The Far Field

by Madhuri Vijay

  I’d always known that I resembled my father. I had his shoulders, his carriage, his jawline, his hands, his laugh. But now, all of a sudden, I wondered whether I might not also carry something of mother within me, in my gestures and skin and posture.

  Whether, for the space of a heartbeat, he thought I was her.

  19

  I DON‘T KNOW EXACTLY how my mother explained Bashir Ahmed’s sudden reappearance on our doorstep to my father, but, in retrospect, it was possible that no real explanation was necessary. I recall Bashir Ahmed emerging from the guest bedroom, where my mother had installed him and his brown suitcase, recall my father squeezing his shoulder and saying, “Don’t worry, Mr. Ahmed,” the self-conscious paternalism in his tone, as if Bashir Ahmed were a teenager in trouble, instead of a man only a few years younger than himself. Because it must have been his own offer he remembered, of course, walking out to the gate with Bashir Ahmed, telling him to come back if he needed any help. Maybe that was all the explanation my mother had needed to give.

  The first evening, we all sat down to dinner, my father in his usual place next to me, my mother across from us, and Bashir Ahmed, after a moment’s hesitation, took the remaining chair next to her. He had bathed, and was now dressed in a black kurta with a high Nehru collar. I could see just how thin he had become, and moreover, I could see a new look in his eye, which did not allow him to meet anyone’s gaze for long. He cleared his throat.

  “Janaab,” he said in formal Urdu, “I wish to thank you for allowing me to stay.”

  My father smiled his most magnanimous smile. “Mr. Ahmed,” he said, “you must stop this ‘janaab’ business. We’re happy to be able to help.”

  “It will only be for a short while.”

  “Stay as long as you need,” my father said. “I only hope that your family is safe.”

  “Yes, janaab. They are fine for now.”

  “You have a son, don’t you?”

  “Yes, janaab.”

  “How nice,” my father said. “Has he ever been to Bangalore?”

  “No, janaab.”

  “You must bring him someday. And your wife, of course.”

  Across from me, my mother served herself some carrots. I stared deep into her face, willing something from her, though I didn’t know what. A clue, perhaps, an indication that my fears were unfounded, that his coming had altered nothing, that she was still the woman she had been in Italy.

  “So things in your area are not good?” my father asked, taking a sip of rum.

  “No, janaab,” Bashir Ahmed mumbled, “not so good.”

  “Hm,” my father murmured. “That’s sad to hear. But what about the army? Aren’t they keeping things under control?”

  After a pause, Bashir Ahmed said, “The army is there, janaab.”

  “Well, that’s good, at least.” My father nodded. “You haven’t been back to Bangalore in a while, have you?”

  “Not for four years, janaab.”

  “A long time,” my father said. “We were worried about you.” My mother’s eyes flashed fire at this outrageous lie, but my father didn’t notice. Bashir Ahmed mumbled something then fell to eating with cheerless determination. Staring at his haggard face from across the table, the blunt fingers that stabbed so inelegantly at the rice on his plate, his mechanically moving jaw, I was seized by a revulsion so strong my stomach cramped.

  Nobody was paying attention to me. My mother was eating as though this were an evening like any other. My father was still talking—government, army, firm response—his lips wet with rum. Bashir Ahmed simply appeared to be in a daze. And just when I couldn’t bear it anymore, when I thought I would stand up and scream, I heard my father pronounce the words, “… a party.”

  Bashir Ahmed looked up, his hand suspended in midair. “Janaab?”

  “A party,” my father said again, looking pleased with himself. “Nothing big, just a few friends of ours. They’d love to have a talk with a real Kashmiri, especially one as fair-minded and reasonable as yourself. It’s a rare opportunity for them. For all of us, to tell the truth. Maybe a couple of weeks from now? You’ll stay that long, won’t you?”

  Bashir Ahmed glanced at my mother.

  “What do you say?” My father also turned to my mother, who blinked. We all waited for her to speak. I found myself holding my breath, not knowing quite why. It was a bizarre notion, entirely unfounded, but it seemed as though by speaking, by uttering judgment on this absurd party, she would set our course of action, decide our collective fate. She swallowed another bite of food before answering.

  “Why not?” my mother murmured. “Who doesn’t love a party?”

  For the first few days he stayed with us, Bashir Ahmed spoke very little and did not stray more than a few feet from my mother’s side. He said no more about the militants. He told no stories at all. In fact, he behaved more like a solicitous servant than anything else. He stood in a corner of the kitchen while she cooked our meals, leaping forward to wash every dish she dropped into the sink. He collected and neatly folded the clothes that hung on the line. He kept a watchful eye on the stove while my mother’s back was turned, switching off the heat the instant before the milk erupted. The rest of the time he spent shut away in his bedroom. The few times I surreptitiously listened at the door, I heard nothing from within, only a prisoner’s silence.

  He was quiet and clean and unfailingly polite, but I watched him like a hawk, as if at any moment, he might steal something and escape. I knew he sensed my hostility, and though he never gave any indication of it, I knew that it hurt him, but I refused to let myself care. My father, immersed as always in his work, might have been fooled into accepting Bashir Ahmed’s return as something innocuous, but I swore I would not make the same mistake.

  I watched my mother just as closely, though this gave me far greater pain. In Italy, she had come as close as I’d ever seen her to ordinary human contentment, but no trace of it remained now. She became industrious, frantically so. One morning, she decided that every curtain in the house needed washing, which resulted in Bashir Ahmed spending an entire day on a rickety stepladder, sliding the plastic rings on and off curtain rods. When a puff of dust blew into his face, he sneezed eight times in rapid succession, and my mother giggled in a way that reminded me of something. I puzzled and puzzled over it until I remembered: she’d sounded exactly like one of the mothers who sat and gossiped beside the pool, the ones she’d called stupid cows.

  And yet I said nothing. What could I have said, and to whom? At thirteen, I was without the language to articulate the fears that were beginning to consume me with greater ferocity each day. My father’s behavior seemed to suggest that Bashir Ahmed’s presence was nothing other than welcome, and my mother’s mind could not be accessed, and Bashir Ahmed himself seemed torn between gratitude and misery, which was of no help to me whatsoever. So I did the only thing I could do. I waited, trying to stay alert, trying to keep them all in view, these shifting, traitorous pieces—mother, visitor, father—trying to keep track of their masked sentences, their mutable moods, waiting for a clear sign of what my next move should be.

  And, all the while, a sense of urgency was building. The summer was almost over. And with the end of summer would come my inevitable return to school.

  Then only the two of them would remain. The two of them in the dense hush of noon, the curtains drawn, sitting at either end of the sofa, not speaking, but looking only at each other.

  It was as far as I dared to think, let alone speak of to anybody.

  I can speak of it now, of course.

  And I also know now that it didn’t happen.

  She never touched him.

  20

  THE TAIL OF THE red-and-white cow swished slowly as I approached, and her black eye rolled back, but this time with no suspicion, only a gleam of familiarity.

  “See, Murgi?” Amina said. “She already knows you.”

  Her face was tired this morning, as though she had slept very lit
tle. I had not slept much either. I’d woken several times, gripped by fear, thinking I heard sounds from Bashir Ahmed’s side of the wall. It was as if, now that I had found him, I expected him to suddenly be spirited away.

  I squatted and began to work, gripping the pot between my knees. The cow seemed to wait for a moment, then dropped her head and began to nose about in the warm, flattened straw on which she’d spent the night. My mind, which all night had been restless, calmed a little, and soon I was thinking only of the rhythm, the warm pliable teats in my fingers, the stirring ring of the milk in the pot. When I handed the pot back to Amina, I lifted my chin, challenging her to find fault with my work, but she only nodded and smiled.

  I pulled off my sweatshirt as we walked up to the house, shivering with pleasure as the morning air touched the crooks of my elbows. The far mountains were sharply outlined against the sky, the closer ones soft and shadowed. Strangely enough, I felt good. Even a few days of walking on these slopes had strengthened my legs, awoken muscles I hadn’t used since my swimming days.

  “Murgi,” Amina said. She spoke with a jaunty haste, keeping her eyes fixed on the pot, in which the bright milk sloshed. “I was thinking, maybe you would like to go back to Mohammad Din Uncle’s house again today?”

  “Oh,” I said. “I’m not sure I—”

  “They said you could come back whenever you wanted,” she urged. “And didn’t you say something about teaching Sania?”

  It was clear enough she was trying to distract me. For some reason, she was reluctant to let me see Bashir Ahmed again. I could not say I disagreed with her. All night I had dreamed of his face as I had glimpsed it yesterday, the immensity of the loneliness that had emanated from the gaunt figure in the bed. Perhaps, I thought suddenly, it would not be such a bad idea to visit Mohammad Din and Sania again in their sunny house perched on its ridge.

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll go.”

  Amina looked pleased that I’d agreed without a protest. We delivered the pot of milk to Riyaz’s mother in the kitchen, and then we sat down to breakfast.

  Aaqib came in in his uniform, blinking the sleep from his green eyes. He sat next to his grandmother, drawing his limbs tight to his little body, like a soft animal ready for an attack. I felt sorry for him, and I wanted to make a gesture of friendliness.

  “Aaqib,” I said, “Which class are you in?”

  He glanced at his mother, who nodded encouragingly at him. Looking back at me, he held up one soot-smudged finger.

  “And do you like your school, Aaqib?”

  He shrugged.

  “I have an idea,” I said. “What would you say if I walked with you to your school today?”

  “That’s a very good idea!” Amina exclaimed quickly. “You must take her, Aaqib. Show her the school.”

  He gazed at the ground, and I saw his natural reticence wrestling with his desire to be obedient. Then his face broke into a sweet, shy smile. “Okay,” he said finally.

  He fetched his backpack and we walked out of the house. Unexpectedly, when we reached the top of the track, he tucked a small, warm hand into mine. Other children raced by in identical blue uniforms, staring and giggling and whispering to each other in Kashmiri, but Aaqib paid them no mind, walking at my side, holding on tight to my hand, and pointing out various items of interest—a tree he liked, the house where a friend of his lived. I felt unaccountably flattered.

  “You saw my dadaji yesterday,” Aaqib said suddenly.

  I looked down at him, not sure how to respond. “Yes,” I said finally.

  “People want to hurt him,” Aaqib informed me seriously. “Government people.” He paused as something occurred to him. “Are you from the government?”

  “No,” I said firmly. “I’m not.”

  He considered my answer. “Okay,” he said, then pointed. “That’s my school.”

  The government school was a small, whitewashed building set in a shallow valley, which echoed at the moment with the screams of children. Aaqib slipped his hand from mine and set off down the hill, his backpack jouncing on his shoulders. I stood and watched as he reached a small knot of children, who surrounded him, glancing curiously up at me. They ran into the school building, and after a moment, I turned and walked back to the house.

  I stepped over the broken pipe, a gesture that had become habit in the space of a few days, but before I turned the corner of the house, I could tell that something was amiss. I heard Amina’s voice, but it was stilted, formal, absent its usual warm and teasing mirth. Then I turned onto the porch and found myself facing a sea of uniforms. At least, it seemed like a sea at first, but I quickly realized I was looking at about eight or nine Indian soldiers, all of whom had turned to stare at me. Some of them wore caps, others backpacks. A few had their sleeves rolled up. All of them carried rifles. In their midst stood Amina, her arms crossed in front of her chest, speaking to a handsome, dark-skinned soldier with a luxuriant mustache.

  I paused, then, aware that they were all watching me, walked forward until I was beside Amina. I could see the mustached soldier’s eyes making rapid calculations, trying and failing to fit me, with my jeans and ponytail, into this setting. I glanced quickly at his name tag: A. S. Bakshi.

  “This is the visitor you were speaking of?” the soldier asked her in crisp, nasal Hindi.

  “Yes,” Amina said.

  “What is her name?”

  “Shalini,” I told him.

  His gaze seemed casual but I could tell it missed nothing, from my untidy ponytail to the mud stains on my jeans. “You are not Kashmiri,” he said.

  “No.”

  “Subedar, sir,” one of the other soldiers called. He had a face full of pimples and a red bandanna tied guerrilla-style around his head; in his hand was a small cell phone. “I’m not getting any signal here.”

  “What do you want me to do about it?” the subedar answered, not taking his eyes off me. “Carry a cell tower for you everywhere we go?” The soldier in the red bandanna flushed and stepped back.

  The subedar looked at Amina. “Where is your husband?”

  “Working.”

  “What work does he do?”

  “Transport. He has two mules.”

  “Hm.” The subedar glanced at his men, who were milling around. “Sit down, all of you,” he called out, and they scattered, spreading themselves across the porch, like boys at a picnic. A few slumped at the base of the pear tree, another dangled his legs over the edge of the porch. The rest sat in a small circle in the dirt and picked their teeth with their fingernails or fiddled with their cell phones.

  Riyaz’s mother came out of the house bearing a plastic tray with eight cups of tea. She held the tray out to the subedar, who took a cup delicately between his thumb and forefinger. He watched her as she carried the tray around the porch, the young soldiers reaching for their cups with muttered thanks. When the tray was empty, she handed it to Amina and went back in the house, not so much as glancing at the subedar, who, I noticed, seemed mildly intimidated by this rock-jawed old woman. I felt a flare of admiration for her.

  “Your mother?” he asked Amina, when Khadijah Aunty had gone inside.

  “My mother-in-law.”

  “And who else lives in the house?”

  “My son. He is five years old.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all.”

  The subedar turned to me. “And what about you?”

  Panic dripped like acid through my chest, burning at the lining of my stomach. I was surprised at the control in my own voice when I said, “I’m from Bangalore.”

  “And what are you doing here?”

  “Staying with my friends.”

  “Your friends? You mean these villagers?” he asked, as if Amina were not there.

  “Yes.”

  “I see. And how many of your friends live in the house?”

  “Five.”

  “Five?” he echoed.

  “Yes.”

  He
leaned forward slightly. “She said she lives with her husband, her mother-in-law, and her son.” He counted them off on his fingers. “That is four people. Why did you say five?”

  “I’m the fifth,” I said.

  His expression didn’t change. I desperately wanted to look at Amina but forced myself to keep my eyes on him. He seemed to be pondering, sipping his tea. Then he said, “All right.”

  He signaled, and his soldiers began to unfold themselves. They came up to Amina one by one and clinked their empty cups down on the tray. She stood straight, her eyes staring unseeingly over their heads. When they were done, the subedar stepped forward and set his down.

  “One last question,” he said to Amina. “Have you seen anyone around here that you don’t recognize? Strangers? Outsiders? Other than her, of course.” He nodded at me.

  Amina shook her head.

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “All right,” he said, and crooked his finger at his men. “Thank you for the tea.” The eight of them fell into a ragged line and began walking. Amina disappeared indoors as soon as their backs were turned, but I stood and watched them head up the track until they turned left and were lost to sight.

  Amina was by the outdoor tap, on her haunches, scrubbing hard at each cup. Silently, I joined her, and together we washed them all, setting them back on the tray to dry. Finally, she looked up. “Thank you, Murgi,” she said softly, touching her dripping fingers to my wrist.

  “How often do they come?” I asked.

  “Once every few months. Different soldiers every time, but asking the same questions. I was mostly surprised because there was a group here a week ago, just a few days before you arrived. Usually they don’t come back so soon.” She looked worried.

  “What would they do to Bashir Ahmed?” I asked after a pause. “If they found him?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe they wouldn’t do anything. Or maybe they would. We have no way of knowing.” Her face cleared. “But, they’re gone, so forget them. Tell me, Murgi,” she said, a little too brightly, “have you thought about what you’re going to teach Sania?” The way she spoke made it clear she wanted the subject closed.