At this moment the cook came into the kitchen carrying a bucket of milk. The surface of the liquid was covered with dense white foam which moved as a single mass. Tiny droplets of milk were caught in the down on the woman’s forearm.
‘There is a traveller in the mosque tonight.’ Maulana Hafeez spoke to his beads.
Nabila immediately turned to the cook and asked her to pack a meal. The woman duly tied the food in a large square of floral cloth and, going to the door, called out for one of the male servants. Maulana Hafeez instructed him to hand the meal to his wife since the mosque’s front door was locked. After the food had been sent off the cook picked up the empty bucket and, memorising out loud the number of plates, bowls and spoons sent to the mosque, went out to finish the milking.
‘I came for the dead boy’s wages,’ Maulana Hafeez said. He had finished the tea and set the empty cup upside down on the saucer.
At that moment the door opened and Nabila’s youngest daughter entered. She carried the cage containing her pet parrot. The large bright-green bird sat on the perch nibbling contentedly at a green chilli which it held in its claw. With a smile and a wink, the child raised the cage on a level with the maulana’s face and invited him to place a finger between the bars, to tempt the bird into biting it.
Maulana Hafeez recoiled, pressing his spine against the back of the chair. Nabila got up and took the cage from the girl’s hand.
‘That thing is unclean, na-pak, my dhi,’ Maulana Hafeez, smiling now, told the little girl. Then turning towards Nabila he said, ‘It has no place in such a pious household. And worse still, it eats with its feet.’
Nabila was carrying the bird out of the kitchen. ‘You came about the driver’s wages, Maulana-ji. I’ll see where Mujeeb-ji is.’
Maulana Hafeez let the rosary slide down to the crook of his elbow and lightly stroked the girl’s hair. ‘Name two fruits mentioned in the Qur’an.’
Almost every child in town had been asked the question at one time or another. The girl climbed on to the cleric’s knee. ‘Olives and pomegranates.’
Maulana Hafeez lifted her to the floor. She was the youngest of five girls. The three girls immediately older than her were at the moment in the large room across the courtyard being given private tuition by Mr Kasmi. Commuting by car, they attended a school in the neighbouring town — the nearest one for girls. The eldest daughter was now married — to a senator’s son — and lived by the sea in the former capital. Her wedding had been a magnificent and imposing occasion. To accommodate the guests many of the streets were taken over by colourful marquees which billowed in the noon winds and threatened to uproot the houses to which they were attached by thick ropes. So many flowers were brought in that for many days afterwards milk gave off a faint fragrance of roses and ishq-é-péchan. The bridegroom’s procession entered the town accompanied by a downpour of newly minted coins. The bridal gown was of the finest contraband silk — to satisfy Nabila a bolt was made to pass through a little-finger ring — and was so densely embroidered that it was virtually impossible to tell the colour of the original fabric. The women, to this day, never forgot the careless manner in which the bride had lifted her skirt, scandalously exposing her legs, while descending the stairs of the family house. Maulana Hafeez had expressed disappointment at the enormous dowry, reminding Mujeeb Ali that the Prophet’s dowry to his daughter was a grindstone, a waterskin, a mat and one or two other modest domestic items. He had also been distressed by the eating arrangements, demanding that a chair be provided since he did not wish to appear ‘like a mule put out to graze in a pasture’; and had, despite being offered a knife and fork, insisted on eating with his fingers, refusing to eat with ‘weapons’ like an ‘English-sahib’.
Nabila came back. ‘Mujeeb Ali is in the big room, Maulana-ji,’ she said; and as Maulana Hafeez walked past her she said wearily, ‘Maulana-ji, you trouble yourself every month, when the money could easily be sent to the mosque. Why must you insist on adding to our sins?’
Maulana Hafeez crossed the plant-choked courtyard. Every movement that the wind caused in the leaves and branches was amplified many times in the play of shadows on the white walls. A fruit tree planted close to the edge of the courtyard had directed all its branches away from the nearby wall; it was almost as though a normal tree had been sawn in half lengthwise and made to lean against the wall.
Mr Kasmi had left. And the girls too had disappeared into the house leaving behind their satchels and books. Mr Kasmi had helped the eldest girl with all the subjects that she studied at school, but the metric system had been introduced since then and he was unable to teach mathematics to these younger girls. At the other door, Mujeeb Ali appeared to be seeing someone off — Mr Kasmi, the maulana presumed. He turned to look in Maulana Hafeez’s direction. Maulana Hafeez smiled in acknowledgement but Mujeeb Ali gave no sign of having seen him — he continued to stare straight ahead — and then deep in thought turned back to fasten the door.
The money was ready. ‘You’re a good man,’ said Maulana Hafeez. ‘If you hadn’t continued with the wages I don’t know what that poor woman would have done.’ He pointed to the photographs on the wall. ‘Your grandfather too was a good man. When he died the district’s courts were shut for a whole month.’ Two decades or so before independence Sher Bahadar Ali was made an honorary magistrate by the British. Some time in the previous century the British had also awarded large tracts of Crown land to the Alis; Mujeeb Ali’s great-grandfather was awarded the title ‘Khan-bahadar’. Their wealth had increased tenfold since then — mile upon mile of fishing rights, hundreds of acres of woodland, hundreds of acres of farmland. The family owned twelve towns. ‘But he became a little forgetful near the end.’ Maulana Hafeez smiled at a memory. ‘He would walk out of the mosque with the cap still on his head, and would have to turn back halfway down the street to bring it back. But I suppose it happens to all of us. I myself find it very hard to remember things these days.’
Mujeeb Ali straightened a cushion on a chair and carried it over to sit by Maulana Hafeez. Below the tangle of the greying eyebrows his eyes were tired.
Maulana Hafeez went to speak, hesitated, and then said quietly, ‘Was that the teacher just now?’
‘No, Maulana-ji,’ said Mujeeb Ali, ‘that was the police inspector stopping by for a few minutes.’
Maulana Hafeez returned the rosary to his pocket while his other hand sought the arm-rest of the chair. ‘Is anything wrong?’
‘They’ve arrested Gul-kalam.’
Maulana Hafeez leaned back, shaking his head. ‘God be merciful.’
‘He was involved in Judge Anwar’s murder. They paid him to guard the street for a few hours and also got the layout of the house from him.’
‘They?’
‘We’re not sure yet,’ Mujeeb Ali said. ‘They’re still working on him down at the barracks. Something to do with those letters, some mess from nineteen years ago.’
‘But …’ Maulana Hafeez said in a tremulous voice, frowning, ‘… but those letters haven’t been delivered yet.’
‘No, Maulana-ji, you don’t understand. They came from Arrubakook, where the letters have been delivered.’