Season of the Rainbirds

by Nadeem Aslam

  Mr Kasmi remained motionless for a few moments. Then, pressing the handkerchief to his nose, he sat down. He closed his eyes to calm his heartbeat.

  ‘A new month, Kasmi-sahib,’ said the headmaster. He stood in the doorway, smiling across the room at Mr Kasmi. Mr Kasmi returned the smile.

  A wave of the foul smell rose from beneath the floor.

  ‘You get used to it, Kasmi-sahib,’ the headmaster said cheerfully, pointing at Mr Kasmi’s handkerchief. He had walked around his desk and was settled in his chair. A little embarrassed, Mr Kasmi returned the handkerchief to his pocket. He unzipped his bag and took out the pension book.

  As he handed the stamped book back across the desk the headmaster shook his head mockingly and said, ‘I’m a generous man, Kasmi-sahib. I keep giving you all this money despite the fact that even with a double MA you don’t know anything about literature.’

  Mr Kasmi shut his eyelids and, raising a forefinger, whispered an ‘ah’. He smiled. This was a long-standing but friendly argument. Mr Kasmi had always believed that Chaucer’s Squiere’s Tale was based on a story from the Arabian Nights, taken to Europe by Italian merchants from the Black Sea. The headmaster never accepted this. He did not even acknowledge the similarity between the two stories. To back up his argument Mr Kasmi would bring back pages of notes every time he visited a city library. The headmaster would give them a cursory glance and say, ‘No. Chaucer is far superior. Far, far superior.’

  Stepping out of the office, Mr Kasmi strained to catch any noises coming from the classroom in front of him. Then he shook his head; there was no reason to suppose that the duel was still going on.

  Mr Kasmi unhooked one leaf of the school gate and emerged on to the street. The sun shone oppressively, producing in the sky a glare so brilliant that it ate into the silhouettes, blurring their edges. The heat was beginning. The fortnightly queue of labourers was in place outside Mujeeb Ali’s house, winding around the walls and stretching out of sight behind a cluster of trees. A few of the men had broken away and were helping to restrain a headstrong mare, kicking up dust. The others watched with interest, shouting occasional words of advice and encouragement. Mr Kasmi waited under a tree for the beast to be overpowered before resuming his walk towards the courthouse. He went along the riverbank, passing the bus station which was deserted at this hour. A bus remained in the shelter at all times, parked with its muzzle pressed against the posts. At seven o’clock every morning a busload of people, animals and birds, boxes and crates left the stand; to be replaced, an hour or so later, by the incoming service bringing the mail, newspapers, and schoolboys from the surrounding villages, as well as other passengers. There was another exchange in the evenings.

  Mr Kasmi went to Yusuf Rao’s office. The small room stood away from the other buildings of the courthouse in the shadow of a dusty jand tree. The area around the giant tree’s roots was overwhelmed by weeds that had run to seed and were turning yellow.

  ‘Waiting for customers?’ Mr Kasmi said into the office before entering. Above him hung a small, clumsily painted sign–

  YUSUF RAO.

  ADVOCATE, NOTARY-PUBLIC,

  NON-OFFICIAL JAIL VISITOR

  The room was approximately twenty feet by ten; and pushed against the longer wall, behind the desk and beneath the only window, was a narrow rope cot on which Yusuf Rao was lying, his hands clasped behind his neck, his eyes closed.

  ‘Of course.’ Yusuf Rao opened his eyes. ‘Lawyers are like prostitutes. If a customer comes we eat, otherwise we go hungry.’ He swung his feet to the floor and felt for his slippers.

  Mr Kasmi approached the desk. ‘The courts are shut for four days in honour of the judge but I knew you’d still be here, waiting to pounce on some unfortunate passer-by.’ Through the open window he could see the empty arches of the courthouse and, brilliant-white in the sunshine, the whitewashed bricks that lined the edges of the paths leading to various parts of the building. Yusuf Rao, because he had been the first lawyer in town, was the only one who had managed to build an office. The three younger lawyers conducted their business from kiosks which stood beneath the trees. Their signs were chained and padlocked against those who would steal them for roofing material.

  With an effort Yusuf Rao got to his feet and stiffly took the three steps to his desk. ‘I’m an optimist. Anything’s possible in a country where the land reforms are welcomed by the landowners.’

  ‘And while we’re on the subject of the rich,’ Mr Kasmi said seriously, ‘who do you think it was? About the judge, I mean.’

  Yusuf Rao drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘I don’t know. He was a judge, corrupt to the core. And he was involved in politics. It could be anyone.’

  Many years before, having just returned to the town of his birth to begin a practice, Yusuf Rao had soon understood that Judge Anwar of the Fourth Criminal Court put many obstacles in the way of justice. He had duly denounced the judge to the authorities in the capital, accusing him of failing to remand known criminals, even murderers, in custody and allowing them to intimidate witnesses; he had also given court credentials to some of the killers on the Special Commission’s list.

  ‘And he was rich,’ Mr Kasmi said, unfastening his bag.

  ‘Yes, but they didn’t take anything. They must have come with only one thing on their mind.’ Yusuf Rao touched two fingers to his right temple.

  Mr Kasmi took out the jar of coffee.

  ‘Coffee!’ Yusuf Rao exclaimed and finished taming his hair with the palms of his hand. He leaned forward and took the jar from Mr Kasmi’s hand. ‘Where did you get it?’

  Mr Kasmi studied the pleasure on his friend’s face. ‘Burkat’s wife brought it. She came to see me on Tuesday, wanted me to write a letter in English to her son.’

  Yusuf Rao was drawing the smell of the grounds into his nostrils. ‘Yes. I heard she was back from Canada.’

  Mr Kasmi said, cautiously, ‘She’s Kalsum’s sister. Did you know that?’

  Yusuf Rao nodded without looking up. ‘Yes, I did.’ And replacing the lid on the jar he asked, ‘How is that poor woman?’

  ‘She gets by,’ Mr Kasmi replied. ‘After the boy died Mujeeb Ali went on paying her his wages. She’s grateful for that.’

  Yusuf Rao’s head shot up. ‘Is she, really?’ He smiled with one side of his mouth. ‘Perhaps someone should tell her that it was Mujeeb Ali who had her boy murdered in the first place.’

  ‘There’s no evidence for that. That is only your theory.’

  Yusuf Rao ignored the interruption. ‘A neat arrangement. I get my eighteen-year-old employee to fire at my political opponent at an election meeting. And to cover up I hire assassins to beat the boy to death after he has fired the shot. My opponent has a hole in his thigh, the boy is dead, and I get a chance every month to prove my generosity by giving money to the boy’s mother. A very neat arrangement indeed.’

  In the past on more than one occasion Mr Kasmi and Yusuf Rao had discussed this matter much more passionately, both men refusing to give ground. But today Mr Kasmi just shrugged. ‘How is your leg, anyway?’

  ‘The bones in my hip grind against each other like a mortar against a pestle.’ Yusuf Rao had measured out two generous pinches of the coffee grounds on to a sheet of yellow typing paper and was wrapping it up, folding the paper into a compact diamond shape.

  The sun was climbing fast. The patch of sunlight which was on the floor when Mr Kasmi arrived had crept on to the desktop, illuminating the crescents of dried tea left by cups and saucers. The heat in the small, cramped office was intense. The small pedestal fan set on top of the filing cabinet, its lead disappearing under the rope cot, spun noisily. Mr Kasmi wiped his brow. ‘Not for me,’ he gestured towards the coffee. ‘I have to go to the post office before it closes to draw my pension.’

  But Yusuf waved his objection aside. He walked to the door and shouted for the boy at the tea-stall across the street. He was supporting himself against the doorframe with one hand and brandished
the packet of coffee above his head to attract attention.

  After giving the boy detailed instructions on how to prepare the drink he came back and, with a grimace of discomfort, settled in the swivel chair. ‘In 1951, the prime minister was assassinated in exactly the same way. The man who fired the shot was beaten to death then and there. The newspapers said it was the enraged crowd but the whole country knows that that was not the case.’

  Indifferent to the shouts of protest and working free of the arms that tried to hold him back, the old man detached himself from the group of men wedged in the door and entered the room. He advanced towards the desk behind which the overseer and the clerk sat and began cursing in a loud voice. The men behind the desk watched him calmly through narrowing eyes. The clerk folded his arms over the ledger. Ranged on the desk in neat stacks were coins and bundles of banknotes. The words increase productivity appeared on the coins and the notes of lower denomination.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ The door at the rear end of the room opened and Mujeeb Ali stepped in, followed by Azhar. The crowd at the street door fell silent. Both the overseer and the clerk struggled to sit up straight.

  The old man, covered in sweat, turned to Mujeeb Ali. ‘I’ve been standing in the sun all day because he refuses to pay my wages,’ he said in a gravelly voice. Beneath the wrinkles on his neck the cartilage rings of his windpipe could be made out.

  ‘Wait for your turn,’ Mujeeb Ali said. ‘It can’t be long now.’

  ‘My turn has come and gone,’ protested the old man. ‘He says I’ll be the last one to get paid because I’m impertinent.’

  Mujeeb Ali glanced at the overseer. The clerk had turned back several pages and was searching feverishly for the old man’s name.

  The old peasant took two steps towards Mujeeb Ali. ‘He didn’t want me to sit in the shade. He said I’d ruin the grass in your garden. So I asked him if he thought I had a sickle for an arse. That’s all I said.’

  Azhar threw back his head and let out a laugh. ‘Sickle for an arse. That’s good,’ he said to the old man. But the peasant, debilitated by hunger and the heat, stared in silence.

  After making a thumbprint in the ledger and collecting his wages the old man went towards the door. At the threshold he stopped, took off his turban and wiped his face. A few dishevelled strands of silvery hair stood on his otherwise bald head. Then he turned and looked boldly at Mujeeb Ali. ‘I’ve worked on your lands since the days of your grandfather,’ he said and stepped out on to the street.

  As the overseer and the clerk leafed back to their former place in the ledger, Mujeeb Ali led Azhar to the other end of the room. It was the only room in the large house that faced the street. The entire length of one wall was given over to the framed photographs, large and small, of several generations of the Ali family’s male members. It was said that when Sher Bahadar Ali, Mujeeb’s grandfather, died his two sons had divided the inheritance – silver and gold and money – using shovels and a balance from the stables. Mujeeb Ali and both his brothers had inherited the powerful shoulders and arms of their father. In several photographs Mujeeb Ali’s youngest brother appeared, at various ages, with a bird of prey perched on a fist. And there was one photograph of the three brothers together, arms around garlanded shoulders, taken on the day following the last general election.

  Azhar and Mujeeb Ali stood by the open window. Mujeeb Ali asked Azhar about the investigations into the judge’s death. Azhar confessed that the police did not have a single piece of evidence which could suggest a line of inquiry. When the police were called in, shortly after dawn the day before, the inspector had stationed sergeants in all the principal streets; and at daybreak volunteers had combed the long approaches into the town, but the murderers had left behind no clues. ‘Do you remember the murder last month when the woman’s secret yaar broke in and killed the husband,’ Azhar said, and without waiting for an answer continued: ‘Well, last night the police inspector had to intervene when the judge’s wife’s brothers beat up a man who suggested that perhaps the two cases were similar.’

  Azhar had, he said, appointed himself the examining magistrate, which meant that as well as exercising the familiar judicial prerogative of putting people in jail, he was responsible for collecting evidence and conducting investigations. In principle he had to gather all the facts relating to the death, weigh them up with proper objectivity, and determine whether a case should proceed. And he had decided to start by looking at some of the recent cases Judge Anwar had presided over, and interviewing the relevant people.

  At the other end of the room the clerk had begun setting the desk in order. The overseer crossed the room towards Mujeeb Ali and Azhar. Mujeeb Ali took out a bunch of keys from his pocket, his thick index finger looped round the brass ring.

  ‘Everyone in the world, it seems, is talking about the judge-sahib’s murder,’ the overseer said as he drew close, ‘and those letters.’ He carried a stack of ledgers, narrow and thick, balanced on the top of which were rolls of banknotes secured with orange rubber-bands and several packets of coins. Now that his task had been completed he appeared less tense. ‘Most of these people’ – he nodded towards the street door – ‘have never received a letter in their lives, but today even they mentioned them.’

  Azhar turned his back to the open window. ‘I have heard a journalist is coming from the capital in a day or two to write up the story of those letters.’

  Mujeeb Ali and the overseer were walking away from him. The overseer said over his shoulder to Azhar, ‘A woman whose son ran away from home twenty years ago says she dreamt last night that one of the letters is going to be from him.’

  Azhar lit a cigarette and turned back to the window. He glanced across the vast backyard paved with chessboard tiles. The town was at the confluence of two of the province’s five rivers and Mujeeb Ali’s house stood in sight of the eastern branch. The interfluvial plain was considered the richest agricultural land in the country. And here most of it – orchards, vineyards, cornfields, rice-paddies – belonged to the Alis. On three sides, Mujeeb Ali had reminded a gathering during the run-up to the last elections, you are surrounded by water and on the fourth side is my family’s land; so if you won’t support us I will drive you into the water.

  Azhar flicked the cigarette on to the baking tiles and walked over to the other side of the room. The overseer and the clerk had taken their leave. Mujeeb Ali turned the key in the armoured cupboard embedded in the wall; a portrait of the Founder of the state hung above it.

  ‘I’ll start looking into the files when the courts open on Sunday,’ Azhar said. ‘I’ll be away till Saturday.’

  Mujeeb Ali accompanied him to the door. Azhar went towards the street where Dr Sharif lived to deliver a message from the judge’s widow: the physician was to call at the house and collect any of the dead man’s medicines he thought he could use. Mujeeb Ali watched him cross the street – as he stepped into shade the glare of his spotless white shirt was extinguished. Mujeeb Ali bolted the door. In the absence of any noise the room appeared more spacious and, since the sunlight too had been excluded, it felt cooler. The only reminder of the manic activity of the past few hours was a faint smell of human sweat clinging to the walls. Mujeeb Ali went into the house through the rear door.

  The courtyard, a square expanse of ochre terrazzo, was enclosed on three sides by shallow verandas and bound on the fourth side by alternating male and female pawpaws, jasmine bushes and domestic palms whose tips had been clipped to give them the appearance of Japanese fans. Mujeeb Ali crossed the courtyard, picking his way around the fruit and vegetables that had been spread out by the servant women on sheets of white cloth to dry in the sun. There were sections of mango, salted green chilli and lady’s finger with slits along the length for the pickles; carrots, apples and cubes of pumpkin for the preserves; plums and pods of tamarind for the chutneys. The season’s beans and pulses had been ground, moistened with milk and worked into coin-sized tablets for the winter months.
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  ‘I wish it would rain,’ Mujeeb Ali said, entering the bedroom. ‘After all, it is supposed to be the rainy season.’

  Nabila Ali did not acknowledge him. Reclining against the pillows, she continued to read from the velvet-bound copy of Bahishti Zévar which, according to custom, she had received in her dowry. The fabric had long since lost its shine and the edges were torn. Nabila’s hair, still hot as metal from the street – she had just returned from Judge Anwar’s house – was loose on her shoulders. Mujeeb Ali cleared his throat and sat down on the edge of the bed. He made the noise again.

  Nabila lowered the book. It was a full minute before she spoke. ‘You, ji, may not have any fear of God left in you, but I still do,’ she said in a determined tone.