in Versova, with Andrew accompanying them. Andrew objects to being kept away from the action and complains that he has been assigned childcare while another man gets to go. His protests turn the practical division of responsibilities into a dispute about status and participation. The scene establishes his impatience, but it also places him in a task whose immediate purpose is to keep Tariq away from danger.

Resentment and Confrontation

Andrew’s frustration becomes more pointed when he invokes Lin’s connection to Khader and Khader’s time in Afghanistan, then dismisses the importance of that association now that Khader is dead. His remarks frame Lin as an outsider whose standing in the group depends on a dead man’s favor. The insult is not merely a complaint about the assignment: it challenges Lin’s place among the men and dismisses the authority that had once protected that place.

Lin squares up to fight, and the men around them begin taking positions that could turn a personal argument into a larger brawl. The narrator considers Andrew capable, particularly when armed, while Abdullah moves to support Lin and Amir positions himself behind Andrew. Yet Andrew does not raise his hands during the tense pause. Nazeer breaks the standoff by taking Andrew by the wrist and sleeve and pushing him back through the circle. He puts Andrew in the driver’s seat and gets into the back with Tariq; Andrew drives away toward Marine Drive. Tariq’s pale face at the window, with his eyes offering the only visible sign of his state of mind, marks the child’s unease as he is removed from the confrontation.

Apology and Reconciliation

Andrew later catches up with Lin as Lin, Abdullah, and Nazeer are walking toward Lin’s bike. He nervously raises what happened between them in the car park and says he wants to apologize. Lin is not immediately reassured: the earlier hostility remains with him, and Andrew’s remarks had made him angrier. The fact that the men have just attended a funeral service for a friend they both liked is part of the immediate setting; Lin recognizes that, without it, the quarrel might already have become a fight.

Andrew clarifies that his apology is not for the argument in general but for what he said about Lin’s mother. He calls his remark unacceptable, says that Lin would have been within his rights to retaliate, and asks Lin to accept his apology. Lin offers his hand. Andrew takes it in both of his and shakes it vigorously, turning an apology into a direct act of reconciliation. The exchange gives their relationship a resolution that the earlier confrontation alone could not provide: Andrew accepts responsibility for a particular insult, and Lin chooses to accept the apology.

Character and Narrative Function

Andrew is presented through contrasting actions rather than a broad account of his history. He complains about being assigned to protect Tariq instead of joining the operation, speaks contemptuously of Lin’s connection to Khader, and becomes the focus of a potentially violent standoff. At the same time, he does not begin the threatened fight, follows Nazeer’s intervention, and later returns to make amends without pretending that his words were harmless.

The apology also distinguishes Andrew’s responsibility from the larger grievance that preceded it. He does not erase the disagreement about Khader or Lin’s place in the group; he identifies the insult to Lin’s mother as its own wrong and asks forgiveness for that. In a plot shaped by loyalties, loss, and the possibility of renewed violence, this modest but deliberate act gives Andrew a brief role in restoring trust. His character emerges as changeable within the limits of the evidence: capable of spite in the heat of conflict, but also of humility when he chooses to acknowledge the harm he caused.