The Far Field

by Madhuri Vijay

  The Alliance Française was a white building set amongst tall trees in an old and stately part of Bangalore. I parked and climbed a set of wide red steps through the door and into a square courtyard, around which Hari’s photographs had been arranged in white frames. People milled around, and a DJ, a pretty young woman with dreadlocks, played music in a corner. I could not spot Hari, so I walked slowly around, looking at the photographs. They were all ones I recognized; I’d stood outside the frame for some of them, the homeless man with the crushed plastic bottles for sandals, the children with their bloated bellies and sandy hair, the toothless old woman beside her dusty vegetables on the pavement. I still could not think of them as good photographs, prettily composed as they were, but I finally saw in them something of Hari’s huge and well-meaning heart, which, admittedly, asked none of the difficult questions, but which had once opened itself to me for the same reason.

  I was about to turn and look for Hari again when I stopped, because I was looking at a photograph of myself. I knew it was me, even though the figure appeared only in silhouette. The photo was taken from below, and showed me sitting on the ledge with the water tank on Hari’s terrace, the sky behind me tangled with clouds. The colors were vivid: the violent blue, the whipped-up white, and my silhouette so black, leaning so far forward any viewer would think I wished to fall. My eyes moved to the white card pasted to the wall beside it. Safety, the card read.

  “Do you like it?” a voice said behind me, and I turned. It was Hari. He wore a kaffiyeh around his neck, the fringed black-and-white tassels drooping over his Free Tibet T-shirt.

  “I like it very much,” I said. “I had no idea you took it.”

  “Well, you weren’t exactly paying attention to much back then.” He came up to stand beside me. “So you’re back. Your dad said you had gone on a trip.”

  “I had,” I said. “I only got back recently.”

  “I was worried, you know. When you disappeared. I couldn’t even reach your phone. I tried calling you probably fifty times.”

  “I’m sorry, Hari. I really am. It was a terrible thing to do.”

  He didn’t reply. His eyes were following the pretty young DJ, who had now left her station and was crossing the room, approaching us.

  “Congratulations on the show,” I said. “It’s very exciting.”

  “Thanks,” he said absently. “So, if I can ask, where’d you go on your mysterious trip?”

  “To Kashmir,” I said.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Kashmir? Were you living on a houseboat?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “I went to Kashmir once when I was a kid. My parents decided one winter they wanted to ski. They were nostalgic for Europe, I guess. All I remember was this guy at the hotel where we stayed. He was a huge fellow with a beard. He terrified me. Then, of course, the place went to shit, and we never went back.”

  The dreadlocked DJ was almost upon us, and I saw Hari’s face change, saw a light come into it, and I realized that my father had been wrong. There would be no reconciliation with Hari. Here too I had done too much damage.

  “Well,” Hari said, shrugging, “welcome back, I guess. And enjoy the show.”

  He walked away toward the DJ, and together they approached a group and began talking. I saw her arm, flashing with a dozen bracelets and bangles, slip around his waist.

  I turned away, not knowing what I felt, and at the same moment, my cell phone began to vibrate in my pocket. I drew it out, and my heart leapt at the number. I hurried out into the evening air, taking deep breaths to calm myself. Then I picked up and said, “Hello?”

  “Hello,” said a soft, musical voice on the other end. “This is Saleem.”

  I stopped at the top of the red steps. Why was it Saleem who was calling? Where was Zoya?

  “Hello,” I said. “How are you?”

  “Fine, alhamdulillah.” And I heard in his voice, too, the new, stiff tone, the forced politeness not so different from Hari’s. And suddenly I was afraid.

  “Are you with Zoya Aunty? Is she okay?”

  “Yes, I am at their house. They are both fine.”

  “I’m glad. I thought—”

  He cleared his throat. “They have asked me,” he said, as if reading an official declaration, “to request you not to contact them again.”

  I sat on the step with a thud, the world going briefly dark around me. “What did you say?”

  “I am sorry,” he said. “I am simply conveying their request.”

  “But why?” I whispered.

  Instead of answering, Saleem asked, “Tell me, do you know someone called Brigadier Sameer Reddy?”

  My head came up so fast that a pain shot through the back of my neck. “What?”

  “You know this name?”

  “Yes, he—” I stopped. “Why? Did something happen?”

  More silence. Then Saleem sighed. “Last Friday,” he said, “this Brigadier Reddy came with some of his soldiers to the village where you stayed. They came to the home of Riyaz Batt.”

  I could have screamed. “Please,” I begged. “What are you saying? What soldiers?”

  But he ignored me. “They made the whole family come into one room. Then this Brigadier Reddy said he’d got a complaint about Riyaz, and they took him away.”

  “What complaint?” I whispered.

  “It was all nonsense. Something about a little boy. I couldn’t understand it all. They arrested him on the spot. His family has not seen him in a week.”

  “No!” I screamed it so loudly that the buzz of talk from inside the building was momentarily silenced. “You’re lying!”

  Saleem was unmoved. “Why would I lie to you about something like that?”

  “Where did they take him?” I asked desperately.

  A bitter note entered his voice. “If we knew that, do you think we would not go straight there and find him?”

  “But you must know something,” I begged. “You must know—”

  “Enough!” Saleem roared. “How can it be that you still don’t understand? Even after everything Zoya showed you, after you found out about Ishfaaq, how can you still be surprised? They can do anything. They can take him anywhere. He is gone.“

  Saleem paused, as though collecting himself. Then he continued, “His wife is in Kishtwar to file a case for him. Zoya is helping her. Inshallah, they will be able to locate him.”

  “Amina? She’s there? In Kishtwar?” I whispered.

  “Yes,” he said. “She is here. She’s staying in Zoya’s house.”

  And just like that, I saw Amina sitting with Zoya in the hall, Mohammad Latief next to them, the blue thermos of tea laid out on the ground, along with three teacups. Amina, with her pink cardigan, toying with her scarf. Zoya leaning over to command her to eat; Amina giving her a wan smile. I found I could not breathe, and it was with difficulty I brought myself back to Saleem.

  “It is my fault,” Saleem was saying. The anger had gone, and he sounded merely sad. “I was the one who suggested you visit their village. If I had not done that, none of this would have happened. That poor man would be at home. So in a way it is all my fault.”

  “Please,” I said. “Please, just let me speak to someone. Let me speak to Zoya … or Amina … please … just for a minute …”

  He sighed. “I’m afraid it is not possible.”

  “But I have to do something!”

  “We are doing something,” he said coldly. “You have done enough. Now I must go.”

  The call went dead against my ear.

  Behind me, the people at Hari’s show were still milling around. Their soft murmurs reached me from what seemed like another universe. I heard the tinkling of music, then the abrupt sound of someone shattering a glass. There was a shocked silence, followed by a gale of laughter.

  I tried Zoya’s number again, but it simply rang and rang and rang.

  At home, my father was bent over his laptop at the dining table, tapping the keys with his index fingers.
It was an email, and I wondered dully if it was to the woman, Jaya. How much had he told her about me during my absence? Did she know that I’d run away? Did she know that I was back?

  When I walked in, he stopped typing and took off his glasses.

  “How was it?” he asked, smiling.

  “Wonderful,” I lied. “Appa, can I ask you something? Do you have the brigadier’s number?”

  “Sameer? Of course I do, but why? Is there a problem?”

  I saw the worry in his face and assumed a cheerful tone. “No, not at all. Actually, I just wanted to thank him. For his hospitality.”

  My father face cleared. “That’s a lovely idea. I’m glad you thought of it.” He reached for his phone and scrolled through it. “Here,” he said. “Use mine.”

  “Thanks, Appa,” I said, and then I impulsively kissed the top of his head.

  He blinked. “What was that for?”

  “No reason,” I said. I went upstairs, closed the door to my room, and locked it. I sat on the edge of the bed and called the number. It rang several times, then I heard Ramchand’s soft voice saying, “Hello.”

  “I want to speak to him,” I said through clenched teeth.

  “Sorry, who is speaking?”

  “Ramchand, you know who this is. Give the phone to the brigadier.”

  “I’m sorry, brigadier sahib is busy.”

  “Give it to him!” I screamed, only to hear my father’s anxious voice from downstairs. “Everything okay?” he called up.

  “Everything’s fine,” I called back. Then I dropped my voice to a whisper. “Ramchand, give him the goddamn phone, otherwise I swear I’ll track down his wife and son wherever the fuck they are and tell them everything.”

  There was a clink, and I thought he’d hung up; then I realized he had only placed the phone on the silver tray. After ten seconds or so, during which my palms began to sweat, I heard the brigadier’s languorous, “Good evening, Reddy speaking.”

  “You’re finished,” I hissed. “Your fucking career is over. You fucking asshole.”

  “Goodness,” he said, “that’s certainly an interesting way to start a conversation.”

  “You lied to me. You said you would arrest those soldiers. You fucking lied!”

  “On the contrary,” he said, “all I promised was that I would do something, and I did. The boy you saw, you’ll be happy to know, is back at home with his family.”

  “And what about Riyaz?”

  “Riyaz? Oh, yes. Your friend. Well, he hadn’t done much harm to the boy, thank goodness.”

  “He did nothing to him! It was your soldiers!”

  “I beg your pardon,” he said, “but the boy tells it very differently.”

  I thought of the boy’s eyes as I had glimpsed them that night, the blankness, the utter absence of thought. What had they done to the poor child to extract such a confession? They probably hadn’t needed to do much.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” the brigadier said, “but I assure you, the boy was very forthcoming in his testimony. He seemed quite happy to talk. And when my chaps searched your friend’s house, they found a weapon. That was, as they say, the clinching evidence.”

  “A weapon?”

  “A gun,” he said pleasantly.

  “That?” I could hardly get the words out. “That’s for crows!”

  “For crows? How interesting. I’ll have to write that one down. Anyway, be that as it may, my chaps know a threat when they see one. I’m afraid we had no choice but to arrest him.”

  “You asshole.” It was all I could manage. “You asshole.”

  “As you keep saying.”

  “I’ll go to the media,” I said suddenly. “I’ll go to the newspapers.”

  A beat too late, I realized I had said precisely the thing he had been waiting for. The mask of urbanity slipped away, his tone changed, turned icy. “Be my guest, Shalini,” he said. “But do you mind if I give you some advice about talking to the press? Make sure you enunciate, because they’re not very smart, those journalist bobbies. They tend to get excited and mix things up. They’ll want to know about how you ended up with those Kashmiri villagers, who, I might mention, have a long and colorful history of militancy. You’ll have to explain your relationship to your friend—what was his name? Riyaz? Late night walks, hiding in the corn, and him with a wife and child … they’ll love that.” His drawl became exaggerated. “And they’ll want to know all about you, too, of course, and about your family. Which means, sadly, you’ll have to answer questions about your mother and how she died. Can of insect repellent, yes? Wasn’t that what I remembered hearing? Nasty business. Oh, and don’t forget your father. I’m sure he’d be only too delighted to cooperate with the press. He won’t mind a dozen cameras flashing in his face when he goes out to get the newspaper, reporters shouting questions about his daughter’s links to Kashmiri terrorists. In fact, he’d probably enjoy it a great deal, wouldn’t you think?”

  He paused, perhaps to let me speak, but I had nothing to say. I was thinking of my father at the table downstairs, his fingers tapping away at the keys, his ear tuned for any sound of distress from upstairs, from me.

  “You know,” said the brigadier, “it has to be said that your behavior in this whole matter hasn’t been exactly aboveboard either. Running away from home without telling anyone, landing up in some godforsaken village in the middle of nowhere. Not the actions of an innocent. But then”—and here he laughed nastily—“one could hardly accuse you of being an innocent, could one?”

  I stared at the wooden animal on my bedside table.

  “It would seem I’ve lost you,” said the brigadier pleasantly. “What a shame.”

  For the third time that evening, a call went dead against my ear.

  39

  I AM THIRTY YEARS old and that is nothing. The world has changed every instant I’ve been alive. It has been six years since I went looking for Bashir Ahmed, six years since I returned to the city where I was born, a city grown and mutated beyond all recognition, and where I still live. Living, which, in my case, means the work that I do, the few friends that I’ve made, the weekly dinners I eat across from my father, and all the empty hours that fall in between.

  I have thought every day about the people I left in the mountains. I have thought of Riyaz. I have wondered if Zoya helped Amina to find him and what was done to him in the meantime. I have thought about Bashir Ahmed in his room, and about Riyaz’s mother, who never trusted me. I’ve thought about Aaqib and what he will come to think of me in the future, or if he will even remember the time when a woman from Bangalore lived in his house. I have thought about Mohammad Din, who, like me, must live every day with the knowledge of what he has done.

  I have thought about them all. I have not tried to do more.

  For six years, I have given myself one reason or another for not speaking, for not acting. Most of the reasons in one way or another had to do with sparing my father, but all of them are, in truth, intended to spare myself. Even two summers ago, when a fifteen-year-old boy was shot by the army in Srinagar while coming home from school, and I watched hundreds of enraged men and women spill out onto the streets, risking their lives, I managed to say nothing. But it is enough now. I am aware that I am taking no risks by recounting any of this, that, for people like me, safe and protected, even the greatest risk is, ultimately, an indulgence. I am aware of the likely futility of all that I have told here, and, I am aware, too, of the thousand ways I have tried to excuse myself in the telling of it. All the same, whatever the flaws of this story or confession or whatever it has turned out to be, let it stand.

  Six years ago, a few months after that final, awful phone call with the brigadier, I drove myself to the agency. Ritu got up from her desk and hugged me with unfeigned warmth. “Jesus,” she said, “look at you. You’ve lost so much weight. I’m jealous.”

  “I’d like to come back,” I said. “To work.”

  Her face clouded over “We’ve got a
full staff,” she began, but seeing my expression, she quickly added, “but maybe I could find something for you. We couldn’t hire you full time, so it would be project-to-project. I realize that’s probably not what you …”

  “That sounds perfect,” I said firmly. “Thank you.”

  And that was how I came to spend the following weeks driving around in my car, checking the pollution levels within a ten-kilometer radius of every school in the city, using a paper map and an outdated handheld meter that beeped stridently before it gave a reading. After that, Ritu found other jobs for me, scraps of work that paid almost nothing, but provided me with a sense of purpose and, strangely enough, protection, for which I was grateful. The work I did for her was conscientious and careful, and, after two years, she took me back full time.

  And it was around then that I told my father I wanted to move out of our house and find my own flat. He began to cry but kept saying, “No, I’m happy, I’m happy, I am.”

  Jaya, the woman my father had been corresponding with, arrived in Bangalore soon after my return. She stayed a week at the Oberoi, and she and my father went out to dinner three times. I met her, as well. She was short and no-nonsense, wore glasses, and had a big laugh, and I liked her right away. At the end of the week, she flew back to San Jose, both she and my father promising to correspond further before making any decisions.

  A few days later, she wrote to say that she had given it a lot of thought, and while she had truly liked my father, she had decided to remain in the U.S. She could not leave her practice, she said, the patients with whom she’d built relationships over decades. My father was disappointed, but not, I think, devastated. Some part of him, I suspected, was probably even relieved, for he never again talked about remarrying. He and Jaya continue to correspond, writing long emails back and forth, in which they discuss everything about their lives. These days, in conversation, he refers to her with affection as “my wise doctor friend.”

  He had a minor heart attack last month. “Not even a tickle,” he kept insisting, but I spent five nights with him in St. John’s after his bypass surgery, watching his face as he slept, then watching the crucifix on the wall, smiling to myself at the knowledge—no, the certainty—that if my mother had been there, she would have stood up and put it in a drawer.