No Space for Further Burials

by Feryal Ali Gauhar

  Noor Kaka is dying. I can tell by the look in his eyes—they are glazed over like the mule’s eyes, and his breath comes in short spurts. I do not want to look at him but I don’t know where else to look, and something compels me to watch this death, as if by doing so I will unravel the mystery of life itself.

  Waris and Sabir attend to Noor Kaka as if he is their father, or father’s father, and Bulbul works hard at keeping his grief hidden behind the grimace he pretends is from the pain in his feet. He says his feet hurt him in the cold—it may be the horribly twisted bones that stretch and push against his flesh in the dry air of winter. But I know that he grieves for Noor Kaka whose life was lived well, and whose death will mean the beginning of the end for all of us.

  Sabir tells me that Noor Kaka spent many years as the keeper of the king’s summer palace. He had a special ability with animals and was appointed by the king to look after his aviary and the collection of exotic animals in the palace. After the king was deposed, many of the animals were killed, but Noor Kaka got a job in the city at the local zoo. That is where he was found when the war was well into its tenth year—in the lions’ cage, alone, with the bones of the animals that had starved to death, holding a man’s wallet in his hand, telling anyone who cared to listen that the animals were starving and so he had fed them the stuffed birds that decorated the zoo superintendent’s office. There was a bloodied shirt in the corner which Noor Kaka believed belonged to a man who had been fed to the lions when nothing was left to appease their hunger.

  Noor came to Tarasmun for the same reason that most of the able-bodied and sane had made their way up the steep hill to this abandoned asylum—to find a place to rest before their final journey. Sabir says that when Noor goes, after we bury him, we will begin to bury parts of ourselves until nothing is left here except the sound of the wind whipping up the dust that leaps and dances on the graves.

  I have begun to hear sounds which no one else seems to notice. Sometimes I think it is hunger which is driving me insane, then I consider that all of us here are hungry and I am the only one listening to these voices that sing to me and mock me and call me names.

  Noor Jehan is trying her best to revive Noor Kaka’s failing health. I want to tell her that it is no use, that he is old and weak and it is time for him to go, but she will not listen even if I could find the words. She comes up with strange concoctions prepared out of nothing, intended to give strength to Noor’s fragile body. I saw her this morning with a lump of molasses which I thought had been consumed. She was clubbing it with a rolling pin and adding the beaten sweetness to the tea she was boiling for Noor. Waris looked at her and smiled, asking her where she had hidden the molasses for so long. She did not answer, but nodded in the direction of the curtain where Anarguli and Hayat sleep.

  Bulbul told me later that Noor Jehan had been saving the molasses for Anarguli, whose belly is swollen like a watermelon, ready to burst with its offering of ripe, sweet flesh.

  I cannot stand it anymore. I know I will lose my mind if I do not get out of here very soon. Noor Kaka is hanging on to life and Karim Kuchak is screaming from the basement like a madman. I don’t know where he gets his energy from—maybe he is eating the rats which have built their colonies in that dungeon. And if he isn’t, maybe I should tell him that according to the Book, eating creatures with claws is quite acceptable if these are the circumstances in which he finds himself.

  Hayat says she can heal Noor Kaka. Waris and Sabir do not stop her from doing what she wants. I am sure they know that the old man will die in any case, whether she does her mumbo-jumbo black magic or not. Or perhaps they are too tired to stop her. And indifferent and hollow with hunger.

  Bulbul tells me that Anarguli’s time is near. I have not seen her in many days and even when I did, I couldn’t see the swelling Bulbul speaks of. Perhaps Qasim the mute tells him these things—he sleeps with his mother behind that curtain and may have seen Anarguli’s swollen belly.

  Bulbul is anxious; he irritates me by pacing up and down. I tire of watching him and all I want to do is sleep and not wake up, listening to my gut eat itself in desperation.

  There is a sound of crying. I don’t know if it is in my dream or if I have heard it coming from the kitchen. Perhaps Noor Kaka has died and they are grieving for him. What a waste of energy that would be.

  Hunger is like an empty house where voices bounce off the walls and become dust on the barren floor.

  * * *

  There is the sound of crying again. It is a woman’s voice, soft and choked with despair. I see Noor Jehan in the corner, tending to the old man. I see her dab her face with her shawl and I know she grieves for him, for herself, for all of us.

  Sabir tells me she asked him if she could slaughter the partridge he had named Inzargul, the flower of a fig tree, so that she could make a soup for Noor Kaka. He thought the partridge was almost dead anyway, pining for a mate and for springtime. It was better to kill it and let Noor Kaka taste it before either of them died.

  Bulbul has disappeared. He did not return to the kitchen last night. A wind had been howling the whole day, and when snow began to fall, obliterating vision and muffling sound, he walked out of the kitchen and didn’t come back. Waris wanted to go after him but Sabir pulled him back and told him to leave the boy alone. Perhaps he needs to be on his own. In any case, how far can he go with the wall protecting us from all sides, keeping us in and the others out?

  I could not sleep last night because of this terrible hollowness in my gut. I began to feel nauseous and light-headed and made my way outside after the others had fallen asleep, or fallen into a stupor. I stumbled into the courtyard and stood before the tree which is now naked, and which serves to remind us of another time when we sat beneath it and soaked in the sun’s warmth. I cannot imagine that there was a better time here, but the tree suggests that there was, even if I don’t remember it.

  I walked in the snow for a while until my body began to hurt, and when I made my way to the shed where the dog and camel slept I realized I could not feel my feet anymore. I pulled off my boots and began to massage them vigorously when my eye caught a glimpse of Bulbul’s red scarf. At first I thought I was imagining things; my mind feels like it has no shape, and sometimes I believe I see and hear things which are not there. But the red scarf moved and then I heard the sound of scraping and chewing, and I smelled the odor of Bulbul’s sweat and I knew he was here, in the shed with the animals.

  I crawled on my knees to the corner where I saw the red scarf trailing on the earthen floor. My feet had lost sensation, I could not stand, my head felt it had nothing inside except some unbeatable will to live. When I reached the back of the shed I saw him. He was sitting on his haunches and in his hand he held a large bone, bits of dark meat clinging to it. He did not look up when I called to him. He turned to me only after he had pulled off a bit of the flesh and chewed it, swallowing it quickly as if it would leap out of his mouth and leave him hungry again.

  He did not speak to me, but I knew that hunger had driven him mad, like the dog with whom he shared the bones of the dead mule.

  Bulbul has not returned to the kitchen. I managed to get back, dragging one foot after the other, terrified of losing my feet and unable to get the image of the bone in Bulbul’s mouth out of my mind.

  I spoke to Sabir about what I had seen and almost wept, breaking down in front of this man who has not yet succumbed to hunger or cold or hopelessness. He left the kitchen quietly, his crutch wedged beneath the curve of his arm like an intimate friend.

  Sabir returned to the kitchen alone. He spoke with Waris, who accompanied him to the shed this time. I watched these men as they went about the task of bringing Bulbul back to the fold, Bulbul who had strayed, Bulbul who was the red robin singing of another time, perched on a stalk of corn in a field where the earth covered the bones of his father.

  Bulbul did not return. I wanted to go with the men to try to bring him back, but the searing pain in my feet did not
allow me to stand. Noor Jehan helped me get the boots off, and then she asked Hayat to come and have a look at my feet. I let her do this, and I let Hayat massage my feet until I began to sense the blood rushing back, bringing with it pain and the relief of regaining the feeling I had lost.

  Noor Jehan and I made our way to the shed late at night, after Waris and Sabir had checked on Noor Kaka and found him to be breathing and still alive. The men are exhausted, and part of their tiredness comes from not speaking about the fear that grows in their hearts. I have these words to comfort me, even if my fingers are becoming numb and I do not have the energy to continue writing. But it is either that or losing the only semblance of reality I have, these pages, these marks I make on them with Dr. Elisha’s pen.

  Noor Jehan asked me to come with her, as if my friendship with Bulbul would convince him to return to the relative warmth of the kitchen. I couldn’t tell her that even if my feet didn’t hurt so much, I didn’t have the strength to stumble through the snowstorm which continues even as I write. As if she knew what I wanted to say, she offered me a piece of the brown molasses she had hidden in a sack behind the curtain. I took it and savored its rich sweetness, the fullness of the fruit buried inside.

  Bulbul was hunched over beside the camel in the shed. He lay on the bare floor, the dog alongside him. He did not open his eyes when we crouched near him and called his name. I feared he was dead, but I could see his nostrils moving, and tears caught in the web of his shut eyes. He was whispering to himself, or perhaps to us, letting the words shape the terrible torment he suffered, the unthinkable humiliation of having eaten the flesh of a mule. I tried to raise him to his feet but he pushed me away, and I did not try to touch him again. He was babbling by now, something about sharam and ghairat, shame and honor, and the spit on the edges of his mouth formed white circles of regret on his face.

  Waris and Sabir and I had to lift Bulbul up to bring him back into the kitchen. He was practically frozen and delirious, having spent two days in the open. Perhaps it was the warmth of the animals that kept him alive. Or perhaps it was his will to survive even this humiliation. Or the dream that he would find himself in America one day.

  I have given up that dream. I know I shall never leave this place, and even if I do, this place will not leave me, ever.

  I woke in the middle of the night again, hearing the sound of a woman’s weeping. The kitchen is warmer now—Waris braved the storm last night and chopped a branch off the tree in the middle of the courtyard. Sabir said this was the only way to survive now, to keep ourselves warm. He wanted to bring the surviving inmates from the basement up into the kitchen, and Noor Jehan voiced her concern about Anarguli being among these madmen. Sabir said that Anarguli would be alright, that it was more important to save the lives of these men than to maintain her sense of seclusion.

  We now have Karim Kuchak and four others with us, besides Noor Kaka, Gul Agha, the man with the square head and large ears who refuses to die, and the boy with the frostbitten feet.

  There is no place to stretch one’s legs while sleeping, so we sleep leaning against the walls. This is probably how we will be found, sitting up, waiting.

  It is Noor Jehan who weeps every night. I thought it was Anarguli, terrified of what will happen when the time for her baby comes. But Anarguli seems to be unaware of what is going on around her, perhaps because she cannot see in this dark space. Hayat hovers around her all the time, stroking her hair, adding yet more things to her silver braid. And Qasim sits listlessly beside Anarguli, his wooden cart now forgotten and discarded in a corner. I remember that I had promised to fix its fourth wheel, but there seems to be no purpose now in fixing anything.

  Bulbul has recovered but does not speak. He looks away from me every time I try to meet his eye. I can see the shame burning in his eyes, and I want to tell him that it’s alright, that this is what one must do when one finds oneself in peculiar circumstances. And then I want to laugh, and cry, and run out of here as far as my fricking feet can carry me.

  Waris and Sabir spent some time outside this morning. They took the axe with them, probably to chop more wood. They do not go near the bomb buried in the rubble—that is where several trees fell in that attack, but they steer clear of the devastated barracks, fearing the worst. Sometimes I feel I can hear the choked cries of a child buried beneath the rubble, or the labored breathing of an old man desperately trying to keep his lungs from collapsing on him, like the roof of the barracks has crushed his ribs but perhaps not his spirit.

  Sometimes I think I see the ground moving beneath me, like it must have the day the news of her husband’s death reached my sister. She told me later that it felt as if the world was spinning; she heard voices around her, the chaplain offering to say a prayer for the fallen man, faint scratchings in the dust of her home, her devastated life. She said she felt as if she was walking on a surface that kept her afloat, her feet not really touching the ground. She saw the chaplain and the officer to the door, her heart wooden and quiet, and it was after the door clicked shut behind them that she crumbled to the floor of her living room, beating the chintz-covered sofa with her hand, yelling at Carlos, angry with him for having left her and their child who would never know his father now. That was what my mother heard on the phone, as she waited for what she feared most all those days after Carlos was sent to fight for a way of life he had seen advertised in catalogs, the kind that devour Bulbul’s imagination. Carlos had come across the southern border from Mexico, traveling in the desert on the back of a pickup truck, left to die with his mother and four others who, like them, had opted to negotiate the wilderness of the desert rather than waste away in the certainty of unending poverty.

  Mama was baking brownies the day we heard that Carlos had died. The fragrance of dark chocolate burned against the sides of the steel pan lingered in the air of our home like the sorrow hanging over my sister’s eyes. My mother repeated over and over that the child had been orphaned before it even entered the world.

  I had just come back from the game of one-on-one I played with our neighbor, Gary. I won that game, shooting the last basket as a layup, sneaking past Gary while he tried to balance himself on his big, clumsy feet. I kept telling myself that if I worked hard enough I might just make it onto the varsity team. That would have been one way to pay for college; the other was to work nights. And then there was that other choice, to give up my dreams and join the army, fighting for my country, or at least convincing myself of that in order to find a meaning to another man’s life and then his death.

  I did not join Waris and Sabir because I really don’t care if we have firewood or food or water to keep us alive. But I don’t want them to cut down the tree in the middle of the courtyard. For some reason I feel as if that would be the point of no return, when we begin to cut away our limbs to feed the fire that consumes us.

  Noor Kaka is slipping away. But even as the breath leaves him, he speaks of the things he has seen and remembers from many years ago. He does not address anyone in particular; perhaps he does not see anyone around him with his failing vision and his dying breath. He is hardly audible, but I can still hear him tell the story of how he gathered the peaches and pears and pomegranates ripened to perfection in the valleys of Kulghoo and Tootoo and Hisaruk. Thousands of camels carried this precious fruit to the darbar of the king in another country, many miles beyond the river and the black mountains. The caravan passed beside the royal garden with its tall cypress trees reaching a height of a hundred feet, holding each other by the hand and rivaling each other in beauty. The camels themselves were tall and proud creatures, the finest of their kind, bearing the treasures of their country on their sturdy, pyramid backs.

  Noor Jehan encourages Noor Kaka to drink the tea she has made. I believe it is more of an effort to keep him quiet, to preserve the breath inside him. Noor Kaka looks at her and calls her his daughter, zma lur, and then he closes his eyes and sleeps.

  I hear a terrible sound, a muted bellowing, the d
ying gasp of an animal. I know I am dreaming of terrible things and, much as I try to stay awake, my eyes are heavy and my heart is filled with lead.

  What was that sound, sergeant? That gasp which came from behind the door when you kicked it open, sir? When you rushed into that room in the brick hovel on the edge of the neighborhood where we saw that girl with the dark eyes and the body of a temptress? What was that, sergeant? That shriek as you shut the door behind you and unzipped your pants and forced yourself on that girl with the dark eyes? What was that smell, sergeant, as you left quickly, discarding the bloodied shirt you wore when you put three bullets through her head, aiming between those dark eyes? Was that the stench of burning flesh, sir? Was that the stench of your soul burning in the Fire of Hell? Did you come back to base camp and wash yourself, sir? Did you manage to get the smell out from under your skin, from beneath the folds of your penis, the recesses of your nose, the thicket of your hair, your pale blue eyes, sir?

  Karim Kuchak sleeps between the legs of the large-eared man and another with a long head and an emaciated body. He is calmer here and does not abuse us anymore. It’s amazing how easily these people are placated, with just a little warmth or a spoonful of liquid passed off as tea.

  Noor Jehan does not sleep, nor does Bulbul. Normally she retires behind the curtain at night but this night she stayed with us in the kitchen, first tending to Noor Kaka and now stroking Bulbul’s hair. He has still not spoken and Noor Jehan talks to him with the voice of a mother, telling him that it’s alright, that he is not a lesser man for having eaten the flesh of a mule, that this is what war drives respectable people to do. She speaks to him of the time when she was still in the village and saw grown men weep over the bodies of their dead children, blown to pieces by the bombs that fell on the field where they played soccer. And she told him about the garbage dumps where often she would see the limb of a child torn at the joint and found among the rubble of people’s lives. She spoke calmly, as if she wanted Bulbul to know that all of them had seen their share of suffering, that all of them had been driven mad at some point, mad with grief and mad with the agony of loss.