Nadeem Aslam - Season of the Rainbirds

He turned to Nabila Ali and asked: ‘Is Mujeeb Ali at home today, apa?’

Nabila’s eyes hardened before she answered.

Azhar whispered a salam-a-lekum to all the women and left the room.

Zafri had spread a straw mat on the tiles of the veranda and was beginning to cut the meat on a block of tree trunk. He was dividing the quartered carcasses into smaller pieces by efficient strokes of the cleaver, as though attempting a children’s puzzle where a minimum number of intersecting lines must be drawn inside a circle to achieve the maximum number of divisions. ‘The poor animal lost its life and you still complain,’ he said loudly, shaking his head in mock despair when one of the crowd of beggars asked for more than she had been given.

As Azhar walked past the tailor’s shop — a roughly knocked together box of old boards whose corrugated-iron roof was shaking to the rattle of sewing machines — he heard his name being called out.

It was Saif Aziz. He emerged from the shop, clicking open his umbrella and raising an arm in greeting. Azhar waited under a tree as the journalist jumped over puddles towards him.

‘Ah,’ Azhar responded as Saif Aziz introduced himself and they shook hands. ‘I know who you are.’ They walked along the street, protected by the umbrella. ‘You are the person who began printing the countdown to the General’s election-within-ninety-days promise.’

Saif Aziz shrugged. In the newspaper that Saif Aziz had edited four years ago, the countdown to the General’s promised election-day had appeared daily at the foot of the front page, in a large boxed inset. The elections will be held within the next 28 days, 27 days, 26 days … until, a fortnight before day zero, the newspaper was shut down.

‘I intended to go into minus figures,’ Saif Aziz smiled. ‘ The elections were held yesterday, two days ago, three days ago … ’

They were walking towards the courthouse. At the other side of the street a beggar woman with a pick-a-backed child, and a bulging sack slung over her shoulder, was directing another beggar to Judge Anwar’s house.

‘But I do safe work now,’ said Saif Aziz. ‘I have three children to feed and clothe. Though if the General’s recent speeches are anything to go by, they’ll soon shut down every newspaper in the country under the pretext that they’re publishing letters of the alphabet that can be rearranged to form an anti-government message.’

Azhar said, ‘Why are you telling me this? I myself try to be as honest as my position allows.’

But Saif Aziz continued on his former line. ‘I’ll tell you something which troubles me at night, deputy-sahib. This is the worst government we’ve ever had and yet this is the only government in my adult life under which I haven’t been to prison.’

They walked on in silence until they came to the school building at the fork at the end of the street and stopped. The smell of decay, of putrefaction was overwhelming here. Water was seeping into the foundations of the school and rotting the underlay further. Water lizards crawled out from between the cracks at the base of the outside wall and scuttled about the street.

‘So what can I do for you?’ Azhar asked Saif Aziz.

‘People aren’t being very co-operative. No one is admitting to having actually received one of those letters. All they want to talk about is who they think has got one and what might be in it. Someone even said that one of the maulanas, Hafeez, has received one which he had written to his wife in his less older days, a letter full of love and longing.’

Azhar raised his shoulders. ‘Why are you journalists always chasing after weird stories? Why can’t you write about ordinary things?’

Saif Aziz made the umbrella rotate above their heads. ‘To write about ordinary things is the duty of a novelist: it’s the task of the journalist to write about extraordinary things.’ He grinned.

‘Who said that?’ Azhar snapped his fingers a few times in an effort to remember. He poked Saif Aziz’s chest. ‘That Irishman … what was his name …?’

The other smiled. ‘James Joyce.’

‘Yes, James Joyce.’

Saif Aziz leaned towards Azhar’s face. ‘Should I write about the unusual manner in which the letters were delivered here?’ His voice had quietened to a conspiratorial whisper.

Azhar came out from under the umbrella. ‘If you must write about unusual things then go and write about that goat which I hear has been born with the Prophet’s name on its hide.’

Saif Aziz reached out his hand and took Azhar by the upper arm. ‘One more thing, deputy-sahib,’ he said with a broad smile. ‘I would be interested in knowing what attracts a deputy commissioner to a miserable place like this.’

Azhar freed himself gently. He began to cross to the street that would take him to the courthouse.

‘You see, deputy-sahib,’ Saif Aziz shouted after him. ‘When I ask an ordinary question, no one makes a reply. They just walk away.’

Alice came to the kitchen door and shouted Zébun’s name, calling down to the bedroom. There were two pans on the cooking range, and to avoid contaminating the dessert with the smell of spices she needed another pair of hands.

‘You know how fussy Kasmi-sahib is when it comes to food,’ Alice said as Zébun came and stood alongside her. Zébun stirred the bubbling milk. On the shelf by the range was a peeled orange whose rind had been added to the meat. In a glass of water Alice had dissolved a little food colouring; there were fresh coriander leaves resembling a duck’s webbed feet, and rhomboids of glacé pumpkin — Sikh-yellow, bride-red.

Zébun looked into the pan of meat in front of Alice. ‘Make sure to take out any big cardamoms from brother-ji’s plate,’ she advised the girl. ‘He says they remind him of cockroaches.’

Alice smiled and sucked her teeth. Her lips were painted red. She glanced down at Zébun’s feet and, beaming, said, ‘You’re wearing the new slippers.’ And with a self-congratulatory look she added, ‘I chose the design myself.’

Zébun continued to watch the tiny whirlpools that her stirring produced in the milk.

‘I only wear high heels myself. I don’t like flat slippers,’ Alice was saying. ‘I’m glad I’m not tall, or I wouldn’t be able to wear high heels. I’m going to buy a new pair next Sunday. It’s got rhinestones all along the edges. They say it’s all the rage in the cities.’

She picked up the salt, tilted it above the meat and held it there. Zébun was about to comment on the imprudence of this when with a measured flick of the wrist Alice cut off the flow of the white crystals. She was half smiling and excitedly recounting the details of a recent afternoon when, she claimed, a young man had deliberately bumped into her walking down the street.

‘ “Can’t you see?” I turned around and said sharply. And he answered back, “Of course I can see, that’s why I bumped into you.” ’ She shook her head as though despairing. ‘Men are terrible. Always bothering pretty girls.’ She laughed.

Zébun was staring at Alice. Her eyes moved steadily from the gaudy clothes to the row of plastic beads around the neck and on to the untidily painted lips. ‘Why do you wear that stuff on your lips, girl?’ she said wearily. ‘It’s almost as if you needed to know where your mouth was. It’s too hot for surkhi and powder anyway.’

Alice’s laughter stopped abruptly. Zébun glanced up at her eyes and found herself looking at tears. She let her gaze fall instantly, pretending not to have seen. But the girl realised that she had been seen; she turned off the heat and began to weep openly.