It was getting dark. I cycled back to the camp with the Qur’an in the front carrier. In my kit there were apples and a trout wrapped in a paper. Nearing the camp I noticed something I had seen several times before but had never thought to be important. Not far from the bridge the road rises sharply, and from an elevated spot, while pedaling breathlessly, I saw sudden points of light, I witnessed the precise moment the electric lights were being turned on in our country and in the enemy’s country. The enemy turned on their lights (on the brown mountains it had occupied) at precisely the same time, I realized, we turned on the lights on our mountains. Both sides declared night at the same time, I thought, despite the time difference. I stopped my bike and waited by the railing for a long time, and thought about the kitchens on both sides of the border, the culinary similarities and differences, and I thought about rain, which was now falling, too, on both sides, making the lines fuzzier and fuzzier.
General Sahib’s residence hummed with its yellow lights. It was the second brightest place on our side of the border, I noticed. The brightest was the Governor’s mansion on the hill, shimmering with mystery.
That night as I served tea in Sahib’s room, I felt I was at two places at once. I was on the Zero Bridge looking at the bright lights of Sahib’s residence and I was inside as well, inside the residence holding a tray. The General was back from his travels. Perhaps he, too, felt he was in two places at once. I knocked at the door.
‘Come in.’
Sahib separated himself from the book he was reading.
‘Kip!’
‘Sir.’
He requested me to switch on the fluorescent light.
‘I must tell you,’ he said, ‘the turmeric you add in the tea is helping my stomach ache.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘And Kip -’
‘Sir.’
‘More on the enemy woman?’
‘She is clean, sir.’
Sahib took slow sips of tea as I told him Irem’s drowning story.
‘Something else?’
I wanted to, but I could not reveal the bombing story because I was afraid for Irem.
‘No, sir.’
‘Why are you trembling?’
‘Sorry, sir. Been cycling in the rain, sir.’
‘Any knowledge of terrorist activity?’
‘No, sir,’ I lied. ‘But, we must investigate more.’
‘Why?’
‘Sahib, perhaps if we slow down the investigation.’
‘Slow?’
‘So far I have investigated very fast, sir. But I plan to proceed slowly from now on. The way it is with the golf balls, sir.’
‘Kip. Sunno. Your assignment is over.’
‘Over, sir?’
‘No need to interrogate the enemy any further.’
‘But, sir, I have just started.’
‘Kip, we have excavated enough information. Now the interrogation must stop.’
I kept my eyes fixed on the spine of the book now shut on the table top.
‘Sir.’
‘The colonel will soon issue a commendation certificate to you.’
‘But, sir -’
‘You may go now.’
‘Sir.’
Every morning I would check with Sahib’s car driver about the routes he was planning to follow. The Zero Bridge, because of the rain, was never on the route and this was reassuring. But I was really worried, and for that reason I cycled in civilian clothes to the city post office and mailed an unsigned note to the army HQ warning about a possible attack on General Kumar. The letter had immediate effect. The army beefed up security around the bridge, interrogated the locals and raided many Kashmiri houses in the area. A journalist wrote confidently in the national paper, Peace has returned to the valley. Days later when the General’s black military car (with a flag and four stars) passed the Zero Bridge nothing happened. Three seconds later the bridge exploded.
The river carried away the ripped parts, the blown-up arches, and for days the waters looked high and muddy and black, and not just because of the rain.
The driver of the car told me later: Major, the moment the bridge exploded I felt as if my heart had leaped out of my chest. But I also felt the invisible hand of God protecting us. I cannot forget the roar, the rain of wood and metal and fire. The car started flying. Then booom, it fell. I kept driving. The General shouted (from the back seat): Tej. Tej. Fast. Faster. My foot was on the gas, hammering it. Look at this hole in the body of the car, Major. God gave us only a little hole in the rear, and a few damaged parts inside. God made me drive fast. Are you with me, Major?
Yes, yes, I said.
God is great, Major.
She is clean, I said to myself. Irem is clean.
18
In the kitchen the trout stared at me for many days. Fish can be cut any which way. So it is better than meat, I thought. No quarrel about halal or non-halal. Trout I had thought was the best way to have conversation with the enemy. But Sahib asked me to stop all conversation.
Outside, it kept raining against the window, corroding the cutlery inside. The rain mocked me, for many days rain lashed. The eyes of that fish mocked me. But. The inclement weather had a reverse effect on my cooking. The mushiness in the air prevented the drying. I sprinkled fresh coriander and roasted caraway seeds on the tender, moist fish. The orderly, who was my friend, delivered the tiffin-carrier in the hospital. He delivered the holy book as well. She did not send any message for me. But she had kissed the Qur’an, the orderly told me.
‘She refused to eat the fish, Major.’
‘Did she say something?’
‘The nurse was standing close to the bed and the enemy woman said (using signs and gestures) that she had no intention to eat for the next forty days.’
‘Why don’t you say it is Ramadan?’ I raised my voice.
‘Did I do something wrong, Major?’ he apologized.
‘No,’ I said.
‘Major,’ he said.
‘Please leave me alone.’
‘She said one thing else, Major.’
‘What?’
‘When she is eating normally she feels hungry around noon. But now that she is eating abnormally, I mean now that she is fasting, at noon she feels thirsty only.’
‘What else?’
‘That’s all, Major,’ he said. ‘Now I will go away.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Don’t show me your face again.’
I see myself unable to sleep, waking up with a dry throat. In my dream I am hungry, I have not eaten for days and I am in a classroom in Pakistan and the teacher (who is eating a kebab) is angry with me. On the blackboard words are written in Urdu in thick chalk, I notice as the teacher walks towards my bench, holding a stick in his right hand. The sound of his boots approaching me is growing louder. Now we are standing face to face, his kebab breath gets trapped in my nostrils. The teacher is wearing a military uniform, medals on his breast. General President Musharraf? I ask. Open your palm, he says. What’s my crime? You are sitting next to a female student, he says. I turn my neck: the girl. I survey quickly her face. She is absolutely silent, her lips sealed tight. She is not eating. I feel sick to my stomach. Open your palm, he says. The General hits my palm with the stick. The girl shuts her eyes, her body shakes. The stick keeps hitting me over and over. Suddenly the girl starts laughing. Don’t laugh, I say. Don’t laugh at me, I request. Not here.
All through rain (and Ramadan) there were dinners. The kitchen grew very busy because of a stream of visitors who came to congratulate Sahib for having survived the explosion. The chief of security was suspended and four other officers responsible for the protection of the bridge were imprisoned. Many more local houses were raided to hunt the terrorists.
Gen Sahib had little time for himself. He was also preoccupied with a high-level court martial. The court martial would bring its own stream of officers to the residence. I found myself a bit stressed, sleeping barely four or five hours. The ADC instructed me to cook Punjabi karhi-chawal, mitha shalgum, and saag maki-di-roti for Brigadier Pash, the presiding officer of the court martial. Pash’s nickname was BapuGandhi; the Brigadier was renowned for his honesty and vegetarianism.