“Come inside,” my father ordered him.
For the first time in my memory, Bashir Ahmed slunk into our house without anything resembling pleasure. He stood next to the sofa, bundle huddled at his feet.
My father did not invite him to sit. “What is your name?” he asked.
“Bashir Ahmed.”
A long silence followed this.
“Where is Madam?” Bashir Ahmed asked.
“She’s coming,” my father said.
“Ah,” Bashir Ahmed said. He turned to me. “How are you, beti?” he asked, trying and failing to sound cheerful. “How is everything? Are you studying hard?”
I gaped at him. He sounded like a nervous, fussy uncle, with no children of his own, who arrives with pockets full of sweets to cover up his awkwardness.
“Yes,” I said.
“Good, good,” he said miserably.
My father stood with his arms crossed, making no effort to speak. Then, thankfully, my mother came down the stairs, her hair wrapped in a towel. Bashir Ahmed turned to her with relief.
“Aadaab,” he said, a greeting he’d never used with her before. It sounded sad and solemn.
“You said you’d brought something,” my father reminded him.
“Yes,” Bashir Ahmed said quickly. From his pocket, he drew out a peach, round and green, but with the lightest flush of pink. He handed it to my mother, who hardly looked at it.
“Thank you,” she said.
An oppressive silence descended over our living room. Bashir Ahmed cleared his throat in desperation. “I also brought this,” he said, diving into another pocket. “For beti.”
And he placed in my hands a small piece of wood, carved into the shape of an animal I couldn’t identify. It might have been a lion, a cow, or a horse. I ran my thumb over the featureless face. There was a curving scar on its belly, where the knife had slipped.
“My son made it,” he said, still with that strained cheer. “I told him there’s a very sweet, intelligent girl in Bangalore, and he made it just for you. He made me promise to give it to you.”
The lie was obvious. The wood was years old, rubbed to the shiny smoothness of a beloved object, but I closed my fingers over it and thanked him, deciding I would return it to him later.
My father, in the meanwhile, had softened the slightest bit.
“You’re from Kashmir, you said?” he asked Bashir Ahmed.
“Yes, janaab. Not from the valley, though. From the mountains.”
“You live there?”
“I work here, janaab, but I was just there, visiting my family.”
“Things are getting worse and worse over there. I’ve been reading about it,” my father said, nodding seriously. “These poor Pandits leaving their homes and running away in the middle of the night, because they might be killed for being Hindu! It’s sheer madness, and these militants sound like animals. Frankly, I’m a little surprised you’re even here at such a time, Mr. Ahmed. I would have thought you’d prefer to stay with your family.”
“Ah,” Bashir Ahmed said. He glanced at my mother, but she seemed to have gone blind and deaf. He looked back at my father with difficulty.
“It is very sad about the Pandits, janaab. But that is happening in the Valley. In my area, no Hindus are being killed.”
“And all those Kashmiri men crossing the border into Pakistan,” my father went on unheeding, “for training, or whatever nonsense they’re being fed. Calling themselves freedom fighters, waving guns, and shouting slogans like they have any idea what they’re talking about! I’ve been reading about them too. The army killed seven of them just yesterday, I think.”
In an even softer voice, Bashir Ahmed said, “Yes, janaab.”
“And so?” My father leaned forward with the keen air of a courtroom lawyer. “What do you think, Mr. Ahmed?”
“About what, janaab?”
My father waved his hand. “All of it.”
I looked to my mother, but she was staring down at the peach in her hand.
Bashir Ahmed did not respond for a long moment. Then he said, “Janaab, I am just an uneducated man. I have not even studied up to class five. I can hardly even read. These are not matters for me, they are for important and educated men like you.”
My eyes opened wide. Bashir Ahmed’s tone was one I’d never heard from him before, not even during his stories. It was the whining, servile tone of an obsequious servant. I saw my mother’s eyebrows shoot up, but she made no comment.
“Come, Mr. Ahmed, you must think something,” my father pressed.
But Bashir Ahmed shook his head stubbornly, his eyes still lowered. “No, janaab,” he said. “Please do not ask me about such things. I am just trying to live and work so I can feed my family, and I wish for all Kashmiris, including the Pandits, to be free to do the same. That is all I know.”
Next to me, my mother shifted. My father had his head cocked; he seemed to be considering this speech. Then, to my surprise, he grinned and clapped Bashir Ahmed on the shoulder.
“I like you, Mr. Ahmed,” he announced. He drew out a handkerchief and loudly blew his nose. “If you ask me, we need more men like you around, especially nowadays.”
Now Bashir Ahmed looked up, as if he suspected he was being mocked. “Janaab?”
“I mean it,” my father insisted. “There are far too many people in this world who stick their noses in things that they don’t understand and wind up making a mess of them. I’m glad there are still some of us around who know that the most important thing a man can do is to take care of his family and leave the rest to those who know what they’re doing.”
“I agree, janaab,” Bashir Ahmed said, not sounding as though he agreed at all.
But my father nonetheless nodded, satisfied. “You’re a good man, Mr. Ahmed,” he said, sniffing. “I’m glad I met you.”
Clearly relieved at having ended the discussion, but at the same time flattered, it seemed, by my father’s praise, Bashir Ahmed turned again to my mother.
“Madam,” he said with exaggerated formality. “Would you like to see anything today? Kurtas? Shawls, maybe?”
She shook her head.
“Then I should go,” he declared. “My other customers will be waiting.”
“I’ll come out with you,” my father offered.
He accompanied Bashir Ahmed to the gate, speaking to him the whole time. When he came back in, he looked satisfied with himself.
“Nice chat?” my mother asked, and I marveled at her. Her expression was ironic, amused, utterly uninterested. It was as if she’d never laid eyes on Bashir Ahmed before.
“You know, I’ll admit than when he first came in, I thought he was a bit unsavory,” my father said, sniffing noisily. “But then he doesn’t seem like the rest of them, the Kashmiris you read about in the newspaper these days, anyway. That’s obviously why he’s here, working, instead of creating mayhem over there. He seems quite sensible, actually.”
“Oh, I’m so glad,” my mother murmured.
My father was grinning. He had, it appeared, forgotten all about that morning’s quarrel, the scene at the bathroom door. “I told him if he ever needed any help, he could come to us. I’m sure he doesn’t make any money doing what he does. Especially with a wife and son to support.” He snorted. “Selling clothes. What kind of life is that?”
That was the first I heard of the events that were taking place in Kashmir in the nineties, and for a long time, it was all I heard. Bashir Ahmed came back three days later, and neither he nor my mother mentioned my father, or the peach my mother had cut up for our breakfast the next morning. I remember being nervous about seeing him again, because in the few days that had passed, I had lost the wooden animal. It had somehow disappeared from my bedside table. My mother had been typically unconcerned. “Must have fallen behind the bed,” she said. “I probably swept it up and threw it out.” I crawled around my room on my hands and knees, but the animal was truly gone. I finally screwed up my courage and
confessed it to Bashir Ahmed, who assured me that it was all right, though I could not help noting he looked a bit disheartened.
He sat for a while on our sofa, hands on his knees, then launched into a story about a poor, beautiful woman with an extraordinary voice. I never heard the end of the story, however, because my mother, who had been getting more and more restless while he spoke, suddenly jumped up.
“Let’s go,” she ordered, clapping her hands.
He looked up in bemusement. “Where?”
She gave him an incredulous look. “To buy a carpet, of course. Where else?” When he still seemed baffled, she sighed and explained that she’d always wanted to buy a Kashmiri carpet for our living room, and since Bashir Ahmed was here, he would be able to help her choose one. There was a shop she’d heard about, and she wanted to go.
Bashir Ahmed shook his head. “But I don’t know anything about carpets,” he said. “I’m not from Srinagar. I already told you, I am from—”
“Yes, yes, the mountains. I know. Come on, just go with me.”
“But—”
Like a child, she clapped her hands over her ears. “I’m not listening,” she sang loudly. “I’m not going to listen to anything you say until you get up and come with me.”
Unsurprisingly, she got her way. She chivvied us up the road and into an auto, with me sitting between them as usual. It was a tight fit with the three of us plus Bashir Ahmed’s fat yellow bundle, but my mother seemed oblivious. Despite her injunction to hurry, she gave the auto driver interminable instructions about which route to take, then leaned back and started to hum.
The driver took us to Commercial Street, a wide shop-filled central street with countless forking alleyways, each of which contained hundreds of shops. She marched us like a general halfway up the street then down a flight of steps to a low, wide basement shop filled with carpets, mirrored tapestries, and carved wooden boxes. A short, obsequious man wearing a huge ruby ring greeted us. He called out and a boy sprang from nowhere, and together they began a dance of lifting and unrolling, spreading carpet after carpet before my mother. The owner spoke in a crooning voice, explaining the firing of the carpet, the warp and weft, inviting my mother to take off her shoes and walk on the silk, which she did with unfeigned pleasure.
This whole time, Bashir Ahmed had not said a word, sitting hunched next to me on the wooden bench. After about fifteen minutes, my mother politely turned to him and indicated a carpet the owner had just shown us. It was small and dusky red, the color of an apple on the verge of rot. “What do you think?” she said.
“It’s nice,” Bashir Ahmed said uncertainly.
“Yes,” she said. A smile appeared on her face. “I think you are absolutely right.”
Then she began to haggle.
She was implacable. The owner tried to pretend injury when she named a price far lower than his, but she ignored him and kept repeating the same number over again over again, like it was the only one she’d ever learned. The owner’s expression changed from unctuous welcome to irritation, then to outrage, and finally to dour exhaustion. Bashir Ahmed sat to her side, wearing a look that seemed to ask the same question I was asking myself, which was why she had brought us here at all. For this escapade with the carpet, diverting as it was, could not be the end of what she had in mind. She was after something more, and we both waited to see what it was.
Finally, the owner excused himself and went into a back room, where he stayed for a while. When he returned, he gave the boy terse instructions to pack up the carpet. He did not see us out.
Back on the street, my mother turned to Bashir Ahmed, the carpet rolled and tucked under her arm. Her face was flushed. “Did you get a look at his face?” she whispered hoarsely. “He wanted to kill me, didn’t he?” She laughed. “And he would have, too, if it weren’t bad for business.” She laughed again then became serious all at once. “Let’s find an auto,” she said.
Bashir Ahmed hailed one. My mother got in with the carpet, and I followed. Bashir Ahmed, however, remained standing on the pavement. My mother stuck her head out.
“What’s wrong? Why aren’t you getting in?”
“I can walk from here,” he said. “This is close to my home.”
“It is?” she asked innocently, and every one of my senses pricked up. “I’ve forgotten—where did you say you lived?”
“Near Russell Market,” he said.
“Oh, that’s just ten minutes away!” she exclaimed. “Get in. We’ll drop you at home.”
“No,” he said, a little too quickly. “No, thank you. I’ll walk.”
She frowned. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
He shook his head again. My heart beat faster. It was as clear to me now as if she had whispered it in my ear. This was what she had been after all along. She wanted to see his home.
“Bashir,” my mother said with deceptive sweetness, “get in and don’t be a fool.”
He cast around a final look of desperation, then flung himself into the auto. Once again, we juddered through the streets. Bashir Ahmed sat very still on one side of me, and on the other side, my mother bounced her knees, her eyes restlessly scanning everything we passed.
Then Bashir Ahmed said, “Stop.”
The auto stopped.
“Which one is it?” my mother asked, peering out.
He pointed to an ugly building on the corner. The ground floor operated as a halal butcher, rosy skeins of goat hanging from ceiling hooks, and I saw my mother’s nose wrinkle. Rickety balconies jutted from the upper floors, and weeping pipes had streaked the walls black.
Bashir Ahmed climbed out but didn’t walk away yet. His glanced at the building then back to my mother. “Please come upstairs and have a cup of tea before you go,” he blurted.
“Upstairs?” She even contrived to look surprised, my charlatan mother, who knew very well that, having come this close, he would be forced to invite us up. “Why not? Thank you.”
She paid the driver and we followed him up the dingy stairs, the walls stained with dark, ominous liquids. The bottom two balconies were covered in shoes, but the top one was dusty and imprinted with a single set of footprints. Bashir Ahmed took his sandals off. We did the same.
Before he opened the door, he half turned and said in a rush, “It’s very small. I’m sorry.”
The dim room beyond was filled entirely with beds. Lumpy mattresses lay edge to edge, with only a narrow gap in between. Stepping carefully, I caught the smell that rose from each mattress, a smell that was neither sweat nor oil nor piss nor musk, but something so private and deeply human that it made me want to weep. There was a barred and netted window, which let in almost no light. Only one mattress had a sheet; it lay wrung and twisted, like a man fallen from an immense height.
The sight of the mattresses seemed to momentarily subdue my mother. She gazed around for a long moment, then said, “I didn’t know there were others.”
“Yes,” he said, “there are usually eight of us.”
“And all of you are Kashmiris?”
He nodded.
“Where are they?”
He shrugged, staring at his feet. “They’ve all gone back home,” he said.
She gave him a look. “Because of what’s happening?”
“Yes,” he said.
She gazed around again, still hugging the rolled carpet to her chest. There were no chairs; he could not invite us to sit. He kept his eyes down and, after a moment, said, “I’ll make tea.”
He went into what was presumably the kitchen, and I heard the clinking of steel vessels. My mother, once he was gone, began to pace up and down in the narrow gap between two mattresses. “It can’t be,” I heard her whisper to herself. “It can’t be.”
“Amma,” I said, putting my hand on her arm. “Please, let’s go home.”
She shook me off and kept pacing. Then she stopped, her eyes darting around, and without any warning at all, her face cleared. It was as remarkable and frightening a transformat
ion as watching a roiling sea go flat. She dropped the carpet with a thud that seemed to make the cheaply tiled floor quiver. After a second, Bashir Ahmed came hurrying out of the kitchen.
“Is everything okay?” he asked in panic. “What was that sound?”
“What sound?” she asked, looking around. “Never mind. Listen, I have a question for you.”
He went rigid. “Yes?”
My mother took a step toward him. “How bad is it in Kashmir?”
“What?”
“Don’t pretend you didn’t hear.” She took a step toward him. “All your friends have gone back to Kashmir, so how bad is it?”
“I—” For the first time since I’d met him, he seemed to have no ready reply, no witticism to make her laugh. But then it was the first time they had talked about Kashmir. “It is bad,” he said quietly.
“I see,” my mother said. “In that case, I have another question.”
He looked up.
“Why are you still here?”
“Here?” he asked hesitantly.
“Yes,” she said. “Here. In Bangalore. Why are you here?”
“To earn money,” he said finally.
“To earn money,” she repeated mockingly. “Really, Bashir? You expect me to believe that?”
He did not reply.
“What about your friends? What are they doing to earn money?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are they training to be militants? Have they crossed the border? Are they fighting?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Are they at least with their families?”
“Yes. I don’t know. Probably.”
“So they’re doing something.” Her voice dropped several notches until it was a cold whisper. She took another step toward him, so that her face was barely a foot away from his. I could see his fingers curl, his muscles twitching with the desire to flee. And I did not blame him. Her lips were dry, she was rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet, and her voice trembled with a barely controlled violence that made her frightening to me. I watched as this stranger, this madwoman, fixed her eyes on the cowering Bashir Ahmed. “And you? Shall I tell you what you’re doing? Hm? Shall I tell you why you’re here and not there? Shall I?”
The Far Field Page 13
