by Nadeem Aslam
A smile came to Mr Kasmi’s lips. ‘Our Alice-bibi isn’t here yet,’ he thought out loud.
Zébun read a verse, kept count by letting slide a bead along the thread, and said, ‘I don’t think she’ll come today, brother-ji. The Christians won’t let their girls out for a long while yet.’
Mr Kasmi surfaced. ‘Yes,’ he said vaguely.
Zébun lowered the rosary. ‘Men are worse than animals. Janvar!’
‘It wasn’t just men who did that thing last night, sister-ji. There were women there, too. And children.’
Zébun watched Mr Kasmi anxiously, her shoulders bent forward. ‘You are unhurt, aren’t you, brother-ji?’
‘I was unhurt,’ Mr Kasmi lied.
Zébun nodded.
‘I was just knocked to the ground. But Maulana Hafeez placed himself between me and the crowd just in time.’
‘Your voice sounds different,’ Zébun said, ‘but this’ – she gestured towards the pan on the fire – ‘should stop you catching pneumonia. At our age we mustn’t let night rain on to our lungs.’
Mr Kasmi smiled in accord and looked into the pan. Even though the water was only just warming up, a microscopic imperfection in the surface of the metal was assisting the process of oxidation and a column of tiny bubbles was rising from the base of the pan to the surface.
‘You were very courageous, brother-ji.’ Zébun shook her head. ‘I would have continued walking.’
‘It wasn’t deliberate, sister-ji. It was all so very sudden. And, I must admit that afterwards I did feel a little foolish. All I remember is that on my way back from Mujeeb Ali I saw the girl being dragged through the street. And the next thing I know I’ve crossed the street and am struggling with these people. Then a section of the crowd turns on me: Get the Ahmadiya as well. Get the Ahmadiya as well.’
‘And that’s when Maulana Hafeez arrived?’
‘It must have been.’
A wisp of steam was rising and the water was beginning to boil, diminishing in volume – a ball of wool being unwound by the drawing out of the loose end.
Mr Kasmi continued: ‘The front end of the crowd kept on moving forward so eventually we were left alone in the street, Maulana Hafeez and I. Maulana Hafeez was trying to get me back on my feet. And someone near the back of the mob shouted to him: “Maulana-ji, you wouldn’t see Maulana Dawood associating so freely with an Ahmadiya.” ’
Mr Kasmi finished speaking with a little catarrhal laugh.
The sound appeared to bring Zébun out of a daydream.
Outside, the morning was calm – clouded heat and a hazy insect-ridden ten o’clock. The trees across the courtyard were bare. A solitary five-lobed leaf at the end of a branch resembled a hand thrust out of a window to test for rain.
Zébun sighed. ‘I hope Alice does come. I would like to send her to the mosque for news of Maulana Hafeez.’
The sound of the doorbell had diverted the child’s attention from the game. Now he lowered his head again and, with a suspicious finger, made certain that his opponent had pushed the counters along the board by the correct number of squares. The bell sounded again. Yusuf Rao’s youngest daughter was sitting halfway up the staircase, touching up with colouring pencils the faded cover of a story book. The other children were in one of the bedrooms, with the curtains drawn, shaking awake the fireflies they had captured and imprisoned inside bottles to make lanterns two evenings ago. They, too, ignored the bell. The lawyer’s eldest daughter lifted the lid off the yoghurt pan and smiled: the milk had taken – it rarely did during the rainy season. The girl was not allowed to answer the door. Once after a visit from a girl she had met at the Qur’anic lessons, she was severely beaten by her mother: ‘So you think you’re old enough to make friends? Who gave you permission?’ Now she stood in the kitchen, her palms pressed against the clay pot made warm by the overnight activity of the bacteria, and listened to her mother answering the door.
‘Who is it?’
‘Is Yusuf Rao in, apa-ji?’
‘Who is it?’ the woman asked, from behind the door.
‘The police. The police inspector.’
The woman held her head as one deeply considering. ‘No,’ she said after a silence. ‘He’s gone to Rawalpindi.’
Through the wooden planks she heard the inspector’s sigh; and: ‘When is he coming back?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘He didn’t say?’
‘No.’
The inspector’s voice became ingratiating. ‘Listen, apa-ji. I just need Yusuf Rao to accompany me to the courthouse for a few minutes and answer a few questions, that’s all. You must have heard about the attempt on the General’s life. This is all tied up with that. Just a few questions …’
‘He’s away,’ Yusuf Rao’s wife said, and added, ‘brother-ji.’
‘I’ve had orders from Lahore, apa-ji. So you can tell Yusuf Rao that, if he doesn’t return from Rawalpindi by this evening, we’ll have to force our way into the house.’
The woman stood listening, biting the inside of her lip.
The police inspector was saying: ‘I respect your purdah, apa-ji. But I have my duty to do. If he doesn’t present himself at the courthouse by nightfall I’ll have to come into the house.’
Just then the eldest girl came to the kitchen door and looked with frightened eyes at the corner of the courtyard where as a little girl, ten or so years ago, she had watched her mother and father burying books and magazines that would have incriminated her father in the event of a police raid.
Yusuf Rao’s wife answered incisively, ‘You won’t find anyone in here. I’ve told you already, he’s in Rawalpindi.’
At the other side of the door the inspector sighed again, ‘I have to go.’ He tapped his stick on the wood. ‘I have dozens more calls to make before midday.’
The woman secured the door.
As she passed her daughter on the veranda, she said, ‘He says he has dozens more calls to make. All this in a town as small and as God-forsaken as this. Imagine what the situation must be like in the cities.’
‘I heard everything,’ Yusuf Rao said as his wife entered the bedroom. He was dressed for work but had collapsed in a chair. He clasped and unclasped his hands.
‘What I want to know,’ his wife said, frowning, ‘is where that police inspector was last night when they were dragging that poor girl, naked, through the streets. Where were his orders and his duty then?’
Yusuf Rao said distractedly, ‘You were against that girl yesterday. Remember?’
‘Yes. But I didn’t say that a mob should descend on her and drag her by the hair to be left on the doorstep of her parents’ house.’
Yusuf Rao breathed noisily through his mouth, from time to time compressing his fleshy lips.
‘I’ll have to force my way into the house, apa-ji,’ the woman mimicked. ‘He wouldn’t dare. If they tried to violate my purdah and enter the house I would scream and shout till the whole street came out in my defence. He’ll be sent back to his barracks like the mardood dog that he is. If people can come out against a born-last-Friday Christian harlot then they will also come out to protect a respectable Muslim woman.’
Yusuf Rao looked up sharply. His glance conveyed the tension and anger he was feeling as the rope attached to a mighty sail conveys at a touch the power of the distending wind. ‘Typical,’ he clenched his fists. ‘Typical. The deed’s done and, even though we don’t approve, let’s not waste time thinking about it, analysing it. A girl’s clothes are torn off in the street, so what? No need to think about how or why it happened. Let’s just talk about it as though it’s the most natural thing in the world. That’s your policy. That’s this whole harami country’s policy.’
It had happened so quickly. The vehemence shocked them both.
His wife’s voice had risen in pitch: ‘Some of us don’t have time to think. We’re too busy trying to get through the day with our hides intact. We don’t have time to analyse. If you don’t agree with what
I said then you tell me, Yusuf Rao-sahib, what you plan to do when the police inspector comes back with his men tonight. I’m sure you’d be happy to live in gaol for the next six months, eating government-paid chappatis, but I have to think about how I’m going to feed these children of yours.’
She stared at him challengingly.
Their raised voices had attracted the children from the adjoining room. They stood holding the jar full of suffocated fireflies.
‘All right, all right.’ Yusuf Rao raised his hands. ‘But you’ll have to think of something, because even if they don’t manage to take me away, I won’t be able to go to work for the next few months. The office is right in front of the barracks and the courthouse. They’ve probably already put their own padlock on the door.’
Having spent the preceding eight or so hours in the mosque, Maulana Hafeez returned to his house at noon.
His wife dropped the newspaper and stood up at once to indicate that the distraction had been momentary – her true concern all morning had been Maulana Hafeez.
In response to a question about the chill on his lungs Maulana Hafeez shook his head: his health did not require immediate attention. And yet his cheeks were sunken and colourless, the skin waxen; his breathing raspy. He seated himself beside the woman and picked up the newspaper. ‘What’s in here?’
‘You didn’t come back for breakfast, Maulana-ji. And you haven’t slept.’
‘I was praying.’
She leaned towards him, frowning, speaking quietly. ‘What happened last night wasn’t your fault, Maulana-ji. You mustn’t hold yourself responsible. If you hadn’t given that sermon then Maulana Dawood would have done so. And soon.’
‘I knew that,’ Maulana Hafeez said. ‘That’s why I acted as I did.’
The woman watched the lustreless eyes. There was an odd serenity in the way he spoke – reassurance? delusion?
With the back of his fingers the cleric struck an area near the centre of the newspaper. ‘This kind of thing mustn’t be allowed to spread.’ He was referring to the phenomenon of mosques being ‘conquered’ by armed mobs of rival sects. ‘Tonight, after Isha, I will visit Maulana Dawood at his mosque.’
The woman nodded, doubtfully. ‘They might be hostile, Maulana-ji.’ And she pointed at the newspaper, to the item giving news of the latest raided mosque in Lahore.
Maulana Hafeez shook his head. ‘But now I have to visit Elizabeth Massih, to see how she is.’
‘Is that wise, Maulana-ji?’
Maulana Hafeez inclined his head in a nod, lowering his chin into his collar.
‘You shouldn’t go there alone, Maulana-ji. Perhaps … perhaps I should come with you.’
The cleric considered, stroking his beard, and finally murmured in assent.
While his wife went to collect her cloak Maulana Hafeez gazed vacantly at the newspaper.
Her cloak, the burka – a long cape of white satin draped from a skullcap, with holes at face level – fell in great folds towards the ankles. As she adjusted it, searching for the perforated section, the white moths and butterflies embroidered on the cloth danced in circles around her.
‘Hasn’t there been any news of her?’ Maulana Hafeez asked standing up, when she came back gathering the folds to the front of the chest.
‘People have already forgotten about last night, Maulana-ji. The whole town is in turmoil. The deputy commissioner has telephoned back a list of people to be arrested. They say there was an attempt on the General’s life two days ago. They’ve been arresting people since dawn. They shot one man in the shoulder as he tried to escape through his back window. In some cases they’ve taken children away to force fathers out of hiding.’
‘Someone tried to kill the General?’ Maulana Hafeez asked, incredulous.
‘Two days ago,’ the woman answered through the holes arranged in a honeycomb pattern before her face. ‘The curfew in the big cities which I told you about last night is due to that.’
Maulana Hafeez asked, ‘And over the telephone, did the inspector tell the deputy commissioner anything about last night?’
A gentle breeze blew from the west. There was a smell in the air, of sweet pulp rotting.
‘I don’t know, Maulana-ji.’
The waters were at their yearly highest, the rivers tightening their grip on the town. The narrow lanes of the lower side would soon be under water. The couple would have great difficulty in reaching the Christian neighbourhood.
Maulana Hafeez’s wife, walking three paces behind him, asked, ‘How do you greet a Christian, Maulana-ji? Can we say salam-a-lekum, or is that used just with Muslims?’
Now fully swaddled in cloud, the sun had offered a reluctant profile about an hour ago. Kites and buzzards were wheeling and soaring in the sky.
Maulana Hafeez half turned towards his wife. Nearby a hen papiha peeped. The cleric summoned his remaining strength and tried to think.
The End
GLOSSARY OF URDU WORDS
Aambi Unripe mango
Ahmadiya The Ahmadiya movement was founded in 1889 in Northern India by Mirza Gulam Ahmed who proclaimed that he was the Promised Reformer whose advent was awaited by the adherents of Islam. This claim is contested throughout the Islamic world and the Ahmadiyas are denounced as blasphemers. There are, nevertheless, ten million Ahmadiya Muslims living in 120 countries around the world
Apa Form of address of older female
Asar Third prayer of the day
Baba Form of address for old man
Banéra Short wall or filigreed fence used to mark boundaries on flat roof
Bérry Large thorny tree bearing edible berry-like fruit; of jejube family
Bésan Gram flour
Bhoot Ghoul
Bote Fledgling
Burka Cloak
Chacha-zad Cousin
Chappati A flat bread
Chaval Rice
Chodhi Untouchable
Daig Cauldron
Dhi Daughter
Dhrake Tree of Margosa family
Djinn Spirit of supernatural power able to appear in human and animal forms
Eid Festival celebrating the end of the month of Ramadan
Fakir Ascetic/mendicant
Falsé Kind of berry
Ghat Approach to a river
Goonda Henchman
Gora White man
Gul-é-lala Tulip-like tropical plant (gul, flower; lala, red)
Harami Bastard
Hira mundi The district of prostitutes
Isha Last prayer of the day
Ishq-é-péchan Straggly trailing plant bearing pink and red flowers in bunches (ishq, a love affair; péchan, complex)
Jand Large tree with white flowers
Janvar Animal
Jinaza-gah Place assigned for funeral prayers
Kulcha Unleavened flat bread
Kurio Girls (sing, kuri)
Langra mango Superior variety of mango
Magrib Fourth prayer of the day
Mahfil An evening of pleasure
Mardood Corpse (used as swearword)
Maulana Title and form of address for Muslim clerics
Mazdoor-Kisan party Marxist party (mazdoor, labourer; kisan, farmer)
Méva Sweetmeat
Mimber Pulpit
Motya Jasmine
Mukaish Form of embroidery done with thin strips of silver
Na-pak Unclean
Neem Margosa tree
Nyka Female brothel keeper
Papiha Migratory bird of cuckoo family; in the poetic traditions of the land which is now Pakistan its cries are represented as heralding monsoon. In prose and in everyday life, the bird is referred to as koyal
Pir Holy man
Punjangala Bridal ornament covering back of hands
Putar Son
Sapas-nama Framed tribute presented to dignitary
Shahzadi Princess
Shamiana Marquee
Soor Swine
Spara Qur’anic reader
&nb
sp; Sufi Mystic
Sunnat Guidelines derived from the Prophet’s daily conduct
Sura Section of the Qur’an. (The Qur’an is made up of thirty books: these books are further divided into sections called suras.)
Surkhi Lipstick
Talli Tree related to European beech
Tamasha Public show; a rowdy gathering
Teddy-paisa Popular name of the lowest denomination of coin
Tindé Small green vegetable
Tur Vegetable of cucumber family
Yaar Friend
Yarkan Jaundice
Zuhr Third prayer of the day