by Bapsi Sidhwa
“Is she your only wife?” I ask.
But Ayah is restive and clamps my mouth shut with her hand. “Stop asking so many questions,” she says with unaccustomed irritability. “Men don’t like so much talk about their womenfolk.”
“Oh, I don’t mind. Let her be,” says Ice-candy-man, pushing his cap back now that the impressive bit of gossip has been related. He musses my hair and, opening his thermos, reaches for a popsicle.
“Raspberry!” I demand, hoping there is still some raspberry left.
There is. Relinquishing my seat on his toes I stand up.
“Oof!” says Ayah suddenly, her comb caught painfully in her tangled hair.
Chapter 15
The periphery of my world extends to Mozang and Temple Road. Every Sunday we accompany the Shankars to the Daulatrams’ two-story brick house for an evening of classical Indian music. The singers all make faces and strange noises but Israr Ahmed is my favorite singing boy. We sit on carpets and the singers on white sheets facing us. The accompanists—a harmonium player and a tabla-drum player—wiggle their toes and chew betel nut.
Israr Ahmed, a nondescript, unassuming, middle-aged clerk, is transformed into a dervish when he takes his turn on the white sheet. He flings his arms about, opens wide his mouth, displays paan-stained molars and makes noises that would turn the zoo animals green with envy. He gargles up and down the scale! He roars! He dislocates his jaw and hoists his mouth to one side—and then to the other.
Adi, Cousin and I cannot contain ourselves. In our fervor to acquire classical culture we copy his movements, contort our faces, twist our necks and are slapped and shushed for our pains.
Processions are becoming a part of the street scene. A youth holds aloft a stick with a green rag, bellows a slogan, and a group of rowdy urchins rally to the cry.
Adi and I slip past the attention of our vigilants and join the tiny tinpot processions that are spawned on Warris Road. We shout ourselves hoarse crying, “Jai Hind! Jai Hind!” or “Pakistan Zindabad!” depending on the whim or the allegiance of the principal crier. Within half an hour the processions disintegrate. The ragged flag holders, their trousers gray with washing, their singlets peppered with holes and grease spots, make a few desultory attempts to rally the stragglers. Then, lowering the banner, which reverts to becoming a lowly rag on a twig, the rabble-rouser usually climbs a mulberry tree for its fruit and we sneak back unnoticed.
We are gradually withdrawing from the shadow cast by the Queen’s statue in the park. As the British prepare to leave, we meet less and less at the park and more often at the wrestler’s restaurant.
Adi and I climb the rickety wooden steps behind Ayah and pick our way between the empty tables to our crowd. It is still a bit early for the regular diners. Our friends are sitting at the back, on either side of two narrow tables joined together. They are arguing. Everybody appears to be quarreling these days.
The wrestler shouts to Chotay, a skinny twelve-year-old in a skimpy lungi, to place wooden stools at either end of the tables. Adi and I sit on the stools, at the head and tail of the table, and Ayah sits down next to Masseur on the bench opposite the butcher.
Chotay hangs around, waiting for our order, and Ayah, with princessly authority and indulgence, orders three plates of vegetable biryani. “See that it’s hot,” she says, adopting Mother’s tone with servants, “or I’ll see to you!”
Like all urchins apprenticed to such establishments Chotay is bullied, teased and slapped around.
Continuing the conversation—and the feeding—our arrival has interrupted, Masseur says: “If the Punjab is divided, Lahore is bound to go to Pakistan. There is a Muslim majority here...”
“Lahore will stay in India!” says the Government House gardener, cutting him short. He is sitting next to the butcher. “There is too much Hindu money here,” he says in his quiet, seasoned way. “They own most of the property and business in the city and...”
“But there are too many Mussulmans!” insists Masseur.
“So what? People don’t matter... Money does!”
We look his way, startled by the unexpected cynicism, as he tucks a gob of rice into his mouth.
“It won’t be hard to put the fear of God up the rich Hindus’ dhoties—money or no money,” says the butcher in a coarse, harsh voice.
“It just might be the other way round,” murmurs the gardener.
In the tense silence that follows this exchange, only Adi and I look at them. The rest avert their eyes and appear to be preoccupied with their food.
Chotay appears with our plates, holding all three in one hand, and places them before us with a noisy clatter.
The butcher raps his plate on the table to indicate he wants another helping. The boy picks up the empty plate and the butcher, turning sharply, slaps his shaven head. It is a tempting target.
“Oye! You gone stupid?” says the butcher belligerently. “D’you know what I want?”
“The same?” Chotay says, wincing. His bared, narrow chest makes him look frighteningly vulnerable.
The butcher spanks his head again. “Did I ask for the same?”
Chotay stares at him foolishly.
“Bring me chops!” says Butcher as if he’s just taught Chotay an invaluable lesson.
“You heard him, oye!” says the wrestler, also lightly spanking the boy’s head. “What’re you staring at our faces for? Hurry, or I’ll break your bottom!” He exchanges a concurring glance with the butcher, showing his appreciation of the pains his friend has taken to smarten up the boy.
Chotay, ducking out of range of their hands, scampers away, dutifully saying, “Be right back, janab!”
“What d’you mean, put the fear of God up the rich Hindus’ dhoties?” says Ice-candy-man, turning his suspiciously innocent, olive-oil eyes on the butcher.
“You know what I mean, yaar,” says the butcher impassively.
I close my eyes. I can’t bear to open them: they will open on a suddenly changed world. I try to shut out the voices.
All at once the Sikh zoo attendant shouts, “And what about us?” so loudly that my eyes pop open. “The Sikhs hold more farm land in the Punjab than the Hindus and Muslims put together!”
“They don’t!” says the butcher flatly.
“Are you calling me a liar?” Sher Singh’s voice cracks with excitement and his agitated fingers disperse bits of rice in his beard.
“The only way to keep your holdings, Sardarjee, is to arrive at a settlement with the Muslim League,” intervenes Masseur, smoothing the quarrel with his voice. He dusts the rice from Sher Singh’s beard. “If you don’t, the Punjab will be divided... That will mean trouble for us all.”
“Big trouble,” concurs Sher Singh portentously: as if he has secret knowledge he could disclose.
“You’re what? Only four million or so?” asks Masseur. “And if half of you are in Pakistan, and the other half in India, you won’t have much clout in either place.”
“You don’t worry about our clout!” says Sher Singh offensively. “We can look out for ourselves... You’ll feel our clout all right when the time comes!”
“The British have advised Jinnah to keep clear of you bastards!” says the butcher just as offensively. “The Angrez call you a ‘bloody nuisance’!”
“We don’t want to have anything to do with you bastards either,” roars the puny Sikh, sounding more and more like the tiger in his name.
“History will repeat itself,” says the restaurant-owning wrestler phlegmatically. He slowly lowers his arm, and stretches it across the table. “Once the line of division is drawn in the Punjab, all Muslims to the east of it will have their balls cut off!”
His quietly spoken words have the impact of an explosion. And, as in the aftermath of a blast, the silence excludes all extraneous sound... The shrill voices of the children in the gully, the noise of traffic from the Chungi. Only Ice-candy-man’s voice as if from a distance, saying: “Oye! You gone crazy? you son-of-an-owl!”
And the wrestler, quietly saying, “My cousin’s a constable in Amritsar District... he says the Sikhs are preparing to drive the Muslims out of East Punjab—to the other side of the Ravi.”
“But those are Muslim majority districts,” says Masseur.
“The Sikhs are the fighting arm of the Hindus and they’re prepared to use it...like when they butchered every single Mussulman from Ambala to Amritsar a century ago, during the Mogul empire’s breakup.”
“Behold! The savage arm of the murderous Sikh!” says Masseur, holding aloft and dangling Sher Singh’s puny arm; his fingertips showering curried rice. Masseur places his arm around the Sikh and hugs him affectionately.
“It’s fit only for bangles now!” says the butcher contemptuously. He tosses the gnawed skeleton of a lamb chop over his shoulder. “The Sikhs have become soft living off the fat of the land!”
“Don’t fool yourself... They have a tradition of violence,” says the wrestler. “Haven’t you seen the portraits of the gurus holding the dripping heads of butchered enemies?”
“Shut up, yaar,” says Masseur, his face unusually dark with a rush of blood. “It’s all buckwas! The holy Koran lies next to the Granth Sahib in the Golden Temple. The shift Guru Nanaik wore carried inscriptions from the Koran... In fact, the Sikh faith came about to create Hindu-Muslim harmony!” He looks around the table to see how we are taking his impassioned plea for reason. “In any case,” he continues more mildly, “there are no differences among friends... We will stand by each other.”
“Of course, yaar,” agrees the off-duty sepoy. (I can’t tell what faith he belongs to.) “Who are we to quarrel? Let the big shots fight it out!”
“You’re right, brother,” says the Government House gardener. “The politicians will say anything in times like these to suit their purpose... But the English Sarkar won’t let anything like that happen... You saw how they clamped down on the Independence movement.”
There is an instant hum of agreement and disagreement.
“The English are not to be relied on, yaar,” interposes Ice-candy-man, pushing his empty plate away to show he’s done with eating. “They’re too busy packing off with their loot to care what happens... But that Nehru, he’s a sly one... He’s got Mountbatten eating out of his one hand and the English’s wife out of his other what-not... He’s the one to watch!”
He should know. He’s working in the Government House as a chaprassi these days. And given his inquisitive nature and wily ways—
“Don’t underestimate Jinnah,” says the off-duty sepoy. “He will stick within his rights, no matter whom Nehru feeds! He’s a first-rate lawyer and he knows how to attack the British with their own laws!”
“Jinnah or no Jinnah! Sikh or no Sikh! Right law, wrong law, Nehru will walk off with the lion’s share... And what’s more, come out of it smelling like the Queen-of-the-Kotha!” Ice-candy-man speaks with an assurance that is prophetic.
They go on and on. I don’t want to hear them. I slip into Ayah’s lap and, closing my eyes, hide my face between her breasts. I try not to inhale, but I must; the charged air about our table distills poisonous insights. Blue envy: green avidity: the gray and black stirrings of predators and the incipient distillation of fear in their prey. A slimy gray-green balloon forms behind my shut lids. There is something so dangerous about the tangible colors the passions around me have assumed that I blink open my eyes and sit up.
Some instinct makes me count us. We are thirteen.
I am not too young to know it is an uneasy number. I count us again, using my fingers like Mother does. There is Ice-candy-man, Masseur, Government House Gardener, Butcher, Sher Singh, the sepoy from the barracks, the wrestler, Yousaf and Hari who’ve been listening quietly, the Faletti’s Hotel cook, me, Adi and Ayah.
“Why is thirteen an unlucky number?” I ask Mother.
“Who told you it’s unlucky? There are no unlucky numbers, dear—only lucky numbers.”
I ask Godmother.
“People say it’s lucky—I don’t know. Ask Mini: she should know.”
“It’s unlucky,” says Mini Aunty, promptly and definitely and nodding her head. “I know. I was born on the thirteenth of March.”
I ask Cousin.
“Something to do with Jesus Christ... He had a farewell party, you know. Something to do with that.”
I ask Mrs. Pen. She tells me that the farewell party was called the Last Supper. She tells me about Christ, the twelve apostles and about Judas’s betrayal and Christ’s crucifixion.
From the distance, drawing stridently nearer, clamors the “tee-too, tee-too” of the dread siren. The sound shrivels time—the way Hari’s genitals shriveled. I am back in the factory filled with children lying on their backs on beds. Godmother sits by me, looking composed, as competent soldiers move about hammering nails into our hands and feet. The room fills with the hopeless moans of crucified children—and with their collective sighs as they breathe in and out, in and out, with an eerie horrifying insistence.
I awaken to a distant, pulsating sound. The chant of slogans carried to me on gusts of wind.
Chapter 16
We leave early. Master Tara Singh is expected to make an appearance outside the Assembly Chambers, behind the Queen’s Garden. Except for Muccho and her children, who remain behind in the servants’ quarters, our house is deserted. Mother and Father left before us with the Singhs and the Phailbuses.
There is no room for us in the Queen’s Garden. Seen from the roof of the Faletti’s Hotel—the Faletti’s Hotel cook has secured a place for us—it appears that the park has sprouted a dense crop of humans. They overflow its boundaries on to the roads and sit on trees and on top of walls. The crowd is thickest on the concrete between the back of the garden and the Assembly Chambers. Policemen are holding the throng from surging up the wide, imperious flight of pink steps.
There is a stir of excitement, an increase in the volume of noise, and Master Tara Singh, in a white kurta, his silken beard flowing creamily down his face, appears on the top steps of the Assembly Chambers. I see him clearly. His chest is diagonally swathed in a blue band from which dangles a decoratively sheathed kirpan. The folds of his loose white pajamas fall about his ankles: a leather band round his waist holds a long religious dagger.
He gets down to business right away. Holding a long sword in each hand, the curved steel reflecting the sun’s glare as he clashes the swords above his head, the Sikh soldier-saint shouts: “We will see how the Muslim swine get Pakistan! We will fight to the last man! We will show them who will leave Lahore! Raj karega Khalsa, aki rahi na koi!”
The Sikhs milling about in a huge blob in front wildly wave and clash their swords, kirpans and hockey sticks, and punctuate his shrieks with roars: “Pakistan Murdabad! Death to Pakistan! Sat Siri Akaal! Bolay se nihaal!”
And the Muslims shouting: “So? We’ll play Holi-with-their-blood! Ho-o-o-li with their blo-o-o-d!”
And the Holi festival of the Hindus and Sikhs coming up in a few days, when everybody splatters everybody with colored water and colored powders and laughs and romps...
And instead the skyline of the old walled city ablaze, and people splattering each other with blood! And Ice-candy-man hustling Ayah and me up the steps of his tenement in Bhatti Gate, saying: “Wait till you see Shalmi burn!” And pointing out landmarks from the crowded tenement roof:
“That’s Delhi Gate... There’s Lahori Gate... There’s Mochi Darwaza...”
“Isn’t that where Masseur lives?” Ayah asks.
“Yes, that’s where your masseur stays,” says Ice-candy-man, unable to mask his ire. “It’s a Muslim mohalla,” he continues in an effort to dispel his rancor. “We’ve got wind that the Hindus of Shalmi plan to attack it—push the Muslims across the river. The Hindus and Sikhs think they’ll take Lahore. But we’ll surprise them yet!”
“Hai Ram! That’s Gowalmandi isn’t it?” says Ayah. “Hai Ram... How it burns!”
And our eyes wi
de and somber.
Suddenly a posse of sweating English tommies, wearing only khaki shorts, socks and boots, runs up in the lane directly below us. And on their heels a mob of Sikhs, their wild long hair and beards rampant, large fevered eyes glowing in fanatic faces, pours into the narrow lane roaring slogans, holding curved swords, shoving up a manic wave of violence that sets Ayah to trembling as she holds me tight. A naked child, twitching on a spear struck between her shoulders, is waved like a flag: her screamless mouth agape, she is staring straight up at me. A crimson fury blinds me. I want to dive into the bestial creature clawing entrails, plucking eyes, tearing limbs, gouging hearts, smashing brains: but the creature has too many stony hearts, too many sightless eyes, deaf ears, mindless brains and tons of entwined entrails...
And then a slowly advancing mob of Muslim goondas: packed so tight that we can see only the tops of their heads. Roaring: “Allah-o-Akbar! Yaaaa Ali!” and “Pakistan Zindabad!”
The terror the mob generates is palpable—like an evil, paralyzing spell. The terrible procession, like a sluggish river, flows beneath us. Every short while a group of men, like a whirling eddy, stalls—and like the widening circles of a treacherous eddy dissolving in the mainstream, leaves in its center the pulpy red flotsam of a mangled body.
The processionists are milling about two jeeps pushed back to back. They come to a halt: the men in front of the procession pulling ahead and the mob behind banked close up. There is a quickening in the activity about the jeeps. My eyes focus on an emaciated Banya wearing a white Gandhi cap. The man is knocked down. His lips are drawn away from rotting, paan-stained teeth in a scream. The men move back and in the small clearing I see his legs sticking out of his dhoti right up to the groin—each thin, brown leg tied to a jeep. Ayah, holding her hands over my eyes, collapses on the floor, pulling me down with her. There is the roar of a hundred throats: “Allah-o-Akbar!” and beneath it the growl of revving motors. Ice-candy-man stoops over us, looking concerned: the muscles in his face tight with a strange exhilaration I never again want to see.
