A horse-cart was standing outside. In his imagination he saw a lorry and a train, those unknown vehicles in which he was to travel for the first time in his life. He was as happy as Ammi was sad. The desire to travel and see new towns had suddenly awakened in him. At some point Sabirah appeared and stood at a distance, watching the bedrolls being strapped up and the trunks being locked. She stood staring, then suddenly buried her head in Khalah Jan’s skirts and began to sob. Khalah Jan stroked her head and said, “What’s there to cry about? They’ll soon be coming back.” As she said this, tears came to her own eyes as well. Ammi, locking a trunk, said, “Sabirah!” She paused, then said, “Sweetheart, when I get there I’ll send for you soon. I’ll send for you and keep you there with me.” Abba Jan, strapping up a bedroll, cast a single glance at the weeping Sabirah, and then immersed himself in his work.
He stood watching. All his happiness had vanished. Gathering his courage, he slowly approached her. “Sabbo.”
Sabirah turned her wet face (from crying so hard her whole face was soaked in tears) and gave him one look, then instantly hid her face again in Khalah Jan’s skirts and began sobbing even more passionately than before—
•
“Zakir, my son! What’s going on?” Abba Jan again came into his room.
“It’s nothing.” He spoke as though he’d been caught in a theft. And at once he opened a book and placed it before him, as if to suggest that he was really studying.
“Something’s happened. There’s so much noise, and I think I heard a gun fired. There was a kind of sound.”
Zakir rose and opened the window, and looked out at the rally-ground. Some people had stood up and were shouting slogans. Some young men who looked like volunteers were trying to make some of the standing people sit down, and to push some others out of the gathering. Among the crowd two groups had begun to form. Then there was a loud bang. He disgustedly closed the window; turning back, he informed Abba Jan, “It wasn’t shooting, they’re setting off firecrackers.”
“Why, what are they celebrating?”
“Just to create confusion in the rally.”
“What’s come over everybody?”
“Abba Jan, don’t worry. This is the usual thing in rallies nowadays. Go to sleep now.”
“Son, you know that when my sleep is once driven away, it hardly ever comes back again.” He fell silent, then muttered, “What’s come over everybody?” Muttering, he left the room.
Zakir rose and again opened the window slightly and took a look outside. The standing people had sat down, but there was still a great deal of noise. He closed the window, put out the light, and went and lay down on the bed.
“What’s come over everybody?” Abba Jan’s question echoed in his mind. In fact, what had come over people, he wondered earnestly. In houses, in offices, in restaurants, in streets and bazaars — everywhere the same situation. The discussion was first ideological, then personal, then insulting, then abusive, and then it came to blows. Passersby stood bewildered, stared at the combatants with fright, then asked each other, “What’s happening? What’s going to happen?” In everyone’s eyes a single terror, as if something was indeed about to happen. Then they went their several ways, and forgot that anything had happened at all. As though nothing had happened, as though nothing would happen. So much anxiety, and so much indifference! Suddenly some rumor would spread, the way a hurricane overpowers people. On people’s faces, waves of fear and panic. Again that anxious question, “What’s going to happen?” Then going their several ways, and forgetting. As though nothing had happened, as though nothing would happen. But is something indeed going to happen? What’s going to happen? When he could see nothing ahead of him, he set off backwards. Again the same long journey through the thicket of memories. When I was in Rupnagar — the remote, mythic era of my life. And when I came to Vyaspur — Vyaspur—
•
“Is that a dead body burning?”
“Sure, this is a burning-ground. And listen, that dead body there, it’s alive!”
“Go on, you silly girl, you’re a liar!”
“I swear by Ram! It’s alive. It rose and stood up. Oh Ram! Oh Ma, I nearly died!”
“All right, and then?”
“Then it lay down, and I got up and ran off!”
“Liar.”
He wasn’t ready to have faith in any such thing that Phullo told him. He wasn’t at all a child any more! After Bi Amma’s passing, and the departure from Rupnagar, it was as though he had all at once grown up, as though his childhood had been left behind in Rupnagar. So many things had been left behind in Rupnagar! The dirt tracks that led who knew where, that only seemed to get lost in the trees. The swaying, jolting horse-carts, the drowsing, plodding bullock-carts, some of which were drawn by strong bullocks with jingling bells on their yokes, bells that filled the dust-covered road with a sweet sound. The Black Temple, the big monkey-filled pipal tree that stood in the Black Temple grounds, the desolate and sad wall of Karbala, the Fort on the hillock, the Ravan Wood, the mysterious banyan tree that stood in the midst of the Ravan Wood — a whole mythic era had stayed behind with Rupnagar. Here, although the burning-ground was nearby and dense pipal trees stood in the burning-ground, he never felt a mysterious atmosphere around any of the trees, even though Phullo had seen so much there.
“I tell you, a witch grabbed me!”
“Oh go on, don’t talk nonsense.”
“I swear by Ram! It was right at noon. That tree you can see over there — under it was a cup, in the cup a figure made of lime, and red vermilion powder, and a little sugar. And under the banyan, a birbani with fangs sticking out of her mouth snapped at me just the way a kite would snap!”
“Don’t babble, go and do your work.”
In Vyaspur he was seeing something quite different. Rubber-tired horse-carts ran along the smooth roads, with an occasional buggy, an occasional motor-car, among them. And beyond those roads, beyond the bazaars and neighborhoods, that dark, smooth, oiled-looking coal-tar road, on which the lorries ran all day. These vehicles made strange noises. Where were the sounds that had lived in the air of Rupnagar? Now his ear was becoming familiar with new sounds. The bells of the buggies and horse-carts, the horns of the lorries, the horns of the motorcars, and, strangest of all, the train whistle, which had brought him far away from Rupnagar and now was taking him beyond Vyaspur. Toward unknown, unseen cities. When he heard the train whistle in the distance, he raced up to the roof of the house; from there the train tracks on the far side of the burning-ground were clearly visible. The train came along, blowing its whistle from afar and belching out smoke. First it ran along in the shade of the trees, so only its smoke could be seen in the air, then suddenly from the shelter of the trees the coal-black rushing engine came into view, spitting into the face of the sky clouds of smoke even blacker than itself, and behind it countless cars full of travelers. How swiftly these cars went on passing — in the space of a breath they were lost to sight. He was amazed. Then when he remembered Abba Jan’s telling him that this train was coming from Moradabad, and from Vyaspur was going on to Delhi, he was even more amazed.
Since coming here he had stayed in Khan Bahadur Uncle’s house, which was somewhat outside the city, set among fields and gardens, so that if you stood on its roof then right in front of you was the burning-ground, beyond the burning-ground the railroad tracks, beyond the railroad tracks rows of trees on the horizon. Then when he went to the bazaar, he marveled at every shop. Compared to Rupnagar’s Small Bazaar, how big the Khirki Bazaar was! In one shop, nothing but bicycles and more bicycles. How could he ever before have seen so many bicycles! Beyond the shops for bicycles, shoes, and cloth was that huge market with tall heaps of wheat and cotton here and there, and near them a whole procession of wild pigeons. There were shops with no merchandise in them, only a clean white sheet spread on the floor, on the sheet a long bolster, and seated against the bolster a trader, with a telephone before him. Suddenly there would be a commotion, and every trader, every dealer would swiftly rotate the crank and then talk very loudly into the phone. He was astonished. Gradually he learned that the commotion happened when the price of some commodity changed.