The Far Field

by Madhuri Vijay

  At one point, I said, “What will happen to that boy?”

  Riyaz, on a rock with his injured leg stretched out, did not reply. I did not ask again.

  It was almost dawn by the time we arrived back at the village. There were the familiar markers: the silver glint of a granite wall, a friendly dog loping up to sniff our feet, a rooster shaking sleep from its crown, the whitewashed walls of the mosque.

  The only person we met was a very old man, coming downhill. He glanced at me and noted Riyaz’s injuries, but all he murmured was, “Salaam alaikum.” His aged skin had the clarity of water. We passed on without another word exchanged. Five minutes later, we heard a crackle, a cough, and then his warbling voice on the mosque loudspeaker, singing the first azan of the day.

  36

  I WOKE IN THE room with mud walls. In my room. On my mattress. I did not know how long I’d been asleep, but my first impression was of all of this having happened before. Waking up to this room, the same delirious exhaustion, the sun cutting a powerful angle across the floor. Hadn’t I just done this? I struggled to put events in their proper order.

  I blinked and turned my head to scan the room, making a half-conscious inventory. The half-painted walls, the white cupboard, the regular wooden beams of the ceiling, my rucksack. Then, in a nauseating rush, I remembered: the soldiers, the boy, Riyaz’s ankle, the excruciating walk back to the village, stumbling into the house just before dawn, falling asleep before my head touched the mattress.

  I gripped the window ledge and stood up. The view from the window was as it had always been, the pressed mud porch, chickens scratching in the flower beds, clothes swaying on the line, but at the same time, it all seemed somehow altered, as if each object and creature had been turned a few inches in the night to reveal a slightly different aspect of itself.

  Wincing at the ache in my muscles, I walked slowly to the door. My rucksack sat upright beside it, demure and dusty, an unsettling reminder of the night’s events. I gave it a vicious kick and it toppled meekly on its side. In the corridor, I looked up and down for signs of life. The door to Riyaz’s bedroom stood wide open. After a second’s hesitation, I peeked in, but the room was empty, with the black backpack tossed carelessly onto his mattress, the sheets twisted and churned. Where had he gone? Could he be with Bashir Ahmed?

  As I stood there, I heard voices at the other end of the house, in the kitchen. I began walking toward them, trying to think. I would have to convince Riyaz, I decided, to seek medical treatment. I would have to convince him to call Saleem. I would—

  I was still moving toward the kitchen and the front door. Outside, I could see my mud-caked shoes, which I’d flung off on reaching the house. There were Riyaz’s mother’s thick plastic sandals. And, puzzlingly, beside them were two pairs of tall, muddy, black boots I’d never seen there before. I stared at these for perhaps a quarter of a second, trying to identify them, and then my throat contracted in fear, my brain screamed at me to turn around, but by that time, it was too late. I was already in view of the kitchen, and the people inside were turning to look at me.

  I stopped, my heart beating wildly.

  Riyaz’s mother sat by the fire, dark shadows under her eyes, slowly stirring a simmering pot of tea with a metal ladle. In the center of the room, leaning back in two plastic chairs that had been brought in from the porch, were the subedar and the young pimpled soldier, the one who’d put the bra on Riyaz and snickered, “Needs one size smaller.”

  Strangely, as soon as they saw me, they scrambled to stand, their heavy dark uniforms incongruous against their bare, exposed feet. But I suddenly ceased to wonder about them, because I’d caught sight of the last person in the kitchen. Standing in the corner, in a furry pink cardigan, with one arm wrapped around her body and the other pinching her lip, was Amina.

  “Murgi,” she said when I came in. And no more.

  I did not know whether to look at her or the two soldiers. The subedar had taken off his cap. It was an odd gesture of respect, but I had no time to wonder about it, because Amina moved forward, smoothly taking charge of the situation.

  “I was just about to wake you,” she said in an ordinary, cheerful voice, as if we’d seen each other only ten minutes ago. “These men have come for you.”

  My head spun. Had I heard her right? For me? I glanced wildly around at the various faces watching me. Where was Riyaz? Was he all right? Had they seen him?

  As if she’d read my thoughts, she said, in that same carefully ordinary voice, “There’s no problem, Murgi. They just want to talk to you, that’s all.” And all the while her brown eyes were looking into my own. She placed no extra emphasis on any of the words, made no unnecessary gesture, but I knew that she was reassuring me, telling me that Riyaz was all right, and was also warning me to say nothing about him. With every ounce of self-control in my possession, I turned to the soldiers. “Yes?” I said.

  The subedar coughed into his hand.

  “I’m so sorry to disturb you so early, madam,” he said apologetically. How could this be the same man who had sneered, Be careful before you call them your friends? The man who, just last night, had said to Riyaz, Some days I think we should shoot the lot of you. He spoke diffidently, his gaze fixed on the ground. “But we have our orders, madam.” He paused. “From Brigadier Reddy.”

  I glanced at Amina for help, but I could see at a glance that she’d never heard this name either. “Who?” I asked.

  “Brigadier Reddy, madam. He has asked us to escort you to the camp in Udhampur.” The subedar’s tone was hushed, reverential. “He’s a very important man, madam, Brigadier Reddy.”

  “You’ve made a mistake,” I said slowly. “I don’t know any Brigadier Reddy. I’ve never—”

  Then I broke off, recalling, like a blow to the belly, the number I’d entered into my phone before leaving Bangalore. My father’s friend, the one I’d promised to look up and never did.

  My father had finally found me.

  The subedar was evidently ill at ease, shifting from one foot to another, but his subordinate, the pimpled young soldier, was gazing around the kitchen with open, undisguised interest. Without warning, my anger overflowed.

  “What are you looking at?” I hissed at him. “This isn’t your house!”

  The pimpled soldier flushed and muttered something to the subedar. “Please forgive him, madam,” the subedar said. “He says it reminds him of his mother’s kitchen in Bihar.”

  I looked at the pimpled soldier, trying to remind myself that he was the one who had humiliated Riyaz, but as hard as I tried, I could not connect him to the cowardly, cackling bully of last night. I wondered whether or not his mother in Bihar knew the half of what his job entailed.

  Misreading my silence, the subedar hastened to reassure me. “I will deal with him later, madam,” he said. “But right now, I am requesting you to accompany us. We must take you to brigadier sir’s house by this evening.”

  And then, as if my head had been underwater all this while, I realized what they were asking. I saw again the forest of their legs closing in around Riyaz, heard the blows, saw the dust fly up, and I felt something splinter at the center of my chest.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you!” I cried. “Understand! Who do you think you are, you—”

  There was no telling what I might have said next if Amina had not stepped in right then. She crossed the kitchen and put her arm around me. To them, it must have looked like a gesture of fondness, of sisterly affection, but her grip was viselike. Shut up, it told me, and I did.

  “Please excuse us,” she said politely to the soldiers. “We will come back in a few minutes.” She began to guide me firmly out of the kitchen. What’s happening? I wanted to ask her, but she gave me no chance, steering me instead up the corridor. As soon as we were in my room, she let her arm fall away from my shoulders. She closed the door and faced me.

  “It was them!” I shouted, near tears. “They’re the ones from last night!”

>   She put her finger to her lips and gestured in the direction of the kitchen.

  “But how did they find me?” I cried, dropping my voice to a strangled whisper. “The brigadier—Amina, that’s my father’s friend—so my father must know, but how? Who told him?”

  Amina had been quiet this whole time. Now she looked up and said, “I did.”

  My body went cold. “You?”

  She nodded. “I asked Riyaz to contact the people you stayed with in Kishtwar. They’re the ones who called your father.” She straightened her back. “Murgi,” she said firmly. “I’m asking you to go with them. With the soldiers.”

  I stared at her.

  “Go with them,” she repeated. “Otherwise they will hold it against us, and they will come back. And if Riyaz is here, then it will be ten times worse for him. For all of us. Please go with them, and don’t say anything about Riyaz or what happened last night.”

  “You know about what happened?” I whispered.

  She nodded.

  “Where is Riyaz? Is he all right?”

  “He will be. He went to the doctor. Mohammad Din is taking care of him, so don’t worry.”

  I looked up sharply, my heart quickening. “Amina,” I said. “I have to tell you something.”

  “Now?” She glanced toward the door. “They’re waiting.”

  “It’s important. You need to know.”

  I tried to think how to begin. How was I to tell her that a person she loved, the person who had been the sole reason for her family’s survival these past several years, was the one who had been responsible for destroying it in the first place? Would she even believe me?

  She was waiting for me to speak. She looked wrung out and exhausted; it must have been very early in the morning when she started out to make her way back to the village. Unconsciously, her hand went up to tuck a strand of hair behind her head, and she began to chew on her lip.

  I said, “I was there, Amina. I saw how the soldiers beat up Riyaz. They didn’t see me, but I was there. And I did nothing about it.”

  She frowned. “That’s what you wanted to tell me?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  She was quiet. There was nothing she needed to say, really.

  “Amina, I’m very sorry,” I said. “About everything.”

  The words seemed to cause her pain, because she closed her eyes, then quickly opened them. When she spoke again, her voice was perfectly even.

  “I think, Murgi,” she said, “that it’s time for you to go home.”

  We looked at each other a moment longer; then I nodded.

  I looked one last time about the room, and my eyes fell on my dusty, battered rucksack. “They saw it,” I said quickly. “Last night. They would recognize it if I carried it out there.”

  Her eyes narrowed. She picked my rucksack up and crossed the room, shoving it to the back of the cupboard and quickly locking it in.

  “What are you going to do with it?” I asked.

  She did not hesitate. “Burn it.”

  We went back to the kitchen. The two soldiers jumped to their feet again as soon as they saw me. Amina slipped away from my side and went over to her mother-in-law. Standing shoulder to shoulder, the two women watched me, as did the soldiers, all of them waiting for me to speak, waiting for me to announce my decision.

  “I’ll go with you,” I said.

  The subedar gave an audible sigh of relief. “Thank you, madam,” he said.

  I followed them outside, where they laced up their boots, while I slipped my feet into my stained, worn shoes. Amina had come to stand on the porch, arms crossed, in her pink cardigan.

  Once the soldiers were ready, the subedar glanced at me. “Ready, madam?”

  I nodded.

  We began to walk away, then I heard Amina call out, “Wait!”

  She was hurrying up to me. In one fierce motion, she threw her arms around my shoulders and hugged me tight. Her mouth was at my ear, a warm, breathing presence. Tears came to my eyes, but just as I was about to return her embrace, I felt her moving; she was reaching into the pocket of her cardigan; she was drawing something out and pushing it against my stomach. Mechanically, I grasped it, and my fingers recognized the soft paper, the stack of money.

  “You forgot something,” she breathed. “I was going to call you Murgi, but that’s not your name, is it? I’ll have to try to remember that. Bye, Shalini. Have a safe trip home.”

  She stepped back, a harsh little smile hammered to her lips. I could feel the soldiers watching us curiously. I turned from her and walked past them, up the trail that led to the main path. After a few seconds, I heard the crunch of their boots behind me.

  We walked without speaking, except for the subedar, who asked every ten minutes if I needed to rest. The change in his attitude, now that he knew I had a connection to someone as important as the brigadier, was remarkable. He was solicitous, making sure I was given frequent sips of water from a plastic bottle the young soldier carried for him. At one point, he fell into step beside me, clearly wrestling with something he wanted to say.

  “Madam,” he burst out finally, “when I met you the other day, while you were going for your walk, when I helped you find your way back to the village—what I said that day, it was a joke, madam. I would not have done anything to you, I swear. It was just a joke.”

  “Let’s see if the brigadier finds it funny,” I said flatly.

  His face twisted with fear and anger, and he did not try to talk to me again.

  I cannot remember the route we took. I walked blindly, aware only that after more than two hours, we came to a rough road hacked into the mountainside, ending abruptly in a jumble of uncleared rock and dirt, the same place, I assumed, where Saleem’s driver had waited in vain for me last night. I couldn’t help looking around, but there were no cars in sight. Only two army vehicles waited, parked back to back: a jeep and a covered truck.

  The subedar jumped down onto the road and thudded his palm on the driver’s side door, where a third soldier was asleep behind the wheel. He started, blinking, then quickly saluted. The subedar opened the back door of the jeep and stood aside. This was clearly meant for me, but I ignored him. I was staring instead at the covered truck. Two tarpaulin flaps concealed whatever was within. My heart began to race; I was thinking of the boy in the red sweater.

  It would have been so easy. Take two strides forward, rip the flaps open.

  “Madam,” the subedar said. “Please get in.”

  Move, I thought. Just move. But my legs wouldn’t obey. Nothing, surely I would find nothing inside. An empty truck, that’s all it was. That’s all it was.

  “Madam,” the subedar said, his tone harder now, “you have a very long way to go before you can rest. Please get into the jeep.”

  I got into the jeep, head meekly lowered. The subedar slammed the door shut, and the driver brought the engine coughing and sputtering to life. Leaning back, I looked in the side mirror of the jeep, half hoping that I would see some sign of movement against the smooth tarpaulin skin of the truck and half hoping that I wouldn’t. But just then the driver reached out a hand to adjust the mirror, turning it slightly inward so that it showed me only my face.

  37

  BY THE TIME WE arrived in Udhampur, the mountains seemed to have shrunk to nearly nothing, small and unthreatening and obscured by fog. We entered the cantonment, and right away I could sense the order, the underlying sense of authority. The streets were ruler-straight, lined with neat culverts. Even the trees, planted at regular intervals, seemed to grow at the same angle. I saw a heavily pregnant woman on an evening walk, cell phone pressed to her ear; two boys with cricket bats; a soldier on a bicycle, his knees thrown wide. Another soldier stood before a closed gate. We passed the tank in its grassy circle, its barrel painted in stripes.

  The brigadier’s house was a tan-colored bungalow with a large garden in front. It had the austere, regimented feel of barracks, despite the unruly spray of lavender bougainvil
lea that floated down from the terrace. I got out of the car, and the driver sped away. I opened the low gate and walked toward the front door, which was strung with chilies and limes to ward off the evil eye. A wrought-iron table and two chairs had been set up on the lawn, which was blue in the evening light. I could see the remains of a tea service: a silver teapot, a cup and saucer.

  The door was opened by a short, slender man, with the smooth, unlined face of someone from the northeast. He wore a civilian’s blue shirt tucked into dark trousers, but there could be no doubt he was a soldier. He seemed unsurprised to see me. For a second, I thought he was the brigadier, but then he said, in English, “Brigadier sahib is in his study. Please come in.”

  He led me to the living room. I sat on the edge of an elaborately carved sofa and looked around. The room was dimly lit by a pair of lamps, and it was filled with objects that had obviously been chosen with care: paisley silk curtains, a royal-blue Kashmiri carpet, a carved rosewood coffee table under a sheet of green glass. Objects occupied every wall and surface: a sleek onyx Buddha, the stone bust of a woman, garishly painted masks, mustard-skinned Rajasthani puppets, mirrored tapestries, and wooden fans. The opulence made me doubly aware of my grimy clothes, the sweat in my armpits, the dust of travel in my hair.

  Then the brigadier entered the room, and, this time, there could be no doubt of who he was. He, too, was dressed in civilian clothes, but he carried himself with the quiet confidence of someone who took authority so much as his due that he was not made pompous by it. He was tall and sinewy, his hair was combed neatly to one side, and his dark, broad-cheeked face was clean-shaven and wreathed in a smile. His eyes, which held an eager, boyish light, made his exact age impossible to tell.

  “Good evening,” he said, in soft, British-inflected English, coming toward me with both hands stretched out, as if I were a visiting dignitary. “I’m so glad that you’ve finally arrived. How was your journey? I trust everything was comfortable?”