The Far Field

by Madhuri Vijay

  Still, he didn’t react. A lock of his hair fell over his forehead and I had the urge to push it back. I resisted it. “Riyaz,” I said. “Tell me you understand.”

  “What about you?” he asked finally, his voice dead.

  I shrugged. “I think I’ll try being a teacher, after all.”

  He didn’t ask any further questions. He didn’t need to. What each of us wanted was clear enough. What each of us wanted was the same thing.

  “I can’t pay. For the train,” he said. “I don’t have enough money.”

  I opened the flap of the white envelope to show him the notes inside. His eyes widened. “That will get you to Bangalore,” I said.

  “I can’t take this,” he said, but there was no conviction in his voice. We both knew he would take it. I opened the zipper on his black backpack, which I still carried, and slipped the envelope inside. I swung the pack onto my shoulders again, while he watched me in silence.

  When he stepped forward and put his mouth on mine, I wasn’t exactly surprised. It would be more accurate to say that I was grimly, fatalistically glad. His lips were dry, his arms were about me, the smell of hide and sweat and smoke was in my nostrils. Before I had a moment to think, my body began to move, to respond, my fingers automatically moving up his back, feeling the ridges of muscle and bone, the roughness of his hair, my mouth pressing greedily to his. I cannot say how long it might have gone on, but then I opened my eyes and caught sight of his expression.

  It was the expression of a proud person determined to offer up as compensation the only thing still left in his possession, and it made me feel unimaginably sick. I pushed him away from me, and he stumbled back, his arms falling to his sides.

  My heart was pounding. “Riyaz, don’t—” I began.

  I was going to say, Don’t do this, but suddenly I noticed he was no longer listening. His head was cocked to the side. He was frowning in the direction of the cornfield, which stretched out like a dark, unparted sea before us.

  “What is it?” I whispered.

  But he only put his finger on his lips. I tried to listen but could hear nothing apart from the clacking of insects, the plaintive lowing of a cow. Riyaz was moving, light as a cat, toward the field below. Trying to match his footsteps, I followed. At the edge, he paused to let me catch up with him, and, together, we entered the dark, swaying field.

  Now we were surrounded by the tall, whispering stalks, the long leaves falling across our paths like swords, barring entry. Riyaz moved with impossible stealth, and I did my best to follow suit, though I knew I was making far more noise. Here and there, sticking up from the ground, were the broken stalks from last year’s harvest, a foot long and as sharp as skewers. I was concentrating on avoiding them, and so I did not see that Riyaz had stopped until I bumped into him. He turned, motioning that I should remain where I was. Then he went forward a few feet, very quietly, and looked out between the stalks. I caught sight of a clearing, the shapes of men.

  Even from where I was, I could see his back stiffen, the way he went as still as a hunted animal. In an instant, he was back beside me.

  “We have to go,” he whispered urgently, motioning in the direction from which we’d come. “Right now. Go, go, that way, go.”

  “Why? What happened? Who is it?” I blabbered, starting to turn.

  “Go! Just go!” he hissed and gave me a slight push. I took two faltering steps, then overbalanced, my hand flying out for support. It found a cornstalk, and I leaned with all my weight against it for a second. I recovered my balance immediately, but the stalk groaned; then, almost as an afterthought, it cracked. The sound was as loud as a gunshot.

  For a second, the whole world seemed to be immobile, the wind stilled in the corn, the insects cowed into silence. In that otherworldly hush, a voice called out: “Who’s there?”

  My legs started to tremble. I knew that voice. I glanced at Riyaz. His eyes were closed.

  “Whoever you are, it would be better for you if you showed yourself,” the voice called. It betrayed no fear or alarm, but a kind of bored annoyance. It was the same voice that had confronted me across the field of lightning-struck trees, the voice that had made me piss myself in fear.

  “Riyaz,” I hissed urgently.

  He opened his eyes, but he seemed unaware of me standing next to him. He was looking at something beyond me, listening to a voice that wasn’t mine. Then he snapped back to attention.

  “Listen to me,” he said. “Whatever happens, don’t show yourself. Understand?”

  “But—”

  The look on his face silenced me. I nodded. And, as soon as I had, a strange peace, almost a lassitude came into his face. He turned back toward the voice and the clearing. When I realized what he meant to do, I grabbed at him, but I was too late and succeeded only in catching the corner of his brown kurta. He shook me off easily, as though I were no more than an irritating fly. The last thing he did before he walked out into the clearing to meet them was to lift his arms like a dancer. Only then did I realize he was still carrying my rucksack.

  As quietly as I could, I made my way to the edge of the clearing, trying to stay out of sight. As I expected, twenty or so feet away was the subedar. His men were scattered around him, a few of them with their guns pointed at Riyaz, who was now in clear view, arms lifted.

  The subedar’s voice floated to me in my hiding place.

  “Well, good evening,” he said. “Come closer, please, no need to stand so far away.”

  Riyaz dropped his arms and obeyed. I wished desperately that I could see his face, but he was blocked by my bulging rucksack, which the subedar was eyeing too.

  “Such a heavy load,” he murmured. “What is your name, friend?”

  I waited, but there was no answer from Riyaz.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” the subedar repeated. His soldiers, apparently having judged that there was no immediate danger, had lowered their guns and were looking on like mildly interested bystanders. “I asked you a simple question. What’s your name?”

  Still Riyaz didn’t answer. The subedar straightened. “You’re quite the talkative fellow, aren’t you?” A few of his soldiers chuckled.

  Say something, for god’s sake! I silently pleaded with Riyaz. But even before the thought was complete, I recalled Amina’s pinched face, her falsely light voice saying, Sometimes, Murgi, I think he wants them to beat him up.

  “Well,” the subedar was saying pleasantly, “if you won’t tell us your name, the least you could do is put that heavy bag of yours down and tell us where you’re going. We’re all bored and we would love to hear that story, wouldn’t we?” He glanced around at the soldiers, who nodded and grinned, evidently well rehearsed for their supporting roles in this bizarre and terrifying play.

  Riyaz said nothing, but, after a pause, he let the straps of my rucksack slide off his shoulders. It hit the ground with a thud. Now I could see his shoulders and back, the sweat staining his kurta.

  “Good,” the subedar said. He made a signal to a young, pimpled soldier, who stepped forward. In a single motion, so swift that I could not have told you exactly what happened, he had hooked his leg behind Riyaz’s. The next moment, Riyaz was lying on the ground on his chest, his legs splayed out behind him. One of his sandals had flown off and was lying a few feet away. Still he made no sound, not even so much as a grunt when his body hit the dirt. Absurdly, I felt a spark of pride.

  “I’m very interested in this bag of yours,” the subedar was saying. “Do you care to tell us what important things you’re carrying? Maybe some black clothes, hm? Maybe you’re one of these robbers everyone is talking about these days. Or maybe”—his eyebrows arched—“maybe you’ve decided to take a secret little trip over the border? Maybe your militant friends are waiting for you there? Shall we take a look inside and see which one is true?”

  This time he didn’t even pretend to wait for an answer. Instead, he nodded to the same pimpled soldier who had tripped Riyaz. I suddenly recogniz
ed him as the one who had complained about his cell phone signal. “Open it,” the subedar ordered.

  The soldier swung his rifle onto his shoulder and heaved my rucksack over. Squatting beside it, he drew the zip open, gripped it with both hands, and shook it hard. I watched as all the belongings I’d hastily stuffed inside fell out in full view of the gaping men—my jeans and T-shirts, my underwear, and, last of all, my bras, flopping onto the dirt. The pimpled soldier leapt back with a cry, flinging away my rucksack as if it contained poison, staring around wild-eyed at the others. The subedar’s composure was gone; he was obviously rattled.

  “What is this?” he demanded of Riyaz, who, honestly this time, had no answer to give.

  At that point, there was a snicker from one of the soldiers. It was past twilight now, so I could not tell which one had laughed. The subedar whipped around. I saw him peer searchingly at each of his men, all of whom stood with downcast eyes, and when he looked back at Riyaz, his expression shifted. A cold, remote implacability entered it.

  “Pick him up,” he ordered.

  The pimpled soldier reluctantly stepped forward again. When he seemed to balk at touching Riyaz, the subedar barked, “I said to pick him up! Are you deaf?”

  The soldier bent down and cupped his hands under Riyaz’s armpits, dragging him onto his feet. The subedar came up and leaned in close to his face. I saw Riyaz raise his head, and I knew he was staring back at him. There was something uncomfortably intimate about such prolonged eye contact, and despite all that I had seen, naïve fool that I was, I really thought, for a mad, hopeful moment, that the subedar was about to let him go.

  Instead, he kicked him. Then he put his hands on Riyaz’s shoulders and drove his knee deep into his stomach. This time Riyaz did make a sound, a deep, wordless grunt that flew to me in my hiding place, making me shut my eyes. If the other soldier hadn’t been holding him up, he would have fallen to the ground again.

  “You Kashmiris,” the subedar said. His voice rang out clear, full of contempt. “There’s something wrong with all of you, I swear.” He tapped his temple. “In your heads.”

  Riyaz’s head was gently bobbing, as if in agreement.

  “I’ve been posted here three times in the past ten years,” the subedar went on, “and the more I see of you people, the more I think you’re all sick. You like wearing ladies’ clothes, eh?” He snorted, letting his eyes sweep in disgust over my bras. “Some days I think we should shoot the lot of you, save ourselves the trouble of dealing with your nonsense from now on. I’m telling you, old, young, man, woman, it doesn’t matter. There’s something wrong with every single one of you. And the longer I stay here, the crazier you all seem to get. Look at that one over there.”

  He turned and pointed to a dark shape on the ground a few feet behind him, and when I saw what it was, all the air seemed to go out of the world. All this while, I’d thought it was a large rock or a mound of dirt, but now that the subedar was pointing, I saw, with chilling clarity, that it was a boy.

  A boy wearing a bulky red sweater, his knees pulled close to his chest in a fetal huddle. A boy of twelve or thirteen, who, as if aware that he was being discussed, raised his head wearily for a few seconds, then dropped it back on his knees.

  And when he saw the child, Riyaz said the first and only words he would speak in front of them: “Yah Allah.”

  “Retarded, that one. Totally mad.” The subedar had returned to his conversational tone, as if the two of them were friends sitting across from each other at a table. “We didn’t realize until later. He can’t talk. Just stares if you try to ask him a question.” He eyed Riyaz. “Sort of like you. Want to know what he did this morning? Sat in a tree and threw shit at us. Shit.” He shook his head. “What kind of child does that? Even after we arrested him, he wouldn’t stop giggling. Totally mad, I’m telling you.”

  There was a moment of stillness, and then—again, it was impossible to tell who moved first, I saw Riyaz wrench one of his arms free of the grip of the soldier who’d been holding him up, I heard the subedar say something sharp, I saw several soldiers step forward at once—and then they were all upon him, with fists, boots, the dull end of rifles. Even if I’d made a sound or stood up then, I don’t think anyone would have heard me. They were chillingly methodical about the way they kicked him, using no more energy than necessary. Time seemed to flatten, to elongate, as they closed in on him, and I crouched in the corn, Riyaz’s command not to show myself still ringing in my ears.

  Riyaz’s command.

  But it isn’t so simple, is it? It cannot be so simple. And if I don’t admit it now, then what good is any of this? These crude and terrible details? As I have said, the chance for nobility is past.

  So: It was not Riyaz’s command that kept me hidden. It was cowardice.

  Through the thicket of legs, I caught sight of him. He was pressed into a shape that seemed to me too small for a person. I could not say how long the beating lasted. Sometimes I think it couldn’t have been more than ten or twenty seconds. At other times, I think it went on for hours.

  And the whole time, I stayed hidden.

  Then the subedar, who had been standing off to the side, said crisply, “Stop.”

  The soldiers stepped back, clearing the space around Riyaz. Now I could see the side of his face. He was still conscious, I noted with craven relief, his fingers curling like an infant’s, his legs moving gingerly in the dirt. The subedar was looking at him with a thoughtful expression.

  I thought it was over, that they would leave, but then the pimpled soldier, the one who’d emptied my rucksack, stepped forward again. Riyaz covered his face, but the soldier was picking up something from the ground, and my heart sank. It was one of my bras. The black cups dangled from his fingers, twirling like the paper streamers in Bashir Ahmed’s room, like the dead crow in its tree. The soldier pulled Riyaz to a sitting position and quickly forced the straps over his shoulders without fastening them. Riyaz’s sat there, his chest crossed by a slash of black.

  “Doesn’t fit,” the pimpled soldier remarked. “Needs one size smaller, I think.”

  The subedar smiled tightly, and, once the rest saw his approval, they laughed.

  “Let’s go,” the subedar said curtly, and then they began to collect their things, backpacks, caps, water bottles. The soldier who’d been holding Riyaz let him go, and he collapsed on his side.

  Another soldier tapped the boy, and he glanced up, unaware, it seemed, of everything that was going on. He barely glanced at Riyaz as he got slowly to his feet, his movements like an old man’s. The soldiers were forming a ragged line, and he fell into step with them. Four soldiers in front of him, four behind. None of them glanced back.

  I waited until I was sure they were gone. Then I hurried to his side.

  “Oh god, Riyaz.” There was a bruise on his left cheek, and I couldn’t bring myself to touch it. It was too intimate, and what had just happened had erased any intimacy that might have existed between us. I touched him on the shoulder instead.

  He rolled onto his back, and my bra came into view. The straps had slipped down onto his elbows. And then, ridiculously, I remembered Bashir Ahmed, holding a white blouse up to his chest, saying solemnly, It even looks good on an ugly man like me. I fought back a sob and eased the straps off his arms, flinging the bra as far into the undergrowth as I could.

  He was struggling to sit up, and I helped him. Now I could see his face. Apart from the bruise on his cheek, his right eye was already swelling, there was a deep cut on his lower lip, and the collar of his kurta was torn. His breath came in snatches, and his eyes were closed.

  “Riyaz,” I whispered again, my voice strangled. “Please say something, please. Tell me if you’re okay. Did they break anything?”

  He shook his head.

  “Are you sure? We have to take you to a hospital. The car is close by. We can—”

  “No,” he croaked, his eyes still squeezed shut.

  “What do you mean, no?
Look at what they did to you! You have to go to a hospital.”

  “No,” he said again.

  Then he opened his eyes, and it was all I could do not to cry. He looked like a stranger. The burning anticipation of earlier was gone. The rare, roguish smile was gone. Even the sullen, dissatisfied man I’d first met was gone. The person who looked at me was empty of desire, empty of fear and longing. Only a flicker of obstinacy remained, somewhere far back in his eyes.

  “The car will be gone by now,” he said.

  “That doesn’t matter,” I said. “We can call Saleem again. We can ask him to send another car, another driver. I—”

  “No!” This time he almost shouted it, or would have, except it came out as a wheeze. He was breathing heavily, his nostrils flaring. Then he pushed himself to his feet, in excruciating stages, like a toddler. I hovered, ready to help him if he fell but somehow knowing that he would not welcome my touch. What had taken place seemed to have put years of distance between us.

  As soon as he was upright, he stumbled with a cry. I leapt forward, but he waved me away. “My leg,” he grimaced. His right ankle had ballooned.

  “Sit down,” I pleaded, but it was as though he hadn’t heard me. He began to hobble around, picking up my clothes, which lay scattered everywhere, some muddied with the imprints of boots. Helpless to argue, I did the same. I shoved them into the rucksack, retrieving the black bra and jamming it at the very bottom. Finally, I zippered the rucksack and turned to him. “Riyaz,” I said quietly. “What do you want?”

  He was gazing over my shoulder. I knew he would never look at me directly again.

  “I want to go home,” he said.

  The darkness solidified as we made our slow way back to the village. Stars appeared in frozen relief. Riyaz had bound his ankle in one of my T-shirts, and I’d found him a sturdy branch to use as a crutch, but he could not walk for more than ten minutes at a stretch without needing to rest.