Nadeem Aslam - The Blind Man's Garden

*

‘I have no doubt they are planning to invade Iraq and Iran,’ Kyra is saying to Rohan, as Naheed enters with the tea tray. ‘And then of course it will be Pakistan’s turn, if our government disobeys them.’

Naheed pours a cup and hands it to the former soldier.

‘The US President used the word “crusade” in the first speech he gave after the terrorist attacks,’ he says. ‘And they said if Pakistan did not help them in fighting al-Qaeda and the Taliban, they would bomb us back to the Stone Age. These were their exact words.’

She leans against the doorframe. She has a feeling she knows why he is here, even if Rohan doesn’t.

He looks at her and then turns to Rohan. ‘Well, now we must talk about why I have requested the meeting.’

‘I am glad you have come,’ Rohan says. ‘I was thinking about contacting you soon …’

The man ignores him. ‘It is a delicate matter. There are not many donations for Ardent Spirit any more. The cowardly government has cut off funding to honourable patriots like us. Things are very hard since the conspiracy of last September, and people like us are being accused of sowing something called terror. I wanted to meet you to see what can be done.’

‘I don’t know how I can be of help in this matter.’

‘I was hoping you could find alternative accommodations.’

‘Alternative accommodations?’

‘Yes.’

‘He wants us to move out of here,’ Naheed says.

Kyra doesn’t acknowledge the comment. ‘It wouldn’t be straight away,’ he says to Rohan. ‘I can give you six weeks, two months, to find another place. But we do need this house.’

‘It’s my home.’ Rohan raises his hand and Naheed comes forward to take it.

‘Yes, but I own it.’ Kyra produces a set of papers from his pocket. ‘The school belongs to me. And so does this house. My brother let you live here out of the kindness of his heart, and due to the respect he felt for you. In spite of everything.’

‘I don’t need to see any papers. I remember what I signed.’

‘Then I don’t know how you can claim that this house is yours.’

‘I was thinking of contacting you to say that you must give the house back to me. It is a shameful thing to divulge but I have contemplated selling it to raise funds for my eyes.’

He can be protective with his emotions, but Naheed knows how terrified Rohan is of being blind. He hasn’t revealed the full extent of this to anyone. Perhaps because he doesn’t wish to be judged for his despair, by humans or by Allah.

‘I think you should leave,’ Naheed says to Kyra.

Kyra turns to her, his manner a mixture of cordiality and woodland bandit.

‘You heard her,’ Basie says, coming in.

Kyra straightens. ‘You must be Basie.’

‘I want you to leave,’ Basie says, a glare in his eyes. Kyra stands up slowly, squaring up with Basie.

‘One way or another I am going to destroy you,’ Basie says, a startling and violent contempt in the voice. ‘I have asked around and I think it was you who were responsible for the deaths of my brother and Jeo.’ He takes the papers from his hands and tears them up. ‘I spoke to one family,’ he says, ‘who told me you sent their son to Afghanistan. You gave the father full assurance that the boy would be given training before being sent to the battlefield. You gave your word that the boy would be looked after. But he was butchered.’

‘I had to tell the father that. He is a eunuch and a traitor and an infidel in all but name and was not granting the boy permission to go to jihad. What are we supposed to do? Bow down before America?’

‘Get out.’

‘So this is what you have learnt by being around Christians,’ Kyra says from the door, ‘by being a teacher at that Englishman’s school. Contempt for true patriots.’

After he leaves the three of them remain in the shared silence.

Eventually, looking at the photograph in the newspaper on the table, Basie says, ‘And you can go to Hell too, Mr President.’

*

‘What happened?’ Tara asks Naheed, coming into the house to help her prepare lunch.

‘Major Kyra wants us to vacate the house.’

Tara utters the verse of the Koran one is supposed to upon receiving bad news.

‘Basie asked him to leave.’

‘We have to be careful, they are dangerous people.’ Tara looks towards Rohan’s room. ‘He signed every piece of paper they put in front of him. Now he sits in there stroking his deceived beard.’

‘No one deceived him, Mother.’

‘Yes, they did. He was half mad after Sofia’s death. You could have made him do anything.’ Tara brings the basket of green gourds to Naheed. ‘But I don’t want you to worry about the house. I’ll go to the mosque and ask the cleric to give me a talisman and we’ll pray …’

‘Pray,’ Naheed mutters. ‘Who listens to our prayers?’

‘How dare you talk in this manner? One or two prayers going unheard doesn’t mean none will ever be heard.’

‘One or two?’

‘Be quiet. It was praying to Allah that got me through my time in prison.’

‘It was Allah and His laws that put you there in the first place.’

Tara takes a step towards her. ‘Be quiet! Don’t you ever utter anything like that again.’

Naheed gives her a look of fury, her eyes swimming at her entrapment and yearning, and turns away.

‘Did you hear what I said?’

‘Yes.’

As they work in the kitchen both remain locked in their anger, both silent, though Tara’s lips move in soundless recital of Koranic verses.

After a quarter of an hour, and without looking up from the gourds she is cutting into wedges, Naheed asks, ‘What did Sharif Sharif want when he came to visit Father that day?’

‘Nothing,’ Tara says, though not immediately. ‘I told you it was just a neighbourly visit. Asking about Rohan’s eyes.’

‘Mother, please.’

‘He asked for your hand in marriage.’

Naheed puts down the knife.

‘He offered to pay for his eye operation in return.’

After minutes of further silence Naheed takes the bowl full of green and white pieces of gourd to the other side of the kitchen. Turning on the tap she submerges the pieces in water, to remain fresh until cooked. ‘One more thing,’ she says quietly from there.

‘Yes?’

‘Father says you’ve found someone for me.’

‘I have a boy in mind.’ And not having received a reaction from Naheed, she adds, ‘It’s the only way.’

Naheed smiles tensely, her eyes on the point of igniting. ‘It’s not the only way, Mother. There are a thousand other ways. I am tired of being afraid all the time —’

‘The world is a dangerous place.’

‘Let me finish, Mother. It was wrong of you to frighten me into destroying my child. It was wrong of you to frighten Mikal away. I don’t care what you have been through, but you should never ever frighten those younger than you with your own fears. Caution is one thing, but you filled me with terror. Just leave me alone please. Just take this world of yours and go away with it somewhere and leave us alone. All of you.’

‘What if —’

‘What if, what if. What if the world ends tomorrow?’

‘It could. The signs are there.’

Naheed comes and places her hand gently on Tara’s shoulder. ‘Mother, you can’t be this afraid. The world is not going to end tomorrow.’

Kyra and the six boys from the six houses of Ardent Spirit are discussing the St Joseph’s operation.

‘The siege will go on for several days,’ Ahmed says. ‘So we’ll need sacks of almonds to take with us for energy.’

The boy from Cordoba House has produced a precisely detailed diagram of the school — the height as well as the length of each wall is marked, the number of windows in each classroom — and it lies on the carpet before them.