“I know you saw something,” she said once they were seated on the hemp charpoy in her shack. “I could see it in your face when you offered your help.”
Gramps stared at her.
“That night,” she persisted, “when the lightning hit the tree.” She leaned forward, her fragrance of tea leaves and ash and cardamom filling his nostrils. “What did you see?”
“Nothing,” he said and began to get up.
She grabbed his wrist. “Sit,” she said. Her left hand shot out and pressed something into his palm. Gramps leapt off the charpoy. There was an electric sensation in his flesh; his hair crackled. He opened his fist and looked at the object.
It was her nose stud. The freshly polished gold shimmered in the dingy shack.
Gramps touched the stud with his other hand and withdrew it. “It’s so cold.”
The princess smiled, a bright thing that lit up the shack. Full of love, sorrow, and relief. But relief at what? Gramps sat back down, gripped the charpoy’s posts, and tugged its torn hemp strands nervously.
“My family will be gone by tonight,” the princess said.
And even though he’d been expecting this for days, it still came as a shock to Gramps. The imminence of her departure took his breath away. All he could do was wobble his head.
“Once we’ve left, the city might come to uproot that stump.” The princess glanced over her shoulder toward the back of the room where shadows lingered. “If they try, do you promise you’ll dig under it?” She rose and peered into the dimness, her eyes gleaming like jewels.
“Dig under the tree? Why?”
“Something lies there which, if you dig it up, you’ll keep to yourself.” Princess Zeenat swiveled on her heels. “Which you will hide in a safe place and never tell a soul about.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s what the fakir told my grandfather. Something old and secret rests under that tree and it’s not for human eyes.” She turned and walked to the door.
Gramps said, “Did you ever dig under it?”
She shook her head without looking back. “I didn’t need to. As long as the tree stood, there was no need for me to excavate secrets not meant for me.”
“And the gold stud? Why’re you giving it away?”
“It comes with the burden.”
“What burden? What is under that tree?”
The princess half turned. She stood in a nimbus of midday light, her long muscled arms hanging loosely, fingers playing with the place in the hemp necklace where once her family heirloom had been; and despite the worry lines and the callused hands and her uneven, grimy fingernails, she was beautiful.
Somewhere close, a brick truck unloaded its cargo and in its sudden thunder what the princess said was muffled and nearly inaudible. Gramps thought later it might have been, “The map to the memory of heaven.”
But that of course couldn’t be right.
“THE PRINCESS AND her family left Lahore that night,” said Gramps. “This was in the fifties and the country was too busy recovering from Partition and picking up its own pieces to worry about a Mughal princess disappearing from the pages of history. So no one cared. Except me.”
He sank back into the armchair and began to rock.
“She or her sisters ever come back?” I said, pushing myself off the floor with my knuckles. “What happened to them?”
Gramps shrugged. “What happens to all girls. Married their cousins in the north, I suppose. Had large families. They never returned to Lahore, see?”
“And the jinn?”
Gramps bent and poked his ankle with a finger. It left a shallow dimple. “I guess he died or flew away once the lightning felled the tree.”
“What was under the stump?”
“How should I know?”
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t dig it up. No one came to remove the stump, so I never got a chance to take out whatever was there. Anyway, bache, you really should be going. It’s late.”
I glanced at my Star Wars watch. Luke’s saber shone fluorescent across the Roman numeral two. I was impressed Mama hadn’t returned to scold me to bed. I arched my back to ease the stiffness and looked at him with one eye closed. “You’re seriously telling me you didn’t dig up the secret?”
“I was scared,” said Gramps, and gummed a fiber bar. “Look, I was told not to remove it if I didn’t have to, so I didn’t. Those days we listened to our elders, see?” He grinned, delighted with this unexpected opportunity to rebuke.
“But that’s cheating,” I cried. “The gold stud. The jinn’s disappearance. You’ve explained nothing. That... that’s not a good story at all. It just leaves more questions.”
“All good stories leave questions. Now go on, get out of here. Before your mother yells at us both.”
He rose and waved me toward the door, grimacing and rubbing his belly – heartburn from Hanif Uncle’s party food? I slipped out and shut the door behind me. Already ghazal music was drifting out: Ranjish hi sahih dil hi dukhanay ke liye aa. Let it be heartbreak; come if just to hurt me again. I knew the song well. Gramps had worn out so many cassettes that Apna Bazaar ordered them in bulk just for him, Mama joked.
I went to my room, undressed, and for a long time tossed in the sheets, watching the moon outside my window. It was a supermoon kids at school had talked about, a magical golden egg floating near the horizon, and I wondered how many Mughal princes and princesses had gazed at it through the ages, holding hands with their lovers.
This is how the story of the Pauper Princess and the Eucalyptus Jinn comes to an end, I thought. In utter, infuriating oblivion.
I was wrong, of course.
IN SEPTEMBER 2013, Gramps had a sudden onset of chest pain and became short of breath. 911 was called, but by the time the medics came his heart had stopped and his extremities were mottled. Still they shocked him and injected him with epi-and-atropine and sped him to the hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
Gramps had really needed those water pills he’d refused until the end. I was at Tufts teaching a course in comparative mythology when Baba called. It was a difficult year. I’d been refused tenure and a close friend had been fired over department politics. But when Baba asked me if I could come, I said of course. Gramps and I hadn’t talked in years after I graduated from Florida State and moved to Massachusetts, but it didn’t matter. There would be a funeral and a burial and a reception for the smattering of relatives who lived within drivable distance. I, the only grandchild, must be there.
Sara wanted to go with me. It would be a good gesture, she said.
“No,” I said. “It would be a terrible gesture. Baba might not say anything, but the last person he’d want at Gramps’s funeral is my white girlfriend. Trust me.”
Sara didn’t let go of my hand. Her fingers weren’t dainty like some women’s - you’re afraid to squeeze them lest they shatter like glass – but they were soft and curled easily around mine. “You’ll come back soon, won’t you?”
“Of course. Why’d you ask?” I looked at her.
“Because,” she said kindly, “you’re going home.” Her other hand plucked at a hair on my knuckle. She smiled, but there was a ghost of worry pinching the corner of her lips. “Because sometimes I can’t read you.”
We stood in the kitchenette facing each other. I touched Sara’s chin. In the last few months there had been moments when things had been a bit hesitant, but nothing that jeopardized what we had.
“I’ll be back,” I said.
We hugged and kissed and whispered things I don’t remember now. Eventually we parted and I flew to Florida, watching the morning landscape tilt through the plane windows. Below, the Charles gleamed like steel, then fell away until it was a silver twig in a hard land; and I thought, The lightning trees are dying.