‘Very funny you are becoming,’ said Gustad sternly. ‘Total blackout has been declared from tonight. I have to prepare for that, and for air raids.’
‘They are not going to come all the way to Bombay at once,’ she said, still laughing.
‘All the way? Do you know that with modern jet fighters the Pakistanis could be here in minutes? Or do you think they will send you a postcard when they want to drop a bomb?’
‘OK, baba, OK,’ she said good-humouredly. ‘Do whatever you think is necessary.’
He said it was a good thing he had not removed the blackout paper, at least that was one less job. He reminded her how she had kept nagging about it nine years ago, after the China war, nagging on and on. But in ‘65, when there was war with Pakistan, was it not convenient to have the paper already in place? ‘Same thing again. History repeats itself.’
‘OK, baba, OK, you were right.’
He carried a chair to the front door to inspect the paper. ‘Leave Darius with me,’ he said, as she prepared to go with the long-handled broom and various assorted jhaarus and butaaras. ‘I’ll need his help for a little while.’ There were several places where mending was required. Darius stood by to hand him the hammer, nails, and paper patches. Gustad climbed up and realized there had been no air-raid siren at ten o’clock this morning. From now on it would sound only for the real thing.
When the front door was done they moved the chair to the window by the black desk. ‘I’ll do this one,’ said Darius. He climbed up and put out his hand for the hammer. But his father was caressing the dark brown wood of the handle, a faraway smile on his face.
‘OK,’ called Darius, to get his attention.
Gustad felt a great surge of pride as Darius’s fingers closed round the handle. ‘You never got to see your great-grandfather. But this is his hammer.’
Darius nodded. He had listened when Gustad used to teach Sohrab carpentry. He hefted the ball-peen hammerhead by its perfectly balanced handle, and knocked in the nails. When he gave it back, the handle felt slightly damp to Gustad. From Darius’s palms, he thought. But how bountifully my grandfather used to sweat. Even in the prosperous days, when there were others to do it, he loved the heavy work. And the runnels pouring off his forehead, coursing down his face and neck. Deep in the midst of a job, two huge patches under his arms, and his vast shirt all soaked at the back, clinging to his skin, the wet appearing in the shape of a big heart. Then it was off with the shirt and sudra. The sweat flowing in great streams now, falling on pieces of wood, on the work table, on tools around him, sprinkling the layers of sawdust, which turned dark where the drops landed like life-giving water, like parched soil vitalized by a gardener. And the sweat from Grandpa’s palms, soaking the handle of this hammer. To darken and burnish the wood. His hands first, and then my hands. Making the handle smoother and smoother. Sohrab should have…but Darius will. He will add his gloss to the wood.
What did it mean when a hammer like this was passed from generation to generation? It meant something satisfying, fulfilling, at the deep centre of one’s being. That was all. No need to wrestle further with the meaning of the words.
They moved to the next window, the next ventilator, mending the tears, patching the gaps, while he told Darius about the workshop in the days before power tools, where men expended sweat and muscle, and sometimes even blood, to transform wood into useful, beautiful things; about Darius’s great-grandfather who was a huge, powerful man, kind and gentle, but with an unswerving sense of justice and fair play, who had once lifted his own foreman by the collar till his feet swung clear off the ground, threatening to toss him out in the street, because the foreman had mistreated one of the carpenters.
They worked their way from window to window, from ventilator to ventilator, while Gustad remembered, opening the fenestrae of his life for Darius to look through. Darius had heard all the stories before, but somehow, with Great-Grandpa’s hammer in his hand, they sounded different.
After the blackout paper was mended, they made shades of stiff cardpaper for the light bulbs hanging bare. They switched on the bulbs to check that the light fell in neat circles on the floor. Next, Gustad decided that underneath the huge four-poster bed would be the air-raid shelter: the pure ebony of its construction, and solid one-inch Burma teak slats, would be able to withstand the rubble if the worst were to happen.
‘It took two men with a crosscut saw a whole day. A whole day’s work, just to cut the ebony beams for the bedsteads and posters. That’s why the main frame of this old bed is strong as any old iron,’ he said. But the four-poster was next to the window. ‘It won’t do, has to be on the other side.’ The cupboard and dressing-table were pushed out of the way. Then they struggled with the bed’s immense weight, moving it inch by inch.
Dilnavaz returned from Miss Kutpitia’s and saw them grunting and labouring. ‘What are you doing? Stop! Your aanterdo and liver will burst! Stop, listen to me!’
‘Do you know how strong your son is? Show her, Darius. Show her your muscles,’ said Gustad.
‘Touch wood, baba, touch wood,’ she said, reaching frantically for the bedstead, and let them complete the task.
The mattress from Sohrab’s dholni was spread under the four-poster. Dilnavaz caressed the place where Sohrab’s head used to lie. Gustad frowned at her. He rolled up two blankets and stored them underneath, along with a torch and a water bottle. In an old biscuit tin he placed a phial of iodine, another of mercurochrome, a tube of penicillin ointment, cotton wool, adhesive tape, and two rolls of surgical gauze bandages. ‘From now on,’ he said, ‘whenever there is a siren, we must go under.’
Just like a young boy, thought Dilnavaz. How he enjoys all this excitement. Taking advantage of his good mood, she said, ‘If you are finished, Miss Kutpitia is requesting your help.’ The firemen had forced open her windows which had remained shut for thirty-five years. Now they would not close, not one of the three, and she was concerned because of the blackout.
Gustad and Darius went readily to tackle the swollen windows, taking a chisel, sandpaper, two screwdrivers and the hammer. When they returned after an hour, Gustad remarked how Miss Kutpitia had changed. ‘Smiled at me, even made a joke, saying it was time I brought another rose for her. Earth-and-sky difference in the old woman.’
And in you too, thought Dilnavaz happily.
The evening grew dark earlier than usual. By the gate, the lamppost stood lightless, and the pavement artist extinguished all candles, agarbattis and thuribles at sundown. The main road resembled a street under curfew. A solitary taxi went by, passengerless, headlights blackened. With its eyes closed, thought Gustad, like a somnambulist. Even the crows and sparrows, usually raucous at this hour, seemed disoriented by the unlit city.
The grey compound exhaled an air of hopeless melancholy around the blacked-out flats. Gustad inspected his windows from the outside: no chinks, no cracks of light. He walked along and looked up at Tehmul’s windows. The older brother was in town, he had done the necessary work. But tomorrow he would leave on another of his sales trips. An extra key in case Tehmul got locked out was now with Gustad — Tehmul’s next-door neighbours refused to keep it any longer; they said he was driving them crazy.