by Nadeem Aslam
The judge’s daughters – all in white, linseed oil on their hair – were sitting amongst the women. One of the women looked at Azhar and clicked her fingers at the four older girls. Of an age now to be guarded from the eyes of the adult male, they got up silently and left the room. Azhar was not aware of the command but he had registered the distaste that his presence caused on some of the faces in the room.
‘You came about the medicines, doctor?’ Asgri addressed Dr Sharif. The physician answered with a nod, guiltily. The bottles of vibrantly coloured pills, the eggshell-thin vials of injections and the packs of syringes and needles had all been collected in a large box. Dr Sharif took the box from the table and, to avoid having to wrestle with the beggars who were now filling the courtyard, he left by the inside door, emerging on to the back street – the door Judge Anwar would squat by to urinate at night.
It was hot, despite the absence of the sun and despite the fact that it had rained continuously for the past six or seven hours. Azhar pulled the collar of his shirt away from his neck and blew cold breath on to his chest. He sat down on the edge of the only empty chair in the room. With his head bowed and in an unvarying tone of voice, as though reading aloud from a book on his lap, he explained to Asgri the stage which the legal action against the judge’s killers had reached and assured her that he, personally, was supervising the proceedings.
When he finished, Asgri shifted her eyes from her husband’s photograph and nodded briskly. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But, Azhar, there is something else. I want you to look through and sort out the papers in the safe. My brothers will need your help and advice when they come back for the tenth-day memorial service on Saturday. We’ve made some decisions. I’m selling everything and going back to Sind. There’s nothing for me here.’ She spoke quietly and softly.
The women let out sighs of protest.
‘No.’ Asgri smoothed away a wrinkle in the guipure counterpane. ‘My mind’s made up. Everything including the house.’ Asgri was from a large feudal family in the south whose land-holdings had been in the family for over three hundred years – since a century before the arrival of the British. An only sister to six brothers, Asgri was dearly loved. It was said that the brothers had been outraged to the point of threatening annulment on discovering, soon after the wedding ceremony, that Judge Anwar smoked cigarettes – something the judge had failed to declare when asking for their sister’s hand in marriage.
Azhar stood up. ‘I’ll come by later, apa.’
‘Be in time for dinner,’ Asgri told him and he nodded. He was aware that some of the women were staring at him with quiet yet defiant hostility.
He turned to Nabila Ali and asked: ‘Is Mujeeb Ali at home today, apa?’
Nabila’s eyes hardened before she answered.
Azhar whispered a salam-a-lekum to all the women and left the room.
Zafri had spread a straw mat on the tiles of the veranda and was beginning to cut the meat on a block of tree trunk. He was dividing the quartered carcasses into smaller pieces by efficient strokes of the cleaver, as though attempting a children’s puzzle where a minimum number of intersecting lines must be drawn inside a circle to achieve the maximum number of divisions. ‘The poor animal lost its life and you still complain,’ he said loudly, shaking his head in mock despair when one of the crowd of beggars asked for more than she had been given.
As Azhar walked past the tailor’s shop – a roughly knocked together box of old boards whose corrugated-iron roof was shaking to the rattle of sewing machines – he heard his name being called out.
It was Saif Aziz. He emerged from the shop, clicking open his umbrella and raising an arm in greeting. Azhar waited under a tree as the journalist jumped over puddles towards him.
‘Ah,’ Azhar responded as Saif Aziz introduced himself and they shook hands. ‘I know who you are.’ They walked along the street, protected by the umbrella. ‘You are the person who began printing the countdown to the General’s election-within-ninety-days promise.’
Saif Aziz shrugged. In the newspaper that Saif Aziz had edited four years ago, the countdown to the General’s promised election-day had appeared daily at the foot of the front page, in a large boxed inset. The elections will be held within the next 28 days, 27 days, 26 days … until, a fortnight before day zero, the newspaper was shut down.
‘I intended to go into minus figures,’ Saif Aziz smiled. ‘The elections were held yesterday, two days ago, three days ago …’
They were walking towards the courthouse. At the other side of the street a beggar woman with a pick-a-backed child, and a bulging sack slung over her shoulder, was directing another beggar to Judge Anwar’s house.
‘But I do safe work now,’ said Saif Aziz. ‘I have three children to feed and clothe. Though if the General’s recent speeches are anything to go by, they’ll soon shut down every newspaper in the country under the pretext that they’re publishing letters of the alphabet that can be rearranged to form an anti-government message.’
Azhar said, ‘Why are you telling me this? I myself try to be as honest as my position allows.’
But Saif Aziz continued on his former line. ‘I’ll tell you something which troubles me at night, deputy-sahib. This is the worst government we’ve ever had and yet this is the only government in my adult life under which I haven’t been to prison.’
They walked on in silence until they came to the school building at the fork at the end of the street and stopped. The smell of decay, of putrefaction was overwhelming here. Water was seeping into the foundations of the school and rotting the underlay further. Water lizards crawled out from between the cracks at the base of the outside wall and scuttled about the street.
‘So what can I do for you?’ Azhar asked Saif Aziz.
‘People aren’t being very co-operative. No one is admitting to having actually received one of those letters. All they want to talk about is who they think has got one and what might be in it. Someone even said that one of the maulanas, Hafeez, has received one which he had written to his wife in his less older days, a letter full of love and longing.’
Azhar raised his shoulders. ‘Why are you journalists always chasing after weird stories? Why can’t you write about ordinary things?’
Saif Aziz made the umbrella rotate above their heads. ‘To write about ordinary things is the duty of a novelist: it’s the task of the journalist to write about extraordinary things.’ He grinned.
‘Who said that?’ Azhar snapped his fingers a few times in an effort to remember. He poked Saif Aziz’s chest. ‘That Irishman … what was his name …?’
The other smiled. ‘James Joyce.’
‘Yes, James Joyce.’
Saif Aziz leaned towards Azhar’s face. ‘Should I write about the unusual manner in which the letters were delivered here?’ His voice had quietened to a conspiratorial whisper.
Azhar came out from under the umbrella. ‘If you must write about unusual things then go and write about that goat which I hear has been born with the Prophet’s name on its hide.’
Saif Aziz reached out his hand and took Azhar by the upper arm. ‘One more thing, deputy-sahib,’ he said with a broad smile. ‘I would be interested in knowing what attracts a deputy commissioner to a miserable place like this.’
Azhar freed himself gently. He began to cross to the street that would take him to the courthouse.
‘You see, deputy-sahib,’ Saif Aziz shouted after him. ‘When I ask an ordinary question, no one makes a reply. They just walk away.’
Alice came to the kitchen door and shouted Zébun’s name, calling down to the bedroom. There were two pans on the cooking range, and to avoid contaminating the dessert with the smell of spices she needed another pair of hands.
‘You know how fussy Kasmi-sahib is when it comes to food,’ Alice said as Zébun came and stood alongside her. Zébun stirred the bubbling milk. On the shelf by the range was a peeled orange whose rind had been added to the meat. In a glass of water Alice had dissolved a
little food colouring; there were fresh coriander leaves resembling a duck’s webbed feet, and rhomboids of glacé pumpkin – Sikh-yellow, bride-red.
Zébun looked into the pan of meat in front of Alice. ‘Make sure to take out any big cardamoms from brother-ji’s plate,’ she advised the girl. ‘He says they remind him of cockroaches.’
Alice smiled and sucked her teeth. Her lips were painted red. She glanced down at Zébun’s feet and, beaming, said, ‘You’re wearing the new slippers.’ And with a self-congratulatory look she added, ‘I chose the design myself.’
Zébun continued to watch the tiny whirlpools that her stirring produced in the milk.
‘I only wear high heels myself. I don’t like flat slippers,’ Alice was saying. ‘I’m glad I’m not tall, or I wouldn’t be able to wear high heels. I’m going to buy a new pair next Sunday. It’s got rhinestones all along the edges. They say it’s all the rage in the cities.’
She picked up the salt, tilted it above the meat and held it there. Zébun was about to comment on the imprudence of this when with a measured flick of the wrist Alice cut off the flow of the white crystals. She was half smiling and excitedly recounting the details of a recent afternoon when, she claimed, a young man had deliberately bumped into her walking down the street.
‘ “Can’t you see?” I turned around and said sharply. And he answered back, “Of course I can see, that’s why I bumped into you.” ’ She shook her head as though despairing. ‘Men are terrible. Always bothering pretty girls.’ She laughed.
Zébun was staring at Alice. Her eyes moved steadily from the gaudy clothes to the row of plastic beads around the neck and on to the untidily painted lips. ‘Why do you wear that stuff on your lips, girl?’ she said wearily. ‘It’s almost as if you needed to know where your mouth was. It’s too hot for surkhi and powder anyway.’
Alice’s laughter stopped abruptly. Zébun glanced up at her eyes and found herself looking at tears. She let her gaze fall instantly, pretending not to have seen. But the girl realised that she had been seen; she turned off the heat and began to weep openly.
Zébun stood motionless, shocked. Then she too turned off the heat under her pan. ‘What’s the matter, Alice?’ Zébun remembered that something similar had happened a few years back when Alice had just begun to menstruate. The terrified girl had wept inconsolably, thinking she was going to die. Zébun had had to explain to her the changes taking place inside her twelve-year-old body. On that occasion Zébun had instantly guessed the cause of Alice’s fear. And she had begun saving cloth for her – old towels, scraps and cuttings of dress material. Now she folded her arms and tried to think.
Alice turned her head from side to side – ‘Nothing.’ She shook her head again and tucked behind her ear a lock of hair that had escaped the pin. But then she placed both hands over her face and began to sob again, violently.
‘Has brother-ji said anything?’
Alice dried her cheeks, blew her nose on her stole and swallowed hard. ‘It’s my father.’
The wrinkles on Zébun’s forehead became pronounced. ‘Is he unwell?’
Alice stared at the wall in front of her. ‘No,’ she managed to say before her eyes filled with tears once again. A droplet hung at the tip of her nose.
Zébun lost her temper. ‘What then?’
Alice spoke with one hand still covering her face, as though she wished to hide it. ‘I heard him talking to my mother. I was in the next room.’
A simple idea came to Zébun. She nodded and smiled. ‘Are they looking for a suitable young man for you?’ she asked and said, ‘Well, Alice, all we women have one day to—’
‘It’s not that,’ Alice interrupted softly. She inhaled rapidly through her mouth and tried to steady her breathing. ‘I was in the next room and I heard my father say to my mother that she had given birth to an ugly daughter. He said every time he looks at me he wonders what kind of djinn or bhoot I am. And I heard him spit in the corner of the room.’
Zébun let herself watch the floor, silent as she tried to grasp what Alice was saying.
‘And he did mention marriage. He said he wonders how he’ll ever get rid of me. He said we’re so poor we can’t even tempt anybody with a large dowry.’
She leaned towards Zébun, perhaps asking to be held. But Zébun did not move.
A few minutes passed before Alice stopped her swaying and uncovered her face. Her eyes were red and her mouth was smudged. Wet from her tears was trapped in tiny films under the curving hairs of her face. She lit the fire under the meat. Zébun took a step back to allow her to light the second burner with the same matchstick. Their eyes did not meet.
Zébun said, ‘Wipe your eyes, girl. Brother-ji is home, he might come in.’
‘All we need to do is to appoint a new watchman, that’s all.’
Mujeeb Ali opened the cupboard and, from the section neatly stacked with documents, he took out a file. ‘It will take you a long time to understand how things are done in this place, Azhar.’
Azhar, seated behind the desk, took the fountain pen out of his pocket and unscrewed the cap. Mujeeb Ali brought the file over to the desk and placed it unopened before him. ‘How was Gul-kalam chosen?’ Azhar asked.
Mujeeb Ali took the empty chair across the desk. ‘No one remembers. He used to supply firewood to people’s houses and sometimes milk the cows. Over the years he became the nightwatchman and brought his family down from the mountains. His brother began painting houses. Just one of those things.’
Azhar opened the file and, without reading, scrawled his signature at the bottom of the page. He lifted the corner of the first sheet and signed the next page. ‘It shouldn’t be your exclusive decision as to who guards the town at night,’ he said without raising his eyes from the papers. ‘Who are these people anyway? I’m not sure I feel comfortable with the idea of four armed men roaming the streets at night.’ His voice was courteous, but strained.
Mujeeb Ali listened patiently, unblinking. ‘It’s not just my men. There were two policemen with them last night, as there will be tonight.’
Since it was Tuesday Azhar had spent the afternoon at the courthouse hearing criminal cases brought by the magistrate. It was the only time of the week when he was sure to be in town. A deputy commissioner had to preside over the weekly sessions court in every town under his command: so even if Azhar had lived elsewhere he would have had to journey to this town once a week. Otherwise Azhar kept erratic hours, arrived and left whenever he wished. So every Tuesday there was a barrage of people congesting the arches outside the courthouse, as they waited to see him: there were those who needed passports and identity cards for departures to the Arab countries; others offering bribes to secure a favourable outcome of cases; fathers of unemployed sons, mothers of nubile daughters; sharecroppers needing loans to buy oxen. For the rest of the week these people would leave messages and gifts outside his house – baskets of fruit and vegetables, sides of meat, embroidery and lace, cakes of white perfumed soap, cages of songbirds. Once there was a fighting cock with a plucked neck and a tiny canvas muzzle over its beak, and once, even more surprising, there was a large bouquet of flowers. In the beginning Azhar used to send these things to the mosques but then it began to seem easier just to drag them over the threshold. People also approached him through Mujeeb Ali.
Tired and hungry he closed the file and looked Mujeeb Ali straight in the eye. ‘And I would like your men out of the post office.’ The noises of the heaving river outside the house and the heat were making it difficult for him to breathe.
A curt smile came to Mujeeb Ali’s lips.
Azhar spoke again: ‘If anything needed to be done I would have authorised it. Any order would have gone from me to the superintendent of police and from him to the police inspector. He should have carried it out.’
Mujeeb Ali picked up the file. ‘So,’ he said, ‘you don’t approve of what I did?’
‘No.’ Azhar returned the pen to his pocket. ‘You are just a citizen. It
was outside your jurisdiction.’ Then immediately, as though it only needed mentioning – was not to be lingered on, not to be stressed by allowing a silence to mount up – he lowered his voice and said, ‘You must try to understand my position. The town is without a post office now. I have divisional superiors to report back to. And since the suspension of the Constitution I am also answerable to the provincial martial-law administrator.’
Mujeeb Ali laughed indulgently. ‘Is that what bothers you?’ Expression had returned to his face. ‘Your divisional superior, as you so respectfully address him, and my brother Nadir used to play marbles outside this very house. Nothing has really changed since then except that now they play polo on the General’s private grounds.’
The words came out in a shout. ‘That is not the point.’
‘Calm yourself, Azhar. You were not here and the matter had to be dealt with urgently.’
‘Urgently? There is nothing here that needs to be taken the least bit seriously.’ Azhar had stood up, straining forwards, his palms splayed on the desktop.
Raindrops hurled themselves against the glass of the window. From the quality of the light Azhar sensed that it was past five o’clock. He walked around the desk. ‘I have to go now,’ he said lightly.
Mujeeb Ali’s eyes followed him unseeingly to the door. ‘I’ll have the post office keys sent to the barracks.’
Azhar turned at the door and showed him his empty palms. ‘You have to understand my position.’
The weather showed no signs of lifting. Smoky, silver-edged clouds piled up above the house. Plants thrashed in the gale and the rainwater corkscrewed down from the eaves and clapped on the edge of the parquet veranda. Arshad Ali was on the veranda with his niece when Mujeeb Ali emerged from the door behind them. Uncle and niece appeared to be discussing the parrot hanging above their heads. Arshad Ali pointed at the bird through the parallel bars at the base of the cage. ‘Does it talk?’