The Far Field

by Madhuri Vijay

  And I heard myself say, “I want to stay.”

  There was a second of quiet, and the room seemed to erupt as Sania threw her arms around me in delight, nearly knocking me to the ground and upsetting the teacups, as Mohammad Din laughed and thumped my back and said, over and over, “Well done!” In the middle of the commotion, I closed my eyes and repeated the words in a softer voice, as though some invisible person were listening in the corner. “I want to stay.”

  I went back to the house in a strange, floating mood, caught somewhere between elation and apprehension. Amina was sitting in the kitchen, and for the first time since I’d arrived in the village, she was doing nothing at all. It was unsettling to see her hands idle, hung loose over her knees like the wet clothes she hung on the line. She was staring into the fire. All the way home, I’d rehearsed the announcement that I would be staying, bracing myself for their various reactions, but the sight of her anxious figure made me forget my excitement. I hurried over to her.

  “Amina, is everything okay? What’s wrong?”

  “Riyaz.” Her voice was thick. “He hasn’t come back yet.”

  I glanced outside at the sky, which still held some light. “It isn’t that late. The azan hasn’t even gone. Don’t worry, Amina. He’ll be back.”

  She nodded. I didn’t want to leave her alone, so I sat down on the other side of the fire and tried to distract her with bright, inconsequential questions, to which she responded with a shrug or a single word. Aaqib came in silently and sat next to me. As he did so, his foot grazed a plate of flour that was sitting by the fire, and Amina turned harshly on him. “Careful!” she snapped. “Are you blind?” He stared at her, his eyes enormous and full of hurt, and she whirled around, muttering.

  Half an hour later, the azan began from the mosque, the singer a supple-voiced man with an extraordinary range that would not have been out of place in any concert hall in the world. When it ended, Amina and I glanced at each other; then, as if by some signal, glanced away. After a while, Riyaz’s mother came in and began to heat up dinner. It was impossible to tell what she was thinking, whether she too was worried, although it seemed her hand was a little jerkier than usual when she ladled rice onto our plates. Amina shook her head stubbornly when her plate was offered to her.

  It was a dreadful meal. Aaqib pushed the food around on his plate without actually eating a bite; Riyaz’s mother ate doggedly, not lifting her eyes even once; and in my throat there was a knot of fear so large I could barely swallow. Amina, for her part, appeared unable to sit still; she stood up every few minutes, went to the kitchen window, then came back and sat down. It made my own nerves jangle; I longed to scream at her to stop moving, but I didn’t dare.

  “He’ll be back soon,” was all I said, but the assurance began to sound weak, even idiotic. What if the robbers, whoever they were, had caught Riyaz, or injured him? What if he had run into the soldiers? I thought of the way the subedar’s finger had brushed his gun, with such familiarity and lightness, and I could not suppress a shudder. Aaqib seemed to sense something of my thoughts, because he gave a corresponding shudder next to me. Without thinking, I put my arm around him and held him close, and he pressed into the crook of my arm. Then I noticed Amina looking in our direction. Her expression was grave, but she did not say a word.

  Riyaz was more than two hours late now. It was well past dark. There were lights all over the mountains, but they only made the empty portions seem darker. And then Amina stood up again. Her face was bloodless, and she seemed to sway slightly on her feet. I thought she was going to faint, but she held up a hand.

  “Listen,” she said.

  In the silence, we heard the dull, faraway clang of mule bells. Aaqib made a little whimpering sound, but he didn’t stir. Amina stood arrested, her chin thrown upward. The bells sounded again, closer this time and dolefully quick, as if the animals were being chivvied faster than they were used to. Then Riyaz’s voice, forceful: “Get on! Move! Up you go.”

  Amina’s eyes glittered.

  Nobody in the kitchen moved for what seemed like hours. Then, at last, Riyaz himself appeared in the doorway. He looked exhausted, his mouth set in a grim line. I looked quickly for any signs of injury, but there were none. He came into the kitchen without a word and sat down a little distance from the fire. His mother handed him a plate, and he began to eat, head down and eyes fixed on his food.

  Then Amina, who had been frozen all this time, spoke. “Why are you late?” she asked, her voice deadly quiet. “Where were you?”

  He didn’t answer her.

  “What happened?” she asked again, this time louder. “Was it the soldiers? The robbers?”

  He shook his head.

  “Then what was it?”

  For some reason, his eyes went to his mother, and it seemed that she knew what he would say before he said it, for she sat up. Then, to my surprise, he looked straight at me.

  “There’s trouble,” he said. “In Kishtwar.”

  Riyaz had been waiting that evening for a driver, who was coming in from Kishtwar with some goods for Mohammad Din. The driver had not arrived at the appointed time, and when Riyaz tried calling him, there was no answer. He was tempted to leave, but he knew Mohammad Din would not be happy with him, so he waited. Hours later, the driver himself had called, saying that there were mobs on the street in Kishtwar, and he couldn’t leave. “Mobs?” Riyaz had asked. And that was when he found out that over the past few days there had been the same strange incidents in Kishtwar, rumors of black-clad intruders, unsettling stories, rising tension between Hindu and Muslim neighbors. Apparently, early that morning, some Muslims had caught hold of a man they claimed was one of the intruders. He’d turned out to be a young Hindu, and they’d given him a sound thrashing. Within the hour, there were dozens of Hindus on the street, swearing to set fire to Muslim houses. And by the afternoon, a mob of Muslims had formed. The army had been called in to intervene, but not before two more men had been beaten in clashes between mobs. A curfew was promptly declared; the roads were empty. No Muslim in his right mind, the driver informed Riyaz, would be going anywhere tonight. There were rumors that a Muslim neighborhood, close to the mosque, was already on fire.

  I thought of Zoya and Abdul Latief, and tasted fear like iron at the back of my throat. Were they all right? Had they been at home when all this violence broke out? I thought of their door at the top of the green steps, and hoped fervently that it was locked. And then, looking at Riyaz’s mother, I remembered with a shock that her entire family lived in Kishtwar. She sat motionless, the firelight playing on her stony features, making the gold in her nose glint.

  There was silence after Riyaz had finished speaking. Amina was biting her lip so hard, I saw she’d drawn blood. “Tell me one thing,” she said to him quietly. “After what has happened today, after these things you’ve told us, do you still plan to go down the mountain tomorrow?”

  To this day, I believe that if she’d used any tone but that one, he would have said no. But, as it stood, there was a sarcasm in her question that reminded me, oddly enough, of my mother. And as soon as he heard her, a willful, obstinate look came across his face. “Yes,” he said.

  She stood looking at him. Then she went out of the kitchen, leaving us all staring after her.

  I went to my room and pulled my rucksack from the white cupboard where it had sat untouched since I’d arrived. I set it down on the floor and felt about inside. My hand closed on a sheet of paper. I drew it out and unfolded it, looking at the two numbers in Abdul Latief’s large, looping handwriting. For the first time since I’d left Bangalore, I wished desperately for a phone. I thought of the small cell phone that Riyaz owned, but Riyaz was shut away in his room, along with Amina, and I dared not disturb them. No sound had issued from behind the door for the last hour, and the silence was worse than any screaming match could have been. I tried to think of Zoya instead. Was she all right? Had she and Abdul Latief managed to barricade themselves at home before th
e trouble started? Then I thought of Stalin, roving about Kishtwar with his gun in his skinny arms, wearing his ridiculous, toolarge helmet, his finger light on the trigger, quivering at the thought of action, of mobs flooding the streets like tides of dark water.

  I went back to the kitchen, where Riyaz’s mother was unrolling the mattress she shared with Aaqib. Perhaps she was more upset than I’d thought by the news from Kishtwar, or perhaps it was due to our brief camaraderie during the grass-cutting earlier, but instead of staring at me, she nodded to me to come in. I helped her tuck the edges of the sheet under the mattress, then sat on the sackcloth beside the fire and watched as Aaqib fitted himself into the curve of her body, his eyes soon closing. She did not sleep, but lay on her side, her headscarf folded beside the mattress, her head propped up on her hand. I looked at her and wished again for a language we could both speak.

  “I made a decision today,” I said to her. She looked up at the sound of my voice, then back at the fire. “I’m going to stay here, in the village. Become a teacher. Can you believe that? Me, a teacher? I know you’ll probably laugh when you find out.” I looked at her face, the gold stud gleaming in her right nostril, the gray hair flattened from being under the headscarf all day. “I love this place,” I said quietly, and as soon as I said it, I felt a tremor run through my body and knew it to be true. How had I never admitted it before today? I loved this place, and I loved its people too. I loved this old woman by the fire, whom I could not understand and who could not understand me. I loved the little boy she was cradling, who was trying so valiantly to be brave. I loved the boy’s father, whose very presence was confusing to me, and I loved the boy’s fiery mother, who was a far better friend than any I deserved. Over time, I told myself, I would try to deserve them all. “You have to make a decision,” my father had said one evening in a restaurant, and wasn’t that what I had done? I had decided; I had chosen this place, these people, this life, with its secrets and its violence, its hardness and its beauty, and even though I was not yet worthy, even though I would never fully belong, I would not leave. I would stay and try.

  Riyaz’s mother’s eyes had started to close. I remained very still, not wanting to disturb her. Her head slipped off her hand and her eyelids fluttered open for a moment, but she was already asleep, and her eyes registered nothing. Soon I heard her breathing steadily through her mouth, each exhalation a little wheeze. Aaqib’s sleeping face was perfect, at peace. I stood up carefully, dusted my hands and turned to make my way toward the door, only to find Amina blocking my path.

  “Murgi,” she said. “I need to talk to you.”

  Once in my room, Amina went straight to the window for a long time, looking down at something. I didn’t know what it was until she said, “You can see Kishtwar from here, you know.”

  “You can?” I moved to stand beside her. “Where?”

  She pointed at a cluster of lights, spreading amoeba-like on the distant valley floor.

  “I didn’t know,” I said softly. “I’ve been watching it this whole time. Every evening.”

  She squinted sideways at me. “You like watching things, don’t you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She shrugged. “Just something I’ve been thinking about. All this time you’ve lived here with us, you’ve eaten with us, and I still don’t know anything about you. You watch, you ask questions, but you never tell us anything about yourself. That’s a little strange, don’t you think?”

  I laughed, as if she’d made a joke, but her words had disturbed me. Not only because she’d never said anything of the sort to me before, but because it reminded me, almost exactly, of what my father had said to Bashir Ahmed the night of the party. The same hurt cynicism.

  “I really don’t know what you’re talking about, Amina,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. “You don’t sound like yourself. Are you not feeling well?”

  But she did not respond, and I fell silent. We stood like that, with me watching Amina, and Amina looking out of the window, until she turned away from the view to face me.

  “Murgi,” she said. “I’m leaving tomorrow.”

  Of all the things she could have said, this was the last one I expected. It was as if she’d told me she was going to join the circus. I stared at her, unable to find a response.

  “I’m taking Aaqib,” she added. “We’re going back to my family’s house for a while.”

  “Why, Amina?” I managed finally to ask.

  She shrugged. “He’ll have his cousins, other children to play with. The school there is better than the one here, too.”

  That wasn’t what I’d meant, and she knew it perfectly well. “What about Khadijah Aunty?” I blurted out. “How will she manage without you?”

  She shrugged. “I’ve already talked to her. She understands. We’ll be leaving early tomorrow.”

  “And the soldiers? The robbers? Is it safe for you to go?”

  “This is my home,” she said simply. “No soldier or robber knows it better than me. Anyway, a few other villagers are going in that direction, so Aaqib and I will go with them.”

  I still did not dare mention Riyaz. “What about Bashir Ahmed?” I almost pleaded. “He needs you, Amina. You can’t leave.”

  A shadow of pain crossed her face. “Ma will be here to give him what he needs,” she said dispassionately.

  Many times over the years, I have wished to have this moment back so I could alter what I said to her next. I would tell her that I was sorry for my part in throwing her life off course. I would sit with her on the mattress, look straight into her face, and say, Ask me anything you want. I would tell her about Bashir Ahmed and his stories, about the apartment with the mattresses, about the party and what came after. I would tell her about my mother and how she’d died. I would tell her that I’d no idea how to have a friend, much less be one, but that, if she would let me, I would try.

  But what I said was, “Be careful, all right? I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  She smiled at me, and for a second, her face was lit up, bright with mischief and all her fierce, irreverent joy. “Me?” she asked. “What could ever happen to me?”

  She turned to leave the room, then stopped as though something had occurred to her.

  “Oh, by the way, Murgi,” she said, “speaking of Abbaji, I talked to him. It took a while to convince him, but he finally agreed.”

  For a second, I had no idea what she was talking about. My head was full of fleeting images: Aaqib hanging upside down from the branches of the peach tree, his T-shirt fallen over his stomach. Aaqib asleep against my arm. Amina under the storm of the waterfall, kohl running from her eyes. Amina tossing a handful of grains to the chicken, the sun dredging up the gold in her brown eyes.

  “Agreed to what?” I asked.

  “To see you, of course.” She raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that the reason you came to this place at all? You can see him after lunch tomorrow.”

  At the door, she turned once more to look at me. I thought—I hoped—she was about to say something else, that she would burst out laughing, tell me it had all been a joke, she and Aaqib were going nowhere, nowhere at all. Go to sleep, Murgi. Remember, the cow will be waiting. But she said nothing. She just looked at me, and before I could let out the breath I was holding, I was alone.

  They were gone before I woke. They must have left while it was still dark. I imagine mountain paths rolling out under their feet, fog peeling with the heat of their breath. I imagine Aaqib walking ahead of his mother, in his faded Superstar Happy T-shirt, hands clasped behind his back, his sturdy little legs carrying him toward an unfathomable future.

  I think of that boy all the time. He will be older now, taller, naturally, with his grandmother’s firm jaw, and his grandfather’s green eyes. Quieter and more solemn than he was when I knew him, which makes sense, given everything that happened shortly after. A dutiful boy with a heart-stopping smile, popular with his peers, adored by adults, but with a door in his he
art that sometimes falls open without warning, causing him to suddenly wander away from his friends, from his mother, to seek out a solitude in which he can wrestle with the dark whisperings of his heart.

  At least, this is what I imagine. I don’t suppose I will ever know.

  31

  I GOT MY FIRST cell phone for my nineteenth birthday. A package arrived at my college hostel, and inside it were a neat box and a note in my father’s handwriting. For our champion, it said. There was no mention of the Christmas vacation, my outburst, my rudeness to my mother. By then, I still hadn’t fully gotten over my rage, and I did not make my first call to their landline for more than two weeks afterward. My mother picked up. “Hold on,” she said, before I could say anything. There was a long pause, during which I could hear nothing but a dull rhythmic thud. Then she came back to the phone. “Yes,” she said, sounding breathless, “tell me.”

  “Amma, what were you doing just now? What was that noise?”

  “Oh, that neighbor of ours, you know, the one with the brat of a son? She’s been yelling at these poor street kids for playing cricket outside her house. They’re street kids! Where else are they supposed to play? Each time their ball goes anywhere near her gate, she pounces on it and won’t give it back. So I decided if she likes balls that much, I would oblige. I went and bought thirty boxes of tennis balls and threw them one by one into her compound. I hope she has fun picking them up.”

  She sounded so satisfied I had no choice but to laugh. She began to laugh too, and when she made no mention of my rudeness, I was so relieved that I was especially forthcoming with her; we even had something resembling a pleasant conversation. At the end of it, I said, with a burst of guilt-inspired earnestness, “You know you can call me if you want, right, Amma? I’m always here.”