by Zuni Chopra
‘They attacked the Hindus?’
I was so horrified I couldn’t speak louder than a frantic hush.
‘Yes. It was a movement against the oppressive Maharaja. Buildings and bodies alike were burnt and ravaged. The darkness fed off their suffering, and it gave Kruhen Chay a gush of power and strength. Debates were held, resolutions passed, but he rendered all worthless. By 1947, the revolts had begun. He grew stronger by the day, until finally his power rose to an absolute height.’
‘The raids,’ I murmured.
‘Indeed. There was nothing anyone could do. He was everywhere—in the saturated, heavy clouds that blanketed us in his wrath, in the unseen cobwebs within our homes and minds, latching on to despair, in our hearts, swelling like a tick at the slightest emotion—so that the people turned into the walking dead, a rotted soul inside a barely moving body. We could no longer see the light of the sun. We could no longer feel the cool of the rain. It was not so much Kashmir as what was left of it. We distrusted each other. Men who had never met became enemies. Families that had been interlinked for generations hacked away their bonds as if they were weeds. And in the winter of 1947, after the Partition, the climactic bloodshed began. The fireplace had told me once, when I was brave enough to ask, that it was something out of a psychopath’s nightmare; that people would shoot at the body before they discerned a face; that flames of the dead, or dying, would cough out black steam into the sky; that you would walk on the whispering streets at night and wince at a crunch beneath your feet, not knowing whether it was a tree branch or a human arm . . . And that madness seeped through the streets like a noxious contagion, poisoning the minds and hearts of the once gentle people. The echoing sound of murder burst through the filthy lanes: the crack of a neck, the gurgle of water-corrupted lungs, the shredded cries of those lost to the flames, the wretched screams of those not lucky enough to be murdered outright. They were terrifying times. Hindus were tortured, pillaged, abused, forced to convert, and flung out of their homeland, normally not all in one piece. Muslims were left bitter, weak and miserable. The people of Kashmir began drowning in deranged militancy. They lost any identity and, with their identity, their hope for the future.’
‘What did we do?’ I asked. Because we had to have done something. We couldn’t have remained dull and unmoving. We just couldn’t have.
‘Yes, the house did do something,’ the armchair said, reassuring me after sensing my desperation. ‘The darkness’s power erupted as the genocide did. But the growth of his power only led to a growth of ours. The peak of his power prompted the house to create a Guardian. And the first Guardian was him.’
The armchair gestured to a portrait towards the left of the tapestry. I leaned down towards it.
His name was Rahul Razdan, and his eyes seemed deeper than the rest, as though there was a whole world inside them. He was skinny and looked weak, yet there was something about him that evoked a sense of a hidden mass of power just beneath his pale skin.
‘So the Guardian protects the house by . . . what, sitting on the doorstep with a stick or something?’
The armchair laughed, but the edges of his normally hearty laugh were frayed by a bite of bitterness.
‘No, Zoon. The Guardian is much more than that. A Guardian may wear the magic of the house as a cloak upon his shoulders and a sword upon his hip, and he must guard it as jealously as a rakshasa guards his gold. And our Guardian must have a strong, large heart, to protect this realm of magic. The Guardian is, after all, a concentration of the magic of this house. Should the darkness attack, the Guardian must defend against it, using the enchantment passed down through generations, thus fending off the creature once more for another few decades of so-called peace.’
He paused abruptly, waiting to see if I was taking it all in.
‘The creation of a Guardian was so impactful that for a while after the Partition, there was peace, blessed peace. The Indian Army arrived to restore order, and did, for the most part, succeed. But it was too good to last for longer than a few months. Since then, the darkness has been battling and breaking through your predecessors to get to, and sap the core of, Kashmir’s happiness: this house. And may I say, he has not been entirely unsuccessful.’
I glanced once more at the tapestry, and my heart lurched. Few Guardians had lived beyond the age of thirty.
‘But where did Kruhen Chay come from?’
‘I don’t know. No one does. I only wish I did. Very little is known about the darkness. Except that he may be . . . getting stronger.’
‘I know,’ I replied. It struck me then that I had always known. The violence, the loss of any liveliness, the militancy . . . it couldn’t be more clear that Kruhen Chay was beginning to manifest himself within Kashmir once more. And yet another piece of the horrific, torturous puzzle clicked into place. It was not disease suffocating the chinar outside. I might have guessed it earlier, had I stopped a moment to think. It had never once shed its leaves in living memory. But then . . .
It couldn’t die, could it?
I began to lose myself in my thoughts when a final question beckoned me back to reality.
‘And my father?’ I asked.
As always, my mind immediately conjured up a dozen gaudy distractions, my heart began to thump too quickly in an attempt to help me get away from my own body, and my limbs grew heavy and sedated, longing for sleep and misting over my thoughts.
I ploughed on. ‘What happened to him? He didn’t just die from suffocation, did he? There had to be something more than smoke that killed him?’
The armchair became still, like he was contemplating how exactly to untie a matted knot that had been left in place for years.
‘Your father was . . . well, he was always very motivated to become the Guardian . . . but when motivation turns into something darker . . .’
‘What went wrong? Tell me!’ I spat out frantically.
‘He was so convinced of his own strength, so convinced that it was his duty to be a better Guardian than all those before him, that he took the role when he’d barely turned thirteen.’
I gasped. How could he? Surely, surely it had been too much for him? And then it struck me—of course it had been too much for him. He was gone, wasn’t he?
A dull lump of lead settled in my stomach. ‘All right. Great story, armchair. Thanks,’ I murmured, strangely miserable, which was odd, considering I didn’t even remember what he looked like. People say it is not possible to wholly love someone you have never known. I say that it is only ever possible to wholly love someone you have never known, for once you have met them even for a short while, you will undoubtedly find something unlovable about them. Vaguely I recalled my shrill, shrieking screams at my mother.
‘The story,’ the armchair continued, then distinctly ruffled, ‘wasn’t finished. Now, I’m going to complete this story, and if you open your silly mouth once more, I will shove my springs up your bottom whenever you try to sit down.’
I snapped my lips shut and waited, smiling slightly. It was so rare to see the armchair out of sorts.
‘So your father, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, became Guardian at an unthinkably young age. He believed he would be the finest protector of the house since the Panditji himself. His deluded confidence made him sure that he could destroy Kruhen Chay entirely, without any need to battle or even trap it! The years went on, and his arrogance turned into bitterness and cruelty. Poor Shanti could not understand his sudden fits and rages.’
The armchair stammered over a few hurried words before sighing softly, as though he wanted to say more, but there was no more to say.
‘So one day, when he felt the wind was moving in the right direction, he summoned the darkness to the hammam, underneath which the cave—where it had first been trapped—was hidden.’
‘He summoned it?’ I blurted out. ‘He could do that?’
‘Well, he gloated about his godlike power to all who would listen. He would seek out the darkest
and most dangerous parts of Srinagar, and yell out brash and foolish challenges to the wind. He made it clear to Kruhen Chay that he wished to fight, so of course he wasn’t kept waiting.’
The bitter edge to the armchair’s voice came seeping like toxic gas through the cosy air of the library.
‘Kruhen Chay destroyed him. When his body was found, he seemed to have been killed from the smoke; suffocation, they said. It was passed off as a freak accident.’
I felt as though a large lump of rotting food was being digested slowly and painstakingly. I could not speak.
‘But,’ I choked out, ‘where is Kruhen Chay then? The Guardian was utterly defeated! Why isn’t the house razed yet?’
The armchair responded with something akin to embarrassment. I wouldn’t know exactly. I’d never seen him embarrassed before.
‘We . . . don’t . . . know.’
I was dumbstruck. They didn’t know? How could they not know? They were the house! They saw it all happen!
‘It must have been some kind of miracle that protected us. All we know is that the darkness was forcefully expelled. We believe it might have been the overflow of protective power—the counteraction from such complete annihilation of a Guardian. And we have not had a Guardian nor seemingly needed one for a while,’ he finished.
‘But you may need one now . . .’
The armchair didn’t reply.
‘But you know what?’ I burst out. ‘If the house is sold, we’ll never be able to help anything anyway, so why don’t we just focus on that?’
I flopped, exhausted, into the armchair.
‘Sorry,’ I continued, ‘it’s just that I feel like we’re getting nowhere with stopping this stupid sale!’
‘That’s not true,’ said the armchair loyally. ‘We have made progress. We just need a bit more momentum to shut it down entirely.’
His encouragement made me feel a bit better. I thought of Altaf, our new recruit, and then of all that I had to tell him. My racing heart began, slowly, to calm. The heat in my muscles began to fade away.
‘You know,’ I said, creases forming along my forehead from thought, ‘there’s something I don’t like about this Bhukhari. He’s just not right, somehow . . . he creeps me out.’
‘I absolutely agree,’ said the armchair vehemently. ‘He seemed terribly shifty to me from the moment he arrived. Why, of all the people in Srinagar, did he have to be the only one interested in the house?’
‘He wasn’t,’ I responded. ‘There were others, they were just . . . delayed . . . for various reasons . . . because . . .’ I didn’t finish my sentence. Suddenly, shrewd suspicion leapt up inside me. What had held those customers back? To what lengths would this politician go to buy—to steal—my house?
At once, the armchair let out a furious whisper, as if he could not have held himself back a second longer. ‘Tell me,’ he asked hurriedly, ‘have you felt it?’
I was so startled by his sudden fervour that I did not answer. ‘Have you felt your abilities begin to grow? Have you sensed your connection to the house becoming stronger? Have you been able to do things that you haven’t been able to before?’ he continued.
I thought hard, frantically collecting my jumbled thoughts to answer his question. But I could not formulate a satisfactory response, and I doubted that I’d even understood him properly. Do things with what? What sort of things?
A flash of the brightest white outside the window interrupted my thoughts. I raced over to the frosted glass and called out, ‘It’s snowing, everyone!’ This was met with appreciative whoops, the occasional cheer and soft voices of congratulations from the older and more sophisticated volumes. Grinning, I pressed my nose against the glass. Outside, the world was beginning to be hidden beneath a swirling white, like someone had finally shaken up an antique snow globe. The trees donned elegant jackets of frost white, and the grass shone in the moonlight, sprinkled with crushed ice. The moon itself burst through the haze as the centre of it all, releasing sparkles of the purest silver upon the earth. Even from the library, I could hear the wind whistling through the thick, ancient chimney, the gentle sound of a Kashmiri hymn in the night.
I heard Ma’s precise footsteps in the hallway, the sound of each step against the floor exactly the same as the last, a sharp, ringing slap. She swept in, her wiry hair and tired eyes displaying that she’d spent the evening cleaning. In her right hand she clutched the rag I’d spent the morning dirtying, and it didn’t look any cleaner for having been dragged through the house. That twinge of guilt twisted my insides once more, but I pushed it away hurriedly, refusing to prod, provoke or explore it.
‘Dear,’ she began, and my heart sank instantly—her tone was icier than the freshly fallen snow. ‘I wanted to let you know—the date of the sale has been moved to the day before your birthday. Mr Qureishi has said that the buyers will have been decided by then.’
I nodded distractedly, and then froze. ‘Ma . . . my birthday’s day after. The house will be sold . . . tomorrow?’ The horror on my face must’ve been unmistakable.
‘Well, y-es, yes it will.’
‘Then why didn’t you just say tomorrow? Were you trying to sugarcoat it for me? Because if so, that completely failed.’
Panic was rising inside me like a growing tide, and I could feel my brain thrashing against my skull like a furious, frothy white wave. If the house was to be sold tomorrow, we’d be out within a week! Just as I was about to erupt, I saw the notebook jumping wildly behind Ma’s back. Words had been slashed across him, so poorly written that, at first, I squinted to make them out.
StAy 4 BiRthday
I stared. Then, with a jolt of understanding, I cried out, ‘Ma! I have to ask you something!’
Surprised by my intensity, she took a moment to respond.
‘Yes, Zoon?’
‘I know that you really want to sell this house. And . . . I know that we shouldn’t keep buyers waiting. But I wanted to ask you if we could please, please stay here for my birthday. It’ll be my fifteenth birthday, Ma, and I want to spend it here with Tathi.’
‘Genius move!’ muttered one of the bookshelves.
Ma hesitated for what seemed like a decade, weighing each outcome against the other, against how much this might mean to me. Finally, she gave a tired sort of sigh, melting the chill out of her voice, and replied, ‘Sure. You’ve been on your best behaviour, so I don’t see why not. I’ll let Mr Qureishi know he has to begin the selling and moving the day after your birthday instead, all right, Zoon?’
I glowed with the flush of success.
‘Thank you so much, Ma!’
And I rushed forward to pull her into a tight hug.
‘Oomph!’ Ma huffed. Then she tapped me playfully on the head, saying, ‘Silly girl. Oh, is it snowing already?’
I nodded into her shoulder.
‘All right then, time for you to go out and get some dry wood off the lawn for the bukhari. I’ll get the food ready.’
Bringing in the firewood was one of my favourite things about winter. Ma would set up the bukhari in the front room so that we could look out of the window. I’d rush out to grab as much firewood as I could in the crisp, pure snow until my cheeks were pink from the cold. Then I’d run back inside with the wood and Ma would be waiting with hot kehva. We’d toss the wood into the bukhari and then cook our food on top of it, before eating dinner huddled round the flames with a blanket and a pillow or two.
It had been that way for Ma when she was a child, and she’d insisted on passing on that experience to me, despite the fact that we had a working fireplace. The unbending tradition did not fail us today.
Outside, the world seemed crystallized in peace, something so rare here that I stopped and stared till my bare feet could no longer stand the cold. I rushed in quickly with the wood, and handed it over to Ma. Resting against the door for a moment, I saw the fireplace sulking in the other room. This does make him feel neglected. Despite all his wisdom, he can be quite childish some
times.
Ma was already seated on a couple of pillows and, after stoking the fire, passed me some kehva. Grinning, I joined her, and lay flat on my belly against the fluffy carpet.
The wind whistled outside like a war cry. Tathi stumbled against the banister on her way down the stairs, having been startled by a harpoon of electric lightning piercing the cracking glass of her window. The door, to her, seemed as though it was being pushed open by the gathering dunes of suffocating snow outside.
She stopped on the bottommost step and allowed herself to collapse against the banister. With a thud, she landed on the step and held her face in her hands. This could not be happening. Not the very thing she’d strived to prevent for nearly fifteen years. She heard one of the windows upstairs fling itself open and shatter against the wall with a bang, and the wails of wounded animals became louder and louder, till they overcame her, threatening to engulf her in the dark.
She could feel it. She could feel the power draining out like marrow from her bones, each drop of magic being leached out of her with every passing second. Weakly, she flicked her wrist, straining to hear the faraway rumble of an ignorant fireplace to reassure her. But it had been smothered by the snow, buried underneath the echoing silence. Nothing.
The night grew darker.
She dragged herself upstairs as if through barbed wire, and felt the familiar hole slash open wider inside her, her body aching for tears that she could no longer produce. No more than a tired old lady, she threw herself into bed and mourned her only son.
‘My boy,’ she murmured, paralysed where she lay, ‘how I cared for you. How I warned you. How I care for them still. Oh, where have you gone? You abandoned me . . . I am lost. My child . . . when will I see you again? Ah, soon, I hope . . . I pray . . .’
And her voice faded into emptiness in the storm that was Kashmir.