by Aimee E. Liu
To either side of the maidan outdoor stages had been erected under strings of glowing bulbs, and actors with painted faces were portraying scenes from the Ramayana. Nagu’s sons stopped to buy sparklers, and Simon edged closer to watch the enactment of Sita’s rescue from Ravana’s palace. He joined in energetically when the audience yelled for Hanuman, the monkey king who flew like a bird. Equally, he booed along when Ravana’s guards came forward to meet Hanuman’s monkeys in battle. I envied Simon for his ability to hurl himself into such distractions. I myself was too busy keeping an eye out to enjoy the play.
The crowd and noise were overwhelming. The movement of bodies tugged like a current. Already several dozen people had edged in between us, and not all in the surrounding mob were innocent, merrymaking families. So many young men here swaggered and smoked and grinned with the cockiness of goondas. There were a few leering policemen also, and some older women with iron eyes who reminded me too much of Indrani. But, I reassured myself, nowhere did I see Surie or anyone truly from my past life.
I had followed Simon forward. Nagu had gone off after his sons. Several dozen people now separated me from Mem, but I could still see her over and between the faces transfixed by the actors. She was talking to two men and a woman—firenghi. The woman I recognized as Mrs. Solomon. One of the men had an arm hooked around her waist. The other was very thin, with pale hair under a straw hat. Mrs. Solomon, as always, seemed to do all the talking. By the light of a fire fountain I saw Mem’s eyelids close, her brows squeeze together. Mrs. Solomon put a hand to Mem’s shoulder. The two men backed away, looking embarrassed.
Suddenly Mem opened her eyes and caught me staring. At that moment a plume of white brilliance divided the sky. A loud boom followed, and I watched her mouth a sound that I could not hear. I thought she was angry with me for spying on her, so I looked up into the sky. Then the noise of the rocket subsided and I heard her cry over the bodies between us, “Simon!” I turned back toward the stage. The performance had ended. Simon was no longer in front of me, nor to the right or the left. I glanced up and saw Mem pushing people aside as if she were flailing through water.
“Where is he!” As she reached me I spotted Nagu and his sons, searching with their eyes.
I shook my head, unable to pull any sound from my throat.
“You were standing right next to him!” Mem’s fingers dug into my arm.
Mrs. Solomon and the two men tipped this way and that, their faces like white balloons. At the end of the maidan a low whooshing sound erupted, and the crowd surged forward to view the illumination. I felt myself being pulled from Mem, and the noise around us increased so that she was forced to scream at me. “You must have seen where he went, Kamla! For God’s sake, what’s the matter with you?
It was the light, I told myself. Yellow and harsh, it seemed to tighten the skin around Mem’s skull and hollow out her eyes and mouth. I didn’t know what was the matter with me. I didn’t know where Simon had gone. But most of all, I didn’t know this screaming firenghi. Could this be the same Mem who had fed and clothed me and kept me warm, who had stripped herself naked before me and comforted me in her arms? No. No, this was a stranger.
She was still shouting, but I did not hear her. Why was she accusing me? I had done nothing. I had not vanished, had not run away. If Simon were indeed lost, then he had lost himself. No one would dare steal an American boy.
Her eyes shivered with tears, and the sky exploded in ribbons and spirals of rocketing light. I gazed upward, not noticing when Mem released her grip on me. I didn’t see her arm rise or her hand, but in the next instant I felt the full force of her rage and terror strike me across the face.
“Answer me!”
“Mem!” Simon cried from the stage. I looked up expecting him to shout out that she had made a terrible mistake, that none of what happened was my fault. But he hadn’t seen her slap me. “I’m here!”
Nagu rose behind him, nudging him forward. “He went backstage to see the drums,” he yelled.
“Oh, my God.” Mem stepped back and hugged herself. She closed her eyes, and the explosion of Ravana reflected in the streaming surface of her face.
I saw Mrs. Solomon closer now, one hand covering her mouth. The two men also had seen Mem slap me. They had been moving toward us. Now all three drifted away.
Mem reached her fingertips to my cheek. She shook her head. “Kamla—”
I must have flinched, for she stopped before touching me and started to pull back, but I now saw the sorrow and fear in her eyes, and so quickly I put up my hand and clapped it over hers, pressing her palm against my skin.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.” And even in the darkness I could feel her looking into me, searching for something I did not possess, though I would do all in my power to find it. If only I knew how.
That night I let Simon into my bed. Within an hour he had kicked all the covers onto the floor. I left him and went to sleep in his bed. When I woke he was standing over me with his hands on his hips.
I yawned and sat up. “Simon, I can’t help it. You’re too big.”
He gave me his hurt boy expression. “I’ll be good.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said, then, borrowing Mem’s expression, “You wear me out! Besides, we’re too old to share a bed.”
His eyelids flickered strangely. Without a word he bent down and picked up his pillow from the floor. Holding it out in front of him he charged me, knocking me to the ground. He burst into a false, high-pitched laugh and, pillow to my chest, sat astride me, clasping his hands above his head like the pictures he’d been clipping lately of Joe Louis, the American prizefighter.
I wriggled out from under him, pushing him away. Still he would not let go, and this time instead of using a pillow he hit my shoulder with his fist. It left a large bruise shaped like a dog’s snout that stayed with me for weeks.
Chapter 11
1
THE STREETS LEADING FROM SRINAGAR’S airport were muddy and barely paved. As Lawrence rode to Milne’s houseboat at the southern end of the city, his trishaw slithered on patches of ice. The twilight smelled of burning coal from the kangri—small pots of embers covered with matting that Kashmiris carried to warm their hands—and encampments of refugees still clung to the edges of the city as they had the last time he was here, though now, if Lawrence read the brown beards and colorful headdresses correctly, as many of the refugees appeared from Sinkiang as from the border fighting with Pakistan. Clusters of felt yurts rose among the tin-roofed shacks, and some of the displaced Kazakhs tended straggling herds of sheep. Children roamed with ragged hair and eyes like blue ice, and through it all laced the stench of garbage in the canals.
Still, for all the tatters and filth, the beauty tore at your heart. The way the ancient mud brick walls reflected in the violet lake. The patterns of frost like talc on the floating gardens of lily pads. The silhouette of the old hill fortress Hari Parbat pressed against the white slabs of the Pir Panjals, and the way the muezzin’s call to prayer lingered in the cold thick silence. It was as easy to see why nations would fight over this paradise as it was to see that such fighting was both unconscionable and futile.
After nearly an hour of skidding and straining, the trishaw pulled up by the inlet where Milne’s boat was moored for the winter. The two houseboys Waza and Mistri were delighted to have a new tenant; almost immediately a flotilla of merchants with names like Marvelous the flower seller, Cheap John, and Suffering Moses began circling the good ship Triumph. All turned on Lawrence their brightest charms and most earnest wiles, lifting lanterns to show off their wares, but—to the dismay of Waza and Mistri, who were counting on their take—the new foreigner was not much of a shopper. He was here, he instructed them sternly, “on important business.” To prove it he set off early each morning and did not return until dark.
For days he explored the bazaars and waterfront. He bought knickknacks for Simon and Kamla, toured the refugee camps, and chatted wit
h aid workers. He interviewed the soldiers, including General Farr’s replacement, using a press pass from the Sydney Telegraph as his cover. He recruited a Turki doctor and a local Kashmiri official. No one could tell him anything new about Aidan, but these last two had their own networks of informants and thus would pacify Jack.
Periodically he would drop Akbar’s name like a pebble into the pool and count the rings of reaction. Whose brow lifted, whose hands tightened, who pretended indifference or ignorance of the aging ethnographer. Milne was right; there was no pattern to Akbar’s acquaintances. They crossed both political and religious spectra, including separatist Muslims and loyal Sikhs and Hindus alike. And the good doctor’s image varied depending on the acquaintance, from eccentric to wise man, from nonpartisan to political agent. Even those who suspected him of being an agent, however, could not agree on whose agent he might be. Some pointed to his education in England as proof that he worked for the Brits. One Hindu jeweler insisted that Dr. Akbar “had proven above and beyond all doubt that his allegiance lies with India,” though he could not—or would not—say how he had proven this. And the manager at the Shalimar restaurant—a native Kashmiri Muslim—maintained that Akbar was staunchly in favor of Kashmiri independence from both India and Pakistan. After all, the man pointed out, Akbar was a Muslim himself. No one raised the possibility that his sympathies might lie with Stalin. But then, if he was good at his game, that’s the one possibility that would not spring to mind.
Finally, one afternoon, Lawrence made his way to the northern end of the city. It had snowed that morning, then the sun had come out warm and moist, giving the ancient streets a scrubbed shimmer. They were largely empty here in this residential area, except for the reverberations of prayer that poured over the walls of the Hazrat Bal mosque. Akbar’s religious devotions might have him at Friday worship with his fellow Muslims, but Lawrence doubted it. According to all reports, Akbar rarely left his house.
Lawrence recognized the ornately carved, time-stained facade as soon as it loomed into view. Like most of the homes in Srinagar, Akbar’s was designed to present a closed front against prying eyes and the harshness of the Kashmiri winter, but today the hatchwork screen on the upper balcony and the wooden shutters were all thrown open like mouths to catch the sun. From several of the windows dangled bright red tongues—rugs and blankets out for an airing. And through the window directly above the front door floated a man’s voice singing “Blue Skies” in a wide, clipped, and faintly familiar accent.
Lawrence knocked loudly. The singing stopped and was followed by the stutter of footsteps inside. A minute later the door opened and Lawrence, to his astonishment, found himself face-to-face with Tot.
The Sherpa, dressed in a bright red, green, and blue pullover sweater and baggy maroon trousers, looked otherwise much as he had done when Lawrence last saw him waving goodbye at the Tihwa aerodrome. His straight black hair was chopped unevenly as if he had cut it himself with toenail scissors. He looked neither fatter nor thinner, only a bit more wizened around the eyes. After a moment of obvious disorientation at the sight of Lawrence, he grinned and stuck out his hand. “Mr. Malcolm!”
They thumped each other on the shoulder. “I don’t believe it,” Lawrence said. “You made it out!”
“Yes! With Mr. Weller and his caravan. I am their guide.”
“With Weller, eh? What’d you do, wait around Tihwa till the bitter end?”
Tot lifted his palms. “I hear that no more planes will fly. The Communists are coming. I think Mr. Weller must leave soon, I can wait. But this time we are too many. Chinese governor, Prime Minister, wife, children. There is much sickness, much complaining.”
“You earned every annah. That what you’re saying?”
Tot grinned, then seemed to remember himself and urged Lawrence to enter.
“And what are you doing here?” Lawrence asked, though he had a fair notion. Tot was no houseboy.
“Dr. Akbar has a big house. He asked me to stay here.”
Lawrence looked down the dark hallway with its embroidered hangings and displays of masks and antiquated weapons. “How is he?” he asked.
Tot pulled in his lips. He dropped his eyes. Lawrence heard the wooden stairway creak at the end of the hall.
“Dr. Akbar!” Tot shot Lawrence a warning nod, and moved to the bottom of the stairs. “Look who comes to see you. Mr. Malcolm. Can you believe?”
It was difficult to see clearly in the dim passageway, but it seemed to Lawrence that Akbar had shrunk. His frame as he descended the last steps appeared spry enough, not stooped or slow or visibly suffering. But the body that little more than a year ago had seemed fit and trim now was dwarfed by a small gray cardigan that mushroomed around his waist. The light that filtered from the landing behind him pressed through the white kurta-pyjama bottoms to silhouette two pencil-thin legs. And his previously thick, brilliantined crown of black hair had thinned to a patchwork of black and gray tufts that were noticeably softer in texture than the wide brush mustache Akbar still sported across his upper lip.
“La-awre-ence!” Akbar stretched his arms, sweater sleeves flapping like the wings of a kimono. As they clasped hands Lawrence smelled cigarettes and sour breath and the cold, clammy odor of decay.
Akbar stood back, pushed his spectacles up his nose. “You are looking very well, sir.”
“Thanks.” Lawrence flailed for a rejoinder. “It’s good to see you… Good to be back in Srinagar.”
Akbar ushered him into the sitting room. “I understand already you have been here several days, and yet only now you come to me. Tot, would you please ask Bassu to prepare some refreshments for our friend?”
Lawrence toyed with the idea of lying to Akbar, but he knew this would be a mistake. However diverse, the good “doctor’s” sources were evidently still loyal. Doubtless, everything he had said or asked in the past days had been relayed in full.
He settled into a rattan chair opposite the wormwood throne on which Akbar was working himself into a nest of bright silk cushions. The room was cluttered with books and papers and more decorative artifacts, and two bolts of effulgent yellow sunlight slanted in through the windows at the end of the room.
“I ran into Reggie Milne in Simla,” Lawrence said. “He told me you were ill.”
Akbar pulled his feet up under him. A Siamese cat leapt into his lap. “Reggie Milne is a decent enough chap,” he said, “and he knows how to set a leg, but a simple stomachache is beyond him. Cancer, he said! Can you imagine? When in fact it was just a superficial ulcer!”
“He said you didn’t care for his opinion.”
“I do not care about his opinion. I simply desired some of the medications that he so ably dispenses.”
“Painkillers.”
Akbar yawned, blowing out that same scent of decay. He stroked the cat. “This subject does not interest me. I do not believe you returned to Srinagar out of concern for my health.”
“Not entirely.” Lawrence paused. “I suppose you could say I’m here on a fact-finding mission.”
“I see.” Akbar closed his eyes briefly. “You know, Lawrence, I believe that there exist in the world two types of people. One type resists facts at all cost, preferring to cling to illusion and faith. The other just as determinedly believes that facts alone hold the answer. You and I belong to this second group, I think. Our entire lives consist of one long fact-finding mission, as you call it.” He yawned again. “The problem is that truth, in the end, requires all three. Fact, illusion, faith—alone, each is equally incomplete. Ah! Here we are.” Tot had entered the room carrying a tray of coffee and small baked crescents that gave off an aroma of curry and lamb and cinnamon. He set the food on the leather trunk that served as a table, then turned his attention to the large stone hearth, where a fire was laid but unlit.
“Thank you, dear Tot,” Akbar said. The Sherpa looked over his shoulder and smiled.
Lawrence poured the coffee. “Joanna and Simon Shaw are still in Delhi,”
he said. “Did you know that?”
“I did not. Are they well?”
“As well as can be expected.” Lawrence addressed both men, but only Tot showed any reaction.
“What of the girl…Kamla?” he asked.
“She’s with them. Going to school with Simon—thriving—while Joanna runs her rescue home. It’s almost like real life, except for Jo’s missing husband.”
Tot lit a match and started the fire, then squatted before it, elbows on his knees. How many nights had he manned their campfires in just this pose, Lawrence thought, quietly watching him and Joanna and Kamla across the flames. How had it never dawned on him? All those weeks trekking over the mountains and around the desert—no wonder Tot had been so put out when Kamla took his place on that final jaunt to Heaven’s Lake. No wonder he had hung on in Tihwa, making himself available to serve as Weller’s guide. Tot was Akbar’s personal news writer. Source of the facts that were Akbar’s lifeblood.
Akbar calmly sipped his coffee, thickened to a syrup with milk and sugar. “I believe you have an appointment, Tot.”
The Sherpa ducked his head. Yes, he said, he was to meet with a German mountaineer who believed that in Ladakh’s Chang Chenmo Range there lay a peak taller than Everest. “Who knows?” He smiled at Lawrence. “With foreigners, anything is possible.”
“So,” Akbar said when Tot had gone. “How have you occupied yourself since last we met?”
He was not going to take the bait about Aidan, so Lawrence decided to bide his time. “Been working on a book, actually. Cross between a history and biography of the Great Game.”
“A noble enterprise,” Akbar said with more than a hint of sarcasm. “I, too, have a book in progress. I like to think of it as an ethnic portrait of the Karakorams. You know, I suppose, that the cultural traffic across these mountains dates back hundreds of thousands of years. This is the true melting pot of the world. Chinese, Persians, Greeks, and Romans. Some say that Jesus Christ himself passed through Kashmir more than once. And each new wave leaves its trace in the local populations. Even your British, who were latecomers, spread their seed here. Though they are the least willing to admit it.”