Arundhati Roy - The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

“You should.”

“I know.”

“She’s your mother. She’s you. You are her.”

“That’s only the Kashmiri view. It’s different in India.”

“Seriously. It’s not a joke. This is not a good thing on your part, Babajaana. You should go.”

“I know.”

Musa ran his fingers down the ridges of muscle on either side of her spine. What began as a caress turned into a physical examination. For a moment he became his suspicious father. He checked out her shoulders, her lean, muscled arms.

“Where’s all this from?”

“Practice.”

There was a second of silence. She decided against telling him about the men who stalked her, who knocked on her door at odd hours of the day and night, including Mr. S. P. P. Rajendran, a retired police officer who held an administrative post in the architectural firm she worked for. He had been hired more for his contacts in the government than for his skills as an administrator. He was openly lecherous towards her in the office, making lewd suggestions, often leaving gifts on her desk, which she ignored. But late at night, bolstered perhaps by alcohol, he would drive to Nizamuddin and hammer on her door, shouting to be let in. His brazenness came from knowing that if matters came to a head, in the public eye, as well as in a court of law, his word would prevail against hers. He had a record of exemplary public service, a medal for bravery, and she was a lone woman who was immodestly attired and smoked cigarettes, and there was nothing to suggest that she came from a “decent” family who would rise to her defense. Tilo was aware of this and had taken precautionary measures. If Mr. Rajendran pushed his luck she could have him pinned to the floor before he knew what had happened.

She said nothing of all this because it seemed sordid and trivial compared to what Musa was living through. She rolled off him.

“Tell me about Sultan…the bewakoof person that Gulrez was so upset with. Who’s he?”

Musa smiled.

“Sultan? Sultan wasn’t a person. And he wasn’t bewakoof . He was a very clever fellow. He was a rooster, an orphan rooster that Gul had raised since he was a little chick. Sultan was devoted to him, he would follow him around wherever he went, they would have long conversations with each other that no one else understood, they were a team…inseparable. Sultan was famous in the region. People from nearby villages would come to see him. He had beautiful plumage, purple, orange, red, he would strut around the place like a real sultan. I knew him well…we all knew him. He was so…lofty, he always acted as though you owed him something…you know? One day an army captain came to the village with some soldiers…Captain Jaanbaaz he called himself, I don’t know what his real name was…they always give themselves these filmy names these guys…they weren’t there for a cordon-and-search or anything…just to speak to the villagers, threaten them a little, mistreat them a bit…the usual stuff. The men of the village were all made to assemble in the chowk. The well-known firm of Gul-kak and Sultan were there too, Sultan listening attentively as though he were a human being, a village elder. The captain had a dog with him. A huge German shepherd, on a leash. After he finished delivering his threats and his lecture, he let the dog off the leash, saying, ‘Jimmy! Fetch!’ Jimmy pounced on Sultan, killed him, and the soldiers took him for their dinner. Gul-kak was devastated. He cried for days, like people cry for their relatives who have been killed. For him Sultan was a relative…nothing less. And he was upset with Sultan for letting him down, for not fighting back, or escaping — almost as though he was a militant who should have known these tactics. So Gul would curse Sultan and wail, ‘If you didn’t know how to live with the military, why did you come into this world?’ ”

“So why were you reminding him about it? That was mean…”

“Gul is my little brother, yaar . We wear each other’s clothes, we trust each other with our lives. I can do anything with him.”

“This is not a good thing on your part, Musakuttan. In India we don’t do these things…”

“We even share the same name…”

“Meaning?”

“That’s what I’m known as. Commander Gulrez. No one knows me as Musa Yeswi.”

“It’s all a fucking mindfuck.”

“Shhh…in Kashmir we don’t use such language.”

“In India we do.”

“We should sleep, Babajaana.”

“We should.”

“But before that we should get dressed.”

“Why?”

“Protocol. This is Kashmir.”

After that casual intervention, sleep was no longer a realistic option. Tilo, fully dressed, a little apprehensive about what the “protocol” implied, but fortified by love and sated by lovemaking, propped herself up on an elbow.

“Talk to me…”

“And what do we call what we’ve been doing all this time?”

“We call it ‘pre-talk.’ ”

She rubbed her cheek against his stubble and then lay back, her head on the pillow beside Musa’s.

“What shall I tell you?”

“Every single thing. No omissions.”

She lit two cigarettes.

“Tell me the other story…the one that’s horrible and beautiful…the love story. Tell me the real story.”

Tilo did not understand why what she said made Musa hold her tighter and turned his eyes bright with what might have been tears. She didn’t know what he meant when he murmured “Akh daleela wann…”

And then, holding her as though his life depended on it, Musa told her about Jebeen, about how she insisted on being called Miss Jebeen, about her specific requirements from bedtime stories and all her other naughtinesses. He told her about Arifa and how he first met her — in a stationery shop in Srinagar:

“I’d had a huge fight with Godzie that day. Over my new boots. They were lovely boots — Gul-kak wears them now. Anyway…I was going out to buy some stationery, and I was wearing them. Godzie told me to take them off and wear normal shoes, because young men wearing good boots were often arrested as militants — those days that was evidence enough. Anyway, I refused to listen to him, so finally he said, ‘Do what you want, but mark my words, those boots will bring trouble.’ He was right…they did bring trouble — big trouble, but not the kind he was expecting. The stationery shop I used to go to, JK Stationery, was in Lal Chowk, the center of the city. I was inside when a grenade exploded on the street just outside. A militant had thrown it at a soldier. My eardrums nearly burst. Everything inside the shop shattered, there was glass everywhere, chaos in the market, everyone screaming. The soldiers went crazy — obviously. They smashed up all the shops, came in and beat everyone in sight. I was on the floor. They kicked me, beat me with rifle butts. I remember just lying there, trying to protect my skull, watching my blood spreading on the floor. I was hurt, not too badly, but I was too scared to move. A dog was staring at me. He seemed quite sympathetic. When I got over the initial shock, I felt a weight on my feet. I remembered my new boots and wondered if they were OK. As soon as I thought it was safe I lifted my head slowly, as carefully as I could, to take a look. And I saw this beautiful face resting on them. It was like waking up in hell and finding an angel on my shoe. It was Arifa. She too was frozen, too scared to move. But she was absolutely calm. She didn’t smile, didn’t move her head. She just looked at me and said, ‘Asal boot’—‘Nice boots’—I couldn’t believe the coolness of that. No wailing, screaming, sobbing, crying — just absolutely cool. We both laughed. She had just done a degree in veterinary medicine. My mother was shocked when I said I wanted to get married. She thought I never would. She had given up on me.”