The Far Field

by Madhuri Vijay

  My father accompanied me to my first few junior national-level swimming meets. I remember those trips only as sensations now: the squeaky berths of the train; the yellow glow from his side of the room as he riffled through papers before bed; the haze of new faces that slowly crystallized into names, personalities, or an occasional flirtation; the dizzying range of languages spoken by my peers; the constant sense of disorientation and excitement. Then, once I turned thirteen and my father’s workload increased at the factory, I was put in the care of other swimmers’ parents, unpacking my bag in strange hotel rooms, warming up in the chlorinated air, checking the schedule board, calling my parents every evening. My father spoke to me first, asking me detailed questions about the conditions and the competitors before handing the phone to my mother, who always said, in a tone that suggested she’d been interrupted in the middle of a very important task, “Yes, tell me.” And all the little stories I’d stored up to tell her, mildly nasty tidbits I knew she’d enjoy—a referee’s comical accent, a misprinted and unintentionally funny signboard—would evaporate on the spot, and I’d say, “Nothing to tell, Amma,” and hang up as soon as I could.

  It was during the championships in Vizag that the incident with Zain Shafi occurred, bringing about the ignominious end of my brief career as a swimmer. It was the final day of competition, and Zain and I had been running into each other, not wholly by accident, since the beginning of it. The sense of departure hung heavy in the air, the knowledge that we would all be parting ways soon, returning to our respective cities, and it lent to every interaction a frisson of urgency. I was sitting in the stands, watching some boys warm up for their two-hundred-meter butterfly finals, when Zain came up behind me. He was a few years older, a handsome, broad-shouldered swimmer from Delhi. He tapped me on the shoulder. “Come on,” he whispered.

  I got up and followed him. I knew what was coming and felt no fear. We left the pool area and I followed him through a warren of corridors that smelled of mothballs and mouse droppings, the forbidden domain of the referees and competition judges. It was empty now; everybody was at the pool, watching the finals. Zain glanced over his shoulder, then opened the door to what seemed to be a small storeroom, crammed with boxes of T-shirts and dusty, unused medals. He closed the door, then looked gravely into my face without speaking. When he moved toward me, I had the urge to giggle, but I choked it down. His mouth tasted of spearmint and something oniony, and while I was still getting used to that odd combination of tastes, his hand came out of nowhere and slipped down the elastic waistband of my track pants. My breath caught in my throat. With his other hand, he guided mine into his. I focused all my attention on the warm, smooth hardness my fingers were suddenly wrapped around, trying to ignore the noises Zain had now started to make. I moved my hand resolutely, and after a minute, I forgot about his noises, because my fingers were covered with a warm sticky liquid. I drew my hand out and stared at it.

  The handle to the storeroom door suddenly rattled. Zain jumped back and pulled his T-shirt down over his track pants. I held my hand out stiffly, as if for a handshake, not wanting it to touch any other part of myself. Before he and I could so much as make eye contact, the door was shouldered open, and three referees were looking down at us, first with surprise, then with horror.

  The news spread with bewildering speed. I faced the adults’ reproving stares and the swimmers’ giggles with the same flinty expression. The parents of the swimmer I’d been sent with, my chaperones, did not speak a word to me on the train ride back to Bangalore. I sat hunched by the window, alone, dreading the thought of facing whichever of my parents had come to pick me up. But when the train pulled into Cantonment, I saw the last thing I expected so see. My mother and father stood next to each other on the platform. They had come together. Held for an instant in the frame of a train window, it was a view of them I’d almost never had. Exactly the same height, they stood shoulder to shoulder, like warriors of some ancient tribe, holding themselves perfectly erect and looking straight ahead, while people scurried around them. I grabbed my bag and jumped off the train before it had fully stopped.

  They saw me right away. I hesitated, suddenly timid. What would their first reaction be? Anger? Disgust? Disappointment? But they settled the question for me by starting to move forward in unison, their shoulders still touching, the crowd on the platform parting to make way for this tall, serious couple. They cut a path right up to me, then, in a single, clean motion, as if they had melded into one body, one parent with a shared mind, they pulled me into a hug, my father’s right arm crossing over my mother’s left, pulling me close, shielding me from view. In the car, my mother did not sit in front with my father as she usually did, but climbed into the backseat with me. While my father drove us home in the gentlest way imaginable, maneuvering around every single pothole, my mother, her lips pressed together and her eyes shining, put her arms tightly around me and drew me down, inch by inch, into her lap. I tried to resist, but her tenderness was as devastating as her viciousness could be, and I finally gave in and sank down, abandoning the pretense of toughness and self-control I’d been maintaining so rigidly for the past twenty-four hours. Wrapped in my mother’s arms, I broke down and sobbed.

  14

  A MINA WAS AS GOOD as her word. She knocked softly at my door the next morning, and after I’d used the chilly outhouse and splashed water on my face from the outdoor tap, I followed her down to the barn to milk the cow. The sky was overcast, the color of concrete, and I could feel the morning chill even through the sweatshirt I’d pulled over my jeans and T-shirt. Within the barn, however, it was as warm as a sauna. This time, Amina let me milk the red-and-white cow for longer than before, issuing brief instructions from time to time: “Don’t be scared, you have to be stronger than that. Yes. Now try the other side. More smoothly. Good, that’s good.” When I returned the iron pot to her, she nodded approvingly. “If you keep going like this, you can start a milking business in Bangalore,” she said and went into gales of laughter.

  Afterward we went back up to the house, where Riyaz’s mother was making tea and parathas for breakfast. The parathas were hot and dripping with butter, and I asked Amina to tell Riyaz’s mother that they were delicious, but I got only a curt nod from the old woman in response. Like her son, she seemed to feel no pressure to communicate with me. Soon Aaqib came in, dressed in his uniform and chewing on a stick to clean his teeth. He ate and drank beside his grandmother, whom he obviously adored, his long lashes blinking at me from over the rim of his cup. Then he ran to join another little boy in a similar uniform, waiting outside. I heard their laughter and chatter in Kashmiri fade as they ran off across the mountain.

  “How far away is Aaqib’s school?” I asked.

  “Oh, about half an hour’s walk.”

  “He goes by himself? Aren’t you worried?”

  “Worried?” She laughed. “Why should I be worried? Everyone in the village knows him. If he tries any mischief, somebody or other will drag him back home. Besides,” she added, “I have enough to do here without wasting time worrying about him.”

  She was not exaggerating. It did not take me long to see that these were people unfamiliar with idleness. As soon as the kitchen was cleared, Riyaz’s mother picked up her sickle from a long nail beside the door and went off to cut grass for the cow. Amina washed clothes at the outdoor tap, hanging them end to end—her kurta, Riyaz’s, Khadijah Aunty’s long scarf, Aaqib’s T-shirts—then swept the porch and fed the chickens. And I, who had never in my life been required to consider the contours of poverty, understood quickly that theirs was not industriousness for its own sake. Their need was obvious—it was in the bare upper half of their walls, the hissing pipe that needed fixing, the meals at which everybody ate less than was strictly adequate. They could not afford idleness. I thought guiltily of the white envelope in my rucksack, bulging with notes I had not earned.

  In the late morning, Amina came to me, wiping her hands on the front of her kurta. />
  “Let’s go, Murgi,” she said in the brisk tone I had quickly come to expect from her.

  “Where?”

  She smiled. “I’m taking you to meet somebody.”

  We walked uphill to where the track split in half. There Amina turned right, and we followed a narrow path cut into the side of the mountain, the spaniel racing ahead of us, a honey-colored blur. Dotted on the steep slopes to our right was a herd of goats, who looked up curiously as we passed. A very old man in a gray kurta was watching over them, leaning so far forward on a long staff I was afraid he would tumble right off the mountain, but when I said something about it, Amina laughed. “Him?” she asked. “He’s like one of his goats.” I walked in the way Amina had instructed me to, bent at the waist. When she linked her hands behind her back, I did the same.

  We passed other houses, some low and simple, like Amina and Riyaz’s, others with additional rooms built on top to form a second story. Then the houses gradually ended and we were surrounded by nothing but steep slopes, scrub, rock, and above us, swathes of dark pine trees. Amina hopped down onto a tiny track that split off from the main path, which meandered for a while before it curved sharply, revealing a large, beautiful house built alone on a ridge. I could not help exclaiming out loud. The walls were whitewashed and lustrous in the late morning sunlight. The roof was two sheets of shimmering tin that gently sloped over wooden window shutters, which were painted a dark green. In front of the house were neat wire fences enclosing a vegetable garden, a tidy cement path stretching beside it, leading up to the broad, shaded front porch. “Isn’t it lovely?” Amina asked with pride, as though she had built it herself.

  “Very lovely,” I agreed. “Who lives here?”

  “The village sarpanch,” she told me. “Mohammad Din. He’s the one I want you to meet. He gives Riyaz most of his work.”

  We walked up the path to the front door, which stood open, and took off our shoes. Amina poked her head in and called out. A few seconds later, a tall, slender man with white hair came to the door, his arms spread open in welcome. He wore a stone-gray kurta with a black wool waistcoat, from whose breast pocket peeped the head of a sleek black fountain pen.

  “Look who’s here!” he exclaimed in Urdu to Amina. His voice was soft and musical, reminding me briefly of Saleem in Kishtwar. “I thought you had forgotten all about this old man.”

  “Me?” she replied, laughing. “How could I forget? Salaam alaikum.”

  “Walaikum,” he replied. His eyes, which seemed tired though bright, landed on me. “And this must be the guest who everybody has been talking about.”

  “This is Shalini,” Amina said. “She’s from Bangalore.”

  The man took my hand in both of his. “Come in, both of you.”

  We followed him just off the entrance into a large sunny room, whose tall windows overlooked nothing but forest and dappled valley. He gestured for us to sit on the floor, which, I noticed, was covered in a real wool carpet, instead of plain cloth. Stacks of official-looking papers were strewn all about the floor, a pair of thick-rimmed spectacles resting on top of one pile. There was a low bookshelf in one corner, filled with volumes of Arabic or Urdu. A wooden stand on the bookshelf held an open leather-bound Quran.

  “Forgive this mess,” Mohammad Din said. “My wife is not here, you see, and my daughter is at school, so I take my chance and throw my things around everywhere. Now what will you drink?”

  We demurred, but he went off anyway, coming back with two glasses of juice, which he placed on the ground in front of us before sitting down.

  “Tell me, first of all,” he said to Amina, “how is everybody at home?”

  “Fine, alhamdulillah” she responded. “Except Ma’s legs are paining her a lot these days.”

  Mohammad Din nodded gravely. “She works too hard, your mother-in-law.”

  “I keep telling her that,” Amina said, “but she just won’t listen.”

  He thought for a moment. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “When the doctor comes up on Friday, bring her early. I will make sure he sees her first. Also, before I forget, tell Riyaz I will probably need him and his mules tomorrow. I have some things being delivered early in the morning, and I want them as soon as possible.”

  Amina nodded quickly, and the white-haired man turned to me. “And now,” he said, smiling, “I’m afraid it’s your turn to answer this old man’s questions. Are you enjoying yourself in our village?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “You are from Bangalore, yes?”

  I nodded.

  “Bangalore,” he mused. “I have been to Delhi many times, and to Amritsar, and once even to Hyderabad, but I have never been to Bangalore.” I stayed quiet, afraid he would ask me what had brought me here—I did not want to talk about Bashir Ahmed or my mother—but he only said, “And what do you think of our village so far?”

  “Oh,” I said. “I think it’s beautiful.”

  “But not as developed as Bangalore.” He used the English word developed.

  “Well—”

  “We are trying to become developed, you know,” he said, cutting me off. “The problem is the government doesn’t care about us mountain people, so we have to do everything ourselves. All the money that Jammu and Kashmir gets, half goes to Srinagar, Gulmarg, places like that, and the other half goes to the yatras. So, tell me, what is left for us?”

  Next to me, Amina was listening as intently as if to a sermon.

  “We don’t even have a proper hospital here,” he went on, “just a young doctor who comes up once a month. He tries his best, poor chap, but he doesn’t have the right equipment, the right medicines. If you are sick, like Khadijah Begum, or like my wife, then it is difficult, because often you have to go to Jammu for treatment. That is where my wife is now, in fact. Her heart is weak, and the air up here isn’t good for her. Next year, once Sania, my daughter, finishes school, I will send her off to Jammu as well. She can go to college and be with her mother at the same time.”

  “And what will she study?” I asked politely.

  “She says she wants to study politics,” he answered, chuckling, “but I think it’s only because she hears me talking about politics all the time. But I am not worried about her. She’s a good girl, and will do well whatever she chooses. The only worry I have is that her English is not so good, and for these colleges in Jammu, especially, you must speak good English to be accepted.”

  I liked the way he spoke, slow and intense, as if he were considering the merit and validity of each word before he allowed it to pass his lips.

  “Amina told me that you are the sarpanch for the village,” I said.

  “I am,” he replied. “For this village and also for the Hindu village that is close by. We share a panchayat—three members come from our village and two from theirs.”

  “There’s a Hindu village close by?”

  “Of course.” He must have seen my expression, because he added, smiling, “You are surprised to hear that Muslims in Kashmir are able to live peacefully with Hindus. In India, that is not what they say about us, yes?”

  I was about to deny it, but Mohammad Din seemed more amused than offended, so I took a chance and said, “Well, it’s just that I heard this story.” Stalin’s thin, querulous face flashed briefly before my eyes. “I heard that a few years ago a group of Hindus were killed up here by militants, so I was just surprised, I guess.”

  Mohammad Din and Amina glanced at each other. I could not read the quality of the glance. Was it shock? Anger? Had I upset them?

  “Where did you hear this story?” Mohammad Din asked, his tone carefully neutral.

  “Oh, just from someone I met in Kishtwar,” I said vaguely, adding, “I’m sure it never even happened. It was probably all nonsense.”

  He cleared his throat.

  “Actually,” he said, “it did happen. The village is about two hours away from here.”

  I glanced for corroboration at Amina, but she was starin
g down at her lap.

  “Sixteen men?” I asked.

  “Twenty were shot,” Mohammad Din said grimly. “Sixteen died.” He leaned forward. With an odd vehemence, he said, “They were foreigners, those militants. Not Kashmiris. A Kashmiri would never do something like that to his own people, and when it happened, we were all shocked. We sent food to that village for an entire month. It was a very sad thing.”

  I nodded a bit numbly. So Stalin had been telling the truth.

  “And that is why I keep saying we need development,” Mohammad Din declared, after a few moments of silence. “Because when you have schools and hospitals and roads, then people like that have no power. Alhamdulillah, it never ever happened again, and those militants are gone now, chased out by the army. It has been quiet in our area for the past year. Next month we are going to have local elections, and if I am elected sarpanch again, I will make sure that things remain this way.”