Here, in this Kashmir camp, I could be who I actually was. Nobody cared what had been done to me, and what I had done, least of all Daoud. I felt myself opening, unlocking, the hinges rusted and giving way with a tearing sound like the wings of birds as they startle into flight.
I was open. My mind, my heart, my body. I knew what I would do. All the past choices in my life had been made for safety, for survival, for concealment and acceptance. All of them had been difficult, bound in twisted wire with consequences that could cost too much should they become unraveled. This choice felt easy, and carried not even the shadow of a doubt.
I RETURNED DAOUD’S chapan to him the next afternoon, also bringing food to him at the horse enclosure. By offering him the rabbit stew from Mahayna’s pot, the flask of water from the stream, I felt strong, since I was giving him something. He took the bowl and sat on the top rail of the enclosure, eating it. I simply stood there, watching the horses. When he finished he drank from the flask, putting his head back to drain it. I watched his throat swallowing. I felt stretched, as if there were a bright, high singing in my brain.
As he handed the bowl and flask back to me, he jumped off the fence and looked into my face. “You are comfortable here now?” he asked.
I nodded. I wanted him to say my name.
“You do not behave as I imagined a ferenghi woman.”
I took a deep breath. “I am not like the other memsahibs. I only pretend. I am not one of them.”
He leaned one elbow on the rail. “Why do you do this?”
“I did not grow up as they did. I have a shameful past, kept hidden.”
He hadn’t stopped looking at me. A horse neighed, children shouted. “I have seen a sadness in your eyes,” he said. “I wondered at it. This is the heavy gift of your past?” His own eyes were almost black.
“Yes. I hate it. I’m ashamed of my past.” It was so easy to say these things to him.
“Perhaps you must let those old lights go out. It requires much effort to keep them burning. Let new ones take fire. Today it is not what you have done, but what you will do that matters. That is the new light.”
We both looked at the horses then. I was suddenly shy, and I sensed some feeling—similar?—from him. This gave me courage to say what I had wanted to say. “Will you sleep under the sky again tonight?”
He turned to me, and I saw his throat move as he swallowed. He nodded.
“I will come to you,” I told him, and he nodded again, and my heart thudded so loudly behind my ribs that it brought a strange and beautiful pain.
I UNDERSTOOD, THAT NIGHT, more than I had ever understood. I came to see what I didn’t know existed. The first time we came together, only moments from when I lowered myself beside him on the quilt, was rapid, almost desperate, our clothing merely pushed aside. And then, while we rested and our breathing slowed, he reached out and stroked my face with a delicacy I didn’t know his scarred, hardened hands could possess, and it was this touch that made me shudder with some combination of joy and grief so huge that I wept. Me, who was not a girl for weeping, brought to tears by the touch of a hand on my face. And he looked at these tears, and then soundlessly pressed my face against his chest by cupping the back of my head in his one huge hand. He kept his other arm around me. And I thought of Mahayna’s words as she spoke of comfort.
When my tears stopped I sat up in the moonlight and drew my kamis over my head, and he made no sound as he looked at my scar, and then his eyes moved up to meet mine and he put out his hand. It was so large that it covered the entire scar, covered what still remained of my left breast, and I felt the heat of his flesh against mine. And then he lay me down again on the quilt, and he gently lowered himself onto me. And this time our joining was slow and quiet, and the quietness grew inside me until it blocked out all sounds. I no longer heard the movement of the tree’s branches, the tumbling stream beyond the enclosure, the snarls and yips of the dogs, the night cries of hungry babies. There was only silence, except for the quaver of Daoud’s breath, and it was this sound that I would remember, later and always.
Afterward, my mind and body heavy, languid, Daoud pulled his chapan up over both of us, and I fell into a half-sleep, his body warm against mine.
It was still dark when I felt him brushing my hair back from my face, and I sat up. He handed me my kamis. “Perhaps it is best if you return to Mahayna’s tent now.” He said it softly, but I knew it wasn’t a question.
I got to my knees, smoothing down the soft folds of my kamis and retying the string of my trousers.
“Tomorrow I must work with the horses in the day. And at night,” he stopped, wrapping his sash around his waist, “I will sleep here again.”
I nodded, and made my way back to Mahayna’s tent, stopping once to look at the stars.
FOR THE NEXT ten days every nerve in my body seemed to be stretched to a breaking point. I would bring Daoud food during the day, and he would come out of the horse enclosure, going to the stream to wash, and then return and eat. Sometimes we didn’t speak, but other times we talked of our lives. I told him of my childhood—all of it—and he told me of his. He didn’t speak of his wives or children; I didn’t speak of Somers. We didn’t speak of leaving—of his going to Peshawar, or my returning to Simla. At night I would go to him, and stay for a few hours, always returning to Mahayna’s tent before dawn.
On the eleventh night he and his men gathered around a fire and two of them beat goatskin drums. Some of the children whistled a melody, and two of the men danced around the flames. The women stayed back, in the shadows, watching. Habib had been feverish, pulling at his ear all day, and so Mahayna stayed in the tent with him, but I sat with the other women.
When the men put down their drums they all took turns speaking. I couldn’t understand their words, but from the rhythm I understood it to be poetry. Daoud spoke, too, in Pashto, and then suddenly switched to Hindi.
“When your face is hidden from me, like the moon hidden on a dark night, I shed stars of tears, and yet my night remains dark in spite of all those shining stars,” he said, looking at the flames. And then he switched back to Pashto, and in a moment the man beside him was reciting.
Such was my emotion at his words, spoken in the language only he and I understood, that everything else was shut out, the words singing in my brain, and I could remember nothing else of the evening but them, and the shape of Daoud’s lips as he spoke them.
WHEN I GOT to the enclosure an hour after the camp had settled, a breeze blew sweetly. Daoud was waiting with his horse. “It is a night for riding,” he said, and, as he had those days on our way to Kashmir, he put his hands on my waist and lifted me onto the soft blanket on Rasool’s back. Then he swung up behind me, and Rasool walked away from the camp.
“Do you remember the first time we rode together?” I asked.
“Yes.” He urged the stallion ahead, and gave him the lead, so that the beast galloped freely over the territory he seemed to know, into the broad hills, his pounding feet sure of the way. And then Daoud pulled on the reins, and Rasool walked, and we swayed on his back, me leaning against Daoud, his arms around me, the reins slack in his hands. I felt his breath against my hair. After what felt like an hour, maybe more, we returned to the camp. Still without a word, Daoud dismounted, and I slid off.
After he had put Rasool into the enclosure he took my hand and led me to the quilt spread under the tree. We sat together, our backs against the tree, his arm against mine.
“What were the words you spoke at the fire tonight?” I finally asked him.
“They were written by the Persian poet Jami,” he said. “His tomb is in Herat.” And then we lay down together, under the chapan. Although he didn’t touch me, I could feel the hum of his body, so close to mine. Heat came from him, and with it the smell that I had grown to love, horse and leather and woodsmoke. After a while I realized he wouldn’t reach for me, and I put my head on his chest and slept.
When I awoke I heard Daoud’s
relaxed breathing. I sat up and lifted the edge of the chapan, but Daoud softly caught my arm.
“I thought you were sleeping,” I whispered. Even though his face was only inches from mine, it was unclear, his eyes shadowed. “I will go back to Mahayna’s now.”
At last he spoke. “Stay with me tonight,” he said. And then we came together, and this time, for the first time in all the nights we had been together, he spoke my name as he moved with me, his voice a muffled cry against my neck.
I OPENED MY EYES in time to see the sudden swift beauty of the Himalayan dawn as it flashed over the treetops, turning the sky into a blur of sapphire. Daoud was not on the quilt, although his chapan was tucked snugly around me. I threw it aside and sat up, running my fingers through my hair as I glanced at the enclosure.
The horses were gone.
I looked toward the camp. One woman squatted in front of the fire, poking at the contents of a pot. A bony camp dog, tail curled protectively between its legs, snuffled with mild interest at a large horse dropping near a tent. A bold crow swaggered around a cold fire, stabbing at morsels of last night’s supper that had fallen to the ground.
The camp looked different. Smaller. Some of the tents were missing. I jumped to my feet, clutching the chapan, and ran through the maze of existing tents, finally pushing aside the door flap of Mahayna’s tent. She was putting a clean shirt on Habib.
“Where are they?” I panted. “The Pashtuns—where are they?”
“Their time here was finished,” Mahayna said. “They returned north, very early this morning.”
“No!” I cried the word so loudly that Habib looked at me in alarm. “Daoud wouldn’t go, not like that, just leave without telling me.”
Mahayna put her hand on Habib’s head. “Did he not tell you in some way, perhaps in a way you did not recognize? Without saying the words? This is often the way of men, is it not?”
I looked into her keen eyes, then sank to the floor, putting my arms on my knees and burying my face in them. “Yes,” I said then, thinking of him asking me to stay with him, his strange silence, his gentleness, and the way he had murmured my name. And of course, of course. The poetry. “Yes, he did tell me.”
“You know he had to leave, and you know your place is with your people,” Mahayna said. “I have seen you become a different woman since you arrived. I know you now possess a kernel of happiness. But you must bury it deep within you and let it rest. You can open it and touch it, but let it remain a tiny seed. Do not break open the pod and let it grow, become a weed to spread and choke your feelings for your husband—for this way leads to discontentment.”
I stayed where I was, not looking up, and felt the whisper of Mahayna’s clothes as she brushed past me. Eventually I lifted my head and pressed the chapan against my face, breathing in its smell. And then I went out of the tent to help Mahayna.
Outside sat the young syce, a small but rugged boy with calm sorrel eyes. He jumped up as I came out of the tent, and Mahayna told me his name was Nahim, and he would accompany me back to Simla.
“Nahim has traveled throughout all of Kashmir and northern India with various groups of gujars since he was a very small child. No one knows of his parents or where he comes from, but he arrives at different camps and helps with the horses. He is known for his uncanny ability to find his way about. Daoud has given him one of the tamed mares in return for your safety on the journey, a very handsome payment, and more than Nahim would have ever dreamed. He is happy.”
The dark-skinned barefoot boy bowed low, then stood, waiting for me to tell him what to do. He couldn’t speak Hindi, so we made our plans through Mahayna. He ran off and within minutes returned, proudly indicating that I would ride his new horse while he trotted alongside on a strong-legged pony, loaded with two packs filled with food and sleeping quilts, all strapped onto either side of the pony’s round belly.
I put the chapan around my shoulders and swung up into the soft leather saddle, settling comfortably in the molded seat. My sores were completely healed, although there were bright pink scars. Mahayna handed me Daoud’s embroidered saddlebag. “Inside are your clothes and shoes,” she said.
I knew the time had come for me to go now. And I had always known it had to end, that it was only a dream. And yet I had, so briefly, felt that I was in my true life, as Chinese Sally had once said. No. Not my true life, I thought, but here I was my true self. And now I would return to the false one, the English enclave, Somers, and whatever hell awaited me.
I pulled off the long earrings.
“No, please, keep them.”
“But your bracelet . . . ,” I started, but Mahayna shook her head.
I put the earrings back on and opened the saddlebag, yanking out my lacy white petticoat. I handed it down to her. “Perhaps you can make something for your next baby.”
Mahayna smiled. “My head will pray to Allah for another son, but my heart wishes for a daughter, even though it would displease Bhosla.” She took the petticoat and smoothed it against her chest. “I will make a special ceremonial dress with it.”
The horse pawed impatiently.
“Now you must leave,” Mahayna said. “Nahim will take the shortest route, and you will be back to your home in perhaps three days, maybe four. He is a good boy; you can trust him,” she said. Then turning to Nahim, who was not much younger, she made a menacing face and instructed him with a few sharp-sounding sentences. “May Allah go with you,” she said finally to me.
“And may He be with you,” I said, then followed Nahim out of the camp, looking back once to wave to the girl who was now surrounded by a small knot of women. I slapped the reins lightly to catch up with the trotting pony ahead of me.
FOR THE NEXT three days I followed the syce. When he dismounted to eat or water the animals or relieve himself I did the same. When he tilted his head to the sky, watching a golden eagle swooping overhead in lazy circles, I watched, too. Turning to follow his gaze when I saw his face break into a sudden smile, I spotted a pair of little red-brown marmots, sitting on their hind legs on the sun-baked earth in the mouth of their burrow, reminding me of arrogant landowners. Nahim whooped and they immediately responded with a whistling reprimand.
He stopped his pony when the small animal’s ears pricked forward longingly and its skin dimpled and shivered, and I reined in the responsive gray mare. Nahim pointed to a cloud of dust on the far side of the immense meadow we were crossing. As the cloud came nearer, I saw a herd of long-maned wild ponies, mostly mares, with their knobby-legged foals prancing beside them.
In the evening, Nahim cooked tough slabs of goat in a smoky fire, and I methodically chewed the sinewy meat, although I had no desire for food and could hardly taste what I swallowed. As we lay under the stars, wrapped in quilts, I held the chapan and fell into a deep dreamless sleep. It seemed I felt little; everything was reduced into a smallness that had nothing to do with the hills and forests and meadows I traveled through with unseeing eyes. I was still living in that other world of flesh and heat, of anticipation and release. The panic and loneliness had not yet begun to surface. I did not, in those first few days after Daoud left, fully understand that I was changed, and did not understand that I would never be the same. That I was richer, and yet for that richness, would feel pain in a new and terrible way. What I had left behind was still large; I clung to its broad surface as a child to the wide and comforting skirt of its mother. That which lay ahead was unreal, far off and blurred as the waves of heat that rose from the plains under the Indian sun.
FOR THE SECOND and third days we ambled through shadowed forests of cedars, concealed by the damp, dense trees, breathing in the honey fragrance of the tiny yellow flowers that bloomed in the spongy moss. We would wind upward for hours, the plodding of the horse and pony steady in unbroken rhythm over the pathways Nahim seemed to find instinctively. Some of the paths were dry and covered with twisting, protruding roots, others slippery with the damp overflow from shallow, serpentine streams. We woul
d emerge from the darkness of the forests with unexpected suddenness into dipping, sunlit valleys.
By late morning of the fourth day we stopped at the base of a rocky hill with only a narrow stony path through dense thornbushes, and Nahim climbed off his pony and took the horse’s reins. He motioned for me to climb down as well, then, slapping the pony’s rear, urged it up the path ahead of him, carefully leading the nervous horse. I scrambled behind, sometimes grabbing hold of the mare’s coarse tail when my feet slipped on the steep incline.
After an arduous climb, we emerged onto a grassy knoll, and Nahim untied the embroidered saddlebag from the horse. He opened it and pulled out the clean, wrinkled periwinkle dress. Shaking it once, he handed it to me.
I was panting from the uphill struggle, and looked at the dress, puzzled, then back to Nahim. He pushed it into my arms, dug into the bag again, and held up my high boots and dropped them and the bag in the dust at my feet, then pointed down the hill.
I followed his dirty finger, and saw the familiar church spire and thatched roofs of Simla. Nahim was already leading the tall horse and the pony toward the bushes we had just come through. “Wait,” I called, and he stopped at the sound of my voice. I ran to the horse and pulled the colorful chapan from its strap on the horse’s saddle. Within a second he had moved on, and the bushes closed behind him, leaving me alone on the hill.
I pushed the dress and boots back into the saddlebag, and clutching it and the chapan, slowly made my way down the winding spine of the hill toward Simla.
Chapter Thirty-One
The Linnet Bird: A Novel Page 39
