Then came the morning when he heard the ringing sound of a spade hitting something solid. The Buddha’s shin, thick as a man’s torso. Najeeb and the foreman used trowels and hands to work around it, revealing the Holy One’s ankle, his bare feet, the slightly flexed toes. By now it was well past mid-morning and the other men departed, but Najeeb continued on, impervious to aches and thirst and the sun searing the back of his neck. He was beyond imagining results, or asking how long he would continue; there was only this motion of his shoulder and arm and the trowel which had become an extension of himself; only soil displaced all around the base of the statue. The metal of the trowel head encountered tiny pieces of rock, a sound felt in his spine. The earth cooled as he dug into it; its composition changed; a worm wound its body sluggishly through the loam. The worm stood on its tail, fleshily pink, swayed in the changed universe of light and heat in which it found itself, and he thought of the adjoining graveyard, shuddered, plucked it out and flung it as far as his arm could throw. Wiped sweating palms on his trousers, continued. The edge of his trowel-head scraped metal. On his knees now; his heart an animal throwing itself repeatedly against the cage of his ribs.
Viv Spencer stood on the roof of the pink palace and watched the rooftop cupolas slide their shadows across the garden towards the statue of Queen-Empress Victoria flanked by lions. A pith-helmeted British soldier, also carved in stone, stood guard at one corner of the property. At least some of the Indian men in the garden must look at the statues and see an enemy; impossible to know which Indians were for Gandhi and which for the King, Viv had been told by Mary’s cousins with whom she was staying in Karachi. Even your Oxbridge man might go either way. There were Indian women on the lawn as well, elegant in their saris; they mainly clustered together but a few threaded their way into the knots of men where they were greeted with great flourishes of delight, which Viv didn’t know whether to regard as appreciative or as a politely coded reprimand.
The palace wasn’t really a palace at all, just the extravagantly named summer home of a prosperous Indian merchant who had built this mansion near the seafront. Mughal architecture, English statuary, and an underground corridor which led to a Hindu temple (and allowed the pious lady of the house to maintain purdah). Perhaps centuries from now students of history would look at this property and see syncretism, but it merely made Viv wish for the statues and stupas of Gandhara. This period of recovering from her back injury, now blessedly almost at its end, had been interminable, and strange. Such stark political opinions; so difficult to know what to make of any of it.
Viv looked over the mansion walls, across the expanse of sand dunes to the pier. A flamingo picked its way fastidiously through the waters of the Arabian Sea; another tucked a leg beneath its wings and twitched its long neck. In the stories of Karachi surely those pink birds had flown out of the stone of Mohatta Palace, leaving the peacocks in the nine domes of the roof to curse their own feathers whose purpose was beauty, not flight. She brought the back of her hand to her mouth, tasted the sea on her skin. How much narrower life would be without all of India poised at the heart of the word ‘Ours’. But if anyone asked her what she thought of India, of Empire, of Gandhi she remained silent. She had learned, long ago, that the easiest way to avoid causing damage was to watch and say nothing, do nothing. ‘Guarded’ was the word people used to describe her, though she preferred to think of it as careful. It was only amidst histories that were centuries old that she allowed her curiosity to become intervention.
— When the Muslims asked the Prophet, How should we respond to these attacks? he answered, With righteousness and patience. Righteousness and patience. These are Muslim virtues, these are Pashtun virtues.
Qayyum Gul faced the red-shirted volunteers, two dozen or more. On some faces he saw disbelief, contempt. Training, fight, army — these would have been the words that snaked through the farmland adjoining Peshawar, tugging men towards Qayyum’s orchards to join the training camp for the Khudai Khidmatgar. It was unclear if the men hadn’t been told the true nature of the army or if they disbelieved what they heard, but whatever the case almost half of them had arrived with guns and knives. Now they were empty-handed, and blades and barrels encircled the base of an apple tree, gleaming like the anklet of a demon goddess.
— I am not going to tell you that non-violence is compatible with Pashtunwali. I am going to tell you that in the circumstances in which we live non-violence is essential to Pashtunwali. Are you honourable enough to endure. .
A high-pitched whistle carried through the orchards, severing Qayyum’s sentence. He made a sharp gesture and the men scattered, scrambling up the nearest tree trunks and into crowns thick with leaves. Qayyum walked rapidly towards the other end of the orchard, and was inspecting a leaf, pretending to ensure that the white markings had been deposited by small birds and weren’t the start of a fungal infection, when the rent-collector entered from the adjoining plum orchards, which were also Qayyum’s. He thought of the apple and plum orchards as his even though every month the arrival of the rent-collector reminded him that he was merely a tenant-farmer.
Now that reminder strode towards him, beating a walking stick against his own leg, his mouth glistening with apple juice. The rent wasn’t due for weeks but Qayyum didn’t say anything while the rent-collector continued working on the core of the apple, nibbling at the flesh around the seeds.
— Strange rumours around, Qayyum Gul.
— There always are. Which ones have you heard?
— People say you’re using these orchards to train an army for Ghaffar Khan. Of course I reply oh no, he knows the landowner plays polo with the Deputy Commissioner and has a portrait of the King-Emperor in his Peshawar house. He wouldn’t do anything that would force me to come here and tell him these orchards aren’t his to work any longer.
The rent-collector waved his hand expansively around the orchard as he spoke. It was a season of abundance, branches dipping with the weight of their fruit; insects weaved drunkenly between trees, smashing themselves against branches. Qayyum rocked back on his heels, his arms crossed, and nodded to let the rent-collector know he understood.
The rent-collector stayed a few minutes more, talking of weather forecasts and the price of sugar. When he left there was a thud-thud-thud of men-fruit dropping from the trees, and Qayyum knelt on the ground, broke off a piece of turf, and crumbled it in his palm. If this were taken away from him what would his life be — thinned, bounded in. A cloth canopy above his head instead of the branches of an apple tree. The juice of a pen, pale blue, running across his palm where there should be liquid gold, inviting to the tongue. The scratch of a nib and the clamour of salesmen; not the calls of birds, the whisper of leaves. Nothing to compare to that moment when the first fruit of the season, pulled gently, detaches itself from a branch, and rests in your palm. He stood up, faced the men.
— That man came to tell me they will take my land away if I continue to stand here and speak to you. They think they can defeat us with threats. But I will endure what losses I must endure for the sake of freedom. And you? Are you honourable enough to endure, my brothers? For the sake of freedom are you men enough to put down your guns and endure?
— Yes, came the answer, sweeter than apple, more eloquent than ink. Yes!