‘Uncle.’
He turns to see Basie on the red path, a storm lantern in his hand. Behind him is Tara.
‘Aunt Tara says she would like to speak to the two of us.’
‘Just a few moments of your time, brother-ji,’ Tara says.
He points towards the bench under the Mysore fig tree.
‘I want to talk to you about Naheed’s future,’ she says, sitting rigidly.
‘Naheed’s future? As long as I am alive, sister-ji, the girl will be provided for. This remains her home.’
Basie, sitting beside her, assents too.
‘No.’ She shakes her head. ‘I want her to marry again.’
Basie and Rohan look at each other.
‘Of course,’ Rohan says. ‘She should. She’s only nineteen years old.’
The light of the lantern is caught under the dark canopy of the tree, shadows washing over the ground as they converse quietly.
‘I know it’s too soon to talk about these matters,’ Tara says, ‘and I feel ashamed for having brought it up when Jeo is buried not even ten days, but I just didn’t want you to forget that you have a responsibility to Naheed.’
‘That will never happen,’ Rohan says. ‘She is like Yasmin to me.’
‘I don’t want my daughter to spend the rest of her life as a widow.’
‘We’ll find a good man for her,’ Basie says. ‘Let’s allow a period of time to pass, and then we’ll begin to look.’
‘That is all I wanted to hear,’ the woman nods.
‘You mustn’t ever think you are alone, Aunt Tara,’ Basie tells her. ‘You have us.’
‘What does Naheed think?’ Rohan asks.
‘I haven’t yet spoken to her about this matter.’
‘Of course.’
They remain where they are, surrounded by a penetrating silence until Naheed appears at the kitchen door with a candle, the banana fronds made luminous by the light, and she looks at the three of them across the distance. ‘The food is ready.’
She comes forward and takes Rohan by the hand and leads him away, Tara following. Very quickly after she came into the house as a bride with her forehead decorated with starlike dots, the girl had taken responsibility for the everyday affairs of the family. Yasmin’s work had flourished because of her; Naheed cooked, and insisted that Yasmin and Basie come here after school instead of going to their own place. She took over the running of several aspects of their household too, allowing Yasmin to concentrate on her teaching, and at the weekends — when Jeo returned from medical school in Lahore — the entire family gathered here, and it was all arranged and organised by her, with unobtrusive advice and guidance from Tara.
‘I’ll join you in a minute,’ Basie tells them.
He sits on the veranda where Jeo’s motorcycle is parked beside the pillar. Basie has visited several organisations that have been sending boys to Afghanistan but has been unable to discover who sent Jeo and Mikal. He doesn’t even know who managed to bring Jeo’s body back from the war. Nor do they know where Mikal is, alive or dead.
*
On Fridays the dead person is said to recognise the visitor to his grave. Rohan, accompanied by Tara, Yasmin and Naheed, arrives at the cemetery to say prayers for the comfort of Jeo’s soul.
At the entrance there stand four women veiled head to toe in black and holding yard-long sticks. Around their heads they wear green bands with the flaming-swords motif of Ardent Spirit’s flag. The black-clad figures bar their way and one of them says, pointing to Naheed, Tara and Yasmin, ‘You three cannot enter.’
‘What do you mean?’ Tara asks.
‘Women are not allowed into graveyards according to our religion.’
They express their disbelief but are told the same thing again:
‘It is not allowed in our religion for women to visit graveyards.’
‘Since when?’ Rohan asks. ‘Muslim women have been visiting graves for hundreds of years.’
‘That is an innovation and has to be put an end to. We are here for that purpose.’
Confronted with the necessity of exposing their eyes through the slits of their cloaks, the women are hiding the true colour of their irises by wearing coloured contact lenses, the green, red and blue circles darting.
Yasmin gives a sound of annoyance and tries to move past them but the women stiffen and raise their canes.
Yasmin stops. ‘I have to see my brother. He died in Afghanistan.’
They seem to consider the fact for a moment. ‘It doesn’t mean anything as far as this matter is concerned. You will not go in, it is Allah’s wish.’
‘My mother is buried here,’ Yasmin says, adding with a gesture towards Naheed: ‘And her father.’
‘You can say prayers for the soul of your dead at home. And rest assured that we too will do that for the man martyred in Afghanistan. He was our brother and died defending Islam.’
‘You are stopping a martyr’s widow from visiting him,’ Tara says. ‘This is my daughter and she was married to the dead man.’
‘If you are a martyr’s widow,’ a woman turns to Naheed, ‘what are you doing stepping outside the house with your face uncovered?’ All of them look towards Naheed now. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself. He gave his life for Allah and you are disgracing him.’
Another woman visitor who has been barred from entry is standing under a nearby tree. ‘My one-year-old son is buried in there,’ she says to Tara.
Yasmin moves and one of the figures swings at her face with the metal-tipped cane twice in quick succession, coming a step closer with every swing, Yasmin taking a corresponding step back each time. The tip passes just an inch from her face.
‘It’s because of people like you,’ the woman points to them all with her cane, ‘that Islam has been brought so low. Filthy, disgusting, repulsive infidels are attacking Muslim countries with impunity.’ And to Rohan she says, ‘Don’t you know better than to walk around with your women uncovered, you vile pimp?’
Yasmin, the gentlest and most congenial of women, raises her voice. ‘Don’t talk in that manner to someone three or four times your age.’
‘Age doesn’t mean anything,’ says the woman furiously. ‘If he is wrong I am his superior in Allah’s eyes and He gives me authority to reprimand the abhorrent wretch.’
It is obvious that nothing can be done. Rohan goes in alone to say a prayer while Tara, Naheed and Yasmin wait outside. They will have to visit the grave in the darkness, deep at night.
11
Naheed’s face appears among the reeds and she gasps for air, her eyes filling up with light after the minutes under the water. She climbs out of the river, her hair falling with a shifting weight along her back. She stands coughing up water while around her brilliant groups of butterflies sun themselves on the muddy green slime. They often leave the garden to roam the arches above the worshippers in the mosque on the other side of the crossroads. She walks through the garden, where spots of sunlight are going in and out of focus as the foliage shifts overhead, and enters the house and changes into a dry set of clothes. She lowers herself onto the bed, lightly brushing the counterpane, white with a geometric pattern of raised white threads.
Out there Rohan is sitting in a square of mild sunlight and he opens his eyes at her approach.
She crouches beside him.
‘Do you say the prayers I told you to?’ he asks. ‘To atone for the sin of having seen Jeo’s body after his death.’
‘Yes.’
The marriage contract is dissolved at the moment of death. A wife becomes a stranger to her husband and must not lay eyes on him.
‘Strictly speaking you shouldn’t even have looked at the face. But Allah understands. We humans are weak so it’s hard to avoid committing sins.’ He closes his eyes. ‘It is always better to begin atoning for them as soon as possible. That way we won’t have to fear the consequences in the grave and later on Judgement Day.’