“Because I have to go home, and the siren’s about to sound.”
Then I reflected that it would be useless to waste more time searching for transport. At that hour everyone was looking out for himself. It would be better to set out on foot, and perhaps on the way I’d find some scooter-cab going in that direction, or some kind person in a car would generously give me a lift.
In the twilight, the shutters of the shops were all hastily banging closed. The shopkeepers hurried to fasten the locks, and instantly disappeared, some in cars, some on motorbikes, some on foot. Day and night, no longer owing anything to the favors of electric light, were merging together. Darkness was slowly spreading through the streets and lanes. Somehow the thought occurred to me that in the past, every evening used to come like this. The lampless time of the forest, when hunters, after hunting all day, tried to reach their caves with their prey before evening fell. Then the time when a few towns were settled and lamps began to glow, when the townspeople, after working all through the daylight, headed homeward with long strides as twilight fell, hoping to arrive before the lamps were lit. Then the time when big cities were settled, and walls built around the cities, when caravans endured the hardships of traveling day after day on hot, desolate routes under the fiery sun, and tried to enter the city before nightfall. The caravan that moved too slowly found the gates of the city closed, and spent the whole dark night in the shelter of the walls, unprotected.
The war threw the life of the city into confusion. Inside me, times and places are topsy-turvy. Sometimes I have absolutely no idea where I am, in what place. The day declines, evening is coming, the forest paths are growing silent. I’m heading, with long strides, toward my cave.
DECEMBER 10
In the College, classes and such are not being held; so I put in a brief appearance and then come to sit in the Shiraz. Then Irfan comes. Sometimes Afzal too inflicts himself on us. Salamat and Ajmal are nowhere to be seen, but I’ve heard that after being revolutionaries they’ve now become ardent patriots, and go around collecting gifts for the soldiers. That’s more than we’re doing.
What was I good for when it came to love?*
We sit in the Shiraz and talk. Our talk too is desultory and goes nowhere. Today I said to Irfan, “Yar! I don’t get any benefit out of your newspaper work.”
“What benefit do you want?”
“Yar, you have a curfew pass, there’s the newspaper car, can’t you show me the city in the blackout?”
“I can show you. But it takes courage to see a flourishing city reduced to a desolate condition.”
“I’ve seen so many curfews in this city! By now, surely I’ve acquired the courage.”
“The experience of seeing the city under curfew is one thing. This is an absolutely different experience.”
Afzal interrupted: “Irfan is right. Don’t look. You’ll be scared.”
“Have you seen it, or are you speaking without having seen it?”
“Fellow! When I talk about it, I’ve seen it.” He paused, then spoke as a frightened man speaks. “Two nights ago when Irfan sent me home in his office car, we passed through dark silent streets, and I looked at the houses to the right and left with terror. Every house was silent and still, as though there were no one inside. It seemed to me that these weren’t people’s homes, but mouse-holes. The mice sat fearful and shrinking. I was frightened.”
Afzal has gone me one better. To me, when I go out alone at night into the lane for a look around, the houses in my neighborhood seem like voiceless, noiseless caves, enveloped in darkness.
DECEMBER 11
I’m sitting in a cave. Outside stands the black night, with its jaws opened wide. Siren, whistles, the sound of dogs barking — but human voices absent. As though there had been an Emigration, and people had gone somewhere else. The city held captive in the spell of war. From time to time all the neighborhood dogs bark so furiously that they seem to be entering my cave. Then they fall silent, but the sound of barking continues in the distance. At night, when you’re traveling through the forest, that’s how it is. From unseen, unknown towns, the barking of dogs comes, and keeps coming. It becomes a kind of encirclement, as though the traveler were moving within an enclosure of barking dogs. As though the dogs had surrounded the whole terrestrial sphere. I’m encircled by fear. Deep in the forest, far from my cave. Times and places are scrambled inside me. Where am I going? In what time? In what place? Every direction confused, every place disordered.
… Emerging from the forest, I entered a town. But what kind of a town? Not a trace of any son of Adam. Empty streets, desolate lanes, the shops closed, the mansions locked up. My dear friends! For a long time I wandered around in amazement. Finally when I saw a mansion with big gates, I felt some hope that perhaps there might be people in it. I knocked and cried out, “Is anyone there?” No answer. I knocked again with force, and loudly cried out, “Is anyone there?” I heard nothing but the echo of my own voice. Terror overcame me. I said to myself that I should leave the town, for fear that some calamity would overtake me. As I was thinking this, I saw a lake. Its water was partly clear, partly muddy. In the midst of the lake, an elephant and a tortoise were fighting with each other, but neither of them won, and neither of them was defeated.
I was standing there in astonishment, watching the fight, when a faqir appeared. He approached the lake. Pausing, he cast a sad glance at the elephant and tortoise, and sighed. Then he said, “If only they were devoid of knowledge, and their words were without power!”
These words of the faqir’s surprised me. I came and stood before him with my hands folded and petitioned, “Oh venerable sir, what have you known, and what have you seen, that you have brought such words to your lips?” He replied, “Oh dear son, three things debase a man: a woman when she is not faithful, a brother when he asks for more than his right, knowledge when it comes without hard labor. And three things deprive the earth of peace: an ignoble man when he rises to high rank, a learned man when he begins to worship gold, a master when he becomes cruel.”
When I had heard these words, I stared at the venerable man’s face, and began to try to unravel the knot of his words with the fingernails of comprehension. When I failed to unravel it, I petitioned, “Oh venerable man, explain the point of these abstractions.”
Then he asked me, “Dear son, in what state have you seen this town?” I said, “Venerable sir, I have seen this town uninhabited.”
Then the faqir spoke as follows: “Dear son, the story of this town is that its chief was a man of pure heart and virtuous character. In addition to worldly wealth, he was also rich in the wealth of the spirit. When his life was drawing to a close, he sent for his sons, who were two in number, and embraced each of them. This relieved his soul. He said, ‘Sons! I have divided my knowledge equally between you both, and, oh my sons! after I am gone divide the rest of my property between you in the same way, for I fear the day might come when you would seek for more than your right, and would bring down disaster on the Lord’s creatures.’
“With these words, the virtuous man drew his last breath, and left this death-bound world, and set out for the world of life everlasting. Both sons mourned him very much, but when they sat down to divide the property, they forgot their father’s injunction and began to demand more than their right. From this a quarrel resulted. In the course of their quarrel, they used the power of the knowledge bequeathed by their father, to curse each other. The elder looked at the younger with angry eyes, and said in the tone of a curse, ‘You are a tortoise.’ The younger looked with hatred at the elder and said in the tone of a curse, ‘You are a rutting elephant.’ So after that the younger became a tortoise, and the older took on the form of a rutting elephant. Ever since then they have both been mad with rage, and have been fighting.”