by Siya Turabi
Sunset was only an hour away but it was still too much time to wait and too much time to think. This was a risk. Did the cook believe him? If this ‘errand’ gave him the information he wanted, then Mir Saab would have justice. He had to take that risk. He made his way back to the servants’ quarters and reached the bottom of the steps but then changed his mind and stopped. The crow with the white spot on its wing landed at his feet and he knelt down.
‘I have no more gulab jamun,’ he said.
It leapt backwards and took off, flying over the two-storey building in the direction of the forest. Hassan took off too, making sure no one was around before he slipped behind the building and through the hole in the wall. The pain in his jaw stayed with him as he entered the temple of the bees.
Here he was safe again. Warmth was spreading from the nest. The cluster of bees around the hive shuddered. Baba had said this was what happened before the swarming. When the colony shuddered, they were keeping the nest warm for the cells which were getting ready to hatch. And then they would swarm, find a new home and the cycle would start all over again.
The colony was working together as the shudders rippled across the surface of the nest. It felt like a celebration. He had been in Karachi for a week now. It seemed much longer. And the family would be going back to Harikaya soon, and Hassan would go with them.
The crows screeched outside. Even they were joining the celebration. Hassan wanted to stay, wanted to enter the hive, but he had to meet the cook. He shivered, out of fear this time. What if the cook was lying? What if he had no idea where Baba was? That was likely but he had to meet him, to take that chance.
It was hard to leave, but there was no other way. Cold fear spread through his body. Danger was also a dance. This was a dance. His departure from the stirrings of birth was a dance. He’d come back soon. Their energy would see him through what was to come. However far away he was from the hive, there was an invisible line that would bring him back; it worked for the bees and it had worked so far for him.
He stood at the doorway and whispered, ‘Let me get back for my mother’s eyes.’ He had never prayed in his life before.
Chapter Twenty-One
The rickshaw stopped in a narrow street outside a greying corner building with its shutters closed.
‘I’ll wait for you here,’ the cook said. ‘Once you’ve knocked, someone will open the door and you give him this.’ He pulled out a cloth bundle from the pocket of his trousers.
Hassan was holding onto the seat of the rickshaw to stop himself from running away. Everything smelt of lies but he had to do this, for Mir Saab’s sake. He trod over piles of rubbish left in the street and his feet were wet from the sewage. He walked a few steps and looked back at the cook. There was venom in his eyes and Hassan nearly ran. This was a big mistake.
‘Go on,’ the cook hissed, waving his hand in the direction of the door.
Hassan reached the pavement and made his way to the flaking door. He knocked once. There was no answer and he looked back at the cook who had his fist in the air. Hassan knocked again. On the third knock, he heard footsteps. It opened slowly onto a dark gloom, out of which a man appeared, holding a long rifle. He had eyes like those of the children Hassan had seen on the streets. The smell of acidic sweetness came out of the house from behind the man and made Hassan want to sneeze. He gave the man the bundle, turned and took a few steps back towards the rickshaw.
‘Where’s the money?’ the man shouted and Hassan looked back. The man had unwrapped the bundle and a bunch of papers was drifting to the floor. The man took his rifle in both hands, raised it to his shoulder and stepped out of the house, pointing the gun at the rickshaw.
‘You son of a bitch. Sent a kid to do your dirty work,’ he said calmly. The man fired.
The cook laughed and the driver took off down the street. Hassan ran around the corner and dived into the gutter between a car and a concrete pavement. His arm was touched by the spray of bullets and his head and shoulder hit the pavement when he dived. Hassan squeezed under the car with a fist in his mouth to stop himself from screaming from the pain that was burning inside him. The smell of sewage was all around him.
The man ran around the pavements near the car for several minutes. His footsteps came close and stopped by the car, his foot right next to Hassan’s eyes. The man’s feet stayed by the car for a minute, maybe more. In that time, Hassan tried to force his eyes to stay open but they kept closing; his lids were unbearably heavy. If this was his time and place to die, there was nothing to do but accept it. He had tried to trick the cook but the cook had tricked him. Everything was over.
Eventually the man left. Hassan waited until he heard the door of the house shut and the locks turn before he pulled himself out and retched. He was sick by the side of the car and his clothes were heavy and caked with the mud of the sewer. They stank.
The street was dark; there was only the light that came through the cracks from behind the closed shutters. Without thinking, he started to run, numb to everything. He had to get away, had to find his way out of this warren of streets. He reached the end of the road and, with no idea of where he was going, he ran over rubble, into dead-ends, and back again through streets that all looked the same. He nearly tripped over sleepy addicts huddled in corners. The stench of the drains was normal here and his feet splashed through puddles of sewage and old rain water. All he wanted was to get as far away from that place as he could, as far away from that man with the gun as possible – and fast.
The sound of it still throbbed in his ears as he ran. He came to a square that swam in a haze of hashish and the smell of incense. He had reached a shrine, much bigger than the one in Harikaya. Crowds had gathered everywhere but there were no poets. He missed the poets. A few more steps and he hit the ground. Two children loomed over him. One of them said something, but only their lips moved. The pain drowned out the noise; it was all over him. He fought to keep his eyes open. He had to get back. Back to Maryam, back to Mir Saab. Two women were above him now, both with long, straight hair. No, they were men. They were women. Who cared? They lifted him up and carried him in soft arms. He was put down by a small fire; it was warm but the pain wouldn’t stop. Other people, women or men, he wasn’t sure, sat around. His eyes were too heavy now. One of them put a cloth on his skin. It was warm and wet and she wiped his face.
‘I am Maya,’ she said, taking his hands and wiping them clean. She sang a lullaby and his eyes closed. He heard the tune. It was one his mother had sung many years ago. Sometimes she still sang it. The woman wiped his feet. That felt good. Then she removed his clothes, leaving his pants and wiped down his body, all the time singing a lullaby. His body burnt with pain but the lullaby was making him sleepy.
During the night, he opened his eyes and her hand was on his forehead. For a second, he thought she was his mother. He tried to rise but he fell back on the blanket underneath him.
‘Where have you come from?’ the woman asked him.
He mumbled something.
‘Are you a man or a woman?’ Hassan asked.
‘A bit of both.’ She shrugged and Hassan lay back again as she started to sing that lullaby again.
During the night he woke a few times and Maya was always there.
‘I must get back. My mother’s eyes,’ he said and Maya nodded as if she already knew everything.
Another time when he woke, sweating, he saw her form, holding a wet cloth on his head. ‘Amma,’ he said.
He dreamt that he was standing at the side of a great wooden sailing boat, moored with a thick rope. The moonlight reflected on the water. Men were carrying on board beds, tables, chairs, and wooden chests for Mir Saab’s cameras, balancing along the plank connecting the ship to the silent harbour. Hassan went too into the wood-panelled ship. The men and women inside worked by the light of small oil lamps positioned every few feet along the wooden floor planks.
Hassan was checking everything was placed in the boat according to the plan
he carried. He remembered Mir Saab’s words, ‘If this got into the wrong hands…’ But the workers were coming too quickly and the piece of paper in his hand was getting crumpled and frayed. Hassan looked at the sheet but the pencil marks were fading.
And now animals started to come aboard. Goats with shaggy hair and horns that twisted round and round to scrape the ceiling. A snow leopard growled as it too boarded the ship. Its pale fur turned black and he could see its white teeth. The growls became deeper, more menacing. Someone was hiding inside the boat behind the open door but whoever it was vanished by the time Hassan got there.
And then he heard the shots. They were outside the boat. He dived down onto the wooden floor but the shots still rang out. He heard footsteps on the plank. It was that man with the gun!
Hassan opened his eyes; he was panting. Where was he?
‘It’s all right,’ Maya said. ‘You’re safe.’
He fell asleep again, and the next time he woke up, she was still there. It must have been early in the morning because people were dotted about after the night, lying on blankets like him. A few walked around like ghosts. The fire next to him was still going.
‘You’re very lucky,’ Maya said. ‘The bullet only got your flesh, but you have some bad cuts. What happened to you?’
The warmth in her face and the way she sat, so relaxed and accepting, made Hassan’s words come forth. The story poured out and there were no questions from her or signs of shock, or even opinions. She just listened. He talked about his mother, the honey, and his father. He talked about the boys, the doll, the dog, and the train to Karachi. He spoke of Maryam and Mir Saab. But when he talked about the cook, his voice was small and his throat felt dry.
‘You showed courage,’ Maya said. ‘You wanted to help Mir Saab.’
‘The cook paid me back for that.’
‘But what he did was… There has to be more. Why did he want to hurt you so much?’ she asked.
‘I wanted to prove his guilt.’ And yet he agreed with Maya. There had to be more. Perhaps some debt the cook wanted him to pay back on behalf of his father. He sank back on the blanket.
‘Your father was snatched away from you too soon,’ Maya said.
‘It was stupid of me to go with the cook,’ Hassan said.
‘We can’t always know what we’re meant to learn when we suffer.’
‘Do you believe we always learn from suffering?’ Hassan asked.
Maya just looked back at him.
The next time he woke up, children were playing in front of a shrine. The sun had risen. Everything from the night before came back to him in pictures. The cook, the rickshaw, the shots. If only he could remember the name of the street. He sat up. Maya stirred and smiled as soon as she saw him up.
‘You’re better,’ she said. ‘What’s your name?’
‘I am Hassan. Do you live here?’ he asked.
‘Yes, we have the house over there.’
She pointed to the corner of the square to a three-storey house that was waking up too. Some of the shutters were open, some women with the arms and hands of men were looking out of the window.
‘You can rest there,’ she said.
He managed to walk to the house with her and he was grateful when the door to a room on the ground floor opened. It was a simple room, just a bed made out of bamboo, like the one he had at home. Maya left him and he lay down and drifted in and out of sleep, cushioned by the comings and goings of people on the stairs and through the front doors and even by the stomping up and down the stairs.
She came in to give him some food, a plate of rice and yoghurt, and some water. She asked him again where he lived and he tried to remember the name of the street where Mir Saab’s house was. The most he could do was picture the sign on the wall.
Stomping turned to creaking and Maya had to stop curious people from entering the room. It was really time to go. The pain was still there but now it was bearable. He stood up; he could walk without hobbling. It was as if he had been reborn into a new life. A second chance. He pictured Maryam’s face. He did not want to spend another night away.
He sat on the bed. He tried to remember but the name of the street was gone. He thought of the house, the courtyard. The guards. The masjid. He’d been away a night and it must have been late afternoon now. He pictured the nest, how it had shuddered just before he left. He heard their humming again. The sound was filling his head.
It took him back to the first day he arrived in Karachi. Kulsoom had been in the car with him as they whizzed through the city, through the traffic to the house on the street which was lined with a wall. Yellow, like so many in Karachi, but this was a long wall. The paint on the wall was flaky, showing the undercoat in parts. The car was approaching the gate. The car slowed before it turned and that was when he saw the sign. Shiny metal. Two words. Yes. Harikaya House, Mistra Road.
The next time Maya came in he told her where he lived and she hugged him.
‘My aunt works there,’ he said.
Maya stood by him like an old friend saying goodbye, hopeful that the next time wouldn’t be too long. Both of them knew that there would never be another meeting. She gave the rickshaw driver some rupees before he drove off with Hassan at the back. When he reached the bottom of the street, he turned and there she was: the woman-man who had saved his life and, even though she was one of the poor, the unnamed and untouchables of Karachi, she had handed over her money for him. He waved and she raised her hand. She blew him a kiss.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was evening by the time the rickshaw drove up to the inner gates of the house. When the guards saw that it was Hassan inside, they started shouting, ‘He’s back. Tell Mir Saab.’ He stepped out to more greetings from the guards who stood around with guns held vertically against their arms. He walked through them and into the house straight to the kitchen. The humidity made Hassan’s clothes stick to his skin. He found the cook through the doors in the backyard, sitting alone on a low stool by the stove again. Hassan walked straight up to him. His shoulder hurt and his legs ached but the pain made him angry enough to keep him standing straight even when the cook looked at him as if he was a rat climbing out of the toilet.
‘You tricked me,’ Hassan said. ‘You wanted me dead.’
‘You tried to trick me.’ The cook flicked the ash of his cigarette onto the ground.
‘You knew that man had a gun. That’s what you wanted from the beginning, to kill me.’
‘Now you understand.’
‘Why do you hate us so much?’ Hassan asked him.
‘“Us” is the right word,’ the cook said. ‘You’re not as stupid as you behave.’
‘I’ll tell Mir Saab everything about you.’
‘A threat,’ the cook smirked. ‘What about your beloved father and everything I know about him?’
‘You know nothing.’
‘You’ll see. This friendship you two have. Mir and villager. It means nothing.’
The cook laughed – a crazed laugh. He picked up the flour and began to dust a wooden board with it. He scooped the dough out of the bowl and dropped it onto the board. He began to knead the dough with his knuckles and it became coated with the flour, growing drier with every press and stretch. The pain in Hassan’s shoulder throbbed.
‘Where is my father?’
‘Your father’s in prison.’
Hassan kept his fist still. The cook was lying. He had hesitated for a moment too long. ‘How do you know that?’
‘I have friends.’
‘Why…?’
‘Don’t blame me. Blame your father, blame the country. When there’s no other choice, what can a man do?’
The cook was speaking in riddles. His laugh had a sense of hysteria in it. A force out of control. It stopped too suddenly.
‘I’ll tell Mir Saab everything,’ Hassan said.
The cook looked straight back at him as if he’d already won the battle. ‘You’re not supposed to be here.’ He smil
ed as though he had come to a realisation. ‘Who’ll believe a kid anyway? You’ll get put away for dealing in opium and selling information. That’s what I’ll tell them about you. And then what’ll happen to your poor mother? She’ll have no choice anymore. She’ll have to agree.’
‘To what?’ Hassan took a very slow step back.
The cook looked ready to pounce from some very dark place in the past and that place involved his mother.
‘Agree to what?’ Hassan asked again, his voice trembling.
‘You ask too many questions.’
The cook lurched up to a standing position but then wobbled. He’d been drinking.
‘And kids get tortured in jail, especially kids who betray their mir,’ the cook said.
Hassan turned around and re-entered the house through the kitchen. The cook followed but drink slowed him down. Hassan ran all the way along the corridor into the dining room. He slid along the marble floor and turned the corner into the hall. Maryam was there like a ghost in front of him. Startled, he stopped short.
‘Hassan,’ she said. ‘Where have you been? We’ve been worried sick. We called the police.’
‘The cook’s after me,’ he whispered. He took off his sandals. There was no time to lose. He heard footsteps in the dining room, careful and predatory. Maryam ran to the front door. The cook would never dare hurt her, and so he flew up the steps, pausing after the first flight to see Maryam open the front doors and bang them shut.
After a few steps, Hassan stopped. The cook was in the hall, but he had stopped too; he had to show manners to Maryam, no matter what. He asked her where Hassan was and Maryam said, ‘He went that way,’ pointing to the front doors. They swung open and closed again as the cook launched himself outside in pursuit. Hassan went higher, round and round to the top.
Hassan panted as he hauled himself outside onto the flat roof into the darkness of another power cut. The generator would soon whirr into life and the world would be lit up again, but for now he needed this darkness. He put his sandals back on and went to the place where he had hidden his camera and the honeycomb. They were safe, and he hung the strap around his neck and put on his waistcoat. He tapped the honeycomb in his pocket; it felt like his father was with him again. His breath relaxed to a steady pace and he listened out for the cook down below. He was safe up here, for the moment at least. The top of the house was out of bounds to the servants unless Begum Saab was with them on a cleaning mission.