Cracking India

by Bapsi Sidhwa

  Ice-candy-man shuffles back and, pushing his hair behind his ears, draws us into the orbit of his poetic vision. He waits quietly while we absorb his incredible transformation. He has changed from a chest-thrusting paan-spitting and strutting goonda into a spit-less poet. His narrow hawkish face, as if recast in a different mold, has softened into a sensuous oval. He is thinner, softer, droopier: his stream of brash talk replaced by a canny silence. No wonder I didn’t recognize him in the taxi.

  “Where have you been all these months?” exclaims Godmother pleasantly. “It was impossible to trace you. I was worried. God forbid, I thought you died in the riots!”

  For a startled instant Ice-candy-man’s eyes lose their poetic mist and focus as clearly as an eagle’s on Godmother. But quickly retrieving his composure he says: “I’m truly sorry. Had I known you wished to see me I would have presented myself earlier.” He recites Faiz:“Tum aye ho na sbab-e-intezar guzri hai—

  Talash main hai seher baar baar guzri hai!

  You never came ... The waitful night never passed—-

  Though many dawns have passed in the waiting.”

  Astonishingly, we are not amazed at the surge of words pouring from him: so well do they suit the poetic mold of his metamorphosed character.

  “Shabash! Well said!” says Godmother.

  With a start, I scrutinize her face. Except for a thin smile it is clear of all expression. Yet, in some indefinable way, ominous.

  “You have become a gifted poet! And not, as rumored, a Mandi pimp!” The thrust of her words is still smooth. “But tell me,” she says, “why do you live in the Hira Mandi? It’s the red-light district, isn’t it? No wonder tongues wag. It is not a suitable place for a family man.”

  The lines on the poet’s face trace his hurt feelings. “Not a suitable place? No place could be more suitable,” he says, settling lower on his heels. “Why do you think the Mandi lies in the shadow of the Old Mogul Fort?”

  “How should I know? I don’t frequent brothels,” says Godmother.

  An uncertain smile flickers on Ice-candy-man’s face. But then he casts his eyes down: he doesn’t know what to make of Godmother’s remark.

  “Baijee, I don’t want you to misjudge me,” he says circumspectly. “You know how deeply I respect you ... I want to explain something almost no one remembers anymore ... I want very much that you understand... Then judge me!”

  Godmother nods slightly, gravely, her face deadpan.

  “The Mogul princes built Hira Mandi—to house their illegitimate offspring and favorite concubines,” says Ice-candy-man, speaking with less assurance than before. “But you know our world... Who cares for orphans? Each emperor provided only for his own children, and neglected the sons of his father. The girls, left to fend for themselves, danced, and themselves became royal concubines. And the boys became musicians, singers and poets. Royal indulgences—in those days at least.”

  Had I not been looking at Ice-candy-man as he spoke, I would not have believed it was him. Not only has his voice changed, but his entire speech. His delivery is flawless, formal, like an educated and cultured man’s. And, continuing in that same confiding manner, he murmurs, “You are my mother and father... I’ve told no one this—they wouldn’t understand ... You see, I belong to the Kotha myself... It is the cradle of royal bastards.”

  Ice-candy-man’s eyes shine with a curious, prickly mixture of shame and pride as he glances at Godmother.

  Godmother’s eyes on his face remain impassive.

  “My mother was from the Kotha,” he says. “She moved to Bhatti Gate when she married my father. He died when I was very young... He was a well-known puppeteer.

  “My mother belonged to the old stock—she came from the House of Bahadur Shah. There’s a strict distinction—the old families from distinguished houses don’t mix with the new girls and their setup. They are nothing but prostitutes—young girls kidnapped by pimps! Anything goes where they’re concerned. Poor girls ... Their lot is pitiful and hideous, I admit. They are forced into all kinds of depravities on pain of death ... and often die. But we protect our women. We marry our girls ourselves. No one dare lay a finger on them! They are artists and performers ... beautiful princesses who command fancy prices for their singing and dancing skills!

  “Because of my family connection my wife and I live in the old quarter of the Mandi. They have accepted her. For my sake ... and for the sake of her divine gifts! She has the voice of an angel and the grace and rhythm of a goddess. You should see her dance. How she moves!” And then in another poetic outburst Ice-candy-man declaims:“She lives to dance! And I to toast her dancer’s grace!

  Princes pledge their lives to celebrate her celebrated face!”

  I am hypnotized by the play of emotion on Ice-candy-man’s elastic face: by the music in his voice conjuring voluptuous images of smitten Mogul princes and of Ayah dancing as statues of Hindu goddesses come to life. Considering his revealed lineage it is little wonder he sounds like a cultured courtier. His face, too, has acquired the almond-eyed, thin-lipped profile of the handsome Moguls portrayed in miniatures.

  So carried away am I by the virtuosity of his performance that I don’t notice Godmother’s reaction until she speaks.

  “Have you said all you wish to say?” she asks, and I turn on her lap to look at her again. Knowing her as I do I can tell by the hooded droop of her wrinkled lids, by the somber shape of her tongueless cheeks, that she is in a cold rage: and God help Ice-candy-man.

  But Ice-candy-man doesn’t know her as well. Quoting Wali, misjudging her fury, and as if presenting credentials, he declares:“Kiya mujh ishq ne zalim ko aab ahista ahista

  Ke aatish gul ko karti hai gulab ahista ahista.

  Slowly, my love has compelled her, slowly—

  The way the sun touches open the rosebud, slowly.”

  Affected at last by Godmother’s stony silence, Ice-candy-man lowers his eyes. His voice divested of oratory, he says, “I am her slave, Baijee. I worship her. She can come to no harm with me.”

  “No harm?” Godmother asks in a deceptively cool voice—and arching her back like a scorpion its tail, she closes in for the kill. “You permit her to be raped by butchers, drunks, and goondas and say she has come to no harm?”

  Ice-candy-man’s head jolts back as if it’s been struck.

  “Is that why you had her lifted off—let hundreds of eyes probe her—so that you could marry her? You would have your own mother carried off if it suited you! You are a shameless badmash! Nimakharam! Faithless!”

  “Yes, I’m faithless!” Stung intolerably, and taken by surprise, Ice-candy-man permits his insolence to confront Godmother. “I’m a man! Only dogs are faithful! If you want faith, let her marry a dog!”

  “Oh? What kind of man? A royal pimp? What kind of man would allow his wife to dance like a performing monkey before other men? You’re not a man, you’re a low-born, two-bit evil little mouse!”

  Ice-candy-man is visibly shaken. His hazel eyes dart frantically—like the sparrows he once trapped for the mems—as he glances at Mini Aunty, the road, me, for sympathy or a means of succor. And then, his yellow eyes narrowed, he stares at Godmother with naked malevolence.

  I see him now as Godmother sees him. Treacherous, dangerous, contemptible. A destructive force that must be annihilated.

  “You have permitted your wife to be disgraced! Destroyed her modesty! Lived off her womanhood!” says Godmother as if driven to recount the charges before an invisible judge. “And you talk of princes and poets? You’re the son of pigs and pimps! You’re not worth the two-cowries one throws at lepers!”

  Struck by the naked power and fury of her attack, Ice-candy-man’s body twitches. His head jerks forward and his long fingers gouge the earth between his sandals. And, as if committed against his will to witness the litany of his transgressions, his gaze clings to Godmother’s. “I s-saved her,” he stammers. “They would’ve ... killed her... I married her!”

  “I can have
you lashed, you know? I can have you hung upside down in the Old Fort until you rot!”

  Ice-candy-man shifts his eyes to the ground. And in the pause that follows, tears, and a long strand of mucus from his nose, drip into the fissures at his feet.

  “It’s no good crying now. You’ll be shown as little mercy as you showed her.”

  “I don’t seek mercy,” he says, his voice so muffled and blocked that it registers like an afterthought. “If I deserve to be hung, then hang me!”

  It is frightening to watch the silent tumult of Ice-candy-man’s capitulation. The back of his neck is stretched in a long, shallow arch and his head hangs between his knees. His arms move helplessly, not knowing where to rest.

  “Get out of my sight, you whining haramzada!” says Godmother.

  Ice-candy-man just squats there, excreting his pain and tears, and as I look at him, I realize there is more to his turmoil than the rage and terror generated by Godmother’s attack.

  “It’s too late to repent,” says Godmother with a magnitude of grief that makes my eyes smart with sudden tears. “You have trapped her in the poisonous atmosphere of the Kotha.”

  “Allah is my witness, I’m married to her,” he says in a horrible, gruff voice.

  “There is no God for the likes of you shaitans!” Godmother says remorselessly. “You are no more married to her than I am.”

  “What do you want me to do? Slit my throat? Stab my heart?” His cap lies on the ground. His dusty hands, the nails dark with dirt, tremble on his knees.

  “Restore her to her family in Amritsar.”

  “What if she refuses to leave me?” says Ice-candy-man, as if dredging from a deep doubt in his chest a scrap of hope. “I have been a good husband... Ask her. I’ve covered her with gold and silks. I’d do anything to undo the wrong done her. If it were to help to cut my head off, I’d cut my head and lay it at her feet! No one has touched her since our nikah.”

  “When did the marriage take place?” asks Godmother, unmoved.

  “In May.”

  “She was lifted in February and you married her in May? What were you doing all that time?”

  Ice-candy-man remains silent.

  “Why don’t you speak? Can’t you bring yourself to say you played the drums when she danced? Counted money while drunks, peddlers, sahibs, and cutthroats used her like a sewer?” Godmother’s face is slippery with sweat. Her thighs beneath me are trembling. I have a potent sense of her presence now. And when I inhale I can smell the formidable power of her attack.

  “Did you marry her, then, when you realized that Lenny’s mother had arranged to have her sent to Amritsar?”

  Ice-candy-man, his muddied hair falling forward from his bowed head, remains still.

  “Why don’t you speak? A little while back you couldn’t stop talking!”

  Suddenly Ice-candy-man clenches his hair in his fists. His eyes are bloodshot. His face is a puffy patchwork of tears and mud. He tugs his hair back in such a way that his throat swells and bulges like a goat’s before a knife, and in a raw and scratchy voice he says: “I can’t exist without her.” Then, rocking on his heels in his strange, boneless way, he pounds his chest and pours fistfuls of dirt on his penitent’s head. “I’m less than the dust beneath her feet! I don’t seek forgiveness... ”

  There is a suffocating explosion within my eyes and head. A blinding blast of pity and disillusion and a savage rage. My sight is disoriented. I see Ice-candy-man float away in a bubble and dwindle to a gray speck in the aftermath of the blast and then come so close that I can see every pore and muddy crease in his skin magnified in dazzling luminosity. The popsicle man, Slavesister and we and our chairs and the table with the fan skid at a tremendous angle to dash against the compound wall and the walls bulge and fly apart. Godmother’s house and Mrs. Pen’s house sway crazily, the bricks tumbling.

  The images blur and I try desperately to suck the air into my deflated lungs and Godmother holds my violently shivering body tight and I hear her say as if from far away, “Look how you have upset the child! You’ve turned us all insane!” And she pats my breathless face and sharply says, “Stop it! Stop it! Take a deep breath! Come on, inhale. Everything is going to be all right!”

  She must have signaled to Slavesister because the slave heaves herself off her stool and, anxiety quickening her movements, stoops to lift me. Her face, too, is streaked with tears and her eyes red and she is muttering: “Finish it now, Rodabai, that’s enough. Pack him off.” And I cling to Godmother. And stretch like bubble gum when Slavesister tries to pull me away. And at a signal from Godmother she lets me be. And I, rubbing my face in Godmother’s tightly bound bosom, grind the cloth between my teeth and shake my head till the khaddar tears and I smell blood and taste it.

  “Ouch! Stop it! You’ve turned into a puppy have you?” says Godmother pushing my face away.

  And when my teeth are pried away from her bloodied blouse and I at last look into her shrewd, ancient eyes, I can tell her tongue is once again in her cheek.

  Everything’s going to be all right!

  Jinnah cap in hand, Ice-candy-man stands before us. His ravaged face, caked with mud, has turned into a tragedian’s mask. Repentance, grief and shock are compressed into the mold of his features ... And his inflamed eyes are raw with despair.

  The storm that has been gathering all day rushes up the drive, slamming open the doors and windows. The three-pronged eucalyptus dips threateningly above our heads. As we scurry to shut the windows and carry the chairs inside, waves of mud obscure the drive and swallow the poet’s fluttering white clothes.

  The innocence that my parents’ vigilance, the servants’ care and Godmother’s love sheltered in me, that neither Cousin’s carnal cravings, nor the stories of the violence of the mobs, could quite destroy, was laid waste that evening by the emotional storm that raged round me. The confrontation between Ice-candy-man and Godmother opened my eyes to the wisdom of righteous indignation over compassion. To the demands of gratification—and the unscrupulous nature of desire.

  To the pitiless face of love.

  Chapter 30

  Just as Godmother feels the urge to donate blood, she is impelled by an urge to pop up at the right place in the hour of a person’s need. Yet I am surprised when, fingering her gray silk sari and matching blouse laid out on the stack of trunks, I ask, “Where are you going?” and she, after an unintended and dramatic pause, replies, “I’m going to see Ayah.”

  My heart stops. I feel as if I’ve run all the way from Warris Road instead of walking here, holding Hamida’s finger. If I don’t hold her finger Hamida turns hysterical and babbles, “Hai! We’ll be run over by the cars and tongas.”

  It is Saturday morning. Adi and Cousin have gone to the grassless Warris Road park to play cricket. That is, Cousin will play and Adi will probably be forced to spectate. Mother is out.

  I cannot speak. Godmother holds my twiggy arm beneath my starched and puffed-out sleeve and pulls me to the cot. Oldhusband, sitting before his desk on the bentwood chair, is reading his prayer book. Sibilant hisses flutter between his lips and every short while he clears his phlegmy throat. And, in a voice that sounds inaudible, and quivers with anxiety, I finally ask, “Can I come with you?”

  Godmother stares somberly before her and remains quiet.

  “Please.” I swallow a lump in my throat.

  “I can’t take you,” Godmother says. “It’s no place for children.”

  “I want to see Ayah,” I say, my longing making me sigh between the words.

  “I really wish I could take you.”

  “Why don’t you ask her to come here? Won’t her husband bring her?”

  “He is willing to. But she refuses to come.”

  I cannot believe Ayah wouldn’t want to see me. See us.

  “Her husband is lying,” I say fiercely. “He’s making excuses.”

  “No, she is ashamed to face us,” says Godmother.

  “Ashamed?” I say surprise
d. And even as Godmother says: “She has nothing to be ashamed of,” I know Ayah is deeply, irrevocably ashamed. They have shamed her. Not those men in the carts—they were strangers—but Sharbat Khan and Ice-candy-man and Imam Din and Cousin’s cook and the butcher and the other men she counted among her friends and admirers. I’m not very clear how—despite Cousin’s illuminating tutorials—but I’m certain of her humiliation. Sensing this, I more than ever want to see Ayah: to comfort and kiss her ugly experiences away.

  “I want to tell her I am her friend,” I say sobbing defenselessly before Godmother. And remembering Hamida’s remarks, I cry, “I don’t want her to think she’s bad just because she’s been kidnapped.”

  I have never cried this way before. It is how grown-ups cry when their hearts are breaking.

  Mini Aunty returns, silently bearing grocery bags and ice, looking like a fat and elderly sari-clad wax doll melting.

  Godmother greets her. “I thought the tongaman had run off with you! What took you so long?”

  It is a purely rhetorical salutation and Mini Aunty need not reply if she doesn’t want to. Ignoring Godmother, looking neither guilty nor annoyed, Slavesister is preoccupied with stashing the groceries and splintering and stuffing the ice into a thermos.

  We hear a horse snort, and the creak of tonga wheels outside the door. Then a steady liquid noise, as of water gushing from a hose under pressure.

  Oldhusband raises his praying voice in forbidding censure.

  “Ummm, umM, uMM, UMM!” hums Godmother in a rising crescendo of disapproval, and breaking into speech she says, “My God! How do you expect us to sit outside this evening?”

  “It will evaporate ... You can’t imagine how hot it is!” says Slavesister, unperturbed.

  “Can’t I? Where do you think I live? In the North Pole?” and then, reverting to the matter in hand: “What if the horse decides to perform on a grander scale? Will that evaporate too? How often must I tell you not to let the tonga come in?”