Khvajah Sahib was at a loss for words. Then, after a pause, he said apologetically, “Son, I don’t know how you feel about this. Since the Maulana Sahib’s death, I’ve perhaps begun to assume some rights over you. Or perhaps now in Karamat’s place I—” Khvajah Sahib’s voice became a bit choked up. Before finishing his sentence, he fell silent.
He tried to reassure Khvajah Sahib. “You’ve never been one to lose hope! What kind of talk is this? Now that you’ve waited so long, you should wait a bit longer. Who knows when — and why not? People have been known to come back, even after years. I know one man myself who’s knocked around here and there for years, and has just now come back.”
“Son,” Khvajah Sahib said hopelessly, “the time for coming home has passed. And now what’s the point of anyone’s coming here? Don’t you see what’s happening? Maulana Sahib was lucky to depart in peace.” He paused, thought, then said, “Go, son, I won’t stop you. Maulana Sahib was disturbed. But when you come back, tell me, so I can feel at ease.”
Passing through that narrow street, he hesitated. Ammi was right. He had not imagined then that the fire could spread. And the area where it was burning was not too far from their house. So many houses in the neighborhood had come within the range of the flames and been blackened. The fire brigade had arrived and were standing by. Their long hose passed from the road into a burned-out house which had lost its roof and was filled with black, smoking ruins. Groups of people stood around, staring at the burned-out house and at the firemen with their brass helmets.
Passing by Nazira’s shop, which was closed, he reached the road, which was empty for a long distance. Empty and silent. In the middle of the road a flock of birds had alighted; hearing the sound of footsteps, they were startled and looked at him with surprise, then flew away with a whir of wings. A little way ahead of him a kite, with its wings spread, was strolling down the road. At the tap of footsteps it hesitated, looked at him with round astonished eyes, seized a scrap of carrion in its beak and flew off. Then for a long way the road was absolutely empty. In the silence how loud the tap of his footsteps sounded, and what a burden it became to his ears. Ahead, in the closed bazaar, bricks lay scattered everywhere. Smashed car windows, a half-burned tire. His loud, sharp footsteps. He slowed to a pause. Some hesitation. Something had happened here, and while he was wondering what might have happened he suddenly felt that someone was watching him. He glanced to the right and the left. The shops were all closed. But near them policemen with truncheons were standing, rank upon rank, absolutely silent. Only their eyes moved, following the passersby. But who was passing by? At that time he alone was walking.
Ahead, the road grew more and more frightening. Emerging from the zone of silence, he entered the zone of noise. Somewhere very near, slogans were being shouted and smoke was rising. Is something burning? No, I think somebody just set fire to a tire. But anyway, what do I care? I should think about something else. Now how far is the cemetery from here? Surendar’s letter. I cruel? He’s talking nonsense. But beyond this he couldn’t think of anything more. From a cross-street a flood was pouring in. The next moment he found himself in the midst of the crowd. Tense faces, bloodshot eyes, necks with swollen veins, slogans and abuse on their lips. Who are these people? All the faces were strange to him. After a while, out of the flood of strange faces a familiar form appeared, saw him, and paused.
“Are you part of the procession too?”
“No.”
“Then why are you going with them?”
“I’m not going with them. I’m going to the cemetery. To my father’s grave.”
“They’re going toward the cemetery too.”
“Toward the cemetery! — Why?”
“Near the cemetery, in that red building, there’s a police post. They’re going to raid it.”
“That’s a real problem, what should I do?”
“Do you have to go by this road? Go by some other road. If you turn here on the road to the church, from there you can go through the back lanes and get to the cemetery.”
“Yes, that’s what I can do.”
But he couldn’t do it. There was such a sea of people all around him that he was entirely trapped. He was moving the way a straw is borne along in a flood. He looked helplessly at the faces around him. They seemed to have been stretched out and elongated. Then they began to be flat. Stretched-out necks, flat faces, red mouths, and hairy bodies that seemed to bristle with excitement. He was frightened. What if their necks should stretch and stretch, and their faces flatten and flatten, until their shapes changed entirely,* or even lost all shape? Am I one of them? Will I be raised up along with them? — No! Then should I make an announcement — an announcement in this crowd? Who’ll hear? You can’t even hear if somebody yells in your ear! At least, I mustn’t go with them. Let them go to the cemetery by their road, and I by mine. I must get out of this crowd quickly, for fear that I too — that my neck too might stretch, and my face flatten, and the veins in my neck swell, and my face— Suddenly there was a commotion. Firing had begun: panic, slogans, abuse, a rain of bricks, a hail of bullets. A truck passed swiftly by him, on which stood long-necked flat-faced troops with pistols in their hands, moving toward the red building visible ahead. It seemed strange to him that the troops who stood on the high roof of the building and peered out the windows of the lower stories suddenly also had stretched-out necks and faces growing more and more flattened. They too were armed with pistols. A hail of bullets began. Panic, shrieks and cries, a storm of non-human yells. He, a straw floating in the storm waves.
He didn’t know how much later it was, and how it came about, but when his mind began to clear somewhat he found himself lying by the cemetery gate. I should go inside, so I can hide among the graves and escape this Doomsday-chaos. Staggering and stumbling, he went inside and wandered among the graves. He paused: This is Abba Jan’s grave. He sat down beside the grave, thinking that when he came to himself he would say the Fatihah. He was still unable to catch his breath, and his body was trembling. The sound of firing could be heard. The sound of slogans too, but they were hardly slogans any more. Now they were a torrent of ferocious, inhuman yelling. And why was there this smoke? Startled, he raised his eyes above the buildings before him, where black and brown clouds of smoke were welling up, then coming together in a thick black column and rising into the heights. “Fire,” he muttered, in a shaky, frightened voice. Now the smoke was coming toward the cemetery, and then it seemed that the whole cemetery was full of smoke. Sitting among the graves, he was amidst clouds of smoke. Even more than his breath, his senses were gripped by the smoke. In his imagination the whole city was burning. Their tails were like torches, and swept through the city like a broom, the crackling, blazing city. So much had already burned, so much was burning. So many buildings had already been destroyed, so many were about to collapse. He crawled and crawled, trying to come out from under the rubble. He felt that he was not all in one piece. Am I myself, or the rubble of myself? “What a building sorrow has destroyed!”* Am I in pieces? Everything around me is in pieces. Time too. In the womb of that one time there were so many times. I’m wandering, broken up — through what times?
•
… “The city has already burned, but our tails are still burning. Where shall we put our burning tails?”* “Son, put them in your mouths.” We did. “Our tails have been cooled off under our teeth, between tongue and palate, but why have our faces turned black?” “The end of every fire is soot.”