When her husband returns he’s found out who was responsible for putting the bodies in lorries, but no one knows where they were taken. He bangs with the flat of his palm on the door of the storage room, tells the cook he’ll fire him unless he gives the key back, and it is Zarina who pulls him away, tells him to be calm. The day crawls by, endless, pointless. There is a man imprisoned in the house and his presence is driving them both mad.
Another night passes. Soon, her father-in-law will return. With the withdrawal of the British the gates of the Walled City have opened and this morning the cook’s older son left for Kohat to give the family the terrible news. Zarina’s husband has gone to buy a grave plot in Shahji-ki-Dheri, and for now it is only Zarina, the cook and his younger son in the house. She’s upstairs in Diwa’s room when she hears the cook calling out to her from the hallway. He never comes to this part of the house, but the world is different now.
— They’ll all be here soon, he says when she comes outside to see what he wants. He’s been with the family longer than her husband and any of his siblings have been alive, and Diwa has always been — always was — his favourite.
— Yes. And?
— I’ve sworn I won’t give you the key to the room. But I haven’t sworn I won’t unlock it myself.
When the carpet-seller arrives he will set the captive free. Zarina knows it, her husband knows it, the cook knows it.
— I don’t know, she says.
— I’ll do it. I want to. How can we let him walk out of here after what he’s done?
— Let me think.
— I held her in my arms when she was a baby. I don’t need your permission.
He says it in kindness, lifting from her the burden of this responsibility, ensuring no one’s displeasure will fall on her.
— I want to talk to him, she says.
— You talk. I’ll do the rest.
They are partway down the corridor when the cook’s son runs up the stairs, breathless, to say two people have arrived: a man with a glass eye and an Englishwoman in a burqa who says the begum-sahib asked her about the lorries. How can they know he’s imprisoned here? It’s impossible. But they must be looking for him, and someone will have said he was here during the massacre. The cook has already told her that the neighbours have been asking about the man who went up on the roof when the women and children were there. Get your gun, she commands the cook and goes to find the frock-coat with the bullet hole which will convince Najeeb Gul’s brother and the Pashto-speaking Englishwoman from the Museum that the man they’re looking for is already dead. Let them think the lorries took him away.
And then, they don’t ask about Najeeb Gul. They are here to tell her about the lorries, tell her what she already knows. It’s as if they want her forgiveness for the crimes of their people. How little her grief means to them if they can come here seeking a salve for their own conscience. Where is Diwa? That is the only question in the world. She pushes the frock-coat into the man’s arm and steps out of the room.
The cook is in the study on the other side of the door, a gun in his arms. What do they want, he asks, and before she can answer all the weight of a tall man crashes against the door.
— Najeeb! Where is my brother? Najeeb!
His body is a battering ram against the heavy wood door. The cook holds the rifle in a firing position and tells her to unlock the door and open it.
— No, Zarina says. She hears the glass-eyed man’s sorrow, the agony of it. The echo of her own heart.
— Enough, she says.
In the courtyard, the brothers embrace. They hold each other so close, so uncaring of those who are watching that the cook and his son and Zarina turn their faces away, and then have to look back because joy is something they know they won’t witness again in this household for a very long time.
The Englishwoman says the younger brother’s name, so softly only Zarina, standing beside her, can hear. They are facing each other — the Englishwoman and Najeeb Gul — but his eyes are closed as he grips his brother’s back, his face pressed against the older man’s shoulder. Soon though, he will open his eyes and see the woman studying his face, her hand pressed against her heart.
The Englishwoman pivots on her heel, walks towards the front door. No one but Zarina is watching her. In the doorway she turns, holds up her hand to shoulder height, fingers together, palm facing outwards. Zarina doesn’t know what the gesture means, and yet she finds herself replicating it. The Englishwoman ducks her head in acknowledgement, covers herself in a burqa, and walks out into the street.
27 April 1930
In the whisper of pre-dawn which belonged to neither the brothel nor the mosque, Zarina walked through rows and rows of mounds with pebbled borders, wearing the white of mourning. She already knew her way to the three opulent graves with marble-bordered flower beds at the foot of headstones inscribed with Qur’anic verses. These were the graves of the carpet-seller’s parents and his sister, the girl murdered by her husband who could have been Zarina’s husband too. Beside them, a mound of packed mud carpeted in rose petals. Hundreds, thousands of rose petals which Diwa’s father and brothers had poured onto the mud. So many they had become something other than rose petals — a stilled red river between tombs, the ripped wing of an angel fallen to earth.
Zarina knelt, lifted up handfuls of petals, and moved them to one side. Her trowel bit down into the grave. She kept on for a few minutes, slicing the earth. When the hole was large and deep enough she placed the turban within it, its dried blood Diwa’s only remains. Carefully, she covered it up again, stood, bent towards the rose petals and scooped up a handful of the warm, fleshy licks of red. By this time next year she’d have a child; she was certain it would be a girl. She’d call her Diwa and when the child was old enough she’d bring her here and tell her about the turban and the metal band of figs. And perhaps one day they’d dig them up together and the world would hear the story of Diwa — not an angel sent by Allah to give water to thirsty men but a girl, unafraid, shot down by the English and disposed of by the men who shouted ‘Freedom’.
The breeze stirred the petals and it was as if she were holding a tiny creature in her hands. She threw her arms up in the air, a great expansive gesture, and watched the fledgling take to the sky.
485 BC
Where are the monstrous races he promised? The Shadow-Footed Men who lie down at midday and raise up their broad feet to make a shadow within which they can escape the sun? The Once-Engendering Men with semen as black as their skin? The Mouthless Men who live off the scent of plants? Atossa, widow of Darius, leans over the prow of the ship, looking into the muddy waters of the Indus’ tributary. And the fish-tailed lions, the spiny mermaids, the giant white worms? The ants who dig up gold? Lies, always lies with Scylax.
Along the banks of the river the Pactyike stand with spears in hand, heads bowed as the Persian ships sail past. The water-carrying ship draws up alongside and one of Atossa’s attendants holds out an empty urn into which the priest pours the water of the sacred river Choaspes. A few drops, silver with sun and divinity, fall into the river which shimmers to receive them. The water is calm, the priest’s hand famed for its steadiness. The unsalted water of the Indus is sacred enough for everyone but her, and some of the attendants whisper that it is sweeter than Choaspes, but even so they will all, even the priest, do what they can to have some share of that which is permitted only to the Queen. Everywhere, everywhere betrayal. This is the price of power.