by Peter Hobbs
I fetch my notebook and sit a little way apart from them to write for a while, and then put it aside to go to make bread in the tandoor. These are such ordinary actions, requiring no great effort, but the novelty, the rarity, has not yet worn away. I hope you will understand why I tell you the details of such minor things, and can feel something of the pleasure I find in them.
The Prison
They did not tell me why I was released. It was miraculous, I suppose, though I was numb to the miracle of it. One day a guard said my name, and came to unchain me, and I went with him obediently. I did not know if I was to be moved to a different cell, or being taken to be beaten. He led me out through tiled corridors, unlocking gates as we passed, and pushed me out through a door. We went through the yard, and I instinctively craned my neck upwards, searching the sky for the swallows. I stumbled as I did so, and the guard muttered in frustration, dragging me on through the entrance of the prison, the gates opening to let us pass. He left me standing at the roadside. I did not trust him. It was a strange trick he was playing. I stood there for a long time, waiting for them to bring me back inside. When my legs felt weak I sat down in the dust, and then the gates opened once more and the guard returned, but it was only to shout at me, and to kick and curse me until I moved away.
I was disorientated and exhausted. I did not know where I was, or what I should do. The wide openness of the land was terrifying. My chest filled with panic, and I almost returned to the prison gates, to be let back in. Only the fear of violence restrained me. I suppose I walked away. After that, I do not remember much.
I must have walked for a long time. I think that I must have stopped a passing lorry driver for help, because I have a fragment of memory in which I am sitting in a cabin which vibrates wildly over the engine beneath. I remember the diesel fumes, and being thrown about by rough roads; I remember clutching my arms around my stomach, pressing the points of my fingers hard into my breastbone, to keep myself from being sick.
I do not know how I began to find my way. I did not reach my family, who in any case were no longer there, but I came close to my old home, fell only a few miles short. I am not even sure I was walking in the right direction when I collapsed into a ditch, in which place I was found, some time later, by Abbas, as he walked with his friends to the tea shop for an evening of conversation over games of backgammon.
I was in prison for fifteen years. I am twenty-nine years old. My body belongs to a much older man. It is a relic I know too intimately: these scars, this broken form.
All those years! They took everything from me. My health and my family. They took from me the person I might have been, and returned in its place half a man, a shadow. Even now I am not sure I will feel lasting pleasure again. My capacity for it has been damaged. The suffering has retreated, but it leaves behind it an absence, a joylessness. If you are able, imagine breathing, and nothing stirring within. Yes, I feel relief that I am free, and it is a deep relief at that, but there is no joy. My pleasures have gone from me, like petals pulled from a flower head, or lost to a winter frost.
And yet something has emerged intact from those years. A second miracle, perhaps. I still long for you. I still feel love for you. I do not know how the feeling was not destroyed. You may want me to say that it is because love is strong, but the darkness I have told you of was stronger still: it could erase the universe, wipe clean the stars from the night sky. I did not think love could stand against such power and I wonder and marvel that it has been spared.
This is what they did to me, my love. What was it they did to you? I beg you to tell me, because I have been helpless to know.
The Orchard
The walk comes a little easier today. The pain in my legs lessens as I go, and I am able to lengthen my stride. I know I must try to improve my posture. I walk half bent over, and my joints protest and my back aches when I try to straighten. It is partly physical, the consequence of ill-treatment and of living for years in cramped spaces. I am still not used to having the freedom to stretch. But it is also habit, my body naturally forming a defensive shape, curled around itself, still waiting to be beaten.
Through the trees, out of sight from where I sit, is our neighbour’s house – how strange that I still think of them as my neighbours – where once, long ago, a wedding was held. I have always thought that I would one day walk down to it, to see if it remained as before, but so far I have not felt the need. I knew as soon as I reached the orchard that this was the right place. Here, where the low wall ends, with my back against the tree.
Today I am sitting and watching the ants. Their highway runs not far from my feet, the insects pouring in both directions along it. I have brought a handful of almonds to eat and I cup them in both hands, raising them to my face to breathe the faint smell of them. It rouses a hunger in me, though a very pleasant one, because it brings an anticipation I know is easily sated. I eat them one at a time, until I reach the last, and this I break into smaller pieces, placing them in a small pile not far from the ant trail. They are quick to locate them: one of the creatures deviates its course until it has found them, and in its path follow several others, until a sinuous ribbon of insects flows between trail and almond. The first ant seems to make a failed attempt at nudging a small piece of nut along, perhaps weighing it up, but then miraculously lifts it and with no loss of speed returns to the main channel of ants. The rest of the pile is similarly tackled by a small swarm, the pieces ferried on their backs, sometimes hoisted up with another ant still clinging to it, so that the worker carries both nut and ant. Soon the food has disappeared and the new ribbon gradually twirls and thins until it is absorbed back into the main channel. Only one or two stray ants still criss-cross the area, searching for any fragments that have been missed.
The ants do not scatter when I stand, though I am careful not to step on them. Go into your dwellings, ants, lest Solomon and his warriors should unwittingly crush you!
Among the branches the pomegranates are ripening. The last of the petals from their flowers has fallen. I was tempted to take one, but they are not yet at their best, the colour of their skin not yet warm, and so I will be patient. The promise of a fruit freshly opened, its juice running from broken arils, is exquisite, and will enable the walk to come easier still. I have longed to taste one again. The thought of it is enough to cause my mouth to water, my stomach to gurgle. The memory of that taste is no less than the memory of my childhood. Whenever my sisters or I suffered an upset stomach we were given a cup of juice, morning and evening while we were ill, to settle our bellies once again. We were given pomegranate to soothe cuts and grazes, to ease coughs, to cool fever.
What an extraordinary thing is memory. Those endless days in the prison, their empty routines still imprinted into the lines of my skin, fade from me. Already they are becoming like a story once told to me, and then remembered, as though at a remove. They are clouded with doubt, and of the suffering which was so certain, it is hard now to say what was truth, and what nightmare.
And yet, sitting here, if I close my eyes and reach my arms into the low limbs of the tree, in an instant I am a child again, riding on my father’s back, marvelling at the world high in the branches, the bright sunlight filtering through.
I Am Afraid
I am afraid, Saba, that you have long forgotten me. No, more than this. I have thought about it so much, and I will not hide my thoughts from you. I am afraid that if I am remembered, even fondly, then the strength of my feeling will disturb you. That when we meet you will be saddened to see that I have remained a child, while you have freed yourself from those adolescent emotions, and become a woman.
Will you read this and think that it has become an obsession for me? This feeling, which once was real, but that has come to exist only in my own heart? Love must be shared, or else it is just madness. Have I, like Ibraheem Jamal, with his thoughts of revenge, allowed my ideas to separate from the world, so that they became something larger and more powerful, so that I mus
t always live in them, and never again with the truth? The idea of you was strong enough to twist the world, to do strange things to my mind. I am afraid that by clinging on to that idea, I changed the truth of what we had beyond repair. That by taking it into the darkness I allowed it to corrupt, that it became something wholly of my imagination.
Such are my fears. And it is true that I was overcome with panic when I thought of you, when I did not know where you were, or what you might be doing. That I was almost sick with jealousy of those who were able to know you. I knew it was futile, I knew it was senseless, but I could not help myself. I thought of you constantly, obsessively. I had to endure the impossible frustration of not knowing, and the knowledge that you knew nothing of me, that in an instant I had ceased to be a part of your life. I wanted so much for you just to know that I was alive.
But listen to me: I did not arbitrarily choose you. I clung on to you because it was of you that my heart was most sure. With you I had no doubts: with you I always knew.
I have said that I do not know the boy I once was. In truth, all that remains of him is this love for you. It was the only thing that survived. It was the strongest thing I had, which was why I held on to it so firmly. Even as it condemned me to terrible unhappiness I was saved by it. Or if no longer by love, then by the memory of love, which is as strong.
If I ask my heart now, do I love you? then the answer leaps swiftly back, overwhelming and certain: yes. I feel it with every part of me. And I trust my heart, because I have nothing else. But the truth is that it has been a long time, and even I, now, doubt my feelings. Is it possible to love someone for so long, in their absence, and for that love to remain unbroken and true? We have been apart for so long. Over the years, in my mind, you must have become something you are not; a construction that bears little resemblance to the person you really are. I struggle to be sure even who I once was, before all this. How, then, can I know you, without knowing anything about your life?
It is impossible to resolve these things alone. I have thought that all I need to do is to see you, and then I will know. Then everything, the doubt and confusion, will clear, and all that is merely an illusion will fade away. And so I hope for this. But I am afraid, too, because I no longer trust that the answers life gives us are so simple, or so sure.
The Orchard
Today I broke open a pomegranate. I have been watching them carefully, and the earliest among them are beautifully ripe. I knew I should not take one, but I could not resist. Its absence will hardly be noticed, and my body has been so thirsty for the taste. Eat of their fruits when they ripen, says the Qur’an. I spent a long time choosing the finest one I could find, whose skin was firm, glowing like your cheeks in the morning light. I picked it carefully, so as not to disturb the other fruits around it, and then I held its weight in my hand, gripping it with my palm and fingers, skin against skin. To test its ripeness I held it to my ear and tapped it, and was rewarded with that strange and perfect sound, almost metallic in its tone.
I dug my thumbs together to break the outer rind, and then prised the fruit apart, opening it into two halves, watching the inner cells tear away from the soft, bitter tissue that holds them. My hands shook as I raised it to my mouth. And the taste of the juice on my tongue! It was so sweet my lips quivered, but with that faint dry sourness in my mouth afterwards. It was wonderful. I gulped down the pieces, careful not to miss a single aril. When we were young, my mother told us this hadith: that the pomegranate was among the trees grown in the gardens of paradise, and that all such trees are descended from it. So, within each fruit is a pip that belongs to that original tree, and when we eat, we must not miss a single aril, in case it is the sacred one. This I did as a child, and this, from a habit that is still pleasing to me, I do again now.
When I had finished the fruit I felt instantly greedy for a second, and I stood to reach for more. I was overcome by a sudden swell of indignation, a sense that the orchard, after all, once belonged to my family, that it should not have been taken from us. But the feeling passed as quickly as it had come, and I stood there with my arms reaching upwards, feeling foolish, and I did not pick anything, but walked home instead, the pleasure in my heart gone, and the sweetness in my mouth turned sour.
My Father
I learned yesterday that my father is dead. Beloved, I feel such pain in my chest. All those years when I had hoped to see him. All those years when I did not know what had become of my family, nor they me. Oh my father. My heart tears, and then becomes solid again, a crack across its centre that will not heal.
The news came from Abbas, who has continued making enquiries on my behalf. He told me gently. He had spoken to a man who knew the orchard, and remembered when it belonged to my family. The man’s story was unclear in parts – he was unsure if my father’s illness had meant the orchard needed to be given up, or if it was taken from them, handed over to a local tribal elder, in exchange for loyalty or favours done. But whatever the truth of the matter, my father had indeed been ill, and had died soon after the orchard was gone. His family had moved south, to Multan, he thought.
And all this ten years ago. Ten years of not knowing – it is hard to bear. I wonder what the illness was, and when it fell. It is all too easy to imagine the loss of the orchard being too much for my father, causing his heart to break. A terrible fear returns to me of old, that I was the cause of everything, of every disaster; that I brought not just shame on myself, but ruin to my family.
There was some meagre hope in the news. The mention of Multan – cousins of my mother live there, and it does not seem unlikely that, having had to leave, she may have gone to them. I do not have an address, but I remember the family name, and at last I have somewhere to begin. Still, in the circumstances, I am afraid that I would not be welcome, that they would not want me. Perhaps it is better that I am believed dead, and can bring down no more troubles upon them.
I slept poorly last night, and was plagued by anxious dreams. I am torn by grief and shame. My stomach feels sick and my insides rotten, as though all the months of recovery have been for nothing.
I have felt little better today, and the morning walk brought me no pleasure. I am weary from it, but still cannot sleep, and so I am staying late in the garden tonight, allowing the temperature of the air to fall and the stars to brighten against the dark. I shiver and shake from the cold. It is refreshing after the dusty heat on the road this morning, and I am trying to allow myself to feel cleansed by it.
Some summer nights when I was a child, we would sleep outside. My father would carry carpets from the house and lay them in piles on the roof, and then unroll our mattresses over them. We would lie on the mounds, wrapping ourselves in blankets. After the heat of the day the cold would be blissful, and I could burrow down beneath the weight of my covers. My mother would tell stories of the stars until we fell asleep. I wish I remembered all the stories. I can still find the two stars I know were sisters in some tale, and that one had followed a prince to a faraway land, and remained there, even after the prince had died, separated from her twin by the great misty stream of stars that ran between them.
So I sit outside, watching for the blazing trails of shooting stars, marvelling at the vastness of creation. It is amazing how all these are the same stars we used to see, their numbers uncountable, the sky so thick with them that they blur together. I try to push down the guilt. But our actions cannot be undone. It is another weight I will have to live with. It feels heavy, tonight, and the cold will not take it from me.
The Village
When I was young I had no sense of change. I did not know that ways of life could simply pass, or that entire peoples could be forced from their homes, that villages cease to be. Time stretches out in our youth, and everything is simply as it is. Our parents and grandparents are always present, and do not seem to age. A home is a fixed, unchanging thing that can always be returned to, and children remain children, their pleasures and needs simple and constant. The world is wh
at it is.
But now change comes so fast. The war, which has skirted these valleys without entering them, begins to threaten. The borders are crossed by armies, as well as by ideas. There are new voices being raised, whose words reach even me, quiet within the walls of Abbas’s garden. They demand the imposition of Sharia. When they speak of tradition, they do not mean the way of life we have known for generations. The fortune-tellers will be beaten from the market, the schools closed. They do not speak of us as belonging to Pakistan any more. Perhaps that land has always been a distant, imaginary nation, one that belonged to the plains, whose reach did not extend to these high areas.
Last week a bomb was thrown over the wall of a girls’ school in the neighbouring valley. Two children and a teacher were killed by splintering metal. It is hard to believe that it is happening here, among the places of my childhood. The men who did this are strangers to me; they have read a different book to the one I studied, years ago. But I think that I understand them. I have seen how anger spills out when it is kept from striking that which imprisons it. It needs to fall somewhere, and so it falls on those who are unable to defend themselves. Such men act to feel powerful, to assert their world upon us. They believe that they must prevail, or else all is lost. And they are not afraid to destroy, because they do not understand what it is they are destroying.
‘It is because they themselves were not educated,’ I say. ‘They are afraid of it, of what people might learn.’
