“Then?”
“The ignorant woman refused to give evidence,” he said in a grief-stricken voice. Then he said sadly, “Our fathers are cruel and our mothers are ignorant.” Even as he spoke, he began to weep.
When Ajmal saw Salamat weeping, tears began to fall from his own eyes as well.
“Fellow, why are you weeping?”
“Yar! My mother is even more ignorant than Salamat’s mother. When I asked her, first she slapped me, then she began to tear her hair and scream.”
Afzal stared at Ajmal, then at the weeping Salamat, and his eyes grew red with anger. “You’re both disgusting people!”
Ajmal looked toward Salamat. Salamat announced, “Afzal speaks the truth, we’re disgusting people.”
“I refuse to take you under my protection. Disgusting people! Get out of here. This is a virtuous person’s house.”
Salamat stood up. Ajmal put the bottle in the bag, and followed Salamat out of the house.
“Zakir! You’re a good person, forgive me.”
“Yar, what kind of talk is this?”
“No, forgive me.”
“For what?” He looked at Afzal with concern.
“I tried to give two evil spirits power over a virtuous person. I committed a sin. Ai good person! Forgive me, I’m a sinner.” As he spoke, his voice choked, and tears began to well up in his eyes. “We’re sinners, and we’re in torment.”
THREE
Today he found Mall Road peaceful, and he was melancholy. What a terrifying scene it had offered yesterday! Cars with their windows smashed, and a half-burned double-decker that lay all day in the middle of the road, had proclaimed the devastation that had happened here. After the brick-hurling, slogan-shouting procession, the nervous pedestrians, the closing shops with their rapidly falling shutters, there had been only the occasional timid bus or scooter-cab, picking its way through scattered bricks and glass. Now there was peace, and the road was clean from one end to the other. No scattered bricks, no fragments of glass. The flow of traffic moved evenly. Cars traveling at their ease, a second after the first, a third after the second. None of their windows seemed to be broken. He was amazed: yesterday it seemed that all the cars in the city had had their windows broken, but now all the cars in the city were in fine condition. And the double-decker that as late as yesterday evening had been lying half-burned in the middle of the road — where had it gone? Yes, the overturned car near the petrol pump was still lying there on its back. But now the pedestrians’ eyes showed no anxiety or astonishment, as though the car had been overturned in some other age and by now, with the passage of time, had lost its power to surprise.
Passing by the Metro Wines shop, he looked carefully at the broken glass both inside and outside. The shattered panes were testifying to all that had happened here yesterday. Today nothing had happened, but still something had come over Mall Road. However strange yesterday’s tumult had seemed, today’s silence seemed even stranger. It also seemed strange that on the College verandahs all the potted plants that yesterday had been overturned were now nicely arranged. Order and organization had returned to the College. The classes were being held in the proper way. Outside, in the grounds, groups of students were walking around. Overnight, how peaceful the students had become. As late as yesterday, what a state they were in! At every little thing their faces would redden, the veins of their necks would stand out, they would put their throats to the fullest use. Insults, slogans. And the slogans were extraordinarily powerful, for in a single moment such a large procession would spring forth that the college compound was too narrow for it and it spilled over outside. And now? Now it was so peaceful that no one even raised his voice. People were talking, but in whispers.
“Yar! My brother came by the night flight.”
“Really?”
“He left after the action started?”
“It started just at that moment. He said it was difficult to get from the Intercontinental to the airport. Nothing but tanks on the streets. He says that as they were going toward the plane there was a roar as though a cannon had been fired, and then there were constant gunshots, as if a war had begun. And when the plane took off and he looked out, far into the distance there was nothing but clouds of smoke.”
“Really?”
“But what will happen?”
“Whatever may happen, the damned Bengalis have had the wind taken out of their sails!”
“Bastards!” someone muttered to himself. “This will straighten them out!”
Joy, disgust, hatred, rage — every emotion was expressed in whispers. He began to feel suffocated. He wanted to escape from this stifling atmosphere.
“The Mulla goes only* as far as the mosque.” He went of course to the Shiraz, but there too the atmosphere was stifling. No noise, no confusion, no bursts of laughter, no loud voices. Only the expressions on people’s faces showed that some serious matter was being discussed.
“Yar, yesterday there was so much turmoil here — and today—”
“Yes! And today,” Irfan muttered to himself, and began drinking his tea.
“Yar, yesterday I was really afraid. It seemed that toda—” He himself didn’t know what he wanted to say.
“So it was for the best,” Irfan said ironically.
“In one respect, it was for the best.”
“We say this every time, but later we find out that it wasn’t for the best.”
“Yar, I don’t understand any of this.”
“I don’t understand any of it either, but it seems to me that something’s happened.”
“What has happened?
“It isn’t clear. But what’s the good of clarity? What I feel obscurely is everything.”
What was it that Irfan felt obscurely? What was the fear creeping through him? Zakir didn’t understand any of it. Then he changed the subject.
“Yar, where are Salamat and Ajmal today?”
“Today they’re in their holes. They come out of their holes when it’s the right weather for coming out of holes. Today the weather has changed.”
“Look, that crackpot has come,” Irfan said, seeing the door opening.
“What crackpot?”
“Yar, that white-haired man,” he whispered, as the white-haired man entered and came straight toward them.
“May I sit down? I’ll only take a few minutes.”
“Of course, of course.” As he spoke he glanced at Irfan, whose expression showed that he didn’t care for this interruption.
“What’s your opinion, was it for the best, or not?”
“What’s your opinion? It was very much for the best!” Irfan said bitterly.
“I don’t know whether it was for the best or not, I only know that if Pakistan can be saved this way—”
“Which way, this way?” Irfan grew angry.
The white-haired man regarded Irfan, then said calmly, “You’re looking at my hair?”
“I’m looking at your hair, it’s all white. Do you want to base some appeal on it?”
“No.”
“Then?”
“I want to tell you how my hair became white.”
“What difference will it make if you tell us?”
“A big difference.” He paused, then said, “When I set out from my home, my hair was all black. And I wasn’t any age at all, I was only twenty or twenty-one. When I reached Pakistan and washed myself and looked in the mirror, my hair had turned entirely white. That was my first day in Pakistan. I left my home with black hair and my family, when I reached Pakistan my hair was white and I was alone.” He fell silent and went away, without waiting to see the effect of his words, as though he had said what he had to say. Now he sat down calmly in his corner, and gave Abdul an order for tea.