by Feroz Rather
‘Do I need to talk to Anzar Shah about the nikah?’ Gulam asked.
‘Yes, and about Rosy.’
‘What did you say?’ Gulam asked, puzzled. ‘What about Rosy?’
‘Jamshid wants to marry her,’ Nadim replied.
Gulam looked at him incredulously. ‘How dare you even say a thing like that,’ Gulam said.
‘That is what Jamshid wants,’ Nadim said.
‘Go away,’ snapped Gulam.
‘I will, but I thought you should know.’ Nadim shrugged.
‘Oh, get lost!’
At the end of the day, after polishing and patching several pairs of shoes, Gulam tucked an old copy of the daily newspaper Chattan under his arm and trudged upstairs to his room, exhausted. He removed his shoes outside the door. Cramped and dark, with a low ceiling of dusty wooden beams, the walls grey and sooty, the room had two peepholes for windows, one in front and the other at the back. He dragged his feet along the rough hay-mat covering the floor and, without pushing the front window open, sat in the corner. He put the newspaper down and sighed as he propped his head on his hands, sinking his elbows into a grimy pillow. He felt forlorn and numb. A dull sleep was about to overcome him when the door opened.
‘Assalamu aliakum,’ Jamshid greeted his father.
‘Wa-aliakum,’ Gulam mumbled.
‘I’ve brought something for you, Father,’ Jamshid said, smiling broadly, holding up a haunch of beef wrapped in an old newspaper.
Gulam watched him curiously, feeling his weight gathering and concentrating on his thin forearm. Jamshid was a broad-shouldered young man now, twice the size of his father. He was six feet tall and had long, strong limbs. He was clad in neatly ironed white kameez and shalwar. The Syeds had fed and schooled him well. His hair, thick and curly like his father’s, was groomed and he gave off a strong whiff of perfume.
‘The shoes are ready,’ Gulam said coldly.
‘I’ll collect them tomorrow. But today, right now, I am going to cook for you, Father. And I am going to stay the night,’ Jamshid announced.
Did the Syeds kick you out when they came to know that you want to marry Rosy? Gulam wondered.
‘I’m tired,’ he said aloud, ‘do whatever you like.’
Jamshid opened the rear window. A kerosene stove was placed beside the two wooden shelves at the far end of the room. There were little glass jars filled with spices on the lower shelf: yellow turmeric, red chili powder, green aniseed, green cardamom and black cardamom. He found a wooden-handled knife behind the jars and rummaged around for an onion in a bag on the upper shelf. As he deftly chopped it up, tears welled up in his smarting eyes. He muffled an involuntary cry. Gulam rose in alarm, but then held back, watching his son in pain.
‘It is nothing, Father,’ Jamshid said, tearing a scrap of the wet newspaper to wrap it around his bleeding fingertip.
Later, in the dim light of the lantern hitched to a nail in the middle of the ceiling beam, they ate white rice and a dark reddish meat stew.
‘Did Nadim come here in the morning, Father?’ Jamshid asked.
‘Yes, he did,’ Gulam replied.
‘It is impossible to persuade Syed Anzar Shah and the rest of the family even if you go in person and beg for the hand of their daughter.’
‘When it comes to marriage, Sheikhs have no business talking with Syeds,’ Gulam replied, glancing away from his son. After a moment of uneasy silence, Gulam rose with his plate and went to the rear window.
‘Koosh, koosh, koosh,’ he called the dog lying somewhere in the dark. It limped into view, wagging its tail in anticipation of food.
Gulam pushed the bones off the edge of his plate and watched them drop to the ground.
‘I’m sorry, Father,’ Jamshid said as Gulam resumed his seat. ‘I’ll ask Nadim not to bother you again.’
Gulam nodded and ate the rest of the meal in silence. Afterwards, he took his plate to the big pan that Jamshid had placed beneath the shelves and began to scour it clean. However, his son stopped him.
‘I’ll wash it, Father,’ he said.
Gulam nodded and receded to his corner. He opened his copy of Chattan and read while Jamshid did the dishes.
The next morning, by the time he woke up, Jamshid had left. He descended the old creaking staircase and sat at his worktable. As he placed a shoe for re-soling on the desk, a door across the street opened and out walked ‘Pasture’. He crossed the road quickly and hurried over.
‘Where’s Jamshid?’ he asked.
‘You always frighten the poor dog!’ Gulam complained, watching it limp away.
‘Fuck the dog! Where the hell is your son?’
He took out a pistol from his pocket and rubbed its barrel with his fingers. For a moment Gulam thought that this was some sick joke. However, when ‘Pasture’ lit a cigarette, and blew out smoke rings, his tone became menacing. Gulam understood that his loyalties had switched overnight.
‘Tell your son to keep away from Rosy,’ he said.
If it wasn’t for that donkey’s dick you hold in your hand, Gulam thought, I’d slap you square in the face. ‘I’ll tell him whatever you want me to tell him,’ he said, nodding at ‘Pasture’.
In the evening when Jamshid returned, Gulam grabbed his arm.
‘Pasture was here,’ he stuttered, his eyes filling with tears.
‘Who was here?’
‘Pasture … Nadim Pasture.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He said he’ll kill you if you do not keep away from Rosy.’
‘I cannot believe he said that,’ Jamshid said, hugging Gulam tightly. ‘But I’ll talk to him, Father.’ Gulam almost wrenched himself from his son’s embrace.
Jamshid told his father about his being elected the president of Jammu Kashmir Students Front with a roaring, unanimous vote in Rasool Mir College. He had the charm, grace and control of a young man on horseback galloping across a vast field with his countless admirers watching and applauding from the sidelines. Gulam squirmed as every inch of his being rebelled against his son’s sangfroid.
The next morning, Jamshid was still asleep when Gulam woke up. He felt a strange reassurance; it had been years since his son had spent two nights in a row at home. He opened the window gently. He had moved to Bijbyor fifteen years ago following his son’s arrival in the town.
In the beginning, Jamshid would visit every Sunday but, as he grew older and got more absorbed in the Syed household, his visits became rare. There were times when he wouldn’t visit for months on end. It was during that time that Gulam began to buy Chattan for fifty paise. He vaguely recalled the Urdu phrases that he had picked up in school before discontinuing in the fifth grade. He did not feel important enough to enjoy reading the news. He read to kill boredom and forget his loneliness.
Thinking back to that time, his stomach roiled with the memory of the bitter solitude of those nights inside the room, when darkness mingled with silence and turned into a viscous, clingy substance that spread all over him, and permeated his skin into his marrow. He had trembled like a leaf. He had had an intense desire to speak and be heard. To speak and be heard. He wanted to weep and be heard.
One of those nights, under the mounting weight of his misery, he felt his chest tighten. As he gasped for breath, a horrible thought dawned: the light has gone out of my eyes completely. I have been struck deaf and blind. But before he could dissolve into nothingness, he jolted himself awake. Flinging the darned quilt away, he dashed out of the room. He ran down the staircase and plunged into the street. He waddled about in the darkness, howling. Then a voice interrupted him.
‘What the hell is wrong with you, Gulamah? Are you possessed by a jinn?’ Misreh asked, touching his shoulder.
Gulam fell silent immediately, becalmed by the softness of her touch. Her large eyes shimmered bright with the light of the lantern she held in her hand.
He could not bring himself to speak. She led him by his arm to the steps of her shop, where the dog was asleep.
‘Sit here,’ she said quietly, holding his arm.
Gulam pushed open the window, letting in the daylight. Where have you been all these years, Jamshid? Why did you ignore me? Were you ashamed that your father is a Sheikh and a watul, a dirty, lower-caste cobbler, while you lived with the Syeds?
Despite Gulam’s overwhelming shame, he went to Bijbyor because Halim desperately missed Jamshid as only a mother would. She made him buy a gift in the form of a lamb that Gulam lost. What a beautiful lamb it was, a bundle of soft bones wrapped in white fleece. It ran away from Gulam’s eager hands towards the highway where a long lumbering truck ran over it, its entrails crushed and blood sticking to the deep grooves of the rubber tyres speeding over the tarmac. Gulam had toiled hard while building the rear wall of Rafiq Galwan’s cowshed which had been shattered by the fury of a gale. And sad though Gulam was and empty-handed after the mishap, he went into the mosque’s bathrooms where he washed his face and cleansed himself of the dirt that watals were supposed to have deposited not only on their skins but in their souls. He entered the house of God where he dipped his head to the floor and prayed behind Bijbyor’s imam who was also his son’s saviour, Syed Anzar Shah. However, the prayer did not seem to affect him much. He walked out, an ordinary and unrecognized man, one of a swelling throng of people. He crossed the highway and stood on the bridge as the imam’s voice, calm amidst the clamorous songs, continued to praise the Prophet.
The hump-backed bridge was made of wood, entire deodar trees of enormous girth cut down from some distant jungle and planted deep into the ground and river bed. The Jhelum with its sloping banks deepened in the middle. Whether it was the bridge that arched and attained the height or the river that plunged and deepened, Gulam could not tell. As he gripped the railing and gazed at the girders and beams, he was overcome with a dizzy vertigo. The sky was bruisingly bright. The sun, satanic and scorching as it always was on Friday afternoons, speckled the surface of the water. It was probably a reminder from Allah, an indication that Gulam wouldn’t be able to save himself from hell, where stones and bones burnt in eternal damnation. The imam was pleading to God. ‘For the sake of Muhammad, Allah,’ he wept, ‘save us, the people of Bijbyor, the people of Kashmir.’ His voice had a subtle ferocity now, in addition to the hopeless desperation. It filled Gulam with a nameless dread. The sun shone brighter on the river, devouring the water with its fire.
Gulam heard the lambs bleating in the distance as they were being herded towards the perilous highway where the killer trucks roared past at blazing speed. He teetered at the edge of the bridge, clenching his fists. Although he trembled with fear, he somehow held his ground, a ground that was threatening to crumble beneath his feet.
The imam concluded the prayer and emerged from the mosque to cross the highway surrounded by a cloud of murids, their heads bent in homage as they walked along with him. He walked in the centre and no one dared to walk ahead of him. He was wearing a flowing white robe and light leather chappals. Although many people around him were taller than him, the way he deliberated each step, none were taller in stature.
Gulam retreated to the bridge. He stood erect and with his back pressed to the railing. He bowed to the imam and greeted him loudly. However, his devout entourage had created an impenetrable sound barrier around the holy man. Gulam wanted to raise his voice, but he felt weak and nervous. He watched the imam pass by in a blizzard, white and ethereal.
He climbed to the middle of the bridge. Beneath, he knew, the stones were boiling in the scalding water. The path to the left arced along the shore of the burning river, into a dense profusion of willows.
He tore his eyes away from the water and walked on. Over the multitude of heads bobbing decorously in a divine rhythm, he saw the tall, iron gate painted white. The words ‘shah manzil’ in Urdu were carved on gleaming, black granite on the pillar to the right.
Gulam entered by the path paved with shingle and lined with flowers. Beds of delicate marigolds and pansies led up to the imposing, concrete house.
Syed Anzar Shah was seated at the far end of the hall on a white lambskin, his back bolstered by a flat pillow. Behind him on the windowsill lay a copy of the Qur’an on its wooden stand. The windows were curtained except the one behind the imam. In the slightly dark room, there was a solemn silence. There seemed to be a consensus among the murids that the silence was only to be broken by the imam’s hushed murmurs. The murids, men, women and children, with woeful expressions and dry lips, patiently waited for their turns. The imam, his authority untrammelled and final, checked them one by one, leaning forward to hear their whispers and voice his verdict.
Gulam sat by the door on the carpet. He sidled closer, watching the way the murids thanked the pir by putting money or other offerings, sacks of rice, bags of dry almonds and raw fruit, into his lap. The ones who had come empty handed offered to massage him. He accepted begrudgingly, extending his feet. The murids pressed the pir’s sacred shins with their hands and tears of gratitude in their eyes. The pir closed his eyes in ecstasy and mumbled incomprehensible words in Arabic.
Gulam glanced into his eyes. Their immeasurable tranquillity disturbed him.
‘Who are you?’ the pir asked.
Weak and nervous, Gulam felt at a loss for words. He scratched his ear before stammering that he was Jamshid’s father. He wanted to ask the druid how Jamshid was doing, but he could not.
‘Your son is gifted,’ Syed Anzar Shah said and smiled.
Gulam winced, trying to force a smile. He glanced at the holy man’s feet and hesitantly reached for them.
‘That is not necessary,’ said the pir, asking one of the murids to summon Jamshid.
When he came in with Rosy in tow, the pir said, ‘Your father is here,’ indicating Gulam, who stood up sweating and indignant …
In the narrow room, the past hung like a curtain of darkness, the memory an assault – jangling, perpetual and hurtful.
Gulam gulped from Misreh’s tumbler that night as she gently caressed the dog’s head. He wanted to tell her everything. He wanted to tell her how he missed his wife and son whom he had lost because he was a poor and inadequate man. He wanted to tell her that he found her, Misreh, voluptuous and beautiful, despite his knowledge that she had an affair with Syed Aslam Shah. However, as she sat talking to him in her soft voice, Gulam remained quiet. A slow wind blew through the warm October night, driving the clouds away and the stars reappeared. The wind fluttered the willow branches behind her house, swaying the nests of the sparrows and the bulbuls. A half-moon shone in the sky above the river to the west. Gulam wanted to hold her soft hand and walk with her to the end of the street. He wanted to enter the dense willow coppice where he would pull down her yazar. He wanted to make love to her, tender and furious in turns, murmuring and moaning, for the rest of the night by the bank of the river, as the dew on the dwindling autumn grass moistened their entwined bodies.
Gulam remembered Halim and returned to his room. He shut his eyes and tried to go back to sleep. In the darkness, the floor of the room felt damp. He recalled the winter night. After days of eating scraps of dried bread because nothing was left in the house, Halim was forced to eat a morsel of beef that Gulam’s father had torn from a dead cow. She immediately vomited several times, not because the meat was bad, but because she thought she had sinned. She retched as the pungent greenish fluid gushed from her mouth in torrents, staining the bare mud floor.
Gulam held her as she gulped for breath. He lifted her tenderly and put her to bed. He undressed her carefully before covering her emaciated, throbbing and sweating body with blankets.
He hurried to the village, sinking up to his knees in the snow. Half an hour later, he returned freezing but triumphant with some pills and a bottle of milk. He fed her the pills and milk. He kissed her hand and she fell asleep.
However, the next morning, when she opened her eyes, she said, ‘I am going back to live with my mother and brothers. I have had enough.’
&nb
sp; Over the years of living in Bijbyor and polishing Syed Anzar Shah’s shoes every time Jamshid brought them along, Gulam’s assessment of the imam had changed drastically. Now the imam no longer inspired the dread and awe synonymous with the fear of burning in hellfire. In the rallies and political speeches that Gulam attended, he saw the imam sitting with his friend, Mufti Syed, a shrewd politician who needed no introduction around here, and whose adversaries prayed that his liver would rot with cirrhosis from his secret addiction to whiskey. In the lawns around the mansion, Gulam stole sidelong glances at the imam and realized that despite his powers to exorcise the possessed, he bore an unmistakable resemblance to the flesh-and-blood people surrounding him. Gulam had taught himself to read fluently by regularly reading Chattan, and avidly followed the way the imam subtly encouraged the influential and the affluent like Rafiq Galwan’s family to vote for Mufti Syed. However, Gulam kept his opinion to himself.
One Friday afternoon, as the imam stood behind the lectern, his hands raised, clearly enunciating the guttural ‘ain’s and ‘gain’s, Gulam stared at him from the last row at the rear corner of the mosque. The huge, rectangular hall was packed with men and was slowly growing more claustrophobic while the imam pontificated about the consequences of disobedience, the wrath of Allah, and the severity of hellfire.
As the sermon continued and the last spot in the mosque was occupied by the last worshipper, the concrete walls, painted smooth and green, began to perspire. The imam’s eyes glowed. His brow dampened and his face turned puce. Then all at once, as though slapped by Satan’s invisible hand, he fell down in a faint.
The worshippers whispered. Jamshid and Aslam Shah, who were in the first row, raised the prostate preacher to a standing position and dragged him to a chair behind the lectern. Jamshid hurried to the closet in the front wall and brought out a long, glass vial. He uncorked it and sprinkled rosewater on the imam’s face.