“Well, man, so you’re back? You said you’d spend a week there, and now you’ve stayed such a time!”
In response to Surendar’s remark he at first made some evasive reply, but how long could he keep the secret hidden?
“What did you do then?”
“What did I do? What could I have done? Nothing.”
“Liar.”
“It’s the truth, beyond that nothing more happened.”
“You’re really an oaf!” Surendar reproached him, and then fell silent.
Then he spoke as if to himself: “Yar, her hands were very soft.”
Surendar’s disgust vanished. “Really?”
“Yes.” He fell silent, immersed in thought, then very slowly said, “And her lips too.”
“Lips?” Surendar’s eyes opened wide with astonishment.
Then he went on confiding. What he hadn’t been able to tell there, he told when they were both back at the College, sitting comfortably together. When he had finished telling everything, he told everything again, and then told everything once more. Every time, he told it as if he were telling it for the first time.
“All right, now when are you going?”
“In the Christmas vacation.”
“That’s still far off.”
“Yes, yar! It’s still far off.”
“Write her a letter or something.”
“A letter, yes, I ought to write a letter.” And a letter-writing madness seized him, for days and weeks. Every day he sat down with pen and paper, wrote something, then tore it up.
“Yar, what should I write?”
“What you ought to write.”
“But yar! If someone else should read the letter, what then?”
“Then?” Surendar fell into thought. “She asked you for novels, didn’t she? All right, write that you don’t remember the names of the novels.”
“Just the thing.”
Then finally the Christmas vacation came, and he groped around in the library cupboards for novels by Rashid ul-Khairi and Sharar, and had them entered on his card.
“Yar, you’re not going to Rupnagar?”
“Why shouldn’t I go? I’m going. Tomorrow, as soon as the College closes, I’ll leave.”
Surendar paused, then said, “Yar, don’t go.”
“Why?”
“Yar, it’s a long trip, and there are reports of trouble in the trains.”
He fell into thought. “Yar, there’s trouble here too.”
“Yes, there’s some trouble here too. Something can happen at any moment.”
“Then?”
Surendar thought, then said, “We’ll go to Vyaspur, both of us together.”
The trip to Vyaspur had become an immensely long journey. Any traveler who moved around too much was now an object of suspicion. The platform at Vyaspur was so silent. And when they came out, they were dumbfounded: “Yar, there aren’t any horse-carts here at all!”
“Then we’ll go on foot. After all, everyone else is going on foot.”
For a little while, the travelers who had gotten down from the train could be seen walking along ahead and behind. Then suddenly they realized that the street was empty. For a long way, the street was empty. The Jagat Talkies movie house, which was the noisiest place on the street, was closed and absolutely silent. The billboard-like affair on its front, which had been there for ages with the face of Kanan Bala smiling down from it, had fallen into the middle of the street. Kanan’s face had been torn in half, and bricks lay scattered all around in the street.
“Yar, we made a mistake,” Surendar said slowly. “We shouldn’t have come.”
Then they walked on in silence. The evening was deepening, and for a long way there was no one. Only bricks and more bricks. He looked with fear and wonder at the scattered bricks — imagine there being so many bricks in Vyaspur!
Walking on, they came to Meerut Gate. On the road straight ahead was Khirki Bazaar, which was shut and lightless. This was the road that came out in the Hindu neighborhoods. Nearby was a lane that went to the Muslim neighborhoods. At this fork both hesitated, looked at each other in silence, and set out on their different roads—
•
“Zakir, my son! Did you hear it? They’re shooting outside.”
“Ammi Jan?” Coming back with difficulty from the thicket, he looked at Ammi Jan. She seemed about to faint; her voice was full of panic.
He rose and went to the window. He opened one shutter, and took a look outside. The rally-ground was in chaos. The tent-canopy had fallen to the ground; some of the canvas walls were still standing, while others were askew. Smoke was rising from one corner of the canopy. The crowd was in turmoiclass="underline" some people were running away, others were fighting. He closed the window and came back. He muttered, “Nonsense.”
“Ai hai, I leaped up from my sleep. It’s like Doomsday! Then there was the sound of a shot. My heart began to pound. It’s still pounding. I called out to your father: ‘Well,’ I said, ‘Are you asleep, or awake?’ He muttered, ‘Do these wretches let anyone sleep?’ I said, ‘I thought I heard a gunshot.’ He began muttering, ‘From now on it’ll be this kind of thing.’ I said, ‘Whatever happens, you just mutter about it! Shall I go tell Zakir?’”
“Somebody must have fired. It’s nothing, really. This kind of thing happens in rallies nowadays.”
“Ai, my son! If bullets start flying like this, then what will happen?”
“Nothing will happen. You go back to sleep, and don’t worry.”
“You won’t believe it, I’m all shaken up inside.”
“Ammi, it’s nothing, please go to sleep.”
Sending Ammi off somehow, he once more opened the window and took a look outside. The crowd had dispersed, the rally-ground with its collapsed canopy lay empty, and all the lights were burning just as before. Where smoke had been rising from one corner of the canopy, the smoke was now only a thin thread.
In the lights, he watched the ruined, desolate, abandoned rally-ground for a long time. He had come back after a long journey, and was now breathing the air of his own time.
TWO
The rain poured down all night inside him. The dense clouds of memory seemed to come from every direction. Now the sky was washed and soft. Here and there a cloud swam contentedly in it, like a bright face, a soft smile. How deeply self-absorbed he was! For him, the outer world had already lost its meaning. Seated at the breakfast table, he ran an indifferent eye over the headlines and slid the newspaper toward Abba Jan.
Abba Jan had already eaten breakfast, and was absorbed in the Urdu newspaper. When Zakir sat down at the table, Abba Jan looked at him with surprise. “Zakir, don’t you have to go to the College today?”
“Yes I do. But I woke up late.”
“Then eat your breakfast quickly and go.” With these words, Abba Jan again turned to his newspaper.
He had certainly woken up late today, but he still wasn’t in any hurry. He had washed and dressed at a leisurely pace, now he was eating breakfast at a leisurely pace.
Ammi came and felt the teapot: “Hasn’t it gotten cold?”
“No, it’s not so cold yet, it’ll do,” he said, testing the pot with his palm and cupped fingers to make sure.
“Son, from now on please have your breakfast early! After all, I’m by myself. I have to do all the housework alone.” Then at once she addressed Abba Jan: “Well, what have they written about Dacca?”
“There’s no special news.”
Turning away from Abba Jan, she slid over to Zakir the English newspaper lying nearby: “Son, look in the English newspaper! There must be something in it?”
He again glanced over the newspaper and said indifferently, “No news worth mentioning.”