The End of Innocence

by Moni Mohsin

  They grew used to the black-outs at night and, once, when an air-raid siren sounded at midday, Fareeda rushed the girls into the trench. But after half an hour’s uneventful wait, they emerged feeling cramped, cold and bored and went back to their business with a mild sense of deflation.

  And then a week later, while the girls were at breakfast with their parents, Fazal bustled into the dining room with a pot of tea. As a rule, Fazal never bustled. He considered it beneath his dignity to do so. If he was in a hurry, he glided a little faster than normal. But, today, he was definitely bustling and, had the family been at all attentive, they would no doubt have noticed his flushed face.

  But Tariq was helping himself to some toast and did not register. Nor did Sara, who was busy twisting long gloopy threads of honey around her spoon. As for Fareeda, her attention was focused on her younger daughter, who was listlessly pushing an uneaten fried egg around her plate. The girl had not eaten a single proper meal since Rani’s death, Fareeda reckoned.

  So no one reacted when Fazal took a step back, pulled himself erect and, clasping his hands behind his back, cleared his throat portentously. Miffed, he announced in a loud voice:

  ‘Sahib, last night a bomb fell on the farm.’

  ‘A bomb?’ squealed Sara. ‘Where, when? Oh, please, can I see it?’

  ‘What are you talking about, Fazal?’ asked Tariq.

  ‘A bomb, Sahib. It fell on the farm last night. Midway between here and the milk factory. The Indians dropped it.’

  ‘A bomb? Surely we would have heard a bomb?’

  ‘It was a bomb all right, Sahib. This big it was.’ Fazal stretched out his arms. ‘But it didn’t make a sound. Or do any damage. All it gave off was light, bright as noon.’

  Now that Fazal mentioned it, Tariq recalled that he had woken up suddenly in the night. He thought he’d heard a humming sound, but by the time he’d sat up in bed, he couldn’t hear it any more. His bedside clock said five-thirty. Too early to get up. So he’d pulled the covers up again and gone back to sleep.

  ‘Who told you?’ he asked Fazal.

  ‘Samuel Masih, Sahib. He’s Bua’s cousin. The bomb fell thirty yards from his hut.’

  ‘By the big peepul tree?’ piped up Laila. ‘I know the place. Bua took me there.’

  Sara shot her an envious look across the table.

  ‘Exactly!’ Fazal nodded.

  ‘And the bomb, what’s happened to it?’ asked Tariq.

  ‘It’s lying where it fell, Sahib.’

  ‘Isn’t that dangerous? Suppose it goes off?’ Fareeda wondered aloud.

  ‘Oh, no, Bibi,’ laughed Fazal cheerfully. ‘It won’t. Samuel’s children have been rolling it around all morning and nothing’s happened.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake …’

  ‘From Fazal’s description, I guess what they dropped was a light bomb,’ explained Tariq. ‘It acts like a giant flare, illuminating the terrain down below and allowing pilots to assess whether there is any target worth engaging. They probably saw open country and realized it wasn’t worth their trouble. The bomb’s already done its work, so it won’t explode, if that’s what you are worried about, Fareeda.’ Addressing Fazal, Tariq asked, ‘Are you sure that was the only bomb that was dropped?’

  ‘Yes, Sahib. Samuel had a good look around as soon as the sun came up. He says there’s nothing else. The cane’s been cut now, so it’s easy to see. But if you want, you can ask him yourself.’

  ‘Is he here?’

  ‘He’s having tea in the pantry.’

  There was a crescent of servants gathered around Bua’s cousin as he sipped tea from a glass and regaled them with colourful details about the bombing. He was relishing this rare attention and embroidering the story for his rapt audience.

  ‘Then I shook my fist at the pilot and shouted, “Begone! Get out of here, you coward!” ’ he said. ‘Far up in his plane he heard me. Small chap he was, with a bald head and goggle eyes, and you should have seen how his teeth chattered with fear! I heard them all the way down in my field. Then I hollered at him again, and he scooted off like a pigeon in front of a cat.’

  Samuel snapped his fingers, to indicate the speed with which the Indian fled, and laughed raucously, displaying his rotten teeth to his admiring audience. Basking in his reflected glory, Bua placed a possessive hand on Samuel’s shoulder and smirked. Just then, Tariq, tailed by his family and Fazal, entered the pantry. Immediately the crescent dispersed.

  ‘Now what’s this I hear about a bomb near your hut?’ asked Tariq.

  Samuel Masih got to his feet and salaamed. Cracking his knuckles, he began his story.

  ‘Well, Sahib, the day before I’d gone to sleep with a pain in my neck. Ever since my heifer drowned in the canal three weeks ago, I’ve had this nagging pain …’

  ‘Tell me from the point when the bombers came,’ Tariq cut in. He was familiar with the peasant habit of prefacing a story with the events of the month before.

  Samuel began again. He woke before dawn and came out of his hut to milk his buffalo. He heard a humming sound, with a sort of rumbling throb to it. He looked up and saw two dark shapes in the sky. The planes were flying low. The one at the front released a big white bubble. As it floated down slowly, there was a soundless explosion of light. It was so bright that he could see the hairs on the backs of his hands. The light, he realized, was coming from the cylindrical object hanging from the bubble. The planes did a couple of turns and flew off. Gradually, the light dimmed and went out altogether. When the sun came up, he examined the cylinder that had landed just a few paces from his house. It was like an iron log and, though easy to roll, it was heavy to lift. The bubble, he saw, was actually like a soft, silky umbrella, attached to the cylinder with ropes.

  ‘I thought you should know, Sahib, you owning all the land around, I mean.’ He lowered his eyes respectfully.

  ‘You did right, Sami,’ murmured Bua from the sidelines. ‘I’m sure Tariq Sahib will remember your loyalty.’

  ‘Has anyone other than your family seen the bomb yet?’ asked Tariq.

  Samuel Masih shook his head.

  ‘I suppose I’d better let the colonel know.’

  ‘What can he do?’ asked Fareeda.

  ‘I’m surmising it’s a light bomb, but it would make sense to get his chaps to check it.’

  ‘Oh, please can we check it too?’ Sara pulled on her father’s sleeve. ‘Please? I’ve never seen a bomb before.’

  ‘I suppose there’s no harm in having a look.’

  Fareeda looked unsure. ‘Is that a good idea?’

  ‘I’m pretty certain it’s harmless. But just to be on the safe side, we’ll park far away and wait for the colonel’s men to give the all clear before going anywhere near. OK?’

  ‘Yes!’ Sara punched the air.

  ‘Now, Samuel, you go home and wait for us,’ Tariq instructed. ‘We’ll follow in the car as soon as I’ve spoken to the colonel.’

  The colonel sounded harried on the phone.

  ‘Yes, what is it?’ he barked, after the most minimal of greetings.

  Tariq informed him about the bomb.

  ‘I think,’ he continued mildly, ‘that it poses no immediate danger. It’s most likely just a light bomb …’

  ‘Let us be the judge of that, Tariq Sahib,’ the colonel cut in. ‘You stay put in your house and leave the bomb to us. We’ll be there directly.’ The line went dead.

  ‘Rude bastard!’ muttered Tariq. If there had been any doubt in his mind about going out to the bombsite before, it was erased by their exchange. He would not take orders from some prat in uniform. Piling his family into the car, he told Barkat to drive out there immediately.

  ‘And put your foot on it! I want to get there before he does!’

  In the event, the Zephyr got there well before the colonel’s jeep. Barkat parked the car a couple of hundred yards from Samuel’s hut. A crowd of villagers had gathered around the site. Despite Fareeda’s protestations, Tariq strod
e off with an eager Barkat to see the bomb. Ignoring Sara’s pleas to be allowed to accompany Tariq, Fareeda permitted the girls to come out of the car. Sara immediately trained Laila’s binoculars on the crowd near the hut.

  ‘Yes, I can see Aba bending towards the ground,’ she commented. ‘I think he’s touching the bomb. Ooh, lucky him. Now he’s walking off into the fields. Bua’s cousin’s with him.’

  ‘Yes, it’s a light bomb,’ Tariq confirmed on his return. ‘There doesn’t seem to be any other bomb. Still, you’d better wait here till the soldiers come.’

  A few minutes later, a cavalcade of military vehicles swept past them in a blur of khaki tarpaulin and camouflage paint and came to a halt beside the hut. Amid thudding of car doors and loud shouted commands, a dozen troops jumped out of the jeeps and sprinted towards the gathered villagers and shooed them aside. Some soldiers bent down to examine the bomb while others fanned out into the adjacent fields for a recce. From his vantage point by the car, Tariq could make out the colonel in the knot by the bomb.

  Half an hour later, all the soldiers reassembled by the hut. They conferred briefly and then dispersed. Once more, doors were slammed, engines gunned and then, reversing smartly, they drew up back towards the Zephyr. Tariq leaned against its bonnet, his arms crossed nonchalantly across his chest. The colonel alighted from the passenger seat of the first jeep.

  ‘My men have performed a thorough check.’ The colonel flicked his head back in the direction of Samuel’s hut. ‘Aside from the one bomb near the hut, they’ve found nothing.’

  ‘Did you know about this raid?’ asked Fareeda.

  ‘Of course!’ insisted the colonel. ‘The planes flew over the cantonment at precisely five-thirteen. The light bomb was no doubt meant for us, but the pilot misjudged his target.’

  ‘So then it is a light bomb?’ asked Tariq.

  The colonel reddened.

  ‘It would seem so,’ he muttered.

  ‘Only seem so?’ Tariq raised his eyebrows in simulated surprise. ‘I thought your men had performed a thorough check? But, if there is still some doubt, then I’d better not let my daughters go near. If your men are not competent to give us an all clear, then we’d better …’

  ‘Of course, they are competent,’ barked the colonel. ‘It’s just a shell of a light bomb, nothing more. For all I care, you can cart it back home and display it in your sitting room.’

  ‘But being simple-minded civilians, we were not to know that, now were we?’ said Tariq silkily. He noted with great satisfaction that a pulse was beating in the colonel’s temple. ‘We were told – ordered – to stay well back, and that is what we did.’

  The colonel glared at Tariq and marched back to the jeep. At his terse order, the cavalcade roared off in a cloud of dust. Tariq grinned as he watched it bounce across the empty fields.

  At Sara’s insistence, Barkat dragged the bombshell back to the car and heaved it into the boot. It was about the size of an umbrella stand. On the way home, Sara was full of suggestions as to its proper display. They could hoist it above the mantelpiece perhaps or build a plinth for it in the yard or, better still, on the front lawn. They could put a plaque on the plinth noting the date it fell.

  At Sabzbagh, the entire population of the Azeems’ staff quarters turned out to see the bomb. Displayed like a trophy in the backyard by Barkat and Sara, it was the object of much wonder and comment.

  ‘Imagine, such a small thing lighting up the whole world!’ whispered Barkat’s wife.

  ‘Did you hear Bua’s cousin chased off two whole planes bristling with Indian soldiers single-handedly?’ said Amanat’s son.

  ‘It was going to explode, oh, yes, that’s what the Indians wanted, but the minute the bomb touched this country’s sacred soil, it lay down like a lamb,’ commented Rehmat’s son-in-law.

  There were no further air raids and no more bombs in Sabzbagh. But the fighting, they heard, was fierce in Suleimankee, thirty miles away at the border. Still, the radio bulletins were resolutely upbeat and spoke of the courageous advance of Pakistani forces. Then, one afternoon, a programme of stirring songs was interrupted by an urgent announcement: Dhaka had fallen. The Pakistani army had surrendered. That day, the girls saw their father cry for the second time in their lives. The first had been when he had buried Rani.

  Over the next couple of days, Barkat learnt that Shareef’s unit had also surrendered. Since they did not receive word of his death, Barkat concluded that his son must be one of the 93,000 Pakistani troops taken prisoners-of-war.

  ‘I never expected this, Sahib,’ he said to Tariq, as he drove him towards Colewallah. ‘I come from a village of soldiers and, though we all know that martyrdom is an honour, I dreaded receiving that telegram telling me that my boy had died fighting. That was my worst fear. I never for a moment thought he would lay down his arms meekly like a girl. Death, I think, would have been preferable to this disgrace,’ he said in a voice thick with emotion. ‘How will I ever live down this shame, this stain on our honour?’

  Tariq looked out at the countryside flashing by. The fields which until recently had been tall with cane were now freshly ploughed to receive the new seed. The ploughed furrows were a deep rich brown.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think death is preferable to disgrace, Barkat,’ said Tariq, recalling Rani’s face on the operating table. ‘If it was my child, I’d take disgrace over death any day. People make too much of disgrace.’

  Later that afternoon, Laila wandered in the garden by herself. Sara had gone with their father to Bridgebad to choose the long-promised foal. Tariq had planned the trip by way of a treat to cheer up the girls. But, claiming a headache, Laila had begged off. She had no enthusiasm left for foals or even dogs. Bua was at the church and Fareeda was on the veranda dealing with a villager’s request for some winter clothes.

  Laila went to watch the gardeners fill in the trench that Barkat had helped dig. On the day of the surrender, Barkat had picked up the bombshell and, with tears streaming down his face, had hurled it into the trench. It had lain there for three days, taunting them all with its dark metallic gleam, until Fareeda had wearily instructed Amanat to fill the trench.

  There was a new boy working alongside Amanat. He seemed unsure of what to do and from time to time darted a quick glance at Amanat to follow his movements. Each time he caught Laila’s eye, he blushed and looked down. Watching them smooth over the soft brown earth, Laila was reminded of Rani’s grave.

  She was about to walk away when a hand touched her lightly on the shoulder. Looking up, she saw Fareeda. Just a short while ago, Laila would have smiled and even slung an arm around her mother’s waist, but today she took a small step sideways, deliberately putting some distance between them. Fareeda noticed the gesture, and an iron fist closed around her heart. She wanted to scoop Laila into her arms and hold her close, but she knew the girl would not allow it. Although Laila had not said as much, Fareeda was aware that she blamed her for Rani’s death. She could see it in her averted gaze and hear it in her loud silence. Over the long, sleepless nights that had followed Rani’s murder, that same sense of culpability had also gnawed at Fareeda. No matter how much she tried to reason with herself, she could not absolve herself of the guilt. She knew, rationally, that the rawness of grief would abate with time, but would she ever be rid of the corrosive knowledge that she could have prevented Rani’s death?

  But, more than her own guilt, it was Laila’s misery that really tore at Fareeda. She could not bear the sight of that pensive little face, the dull eyes, the pinched mouth. She couldn’t remember when she had last heard Laila laugh. Whereas Sara had wept and mourned and recovered, Laila had retreated behind an invisible wall of grief. She could be seen but not touched. Fareeda was at a loss as to how to pierce that armour of pain. She had never imagined she could feel so helpless with her own child. Now, as she observed Laila watching the gardeners, she wondered what was going through her mind.

  ‘Laila? Darling? Shall we go for a walk?’


  Laila shrugged. Fareeda held out her hand, but Laila immediately plunged her own hands into her pockets. Fareeda let her hand drop to her side and began walking. She was relieved to note that at least the girl was following, albeit slowly. Slackening her pace, Fareeda walked through the back-yard, past the vegetable garden and, coming around to the front of the house, she went down the drive. In a light voice, she talked of the change that winter had wrought on the garden. She pointed out the tight green buds on the kachnar tree that would burst into mauve flowers come spring. She commented on the smell of wood smoke, the arrival of the year’s first calf in the village, the call of the black partridge, the lengthened shadows, frost on the grass. She wondered aloud what colour foal Sara would choose, what they would name it, whether Tariq’s mare would take to it. Laila did not take the bait. Wordless, she slouched behind Fareeda.

  Eventually, Fareeda, too, fell quiet. In silence, they walked past the guava orchard, recently picked clean of all its fruit.

  ‘Can we go up on to the canal?’

  Startled by Laila’s unexpected request, Fareeda nodded.

  The canal road was tranquil, as usual. On the far bank, a man drove along a donkey cart. The donkey had a bell around its neck. The soft, tinkling sound carried over the lazy, silken sheet of water. A kingfisher swooped over the canal in a vivid flash of blue. Leaving the tamped earth road, Laila went across to the grassy bank, where bulrushes grew in thick clumps. For a moment, Fareeda thought Laila was about to leap over the edge. She wanted to lunge after her, grab her by the arm and pull her back to safety, but she fought down the urge and, gripping her elbows, stayed where she was. Laila stood motionless, looking out on to the water. After what seemed like an eternity to Fareeda, Laila spoke.

  ‘Did … did the soldiers find her here?’ she asked, with her back to her mother.

  Fareeda shook her head. Then, realizing that Laila couldn’t see her, she said, ‘No. Not here. Further down the canal, well past Sabzbagh.’