Their Language of Love

by Bapsi Sidhwa

  ‘It’s true. No matter what happens to their charges, dead, alive or wounded, the mules are trained to carry them across the border to the refugee camps in Pakistan. They’re sure-footed animals; they use routes inaccessible even to the mujahedeen.’

  A few days later, Rick was off on another tour. As always, Ruth saw him off at the airport. ‘I’ll miss you,’ Ruth said. ‘Please be back soon.’

  Rick was taken aback. She was not in the habit of saying such things. He looked at her keenly, and was touched by the look of sadness that etched new lines on her face. ‘I love you,’ she said and he was concerned to see his normally composed and cheerful wife looking so lost and forlorn.

  ‘Anything I should know about? Are the children all right?’ he asked kindly.

  ‘They’re fine; don’t worry,’ she said, moving her eyes away from him. She was suddenly swamped by images of their life together, of the way Rick had stayed awake nights when the children were teething … and later when they started school he helped nurse them through bouts of flu and frighteningly high fevers—and an almost unending series of colds till they outgrew them.

  Her face was flushed and she appeared on the verge of crying. ‘You were a good dad,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll come back as soon as I can, darling,’ he said. The gentleness in his voice and his use of an endearment he had all but forgotten the use of, caused the tears brimming in her eyes to slip down her cheeks. She was acutely embarrassed, knowing there were many curious eyes on them. As foreigners they were accustomed to being stared at, but Ruth’s flaming face and demeanour was attracting more notice. ‘I’m sorry, making a spectacle …’

  ‘Don’t be,’ Rick said, handing her his handkerchief. ‘I miss you too when I’m away.’

  This was news to Ruth and she searched his face.

  ‘If you feel this way I’ll arrange for us to return home … I’ll ask to be transferred back.’

  ‘Don’t do that,’ Ruth said, alarmed. ‘I like it here—I love the adventure you have brought into my life … only don’t leave me alone so much.’

  ‘I’ll arrange for Allen to travel more … he’ll like that.’

  Ruth did something she never would have in public—she stepped closer and lay her head on his chest. She was grateful that instead of being embarrassed, Rick placed a protective arm around her.

  Eventually, as always, Rick received a new posting, this time to the increasingly important Middle East, and Ruth’s time in Pakistan ended. Even in the years following her departure—through the Middle East, and her eventual return to America—Ruth still felt a strong imprint of her time in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The memories lingered, and she would find herself dwelling on the magnificence of the Hindu Kush and the Karakoram mountains, the highway that followed the old Silk Route along the Indus into China. She would think sometimes of Raj and the ways in which he had enriched her life, of the tunnel beneath the temple where she had transcended herself; and of Abdul Abbas lashed to his mule, escaping across the Afghan border to a refugee camp and back into exile.

  In 2001, when those remote areas intruded upon the American consciousness, it was not in any way to give satisfaction. The surreal manifestation of airplanes flying smack into the Twin Towers on 9/11 awakened Americans to a confused awareness of other parts of the world and to the danger lurking in the anger that was boiling at perceived American meddling in the affairs of their countries to advance American interests.

  During their tenure in Washington DC, Rick joined the Brookings Institute and Ruth settled into the role of a DC housewife. She joined the Friends of Pakistan Women’s Association, and occasionally forayed into the intricate world of the DC think-tank, with whom Rick often worked as an adviser.

  Her and Rick’s continuing interest in Afghanistan took them one day to a think-tank conference earmarked as ‘Prospects for Afghanistan’s Future; Accessing the Outcome of the Afghan Presidential Election’. During the talks, her attention was briefly caught by a clean-shaven man sitting with the panel on the dais: he looked oddly familiar. When he walked up to the mike to speak, she became breathless—engulfed by a feeling of déjà vu that transported her to the dinner for the visiting polo team at the Punjab Club in Lahore, when, from a distance, she had glimpsed Abdul Abbas.

  This man spoke in fluent English with an American accent and a faint inflection that Ruth recognized as Afghan. It occurred to her that by now Abdul Abbas would be much older than this man at the mike. Confident and assertive, he sounded the panel’s voice of doom, saying that the US Embassy in Kabul was running around without a plan; that the Taliban held at least 40 per cent of the country and matters were getting worse. When he finished speaking, the crowded hall was so stunned by his pessimistic outlook that there was a moment of dead silence before the applause.

  When, after a brief Q&A session, she and Rick walked up to the man, his resemblance to Abdul Abbas was so striking that she was sure he was his son.

  He was. His name was Zalmai. After they had introduced themselves, he said: ‘My parents mentioned you. They wondered where you were—they would have liked to meet you.’

  The use of the past tense alarmed Ruth. She wondered if one or both of them had passed on; they would be old by now.

  ‘How are Abdul Abbas and Nabila?’ she inquired hesitantly.

  ‘They’re doing okay, considering their age,’ said Zalmai. ‘Father had a minor stroke, but he is quite recovered.’

  ‘I’m so glad he’s well. Is he still in New Mexico?’

  ‘He was able to return to Kabul. But our house there was completely destroyed,’ Abdul Abbas’s son went on to explain. ‘My parents and Abdullah, my oldest brother, returned to reconstruct the house … after that, they decided to live permanently in Kabul.’

  ‘Has the house been restored? Is it safe?’

  ‘It’s looking better than ever … Yes, Kabul is safe, for the moment at least.’

  ‘They invited us to dinner at the house,’ Ruth said. ‘We even visited your ancestral fort.’

  She became aware that a knot of people had gathered about them, bubbling with impatience to claim Zalmai’s attention. Rick glanced at Ruth: ‘I think people are waiting to speak to the guest speaker, dear.’

  Ruth knew he was right, that she should step back, but she lingered. ‘Do you think we could visit them … go to Kabul again?’ she said wistfully, glancing at Rick.

  ‘I suppose we could,’ said Rick slowly. Then, as the prospect of revisiting a more adventurous and rewarding period of his life soaked in, he said: ‘It’s not as if we don’t have the time—Abdul Abbas was a dear friend … I would like to see him and Nabila.’

  ‘I wouldn’t advise it,’ said Zalmai, becoming suddenly almost curt.

  ‘But you said it’s safe,’ Ruth said, crestfallen.

  ‘Not for them … You would put them at risk,’ Zalmai said, making no attempt to soften his tone or disguise the bite of impatience that gave his voice a harsh edge. ‘If they are seen to be fraternizing with Americans, their lives would be on the line. Despite what we like to think in this country, the Americans, with their military footprint, are considered occupiers.’

  Ruth felt suddenly on the verge of tears.

  Zalmai noticed the tears in Ruth’s eyes and softened as quickly as he’d been angered. ‘Perhaps you can go in a few years,’ he said, his kinder tone acknowledging their claim to more consideration as old friends of his parents. ‘Once things have settled a bit …’

  He put an arm around her and gave Ruth the kind of affectionate hug one reserves for good friends. He took the hand Rick held out in both of his, in the old Pashtun way Ruth remembered. ‘I hope we meet again,’ he said with genuine feeling before he turned to the small bunch of people waiting to speak to him.

  As they moved away Ruth was glad—at least he had no compunctions about touching unrelated women.

  The Trouble-Easers

  It is Friday, the day to remember the angels Behram-Yazad and Mushkail-Asa
an.

  Crouched in slim-waisted, long-limbed glory, her buoyant bottom solemnly skimming the oblong brick, Mother diligently mops the bedroom floor. She closes all the doors and disappears into the bathroom.

  I dawdle on the bed, absently attuned to the sky-blue dazzle of spring outside the window, the shrill trill of distantly wheeling kites, the buzz of servants talking in the kitchen.

  The prayer cap slips down my forehead and makes it itch. I become impatient. I wish Mother would get along with the ceremonial story, and not take so long with her preliminary prayers. I hear the swish-swish of the kusti as she whips the sacred-thread, woven out of sixty-four strands of wool, behind her to banish evil. She will tie the thread thrice round her waist, knotting it in the front and in the back, and, so, gird her loins in the service of the Lord.

  When Mother emerges from the bathroom—the gauzy scarf covering her head tied in a soft loop beneath her chin, her face pious—the bedroom air smells holy. And she has not even lit the joss-sticks or the fire yet.

  I help her spread the durrie on the brick floor, and, on it, a spotless sheet. It is immaculate except for a few holes burnt by errant sparks from previous prayer-fires. Mother places the fire-altar tray, with its portion of sandalwood shavings and frankincense, in the centre of the sheet. Around it she arranges a portrait of our prophet Zarathushtra—one finger raised to remind us of the one and only God—and of the ragged-looking, saint Mushkail-Asaan (literally: Trouble-Easer). A silver bowl containing water, a mirror, chickpeas and jagged lumps of crystallized sugar, complete the arrangements.

  I take my place across Mother. Shaded by the scarf, her features acquire sharper definition. The chin, tipped to a dainty point, curves deep. The lips, full, firm, taper from a lavish ‘M’ in wide wings, their outline etched with the clarity of cut crystal. The soft curve of her cheeks is framed by a jaw as delicately oval as an egg. The hint of remoteness, common to such classically sculpted beauty, is overwhelmed by the exuberance and innocence that marks her personality. Mother is luscious beyond bearing. My heart beats fast. She does not look at me. I am observing an aspect of her that is too private. A shy and guilty voyeur, I remove my eyes from her face.

  We sit cross-legged. Praying under her breath in sibilant whispers, Mother lights the joss-sticks, and arranging the sandalwood in a crisscross pattern atop a thin bed of ashes in the fire-altar, sets it alight with a match-stick. Turning her face slightly to avoid the smoke, she gently fans the sandalwood to start a crackling little fire the size of the palm of my hand. She adds a pinch of frankincense and the room is so filled with smoke and fragrance that I can already feel the presence of the angels. My eyes and my nose water.

  At last Mother utters in Gujarati—the language adopted by the Parsees when they came to India—the words that will usher in the story of Pir Khurkain and Mushkail-Asaan.

  ‘Once upon a time there was a wood-cutter named Pir Khurkain.’

  ‘Ji-re-ji,’ I respond reverently. Yes ji yes.

  I too have a part to play. Each time Mother comes to the end of a sentence I must say, ‘Ji re ji.’ If I fail to respond promptly, Mother peeks into the mirror and quickly says: ‘Yes ji yes,’ to herself, becoming both the teller and the listener, and I am done out of my rightful part.

  Right through the ceremony we shell the small golden chickpeas and collect them in a dish. The dark discarded husk floats in the silver bowl. The bowl’s contents will be chastely tipped into a gardenia hedge or a flower-pot later.

  As the story progresses my mother’s pure, rich voice picks up the spellbinding rhythm of all great tellers of tales: it is a simple story, simply told.

  Once upon a time there was a woodcutter.

  ‘Yes ji yes.’

  Every day he chopped wood and provided for his wife and daughter.

  ‘Yes ji yes.’

  One day his neighbours were cooking liver. The aroma from the frying liver drifted to his house and made his daughter’s mouth water.

  ‘Yes ji yes.’

  The girl wondered, ‘What excuse shall I make to visit their house?’ She decided she would call on them to ask for some fire.

  I don’t recall anyone telling me, but I know that everything in the story happened a long time ago, before matches were invented. People lit their fires from a central hut—or a temple—where a fire was kept alive all the time, or they carried it from each other’s hearths.

  When the girl went to her neighbours’ house to ask them for the fire, they told her that she should take it herself, but no one invited her to partake of the liver.

  A little later she went to the neighbours’ house again. This time they fetched her the fire, but still no one offered her the liver.

  The daughter’s craving for the liver grew into a tormenting hunger and she could think of nothing else.

  In the evening, when the woodcutter returned to the house, he asked his daughter: ‘What is the matter, why are you looking so sad?’

  So the girl told her father what had happened: ‘The neighbours were cooking liver. The fumes from it drifted to our house and I wanted to it taste it so badly that my hunger became unbearable. I went to their house on the pretext of asking for fire. They did not bring me the fire, but asked me to fetch it myself. Thrice I went to their house. The third time I went they had settled down to dinner. This time they fetched me the fire, but no one asked me to stay to dinner. I hankered for the liver, but they did not give me any. That’s why I’m so unhappy.’

  The woodcutter said, ‘Don’t worry, child. Tomorrow I will cut a huge stack of wood in the forest and buy you all the liver you desire.’

  ‘Ji-re-ji.’

  Pir Khurkain went to the forest to cut wood early the next morning. He chopped the trees until he had gathered a large stack of wood. But when he went to collect it in the evening, there was nothing there because the stack of wood had caught fire and burnt to ashes.

  Then Pir Khurkain thought: ‘How can I face my wife and daughter empty-handed?’ Too ashamed to return to the house, he decided to spend the night in the forest.

  The next day the woodcutter cut a bigger stack of wood. But when he went to fetch it later, the wood had again burnt to ashes.

  The woodcutter could not bear the thought of returning home without the liver his daughter craved. Again he spent the night in the forest.

  Then Pir Khurkain spent the third day cutting and chopping an even larger stack of wood. But when he returned to cart it to the market he found only ashes. Pir Khurkain thought to himself: ‘It is three days since I’ve eaten, but how can I show my face to my wife and daughter empty-handed.’ He felt utterly defeated and despondent.

  ‘Yes ji yes.’

  The woodcutter waited in the forest till the daylight began to fade. He decided that he would slip into his house after dark, and spend the night concealed in a corner.

  When he arrived at his street he sat upon a stone amidst the shadows cast by a banyan tree and waited for the darkness to thicken.

  Now it so happened that the angels who relieve our troubles, Behram-Yazad and Trouble-Easer, were out for a stroll in the city that evening. While wandering through the streets they spotted Pir Khurkain slumped dejectedly in the shadows and asked him: ‘Why are you out here in the dark? Is anything the matter?’

  The woodcutter was too embarrassed to give them a reply and he remained quiet. On their way back they again saw the woodcutter. ‘Why are you still here?’ they asked. The woodcutter did not know what to say, so he remained silent. Then the angels looked into his saddened heart and said kindly: ‘Tell us what is worrying you and we will ease your troubles.’

  ‘Ji-re-ji.’

  At this point Mother adds a pinch of frankincense to the fire and holding her palms together and bowing her head, requests the angels to ease her troubles. She kneels and makes a motion with her hands, as if drawing the smoke towards herself, and continues:

  ‘The woodcutter then told them the tale of his misfortunes …’

 
Mother proceeds to repeat the story almost from scratch, starting with: ‘One day the neighbours were cooking liver—my daughter hankered for some …’

  I can listen to the sad litany of the poor woodcutter’s woes a million times and still respond afresh to his grief.

  ‘… then moved to pity by the poor woodcutter’s story, the angels Trouble-Easer and Behram-Yazad scooped three fistfuls of sand from the ground and poured it into his lap. “Cherish what we have given you, and keep it safe,” they said. “Think of us when your troubles are eased, and distribute some shelled chickpeas and sugar every Friday to remember us by.”’

  The woodcutter thought: ‘What good will this fistful of sand do for me? I will throw it away as soon as they leave.’

  But Behram-Yazad and Mushkail-Asaan could read what was going on in his mind, and they said: ‘O Pir Khurkain, don’t throw away what we have given you. Cherish it and guard it with your life. You will find that each grain of sand is of great value to you. Sell it at a high price, don’t sell it short; and remember to remember us.’

  ‘Yes-ji-yes.’

  Mother must again place frankincense on the fire. She does so, and using the unctuous tone of the obedient child her trust and troubles have regressed her to, says: ‘I will never forget you, O Behram Yazad and Mushkail-Asaan.’

  I also add a pinch of frankincense to the fire and piously parrot her words.

  ‘When the woodcutter returned home,’ Mother continues, ‘his wife and daughter were asleep. He poured the sand into a corner of the kitchen, and huddling against the wall in the darkness, fell fast asleep.

  ‘When his neighbours set out for work shortly before dawn they noticed that the woodcutter’s rickety house was blazing with light. They shouted: “Wake up, Pir Khurkain, wake up. Your house is on fire.”

  ‘Only the girl woke up. She was frightened to see the house lit up as if with a thousand lamps. She awakened her father and told him that their house was on fire. The woodcutter said: “Go back to sleep, child, it must be one of our neighbours’ houses that is on fire. What do we own that could possibly burn? We have nothing, and bare mud walls don’t catch fire.”’