The woman set her hand on his wrist and felt for fever. ‘Don’t go to the mosque this morning, Maulana-ji,’ she said. ‘Rafiq Asan can lead the prayers today. You need to rest.’
Maulana Hafeez shook his head. ‘I have to go. Especially today.’
He finished his tea in silence. Swallowing the last sweet gulp, he leaned towards the fire to look for the chip of cinnamon at the bottom of the cup. The release of the oily resin in his mouth comforted him.
In the bathroom, after he had performed his ablutions and was about to unbolt the door, Maulana Hafeez began to weep. Blind with tears he leaned against the door and remained there for many minutes. Then, even though tears did not annul an ablution, he performed the consoling ritual once more.
The woman heard him gargle as she looked for his white cap. Last night she had stretched the wet cap over the base of an upturned bowl. She carried the bowl surmounted by the cap to the kitchen door.
She murmured something but Maulana Hafeez raised a hand. He took the dry cap and arranged it on his head. He felt in his pocket for the keys to the mosque.
Mr Kasmi pushed the tip of the scissors into the cocoon and cut around the silky sphere. The hollow case, acting as sounding-board, amplified the noise of the blades. Mr Kasmi pulled the two halves apart — the brittle curved body of the silkworm dropped on to the table. He ran a forefinger inside each half of the cocoon, blew, and placed them in the pan with the other ingredients. Next, he picked up a large dried berry and examined the skin for holes ants might have made to lay their eggs in. He peeled the berry and threw both the skin and the stone into the pan. He completed the recipe of the infusion by adding a few dried petals of the kuchnar blossom. The original pink had deepened to lilac. Each spring Alice would look greedily at the tree laden with buds. ‘We should pluck them all and cook them before they become flowers; they’re really delicious,’ she never tired of saying. Zébun would retort: ‘I had the tree planted for its flowers; we can get the buds for cooking from the vegetable man.’ And the servant girl, pulling a face in deep irritation: ‘It seems such a waste; and it isn’t too high for me to climb either; Kasmi-sahib could hold the ladder steady.’
A smile came to Mr Kasmi’s lips. ‘Our Alice-bibi isn’t here yet,’ he thought out loud.
Zébun read a verse, kept count by letting slide a bead along the thread, and said, ‘I don’t think she’ll come today, brother-ji. The Christians won’t let their girls out for a long while yet.’
Mr Kasmi surfaced. ‘Yes,’ he said vaguely.
Zébun lowered the rosary. ‘Men are worse than animals. Janvar!’
‘It wasn’t just men who did that thing last night, sister-ji. There were women there, too. And children.’
Zébun watched Mr Kasmi anxiously, her shoulders bent forward. ‘You are unhurt, aren’t you, brother-ji?’
‘I was unhurt,’ Mr Kasmi lied.
Zébun nodded.
‘I was just knocked to the ground. But Maulana Hafeez placed himself between me and the crowd just in time.’
‘Your voice sounds different,’ Zébun said, ‘but this’ — she gestured towards the pan on the fire — ‘should stop you catching pneumonia. At our age we mustn’t let night rain on to our lungs.’
Mr Kasmi smiled in accord and looked into the pan. Even though the water was only just warming up, a microscopic imperfection in the surface of the metal was assisting the process of oxidation and a column of tiny bubbles was rising from the base of the pan to the surface.
‘You were very courageous, brother-ji.’ Zébun shook her head. ‘I would have continued walking.’
‘It wasn’t deliberate, sister-ji. It was all so very sudden. And, I must admit that afterwards I did feel a little foolish. All I remember is that on my way back from Mujeeb Ali I saw the girl being dragged through the street. And the next thing I know I’ve crossed the street and am struggling with these people. Then a section of the crowd turns on me: Get the Ahmadiya as well. Get the Ahmadiya as well.’
‘And that’s when Maulana Hafeez arrived?’
‘It must have been.’
A wisp of steam was rising and the water was beginning to boil, diminishing in volume — a ball of wool being unwound by the drawing out of the loose end.
Mr Kasmi continued: ‘The front end of the crowd kept on moving forward so eventually we were left alone in the street, Maulana Hafeez and I. Maulana Hafeez was trying to get me back on my feet. And someone near the back of the mob shouted to him: “Maulana-ji, you wouldn’t see Maulana Dawood associating so freely with an Ahmadiya.” ’
Mr Kasmi finished speaking with a little catarrhal laugh.
The sound appeared to bring Zébun out of a daydream.
Outside, the morning was calm — clouded heat and a hazy insect-ridden ten o’clock. The trees across the courtyard were bare. A solitary five-lobed leaf at the end of a branch resembled a hand thrust out of a window to test for rain.
Zébun sighed. ‘I hope Alice does come. I would like to send her to the mosque for news of Maulana Hafeez.’
The sound of the doorbell had diverted the child’s attention from the game. Now he lowered his head again and, with a suspicious finger, made certain that his opponent had pushed the counters along the board by the correct number of squares. The bell sounded again. Yusuf Rao’s youngest daughter was sitting halfway up the staircase, touching up with colouring pencils the faded cover of a story book. The other children were in one of the bedrooms, with the curtains drawn, shaking awake the fireflies they had captured and imprisoned inside bottles to make lanterns two evenings ago. They, too, ignored the bell. The lawyer’s eldest daughter lifted the lid off the yoghurt pan and smiled: the milk had taken — it rarely did during the rainy season. The girl was not allowed to answer the door. Once after a visit from a girl she had met at the Qur’anic lessons, she was severely beaten by her mother: ‘So you think you’re old enough to make friends? Who gave you permission?’ Now she stood in the kitchen, her palms pressed against the clay pot made warm by the overnight activity of the bacteria, and listened to her mother answering the door.
‘Who is it?’
‘Is Yusuf Rao in, apa-ji?’
‘Who is it?’ the woman asked, from behind the door.
‘The police. The police inspector.’
The woman held her head as one deeply considering. ‘No,’ she said after a silence. ‘He’s gone to Rawalpindi.’
Through the wooden planks she heard the inspector’s sigh; and: ‘When is he coming back?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘He didn’t say?’
‘No.’
The inspector’s voice became ingratiating. ‘Listen, apa-ji. I just need Yusuf Rao to accompany me to the courthouse for a few minutes and answer a few questions, that’s all. You must have heard about the attempt on the General’s life. This is all tied up with that. Just a few questions …’
‘He’s away,’ Yusuf Rao’s wife said, and added, ‘brother-ji.’
‘I’ve had orders from Lahore, apa-ji. So you can tell Yusuf Rao that, if he doesn’t return from Rawalpindi by this evening, we’ll have to force our way into the house.’
The woman stood listening, biting the inside of her lip.
The police inspector was saying: ‘I respect your purdah, apa-ji. But I have my duty to do. If he doesn’t present himself at the courthouse by nightfall I’ll have to come into the house.’