Season of the Rainbirds

by Nadeem Aslam

  ‘They say it was the work of the secessionists from Baluchistan,’ Mujeeb Ali said companionably.

  ‘Secessionists? What secessionists?’ Azhar feigned surprise. ‘That region is at peace, remember. No civil war is raging in that region.’

  A worn smile spread across Mujeeb Ali’s face.

  ‘Lahore is under curfew,’ Azhar said.

  Mujeeb Ali said: ‘How is everything in Lahore? Sabina and the children?’

  Azhar did not look up. ‘They are very well.’ And then he said: ‘I heard about your visit to Elizabeth.’

  The dark skin under Mujeeb Ali’s eyes had tightened. ‘You cannot go on living this way. Either get rid of her or marry her. The current set-up is not right because people have found out.’

  The younger man shut his eyes and nodded that he understood.

  ‘Why so much fuss over a chodhi? Get rid of her to stop people talking.’

  Azhar nodded. ‘We’ll see.’

  Benjamin Massih sat up. He had spent most of the previous two weeks lying in bed with a dislocated elbow and a broken shinbone. The masseur had aligned the broken bone and reengaged the joint. Schoolboys’ wooden rulers had been used as splints. A little dazed, he gently lowered his feet to the earthen floor. He stood up, and sat down almost immediately. He looked around the narrow low-ceilinged room. Two rope cots were set against the opposite wall. A large crucifix was hanging from a rusty nail driven deep into the mud wall, deep into the wooden frame of the house. A shelf, trimmed with zigzags of newspaper, held a framed religious print: the gold leaf was flaky and the scarlet had faded to a dull pink. Benjamin stood up again, more carefully, and through the open door of the room looked out at the courtyard edged with pots of herbs. He walked stiffly to the door and, once there, called: ‘Tereza.’

  His wife came out of the kitchen and was alarmed at seeing him out of bed. ‘Get back on to the cot.’

  Benjamin Massih had turned around and was dragging his left leg behind him like a lame animal. ‘I’m hungry,’ he said without turning around.

  Tereza Massih was at his side. ‘You shouldn’t be moving your limbs yet.’ Around her neck she wore a silver chain on which hung a tiny Jesus Christ – arms outstretched, legs lightly bowed at the knees. There was no cross behind the figure – it was almost as though the wearer herself was the cross on to which the Messiah was nailed.

  Benjamin Massih smiled. ‘I know you’re trying to starve me to death. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that you’ve sent for Father Emmanuel to give me Extreme Unction.’

  Tereza Massih smiled. ‘You shouldn’t have got up.’ She helped Benjamin Massih back into bed, doubled the pillow and arranged it behind the invalid’s spine. ‘I’ll bring some soup.’ Her flaxen hair was gathered at the nape of the neck with a rag.

  ‘What is it?’ Benjamin Massih asked when she returned to the room bearing a clay bowl.

  ‘Trotters.’ The woman set the bowl on the floor and went back into the kitchen for a spoon and a low stool of unplaned wood.

  ‘Nothing tastes the way it used to once,’ Benjamin Massih lamented as his wife fed him the first spoonful. The room was full of mosquitoes. The small window admitted the noise of running water and the smell of dung.

  Tereza Massih dipped the brass spoon in the bowl and inhaled the warm vapour that pirouetted delicately on the surface of the soup before rising up. ‘Age has mangled our taste-buds.’ She lifted the spoon to the open mouth.

  But later – the soup half gone – Benjamin Massih smacked his lips. ‘Trotters make the tastiest soup.’

  His wife nodded in agreement.

  ‘And sheep’s tail, too,’ he said, swallowing.

  ‘Do you remember what your father-ji, may he rest in peace, used to call a sheep’s tail?’

  ‘Arse lid,’ the man said promptly, and laughed, invigorated by the food.

  The woman tried to contain her laughter. ‘Some people say you can make soup from chicken claws too.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Benjamin Massih. ‘I have tasted it. Very tasty with a day-old tandoori naan.’

  She grimaced. The soup was finished; she tilted the bowl and coaxed the last murky mouthful into the spoon.

  ‘Some people eat brain and eyeballs. Rich people!’ Benjamin Massih swallowed the last, slightly too salty, mouthful. He was enjoying the distaste on his wife’s face.

  She was standing up. ‘Stop right there, Benjamin Massih,’ she said through a smile; she was giving him a fake reproving look. ‘I know which part of the body you’re going to mention next.’ She picked up the stool – the Messiah swung back and forth between her chest and chin – and went to the door.

  Benjamin Massih was laughing stridently now. ‘And, of course, people eat sheep’s testicles,’ he shouted after her. He heard her laugh in the small kitchen next door. He wiped his lips on his sleeve, unfolded the pillow and, still smiling hugely, lowered his head on to the pillow.

  Some minutes later he heard her call out: ‘Stay where you are.’

  He raised his head and caught a glimpse of her crossing the courtyard. Someone was at the door. Their door always stood open; a tattered hessian curtain was all that prevented sight of the courtyard from the street. He could hear the woman attending to the caller.

  ‘Are you Elizabeth Massih’s mother?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Maulana Hafeez folded his umbrella. His face was chafed by the winds that had risen during the evening. He smiled politely: ‘I would like to talk to your husband.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Tereza Massih had pulled her stole over her hennaed hair.

  ‘Hadji Maulana Hafeez Bux Bukhari.’

  The woman understood immediately. She looked around and, her fingers furiously gripping the edge of the door, invited Maulana Hafeez into the house.

  She let down one of the cots and gestured Maulana Hafeez to sit. Then she helped Benjamin Massih to sit up.

  Maulana Hafeez asked about the injuries. While her husband talked, Tereza Massih switched on the light bulb that hung from a hook in the centre of the ceiling. The light reached every corner of the room, like spilt sugar. Tereza Massih closed the window and lighted a mosquito-repellent coil. Despite her silence she seemed poised, alert.

  ‘It’s about your daughter Elizabeth,’ Maulana Hafeez said at last.

  ‘What about her?’ Benjamin Massih gave a nod.

  Maulana Hafeez’s fingers felt along the rosary. ‘How old is she?’

  ‘She says she’s twenty-one but she’s older,’ said Benjamin Massih. Maulana Hafeez took a deep breath. Tereza Massih left the room and went into the corrugated-iron shack that served as the kitchen. There was no electricity there: as she entered, a draught disturbed the flame of the candle and the diffused shadows cast on the walls swayed.

  ‘Are you aware that she’s living with someone outside of wedlock?’ Maulana Hafeez realised that his fingers were trembling.

  ‘Yes,’ Benjamin Massih said in a discomforted tone.

  Maulana Hafeez felt lost, at sea. ‘I have to believe that I’m doing the right thing,’ he began at random. ‘Otherwise I’ve wasted my whole life and—’

  ‘How does that concern us?’

  ‘They have to get married,’ Maulana Hafeez said abruptly.

  ‘They can’t,’ replied Benjamin Massih. ‘He’s a Muslim and she’s a Roman Catholic.’

  ‘She has to convert.’

  ‘One of them has to.’

  Maulana Hafeez stood up; that a Muslim should change his religion was inconceivable. ‘I have not read your holy book—’

  ‘The Bible.’

  ‘The Bible,’ Maulana Hafeez said. ‘But I know that it too condemns this sort of behaviour.’

  ‘Look, sahib,’ Benjamin Massih said, ‘I was explaining this earlier to the other Muslim priest who came to see me about Elizabeth: I’m a church-going man, I’m ashamed of what she’s doing, I can’t look anyone in the face, I’m glad I’m bedridden so that I don’t have to leave the house. But what can
I do? What could I possibly do? It’s all up to them.’

  Maulana Hafeez sat down. ‘Nothing is that simple. Since they live among other people they have a responsibility, a moral obligation, towards those people. We must make them see this. They cannot ignore the wishes of the rest of us and still continue to live among us.’

  ‘I have talked to her but she won’t listen.’

  Maulana Hafeez sighed. ‘They are foolishly proud. It is a fruitless rebellion.’

  The icy blue smoke of the fumigation coil was filling up the room and the drone of the mosquitoes had faded.

  Tereza Massih came in from the kitchen with a cup for the Muslim priest.

  ‘Your daughter has to convert,’ Maulana Hafeez appealed to her as she bent down to offer the tea.

  ‘I won’t allow it,’ she said. She had gone to sit by her husband’s side. ‘She’ll remain a Roman Catholic till the day she dies.’ And pointing to the tea she said: ‘The cup has been washed, sahib.’

  Maulana Hafeez nodded. He raised the cup to his lips and took a sip.

  Mother and Father sit in the circle of light. He is eating rice and tindé. Above them, attracted by the smell of Kala-Kola hair tonic, clusters of mosquitoes whine, their paths a mess of tangles and knots.

  Father says, ‘Don’t send her to work tomorrow.’

  ‘She was crying when she came back’.

  ‘They’ll send someone to ask after her, and then you can talk to them about it.’

  ‘What if no one comes?’

  ‘They’ll come. She has always been good with their little boy. He has grown to love her, you told me that.’

  The lamp hangs from the hook, swaying. Their shadows go round in circles. I change sides and Mother looks towards my cot.

  She lowers her voice. ‘The boy’s uncle hit her and the mother pulled her hair.’

  ‘Well, when they send someone to fetch her you can talk to them. They are good people. They gave her new clothes for Eid.’

  ‘And we need the money she brings in.’

  He nods. Inside its glass bubble, the flame is like the bud of a yellow rose. Father says, ‘And you must ask her to be more careful, too. They hire her to mind their little boy. It’s her job to look after him properly.’

  Mother gives a nod. ‘She says she only left him unattended for a second. A new toy vendor had come into the street and all the girls had gone to look at the things.’

  ‘Is the little boy badly hurt?’

  ‘They’ve taken him to hospital.’

  ‘Well, when they send someone round to ask why she hasn’t showed up for work, you can talk to them. Tell them they’re not to slap her again, no matter what she does. If they have a complaint they should come to us. She’s just a child herself.’

  I close my eyes, and try to sleep.

  Friday

  The rain was so fierce that water from the eaves fell in continuous threads, like a beaded curtain. Alice was on the veranda pounding cinnamon in a mortar, her face tensed with effort as she brought down the pestle. Her knees were splayed out and the mortar was clamped between the undersides of her feet. She changed arms when she tired, or began to grind in a circular motion instead of pounding. And all the while she talked chirpily. Zébun sat on the rope cot and listened. Occasionally she nodded, causing her gold earrings to swing towards her cheeks. To ease the burden on her earlobes the heavy earrings were supported by lengths of black thread attached to the hairpins.

  Alice was describing a recent visit to the cinema. ‘And then a baby started crying in the audience, so loud you couldn’t hear anything. After a while, from near the front, a man shouted, Shove a tit in its mouth, sister.’ She gave a broad laugh. But Zébun merely nodded. Alice lingered a moment and then began to pound the spices again.

  ‘It doesn’t feel like a Friday,’ Zébun said. Alice stopped; looked up for a moment, like a deer at a water-hole, and then set to again. It was a long and empty morning. The sky loomed dead above the courtyard. The jasmine bush cresting the far wall swayed in the rain, doors creaked, window panes rattled in the frames and curtains swelled into the rooms like ship sails. Above them, from one wall of the veranda to the other, clothes were drying. Zébun’s underclothes were concealed beneath other, neutral clothes, or beneath towels and sheets, away from Mr Kasmi’s eyes. An unbroken line of salt ran along the edge of the veranda like a miniature mountain range.

  When some time later Alice mentioned the goat with the sacred markings Zébun said, ‘I would like to see it. Though I don’t think they’ll let me into the house.’

  Alice looked up at her mistress hesitantly. ‘It’s nothing,’ she waved a hand consolingly. ‘We too have something like that in our religion.’ And she explained how the darker hair growing along a donkey’s back and down part of the front legs was said to describe a crucifix. ‘They say it’s because Jesus Christ, our prophet, made the journey from Jerusalem on a donkey’s back.’

  Zébun understood that the story was meant as an expression of sympathy, and appreciated it. She smiled. Splashing rainwater was gouging away the outer side of the salt line making tiny irregular cliffs. Zébun pointed and said, ‘You’d better go into the kitchen and get some more salt, or you’ll have to spend the rest of the day driving water lizards out of the house.’

  Alice nodded and stood up purposefully.

  Zébun said, ‘And when the rain is over remind me to give you a letter to post.’

  ‘The post office is still shut,’ the girl said. Above the neck-line of her shirt her sharp little collar-bone stuck out, fantastically exaggerated.

  ‘Then I’d better ask brother-ji for advice.’ Zébun considered the stairs leading up to Mr Kasmi’s room. ‘Has he arisen?’

  Alice nodded, ‘I heard music from upstairs a while ago. But he hasn’t been down for breakfast yet.’

  The sergeant lowered the book he was reading. The chair was tipped back on two legs. On the wall where his head rested the plaster was worn and grimy. He brought down the chair and, sighing, pressed the book to his chest where Wamaq Saleem’s signature was tattooed. ‘How can they let us have his books for money alone?’ He left the chair and went to stand in the doorway. Above the door hung a framed document, listing the ten qualities – each expressed by an adjective – considered to be the essence of an ideal policeman.

  The police inspector was reading the newspaper. ‘Were you patrolling last night?’ he asked from behind the paper.

  Mosquitoes cruised around the room, silently for the most part; only occasionally was the keening of a female to be heard. The floor was caked with mud brought in on people’s shoes. ‘No. It was my turn as barracks orderly.’ He smiled: ‘I did patrol the night before last, though.’

  The tone of voice had betrayed the smile: the inspector lowered the newspaper and looked at the sergeant.

  The sergeant brought his foot down on a water lizard then, without looking, sent the creature flying with an economical kick. It landed on its ribbed back, split from end to end and scraping the air uselessly with its legs like a wind-up toy that has been knocked over.

  Mr Kasmi was at the other side of the courthouse, nimbly stepping around the puddles. The sergeant had seen Mr Kasmi often enough before on his way to Yusuf Rao’s office. But today was Friday, and the sergeant realised that Mr Kasmi was walking towards the barracks.

  ‘It’s about the post office,’ Mr Kasmi said. ‘I would like to know how long the postal system in this town is to remain in paralysis. I have a letter to post.’

  The police inspector leaned forward and rested his hands on the desktop, fingers slatted into each other. ‘It won’t be long, Kasmi-sahib. I think by the middle of next week the DC will have informed the central post office of the vacancy. And soon after that the new postmaster should arrive.’

  The sergeant had gone back to his chair. He was hanging on the insistent drone of a mosquito. He followed the insect’s erratic flight, his eyes doodling, and when the whine stopped he stiffened and smacked hi
s forearm. There was a smear of blood on the skin. ‘What a waste,’ he grinned. ‘My own blood.’

  The inspector smiled. ‘Have it tattooed in.’

  His subordinate smiled back. Then he got to his feet and brought his book to Mr Kasmi, a forefinger pressed firmly into the page. ‘What does this word mean, Kasmi-sahib?’

  Mr Kasmi raised a finger in the air. ‘It’s a Persian word.’ He told the sergeant what the word meant. ‘When Wamaq Saleem began writing poetry, in his student days, he didn’t know any Persian. That, of course, was a great disadvantage since our language draws so heavily from Persian. So he had to learn it.’

  The sergeant, nodding vigorously, went back to his chair.

  Mr Kasmi cleared his throat and turned to the police inspector. ‘And what are we citizens supposed to do until then?’

  The inspector scratched his head. ‘Leave the letter with me, Kasmi-sahib. I’ll have it sent to the city.’

  ‘I don’t understand why the post office is shut, anyway,’ Mr Kasmi said. ‘The postmaster may have gone missing but the postman is still here. Why not get him to take charge until a new postmaster can be appointed?’ And he said to himself: ‘I’ll suggest this to Azhar.’

  The police inspector allowed a little irritation in his voice. ‘You’ll have to wait till the end of next week, Kasmi-sahib. The DC’ll be away for some time. Ever since the attempt on the General’s life there have been emergency meetings everywhere.’

  Mr Kasmi nodded.

  ‘I myself was away all day yesterday,’ said the police inspector. ‘There are plans now to enlarge the barracks. More men and a larger lock-up. It will be a proper police station.’ There was pride in his voice. At that he let the matter drop and exclaimed: ‘Where are my manners? Would you like a cup of tea, Kasmi-sahib?’ And ignoring Mr Kasmi’s refusal, he clicked his fingers at the sergeant; but he was already rushing to the tea-stall across the street.

  The loudspeaker of the mosque growled, frightening away the papihas, and after the prolonged note of the feedback-whistle, a male voice began to recite verses from the Qur’an.