The Blind Man's Garden

by Aslam, Nadeem

  22

  ‘Don’t step on that piece of ground,’ Naheed cautions Rohan as they walk in the garden. ‘I buried the dead birds there back in October.’

  Rohan looks at the soil. He can see a little today, the places where the sunlight is clear and unrestricted. She had found him with the Koran open in his hands earlier, one of his great torments being that he cannot read it for the comfort of Sofia’s soul.

  ‘Is the pomegranate in flower?’

  She guides his hand and he touches the blossoms, the tough outer cups, and the scraps of wrinkled silk at the centre that are the petals, and as he takes in their scent he tells her that the name Granada derives from the pomegranates that grew in that region of Spain. Basie and Yasmin have had a number of conversations with the eye specialist since Naheed and Rohan visited him, and the procedures he suggested are the only answer.

  ‘Spain was once a Muslim land,’ Rohan says, cupping the flowers in his hands. ‘In October 1501, the Catholic monarchs ordered the destruction of all Islamic books and manuscripts. Thousands of Korans and other texts were burned in a public bonfire.’

  She lets him talk as she looks around for Mikal. Nothing but a kingfisher stitching together the two banks of the river with the bright threads of its flight.

  ‘A shopkeeper was arrested because he muttered “O Muhammad!” after someone refused to buy his wares. Another man, brought before an Inquisitor for washing his hands in a suspect Muslim-looking manner, confessed under torture to being a Muslim and denounced a number of his neighbours, only to revoke his confession immediately afterwards. He was tortured a second time and died of his injuries in prison.’

  She holds his hand in hers. These days she is having to make sure he eats everything on his plate, disregarding his objections that he no longer feels hungry. She and Tara make his chapattis bigger and thicker, with the result that when he thinks he is eating just one, he is in fact eating one and a quarter, or one and a half.

  She is relieved Basie and Yasmin are dealing with the eye specialist himself. Seeing the nurses at the clinic had provoked anxiety in her. The mind fighting phantoms, a strange fear had appeared that one of them could be the nurse who had given her the injections to destroy the child back in November, that the doctor – enraged at Rohan – could reveal this fact to him. Why am I afraid? she had asked herself initially. What could anyone do to me if they learned about what I had done? But, no. She is not concerned for herself, she is afraid of distressing Rohan, Yasmin and Basie. The truth would hurt them. That is why the matter has to be kept secret.

  Rohan has noticed her silence. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Just a headache.’

  ‘Has your mother said something?’

  She shakes her head. Then, wondering if he has seen the gesture, says, ‘No.’

  ‘I had a conversation with her yesterday.’

  She doesn’t reply. A movement in the grape arbour where the very first green beads have appeared on the branches; by June they will have grown and the skin will slip liquidly from the pulp.

  ‘She is concerned for you.’

  ‘There’s no need.’

  ‘You should think of getting married again.’

  She looks up where the tamarind tree shifts its branches, in its stately thirst for movement. The dying leaves that had covered it in a copper haze last month are gone, replaced by a luminous green.

  ‘It’s too soon,’ she says.

  ‘It probably is. Your mother has selected a boy, but by the time the necessary enquiries and arrangements have been made, an appropriate amount of time would have passed. These things move slowly. I know the marriage with Jeo was rapid but that was an exception.’

  Last week Naheed had said to Tara, ‘This year I will help Father through the trouble with his eyes. After that I will begin studying for a diploma to become a teacher.’ She has discovered a sudden appetite for books as though the boxes had arrived at the house just for her. She dips her hands into them at random. Lyrics and fictions from all periods, volumes of photographs and paintings, works of Eastern and Western history. Some telling her to exchange reason for wonder, others to replace wonder with reason. She lifts the slender gossamer paper from a painted page and a bandit in a glowing orchard is revealed, the Persian sky coated entirely with gold leaf above him. Mikal surfaced when she looked at and opened al-Shirazi’s fourteenth-century work entitled A Book I Have Composed on Astronomy But I Wish to Be Absolved of All Blame. Late into the night she reads stories from South America, Iceland, India. She turned herself into a doe and sped away from him, but he transformed himself into a stag and – overtaking her – coupled with her. Afterwards she was a peahen running away from him but he became a peacock and mated with her again. Next she was a cow pursued by him in the shape of a bull, coupling with her a third time …

  ‘You mustn’t be concerned,’ says Rohan as they walk back to the house. ‘We will check everything thoroughly. Once Tara has asked the initial questions, she will tell me and Basie, and Basie will conduct a full investigation. He is your brother.’

  Suddenly she is overwhelmed. The tears coming so fast she needs two hands to catch them.

  ‘Why has this happened?’ she whispers.

  Rohan turns and after groping in the air for a few moments – coming in from the sunlight has dimmed his vision further – encloses her in his arms.

  He strokes her head gently. Distant acquaintances continue to arrive to give condolences for Jeo’s death, having heard about it only just now. They come and find his own eyes in bandages. With Jeo and Mikal’s deaths he was just as wounded, and it is an astonishment that no one could see that wound. It is one of life’s great mysteries, human beings living with secret grief, unseen, and unsympathised. And so it is that Naheed carries Jeo’s death secretly inside her, the mountainous weight of it. Yasmin and Basie carry it too. And Tara. But if all of them were to walk into a place, it would be Rohan who would be seen to be afflicted. The wounds in the souls and the hearts remain unsensed. Requiring another kind of vision.

  When the girl is somewhat comforted he lets her go. He had intended to ask her in detail about the bird pardoner’s son, she and Tara having visited the family last evening. The boy is making a slow recovery but still the subject is a melancholy one and he decides not to broach it.

  She takes him forward and lowers him into his armchair.

  ‘It’s eleven o’clock,’ she tells him.

  He no longer has any need to wear a wristwatch. His blindness almost coincided with the death of the two boys. They seem the same event. In the coming years when he is asked how long he has been sightless, he would ask himself how long Jeo and Mikal have been gone.

  ‘He said he’d come about this time.’

  A message had arrived at the house from Major Kyra last week, requesting a meeting with Rohan. Rohan had attempted to visit him on hearing the news of Ahmed the Moth’s death, but again and again the boys at the Ardent Spirit gate had informed him that he was not on the premises, something like hostility appearing in them as soon as Rohan gave his name.

  *

  ‘I have no doubt they are planning to invade Iraq and Iran,’ Kyra is saying to Rohan, as Naheed enters with the tea tray. ‘And then of course it will be Pakistan’s turn, if our government disobeys them.’

  Naheed pours a cup and hands it to the former soldier.

  ‘The US President used the word “crusade” in the first speech he gave after the terrorist attacks,’ he says. ‘And they said if Pakistan did not help them in fighting al-Qaeda and the Taliban, they would bomb us back to the Stone Age. These were their exact words.’

  She leans against the doorframe. She has a feeling she knows why he is here, even if Rohan doesn’t.

  He looks at her and then turns to Rohan. ‘Well, now we must talk about why I have requested the meeting.’

  ‘I am glad you have come,’ Rohan says. ‘I was thinking about contacting you soon …’

  The man ignores him. ‘It i
s a delicate matter. There are not many donations for Ardent Spirit any more. The cowardly government has cut off funding to honourable patriots like us. Things are very hard since the conspiracy of last September, and people like us are being accused of sowing something called terror. I wanted to meet you to see what can be done.’

  ‘I don’t know how I can be of help in this matter.’

  ‘I was hoping you could find alternative accommodations.’

  ‘Alternative accommodations?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He wants us to move out of here,’ Naheed says.

  Kyra doesn’t acknowledge the comment. ‘It wouldn’t be straight away,’ he says to Rohan. ‘I can give you six weeks, two months, to find another place. But we do need this house.’

  ‘It’s my home.’ Rohan raises his hand and Naheed comes forward to take it.

  ‘Yes, but I own it.’ Kyra produces a set of papers from his pocket. ‘The school belongs to me. And so does this house. My brother let you live here out of the kindness of his heart, and due to the respect he felt for you. In spite of everything.’

  ‘I don’t need to see any papers. I remember what I signed.’

  ‘Then I don’t know how you can claim that this house is yours.’

  ‘I was thinking of contacting you to say that you must give the house back to me. It is a shameful thing to divulge but I have contemplated selling it to raise funds for my eyes.’

  He can be protective with his emotions, but Naheed knows how terrified Rohan is of being blind. He hasn’t revealed the full extent of this to anyone. Perhaps because he doesn’t wish to be judged for his despair, by humans or by Allah.

  ‘I think you should leave,’ Naheed says to Kyra.

  Kyra turns to her, his manner a mixture of cordiality and woodland bandit.

  ‘You heard her,’ Basie says, coming in.

  Kyra straightens. ‘You must be Basie.’

  ‘I want you to leave,’ Basie says, a glare in his eyes. Kyra stands up slowly, squaring up with Basie.

  ‘One way or another I am going to destroy you,’ Basie says, a startling and violent contempt in the voice. ‘I have asked around and I think it was you who were responsible for the deaths of my brother and Jeo.’ He takes the papers from his hands and tears them up. ‘I spoke to one family,’ he says, ‘who told me you sent their son to Afghanistan. You gave the father full assurance that the boy would be given training before being sent to the battlefield. You gave your word that the boy would be looked after. But he was butchered.’

  ‘I had to tell the father that. He is a eunuch and a traitor and an infidel in all but name and was not granting the boy permission to go to jihad. What are we supposed to do? Bow down before America?’

  ‘Get out.’

  ‘So this is what you have learnt by being around Christians,’ Kyra says from the door, ‘by being a teacher at that Englishman’s school. Contempt for true patriots.’

  After he leaves the three of them remain in the shared silence.

  Eventually, looking at the photograph in the newspaper on the table, Basie says, ‘And you can go to Hell too, Mr President.’

  *

  ‘What happened?’ Tara asks Naheed, coming into the house to help her prepare lunch.

  ‘Major Kyra wants us to vacate the house.’

  Tara utters the verse of the Koran one is supposed to upon receiving bad news.

  ‘Basie asked him to leave.’

  ‘We have to be careful, they are dangerous people.’ Tara looks towards Rohan’s room. ‘He signed every piece of paper they put in front of him. Now he sits in there stroking his deceived beard.’

  ‘No one deceived him, Mother.’

  ‘Yes, they did. He was half mad after Sofia’s death. You could have made him do anything.’ Tara brings the basket of green gourds to Naheed. ‘But I don’t want you to worry about the house. I’ll go to the mosque and ask the cleric to give me a talisman and we’ll pray …’

  ‘Pray,’ Naheed mutters. ‘Who listens to our prayers?’

  ‘How dare you talk in this manner? One or two prayers going unheard doesn’t mean none will ever be heard.’

  ‘One or two?’

  ‘Be quiet. It was praying to Allah that got me through my time in prison.’

  ‘It was Allah and His laws that put you there in the first place.’

  Tara takes a step towards her. ‘Be quiet! Don’t you ever utter anything like that again.’

  Naheed gives her a look of fury, her eyes swimming at her entrapment and yearning, and turns away.

  ‘Did you hear what I said?’

  ‘Yes.’

  As they work in the kitchen both remain locked in their anger, both silent, though Tara’s lips move in soundless recital of Koranic verses.

  After a quarter of an hour, and without looking up from the gourds she is cutting into wedges, Naheed asks, ‘What did Sharif Sharif want when he came to visit Father that day?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Tara says, though not immediately. ‘I told you it was just a neighbourly visit. Asking about Rohan’s eyes.’

  ‘Mother, please.’

  ‘He asked for your hand in marriage.’

  Naheed puts down the knife.

  ‘He offered to pay for his eye operation in return.’

  After minutes of further silence Naheed takes the bowl full of green and white pieces of gourd to the other side of the kitchen. Turning on the tap she submerges the pieces in water, to remain fresh until cooked. ‘One more thing,’ she says quietly from there.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Father says you’ve found someone for me.’

  ‘I have a boy in mind.’ And not having received a reaction from Naheed, she adds, ‘It’s the only way.’

  Naheed smiles tensely, her eyes on the point of igniting. ‘It’s not the only way, Mother. There are a thousand other ways. I am tired of being afraid all the time –’

  ‘The world is a dangerous place.’

  ‘Let me finish, Mother. It was wrong of you to frighten me into destroying my child. It was wrong of you to frighten Mikal away. I don’t care what you have been through, but you should never ever frighten those younger than you with your own fears. Caution is one thing, but you filled me with terror. Just leave me alone please. Just take this world of yours and go away with it somewhere and leave us alone. All of you.’

  ‘What if –’

  ‘What if, what if. What if the world ends tomorrow?’

  ‘It could. The signs are there.’

  Naheed comes and places her hand gently on Tara’s shoulder. ‘Mother, you can’t be this afraid. The world is not going to end tomorrow.’

  23

  Kyra and the six boys from the six houses of Ardent Spirit are discussing the St Joseph’s operation.

  ‘The siege will go on for several days,’ Ahmed says. ‘So we’ll need sacks of almonds to take with us for energy.’

  The boy from Cordoba House has produced a precisely detailed diagram of the school – the height as well as the length of each wall is marked, the number of windows in each classroom – and it lies on the carpet before them.

  It has been decided that each of the six young men will bring along just four trusted companions – as the Prophet had four companions. So in all twenty-four men have to be found. They have begun the search and made a partial selection. Some of them will be students at Ardent Spirit, while others are from outside, chosen for their commitment, strength and boldness.

  ‘Given the possible length of the siege,’ says the head of Mecca House, ‘each of us will have to take five or six rucksacks, containing spare ammunition, medicines, bottles of water in case the authorities try to kill us by poisoning the taps.’

  ‘May Allah reward him somehow,’ Ahmed says, ‘the guard who stands at St Joseph’s entrance has been very helpful in providing details of the building, of the routine and flow of the staff and student body.’ The guard is a devout man in his fifties, and said he knew what kind of suspect
humans the St Joseph’s students would grow up to be. Over the years he had guarded the mansions of any number of Heer’s rich people, and he was repulsed by what he had observed – the indecency of the women, the abominable traitors’ talk, the superior attitude towards the unprivileged, the consuming of alcohol, the constant blasphemies – and he had lost his job several times for daring to speak up, or had abandoned it in shame for not having the courage to say what he wished.

  They said to the guard that they needed the information in order to rob and vandalise the place.

  ‘Once we are inside the building,’ the head of Cairo House says, pointing to the drawing, ‘this line of trees along the south wall will restrict our view of the outside. The police and army could storm the school from that direction.’

  Ahmed studies the drawing. ‘We need to do something about them.’

  He gets up and walks to the window, looking out. He has been feeding tactics, strategy and vigour into the boys. While in the military he had developed a silencer for the AK-47 rifle, hitherto available to only a select few internationally, and he developed what he referred to as a ‘guerrilla’ mortar gun, of a type available only to some of the world’s most advanced military forces, so small it can be hidden in a medium-sized holdall. He had specialised in urban assault training, his ideas proving to be the most important element in the series of fearful guerrilla attacks on Indian barracks in Kashmir. In February 2000 the commandos of the Indian army had raided a village in Pakistani Kashmir and killed fourteen civilians, returning to the Indian side with abducted Pakistani girls, the severed heads of three of whom they threw back at Pakistani soldiers. The Pakistani guerrilla leader who crossed into Indian-occupied Kashmir the very next day with twenty-five fighters, to conduct a revenge operation against the Indian army in Nakyal sector, had been trained by Kyra. They kidnapped an Indian officer and beheaded him, bringing the head back to be paraded in the bazaars of Kotli in Pakistani Kashmir.

  He has given every aspect of the St Joseph’s operation deep thought, and has just returned from a three-day visit to China, where he had gone to procure weapons and night-vision glasses. The biggest task was to clear them through customs in Pakistan. He had called an old friend, a captain, who is the President’s security officer. The captain came to the airport in the President’s official car and received Kyra at the immigration counter. In the captain’s presence no one dared touch Kyra’s luggage. So there are some in the army with their honour intact. He visits his old military comrades regularly and tries to shame them for their weak Islamic beliefs, for continuing to serve in the Pakistani army, and he is delighted on being told that some of them are thinking of leaving, like him. After St Joseph’s, he and several others will leave to fight and kill British troops in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province.