Nadeem Aslam - Season of the Rainbirds

The girl shook her head vigorously. She had her little arms locked tightly around her uncle Arshad’s neck. ‘The man who sold it to us said it would talk since it had a band of black feathers around its neck. But that was painted on,’ the child explained singingly.

Arshad Ali adopted the same sing-song voice: ‘Well, you had better keep it away from my falcons because they eat parrots. One of them is from the same clutch of eggs as three birds belonging to the king of Saudi Arabia. It has fourteen feathers in its tail.’

Mujeeb Ali approached. ‘How long are you staying this time?’

Arshad Ali did not look up. ‘I don’t know,’ he mumbled. He had arrived just before dawn, after an absence of eleven months, bringing with him several cages of hawks, falcons and eagles. He had spent the months in the north-west, living amongst tribesmen.

The girl lifted her head and inclined it sideways, her eyes and mouth rounded in anticipation. ‘I hear someone,’ she whispered. The door opened and Nabila came in.

‘Go inside, son,’ Nabila told her daughter who had rushed to greet her. ‘Find your sisters.’

Mujeeb Ali, standing till now, sat down in the cane chair.

Nabila curled her lips. ‘That deputy commissioner was here again, wasn’t he?’ She addressed her husband. ‘He asked me whether you were home and I couldn’t lie.’

Mujeeb Ali gave a nod. ‘Yes, he was here.’ There were lines across his forehead, intersected at the bridge of the nose by a deep vertical indentation. Nabila watched him anxiously. ‘Ji, Asgri is selling everything and going back to Sind. Everything — the shares in the mines, the land, the houses.’

Again an uncertain nod.

A group of servant girls, carrying mosquito nettings and bamboo poles, was crossing the length of the opposite veranda. The froth-like nettings were light and diaphanous and from this side the girls looked as though they were hidden by smears and smudges of white paint.

‘Keep your ducks and hens locked up from now on,’ Arshad Ali shouted across the courtyard. His gaze stayed with the girls until they disappeared into one of the bedrooms. Then he turned to his brother: ‘I bumped into Tahir, Saji, Alli and Kamal when I got in last night. I’ll join them on the patrol tonight.’

Mujeeb Ali touched his armpit and asked, ‘Have you got your …?’

Arshad Ali nodded and touched the hard metal of the gun beneath the fabric of his own shirt.

Nabila said, ‘I want you to be careful with that thing. You used to go patrolling during the elections and I remember what used to happen then.’

On Sunday, after seeing Maulana Hafeez washing the floor — his trousers rolled up to mid-shin, his elastic-strapped wristwatch pushed up to the elbow — Mujeeb Ali had sent two servants to the mosque. Maulana Hafeez had initially objected to the appointment as wasteful extravagance but had finally agreed to take on one of the boys.

‘It’s the same every year,’ the cleric murmured to himself as he instructed the boy to keep the courtyard door shut against the invading water lizards, to prevent the soiling of the prayer-mats.

Magrib was said in the hall, the space being big enough for the handful of men. After the prayers, instead of collecting their shoes and leaving, the men gathered around Maulana Hafeez.

Eagerly, Maulana Hafeez straightened his spine against the wooden steps of the mimber, the pulpit.

‘Maulana-ji, we have an important matter to discuss with you.’

Maulana Hafeez lowered his head while his hand patted the velvet of the prayer-mat, feeling for the rosary, in ever-widening arcs.

‘It’s the matter of the deputy commissioner and that girl.’

Maulana Hafeez nodded, his eyes shut.

‘It’s setting a bad example for the whole town, Maulana-ji.’ Maulana Hafeez recognised the voice. ‘We all have daughters and sisters. If we allow the DC and that girl to continue then we could be said to be condoning this sort of behaviour.’

‘And others might be encouraged, Maulana-ji. It’s almost as if we are telling them that we tolerate such sinners,’ someone near the back said.

Maulana Hafeez raised a quelling hand. ‘I myself have been giving a great deal of thought to this matter and there are a number of ways which I think will lead to a satisfactory solution. However …’

Someone raised himself to his knees: ‘I own that house, Maulana-ji. I didn’t know what kind of a man he was when I let it to him. Since I am the owner of the property he’s implicating me in his sin.’

‘You won’t have to worry about that for long. I have a feeling he’s going to buy Judge Anwar’s house from the widow and live there with that girl.’

‘They say he has a wife and two children in Lahore. That’s why he’s away all the time.’

Maulana Hafeez raised his hand again. ‘Nothing has been proved yet. But as I was saying—’

‘Everything has been proved, Maulana-ji. She has moved in with him. She was seen by half the street buying vegetables on the doorstep.’

Another disembodied voice rose: ‘If it was merely gossip we wouldn’t have troubled you, Maulana-ji. But now we have proof.’

‘The Qur’an categorically states that a Muslim is not to befriend a Christian.’ A timid voice issued from the huddle of men. ‘So it’s twice as sinful.’

‘That’s true.’ Maulana Hafeez brushed his beard with his fingers. ‘But have you forgotten what the Almighty said to Hazrat Ibraheem when he turned away a non-Muslim from his table? The Almighty said, Ibraheem, I have provided for that man for so many years despite the fact that he is not a believer, are you so righteous that you couldn’t even feed him for just one day?’

‘But, Maulana-ji, that’s different.’

‘Indeed it is. But remember that every sura of the Qur’an begins with the words, Allah the Compassionate, the Merciful.’ And at a meditative pace Maulana Hafeez recited, from memory, a passage concerning adultery from the holy book. Unless he repent and do good works, for then God will change his sins to good actions — God is forgiving and merciful — he that repents and does good works shall truly return to God .

The men listened in silence as the cleric translated.

As he finished, Maulana Hafeez said, ‘Leave this with me. You’ll see that the matter will be resolved within the next few days, by gentle persuasion.’

The men made brief humming noises. Maulana Hafeez continued more solemnly still, ‘But surely before turning to others we must examine ourselves.’ He waved a hand over the heads of the men. ‘There was a time when we needed the hall and the veranda and the courtyard to contain all the men who came to the mosque. Now there aren’t even enough of you to fill the hall.’

‘But, forgive me, Maulana-ji, that was a time when there was only one mosque in the town.’

‘That is beside the point. We seem to have found many distractions. So many songs coming out of the radios, so many televisions. You can’t tell me that that’s setting a good example.’

Someone said tentatively: ‘Maulana-ji, people are afraid to leave their homes because last night Mujeeb Ali’s men were patrolling the streets once again. From now on, no one is going to leave their home after sunset.’

The maulana refused the explanation. ‘That’s fanciful,’ he smiled into his lap.

‘They were outside my house from two till four-thirty, laughing and playing cards. They urinated standing up against the pharmacy door.’

‘It will be like the elections when they beat us up saying we were on our way to someone’s house for a secret meeting.’