She looked like a bride.
At the bottom of the stairs, she paused. “Hello,” she said.
My father and Bashir Ahmed were both staring at her, their expressions nearly identical. The silence started to become strained, but thankfully just then the doorbell rang. My father cleared his throat. “You look nice,” he muttered then went to open the door. My mother glanced once at Bashir Ahmed, then joined him at the door to receive our first guests, Bharti and Joshua D’Silva.
Bharti, a trim, no-nonsense woman in gray slacks, had for a few years been my father’s boss at a German engineering firm before he quit to start his own company. Joshua, her husband, was a huge, unkempt man, nearly seven feet tall, whom I’d always liked for his shambling, bearlike aspect, his deep voice that contrasted with his gentle manner of speaking.
The two of them hugged my parents, and then my father introduced Bashir Ahmed, who bowed his head and murmured, “Aadaab.”
Joshua peered down at him as if he were an interesting new species of animal, but Bharti just blinked her cool gray eyes and said in English, “Nice to meet you, Mr. Ahmed.”
Almost immediately, the bell rang again, and the door was opened to admit Govind Narayan and his plump wife. Govind, a thin fellow with a high, whinnying laugh, had gone to college with my father. His wife, Sudha, was the headmistress of a girls’ school. They both hugged me and shook hands with Bashir Ahmed, who shrank visibly from the onslaught of so many strangers. Now that he was standing beside me, I could see that he looked especially haggard tonight, the skin under his eyes puffy and raw. Had he been crying?
There was no time to wonder further because my father swept him away toward the bar. The others were laughing and seating themselves around the living room. My head spun with the sudden movement and commotion. Bashir Ahmed returned to the living room with a glass of Coke, and, after a moment of hesitation, took a seat next to the massive Joshua.
When everyone had been seated, the buzz of conversation died. My father stood, surveying all of us gathered about him. Then he raised his rum glass with a dramatic flourish.
“There comes a time in a man’s life,” he announced in English, “when what he begins to value is not the future and its possibilities, but the past and its comforts. I have known most of you for many years, and I am grateful for each one of those years.”
He paused, eyes shining. He swung his glass around to Bashir Ahmed, who looked alarmed, as if a gun were pointed at him. Switching to Hindi, my father said, “But never let it be said that life holds no surprises. New friends can always be made, and this evening is for our newest friend, all the way from Kashmir. Mr. Bashir Ahmed.”
Lifting their glasses, the others drank to him, including my mother, who pressed her red lips to her glass of water, her eyes fixed on Bashir Ahmed, who was staring in obvious embarrassment at the floor. Beaming, my father flopped down in his chair and stretched out his long legs, every inch the genial host. I wanted to leap across the room and shake him.
“Thank you, janaab,” Bashir Ahmed began, his ordinarily firm voice the weakest flutter. “What you have done—I mean, what your family has done—what I’m trying to say is that I am—”
He stopped, and again I thought, He has been crying.
My father reached over and squeezed him sympathetically on the shoulder.
“Mr. Ahmed has told us a little bit about the problems Kashmir is facing,” my father announced in English, his hand still firmly on Bashir Ahmed’s shoulder. “I wanted to host this dinner, partly to have the pleasure of your company again, of course”—he smiled around at the gathered guests—“but also because I was hoping that he might do the same for all of you. Living as we do in the south, it’s rare to hear a firsthand account of the situation up there. I have no doubt that you will find the things he has to say about Kashmir very interesting.”
Before anyone could say anything more, my mother leaned forward.
“What are you doing?” she hissed at him. “You can’t just invite people over and ask him to perform. He’s not some circus monkey.”
“I’m not asking him to perform,” my father hissed back. “I’m asking him to talk. Like a human being. Do you have any objection to that?”
The others kept their eyes tactfully lowered during this exchange, except for Bashir Ahmed, whose gaze darted between their faces, trying to understand the barrage of English words. My mother stared at my father, then leaned back and made a gesture with her fingers, which was all the more chilling for being so careless. Carry on, the gesture said. This is nothing to do with me.
“Go on, Mr. Ahmed,” my father said in Hindi, turning back to him. “Tell us all what you told me.”
“About what, janaab?”
“What do you mean? About Kashmir, of course,” my father said impatiently. “The militants, the army. You know. All of that.”
The guests were turned to him with varying degrees of interest and expectation. My mother’s kohl-lined eyes were unreadable.
Bashir Ahmed cleared his throat. “I have nothing to say, janaab.”
“Oh, come now,” my father said. “There’s no reason to be shy. We’re all friends here. You told us that the army was there, in your village, keeping things under control. Remember?”
Bashir Ahmed shook his head. “I never said that, janaab.”
“Of course you did,” my father snapped.
Bashir Ahmed shook his head. There was an uncomfortable silence, and then Joshua D’Silva cleared his throat and shifted, making the whole sofa creak.
“It’s been thirty years,” he said in soft, rumbling Hindi, “but we fell in love with Kashmir when we visited. It was for our honeymoon. We stayed on a houseboat, and every morning this old man would float up in a tiny boat full of these beautiful flowers. He would give us this huge handful, and he would never take any money for them either. Remember the old man, Bharti?”
His wife nodded.
“Those houseboats are beautiful, Mr. Ahmed,” Joshua said.
“I don’t know about houseboats,” Bashir Ahmed said stubbornly. “I am from the mountains, and there is no use for a boat on a mountain.”
At that, my mother let out a bark of a laugh, which made the others whip their heads around to look at her. All except my father, who did not take his eyes off Bashir Ahmed.
“I don’t understand you, Mr. Ahmed,” he said slowly. “When you arrived, you had a very different attitude to all this. You told us that militants were causing trouble in your area, but that the army was keeping them in order.”
“No, janaab.” Bashir Ahmed raised his chin. “You said that.”
My mother’s shoulders were now shaking with silent laughter. My father whirled to face her. “Would you stop that?” he snapped in English. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Me?” She wiped tears of laughter from her eyes. “Nothing’s wrong with me.”
My father got heavily to his feet. His eyes went slowly from Bashir Ahmed to my chuckling mother. For a minute, it seemed he might speak, but then he simply turned on his heel and went to the bar. Without thinking, I followed him. I didn’t know why. I wanted to say something to him, but his face was a warning to leave him alone. He was pouring rum into his glass, and I watched the level of amber rise well beyond where he usually stopped. He took a long draught, stared for a while at the shining wood of the sideboard, then went back to the others in the living room. Left by myself, I glanced over my shoulder, then tipped a generous splash of rum into my Coke and stirred it quickly with my finger. Imitating my father, I closed my eyes and drank, tasting the rottenness of the rum under the bubbling soda, feeling it coat the back of my throat.
I returned to the living room to find Sudha, Govind’s wife, a plump woman in a magenta sari, telling a story. Trying, perhaps, to draw attention away from my scowling father and my still-smirking mother, she was going on and on about the girls’ school where she was headmistress. My mother listened, head cocked, tapping her finger on
her cheek. Then she stood with an abrupt motion, causing everyone to jump and cutting Sudha off in mid-sentence.
“Sorry,” she said casually to their startled, upturned faces, “It’s just not a very interesting story, is it? I’ll go get the food heated up.”
She sauntered off, and another shocked silence followed. Sudha glanced at her husband with raised eyebrows; then they both turned and gave my father an openly pitying look. Thankfully, he was slumped over his chair, turning his rum glass around in his hands, and he didn’t notice.
After five minutes, during which nobody spoke except to make halfhearted comments about the weather and traffic, we heard my mother’s voice calling us to dinner. I stopped short when I saw the table. She’d prepared a feast. Our best bone-white crockery was laid out: dishes filled with fluffy steaming rice, dark channa with a swirl of cream, mounds of potatoes and cauliflower garnished with coriander, rotis glistening with ghee, platters of fried okra and green beans. A jug of water sparkled in the middle, encasing a tall sprig of mint. My mother stood at the entrance to the kitchen, arms folded. “Go on,” she called out. “What are you waiting for, a red carpet?”
One by one, we filed around the table. When my plate could hold no more, I returned to the living room and began to eat. For once, my mother had made no mistakes in her cooking; the food was perfect. I ate fast, suddenly ravenous, alternating with swigs from my tainted glass of Coke. The others sat around me: Joshua’s huge hand dwarfing his plate, Bharti delicately using a fork to cut into a chunk of potato, Sudha and Govind eating with unabashed appetites, and my father not eating at all. His plate remained untouched on his knees, and as soon as I noticed, my own hunger vanished. My muscles tensed, ready for danger, though I didn’t know from which direction it would come.
My mother came back into the living room with a plate of her own. She fell to eating with enthusiasm, seemingly oblivious to the furtive, wary glances of the others. Curd stained the corners of her mouth, and she chewed so loudly, it made me wince. From time to time, she smiled, apparently to herself, the gleefully unconscious smile of a little girl. My father, looking up, caught one of these smiles and stiffened. He set his plate down on the table beside him with a loud clink and went to the bar, coming back with still another sloshing, overfull drink. Standing over her, he said in Hindi, “You know, I’m starting to wonder something.”
Everybody looked up. My father, no longer the benevolent patriarch, no longer the jovial host, his face suddenly looking a decade older than his forty-two years, turned to Bashir Ahmed.
“I’m wondering, Mr. Ahmed,” my father said, “what it is you do think. It’s funny, but I’ve been sitting here for the last ten minutes thinking about it, and you’re right. You’ve been living in our house for almost three weeks, and you haven’t told us”—here his eyes traveled briefly to my mother, who still wore a smile—“well, at least you haven’t told me what you think about these things happening in Kashmir. And I really would like to know.”
“I told you, janaab,” Bashir Ahmed said, “I have nothing to say about that.” He sat very straight in his black kurta, returning my father’s unfocused gaze with a blank one of his own.
“Well, if you won’t say anything,” my father declared, and now I heard the slurring in his voice, the way it slithered over certain sounds, ground others down to nothing, “then I’ll tell you what I think. I think that for more than forty years, India has taken care of Kashmir. We’ve given you jobs and roads and power and hospitals. Our taxes have provided education to thousands of Kashmiri children. So it doesn’t seem like too much to expect some gratitude in return, instead those people you have up there blowing up buildings, shouting slogans for Pakistan, burning Indian flags and whatnot. Wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Ahmed? Doesn’t that make sense to you? If someone takes you into his home and gives you a bed and puts food in your mouth without asking any questions, don’t you think you owe him something in return?”
Bashir Ahmed stood up. If the room had been quiet before, it became deathly silent now. I glanced at my mother. She had stopped eating.
“Janaab,” Bashir Ahmed said quietly, “you are an intelligent man. Anyone can see that. You have a big business and a big house, and I respect you for that. And you are correct: you don’t know what I think. I have been working and traveling in this country for many years now, and I have seen a lot. But I will tell you this: you are not the only one who believes as you do. There are many others who think the same way, who think that people should be happy with whatever they get, even if it isn’t what they want. And I will also tell you this: as long as people like you believe the things you do, then those people in Kashmir, as you call them, will not go away. No, janaab. They will become more and more in number, and soon other people will join them. Ordinary people like me. And, for your sake, I hope that day doesn’t come, because that is when you will really have something to worry about.”
I’d never heard him speak at such length, except during a story, but the voice he addressed my father in was not the intimate voice of his stories, the one with the dramatic swoops, the repetitions, the one that accompanied the rise and fall of his hands, nor was it the weak and fragmented voice that had told us about the militants in his home. He spoke to us from a great remove, as if he had left the room and was looking down at us from some high place. And even then, young and frightened a child as I was, I felt sure that neither my father nor Bashir Ahmed was talking only about Kashmir. Now, of course, I know that for certain.
“As for me, janaab,” Bashir Ahmed went on, “when I came here, I promised you I would not stay for long, and I am going to keep that promise. I am leaving tomorrow. I will never be able to thank you properly for your kindness in letting me stay, but please believe that I will never forget it.”
With quiet formality, he bowed his head, first to my father, then to the group of stunned people in the room. He carried his plate to the kitchen, from where we heard the sound of water running. He came out, and without looking at us, went into his room and closed the door.
“Well!” Sudha, the plump headmistress, burst out in English.“ What was all that? What on earth was he talking about? Did he mean terrorists? My God! I mean, I’ve never—” She looked desperately around the room for confirmation. “That was quite rude of him, wasn’t it? To just walk off like that? Wasn’t it?”
Nobody replied except for my mother, who said absently, “Oh, be quiet.”
Sudha puffed up like a wounded hen, and her husband said, “Excuse me, I don’t think there’s any reason to talk to my wife that way.”
The trim, bespectacled Bharti D’Silva cleared her throat. “Joshua,” she said. “I didn’t realize it was so late. We should probably get home. I’ve got that early meeting, remember?”
Her husband nodded, retrieving her plate from her outstretched hand and lumbering off to the kitchen. Sudha and Govind Narayan got to their feet at the same time. “We should get going, too,” Govind said to my father, pointedly ignoring my mother, who seemed oblivious to him in any case. “Thank you so much for having us over.”
My father nodded, his face expressionless.
And all of a sudden there were the flurries of departure around me. People standing, carrying their plates to the kitchen, looking around in search of their belongings, feeling in pockets for keys. I threw my head back and finished the last of my secretly spiked drink. My eyes stung, and all I could think was that once they left, it would all be over. She would leave. I would never see her again.
“Wait!” I burst out, and they all paused around me, blinking, as if they’d been shaken from a dream. I felt, rather than saw, my mother’s head turn in my direction.
It was my father who responded. “Yes, Shalini?”
“I have something to say,” I went on in a desperate rush. “About Kashmir.”
The corners of his eyes tightened. “Not now, Shalini.”
“No, please,” I insisted. “I think—” I paused, desperately thinking of s
omething to say. “I think Bashir Ahmed is right. I mean, I know the militants are doing some bad things, but all the people in Kashmir aren’t militants, are they? So maybe we should be talking to the ordinary people instead, the ones Bashir Ahmed was telling us about. The ones who are good. The ones who …” I paused, then rushed on quickly. “And then we would at least be doing something, right? And isn’t that the important thing, to do something? So, yes. I think we should find those people, we should talk to them, ask them …” I swallowed. My throat was so dry. I knew I was blabbering. “Anyway, that’s what I think,” I finished in a hoarse whisper.
It was the last thing I’d intended, but my words had the effect of releasing some of the tension that had built in the room. I saw their brows clear, saw them glance tolerantly and sadly at each other, as if to say, Hear that? Even my father allowed himself a smile.
“That’s a noble point of view, sweetheart,” he said, “and maybe you’re right, maybe talking is the best solution, but I think we’ve talked enough about it for one day.”
“But if you were a politician, I’d vote for you,” Joshua rumbled.
Then they resumed looking for car keys, picking up handbags, making their little noises of farewell, the longing for home etched into every face.
Unnoticed, I slumped onto the sofa. I had failed. I had tried, and I had failed. Now there would be nothing to stop them from leaving, and once they left, she would leave too. Joshua and Bharti shook my father’s hand and nodded once to my mother, who smiled as if the evening had gone splendidly. Govind and Sudha were already outside, pulling on their shoes, Sudha speaking furiously to her husband under her breath. I heard their car engines rev and fade. My father closed the door, and, with dreadful swiftness, the house was silent again.
The Far Field Page 24