ELEVEN
“Son, that bunch of keys is still lying around.”
He saw the bunch of keys lying on the table, and felt ashamed. Abba Jan had, in his last moments, confided them to him so carefully! “Ammi, today I’ll put them away for sure.”
“Yes, son, they’re a trust from your forefathers. You should keep them carefully.” As she spoke, Ammi Jan left the room. After all, she had other household tasks to attend to.
A trust from my forefathers, he murmured. “Son, these are the keys of a house to which you no longer have any right.” The keys of that house, and of that land. The keys of Rupnagar. The keys are here with me, and there a whole time is locked up, a time that has passed. But time doesn’t pass! It keeps passing, but it doesn’t pass. It keeps hovering around. And houses never stay empty. When those who lived in them go away, the time lives on in the houses. So many empty old houses in Rupnagar came and occupied his imagination. That house with the jujube-tree, the one in the lane near the mosque, the one that had a big lock on its main gate. There’s no telling who used to live in that house, and when they shut it up and went away. By then it had been locked up for ages, and the padlock had gotten rusty, and inside the ceilings of a number of rooms had fallen in, leaving only the walls still standing. And one afternoon, chasing a kite, he came to its threshhold and saw that inside it was like a forest. The grass was so tall, and a papaya had sprouted and grown until it looked like a small tree. How surely houses that lie empty turn into forest. And how surely time — time too — that lies locked up inside, turns into forest. My memory — my enemy, my friend — leads me into the forest and abandons me there.
The night is enjoyable, will you go or will you stay?
The bed is springy, lover, will you go or will you stay?
The rain kept on coming down. From somewhere, from some house or other, in that rain-filled night, the sound of a drum kept coming—
“Zakir, make me a grave too.”
“Why should I? Make it yourself.”
Sabirah scrapes the moist dirt together and piles it around her white foot, and when she pulls her foot out, the mound, with its hollow, stays in place.
“Zakir! My grave is better than yours.”
“Oh really?”
“Put your foot in and see.”
My foot — in the grave molded by Sabirah’s soft white foot. How soft, how cool—
•
“Zakir, son! Have you heard? The son of the woman who runs the bakery has been shot.”
“Shot — how?” Startled, he looked at Ammi, who had come, badly upset, into his room.
“Why, Doomsday has come to the neighborhood! The poor woman had only the one son.”
“Who shot him?”
“Who? As though it were some one person we could name! The neighbors say that on Mall Road there’s a hail of bullets. Are, people are crazy for blood — they’re going mad! Just tell me, what did the bakery-woman’s son ever do to them?”
A hail of bullets, he muttered. Outside there was a hail of bullets, and inside he was wandering in the forests. One forest, then another forest, and then another forest. He went on advancing, and the forests kept on getting denser. What forest is this that I’m in? How dense, how deep. And this town—
“Oh Zakir, have you heard, they’ve been setting fires!” Ammi said in a terrified voice, the moment she entered the room.
“Fires?” Coming back from the forests, he looked at her. “Where have they set fires?”
“You know the house with the horses, where those wretches have their office? What party is it? It’s been driven right out of my head. I can’t remember the names of those parties and such at all!”
“It’s all right. There’s no need at all to remember their names.”
“The neighborhood women have been driving me crazy. They say, Let’s go out and see what’s happening.”
“Ammi, nothing is happening outside, please just sit down and stay calm.”
“Son, that’s just what I’ve come to say to you. Let anything happen outside, what’s it to us? I won’t let you go out today,” Ammi said, and at once left the room.
That’s just fine, let anything happen outside, he muttered. Nothing is happening outside. Everything is happening inside me. Everything that has already happened.
•
What’s happening is that the lock on the Great Gate has opened. The Small Bazaar is silent and desolate. The sound of footsteps only comes when a funeral procession sets out from one of the houses. After that, more silence, which grows even deeper. Will Rupnagar become entirely devoid of people?
“Nasir Ali, my son! You sent back the bullock-cart that had come from Danpur, and you did well. But do you know how many houses have been emptied since this morning, and how many funeral processions have set out?”
And when the house with the tamarind tree burned down, and all the water-carriers of Rupnagar came with their leather water-skins. But the water acted like kerosene, for after the water streamed onto the fire, the leaping flames grew even fiercer.
Hakim Bande Ali looked angrily at the whisperers. “But I ask you, what reason would some outsider have to come and start the fire?”
“Then who started it?”
“People! Don’t force me to speak. Quarrels over property have shattered this family.”
“Zakir, I’m afraid, let’s get out of here.”
“Sabbo, don’t be a coward, we’ll go in a minute.”
“I’m afraid, let’s get out of here.”
An explosion! The roof-beams were burning the way a forest burns.
•
“The fire engine has come.”
“The fire engine?” he asked, somewhat startled, as he returned from the forests.
“Why, if it had come a little later, the flames would have spread to the neighboring houses as well. And our house isn’t exactly detached, either!” As she spoke, she turned on her heel and went back, as though she had only come to tell him this news. But then she thought of something and stopped. “Zakir, shall I make you some tea?”
“Tea!” He looked at her, startled. “No, Ammi.” And at the same time he stood up.
Ammi looked at him suspiciously. “Ai hai, the moment I come you get up!”
“I’m going now.”
“What did you say?” Ammi almost screamed. “You’ve lost your mind! Is today any day to go out?”
“Ammi! Khvajah Sahib insisted very strongly. Abba Jan’s grave has subsided. I’m going to the cemetery to see to it.”
Ammi, hearing this, wavered, but then she said, “Son, you could do it tomorrow instead.”
“Tomorrow! Ammi, you have a lot of faith in tomorrow.” He looked hard at his mother. “Tomorrow might be even worse than today.”
Ammi was completely crushed. She couldn’t even think of an answer. And he quickly put his shoes on, combed his hair, and went out.
At the door he encountered Khvajah Sahib. “I was just coming to see you. Where are you going?”
“I’m doing as you told me yesterday. I’m going to the cemetery.”
“But,” Khvajah Sahib said uncertainly, “How will you go? There’s a lot of disturbance over that way.”
“No, I’ll get there.”
Khvajah Sahib paused, then said, “If you’ll take my advice, don’t go today. Go tomorrow.”
“Very good! I thought Ammi was the only devout optimist. Khvajah Sahib, you too believe that tomorrow will be better!”