•
He glanced out the window, where after so many nights the rally-ground was now empty and silent. Well, maybe it was for the best. A procession one day, a procession the next day. With a sigh of satisfaction he leaned back against the cushion. Tonight he’d be able to sleep in peace. He tried one position, then a second, then a third. Sleep was miles away from his eyes tonight. Controlling his desire to toss and turn, he lay silently with his eyes closed for a long time, as though any moment he might go off to sleep. But his mind went on talking, telling stories from different times and places, some new ones and some ages old. Today I somehow managed to finish the Mughal period. Teaching history is a bore. And studying history? The boys ask absurd questions. And the mind? A boy stood up: “Sir?”
“Yes, what is it?”
“Sir! Among the Mughals, were all the brothers stepbrothers?”
“Sit down. Out of this whole history, is that the only question you’ve found to ask?”
I scolded him and made him sit down. A meaningless question. It’s meaningless to distinguish full brothers from stepbrothers. Cain and Abel weren’t stepbrothers. In history, and before history. Myths, tales, fables, stories of brothers. Those who while their father was alive — those who after their father’s death — it’s time to go to sleep. After all, in the morning I have to go to the College. Again the same wretched history. How boring it is teaching history to boys. And studying history? Other people’s history can be read comfortably, the way a novel can be read comfortably. But my own history? I’m on the run from my own history, and catching my breath in the present. Escapist. But the merciless present pushes us back again toward our history. The mind keeps talking. Are you looking at my hair? I’m looking, it’s all white. Irfan answered that poor man’s straightforward question in such a bitter tone. I want to tell you how it became white — when I reached Pakistan my hair was white and I was alone. His first day in Pakistan. The white-haired man swam before Zakir’s eyes. And my own first day. My first day in Pakistan—
FOUR
He washed, and looked in the mirror, and he realized that his hair, which when he left home had been entirely black, was now entirely white. It was his first day in this land. And my own first day? Days from the past crowded into his imagination. But I’m looking for my first day in this land. Pushing and shoving, he forced his way through the encircling crowd of days and went on. Where’s my first day? As he steadily forced his way through the crowd, a day in the form of a dim, misty memory came and stood before him.
•
Anarkali Bazaar partly closed, partly open. A few shops here and there open, the rest shut up and locked. The bazaar crowded, but no one buying. He went out and came to a big road. Mall Road, horse-carts, bicycles, an occasional car, a few buses passing from time to time. A tall man, stout and broadly built, with a crested turban on his head and very wide trousers, passed by him, taking long strides. He watched him with wonder. Then he saw so many men of the same stature and build, with the same outfits on, walking nearby. These shapes were new to him. Everything around was new to him. As he went on, it seemed to him that he was walking on a new earth. He was enjoying this new earth very much. From one street to another, from the second to a third, he lost track of time as he walked on, but he never felt the least bit tired. It had been so long since he had walked around freely, without the fear that at any moment someone passing by would slip a knife into his ribs.
“My dear boy! Where were you all day?”
“Hakim-ji, I was looking at Pakistan.”
“Now that there’s no longer anything else to look at, we have to look at Pakistan! What’s the hurry? You could at least have come in the afternoon and had your lunch.”
Then Hakim-ji again immersed himself in conversation with Abba Jan. Zakir ate his dinner, and went and lay down in the room where he was to sleep. He examined the room. What a clean, neat, and open room it was, and how filled with light! There was a light fixture in each of its four corners. It occurred to him to wonder who might have lived here before. That thought reminded him of his own room, a small room with discolored walls, a cot, a table full of books, and among the books a lamp that shed a dim light by which he studied far into the night. My room must be empty tonight. As he lay in the large, well-lit room, he poignantly remembered the shabby room he had left behind. The sleep that had come into his eyes vanished. He tossed and turned for a long time. Hearing the sound of Abba Jan coughing, he stopped in the midst of his tossing and turning. Oh, so Abba Jan has had enough of the Hakim Sahib’s company, and has come to bed — but when did he come? He hadn’t been at all aware of Abba Jan’s coming. Anyway, he lay for a long time without moving, as though he were asleep, but sleep didn’t come. The image of his own room was fixed in his brain. Then he covered his face with the sheet and wept.
“Zakir, are you awake?”
“Yes.” He tried to keep his mood from showing in his voice.
Then he lay for a long time without moving, as though he were asleep. He couldn’t tell how long he’d been lying like that. Finally he turned over. In a little while he shifted his position again. Then he got up, had a drink of water, and lay down again.
“Zakir!”
“Abba Jan?” He had thought Abba Jan was asleep, but he was awake.
“What’s the matter, can’t you sleep? You were awake all last night. Go to sleep.”
“I can’t get to sleep.”
“Yes, it’s a new place, and the first night,” Abba Jan said hesitantly. He fell silent, then said, “It’s happened to me like this before too, that I went to some new place and the first night I couldn’t sleep at all.”
Zakir covered his face with the sheet; his eyes had again filled with tears.
That night with its sleeplessness glowed more and more brightly in his imagination. That day, with its night, was within his grasp. So that was my first day in this land. The whole day I walked on a fresh earth under a fresh sky, suffused with happiness. Then night came, and my sleepless eyes were wet with tears.
That day seemed very pure to him, with its night, with the tears of its night. I had forgotten that day. He was surprised — such a luminous day! After that, the days gradually grew soiled and dirty. Perhaps it’s always like this. The days go on passing, and the purity of the first day is gradually lost as the days revolve. How quickly the purity of our days was lost, how quickly the coolness fled from our nights! But still that one day, my first day in this land, should always shine in my memory. But with this thought some neighboring days were illumined too, and gathered around that one day. A constellation of illumined days came together. When Pakistan was still all new, when the sky of Pakistan was fresh like the sky of Rupnagar, and the earth was not yet soiled. In those days how the caravans arrived from their long long journeys! Every day caravans entered the city and dispersed among the streets and neighborhoods. Wherever people could find a place to lay their heads, they flopped down. Whoever got hold of a spacious house found himself giving shelter, at first by free choice and then out of compassion, to new arrivals, until the spacious house began to seem narrow. The refugees told whole long epics about how much suffering they had endured on the journey, and how many difficulties they had overcome in order to reach the city. They told about those whom they had left behind. Then the refuge-givers and the refugees together remembered those who had clung to the earth, refusing to leave their homes and their ancestors’ graves. They told about those who had set out with them but had become separated on the road, and about those whom they had left on unknown roads, unshrouded and unburied. They all shared their grief, remembering those left behind. Their hearts overflowed, and their eyes filled with tears. Then they dried their eyes and began to think about the future here, and how they would manage.