Trespassing

by Uzma Aslam Khan

  They lay in each other’s arms in the guestroom-to-be, blowing the sweat dry on each other’s skin. She whispered, ‘You leave for America soon.’

  It was true. In less than two weeks, he’d be on the plane again. ‘We can meet here often.’

  She said nothing for a while but then both of them pulled slowly away. It was too hot, too sticky, and they felt too keenly how constrained they were. Their love needed room. Here it was so capped, so smothered, how could it possibly grow?

  Dia said, ‘Last summer, a black rain fell. People said it was because of the bombed oilfields in Iraq. For months, soot covered the world and fell like ink. Ama said the rain destroyed our mulberry trees, but she’d no way of confirming that. We ran short of food for the silkworms.’ Her voice was breathy and detached.

  He rolled onto his side. ‘Dia, this isn’t perfect, but let’s try to make the most of it?’

  They tried.

  The next time, Daanish brought a thermos of ice water and they sprinkled it on each other, kissing early, before the balm withered and they were too clammy to embrace. He told her they had plenty of water now – Anu had prevailed, but she wondered why he never came home with a mechanic.

  Sometimes Dia spoke of Sumbul and Inam Gul, of how their queries were increasingly intrusive. But mostly, the two exchanged stories. It was what they had to count on. Tales of beginnings, and of eternity.

  One day she leveled the ground with her palm, stretched her legs and leaned into a dividing wall. She told him how the mulberry fruit got its red color. ‘I’d tell the story to my father at bedtime and he’d repeat it on the drive to the farm. It got so that each time, we had to come up with a different ending. But this is how it starts.

  ‘There were once two young lovers, say Raeesa and Faraz. Raeesa was lean and dark, with sparkling eyes, rich black hair and lips like fuchsia petals.’

  Daanish laughed. ‘How can poor Faraz match up to that?’

  ‘He doesn’t,’ she smiled. ‘He was short and lumpy-nosed, but what he had was zip. More than a honeybee’s.’

  ‘I see, zest makes up for the fact that he’s a bonga.’

  She tweaked his arm. ‘He was sweet, not a bonga. Anyway, their parents forbade the children from even looking at each other. But Faraz had to pass her house on the way to the field where he worked, so many opportunities arose for Raeesa to watch him coyly from behind her thick curtain of hair.’ Daanish combed Dia’s tresses with his fingers, arranging them over her eyes. She obliged him by peering out mischievously.

  ‘Faraz would linger feverishly when he spied her lithe, eel-like presence, hopping from foot to foot, terribly nervous about being caught. But he’d brave anything for a look of his beloved.

  ‘At night, on his way back from the field, he’d stand beside the wall of her house. There was a small crevice there no one besides the lovers knew of. While the household slept, they’d speak softly to each other through it. Her voice was kind and seductive. His lips drew nearer to drink the delectable aroma.’

  Dia stalled, and Daanish gently rubbed her back. ‘Why did you stop?’

  Her brows were furrowed, and she looked away before answering him. ‘I just remembered something.’ She paused again. ‘My father would always describe it as Faraz wanting to drown himself in Raeesa’s breath. It’s nothing. Just that it’s cruel, the way words twist around, take on unwanted meanings. It was a perfectly good metaphor. Now I’ll never use it.’

  Daanish kept stroking her back, and it was then that Dia came to tell him of her father’s murder. ‘Technically,’ she said, ‘he didn’t really drown. I mean the coroner said he was dead before being dumped in the river. Still, his body wouldn’t have looked the way it did if he hadn’t been steeping for days.’ He held her then, struck by how her anger was still so fresh. She shed no tears but her eyes were haunted. She said she still wondered daily who’d killed him, what she’d do if she ever found out, and most of all, feared it would have to be nothing.

  It wasn’t till their next meeting that she resumed the tale.

  ‘Nightly, Faraz was drawn to the crevice in the mud wall, a moth assembling around his eager mate – let’s use that metaphor. His fingers scratched the crack hungrily as he imagined her on the other side, where Raeesa too was tortured, where she too scraped her delicate fingers, hoping for just one caress from her love. Her fingers grew bloody, and she kissed the wounds later, while falling asleep, imagining they were his. Her sleep was a series of dreams of him. Some sweet, others so terrible she woke up keening.

  ‘Finally one night, able to stand it no longer, they arranged a meeting. Faraz said he knew just the place. It was under an old mulberry tree on the banks of a river, two kilometers out from the wheat fields. “Meet me there tomorrow night,” he whispered through the hole. “It will be a new moon and we won’t be seen.”

  ‘Raeesa listened, twirling her hair absently. She longed for a look of reassurance from her beloved. She’d never walked alone in the dark before. How far was two kilometers? What would her parents say if they found out? She didn’t want to betray them. After all, she loved them too. Suddenly, she wished to be a child again. Children knew nothing about needing to choose. That was their innocence. She was about to give up hers. Where should she go: in the arms of passion or trust? What did she want more: a new beginning or old certainty?

  ‘For the first time since their hidden affair, she wondered about Faraz. Was he the one for her?’

  Dia looked at Daanish long and hard.

  He’d been combing her hair with his fingers again and now he didn’t know whether to remove his hand or let it linger. He decided on the latter, but the hiatus gave him away. He brought both hands up to his face, deciding to make them useful by mopping up his damp cheeks. He couldn’t return her look. He didn’t know what he felt. He wished he could tell her that: I don’t know what I feel any more. About anything. Love. War. Death. Home. All mere headlines. He couldn’t touch or string them together. That was what she’d been doing for him. Was she going to stop?

  He sighed, and his breath was a touch sour. Nothing crisp and ruddy about his scent here, in this gnat-ridden corner of the unfinished house. In truth, they were mad to tolerate this hovel. Humidity must be approaching one hundred per cent. They were both slick with it. She didn’t smell good either.

  She wiped her face with the hem of her kameez, in the process revealing part of her soft, flat stomach. If his timing were better, he could circle her naked waist, or lift her shirt up further. But he just wasn’t moved to do anything at all. Guiltily, he thought he’d rather be in his room, where at least he could quench his thirst and cool off under the fan.

  She continued, her voice giving away none of what had passed between them in the silence. ‘Raeesa searched the crevice for a sign from him, but it was too small to reveal anything besides the darkness on his side.

  ‘He asked her again, “Will you meet me under the mulberry?”

  ‘“Yes!” she cried hurriedly. “I’ll be there.”

  ‘So the next night, when her family had fallen asleep, Raeesa packed a small bundle of clothes and slipped out of the house. It was indeed a new moon. Every time she looked up, more stars appeared. They seemed to shine for her and she talked back to them while crossing a field. In this way, Raeesa resisted the urge to turn back.

  ‘At last she heard the river. And she saw the silhouette of the tree. It hunkered over the water like a curved band of ageing men, arms askew, leaves flapping. The sky began to pale. But where was Faraz?

  ‘Unknown to Raeesa, Faraz had started out for the river much earlier that day. Unable to contain his excitement, he’d not worked in the field. He could focus on nothing but the prospect of at last embracing his love. But that was still so many hours away! After waiting so long, these final hours were excruciating. He wandered away from the river, thinking, then sauntering back. He paced in circles.

  ‘What he wanted was to declare his love openly, in broad daylight, so he could we
ar it proudly. He wanted to face her family, and his. Deceit would taint the beauty of what they’d have that night. They were above that.

  ‘He came up with another plan. He stood outside her house and told himself: If she loves me, she’ll know I’m here and come out. If she doesn’t, I’ll know her love is not true.

  ‘But Raeesa, counting on tonight, did not step out all day. She suffered indoors, in silence, tormented by the enormous gamble she’d committed herself to.

  ‘And so Faraz left. What she loved best about him – his enthusiasm, his childlike earnestness – would be their undoing.’

  Daanish pouted. ‘You’re losing me: Faraz just created this problem for himself when he could finally have what he wanted?’

  ‘Yes. He was misguided. Mind you, I’m coming to the part that could go many ways, and you can tell me your version. Let me finish my father’s.

  ‘So as the sun rose the next day, Raeesa sat between the roots of the mulberry tree in disbelief. Had she made the wrong choice? Or had something happened to her beloved? Should she get help? Indecision and fear paralyzed her.

  ‘And Faraz, heartbroken by his own folly, roamed the village in stupefied horror, convinced it was he who’d been wronged. He was observed in this state by an old woman who counseled him thus: “Go where you agreed to go before you lose sight of where you are.” She walked away, leaving Faraz to reflect on her words.

  ‘Under the tree, Raeesa suddenly noticed a tiger lurking nearby. He’d come to drink at the river, licking his lips dry of gazelle blood as he sipped. When she saw the beast, Raeesa, delirious with despair, assumed the blood on his whiskers was her beloved’s. She fell before the tiger. The great cat snapped her neck, slurping an unexpected second course. Her blood sprouted up like a fountain, toward the bone-like branches caressing her, rinsing the white berries burgundy. And that’s how they got their color.’

  ‘I almost forgot that’s what this was about,’ Daanish frowned. Then he added, ‘I don’t like it.’

  ‘Well, change it then. I said it was open-ended.’

  He considered this. ‘What happened to Faraz?’

  ‘The saddest thing is that he’d been making his way back to her. And when he finally arrived, and saw Raeesa’s carcass, he too let the cat have him. Once my father told it another way. Faraz had been excited, yes, but instead of wandering to her house, expecting her to come out, he’d simply parked himself on the banks of the river. He’d never met the old woman at the village, and he hadn’t worked the fields either. He just sat under the tree from morning till night, so when the tiger with the bloody mustache came to drink, it was Faraz who thought Raeesa had been eaten, not the other way around. And then he too dropped before the beast, so it was Faraz’s blood that turned the fruit red, and it was Raeesa who found the carcass.’

  ‘But either way, the tiger gets them?’

  ‘Yes. Another time, my father said there was a double metamorphosis. Not only did the fruit change color, but the lovers change too. They turn into tigers, and roam free through the forest, with no predators to hinder them.’

  Daanish pulled her into his arms. ‘Well, let me think of another ending.’

  She smiled, waiting. But his attention wandered. Would it rain again? There was lightning in the distance, and the power must have gone because a generator droned. He wished she’d be the way he liked her best: the warm, soft Dia who freed him from chaos because she knew nothing about it. He wanted her to always be that way. Not like this, slyly nudging him.

  She said, ‘My father would often look over to my mother riding beside him in the car, silently requesting her input, but she never gave it. Nor did my brothers. It was just the two of us talking. After his death, I changed the story again: it isn’t a tiger that lurks around Raeesa while Faraz pities himself all day. It’s a band of dacoits. They carry pistols, shotguns, machine guns. They torment her for hours. Then they toss her in the river, where she floats beneath the stars that had been so kind on her lonely journey across the wheat field.’

  Dia twisted off the cup of the thermos, saying the mugginess was making her faint. But there was no more water. ‘Oh well,’ she sighed. ‘You tell me something now.’

  And then they looked at each other. Was it her story or did a shadow really flicker between them? They froze. Daanish still hadn’t told her Salaamat sometimes came here.

  Cautiously, the two peeked outside. There was no one there.

  SALAAMAT

  1

  Schoolboys

  MAY 1987

  ‘How can you be a freedom fighter if you’d rather stare at the river?’ Fatah chided, settling beside Salaamat on the beach.

  Salaamat grinned. It had been years since he’d felt like this. He said, ‘Every evening after closing her teashop, my grandmother would stare at the sea till she was in a trance. She was tossing her worries out, letting the waves carry them away. Now here I am, on the water again, and I feel like her. Down the Indus flows, taking the worst of me with it. You can call that freedom.’

  ‘Pah! What nonsense you speak!’ answered Fatah. ‘And don’t let the Commander hear you talking such crap. He’ll let the waves carry you away.’

  The sun was rising behind them. On the opposite bank the sandstone cliffs glowed a pale peach and a cormorant stretched its wings. The other men were slowly emerging from their tents, buttoning shirts, combing the hair from their eyes with bare and blotched fingers. Murmuring greetings they stumbled to the river’s edge to perform the morning ablution. Fatah said in the coming months, when the rain fell, the color of the Indus would change. But for now, it was clear and blue like Hero’s glass, with a pink dawn rising from its depths.

  With glistening faces, the other men joined Fatah and Salaamat in waiting for the Commander. At twenty, Salaamat felt he was at last attending school. He was the new boy, the one who’d have to prove he’d assimilated. Soon he’d go south to the National Highway to do just that.

  ‘Here he comes,’ Fatah whistled. The men spun around so their backs were to the river, and their faces to the sun. The Commander liked to say that anyone who claimed crime was chaos had never committed a gruesome enough one. Crime was discipline. Sunburn and teary eyes were part of the discipline. So the men squinted up into the rising star while the Commander stood glowering in the shade of a sisky tree because there was nothing to smile about, given the qaumi halat, the state of the country.

  ‘Anyone who smiles has never looked at the sun,’ whispered Fatah. The man next to him snorted.

  The Commander began, ‘What has the nation done for you? You are illiterate, homeless, and hungry. You have been cut from your mothers too early, ripped from her womb like the slimy yellow fish eggs in a maha sher’s gut! See how they drift in the river? That is you. Filthy, ugly, destined to drift from current to current. God cannot even grant you the mercy of camouflage. You can see those sons-of-owl fish eggs from the tallest cliffs on the banks!’

  Salaamat and the others shifted. The Commander had never climbed a dune, let alone a cliff. He had the job because the Chief was his brother-in-law. Salaamat looked up at the sandstone towering around them. The sun was gradually creeping over to the ledge where every morning, around this time, a fish eagle fed her nest. Fatah and Salaamat had climbed these cliffs; they’d almost seen the nest. They’d also seen the fish eggs from all the way up there. And the Commander was right: they were an eyesore.

  The Commander paced in front of them with a keekar stick in one hand, the antique Winchester in the other. Much to Fatah’s disgust, the Chief had presented the gift to his brother-in-law. The eddying design on the stock glistened, because while the men trained, the Commander oiled. The keekar was his toothbrush. He probed his mouth with it, then spat. ‘So what do you do? One word: dislocation. They cut you off, now you cut them off. We will achieve our goal through discipline. Mental discipline.’

  The eagle soared into view, and then she must have landed on the faraway ledge because the chicks’ greeting echoe
d in the gorge.

  The Commander smacked his toothbrush against his thighs as his voice thundered, ‘You have to temper your longings, to stop answering to this environment. You have to shut down, and then you have to shrink. You have to will yourself into a tiny steel nugget. You have to concentrate and learn to target this nugget. You will not simply use rounds. You will become them. In this camp, there are exactly twenty-seven Bullets.’

  When he was finished, half the men retired to a stretch of beach reserved for combat practice. While they primed their bodies, the others, led by First Lieutenant Muhammad Shah, headed south to the highway. Their victims were taken to the Chief’s bungalow, many miles inland.

  The training varied in intensity, depending on, Salaamat realized, nothing at all. It was haphazard, random. It could involve assembling and disassembling Kalashnikovs more deftly than lacing boots, pitching tents one-handed (while the Commander, shining the Winchester, timed them with a stopwatch), or firing pistols at a mark in the center of a slab of sandstone. The last was what he thought he’d enjoy most, except the acoustics in the gorge were wreaking havoc with his left eardrum. If his hearing had fluctuated before coming here, now he heard too much. His eardrum was a golden whistle and the slightest sound was augmented by several decibels. He learned to shoot little but with expert precision, and became better than most who’d trained longer. He used the cheap Tokarev.22 – slept with it, ate with it, never leaving it in the tent even when others appeared to be resting. Tempers flared quickly here.

  Then there were sit-ups, push-ups, jogs along the length of the beach in the blazing heat with weighted backpacks. Or the men wrestled – half scuffling, half kicking. Or scaled the steepest reaches of the cliffs while the Commander frowned deeply behind the little stopwatch. This was Fatah’s forte. He was like a well-fed goat – sure-footed and taut around the gut. Compact, but strong. Salaamat had control but Fatah agility, and Salaamat let himself be lured into betting away most of his cigarettes because he loved watching Fatah leap past him as eagerly as the children swimming out to the anchor line in his village had done. Fatah would turn and smile back in the same way: Look. I did it.