The Edges of Time

by Farahad Zama

  Mr Ali laughed and made a joke and nothing more was ever said. Mr Ali never tried to offer him money again, though he started taking fruit to his friend's house whenever he visited – mangoes when they were in season in the summer, apples in winter, knobbly custard apples at the end of the monsoons, chikoos in the spring, guavas through the year when they fruited on the tree in front of his house. Mr Ali just left them on the dining table or handed them to Janoo's sister without saying anything.

  He heard an auto pulling up outside the house and opened the door. Mrs Ali hurried inside with a stainless steel tiffin carrier in her hand and went to where Janoo's sister was sitting. Fresh wails reverberated through the house. The men from the mosque arrived and Mr Ali was surprised to see just the imam and five men. Many more people usually turned up for a funeral. 'Is anybody else coming?' he asked the imam.

  Before the imam could reply, one of the men behind him said, 'It's lucky even we turned up. If the imam had not personally asked me, I wouldn't have come to bury this agnostic, arrogant son-of...'

  The imam raised his hand. 'We do not speak ill of the dead,' he said. 'His soul is already on its way to God and he will no doubt have to answer for his deeds. Our job is to prepare the body for the burial.'

  The men had come prepared and were experienced at what to do. They washed the body and wrapped him in the kafan – the white cotton shroud. They combed his hair and closed his nostrils and ears with cotton balls. They sprinkled attar-of-roses over the body. Mr Ali, meanwhile, called his many friends and cajoled them, calling in favours, mentioning long-buried good deeds and twisting arms to make them come over.

  Within the hour Janoo was made ready for his final journey and a few more men and women had turned up. The imam called for the ladies to bring out Janoo's sister. The ladies almost dragged a reluctant Mehrunnissa into Janoo's room. Mrs Ali holding her upright by the shoulders. 'Take one last look at your brother, Mehru,' she said. 'You need to do it.'

  Many of the women, even those who hadn't cared for Janoo when he was alive started crying and Janoo's sister wailed even louder. 'He was a good brother,' she cried. 'What am I going to do now?'

  The room became stuffy with so many people in it and Mr Ali felt faint from hunger, emotion and lack of oxygen. After a few minutes, the imam signaled the women and they retired back to the inner room. The imam recited the dua. 'O God, if he was a doer of good, then increase his good deeds, and if he was a wrongdoer, then overlook his bad deeds. O God, forgive him and give him the steadiness to say the right thing on the Day of Judgment.'

  The journey to the burial ground was swift. The khabar-khodu, a thin, wiry man stripped to the waist, had already dug the grave, but it turned out to be a little bit short. He quickly jumped in with a shovel and scraped some more soil out. He stayed standing in the grave to receive the body as they lowered it. In the absence of any relatives, Mr Ali threw the first handful of soil on to his friend's body. All the men followed him and then the gravedigger levered himself up and used his shovel to close the hole he had dug up just the previous hour.

  The men left, washing the graveyard dust off their feet at the tap near the exit. The gravedigger sat under the shade of a jamun tree, smoking a cigarette. Birds chattered among the leaves of the trees that grew thickly in the graveyard and the noise of the city seemed far away even though it was just on the other side of the wall. Mr Ali stood alone by the grave, remembering his friend. 'You helped me in my hour of need,' he said softly, 'and you never let me repay my debt. So be it. It is better to be a debtor to a good man like you than to be a creditor to many an unworthy wretch. I hope you are happy now, my friend, wherever you are, and that you are reunited with your beloved wife.'

  Slowly he made his way out. As he reached the gates, he heard a shout and looked back. The gravedigger had finished his cigarette and came running towards him. 'I am sorry, sir,' the man said. 'The mosque committee said that the man didn't belong to this congregation so they didn't pay me to dig the grave. Can you pay me?'

  'How much?'

  'Two hundred and fifty rupees, sir,' said the gravedigger, his teeth flashing white in his dark face, as he smiled at Mr Ali.

  ~ ~ ~

  5. The Beginning

  When did we become human? Until recently, palaeontologists would have put that at about forty thousand years ago, around the time Homo sapiens entered Europe. The great cave paintings in Lascaux and elsewhere in France, Spain and Germany date from around that time. But discoveries of middle-stone age deposits at Blombos Cave on the Cape in South Africa are revolutionizing our understanding of human evolution. Engraved ochre, a necklace of marine shell beads, bone tools and a wide variety of foodstuffs dated between seventy and a hundred thousand years ago have been found there. It is now clear that our ancestors were fully developed Homo sapiens well before they left Africa.

  The riverbeds had long become desiccated sandy trails and now the waterholes were drying up too. Just this morning Doe-eyes had screamed loudly and most of the young men – and some not-so young men – had run to her. Thin-legs had, of course, rushed there with the others. Doe-eyes was the most attractive woman he had ever seen in his life. He was annoyed to find that Strong-arm had reached there ahead of everybody else and had an arm round Doe-eyes.

  'Why did you scream, Doe-eyes?' Strong-arm asked.

  Doe-eyes didn't seem to be in any hurry to step out of Strong-arm's embrace – even when her brother, Fast-as-deer, arrived on the scene – and pointed a shaky arm towards the rising sun. 'A lion...' she said.

  Everybody's eyes rose in surprise. A lion, this close to their home? Aieee... that was scary. Under normal circumstances, animals stayed away from the camp, though a pride would certainly stalk and kill an isolated hunter. There was confusion as everybody started talking at once. Finally Fast-as-deer raised his voice and said, 'Quiet! It's clear that the area is becoming dangerous. I think we should leave this place and move that way.' He pointed south where the water supply was more reliable and the waterholes bigger.

  'I am not sure,' said Thin-legs. 'Many animals come to this waterhole and it makes our hunting easier. Why leave this place? We should just be more careful when getting water.'

  'Hunting? Pff...' said Strong-arm. 'Hunting is not a problem. We can do that anywhere.' Strong-arm could outrun them all and his name was not a lie. He had a strong arm and very effective user of a spear. Thin-legs scowled. Of course Strong-arm didn't mind hunting. The more difficult the hunt, the more the girls admired him. He nodded to Fast-as-deer and pointed with his head towards Strong-arm and Doe-eyes who were still standing far too close to each other. Fast-as-deer got the message about his sister and called another girl, Slim-waist, over. 'Take Doe-eyes back to camp,' he said to her.

  Slim-waist put an arm around her friend's shoulders. More than one pair of eyes followed the two un-mated women's progress as they swayed gently away from the waterhole. Once the women went behind a rock and couldn't be seen, the men turned to each other. Strong-arm said, 'The waterhole is shrinking. Even if the hunting is easier now, we will run out of water very soon. And by then it will be too late to leave this place.'

  'Yes,' agreed Fast-as-deer. 'By the time this waterhole dries up, many waterholes along the path to the lake will dry up too and we won't be able to reach it. We should leave now.'

  Much as he did not like to contradict Doe-eyes's brother, Thin-legs shook his head. 'Travel is risky,' he said. 'It should not be attempted unless it is absolutely essential and a journey is unnecessary at this time. Before the moon disappears, the waterhole will fill up. The moon is almost full already and it's not long to go now.'

  Bipedalism was the first human trait to evolve, about four million years ago, in what is modern-day Ethiopia. We were walking on two legs long before we were halfway intelligent. The picture is confusing after that, with the fossil record indicating that over a dozen hominin species lived across East and South Africa.

  About two and a half million years ago, the earth's
climate started fluctuating, slipping in and out of several ice ages. There was no ice cover in East and South Africa where the hominins lived, but as the ice advanced elsewhere in the world, it locked up huge amounts of water and the air in Africa became drier. The savannah expanded and the forests retreated. And as the ice ebbed, forests covered more of Africa and the grasslands shrunk. These rapid climate changes acted like a ratchet, and the brain size of one particular hominin species grew bigger and bigger until finally, about one hundred and twenty thousand years ago, it was anatomically the same as modern humans. But there was still something missing. The tools, while more advanced than anything that had come before, were still basically bifacial stone cutters and there is no evidence of art. But, suddenly, about seventy or eighty thousand years ago, the record changes. Rapid advances can be seen in tool design – now made of bone as well as stone, shell bead necklaces have been found and ochre is being used as decoration. More importantly, there are variations in tools and food items between sites, depending on local conditions. What triggered this transformation? Some think it was the development of language, others that it was an increase in the working memory capacity of the brain. Whatever the change was, it wasn't anything that left a direct mark on the fossil record. But somehow, Homo sapiens had made the final transition to becoming human.

  Thin-legs repeated himself, 'Within half a cycle of the moon, the rains will come and the waterhole will fill up. We don't need to move.'

  Fast-as-deer laughed and so did most of the men. The idea that rains could be predicted was ridiculous. The band of humans knew the waterholes in their range and they followed a long, circular migration pattern between them, staying at each waterhole for several months until they had hunted all the animals in the vicinity before moving to the next one. At the lake, their range intersected with other bands and it was the place to attract or steal women from other tribes into theirs – and vice versa. It was also extremely dangerous because the best way to get women from another tribe was to kill it's men and they stayed in the vicinity of the lake for as short a time as possible. If they moved now, as the men were suggesting, they'd be forced to camp at the lakeside for far longer than normal.

  Fast-as-deer patted Thin-legs on the shoulder. 'We don't have a choice. The next waterhole is smaller than this and it will dry up even sooner. If we don't leave now, we'll be trapped here and we'll all die.'

  Thin-legs shook his head. How could he convince his fellow men? The sun rose, driving out the darkness, traversed the sky and then it set, bringing out the owls and wild cats, and that was one day. The moon disappeared, then grew each day like a plant until it became a full grown circle like a stone in a stream and then was slowly nibbled away by some unseen animal, until it disappeared again. His friends knew about this cycle just as they knew that some women – not all – shed blood each moon's cycle. But he seemed to be the only man to have noticed that there was another cycle beyond the moon's. The stars in the night sky formed patterns and some patterns, like the cross, were visible every night, but others like the scorpion were only visible for some moon cycles and then they disappeared for quite a long time before becoming visible again. He had noticed that the rains followed three moon-cycles after the scorpion reappeared in the sky. He had noticed it when he was still a boy and had even told his mother about it but she had just smiled and ignored him. Well, the scorpion had reappeared a couple of moon cycles ago and the rains were due soon. It was a shame to leave a place with reliable food supply when it was not necessary. Also, life was harder during the migrations and Doe-eyes would be more likely to mate with Strong-arm if, day after day, Thin-legs came back empty handed while Strong-arm brought back a springbok or a bongo. Thin-legs sighed and turned back to the camp. Behind him, he heard Strong-arm tell Fast-as-deer, 'Let's hunt today and we'll leave this camp at dawn tomorrow.'

  Thin-legs scowled and turned away, refusing to join them.

  The sun was well past the horizon and Thin-legs joined Doe-eyes on the lookout rock. The vista from the lookout rock spread out in front of them – a low plain that extended as far as the eye could see, dotted with almost regular spaced acacia trees and the more-occasional baobab trees. The long drought had turned the grass into yellow straw, but Thin-legs knew that the grass would turn green and grow rapidly once the rains came. He turned and looked at Doe-eyes who was staring anxiously over the savannah, one arm raised to shade her eyes from the sun. Her brown skin was sleek as a leopard's and, every part of her seemed incredibly attractive to him – even her hair and her breasts that normally he wouldn't have paid any attention to. 'Why haven't they come back yet?' she asked.

  He shrugged. He was concerned too. The hunters should have been back by now. He looked over the savannah with her, his eyes efficiently quartering the landscape, but found no sign of his tribesmen. But that was not why he had joined her on the lookout rock. He wanted to tell Doe-eyes that he really liked her and wanted to mate with her but as he tried to open his mouth, his heart sped up like a cheetah running after a gazelle, the palms of his hands became clammy and his tongue seemed to stick to the top of his mouth until he could say nothing. She looked at him for a few moments with a speculative look on her face, then turned back to the savannah in search of her brother. Thin-legs felt like an idiot and cleared his throat. 'Er... Doe-' he began and just then Slim-waist joined them. 'What are you looking for?' she asked brightly.

  Thin-legs scowled.

  Doe-eyes smiled faintly at her friend and said, 'The hunters. They've been gone too long. They normally return by this time whether or not they've hunted something.'

  'I am sure...' The girls started chatting and Thin-legs drifted away. He went to where a heavy flat rock was lying on the ground and lifted it. There was a hole underneath which he had scraped out and from the hole he took out a thin stone about a couple of inches long and started sharpening one end by grinding it against the rock. A small boy came up to him and said, 'What are you doing?'

  'Nothing,' Thin-legs said. 'Get away and don't touch my things.'

  'I never touched them,' the boy said, holding his head high and stalked away to his mother.

  Thin-legs continued alternately grinding the point and testing it against his skin. Finally satisfied, he put the thin drill back into the hole and looked towards the girls on the lookout rock. Doe-eyes turned back and waved at him urgently. Thin-legs found the way her breasts jiggled very appealing, even though he was not an infant hungry for a feed. 'Come here,' she said, almost shouting. 'I can see them. There's something wrong.'

  Thin-legs immediately covered the hole with the stone and ran to the lookout rock. The group of hunters was moving slowly as if carrying a large animal but his keen eyes saw that it wasn't an animal they were transporting. It was a man! He grabbed his spear and shouting to the girls to stay where they were, he set off at a run towards the returning hunters.

  There was no meat that evening. The women had dug up a yam that was shared by the children but the adults would go hungry. They had long since stripped the immediate vicinity of the camp and there were no edible fruit or berries near by. Strong-arm said, 'I tell you that we have to move. We have overstayed here and if we don't leave now, there won't be any water at the next waterhole to continue our journey.'

  Most people nodded in agreement. Strong-arm was a good hunter and his words carried weight; hunger was a strong persuader as well. They were all sitting round a fire that an older woman fed with twigs and brush. Sparks rose into the darkening sky and the fire crackled.

  'What about Fast-as-deer?' said Doe-eyes.

  Strong-arm looked away. 'We'll have to leave him,' he said softly.

  A groan came from the man lying on the ground. The hunters had been chasing a gazelle and Fast-as-deer had stepped into a hole and broken his ankle. The men had somehow carried him home but the next camp was too far away to do that. 'Noooo...' wailed Doe-eyes.

  Leaving a man behind, especially one crippled, was tantamount to a death sentence. H
ow could one man survive the harsh savannah on his own? Humans were like lions or wild dogs – they hunted in packs, lived in prides, and defended themselves in herds, unlike a rogue elephant that could live on its own because it ate leaves that didn't run away and had no enemies that would dare attack it. Fast-as-deer would die a miserable, thirsty death because he would not even be able to get to water – that is, if a vulture or a panther did not find him first. Strong-arm put his hand round Doe-eyes and murmured, 'I am sorry, Doe-eyes. But we do not have a choice. If we are all to survive, we have to leave your brother behind.'

  Doe-eyes started sobbing. 'I can't leave him alone here,' she said.

  Thin-legs watched with distaste as Strong-arm tightened his hold on Doe-eyes and even started stroking her back. He said, very clearly, 'I will stay back here with Doe-eyes and look after Fast-as-deer.'

  Everybody stared at him in surprise, but it was the look of hope on Doe-eyes's face that Thin-legs treasured. 'Don't be silly,' snapped Strong-arm. 'It is bad enough losing one person from the tribe without losing two others on top of that.'

  Thin-legs said, 'Who are you to tell me what I can or can't do? If I want to stay, I will. And anyway, we won't die. I have an idea about how to capture small animals near the waterhole without hunting.'

  'What's an idea?' said the small boy who had disturbed him when he was sharpening his drill and was now lying in his mother's arms, but everybody ignored the question.

  'It takes just as much effort to catch a small animal as to catch a big one – more sometimes – and it's not worth it,' said Strong-arm.

  'Leave that to me,' said Thin-legs.

  The last view of the tribe was Slim-waist looking back with tears in her eyes. She was probably sad that her friend Doe-eyes was going to die. None of them had any doubt that Thin-legs, Fast-as-deer and Doe-eyes were doomed. Once the tribe disappeared from view, it seemed as if they were the only three people left in the world – it was a giddy feeling. Thin-legs felt a moment of doubt, almost shouting, 'Wait, I'll come over too!'