Season of the Rainbirds

by Nadeem Aslam

  The barber took the chair when the maulana left. Zafri remained silent, faintly hostile, lips pursed tightly below his moustache. Finally he said, ‘Maulana-ji is the kind of man who would look for a bone in a hard-on.’ The barber smiled uneasily; he could think of nothing to say. He had often thought that Zafri’s aggressive manner resulted from his being sanctioned to draw blood and tear flesh.

  Above them a papiha came out of the rain, turning its body upright for a brief moment, its delicate claws held out. It alighted somewhere on the mosque balcony. Breathing in the smell of congealed blood and the fragrance of red roses left behind by Maulana Hafeez, the two men talked on for almost an hour without realising. When Zafri mentioned the goat with the special markings, the barber laughed and said that the day before his dog’s urine had formed a shape like a map of the country; he wondered whether that had any significance.

  Zafri gestured towards the unsold meat piled before him and said, ‘If Mujeeb Ali ever decided to get rid of his Alsatians I wouldn’t be able to make a living.’

  ‘Not many people can afford luxuries like meat these days,’ the barber said.

  Zafri picked up the palm leaf and waved it around, causing a cloud of flies to rise from the muslin and float upwards. Then he rested his head against the wall and said, ‘With my luck the only letter I’ll get would be a demand for a long forgotten debt.’

  The barber smiled. He pointed with the thumb at the mosque behind them and said, ‘Have you had a visit from the wandering film star yet?’

  Zafri opened his eyes. ‘Did he show you those photographs of himself?’ And he laughed out loud. ‘All I can say is he could not have found a better guide than Azhar. He knows where to find a pretty girl.’

  The expression on the barber’s face became serious. ‘Perhaps the girl will change her religion and they’ll get married – Azhar and that girl of his.’ And when Zafri shook his head scornfully, he added: ‘He must love her. That’s why he stays here. He doesn’t even have an office here, has to drive out to work.’

  ‘Love!’ Zafri laughed in disbelief. ‘Love! You’ve watched too many films, my putar. Or have you been reading the women’s page again? His sort doesn’t love anyone. He’ll suck her juice out and then go after someone else, the lucky soor.’ And reaching under the muslin, Zafri took out a sheep’s testicle and shook it like a little bell in front of the barber’s face.

  Laughter from Zafri and calls of apology followed the barber as he stamped out of the shop and made his way along the platform. Some years ago Mujeeb Ali’s youngest brother Arshad, then in his late teens but already as large and as formidable as either of his brothers, had come into the barber shop and settling in the chair, his chin resting on his breastbone, had asked for a trim. While the barber worked in silence the youth had slept, snoring loudly. Twenty minutes later, at being woken he had stretched his arms and legs, opened his trousers and – ready to doze off again – had said, ‘Now shave me off down here.’

  Zafri, who had somehow found out about the incident, had never let the barber forget it.

  It had rained continuously since early afternoon. After Isha – the last prayers – Maulana Hafeez locked up the mosque for the day and, mentally organising a sermon for next Friday, walked towards Mujeeb Ali’s house. The rain rattled noisily on the umbrella whenever he emerged from under the streetside trees. The unusually small number of men who had come to the mosque for the day’s dawn prayers had alarmed Maulana Hafeez. On realising that attendance had fallen steadily over the past few days – owing perhaps to the fears aroused by the judge’s death, or perhaps to the rains – he decided that the time had arrived once more for him to remind the faithful of the maxim that nothing pleased the Almighty more than a fast observed during summer – when as many as seventeen hours might separate dusk from dawn – and a prayer offered during winter – a time when the water for ablution was ice cold and the warmth of the bed inviting.

  Ten minutes later he was sitting with Nabila Ali in her large orderly kitchen sipping tea from a white porcelain cup. One of the servant girls had hooked up his umbrella in the veranda and his cap had been taken away from him for drying.

  ‘My mother-in-law, may she rest in peace,’ said Nabila, ‘used to say that monsoon is too pretty a name for a season as messy as this.’

  Maulana Hafeez blew on to the tea. After only a few seconds the rich milk in the tea had caused a thin skin to form on the surface and it shimmered in parallel wrinkles under his breath. ‘I’ve come to collect Kalsum’s boy’s wages.’

  ‘It’s the first of the month today. I’ve been expecting you, Maulana-ji,’ Nabila said, reaching forward from her chair and touching Maulana Hafeez’s forearm, ‘I have an important matter to discuss with you, Maulana-ji.’

  The maulana became attentive; he nodded and set down the tea by his elbow.

  Nabila said: ‘Maulana-ji, you have to talk to Azhar.’ And she let a few moments go by in awkward silence, searching Maulana Hafeez’s face for some reaction until he gave a faint nod and, confident that she had been understood, she added, ‘It’s a disgrace. And in broad daylight too.’

  Maulana Hafeez carefully considered his reply. ‘The more exalted in rank we are the greater the responsibility resting on our shoulders to set an example to others.’

  Nabila agreed. ‘He’s an educated man. We should be proud of him.’

  ‘I do intend to talk to him because it is a very grave matter,’ Maulana Hafeez said. ‘It’s too late to pay a visit now, but tomorrow’ – he smiled – ‘God willing.’

  Nabila’s eyes flamed. ‘It’s an outrage against public morals and religion. I have also asked Maulana Dawood to talk to him.’

  Maulana Hafeez nodded at the mention of the other cleric. Nabila Ali, unlike her husband, did not belong to the sect represented by Maulana Hafeez. She belonged to Maulana Dawood’s denomination. She followed pirs and mystics and made pilgrimages to various mausoleums across the country; she believed in touching the lattice-work grilles of burial chambers. She would take trips – sometimes travelling for days ata time – to tie a ribbon on the branch of a sacred tree, praying for a male child. Maulana Hafeez’s sect held all this to be as contemptible as idol worship. Because it accepted public donations the other sect’s mosques tended to be exuberantly decorated in marble and mother-of-pearl. The anniversaries of the deaths and births of various learned men of the sect were rich pageants: of multi-coloured lights, passionate all-night recitals and extravagant meals.

  Maulana Hafeez, however, directed most of the mosque fund towards the poor. Nor did he believe in celebrating anniversaries: did not the Prophet choose to die on the same day of the year as he was born because he did not wish us to waste time celebrating his birthday and mourning the day of his death, so that we could concentrate instead on his teachings? One of the many other points of dispute between the two sects were the refrains ya-Allah and ya-Muhammad. Maulana Hafeez would argue, sometimes in the Friday sermon which was relayed to the whole town over the loudspeaker, that since the Prophet was a mortal – as he continually stressed throughout his life – it was not correct to presume to suggest that he was present everywhere like his creator Allah the Almighty, the All-Encompassing …

  At this moment the cook came into the kitchen carrying a bucket of milk. The surface of the liquid was covered with dense white foam which moved as a single mass. Tiny droplets of milk were caught in the down on the woman’s forearm.

  ‘There is a traveller in the mosque tonight.’ Maulana Hafeez spoke to his beads.

  Nabila immediately turned to the cook and asked her to pack a meal. The woman duly tied the food in a large square of floral cloth and, going to the door, called out for one of the male servants. Maulana Hafeez instructed him to hand the meal to his wife since the mosque’s front door was locked. After the food had been sent off the cook picked up the empty bucket and, memorising out loud the number of plates, bowls and spoons sent to the mosque, went out to finish the milking.

/>   ‘I came for the dead boy’s wages,’ Maulana Hafeez said. He had finished the tea and set the empty cup upside down on the saucer.

  At that moment the door opened and Nabila’s youngest daughter entered. She carried the cage containing her pet parrot. The large bright-green bird sat on the perch nibbling contentedly at a green chilli which it held in its claw. With a smile and a wink, the child raised the cage on a level with the maulana’s face and invited him to place a finger between the bars, to tempt the bird into biting it.

  Maulana Hafeez recoiled, pressing his spine against the back of the chair. Nabila got up and took the cage from the girl’s hand.

  ‘That thing is unclean, na-pak, my dhi,’ Maulana Hafeez, smiling now, told the little girl. Then turning towards Nabila he said, ‘It has no place in such a pious household. And worse still, it eats with its feet.’

  Nabila was carrying the bird out of the kitchen. ‘You came about the driver’s wages, Maulana-ji. I’ll see where Mujeeb-ji is.’

  Maulana Hafeez let the rosary slide down to the crook of his elbow and lightly stroked the girl’s hair. ‘Name two fruits mentioned in the Qur’an.’

  Almost every child in town had been asked the question at one time or another. The girl climbed on to the cleric’s knee. ‘Olives and pomegranates.’

  Maulana Hafeez lifted her to the floor. She was the youngest of five girls. The three girls immediately older than her were at the moment in the large room across the courtyard being given private tuition by Mr Kasmi. Commuting by car, they attended a school in the neighbouring town – the nearest one for girls. The eldest daughter was now married – to a senator’s son – and lived by the sea in the former capital. Her wedding had been a magnificent and imposing occasion. To accommodate the guests many of the streets were taken over by colourful marquees which billowed in the noon winds and threatened to uproot the houses to which they were attached by thick ropes. So many flowers were brought in that for many days afterwards milk gave off a faint fragrance of roses and ishq-é-péchan. The bridegroom’s procession entered the town accompanied by a downpour of newly minted coins. The bridal gown was of the finest contraband silk – to satisfy Nabila a bolt was made to pass through a little-finger ring – and was so densely embroidered that it was virtually impossible to tell the colour of the original fabric. The women, to this day, never forgot the careless manner in which the bride had lifted her skirt, scandalously exposing her legs, while descending the stairs of the family house. Maulana Hafeez had expressed disappointment at the enormous dowry, reminding Mujeeb Ali that the Prophet’s dowry to his daughter was a grindstone, a waterskin, a mat and one or two other modest domestic items. He had also been distressed by the eating arrangements, demanding that a chair be provided since he did not wish to appear ‘like a mule put out to graze in a pasture’; and had, despite being offered a knife and fork, insisted on eating with his fingers, refusing to eat with ‘weapons’ like an ‘English-sahib’.

  Nabila came back. ‘Mujeeb Ali is in the big room, Maulana-ji,’ she said; and as Maulana Hafeez walked past her she said wearily, ‘Maulana-ji, you trouble yourself every month, when the money could easily be sent to the mosque. Why must you insist on adding to our sins?’

  Maulana Hafeez crossed the plant-choked courtyard. Every movement that the wind caused in the leaves and branches was amplified many times in the play of shadows on the white walls. A fruit tree planted close to the edge of the courtyard had directed all its branches away from the nearby wall; it was almost as though a normal tree had been sawn in half lengthwise and made to lean against the wall.

  Mr Kasmi had left. And the girls too had disappeared into the house leaving behind their satchels and books. Mr Kasmi had helped the eldest girl with all the subjects that she studied at school, but the metric system had been introduced since then and he was unable to teach mathematics to these younger girls. At the other door, Mujeeb Ali appeared to be seeing someone off – Mr Kasmi, the maulana presumed. He turned to look in Maulana Hafeez’s direction. Maulana Hafeez smiled in acknowledgement but Mujeeb Ali gave no sign of having seen him – he continued to stare straight ahead – and then deep in thought turned back to fasten the door.

  The money was ready. ‘You’re a good man,’ said Maulana Hafeez. ‘If you hadn’t continued with the wages I don’t know what that poor woman would have done.’ He pointed to the photographs on the wall. ‘Your grandfather too was a good man. When he died the district’s courts were shut for a whole month.’ Two decades or so before independence Sher Bahadar Ali was made an honorary magistrate by the British. Some time in the previous century the British had also awarded large tracts of Crown land to the Alis; Mujeeb Ali’s great-grandfather was awarded the title ‘Khan-bahadar’. Their wealth had increased tenfold since then – mile upon mile of fishing rights, hundreds of acres of woodland, hundreds of acres of farmland. The family owned twelve towns. ‘But he became a little forgetful near the end.’ Maulana Hafeez smiled at a memory. ‘He would walk out of the mosque with the cap still on his head, and would have to turn back halfway down the street to bring it back. But I suppose it happens to all of us. I myself find it very hard to remember things these days.’

  Mujeeb Ali straightened a cushion on a chair and carried it over to sit by Maulana Hafeez. Below the tangle of the greying eyebrows his eyes were tired.

  Maulana Hafeez went to speak, hesitated, and then said quietly, ‘Was that the teacher just now?’

  ‘No, Maulana-ji,’ said Mujeeb Ali, ‘that was the police inspector stopping by for a few minutes.’

  Maulana Hafeez returned the rosary to his pocket while his other hand sought the arm-rest of the chair. ‘Is anything wrong?’

  ‘They’ve arrested Gul-kalam.’

  Maulana Hafeez leaned back, shaking his head. ‘God be merciful.’

  ‘He was involved in Judge Anwar’s murder. They paid him to guard the street for a few hours and also got the layout of the house from him.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘We’re not sure yet,’ Mujeeb Ali said. ‘They’re still working on him down at the barracks. Something to do with those letters, some mess from nineteen years ago.’

  ‘But …’ Maulana Hafeez said in a tremulous voice, frowning, ‘… but those letters haven’t been delivered yet.’

  ‘No, Maulana-ji, you don’t understand. They came from Arrubakook, where the letters have been delivered.’

  Maulana Hafeez tried to contain the confusion in his head. He said in a low voice, ‘I’ll read a few sparas for him tonight.’

  Mujeeb Ali straightened. ‘And tomorrow, Maulana-ji, you’ll have to talk to the postmaster.’

  Maulana Hafeez blinked. He was shaking his head at the news.

  ‘I would talk to him myself but …’ Mujeeb Ali broke off and gestured with his hands, feigning resignation.

  Maulana Hafeez understood the unspoken request. He asked, ‘What is it you want me to say to him?’

  ‘Those letters, Maulana-ji,’ Mujeeb Ali spoke as though to a little boy. ‘They cannot be allowed to go unexamined now.’

  Maulana Hafeez leaned back in the chair again. ‘That’s out of the question. That would amount to theft and betrayal. If something is entrusted to us in good faith—’

  ‘But, Maulana-ji, it isn’t as simple as that any more. We’ve already had a death because of them.’

  Maulana Hafeez resisted. ‘That was an isolated incident. If our conscience is clear then we have nothing to be alarmed about. The Almighty, as acknowledgement of the obedience to which he is entitled, preserves from danger those he deems worthy. No, no, there’s no need for worry, I’m certain.’

  ‘Maulana-ji,’ Mujeeb Ali said irritably, ‘when the news gets out tomorrow, the two things are going to become so strongly linked in people’s minds that in future the one is bound to lead to the other.’

  Tightly gripping the ends of the arm-rests Maulana Hafeez tilted his head and considered. His breathing was calmer now. ‘What will I say to him? It�
��s a matter for the civil authorities. I don’t think he has it within his powers to suppress the delivery.’

  Mujeeb Ali shook his head. ‘Nothing will be suppressed, Maulana-ji. The majority of them, perhaps all of them, will only be delayed. We’ll examine each letter and withhold any that might result in the kind of crime that has already taken place.’

  ‘Who is we?’

  Mujeeb Ali shrugged. ‘A group of people, responsible citizens, chosen by … chosen by yourself and Maulana Dawood.’

  Maulana Hafeez closed his eyes. After a few moments he opened them and said, ‘I’ll see what can be done. But I can’t guarantee anything.’ His voice was muted and uncertain.

  Sunday

  Placing a foot diagonally on to the sheet of paper Zébun carefully drew around it with the fountain pen. The outline would serve as measurement for a new pair of slippers that Alice was to buy for her. It was Sunday and Alice would be journeying, with her parents and a group of friends, to the neighbouring town for the ten o’clock Mass. It was the nearest Christian church and cemetery; and since there was a bustling bazaar not too far from the church Alice was often asked to shop for commodities that were either too dear nearer home or altogether unavailable.

  The outline and the pen lay beside her on the bed. She had begun untangling the ribbons woven into her hair when she heard footsteps on the veranda. She could tell by the shuffle that it was Mr Kasmi and reached for her stole.

  ‘It’s you, brother-ji,’ she said as Mr Kasmi appeared in the door. ‘I thought it was that girl.’

  Mr Kasmi reminded her that it was Sunday, Alice’s day off. He was dressed in his usual blue-grey trousers and white half-sleeved shirt. He had come downstairs to pay Zébun the rent. When Zébun explained that Alice had promised to stop by on her way to Mass, Mr Kasmi said that the trip must have been cancelled because of the rain that had been falling without a break since yesterday afternoon.