The Night Diary

by Veera Hiranandani

  I heard footsteps coming from the hut.

  “Let her go,” I heard Papa call in a voice so strong and mighty I wondered if it was even Papa.

  “He has a gun,” Amil said again, and I wished he really did.

  The man’s hands shook so much, he dropped his knife and let go of me. I broke away and ran toward Papa, holding my neck. Amil and Dadi clustered around Papa, too. There was no uncle.

  “It doesn’t matter if you shoot me. End my suffering, I beg you,” the man said, and fell to his knees. I finally took a good look at him. He was a small man, his ankles no wider than Amil’s. His hair was matted with dust and dirt. I could see dried blood on the sleeve of his kurta. “Hindus killed my family,” he sobbed into his hands, his face pressed against them in the dirt. “Sliced their throats as I watched. And then I escaped, but I should have let them kill me, too.” He wore a topi, so I knew he was Muslim, but how did he know we were Hindu? When we were in Mirpur Khas, it was easier to tell who was who, but out here, we all looked the same in our dirty clothes. Some of the Muslim men have lost their topis. Many people just drape whatever they can find over their heads to protect them from the sun. We grabbed on to Papa. I still felt so numb, not crying, not angry. It was so strange, Mama.

  Papa shrugged us off gently and moved forward toward the man.

  “Leave him alone,” Dadi cried out. “He’s dangerous.” Papa didn’t listen to Dadi and went over cautiously to the man. He picked up the man’s knife and topi that had fallen off. He put his hand on his shoulder and held his belongings toward him. The man looked up, frightened.

  “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,” Papa said.

  The man got up slowly and dusted himself off. He kept his head down as he took his topi and knife. Then he turned and ran off into the darkness. Papa had said those words before. They were Gandhiji’s words. Now I knew what they meant. So a Hindu family kills a Muslim family, who kills a Hindu family, who kills a Muslim family. It would never end unless someone ended it. But who was going to do that?

  We all moved forward, trying to see the path in the blue night. We stumbled a few times. Amil and Papa held Dadi up. I don’t even know what kept me going. I remember walking through the doorway. As soon as I was inside the house, I couldn’t see anymore, the tears, the horrible shaking, the fear all coming out. I couldn’t breathe right and the room spun. Papa told me to put my head between my knees. That’s all I remember.

  Love, Nisha

  * * *

  August 31, 1947

  Dear Mama,

  When I woke up, I was lying on a bed, a real bed with a patterned blanket. I thought for a moment we were back in our house. Amil and Papa were hovering over me. It was strange to be inside. Then I remembered, this was your home, Mama! There was also a new person staring at me, standing by a doorway. I looked back at him. He wasn’t too tall. He wore a topi on his head and a tan kurta. He dressed like Kazi. But his face was not like Kazi’s at all. Something was wrong with it. He stood out of the light of the two candles burning on the table and I couldn’t quite see, but his lip was raised up in the middle, exposing his gum and a few crooked teeth. His lip seemed like it was connected to the bottom of his nose.

  Back in Mirpur Khas, a dried fruit vendor at the market had always worn a scarf over his mouth and nose, and Papa said it was because he had a cleft palate and showed me in his medical book what it was. Some people are born with it, Papa said, and most people could never afford the surgery to fix it. Sometimes hospitals helped if the person couldn’t eat or swallow.

  There was also a girl in my school, Mital. She didn’t wear a scarf over her face. Her lip went up in the middle and touched her nose. She never spoke, like me. I don’t know if it was because she couldn’t or didn’t want to. I suppose she could eat, because then she would have had the surgery. I never saw her doing so, though. I would try to look at her for more than a second, but I always turned away. I wanted to not care. I wanted to be her friend because she didn’t have any. I only had Sabeen, who I wasn’t even sure was a real friend because I never spoke to her. But it was too hard to look at Mital. I’m so ashamed when I think about it, which is why I usually don’t. Did you have trouble looking at Rashid Uncle, Mama? Were you a coward, like me? I’m sure you were not.

  “This is Rashid Uncle. He can’t speak, only write,” Papa said in his doctor voice. Rashid Uncle nodded at me. “Can you stand?” Papa asked.

  I started to move. My neck hurt and it all flooded back to me, the memory like water filling an empty space. I remembered the man, his blade pressed to my neck, Amil yelling, Papa arriving just in time, and coming here. I stood and looked around the airy room with a colorful woven carpet on the floor and a carved chest of drawers that reminded me of my own, and I felt the sting of the memory. There was another bed on the opposite wall. Dadi lay there, asleep, her chest rising and falling slowly. I started to walk, my curiosity taking over, and Papa followed me. I stepped carefully into the hallway and past another open door. I looked in and saw a similar room, but smaller, with one bed along the window and another along the opposite wall. I peered into the third room. It had one large bed, a detailed tapestry hanging on the wall, a carpet, and a chest of drawers. I also saw an easel in the corner, with a blank canvas on it. I thought it must be Rashid Uncle’s room.

  I walked under an archway to a formal sitting room, with a long couch, several wooden chairs, embroidered pillows, and a low carved table in the middle. Paintings also hung on the walls. One was of a blue ocean against an even bluer sky in the first room. Another pictured a vase of flowers. I also saw a painting of a beautiful woman sitting cross-legged on the grass under a tree. It was you, Mama, I just know it.

  In the dining room sat a table with six chairs and a heavy china cabinet with glass doors. A porcelain vase of pink and purple flowers stood in the center of the table, just like the painting. It was such a lovely place.

  I turned thinking Papa was right behind me and found myself looking at Rashid Uncle’s face. That’s when I noticed his eyes. They look just like the picture of you, even more than Amil’s do. Maybe there’s a reason for all of this. I know this is a terrible thought, but if we never had to leave, we wouldn’t have come here and had a chance to see Rashid Uncle’s eyes, your eyes, alive. I quickly looked away.

  “You can wash over there.” Papa pointed toward a doorway in the back of the kitchen. I scrubbed my hands, face, and neck over the metal basin. I would need a full bath later to peel the layers of grime away, but it was so nice to see the skin on my hands not caked with dirt.

  “How do you feel?” Papa asked after I was done.

  “Okay,” I said in a small, scratchy voice.

  I saw one more painting in the kitchen. It was of Rashid Uncle himself, his face. I walked closer and studied the painting, his strange upturned mouth, like an invisible string pulled his top lip up from the middle, the shock of pink gum showing, the lopsided teeth one almost on top of another, his flat nose. It was easier to look at the picture, than the real Rashid Uncle. I can’t believe he paints. Did you teach him or did he teach you?

  “Nisha, come,” Papa said sternly. I jumped, startled, and turned away from the painting. I followed him to the back of the house to check on Dadi, her pale face turned up to the ceiling, breathing weakly.

  He bent down toward Dadi and touched her arm.

  She opened her eyes and nodded. Then closed her eyes again. Papa headed to the kitchen. Amil had stayed with Dadi the entire time I walked through the house.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I think so,” I said.

  “I thought . . . I thought he was going to kill you,” Amil said, his bottom lip trembling slightly. His eyes looked glassy.

  “Papa was always going to come,” I said, touching his hand and quickly shifted my gaze back to Dadi trying to be a little brave for Amil since he was so brave
when we didn’t have water. But I thought that he was going to kill me, too. The man could have easily slit my throat, and in a minute I would have been dead. There was nothing Papa could have done. There was something about having it happen that made me less scared instead of more scared. I don’t know why. He was such a sad and frightened man. The way his hands shook. Why had his family been killed? Why would anyone do that? Do people who kill start out like me, or are they a different kind of human?

  “It’s strange that Rashid Uncle lives in this big house all alone. Did you see the paintings?”

  Amil pumped his head up and down and grinned. “I guess that’s why I can draw.” Then his face grew serious again. “Do you think Dadi is going to die?”

  “No,” I whispered back harshly. “Can’t you see she’s just tired?” But I was thinking it, too.

  “I’m going to ask Papa,” Amil said, his eyes again bright and searching. I grabbed his arm, to stop him, but he slipped away from me and marched toward Papa and Rashid Uncle. I followed him down the long hallway, through the sitting room, and dining room, and into the kitchen. Papa stopped talking and they both looked at Amil. Amil gave Rashid Uncle one of his big, open smiles and my heart almost exploded. Amil has this way of smiling that makes you believe the world is a good place for at least that second. I feel differently about Amil now. I can’t explain it. It’s like he died and came back to life. I always liked his smile, but it makes me so happy now, like the first time I’m really seeing it. What would I do without Amil? He is my voice. He asks the questions I can’t.

  “Yes,” Papa said.

  Amil’s smile disappeared. “Is Dadi going to die?”

  Papa’s eyes stayed on Amil. “I won’t let her,” he said, and then he left to check on her. But something about the stiff way Papa spoke made my stomach hurt. I reminded myself that Papa was a doctor. He had powers regular people didn’t have. Did you think that about him, Mama? But then I thought about Amil. What saved Amil was really the rain, but it was Papa, too. Even if it hadn’t rained, he still brought the water Amil needed. The way he stopped the man from hurting us and the way he was kind to him after. Papa might be the bravest person I know. But what Papa doesn’t know is that Amil is almost as brave. I’m the coward. What did I do when the man attacked me? I froze. It was Amil who yelled and alerted Papa. It was Amil who said they had guns.

  Rashid Uncle lit a fire in the enormous stove and boiled a pot of lentils. Then he chopped an onion. The smell tickled my nose. I moved a little closer. So did Amil. We watched as he fried the onion in a big pan and sprinkled in some mustard seed, garlic, salt, cumin, turmeric, and chopped ginger. He stirred the spices for another minute and poured in the boiled lentils.

  “You don’t have a cook?” Amil asked Uncle. I knew it was a rude question, but a big house needs a cook and a gardener and someone to tend to the housework. Rashid Uncle didn’t do that all by himself, did he?

  He looked up and shrugged, then went back to his stirring. Watching Rashid Uncle stir the steamy dal sent me spinning back to Kazi cooking in our kitchen; back to Dadi doing her normal caring for the house, rocking in her chair; back to Papa coming home from the hospital, kissing our foreheads good night. Back to me and Amil falling asleep with the taste of sweets on our tongues and thoughts of the things that happened at school that day. It had all been so ordinary, even boring, and now it seemed like a fairy tale. Tears started to fall. I couldn’t help it. I put my face in my hands to cover them.

  “Nish,” Amil said. “What is it?”

  I just shook my head.

  “Rashid Uncle, can she stir?” Amil asked. Rashid Uncle stopped and turned. I forced myself not to look down, and he held out the spoon.

  I blinked my tears away, stuck the spoon in the pot, and leaned over the warm yellow dal. I stirred so it wouldn’t stick to the bottom. My body began to relax and I stirred some more. Amil knew me so well. All this time I thought he was just jumping around our house, trying to get out of chores and schoolwork just so he could play in the garden or draw. But now I see how closely he’s watched me, how well he knows me, how much he has inside him. We stood there quietly for several minutes before Papa came over. I heard his footsteps stop and he watched me. After the dal was done, I put it aside.

  Rashid Uncle opened up a pantry door and scooped some rice from a metal canister. He gave it to me and I poured in the right amount for five people. I watched his face. This time it was a little easier to look at him than it was minutes before. I stayed focused on his eyes. He took out a metal cup filled with water from a large jug to pour in the pot. He handed it to me and I poured. We put in four cups and waited for the water to boil. Kazi always boiled the water first before putting the rice in, but I didn’t say anything. Rashid Uncle didn’t seem like the most experienced cook. He chopped the onions every which way and didn’t mince the ginger anywhere near as fine as Kazi would have. Maybe he had a cook who had to leave, a Hindu cook. My hunger started to make me dizzy. It hurt not to bring spoonful after spoonful into my mouth.

  When it was done, Rashid Uncle took out five bowls, and I spooned rice and dal into four of them and then one with just rice. He unwrapped four chapatis from a cloth and warmed them on the stove and stuck them on the sides of the bowls. I looked at the bowls, filled to the top with golden dal and rice, the toasted chapati sitting in the corner. It was the most food I had seen since we left home. I wondered if he always had such simple meals, but nothing had seemed so perfect to me.

  “Take this to Dadi,” Papa said to me, and handed me the plain bowl of rice. I nodded and swallowed the saliva collecting in my hungry mouth, cradling the warm bowl in my hands, and snuck a large pinch of rice. The sounds of chairs moving and the bowls being set down on the table startled me as I went into the other room. It was still strange to be inside, sitting at a proper dining room table for dinner.

  Dadi had her eyes closed. I spoke her name and asked her to eat. Nothing happened. I put the rice under her nose and waited. After a few seconds, she opened her eyes and gave me a crooked nod. Then she waved me away. I looked in her face. It was drawn and dull.

  “I will feed you,” I said.

  She stayed still, so I scooped a bit of rice into my hand and pressed it to her lips. She took it and chewed. We did this a few more times. Then she put up her hand for me to stop.

  “Good girl,” she whispered. I put my hand over hers and held it there.

  After a minute, I left the bowl of rice next to her and went into the other room. Amil, Papa, and Rashid Uncle had waited for me to eat. It must have been so hard for Amil and even Papa to do that. I sat down next to Amil and across from Papa. Then I ate. The rice, the dal, the chapatis exploded with flavor. I could taste the rich ghee, each grain of rice, each speck of cumin, the tang of ginger, garlic, onion. It was the best food I have ever eaten in my life.

  No one spoke. After several large bites, I looked up at Papa and Amil, scooping up food with their chapatis fast and greedy. When we finished, there was enough for us to have seconds.

  After the silent meal, Papa put his hand on Rashid Uncle’s shoulder.

  “I will never be able to repay the kindness you have shown us.”

  Rashid Uncle nodded and quickly started to clear the table.

  We helped him clean the pots and dishes and then we were each able to shower. It took me a long time to get clean. I watched the brown water run down the drain and was afraid I’d use it all up. I didn’t know I could ever get so dirty.

  Amil and I asked to share the middle room. Papa slept in Dadi’s to keep an eye on her. We got into bed and covered ourselves in our mosquito nets, feeling clean and new. Amil wondered if we could hide here until the fighting went away and then live here forever. I hoped so more than anything. If any new home made sense to me, this would be it. Then Kazi could come and live here eventually. Can I send that wish to you, Mama? Is this the bed you slept in? One
more thing, please watch over Dadi. I can’t lose her right now.

  Love, Nisha

  * * *

  September 1, 1947

  Dear Mama,

  It is a new month and exactly seventeen days since the world changed. Is there another family living in our house yet? A happier family? Do they have more children with a mother and a father? I won’t let myself think of our house burning to the ground or of Kazi sad and lonely. I try to think of everything alive, the garden colorful and bursting with vegetables, better than it was when we were there. I think of more children running around—four, two boys and two girls—a mother, calling them in for supper, checking to make sure their nails are clean, hugging them for no reason. I see a father coming home early, surprising everyone with rock candy sticks from the market, telling heroic stories from the hospital every night before bed. I think of the littlest girl finding Dee, my old doll, in the closet. It’s the best surprise she ever got.

  Love, Nisha

  * * *

  September 2, 1947

  Dear Mama,

  Papa says Rashid Uncle’s house is a bit over halfway to the border. We still have many miles to go. When I ask Papa about when we’re leaving, he says soon but he wants Dadi stronger before we do. I want to stay, but I’m also starting to feel trapped. We’re not allowed to go outside. We are not supposed to be here, and I don’t know what would happen if someone found out. Both Amil and I have heard Papa and Dadi talk about what they’ve read in the papers. I know lots of people have died walking and on the trains in both directions. The riots and killings keep happening. I still don’t understand. We were all part of the same country last month, all these different people and religions living together. Now we are supposed to separate and hate one another. Does Papa secretly hate Rashid Uncle? Does Rashid Uncle secretly hate us? Where do Amil and I fit in to all of this hate? Can you hate half of a person?