— Lala?
He tried to pretend he hadn’t heard, hoping Najeeb would go away.
— Lala, they’ve all gone to sleep. I brought you some dinner. I’ll leave it here.
The sound of a plate being set down, and the scent of something wonderful. A homecoming meal from which he’d shut himself away.
— No, stay.
Najeeb sat at the very edge of the bed-frame, watching his brother eat. He had been the only one in the family who had met Qayyum’s silence with silence instead of an increasing pitch. Even their father had tried to join in the chatter, multiplying its discordance.
— Hold out your hands. Be careful now.
Qayyum placed the handkerchief in his brother’s hands. Najeeb lowered his face and brushed it against the silk.
— What is that smell?
— An Englishwoman.
Najeeb’s mouth opened wide and Qayyum laughed. The first laugh in a very long time.
— She was older than our mother, and had a mouth which looked as if it had been eating lemons all her life. But she was very kind. Open it, look inside. Carefully, carefully.
Najeeb unwrapped the handkerchief as if it were a present. If he was surprised to see an eye staring at him, he didn’t show it. Closing his palms protectively around it he lowered himself onto the ground, resting on his elbows, his hands as close to the lantern as was safe. For a long time he simply looked at the glass eye, rotating it slightly this way and that so he could inspect every part of its surface. In this way he could stare at a book, a butterfly wing, a rock. A stillness at the heart of his character. There were some boys in the 40th Qayyum had felt particularly protective towards; now he understood he had seen the shadow of his brother in them.
At length, Najeeb stood up, the same height as the seated figure of his brother.
— What’s in there now?
— Look.
Qayyum held his thumb and forefinger like a pair of crab claws around his eye, pulling at the skin to force the eyelid open. He saw Najeeb’s fingers extend towards him, found he didn’t have to fight against any desire to back away. How strange — not troubling, just strange — to feel his brother’s touch against the bone of the eye-socket.
But no; he had imagined it. Najeeb placed his hand over his brother’s thumb and forefinger, and simply bent down and peered into the socket which was more than Qayyum could bring himself to do in front of the mirror.
— It’s too dark to see anything.
— You can have a look in the morning.
— Thank you.
Najeeb sat down, leaning his weight against his brother.
— I’m sorry I wasn’t at home when you arrived, Lala.
— That’s all right.
— I went to the train station to meet you. You didn’t see me when you stepped onto the platform, though I was right there.
— Why didn’t you say something?
The sight of his scarred, one-eyed brother had frightened him. Why else? He held the boy’s hand in apology, in forgiveness. Najeeb squeezed his hand in return and then picked up the plate Qayyum had eaten from, turning it over with a laugh to demonstrate that there wasn’t even a sliver of onion remaining on it.
— Our mother was worried about what they were giving you to eat in the hospital.
— There were nine kitchens.
Najeeb looked impressed, and Qayyum found himself wanting to say something else, something to temper his brother’s look of awe at the bounty of the English.
— Lala?
— Yes.
— Are you still a soldier?
— No.
— Do you wish you still were?
— Go to sleep, Najeeb.
The brothers faced each other on the roof; one tense and watchful, the other encouraging, slightly impatient.
— Ready?
— No, wait. One second.
Yesterday, a staccato sound on the roof had made Qayyum drop his cup of tea; when it had gone on long enough to sound more like hail than bullets he had come up to the roof to investigate, and found Najeeb holding one hand in front of his right eye while bouncing the ball with the other hand. He had bounced the ball more than fifty times in a row without fault before he realised he was being watched by Qayyum who spent his days repeating this very action, without anything of Najeeb’s fluidity. Qayyum winced to think that all these days while he thought he was engaged in a private act his family below had been able to hear the aching gaps between every few bounces. Tomorrow we’ll play catch, Qayyum had said and turned away.
— Now.
Najeeb threw the ball. It travelled in a slow, chest-high loop, beginning a downward path well before it reached Qayyum so that his hands were only waist-high as he caught it.
— Well done! Najeeb called out.
Qayyum looked up slowly from the cupped hands holding the child’s toy.
— This is ‘well done’ in my life now.
He saw Najeeb turn his face away to the white sky of summer and knew his brother was wishing he were somewhere else.
— I’m sorry, Qayyum said. Najeeb shook his head but didn’t look up. Qayyum wasn’t sure if he was rejecting the apology or pretending there was no need for it.
— I’m more sick of me than you are.
— I’m not sick of you.
— Do you think I haven’t noticed you go away after lunch and don’t come back until long after the lessons with the maulvi are supposed to end?
— It’s not because I’m sick of you.
— No, don’t apologise. It makes me happy to think of you reading in Shalimar Bagh beside a fountain. There was an officer at Vipers — he carried a book in his pocket and in these minutes we were gathered on the slope, waiting for the order to attack, I saw him lie on his stomach, put his head in the book and go somewhere else. I envied him, and then I was happy because I knew my brother also had that in him. Whatever happens in the world, Najeeb can escape.
Qayyum launched the ball back towards his brother. Najeeb fumbled for it — it was obvious he only did that because he thought it a kindness.
— Lala, there’s something I want to know. About when you were over there.
— Ask me anything. But don’t ask me what happened on the battlefield.
He felt a slight constriction of the mouth as he spoke, as though loose stitches were looped between his lips. Najeeb stepped towards him, right hand raised, palm outwards; a formal gesture that came from outside Qayyum’s world.
— Tell me about the Englishwoman who gave you the handkerchief. Was she nice? Did you practise English with her?
— Listen, Najeeb. Don’t become curious about Englishwomen.
— I’m not asking it in a bad way.
— The English, they don’t think there are any good ways for an Indian to want to know things about their women. Maybe they’re right. Would you want Englishmen to come here and ask about our sisters?
— What would they ask?
— Are they nice? Can I practise Hindko with them?
The idea of an Englishman wanting to practise Hindko with any of their sisters was so absurd Najeeb started to laugh. His arm slung back to throw the ball to Qayyum, as though they were in a time before. Arrow-straight, it gathered speed, making for Qayyum’s face, his eye. Najeeb shouted out a warning, but his brother’s hands came up to catch it with the old deftness, the sound of palms closing around a speeding ball sweeter than all the sitars in the world.