Burnt Shadows

by Kamila Shamsie

  ‘In just the few days we were here together he taught me how to look at things differently. How to notice the world. He was so conscious of beauty,’ Sajjad said carefully, not wanting to overstep any limits or be presumptuous. ‘I’ve wanted just to say that since he died. But there has never been an opportunity to say it to the Burtons.’ He lowered his head and didn’t look at her as he said, ‘I’m glad you’re here.’ Quickly, he added, ‘So I could say that to you. About Mr Konrad.’

  Hiroko stood up and walked to the edge of the verandah, catching hold of a flowering shrub and pulling it towards herself, inhaling the sharp scent of its unripe berries. Sajjad could not bring himself to look away from her though he knew this was not a moment for him.

  ‘Some nights I still wake up calculating,’ she said, so softly he thought the words might have drifted in from far away on a breeze. ‘The time he left me, the speed at which he was walking, the distance to the Cathedral. The conclusion is always the same. He would have been at the Cathedral, or very near it, when the bomb fell. Only melted rosaries remained, you know, of the people inside the Cathedral. It was less than five hundred metres from the epicentre. But I don’t think Konrad was inside. I think he was still a minute or two away. There was a rock I found, with a shadow on it. Do you know about the shadows, Sajjad?’ She didn’t look back to see him nodding, or the ink blurring from words into patterns on the page at which he was looking.

  He was remembering then how Konrad Weiss had walked him around this garden and told him the names of flowers, and explained which ones attracted birds with scent and which with colour.

  ‘Those nearest the epicentre of the blast were eradicated completely, only the fat from their bodies sticking to the walls and rocks around them like shadows. I dreamt one night, soon after the blast, that I was with a parade of mourners walking through Urakami Valley, each of us trying to identify the shadows of our loved ones. The next morning, I went to the Valley; it was what the priest at Urakami had spoken of when he taught me from the Bible – the Valley of Death. But there was no sign of any God there, no scent of mangoes, Sajjad, just of burning. Days – no, weeks – after the bomb and everything still smelt of burning. I walked through it – those strangely angled trees above the melted stone, somehow that’s what struck me the most – and I looked for Konrad’s shadow. I found it. Or I found something that I believed was it. On a rock. Such a lanky shadow. I sent a message to Yoshi Watanabe and together we rolled that rock to the International Cemetery . . .’ She pressed a hand against her spine at the memory. ‘And buried it.’

  She plucked the green berry off the tree and spun it between her fingers. She could not tell anyone, not even this man with the gentle eyes and an understanding of the scent of gods, how Yoshi had left her with the stone for a few minutes while he went in search of implements to dig with and she had lain down on Konrad’s shadow, within Konrad’s shadow, her mouth pressed against the darkness of his chest. ‘Why didn’t you stay?’ she had whispered against the unyielding stone.

  Why didn’t you stay? She pressed the berry against her lips. Why didn’t I ask you just one more time to stay?

  Sajjad stood up quietly and walked over to her.

  ‘There is a phrase I have heard in English: to leave someone alone with their grief. Urdu has no equivalent phrase. It only understands the concept of gathering around and becoming “ghum-khaur” – grief-eaters – who take in the mourner’s sorrow. Would you like me to be in English or Urdu right now?’

  There was a moment’s hesitation, and then she said, ‘This is an Urdu lesson, Sensei,’ and returned to sit at the bridge table, pen poised to write the word ‘ghum-khaur’.

  6

  Elizabeth looked across the dusty stretch of land towards the dizzyingly high Qutb Minar around which James and Hiroko were walking, inspecting the fluted sandstone of the tower’s edifice. Elizabeth wished she hadn’t declared the structure ‘unsubtle’ and insisted on waiting under a pillared corridor that stood among the ruins of the Qutb complex while the other two explored the tapering column. She wished even more fervently that Sajjad had not volunteered to ‘wait with Mrs Burton’. He would be so impeccably polite about the fact that it was both unwise and improper for her to stand alone while wild dogs ran amidst the ruins, and strangers passed by. Though, frankly, with all the communal violence just next door in the Punjab, with occasional leaks into Delhi, who was to say that the presence of a Muslim man might not itself give rise to dangerous situations? She tensed, and looked around for places to hide, suddenly expecting to see armed Hindus or Sikhs charging towards Sajjad. But there was no one around, not even the dogs. Only those inescapable pigeons.

  She ran her palm across her neck and it came away glistening. Soon it would be time to move to Mussoorie for the summer. It was hard to imagine Mussoorie without Henry – they had decided, after all, that it would be best for him to stay in England over the holidays given how uncertain things were in India. Her sense of dissatisfaction deepend. Why on earth were they here? Some plan which she’d only come to know of when James woke her up and said, ‘We’re going on an expedition. Get dressed; Sajjad will be here soon.’ She’d been irritated at being excluded from the planning, and further irritated to come downstairs to find Hiroko sitting on a step leading to the garden, leaning against a flowerpot, which left a red mark on her dress, which was really Elizabeth’s dress; how many times had she warned Hiroko against doing exactly that?

  Liquid sprayed around her ankles and she looked up to see Sajjad sweeping his arm from side to side in front of her, a bottle in his hand and a thumb over the mouth of the bottle, covering all but a fraction of it.

  ‘What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘This will cool the air around you.’

  ‘Oh.’ The smell of the water hitting the earth was in itself a relief. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’ He continued to spray the ground.

  ‘Why are we here, Sajjad? Winter is the time for the Qutb Minar, not April. And if Hiroko had a desire to go sightseeing surely there are places of cool interiors that would have made more sense.’

  Sajjad knew he couldn’t tell her the truth, particularly as it was obvious her husband hadn’t chosen to do so. The previous day, as their lesson had drawn to a close, Hiroko had said, ‘I’d like to see your Delhi, Sajjad. Would you take me there some day?’

  If she had said it in Urdu, he didn’t know – he couldn’t now imagine – how he might have responded. But it was English, and James Burton had walked out on to the verandah in time to hear it, so there was nothing to be done but mumble something about it being time for chess, and hoping that was an end to the conversation.

  But later James said, ‘Qutb Minar. You once insisted you have some ancient familial link to the place, didn’t you? Well, that’s your Delhi then, isn’t it? We’ll take her there.’

  To Elizabeth, Sajjad only said, ‘I’m afraid it’s my fault, Mrs Burton. I thought she might be interested to see what’s left of my ancestors in Delhi.’

  The Ilse Weiss who had grown up on her grandmother’s stories of ghosts asserted her presence and looked around – both in terror and excitement – for the spirits of Sajjad’s ancestors prowling through the ruins.

  ‘I don’t mean what is literally left of them,’ Sajjad said, without mockery. ‘My ancestors were soldiers in the armies of the Mamluks – I believe your English historians call them the Slave Kings. The Qutb Minar is the greatest remaining monument of those kings.’

  ‘Slave Kings?’ Against her will, she was intrigued. ‘I assume they weren’t really slaves.’

  ‘Oh, yes. They were the first dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate. Thirteenth century, Christian calendar. Qutb-ud-din Aibak, after whom the Qutb Minar is named, was the first ruler – he was a slave who rose to the position of general. His son-in-law, Altamash, also a former slave, was the second ruler. He’s buried there.’ He waved his hands somewhere behind the ruins of the great mos
que. It struck him as he did so that this was how things should be – he, an Indian, introducing the English to the history of India, which was his history and not theirs. It was a surprising thought, and something in it made him uneasy. He had thought the world would change around him but his own life would stay unaffected.

  ‘India and all its invaders,’ Elizabeth said. Her eyes followed a pale-winged butterfly which flew out between the stone pillars and then reeled back, staggered by the heat. ‘How will all of us fit back into that little island now that you’re casting us out? So small, England, so very small. In so many ways.’

  Sajjad looked at Elizabeth, leaning against a pillar, her body angled towards the figures near the Qutb Minar. Was it James or Hiroko who she looked at with such sadness? Or was she also thinking of her son? He thought for a moment of Henry Burton and sighed. He hadn’t realised how much he’d been looking forward to the boy’s return until James had mentioned – offhandedly, as though it were not really a matter of concern to Sajjad – that Henry would stay in England this summer. It will have devastated her, he thought, continuing to look at Elizabeth Burton – and her phrasing of ‘you’re casting us out’ conferred on him a sense of responsibility and authority which allowed him, for once, to address her in a moment when she clearly had her mind on other matters.

  ‘In fact, the story of the Slave Dynasty which I most love is that of Altamash’s daughter, Razia Sultana.’

  ‘Some tragic love story?’ Elizabeth’s tone conveyed something of her gratitude at being drawn out of her musings on the symbolic significance of the wasteland that filled the space between her and James.

  ‘Women do have roles in other kinds of stories,’ he said, a fountain of lines springing out from the corner of his eyes as he smiled. She gestured to him to come and stand in the covered corridor with her, out of the sun, and he accepted with a nod of gratitude. This sudden cordiality was unexpected, but welcome. ‘No, Razia Sultana was the most capable of Altamash’s children, far more so than any of his sons. So he named her his heir. Of course, when Altamash died one of the sons seized the throne, but Razia soon defeated him. She was an amazing woman – a brilliant administrator, a glorious fighter.’ Almost bashfully, he added, ‘If I ever have a daughter I’ll name her Razia.’

  It was a moment of surprising intimacy. For the duration of a heartbeat Elizabeth allowed it to linger in the air between them, and then she gestured towards James and Hiroko.

  ‘Let’s join those two. You can give us all a history lesson about the tower.’

  ‘Minaret.’

  ‘That’s lesson number one. Do you know I’ve been here at least a dozen times, but I’ve never known anything about who built it or why.’

  ‘My history is your picnic ground,’ he said, but there was no accusation in the comment, only a wryness which she responded to with a smile.

  James watched Elizabeth and Sajjad walk towards him with a sense of relief. Hiroko was acting very strangely – he almost thought he’d done something to offend her in organising this surprise picnic and leading her ahead of the other two to point out personally the highlights of the Qutb complex. Here she was, not walking around the great tower so much as prowling. He’d thought of her as a wounded bird when she first came to stay, but now he saw something more feral in her.

  I have to get away, I have to get away, Hiroko thought, circling the minaret. She was nothing in this world. It was clear now. Better even to be a hibakusha than nothing. Last evening, when James Burton had whispered, ‘Tomorrow morning we’re all going to see Sajjad’s Delhi,’ she had felt her face stretch into a smile that didn’t seem possible. His world wasn’t closed to outsiders! The Burtons weren’t entirely resistant to entering an India outside the Raj! And she, Hiroko Tanaka, was the one to show both Sajjad and the Burtons that there was no need to imagine such walls between their worlds. Konrad had been right to say barriers were made of metal that could turn fluid when touched simultaneously by people on either side.

  But when Sajjad had arrived on his bicycle, not quite looking at her, she knew he wasn’t taking them to his moholla. And James Burton seemed entirely to have forgotten that this trip had anything to do with Sajjad as he walked her through the complex with its crumbling structures, pointing out the stretch of ground favoured by polo players, the metallurgical significance of an ancient iron pillar.

  She could feel her mind twist away from the inescapable conclusion she knew she’d soon have to face: she had to return to Japan.

  ‘James!’ Elizabeth said, coming to stand beside her husband. ‘Did you know Sajjad’s family came here from Turkey seven centuries ago?’

  ‘Young Turk, are you?’ James smiled at Sajjad.

  ‘No, Mr Burton,’ Sajjad said, not understanding the reference. ‘I’m Indian.’ He glanced at Hiroko, who had her back to all three of them, looking up at the Arabic inscriptions on the minaret. She was offended, he knew, but what could he do about it? He looked at James, as though considering something that had never occurred to him before. ‘Why have the English remained so English? Throughout India’s history conquerors have come from elsewhere, and all of them – Turk, Arab, Hun, Mongol, Persian – have become Indian. If – when – this Pakistan happens, those Muslims who leave Delhi and Lucknow and Hyderabad to go there, they will be leaving their homes. But when the English leave, they’ll be going home.’

  Hiroko turned towards Sajjad, surprised and acutely self-conscious. She had been speaking to him of Konrad’s interest in the foreigners who made their homes in Nagasaki, and now she saw her words filtering into his thoughts and becoming part of the way he saw the world.

  ‘Henry thinks of India as home,’ Elizabeth said, seeing how wounded James was by Sajjad’s unexpected attack, and wanting to deflect it.

  ‘Yes.’ There was a tightening of Sajjad’s voice. ‘He does.’ And you sent him away because of it, he wanted to say, the sense of offence which had started as an act to impress Hiroko no longer feigned. He recalled it very well, the day her opposition to the idea of boarding school ended. He had been playing cricket in the garden with Henry when Elizabeth came out and told her son he was ‘such a young Englishman’. Henry had scowled, and backed up towards Sajjad. ‘I’m Indian,’ he’d said. The next day James Burton had told Sajjad how relieved he was that his wife had suddenly decided to withdraw all her ‘sentimental’ objections to sending Henry to boarding school.

  ‘Something you want to say, Sajjad?’

  ‘No, Mrs Burton. Only that I don’t suppose he’ll continue to think of India that way for much longer.’

  ‘For the best,’ Elizabeth said, looking around her, feeling something that was almost sorrow to think the descendants of the English would not come to the churches and monuments of British India seven centuries from now and say this is a reminder of when my family history and India’s history entered the same stream irrevocably and for ever.

  ‘Why is it for the best?’ Sajjad’s voice was as near angry as anyone had ever heard it. It was hard to say if Elizabeth or Sajjad was more surprised at his tone after eight years during which he used only excessive politeness as a weapon against her. But they were both aware that this would not have happened if Hiroko hadn’t been standing there, disrupting all hierarchies.

  ‘Steady on,’ James said in a warning tone, and Sajjad turned very red and looked away with a mumbled apology.

  Elizabeth wanted to catch Sajjad by the collar and shake him. I was made to leave Berlin when I was just a little younger than him – I know the pain of it. What do you know of leaving, you whose family has lived in Delhi for centuries? But beneath that anger there was something that felt a great deal like hurt. We were just starting to get on, that place beneath anger wanted to say.

  ‘Sajjad.’ Hiroko tugged at his sleeve. Her own rage was forgotten behind the need to stop the awfulness of the anger pulsing between these two people who had come to mean so much to her. ‘Come, look. I found a word I recognise.’ She pointed to some part of
the Arabic inscription on the minaret, and Sajjad moved closer to her to better see where she was directing his attention, their two dark heads almost touching.

  The ease of their proximity struck Elizabeth much as it had Lala Buksh on the day of Hiroko’s arrival. She saw the quick glance Sajjad directed at Hiroko and understood more about what it meant than Sajjad did. She did not stop to think of how Hiroko might feel about it or to wonder how long it had been true – she only knew that at last she had found a way to get past that armour of charm and indifference that had allowed Sajjad Ali Ashraf to win over everyone else in her household while remaining impervious to all she ever said and did.

  ‘Sajjad and I were just having a chat,’ she said loudly, putting an arm around James’s waist in an attempt at casualness which almost made him jump back in surprise. ‘He was telling me the name he has in mind for his first daughter.’

  James kissed the side of her head, allowing his lips to linger while he took in her scent. His fingers covered hers at his waist. She was almost distracted from her purpose, almost on the verge of turning to James and whispering that they should reacquaint themselves with the recessed archways built into the walls of the covered passageway, where, in happier times, they had sometimes slipped away during polo games on the adjoining fields to seek refuge from the sun and other onlookers. But then she heard Sajjad say something in Urdu which made Hiroko blush. What he’d said was, ‘Before you know it I’ll have to come to you for lessons in my language,’ but Elizabeth only saw that Hiroko was drifting away from her towards Sajjad, as James and Henry had already done.