Season of the Rainbirds

by Nadeem Aslam

  A whole layer of soil was added to the mound and doused with the watering-can that the keeper fetched – spilling and splashing to his right and left – from the tap outside his room. Kalsum stood up. ‘He would have been twenty-one this December.’ She looked around and took in all the other graves.

  The old man nodded slowly and looking at Suraya said, ‘He was born three months before my boy.’

  ‘He was a good son,’ Kalsum said; she rubbed the palms of her hands hard against each other and the damp soil came off in thin, slender sickles and the skin beneath showed white.

  ‘Mine would ruin me,’ the keeper turned towards Kalsum and said. ‘He’s been nothing but trouble since he grew up. When he was a boy, people sent him on errands and gave him money afterwards. I would protest. Send him to do work, by all means, I said, it’s good for a child to be obedient. But don’t give him any money. A child shouldn’t have money, he’ll develop bad habits.’

  Kalsum agreed and touched the old man’s forearm. ‘May God guide them, baba.’

  ‘Now the shopkeepers are his friends. He gets them to write fake receipts and keeps the difference,’ the keeper went on. ‘He thinks I don’t know, but I know.’

  ‘He sent his mother to her grave,’ Kalsum turned to her sister and said quietly; and to the keeper: ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘I’ve sent him to the fertiliser factory to buy a sack of lime. There wasn’t going to be enough for the judge’s grave.’ As he spoke, the old man’s adam’s apple bobbed up and down. He placed the empty watering-can inside the basket and picked up the basket. ‘Still,’ he smiled, ‘I could be rich soon. Perhaps I’ll get a letter saying that nineteen years ago I had won a lottery.’

  Suraya and Kalsum were walking down the path. Kalsum turned around. ‘What are you talking about, baba?’

  The keeper approached; he looked at her incredulously. ‘You haven’t heard about the letters?’

  Kalsum shook her head. ‘What letters?’ Suraya had walked down to the tip of the path and, folding back the sleeves of her coat, was washing her hands at the tap.

  ‘They’ve just found three sacks of letters that went missing after a train crash nineteen years ago,’ the old man explained. ‘The ones belonging to the two neighbouring towns have been delivered. It’s our turn soon.’

  Maulana Hafeez did not go home directly after the burial. First, aware that there would be a shortage of rosaries for the mourners, he instructed some of the younger men at the cemetery to carry the sacks of date pits, collected and stored for just such occasions, from the mosque to the judge’s house. Then he walked to the lower part of the town. He went down the narrow, twisting alleyways, saying his rosary – the beads rising slowly towards his fingers and dropping one by one over the other side. It was the hottest hour of the day; the houses were shut and, apart from some schoolboys playing truant, the streets were deserted. Maulana Hafeez knocked on the door of a small adobe house. He informed the woman who came to the door, her clothes in disarray and her hair dishevelled – she had been taking her siesta – that her mother’s grave was showing signs of neglect, it needed a new layer of soil. She stood listening with bowed head, trying to stifle her yawns. She asked the cleric into the house but he refused the invitation courteously.

  When he arrived back at the mosque he was covered in sweat. The door to his wife’s room was closed and on the veranda all the blinds had been lowered, enclosing the small space, and the rooms it gave on to, in a cool, tranquil stillness. Waiting for him in his bedroom was the man who made his living by selling spectacles and eye medicine at street corners. He was drinking bright-red cordial from an aluminium tumbler; and as Maulana Hafeez entered, he quickly put out the cigarette he had been drawing on so pleasurably. He put the cigarette in his pocket and stood up to greet the cleric.

  ‘There was no need to hurry,’ said Maulana Hafeez. ‘You should have waited for the sun to go down a little.’

  The vendor responded by making a humble noise at the back of his throat. Maulana Hafeez wiped the oily sweat from his face and the sides of his neck. The vendor set about opening his large leather case; its felt-lined inside was divided into several compartments, all taken up by tidy rows of spectacles. The frames were identical – imitation tortoiseshell – and the glass of the lenses they carried had a greenish tinge. The inside of the lid too was adapted to hold ranks of eye drops, each small vial secured by its neck to a clamp-like, near-complete circle. And there were many compact boxes containing monocles. Maulana Hafeez brought a chair over and sat down facing the man, who immediately began asking him his questions.

  Maulana Hafeez answered each question thoughtfully and precisely.

  ‘Myopia,’ the optician announced when he had finished the questioning. ‘It’s also called near-sightedness because things near the eye are less out of focus than those far away.’ Maulana Hafeez was nodding uncertainly. ‘It’s natural, Maulana-ji,’ the optician continued. He explained how, due to stiffening with age of certain muscles in the eye, almost everyone lost some ability to see distant objects; and how people who were far-sighted when young had near-perfect vision in their old age because the myopia of their later years counterbalanced, and therefore corrected, the earlier defect.

  ‘God’s wisdom is limitless,’ responded the cleric. The optician leaned forward in his chair towards Maulana Hafeez and began handing him pairs of glasses.

  The blurred edges contracted all of a sudden and objects came sharply into focus – even those that he had thought of as simply too far away to be seen. Maulana Hafeez was taken aback – that others observed things with such clarity, that all the time he too had been meant to see the world as clearly as this.

  ‘This one is just right,’ Maulana Hafeez said, looking around and pointing up at the pair resting on his nose. He took them off and carefully folded down the arms. The vendor walked around the case, some of whose neat rows were now in disarray, and began to examine Maulana Hafeez’s eyes. Using a forefinger and thumb he exposed almost half of each eyeball and, holding his face inches away from Maulana Hafeez, shone a torch into each eye.

  Maulana Hafeez had never seen another face so close to his own. He struggled to look away. ‘You didn’t have to come straightaway, you could have waited until it was cooler.’

  ‘There’s no problem, Maulana-ji,’ said the vendor. ‘You must provide us sinners with more chances to be of service to you.’

  Maulana Hafeez did not hear him; he was not listening. ‘A terrible calamity,’ he said. ‘A tragedy. May he find a place in God’s paradise. God is the glorious truth.’

  At last, the man stepped back. Maulana Hafeez straightened in his chair.

  ‘A terrible business,’ the vendor agreed. He had picked up the small wallet-like case in which the glasses would be stored when not in use. He was preoccupied with dusting it clean, paying especial attention to the area around the clasp. ‘This morning when I heard the announcement from …’ He broke off, looking disconcerted.

  But Maulana Hafeez encouraged him to continue with a nod.

  ‘… from the other mosque, I went straight to the house to see if there was anything I could do, see if I could help with the arrangements.’ He placed the chosen spectacles in the wallet, added a square of yellow felt, and snapped shut the clasp.

  Maulana Hafeez looked down into his lap. ‘It is true. I didn’t make the announcement till noon. I didn’t think there would be any need.’

  The vendor accepted Maulana Hafeez’s money – after a flurry of refusals – and was ready to leave. But he lingered over the fastening of his case, and once the case was packed, seemed reluctant to pick it up. ‘Maulana-ji,’ he said finally, placing a hand on the cleric’s forearm. ‘There is a reason why I answered your message so quickly. I have to tell you.’

  With a faint nod Maulana Hafeez motioned him to retake the seat he had just vacated.

  ‘Maulana-ji,’ the man began very quietly, ‘when this morning we went to the deputy commissioner’
s house to give him a message from the police inspector, we saw a girl in his house.’

  Maulana Hafeez remained silent for a few moments. He prepared his answer. ‘Are you sure? Because those who spread slander will be punished here on earth and in the Hereafter. Your own tongue will be called upon to testify against you, about the evil uses to which it was put.’

  ‘Maulana-ji, I saw her myself. We went inside and there she was, combing her hair, with a bottle of linseed oil by her side.’ With both forefingers he pointed to his eyes and added: ‘With these eyes, Maulana-ji.’

  Maulana Hafeez lifted his beard. Again it was some time before he spoke. ‘I’ll look into it and see what can be done. Azhar is a very good man, there is bound to be an explanation. She was probably a servant.’ He rose from the chair, indicating that the exchange was over.

  ‘But in the meantime,’ he added, as they reached the front door, ‘I must ask you to be discreet. Do not mention this to anyone else.’

  Back in his bedroom Maulana Hafeez placed the rosary next to the clock on the shelf and picked up the newspaper lying folded on the bed. Rain had pockmarked the paper and when it crackled it made a sound more crisp than usual. Maulana Hafeez read the newspaper methodically, beginning as always at the top of the front page and working his way down. Occasionally he had to turn to one of the inner pages to continue a front-page story; and this he did by carefully folding and refolding, and counting the columns with a forefinger until he reached the appropriate number. Some of the columns had a few blank spaces where stories of appropriate length had not been found to replace the censored items. Maulana Hafeez glanced at the advertisements and – it was Wednesday – read the children’s supplement. There was a photograph of a Japanese robot. Encased in gleaming chromium plates fastened together with rivets, the automaton had the appearance of a human male and could, the caption ran, function like a man.

  Maulana Hafeez read until four attuned chimes from the clock in his wife’s room told him that soon it would be time for Asar – the third prayers of the day. The heat was beginning to subside. He washed himself with water from the clay pitcher in the bathroom and went into his wife’s room. The blinds were still closed and the light in the room was subdued. The woman was saying her rosary.

  Maulana Hafeez walked over to the shelf and unscrewed the cap of the attar bottle. The smell of roses quickly spread to his wife’s side of the room. ‘Tell Mansoor to wait for me when he comes back for the newspaper,’ Maulana Hafeez said over his shoulder.

  She lowered her beads into her lap. ‘He wanted to see you when he brought it over, Maulana-ji. He waited, said he had something to tell you.’ And in response to the puzzled look on her husband’s face she added: ‘It seems there was a woman in the deputy commissioner’s house last night.’

  There was a silence from Maulana Hafeez. Then, ‘Who says so?’

  The woman shook her head and shrugged.

  Maulana Hafeez transferred the small circle of attar from the tip of his forefinger to his shirt. The cold water he had used for ablutions had comforted the skin on his arms, feet and face but his eyes had remained like two live coals embedded in his skull. ‘I’ve known about it since last week. I saw a woman going into the house at night and I knew a woman had no business going there, especially at night-time. Now I suppose I’ll have to talk to him.’ He set the attar bottle on the shelf and turned around. ‘But in any case I would like a word with Mansoor himself about the television he has brought into his house.’

  ‘Mansoor?’ the woman said. ‘He is not rich enough to afford a television, Maulana-ji.’

  ‘Precisely,’ Maulana Hafeez said, turning his head at an angle. ‘Doesn’t he realise that he is offending God if he has got himself into debt for something like this?’

  ‘How do you know he has one, Maulana-ji?’

  ‘There’s an antenna on the roof of his house,’ Maulana Hafeez said coolly. ‘I’ve just seen it from my window.’ And with that he reached into his pocket to show his wife his recent purchase.

  Thursday

  Alice pushed the door open with her foot. She was returning from the street corner, clutching three enormous bundles of spinach, the turgid leaves spilling over her elbows. The morning was bright, the sunlight almost tangible, as though the walls were draped in sheets of luminous cloth. Alice stopped at the door to the kitchen and, frowning, looked around. Zébun was on the veranda. She had taken down the calendar from the stretch of wall between the two windows and was turning over the new month two days early.

  ‘What is this smell?’ Alice said from the door.

  Mr Kasmi was at the kitchen table. He turned and saw the girl. ‘Coffee,’ he replied, and added in explanation: ‘It’s like tea. You drink it.’

  Alice was familiar with the name of the drink. She wrinkled her nose. ‘It smells like stale hookah-water.’

  Mr Kasmi smiled broadly. He took a sip from the cup and, after a moment’s pause, said, ‘So it does. So it does.’ Alice gave him a triumphant look. He pointed at the spinach. ‘Is all that for us?’

  She looked down at the leaves spread across her forearms and gave a nod. She stepped into the kitchen and, unloading the dark-green leaves on the table, considered them once again. ‘It looks more than we need,’ she agreed, ‘but that is because it hasn’t been cooked yet. At first they’ll fill the pot up to the brim but after five minutes they’ll shrivel and go down to this.’ She held up her left hand, fingers spread to the size of a small bowl, for Mr Kasmi to see.

  Mr Kasmi sipped his coffee. Alice cut the twine and began to pick out the unhealthy leaves. ‘I was lucky to get these. It was all they had left,’ she said. ‘Everything else has gone to Judge Anwar’s house. So many people have come since yesterday. There is a row of daigs cooking outside the house.’ She closed her eyes and made a mock shudder run through her spine.

  Mr Kasmi watched her across the width of the table. He had often thought that the tiny hairs on her small, dark face looked like the symmetrical patterns of magnetised iron-filings. To keep up with fashion her shirt had been lengthened with new material at the bottom and the seam concealed beneath a strip of lace. On her head she created flimsy ringlets by patiently working twigs and matchsticks and bits of wire into her hair at night and securing them with hairpins.

  Alice looked up. ‘The police are questioning my sister today, because she works in the house.’

  Mr Kasmi stood up. ‘Well, an insider has to be involved.’

  ‘If it was a case of simple robbery,’ Alice said, ‘I would question the people who made the cupboards and cabinets, they are usually involved. They tell the robbers what kind of keys they’ll need in which house.’

  Zébun came into the room. ‘What are you talking about, girl?’ Her voice was weary. She lowered herself into a chair and fanned herself with the calendar page – it showed a slender woman, an ancient princess, picking flowers from a shrub on whose branches birds sang indifferent to her presence.

  Mr Kasmi was smiling as he carried the empty cup to the shelf. ‘I think our Alice-bibi has been talking to schoolboys, sister-ji,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Next she’ll be telling us that to hold loot thieves have extra-deep pockets sewn into their trousers.’

  Zébun put down the page and began slowly to undo her hair, picking with her fingertips at the knot of the ribbon. ‘I still can’t believe he’s dead,’ she said, unweaving her wiry grey plait. ‘I saw him walk by the window on Sunday. Little did I know that I was seeing him for the last time.’

  Mr Kasmi picked up the small jar of coffee from the shelf. He turned to Alice and said, ‘The woman we had before you used to say on hearing about someone’s death, What is there to a human being? Nothing but illusions.’ Then, including Zébun in his gaze he said, ‘Do you remember, sister-ji?’

  Zébun gave a nod. With smooth, flowing strokes she dragged the comb through her hair. Any loose hairs she carefully wrapped around her forefinger and collected in her lap. Alice stretched across the t
able and picked up the torn calendar page. ‘Can I have it? I told you I liked it a lot.’

  The sun was still low when Mr Kasmi stepped out of the house. The heat had not yet begun. The streets were in shadow. Mr Kasmi set off slowly in the direction of the school. There had been just two prolonged showers in the previous two days, but already seeds were beginning to germinate along the edges of the streets and the lower parts of the houses looked as though they had been dusted in a fine, green powder – the beginnings of what would become, within two weeks of the monsoon’s arrival, a pelt of velvety moss.

  Azhar was leaving his house. His recently washed hair was slicked back away from his forehead. He saw Mr Kasmi, and raised his hand and smiled. Mr Kasmi waved back from his side of the street. Azhar strode away in the opposite direction. Within the next few minutes Mr Kasmi could see the school, a charmless building. Ten yards further on and he began to catch whiffs of the penetrating odour that the newer parts of the building gave off in the rainy season.

  Mr Kasmi had once taught here. In those days the school consisted of one room, serving as headmaster’s office and staff room, and a walled-in strip of level ground where lessons were given by the three teachers to boys who sat cross-legged on the grass. Summer holidays would begin on the day a pupil passed out from the sun. Mr Kasmi’s had been the first bicycle in town, and the sight of his gangling frame riding in through the gate the first morning had caused a sensation. The wheels left behind two wavy lines in the mud, like the path of two butterflies chasing each other in early March. Since Mr Kasmi’s retirement, however, three new rooms had been added to the building. The pond behind the old room was drained and people were asked to dump their rubbish into the enormous crater left behind. Four months later cement was poured over the garbage and the new rooms were built.

  Making unsuccessful attempts at breathing through his mouth, Mr Kasmi entered the small corridor at the end of which was the headmaster’s office. Two classrooms faced on to the corridor. The headmaster was not in his office. Mr Kasmi dusted the moulded plastic chair and, propping his small zip-up bag against a leg of the chair, sat down to wait. Opposite him – through the open door and across the corridor – the teacher had returned to the classroom and the monitor, a pale-skinned boy with delicate gestures, was presenting him with the names of boys who had misbehaved in his absence. The monitor returned quietly to his seat, the bench nearest to the teacher’s chair. The names were called out. Mr Kasmi watched, handkerchief pressed to his nose, as two boys got up and walked slowly to the front of the room. Before settling in his chair the teacher said something to the two boys which Mr Kasmi was too far away to catch clearly. They stood motionless for a few moments, facing each other. Then, prompted by a shout from the teacher, the taller of the pair reached out his hand and struck the other boy’s face – the shallow arc of the splayed palm made a sharp sound on impact. Mr Kasmi stood up. The boy who had been hit swung his arm to catch the other’s face. But the blow was foiled – the taller boy dipped his head sideways and, straightening, slapped the other boy’s face once again. Mr Kasmi looked around; he had forgotten the bad smell. Another blow was struck and – perhaps Mr Kasmi had been seen – a boy walked up and closed the classroom door.