The Far Field

by Madhuri Vijay

  6

  I WOKE IN THE green room with the sun streaming onto the silver Arabic letters. A gray towel had been placed on the cabinet, a fresh bar of soap nestled in its folds. It pleased me, the thought of Abdul Latief’s wife walking around my room, noiseless and efficient, her capable eye deciding just what I needed. I gathered the towel and a fresh set of clothes and stood in their chilly bathroom, watching the bucket fill with steaming water. Later, I wrapped the gray towel around myself and rubbed a circle in the foggy mirror, staring at my face while I brushed my teeth.

  In the hall, Abdul Latief was watching TV, elbow propped on a black-and-white bolster. In front of him was breakfast: a large blue thermos, a pair of white teacups and saucers, and a small wicker basket filled with gleaming triangular parathas.

  “Good morning,” he said, smiling and clicking off the TV as I entered.

  He poured me a cup of tea, which was, strangely enough, pink-tinged, and then one for himself. I took a careful sip and was surprised to find it salty. Abdul Latief laughed.

  “Noon chai,” he said. “Here we drink our chai with salt. You don’t like it?”

  I took another sip. It tasted like a warm, slightly bitter broth. “I do like it.”

  “What do you drink in your home?” he pressed. “Lipton chai? The sweet kind? Shall I ask my wife to make that for you?”

  “Oh no, please. I usually drink coffee at home anyway. But this is fine. Really. I like it a lot.”

  I took a few more sips to reassure him, and he settled against his bolster, cradling his cup in his hand. “So,” he said, “you’re looking for someone. That is what you told me yesterday, correct?”

  “Yes,” I said. In the mirror earlier, I had rehearsed what I would say. “I am looking for a man. He must be about fifty years old now. His name is Bashir Ahmed.”

  “Bashir Ahmed.” He repeated the name slowly. “He is Kashmiri, this Bashir Ahmed?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how do you know him?”

  “He is my friend,” I said. Then I corrected myself, “A friend of my mother’s.”

  “I see. And your mother, she is Kashmiri?”

  “No.”

  “Then where did you meet this Bashir Ahmed?”

  “He used to work in Bangalore,” I said. “Selling clothes. He used to come to our house, when I was a child.”

  “To sell clothes.” I hesitated. “Yes.”

  “And what happened to him?” Abdul Latief asked. “I don’t know.”

  He nodded, as if he’d been expecting it. “No one really does,” he said. “When did you see him the last time?”

  “Eleven years ago. When I was thirteen.”

  He glanced sharply at my face. “You are twenty-four years old now?” he asked.

  I nodded. It seemed that he was about to ask something else, but, in the end, he just exhaled. “Eleven years. That is a long time,” he said. “But you will find this Bashir Ahmed, inshallah.” He set the cup down. “Now listen. There is a bus, which stops near the camp outside Kishtwar. If you can be ready in half an hour, I will take you myself.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about, but before I could ask, his wife entered. Her face was as unsmiling as on the previous night. “Good morning,” I said, glad to see her.

  She returned the greeting, albeit a bit stiffly.

  “Our guest does not like our chai,” Abdul Latief told her.

  I tried to deny it, but he laughed without malice. “It’s true. You have not touched it. Do we have any coffee?” he asked his wife. “She says she drinks coffee at home. Otherwise, Lipton.”

  His wife took one look at my cup and went back to the kitchen. Feeling slightly rebuked, I turned once again to Abdul Latief.

  “So,” he said, “you can be ready in half an hour?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “but I don’t understand. Ready for what?”

  “For the bus.”

  I shook my head. Abdul Latief looked at me sharply, as if I he thought I might be joking, then took his elbow off the bolster and sat up. “Tell me again properly who this person is and why you are looking for him.” His voice had a new, hard edge.

  I stared at him. “I told you,” I said. “He was my mother’s friend.”

  “And he used to come to your house to sell clothes.”

  “Yes.”

  “Eleven years ago.”

  “Yes.”

  “And then he stopped coming.”

  “Yes.”

  “And that’s all?” he asked incredulously.

  I stared down at my untouched cup of tea. All the armor I’d gained from my night in the tiny green room, the bar of soap, the clean clothes, all of it fell away, and I felt gritty and vulnerable again. That’s not all! I wanted to shout. But then Abdul Latief’s wife came back in, holding a second white cup. He spoke to her in Kashmiri, and she listened without comment. When he was done, he turned back to me. “Tell me, why do you not just ask your mother where this Bashir Ahmed is?”

  “Because,” I said flatly, “she’s dead.”

  After a moment’s silence, Abdul Latief asked tentatively, “Your mother?”

  I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

  His tone was much softer now, the hard edge gone: “And that is why you have come to Kishtwar? To find this Bashir Ahmed and tell him about your mother?”

  I don’t know if I nodded again, but this time Abdul Latief gave a long sigh. There was genuine sympathy in it, which seemed to go beyond ordinary condolence.

  “I am so sorry,” he said. “I did not understand. I wish you had told me this yesterday. Then I would have told you right away that we could not help you and we would not have wasted your time.”

  “Ah,” I said.

  “What we do,” Abdul Latief said, and here he and his wife glanced at each other, a private, coded look I could not decipher. “What we do is—a bit different. You are not—I mean—” He broke off and shrugged.

  “No problem,” I said, starting to get up, but his wife stopped me. She took a step forward and placed the second white cup in her hand beside the one already in front of me.

  “Drink that,” she said firmly. “We have no coffee, but I made you another cup of tea. Sweet, this time. The way you drink it at home.”

  As soon as breakfast was over, I struggled into my shoes, muttering something about a walk, and left their house, pushing my way blindly down the green steps. A tiny boy in a skullcap was darting into the shoeshop with two cardboard boxes under each arm. I found that I was furious, not at Abdul Latief and his wife, but at myself, at my stupidity, my complacency, embarking on this journey with no concrete plan, with only a ridiculous story as my guide. What on earth had I imagined would happen? That I would arrive in Kishtwar and run into Bashir Ahmed on the street? Now I was here, in a foreign town, in a foreign house, without any idea of how to proceed.

  The market was more crowded than it had been the evening before. Men stood in groups outside tiny shops crammed with radios and cheap watches; women walked in the shade of the mosque’s smoke-blackened wall. I looked around for my driver, though I did not really expect to see him. But there were other drivers, other taxis and I knew it would be the easiest thing to climb into one going back to Jammu. Find a phone booth and call my father. Claim my phone had been lost, stolen. Ask him to book me on the next flight back home. Give up this search. Return to my father and to Bangalore and the life that was mine.

  I turned away from the taxis and walked down one of the tiny streets that radiated from the marketplace, and soon I could no longer hear its bustle. I passed a boys’ school, where a woman in a gold headscarf and matching stilettos was entering through the metal gates, which were partially blocked by security barricades. I passed an orphanage, a tailor, a few hardware stores. Then I saw what looked like a park, surrounded by a low compound wall. I could not bear the thought of more aimless walking, nor of returning to Abdul Latief’s house, so I crossed the street, found the park gate, and
went in.

  It was enormous. At first glance, it seemed to hold the entire population of Kishtwar—families picnicking; boys playing cricket, half a dozen games in progress simultaneously; men walking in pairs for exercise. Briefly I envisioned a catastrophe, a great explosion or a massacre in the past, which might have caused such a large area to be leveled. But there was no indication of anything of the sort. The grass under my shoes was ordinary, yellowing, and speckled with trash. At the far end of the field, blocked off by a wire fence, sat a squat army helicopter, flanked by the silhouettes of two soldiers.

  I lost track of how long I sat in the sun, arms wrapped around my knees, watching red cricket balls judder over the ground, fielders dashing after them. A young Hindu couple picnicked close by, eating chips and taking photographs of their daughter, who twirled in a spangled lavender frock. Eventually they left, as did most of the cricketers, except for a few who remained lying on their stomachs, talking. But then they, too, were gone, and I reluctantly returned to the street.

  It took me the better part of twenty minutes to find the house again. My body sore, I mounted the steps slowly, but pulled my shoulders back before entering. I would not let them see my fear, my helplessness. I would pack my bag, pay them for the night, and I would leave. I did not know where I would go, but it did not matter, as long as I was away from their pity. But when I opened the door, I was greeted by a small crowd in the living room. Abdul Latief was there, as were the three bearded men I’d seen last night. His wife sat in another corner, a pair of knitting needles and some dark blue wool on her lap. As soon as he saw me, Abdul Latief got to his feet, relief spreading across his face.

  “There you are,” he exclaimed. “We were getting worried about you.”

  “I just wanted to look around. I’m sorry.”

  “No, it is fine. You saw a little bit of our Kishtwar?” His anxiety had abated by now, and he seemed to be asking it kindly, so I said, “Yes. I found a big field, and I sat there for a while.”

  Now he smiled. “Ah, yes, Chowgan,” he said. “It is very famous, our Chowgan. There is a very interesting story about it, you know. Many years ago, a Muslim pir, Shah Asraruddin Baghdadi, performed a miracle close to there. He—”

  “Yes, I know,” I said flatly. “His friend died, and he brought him back to life.”

  Abdul Latief’s eyes widened. “You know? How did you hear about this?”

  “My mother’s friend told me.”

  “The one you’re looking for?”

  I nodded.

  “I see,” Abdul Latief said. He glanced at his wife, who set her knitting in her lap. When he looked back at me, I knew something had been decided in my absence.

  “Please sit down,” he told me formally.

  They were all watching me—the three men with their thin faces and dark beards, Abdul Latief, and his wife—so I had no choice. I moved forward and sat down before them.

  “This man,” Abdul Latief said, “Bashir Ahmed. How do you know he is from Kishtwar?”

  “He is not from Kishtwar,” I said. “But his wife’s family lives here.”

  “You are sure about this? You visited them today?”

  “No, I don’t know who they are. I just know they live here.”

  He leaned back, lost in thought. Now, I told myself. Stand up now and tell them that you’re leaving. Ask politely how much they want, then pay double. That way, you will owe them nothing.

  I put my hands under me and began to lift myself up.

  “We will help you,” Abdul Latief announced.

  I stopped.

  “We will help you find this Bashir Ahmed,” he said again. “Kishtwar is a small place, and we know many people. It should not be so difficult.”

  I allowed my weight to sink inch by inch until I was on the ground again. I laid my hands carefully in my lap. The three men were looking on with approval, as if they had something to do with it, and Abdul Latief himself was grinning, but I knew, immediately and without a doubt, that the person responsible for this was his wife.

  “Thank you,” I whispered in her direction. “Thank you,” I said, louder, to Abdul Latief.

  “It is our pleasure,” Abdul Latief replied. Then his smile changed, turning bitter and slightly self-mocking. “At least,” he said, “you have a better chance of finding your friend.”

  My mother’s friend, I wanted to say. Instead I asked, “Better than what?”

  But he was looking at his wife again. The same look as before, so private and profound it felt like an indecency even to witness it. Finally, he dragged his eyes away from her and looked at me.

  “Better than the rest of us,” he said.

  We agreed on four hundred rupees a night, including breakfast and dinner. Lunch I would have to arrange for myself, since they both worked. Abdul Latief, it turned out, was a teacher at the same school I’d passed on my way to the Chowgan. I didn’t know what his wife did, and her stony face made it impossible to ask. Four hundred rupees was not unreasonable; in my old life, I might have spent as much on a single meal. Now, however, it was more than I wanted to pay, but I did not haggle. My mother would have refused. She would have been immovable. Two hundred or I’m leaving. She once reduced a vegetable vendor to raging incoherence. He snatched up a tomato and flung it on the ground. “Just go! Take it and go!” My mother looked down at the ruined tomato, dribbling its juice all over the road. “It’s a bit damaged,” she said. “Do you have a different one?” He howled and flung another.

  Abdul Latief said he and his wife were going to talk to some people, spread the word about Bashir Ahmed, and informed me, quite bluntly, that there was nothing I could do to help. And so, just like that, my days were barren again. I went to my room each evening, and brought out four hundred rupees, which Abdul Latief tucked into his pocket before going for prayers at the charred mosque. It had burned down a few years before, he told me, and the police claimed the fire was caused by an electrical short circuit. He snorted as he said this, though he didn’t explain why. I had never seen his wife pray. She rarely addressed me, and it was not because she was a reticent woman. I once walked into the hall and caught her in mid-laugh, face contorted, chin tucked to her chest. When she saw me, the laugh evaporated. She made two thermoses of tea now, salty for them, sweet for me. For a couple of days, I rose and ate with them, but after it became clear that they had truly shouldered the burden of my search, I gradually began to sleep later, sometimes waking only to the afternoon azan. The hall would be empty, but my breakfast would be laid out on a tray, parathas and boiled eggs, or four slices of bread and some jam.

  Looking back, it was astonishing how quickly I became accustomed to their house. Within a week, it all felt familiar: the salmon-colored sink, the tiny TV in the corner, the few leather-bound Urdu or Arabic books with gold-edged pages, the dense bolster at my back. I felt at ease there amongst the objects of their life, and sometimes, in the silence, I pretended they were mine.

  In the afternoons I walked, the town slowly resolving itself into a pattern I could hold steady in my mind: the scuffs on a door, a shopkeeper’s face, a street corner. The shops were sharply divided, as far as I could see, between Hindu and Muslim owners; their customers too sorted themselves accordingly. I could not escape noticing, either, the number of Indian soldiers and policemen in the town. They were everywhere, dressed in khaki or olive, congregating in tight groups on street corners or in tea stalls. Whenever I walked, a convoy of army jeeps would usually roll by, soldiers sitting in the back like bored tourists being ferried around yet another foreign city, but they mostly ignored the local people, who ignored them in turn. I never stayed away from the house long, however. The greatest pleasure was opening the door to find it as I had left it, all mine for the hours Abdul Latief and his wife were away.

  I studied them as carefully as I studied their house. I knew that after dinner he always reached for a toothpick from the little box on the windowsill. I knew that when she washed her hair, she sat
in the hall with it fanned out over her back, a towel thrown over her head. Neither of them hummed or sang, even unconsciously; there was a fundamental stillness to them both, despite Abdul Latief’s jokes and joviality. Each night, they slept on the floor in the hall, unrolling a mattress and covering it with a sheet. Once, unable to sleep and going to the kitchen for a glass of water, I caught sight of them. His wife lay closest to the door, a solid barrier against anything that might burst in. Somehow, it was easier to fall asleep after that.

  What else? I knew, from scraps I picked up, that his sister lived in Srinagar, and that there was a relative in Dubai. That the relative had two sons, and when they called, the air in the house was transformed. Abdul Latief spoke to them first, letting them tease him, pretending to be outraged, then pacified, then outraged again. His wife spoke to them next, and she was the one who teased her nephews, reducing them to helpless giggles I could hear across the room. That was really all I knew about their lives. Except, of course, the people who came to stay.

  For the first few days I lived with Abdul Latief and his wife, the three bearded men joined us for dinner, eating little and speaking even less, but otherwise they remained in their room, smoking and listening to the radio. They went out for long periods each day. The young man with his black book had left the morning after my arrival, and the one time I asked Abdul Latief about him, he sighed. “Poor boy,” he said. “He ran out of money and had to go back home. He’ll try again next year.” I’d nodded as though I understood. And after a few days, the three men disappeared, too, all of them in a single night, taking with them their gaunt faces and the smell of beedi smoke.

  People were always coming and going in their house. Most arrived unannounced, the way I had, and were taken in. A few were prepared for and welcomed. There was a constant parade of faces, of shoes by the door, of bags and suitcases. None of these people were ever introduced to me, so I never quite understood who they were. Besides, they stayed only a day or so. A young girl with her grandmother. A pair of soft-voiced men. There was an old woman who shared my room for two nights, because the other one was occupied. The old woman was tiny, with gray hair that curled away on either side of her forehead like a ram’s horns. She spoke only Kashmiri in a thick, phlegmy voice, as if she’d been sick for years, though she looked strong enough to have lifted me over her head. Abdul Latief dragged in a mattress, apologizing, and left it on the floor. That night, I tried to make her understand she should take the bed, but she gave me a look that shut me up in a second. The next evening, though, I saw her in the kitchen with Abdul Latief’s wife, who had an arm around her. She was sobbing, dreadful sobs, as a stream of Kashmiri, which I could not understand, poured from her, and I stood there in shock, unable to believe this was the same woman. But when she came in an hour later, there was no hint of tears. Her face was like rock. She took the floor. I took the bed. The next day, she was gone, and Abdul Latief came in to drag the mattress from my room.