“Dulhan Bi, I came a month ago. I wanted so much to see you! I asked your whereabouts until I reached the house in Shamnagar. Munshi Musayyab Husain told me you’d left there.” As she spoke, she took in the house in a single glance: “Dulhan Bi, I’ve just come from Munshi Musayyab Husain’s house. It’s a real mansion! While they’ve allotted you this house no bigger than the palm of your hand!”
“Do you think we had it allotted? We’re having to live in a rented house!”
“In a rented house? Dulhan Bi! Come to your senses! Worthless wretches who had no homes have had mansions allotted to them, those who had mansions have to live in rented houses!” Then in a changed voice she said, “Dulhan Bi, don’t take it amiss, but your Pakistan is topsy-turvy. Everybody’s lost all fellow feeling, it’s hard to believe it.” Then in a moment she directed her attention to me: “Dulhan Bi, this is Zakir? Ai hai, I didn’t even recognize him!” She rose and made the gesture of taking my misfortunes onto herself. “Son, don’t you recognize me? I used to wash your diapers! And when you had typhoid, Bi Amma and I sat up night after night by your bedside. Dulhan Bi, do you remember?”
“Yes, I remember. It was a miracle that he lived through it.”
“Bi Amma never stopped praying. She was on her prayer-carpet night and day. So, son, what are you doing?”
“Auntie Sharifan, your Zakir is a Professor in the College.”
“Thanks to God’s grace! May the Lord bless you.” Then she said hesitantly, “Dulhan Bi, when I saw Musayyab Husain’s son, I couldn’t believe it. There, he used to loaf around in the street. Here, the worthless wretch has been earning money hand over fist!”
“Here, everyone who can earn, earns money hand over fist.”
“Son!” Auntie Sharifan again addressed me. “In Pakistan people have all kinds of big jobs. Why are you wasting your time teaching those useless boys?”
Ammi didn’t encourage Auntie Sharifan to pursue the matter. She changed the subject completely. “Auntie Sharifan, tell us something of how things are back there.”
“How things are back there?” Auntie Sharifan sighed. “You want to know how things are back there. Who’s there at all any more? The Big Mansion is full of refugees. Khan Sahib’s house is locked up. The Small Mansion is a complete ruin. Last summer, when the dust storms came, one of its walls fell in. Since then, inside and outside are all one. Poor Turab Ali, whose house was so crowded and bustling, has stayed on in it all by himself. His whole family has come here, and he’s completely alone there.”
“By now he must be quite old?”
“Like a dried-up stick. He lies on a cot in the empty house, coughing.”
Sharifan sighed. “There was a time when families were expanding, and even big houses began to seem small. Now this time has come, when all the families are scattered. Now even small houses seem big. Just think about your house back there! But now who’s left? Batul Bi and her younger daughter, two people and such a big house.”
“So Tahirah has gone?”
“Yes, her husband came last month from Dhaka and took her away. Now she’s sending letter after letter saying ‘You come too.’”
“Is something being arranged for Sabirah?”
“Requests have come from a number of places, and I told Batul Bi, ‘Look, whatever boy you can get, marry her off to him and be done with it. It’s not as though there are that many boys around, for you to worry about whether the match is good or bad! The boys have all gone off to Pakistan.’”
“Then?”
“Dulhan Bi, it was my duty to give advice, and I gave it. Beyond that, people follow their own notions of what’s good for them.” Then she said in a low voice, “I’ve heard that Sabirah has refused.”
“Sabirah has refused?” Ammi said with surprise. “She wasn’t that kind of a girl.”
“She says she’ll get a job. When I heard that I beat my breast—that the daughter of a family of Maulvis should go and work in offices!”
“Oh.” Ammi looked pensive.
Some of this talk of Sabirah I heard, some of it I didn’t hear. As Auntie Sharifan embarked on this topic, her raised voice had grown softer and softer, until it assumed the form of a whisper. And just then Irfan arrived, and knocked at the door.
“What’s the matter, aren’t you going to the Shiraz today?”
“Why not? Of course I’m going. Let’s go.” And I immediately set out with Irfan for the Shiraz.
Perhaps with me also, things left behind were slipping further away. But the things all around absorbed me more and more. This city with its bustling restaurants, leafy trees, and well-developed girls was becoming a part of me, and moreover its shape was changing before my eyes. Those lanes with collapsed, burned-out houses testifying to the terrible events that had happened there, were now fragrant with new houses and new residents, and the streets were full of a new hustle and bustle. The shopkeepers sitting in the abandoned shops no longer looked uprooted, the way they had before. Now they looked as though they’d been sitting there forever. The old and new parts and elements of the bazaar had already blended together. Shops, shopkeepers, goods and merchandise in the shops, customers who came and went, passersby strolling along, all had merged to form a whole.
I had started out in this city as a wanderer, and had made the Shiraz my camp. Friends came by various roads and with various excuses, and gathered in this camp. One friend’s whole family had been forced to live in one room, or one verandah, of an abandoned house. When the crowded atmosphere oppressed his nerves, he wandered through the wide spaces of the city. In his wanderings some auspicious moment brought him to the Shiraz, and from then on he belonged there. Another friend had been allotted a big house; fearful of its expanses, he left it, and roamed through the city. In the course of his roaming he discovered the Shiraz. Another friend had lived comfortably and securely here in his own ancestral home since long before Partition. But in this new atmosphere of houselessness and homelessness, his heart was alienated from his ancestral home and he chose to be homeless, he came and camped in the Shiraz.
In those days when the whole population seemed to be homeless, we knew we had a home—as if we had been sitting in the Shiraz through many births, like faithful priests sitting smeared with ashes, and would sit there for many births to come. As claims were approved and houses were given to the homeless and work to the unemployed, we Shiraz-dwellers began to look unsettled, as though we were the only ones in the city without a house. It was in those days, when we were going through all this, that Afzal became a restless spirit and a lover of alcohol, and the acid etched its way into Irfan’s voice. In those days Salamat and Ajmal had not yet known the taste of drinking and revolution. They were still only “intellectuals,” and sat in the Shiraz arguing merely about literature and art; but the one who made the greatest name for himself in these intellectual discussions was Zavvar.
Zavvar was the youngest of us all, but he established himself among us as a learned scholar, and his brilliance and maturity of mind fully made up for his youthfully downy cheeks. At such an early age, after reading books of all types and descriptions, he announced that wisdom doesn’t come from books, but from passing through the experiences of life. Thus, in search of wisdom, he sat for a few days with Afzal, trying out liquor. Then, believing it inadequate, he tried marijuana, hashish, and opium. Taking baths, changing clothes, and shaving he considered to be a waste of time, and insofar as possible he avoided such extravagances. Partly because his shoes were rather old, and partly because they were unpolished and covered with dust and dirt, they looked ancient. He himself took out and threw away their inner soles, and contrived to leave the nails protruding. He used to walk for miles, and come back to the Shiraz with his heels covered with blood.
“Yar, why don’t you get a shoemaker to fix your shoes?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“To become a man, one ought to have the experience of torment; and great art is born only through sufferin
g.”
Thus, always looking for new experiences of torment, he took the Civil Service exam and passed it.
“Zavvar! So now you’re going to become an officer in the Civil Service.”
“I, a Civil Service officer! I take refuge in God against such a horror!”
“After all, you took the test of your own free will, and passed it.”
“A man ought to pass through that experience too.”
“A new experience of torment!” Irfan laughed his sarcastic laugh.
Now it was late at night, and we were walking silently along Mall Road, absorbed in our situation.
“Yar, do you know what time it is?”
These words displeased Zavvar. “Even if we find out, what difference will it make?”
“I mean,” I said, “at some point a man ought to sleep, too.”
“Provided he has a place to sleep,” Irfan put in.
These words too displeased Zavvar. “Irfan, you stay awake out of necessity. For me staying awake isn’t a necessity, it’s a choice.”
“Staying awake, and taking the Civil Service exam,” Irfan said with a sarcastic smile.
Zavvar’s face grew red. I at once turned toward Salamat. “Salamat, you have a fine big house. Why do you wander around in the streets with us?”
“That house isn’t mine, it belongs to some Sikh.”
“But the Sikhs have gone.”
“That makes no difference. My father has taken their place.”
Ajmal suddenly remembered that Afzal’s house was nearby. “Yar, if you really need a place to sleep, Afzal’s house is right nearby.”
“Come on, let’s go wake him up.”
We went a little way, then turned and entered a lane, then knocked at a door. The door opened, Afzal came out and scrutinized us. “Mice! Why have you come at this hour?”
“To sleep,” I said.
“But I don’t have any extra cots.”
“We’re from the pre-cot era.”
“But I don’t even have any extra bedding.”
“You have a bare floor?”
“Yes, that I have, though even that’s a bit chewed up.”
We entered the room. A rickety cot, with dirty worn-out bedding, and a massive book lying at one end. In one corner, a mat spread on the floor, with books scattered all over it.
I picked up the heavy book from the bed. “What’s this?”
“It’s the complete works of Nazir, and it’s my pillow.”
“You still need a pillow when you sleep,” Zavvar said.
“Well, it’s like this: awake or asleep, I want to keep my head high.”
Stretching out on the mat, I ran my eye over the whole room. “Yar, the room’s not bad.” I was seeing Afzal’s place for the first time.
“This one room’s still good, but the whole rest of the house has been ruined, and in fact the whole neighborhood. When I came here the lanes were clean and the houses spotless. Now the lanes are filthy and the houses soiled.”
“In my opinion,” Salamat said, “a Muslim can’t tolerate very much cleanliness.”
“This house was quite large,” Afzal told us, “and all furnished and equipped. The mice seized all the furniture. They left me as my total share this image of Lord Krishan.”
“Afzal, they did you a favor,” Zavvar said.
“Really?” Afzal looked at Zavvar with innocent wonder.
“After all, what would you have done with furniture? They’ve left you the really important thing.”
“You’re exactly right. This is just what I thought myself. Yar, they’re good people. They left the good thing for me. It’s the reason that this room is clean, while the whole rest of the house is soiled.”
Stretched out on the mat, I was turning over the books. “Afzal, you were sleeping; you’re a big bore.”
“No.”
“Then what were you doing?”
“I was conversing with the image.”
“But we’ve come to sleep,” Ajmal said.
“Don’t sleep.”
“Why not?”
“If you go to sleep, when you wake up you’ll see that you’ve turned into mice.”
“You’re quite right.” Zavvar, who had sat down on the cot, stood up. “Come on, yar.”
Taking Afzal with us, we went out. “Yar, where are we going?” I asked, as we walked down a long road.
“It’s a very meaningless question,” Zavvar said. “Don’t ask where and why. The real point is that we’re going.”
“Come on, we’re going to the Imperial!”
The Imperial was the final stopping place in our night journey. The city was still unacquainted with air-conditioning, so the Imperial took great advantage of its expansive courtyard and open-air dance floor. Romantic couples loved to dance there, holding each other elegantly and decorously under the star-filled summer night sky. This decorum was endangered when the night grew late and all the lights suddenly went out and Miss Dolly’s appearance was announced. Then there was darkness all around, with only a spotlight on Miss Dolly. But Miss Dolly herself, wearing only the most nominal costume, was like a flash of lightning in the darkness. There was one other living creature who could sometimes be seen with Miss Dolly in this circle of light: a tawny cat. But a waiter always came swiftly from the back, and either picked up the tawny cat or chased her away.
This tawny cat was the manager’s darling; she habitually lay tucked under his chair. She contented herself with whatever she got from his table; she was never seen prowling over toward any of the other tables. But when it was time for the cabaret, she yawned and arose and went over to the dance floor, sometimes right near Miss Dolly. A waiter coaxed her away and brought her back, and she came without a fuss and sat down again by the manager’s chair, or tucked herself underneath it. Dolly and Tawny were the Imperial’s two chief characters.
That evening at the Shiraz is enshrined in my memory, set apart from all other evenings. When the Shiraz, despite being full, was silent, and there was a sign in the middle of the room, “Please refrain from political conversation.” Even the night before, the Shiraz had been noisy, for at every table and in every group there had been only one topic of conversation: the coming elections. The discussants had been loudly and energetically predicting the downfall of Sikandar Mirza. But today the whole discussion had been suspended. The people sitting in the room were only drinking tea. They exchanged a few words among themselves, but in whispers.
“Yar, the tea was cold,” Zavvar said disgustedly, as he drank the last sip.
“Yes, yar, it was no good, let’s order more.” With these words Salamat called out, “Abdul!”
Fresh tea came and it was hot, but even then they didn’t like it. That time it was Irfan who announced his displeasure: “Yar, what’s happened to the Shiraz’s tea?”
Gradually all the friends began to suffer from the feeling that something had happened to the Shiraz’s tea. Then they passed beyond this feeling and began to think that something had happened to the Shiraz itself.
“Yar, the Shiraz is deserted now.”
“Yes, yar, how noisy it used to be!”
“Where has everybody gone?”
“Not everyone is as idle as we are.”
Salamat glared at Zavvar. “Meaning?”
“What I mean,” Zavvar said, “is that we waste a lot of time in the Shiraz.”
“Where else should we waste it?” Afzal said promptly.
“Do we have to waste it?”
Afzal looked angrily at Zavvar. “Mouse! Time can’t be carefully preserved. Time is wasted no matter what.”
In fact we had now begun to feel uprooted in the Shiraz. We tried very hard to stick to the place. Forgetting all our differences, we talked sometimes about literature, especially modern literature, and sometimes about abstract art, but somehow or other someone would wander off the topic and end up in forbidden territory. The conversation shifted from literature to the situation. But very soon som
eone would look with a start at the neighboring table, and fall silent. The man at the next table was looking elsewhere, but listening to us. It seemed as if his ear were right in our midst. Ears loomed larger and larger in our imaginations, they came and pressed themselves against our lips; we fell silent.
Finally we were uprooted from the Shiraz, and uprooted in such a way that our group was broken up. Only Irfan and I were left, having emigrated from the Shiraz, sitting in the Imperial. But now the Imperial didn’t seem so lively either. No white faces, no young couples dancing together, no chinking and rattling of cups and plates, no waiters bustling efficiently back and forth. Many of the tables remained empty. One or two tables were filled. On the open-air dance floor, some middle-aged Anglo-Pakistani couples wearily danced. The band too played in a tired-out way. The tawny cat sat next to the manager’s chair, with her eyes closed. Only rarely did she rise and go onto the dance floor, and meekly say “Meow,” and voluntarily turn back. Why should she stay on the dance floor? Miss Dolly’s cabaret no longer took place. Some high-spirited admirer had whisked her away. When she went, the Imperial’s vitality went with her.
“After today I won’t be coming here.”
“Why?”
“I’ve gotten a job on the newspaper, and I have night duty.”
I looked at Irfan with surprise. “You’re going to work?”
“I’ll have to.” He sighed.
“All right, so you won’t come here tomorrow.” I fell into thought. “Why should I come here either, all by myself—”
•
Tasnim! She left me and went away. She was preparing to do an M.A. in History. She first came to me bearing a letter of recommendation, and asked my help in her preparation. She appeared regularly, sat with her notebook open, jotted down notes with great earnestness, and left. She wouldn’t by any means start any casual conversation. Not that I wanted to chat with her, anyway. She seemed a very plain, colorless girl. Why would I chat with her? But that day she appealed to me. It was morning. I had just had a bath and changed my clothes before leaving home, and she too looked shining clean. In that full bus, after making myself a place to stand among the ladies’ seats, I saw that she was standing in front of me. So close that her white neck and pink earlobes were within the reach of my breath. I found myself breathing a little faster.
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