The Oldest Man’s eyes were now looking beyond Hasan. Looking into memory, Hasan thought. Looking into wisdom. Instinctively he turned his head to follow the Oldest Man’s line of vision and saw one of the current occupants of the Pink House walk towards the hammock with a tray of food in her hands. The Oldest Man lowered one hand to the ground, pressed it firmly against the grass, and tipped himself out of the hammock.
The woman set the tray on the grass. Tea, bread and aloo puri. Suddenly Hasan’s breakfast seemed a thing of the very distant past.
The woman shifted from one foot to the other, scratching the top of each foot with the toes of the other. The Oldest Man dipped bread into his tea and chomped noisily.
‘Kamal wants to raise the rent,’ the woman said finally. ‘So we may have to leave.’ She simpered. It was definitely a simper. Aba had told Hasan he would know one when he saw it. ‘Just when I learned to make tea as you like it.’
The Oldest Man grunted. ‘Tell Kamal to come and see me,’ he said. The woman’s simper became a smirk as she walked away. The Oldest Man offered Hasan some aloo puri. Hasan was sorely tempted by the smell of the potatoes, but Yorker glared at him, and reminded him of Sir Huss and the single-minded nature of successful knights.
‘So,’ Hasan said, one finger pressing down against the tip of his nose in an effort to look thoughtful and reduce the effectiveness of his olfactory senses at the same time. ‘If the spirit does not want its host body to be a murderer, why do so many murderers live long lives? Why isn’t the President dead?’
The Oldest Man scooped up potatoes with a corner of puri, brought the food halfway to his mouth, and whispered, ‘Birds!’ He nodded sagely and ate.
‘That’s it? Birds?’
‘The year my last childhood friend died I bought myself a parrot. He would sit on my shoulder, eat crackling seeds and learn to recite love poems in six different languages. If you look closely you can still see the marks of his talons on my flesh. I tell you, that bird adored me! But then I fell in love, and the parrot always on my shoulder, entrancing the woman I loved with his romantic verse, entrancing her to the point where she forgot about me, to the point where she considered my body merely a parrot-perch . . . what can I say. I sold him.’
‘You didn’t!’
‘That’s what she said. I never saw her again, and couldn’t bear to have the parrot back because he was the cause of my lost love. But that bird kept flying after me, until finally the man to whom I sold him built a wooden cage, hung it from the topmost branches of a tree, and kept the parrot imprisoned. For years he kept that parrot locked away in a cage where it spent its time reciting poems of loss, and pecking. Pecking, pecking at the wood, until finally one day with the combined force of rain, age, parrotbeak and parrotwill, the cage broke apart. That bird hurled itself out of the cage, raised its wings to fly to me, but the wings had lost their strength, and the parrot plummeted to the ground and . . .’ The Oldest Man upstretched his arm and from that height let fall a nibble of bread into the tea. ‘Splat!’
‘That’s horrible!’
‘Oh yes. Horrible. He died quoting Byron. “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”. Horrible. But my point is: there are two ways to prevent a thing from escaping you. And some cages are more durable than others. But I, for one, would rather live without mangoes than have a parrot perpetually pecking away at my insides, waiting to burst loose.’
Hasan rocked on his heels, and attempted to separate the metaphorical from the literal in the Oldest Man’s words. Spirits and parrots and mangoes were all a little unclear, but it was certain that the inability to speak in straightforward terms increased directly with age.
The air Hasan breathed was thick with questions. They swarmed around him, half-suffocating him. If he closed his eyes he could see question marks slide under his eyelids, and poise above his cornea like inverted hooks. When, as now, he tried to grab hold of a question, snap it in two, it merely divided into a multitude of new questions. Of these new questions, the most burning one was: what does Salman Mamoo’s spirit want? Hasan recalled the vast quantities of mango pickle Salman Mamoo had consumed during mid-term, and shook his head.
He left the Oldest Man to what remained of his breakfast and went to see Zehra.
She was sitting on a cane chair on her balcony, feet resting atop the balcony railing, drinking chocolate milk and whistling to Ogle with all the nonchalance of one who did not need to decipher the indecipherable in order to save a life.
‘Hasan? What is it?’
Hasan shook his head, scratched Ogle’s ears, and leaned against the railing. When tears threatened to spill from his eyes he gritted his teeth against them and reminded himself that he was a knight.
‘Look,’ Zehra said. ‘I love Uncle Salman too, okay?’
‘Then why are you whistling?’
‘I’m not. I’m coping.’ She passed him a box of tissues. ‘And?’
‘And what?’
‘The Oldest Man?’
‘Mangoes and parrots.’
‘Elaborate.’
Hasan did, starting with his dream and ending with the parrot story.
When he had finished, Zehra rocked on her chair, frowning. She got up, paced the balcony, strode inside, brought out a piece of paper, scribbled frantically, asked Hasan to repeat certain parts of his tale, drew arrows connecting words to each other on the page. ‘Hmmm . . .’ she said.
‘Hmmm what?’
‘Hmmm . . . I have no idea what this means. Wid!’ She darted inside, and was back a few seconds later, dragging in the Widow in by her sleeve.
The Widow arched an eyebrow at Hasan. ‘Been conversing with the Oldest Man, have you?’ Hasan quickly ran through the possible titles he could give the Widow. Sorceress. Queen. Damsel in dist . . . hardly! In a flash of inspiration he chose ‘the Widow’.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘About Death.’
‘Wonderful how you can say it as though it were capitalized. DEATH!’ The Widow smiled. ‘It’s just death, you know. Just a change in location. A movement from this world to the land bordering sleep. Have you studied Venn diagrams in school?’
That was a non sequitur worthy of Zehra. Hasan nodded.
‘Well, imagine two circles. Life and death. Or DEATH, if you prefer. Close to each other, but not touching. And a third circle, Dreams, which intersects both Life and Death.’
‘Hasan hates maths,’ Zehra said. ‘Do you know what the Oldest Man meant?’
‘Oh, yes. He and I have discussed it often. The secret to living is to know what your spirit wants and either give in to those desires or, for shorter-term and more discomforting success, imprison the spirit.’ She shrugged. ‘That could be true. It doesn’t particularly concern me.’ She turned to leave.
‘Can’t you stay?’ Zehra said.
The Widow shook her head. ‘Khan’s brought his sister to see me. I have to go.’
Zehra scowled and kicked the balcony railing. ‘I hope you have nightmares tonight,’ she muttered. The Widow turned, surprised. She placed a hand on Zehra’s shoulder, but Zehra shrugged her off. Hasan and the Widow exchanged baffled glances.
‘Know the main difference between dreams and waking life?’ the Widow said to Hasan.
‘I used to think logic,’ Hasan said.
The Widow smiled wryly. ‘Dreams wait for you.’ She walked away, all fire and brilliance.
Hasan scratched Ogle’s stomach for a few minutes and waited for Zehra to say something. When she didn’t Hasan said, ‘Well, at least we know how to avoid death. Give in to the spirit’s desires.’
‘Makes sense, does it?’ Zehra said.
Hasan nodded, perturbed by the edge to her voice.
‘Try that one out on a doctor, Hasan. Or, better still, ask the Oldest Man what it was that my mother’s spirit wanted that she could not give it. She had me, she had my father. She had a life, Hasan!’
Now Hasan could feel his own cheeks turn red. ‘Why do you always have to be the expert on loss?�
� he yelled. ‘This isn’t about your mother, it’s about Salman Mamoo. I . . . he . . . you don’t even remember what your mother’s voice sounded like, so you can’t . . . don’t.’ He turned away, conscious of her breath coming quick. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she had hit him.
But, instead, she said in a tone so measured he knew she was close to tears, ‘My mother didn’t die because of some stupid mango, okay? She died because her heart stopped.’
Hasan turned back to face her.
‘Why did it stop?’ he asked.
Zehra took a deep breath, and exhaled into the sky. ‘No one knows. The doctors couldn’t explain it. She had been for a medical check-up two days before. The results arrived in the mail just after Aboo told me she was dead. I kept those results under my pillow for weeks afterwards, as though somehow a piece of paper saying she was one hundred-per-cent healthy would prove her death to be a hoax.’ She changed her tone, became suddenly brisk. ‘Look, maybe the Oldest Man is right. But how are you going to figure out what Uncle Salman’s spirit wants?’
Hasan set his jaw. ‘It’s my quest. I have forty . . . thirty-nine days in which to figure it out.’ Zehra nodded, and looked old.
Chapter Sixteen
Hasan stepped on to the roof.
‘Hello, home,’ he said. ‘Hello, water-tank. Hello, bed.’ He whisked the dust-cover off his rope-bed and ran his fingers along the criss-crossed rope and wooden frame. The rope fibres were coarse against his palm as he skimmed his hand from the head to the foot of the bed, but he knew he could sleep on that mesh of rope without an itch or even a tickle. Magic everywhere on this roof-world. ‘Hello, stars. Hello, pomegranate juice.’ He bent down and touched the rust-coloured stain. His finger came away covered in dust. ‘Hello, Azeem.’ He bowed in the direction of Azeem’s roof. There, that didn’t seem so strange.
‘Hel-lo, cricket!’
Hasan pulled his rope-bed a little closer – but not too close – to the roof’s edge, so that he could lie on his stomach and watch the match in progress in the garden three houses up from the Pink House. It had been months since the garden lights last flooded that immense lawn and stumps dug holes behind creases which were demarcated by invisible lines running between pebbles. When the nightly matches first stopped, rumour (in other words, the Bodyguard) had it that the occupants of the house had moved North and were trying to rent out their house. But no tenants were forthcoming for property which spread over two plots of land yet contained the smallest house for five miles around. It was one of those places Aba and his friends encouraged each other to rent, saying ‘Yaar, who needs spare rooms and extra bathrooms and please what’s the point of having both lounge and drawing room? Come on, just think of all that outdoor space for cricket.’ But no one was willing to take on the house’s contradictory mix of increased social responsibility and reduced living quarters, so the owners had moved back just yesterday.
The mango tree which somewhat obscured Hasan’s view of the pitch had been cut down last week; the Bodyguard avoided laughter and shrill argument; and even the breeze conspired to enhance Hasan’s viewing pleasure – it blew south-eastward, carrying the sounds of leather and willow straight to Hasan’s ears. The batsman misread a slower delivery, charged out of his crease to hit it, and was stumped. The bowler and wicketkeeper danced towards each other, snapping fingers and holding arms aloft. Hasan grinned and felt a relief so overwhelming he could almost taste it. Nights stretched before him with a promise of constancy.
So . . . Hasan bit his lips and attempted calculation. If the day’s play started at six, as it had always done in the past, and went on for five hours, at which point Hasan would fall asleep, that left nine waking hours to fill with activity. Subtract the hour spent at lunch and dinner, and that left about eight hours, plus . . . no, minus an hour watching a recording of the previous night’s ‘Drama Hour’ on television. Seven hours. Minus breakfast with Uncle Latif plus tea with Zehra. No, minus breakfast minus tea. Or, breakfast plus tea minus . . . what was it? Seven or eight hours?
‘Or, I could just spend the whole day doing maths,’ Hasan said aloud.
A new batsman was walking towards the crease, bat in his left hand, his jaunty step as familiar as Ami’s scent of paint and perfume and apple shampoo. Without thinking Hasan puckered his lips and whistled the whistle heard on cricket grounds across the nation. Wooo-wu-wooo-wu. Razz-le Dazz-le. The whistle’s trajectory cut through opposing wind direction and carried to the batsman’s ears. Raza Mirza looked up to see where the sound originated, and flashed Hasan a two-fingered sign of victory. His teeth, Hasan noticed, did not gleam.
‘We have to have a serious talk.’
Hasan jumped at the voice. Aba hardly ever disturbed him up here. And even when he did, the family’s unspoken rules had it that this was Hasan’s territory, as sacred as Ami’s studio or Aba’s crossword-chair, and Hasan’s whims were law. The other unspoken rule, of course, was that Hasan really wasn’t allowed any whims of which Aba or Ami disapproved, but surely he could ban serious talks about subjects unrelated to cricket and expect to be humoured.
‘About what?’ Hasan said, in a tone meant to convey irritation and disapproval.
‘Your garb,’ Aba said, coming to sit on the edge of the bed. He ran his eyes along Hasan’s kurta and jeans. ‘I mean, if you will persist in this mismatch you should at least be prepared to back it up with a five-minute oral report on the advantages of being hybridized.’
‘Inner or outer,’ Hasan said, moving up to allow Aba room to lie down.
‘Hmmm? Oh, you mean internal or external hybridity? Nature versus nurture sort of . . . why this expression?’
‘I thought you said a report on Hebrides.’
There was the laugh. Hasan watched the backward fling of Aba’s head and the dimples in his cheeks like full-stops marking an end to all unpleasantness, and thought, not for the first time, that he would give up all his outward resemblance to Ami and Salman Mamoo if he could only inherit Aba’s laugh. Yes, he would even give up the promise of high cheekbones.
‘When can I come and see you in court again?’ Hasan asked, while Aba gulped in air.
Aba’s dimples vanished. ‘Well, Huss, I thought you realized . . . I mean, I don’t really do that any more.’
‘Do what?’
Aba looked down at his right hand. The corner of the bed-frame had cut into his palm and dissected his curving life-line. ‘The firm thought . . . that is, we know . . . we were told there are judges who think it is impolitic to rule in my favour, so I’m back to doing the chamber law thing. Have been for a while now. It’s a nice change, really.’
Hasan moved his arm so that it touched Aba’s sleeve. Across the street the bowler charged up to the bowling crease, a long run-up of incredible speed. The ball struck the pitch and reared up sharply. ‘Duck!’ Aba and Hasan cried out together. But Razzledazzle had picked the ball and moved his feet backward before the grass flattened in front of him. As the ball rose up to crush his skull, he raised his back foot high off the ground, brought the bat up to shoulder-height, pivoted around on his front foot and struck the ball sweet and true. The fielder at square leg boundary could only gape as the ball zipped past him, smacked against the wall and ricocheted back on to his shin. There were cheers and whistles from balconies all around. Aba closed his eyes and inhaled through his nose, as though he could smell the shot.
‘You’re the Razzledazzle of law,’ Hasan said. ‘You’re razzmatazz in the courtroom.’ Aba slung an arm across Hasan’s shoulder and, for once, seemed to know that words would not do.
Ami’s slippered feet padded up the stairs and towards the bed. She crossed in front of the bed and sat down, her back leaning against the wooden frame, and rested her head between Hasan and Aba’s shoulders. ‘What brings you here, woman?’ Aba growled.
Ami’s eyes followed the bowler’s arm and Raza Mirza’s shifting grip on the bat. ‘The aesthetic of men’s wrists,’ she smiled. She reached backwards and
circled the jut of Aba’s wrist bone with her index finger.
‘Where’s Gul Mumani?’ Hasan asked.
‘Did you hear about the General?’ Ami said.
Hasan nodded, ‘Uh-huh.’ He had woken up this morning to high-decibel comments of outrage regarding the nerve of the General. Precisely which general had provoked this outburst it was hard to gather, but whoever he was he wanted to hang Ami in his drawing room. That’s what he had said over the telephone, ‘I have had to go through great pains to get your number. But I persisted because really, truly, I would like to hang you in my drawing room.’ Just like that. Ami hung up, of course, but the General called back, saying, ‘Not you in person, of course, madam. I refer to the extension of your soul. Your art, that is. I wish a painting.’ When Ami hemmed and hawed, trying to turn her back on Aba who kept dashing into her vision with a wagging finger reminding her how often she had cautioned him not to antagonize the wrong people, the General said, ‘Now, madam, I know my fellow officer has some disagreement with your brother, but come now, doesn’t Art transcend Politics?’ Ami ended the conversation on the pretext of having to save her son from an enraged cockroach, and the General said he would call back the next day for details of price and delivery.
‘So are you going to sell something to him?’ Hasan asked.
‘What do you think?’ said Ami.
‘Well, if you do, it shouldn’t be one of the nicer ones. Maybe the new one in your bedroom.’
‘Oh God, an eleven-year-old critic. Too abstract, huh?’
Hasan pulled his lower lip thoughtfully. ‘The brush strokes are nice, but . . . too much green.’
Ami tipped her head backward and looked at Aba. ‘Remind me why we decided to teach our son honesty?’
Aba didn’t smile. ‘What have you decided about the General?’ he said.
Ami put a finger to Aba’s lips and turned back to the cricket match. Razzledazzle had been languishing at the non-striker’s end for an entire over, and now that he was finally facing the attack again he patted the ground repeatedly with the bottom of his blade like a bull pawing the ground. The ball was ever so slightly short-pitched. Razzledazzle moved his back foot across and used it as a pivot, his blade flashing and thock! Hasan didn’t even bother to see where the ball would land; his eyes stayed on Razzledazzle as the batsman’s body swung clockwise in the follow-through to complete a half-circle. ‘ Poetry,’ Ami murmured. Hasan closed his eyes for an instant replay in slow-motion. Salman Mamoo, he was sure, was thinking of cricket now, passing the time with images of coverdrives, sweep-shots and square-cuts.
In the City by the Sea Page 11