Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

Sharmeen came awake slowly, her cheek against the wooden arm of the chair. A faint smog of snow drifted against the window, and the light had changed to a luminescent slate that reminded Sharmeen of a dream she had once had, of walking across a vast plain, towards high mountains. When had she had that dream? She couldn't remember. She pushed herself up and rubbed her face. There must be a nasty pattern there, from the wood. Sometimes, when she and Aisha napped in the afternoons, they giggled with glee over the impressions left on their faces and arms, and pretended that these were permanent marks, scars. Aisha hated sleeping too long in the afternoons, though. She said that waking up after a long daytime sleep made her feel lost, like she didn't know where she was, or who she was. Sharmeen liked to sleep any time, day or night, and she slept when she felt like it. Although she would never say it to Aisha, she thought that despite all her outrageousness and her risk-taking, Aisha was peculiarly delicate in some ways. She got really nervous about tests and papers, and was afraid of lizards. Sometimes Sharmeen felt like she was protecting Aisha, not the other way around.

Sharmeen started. Daddi was sitting up in bed. The covers had fallen around her waist, and under the white sweater her collarbone was very fragile. She was looking at Sharmeen. 'Nikki,' she said. 'Take me home.'

'What, Daddi? What?' Sharmeen gathered herself up and knelt next to the bed and held Daddi's hand. It was as light as nothing. 'Daddi, what did you say? Who is Nikki? Which Nikki?'

Daddi said, 'Nikki, where is Mata-ji? Take me home, Nikki.'

'Which Mata-ji? Do you mean your Ammi?'

But Daddi had retreated into her customary absence. She was looking through Sharmeen now, through the window and out beyond. Sharmeen wasn't sure now if she saw the snow, or the trees, or anything at all. She sat with Daddi for a while, then made her lie down and covered her with quilts. At dinner that evening, Sharmeen asked Ammi, 'Where did Daddi come from?'

Ammi shrugged, 'Ask Abba.'

That was as much as Sharmeen was able to get then, much to the frustration of Aisha, who had been appraised over the telephone of Daddi's command to Nikki, whoever that was. But Abba wasn't at home that night, he was working late again, and all questions had to wait until the next morning. 'That's so bizarre, that you can ask only him,' Aisha said. 'My mother can tell you everything about Papa's whole family.'

Sharmeen protested only mildly. She didn't like thinking of her parents as bizarre, but now it did seem odd that Amma talked so much about her own family and their ancestry, but never about Daddi. There was no getting around her silence, though, so Sharmeen waited until morning, waited for Abba to finish his bath and fajr prayers and breakfast. They had a little chat before she went to school, every day, and mainly he liked to talk to her about her studies. They discussed the proper religious view of many of the topics that came up in the classroom, and he gave her his opinions on events in the world. He was an expert on international affairs, and had been nearly everywhere – or so it seemed to her. She loved to hear him describe the jungles of Myanmar, and the steppes of Ukraine. He stroked his greying moustache, and told her in his deep voice about the tigers he had seen in Nepal, and the horses in Sweden.

Today, they talked about Afghanistan and Iraq, and then, gathering up her books, Sharmeen asked, 'Abba, where is Daddi from?'

Abba straightened the mats on the table. 'From Punjab. Other side of the border now.'

'Yes, but from where exactly?'

'Near Amritsar.'

Abba was very relaxed, but Sharmeen knew that asking anything else right now would seem too curious. She went to school, pacified the impatient Aisha and bided her time. Over the next three days, she asked Abba what she hoped were innocent, casual questions about family, natural for a young girl to ask. She learnt that before her marriage, Daddi's name had been Nausheen Sharif; that yes, Daddi had brothers and sisters who were all lost as they tried to flee towards Pakistan; that there were no living relatives on her side, at all and anywhere; that she had gone to school but did not have a college degree; that she liked jalebis and khari lassi. 'And,' Sharmeen finally asked, 'who is Nikki?'

'Nikki?' Abba said.

'Daddi said something about some Nikki, when I was sitting with her.'

'You spend a lot of time with her nowadays.'

Sharmeen and Aisha had been going up to Daddi's room every afternoon, maintaining a vigil for more Sikh prayers or English or mentions of this Nikki. Ammi had been very pleased by Sharmeen's new devotion to homely duties, but Abba seemed very neutral. It was hard, a lot of the time, to tell what he was thinking or feeling. He would say something, make a statement in a voice that gave nothing away, and then a quiet would descend. He could outwait you or anyone, and when you spoke you felt like he was seeing right through you. Sharmeen felt anxiety rise through her spine like lava, and she said as calmly as she could, 'She's so old. She must be lonely.'

He softened then, and made Sharmeen sit beside him, even though she was running late, and told her about the moonlight on Himalayan peaks.

'But he didn't tell you about any Nikki?' Aisha said later that afternoon. 'No yes, no no, no nothing?'

'He said nothing.'

'This "Mata-ji" stuff is from sardars also, I think. You have to find out about this Nikki.'

'I am not going to ask him again.'

'Yes, yes. He can be quite scary, your Colonel Shahid Khan, with that big moustache and that voice. Even when he says, "Good night, beta," he makes me feel all shivery.'

There was a lurch inside Sharmeen's head, a quick, dizzying movement of perspective – she had always seen Abba as Abba, who was tall and strict and baritone and smelt of leather and Arnolive hair oil, who was as permanent as the sea. Now she saw him suddenly as Aisha saw him, or others might see him, dour and dangerous and with his own secrets. She felt suddenly older, as if something about herself had really changed, and she didn't like it. 'He's not scary,' she said quietly.

Aisha had had one of her sudden shifts of attention, and wasn't listening to Sharmeen any more. She was peering at Daddi. They were in Daddi's room, poised close to her in case she said anything mysterious or shocking or revelatory. But Daddi was talking in chaste Urdu and Punjabi – as she had been for days – of nothing but butchers and horses and long-ago journeys. 'She's being very boring,' Aisha said. 'Nothing new, no?'

'Yes,' Sharmeen said, 'nothing new.' There had been no Nikki, no prayers, nothing. If there even was a mystery, they were no closer to solving it. Maybe there was nothing to be found out. Sharmeen wasn't even sure she wanted to find out anything any more. The wall of Abba's evasiveness – and yes, it was that – held back a gigantic, crushing weight, something that threatened even him. Sharmeen couldn't explain this to Aisha because she didn't know how she knew this, but she was frightened by this and wanted to leave it alone. Looking at Daddi now, at the sharp arc of her nose, which both Abba and Sharmeen herself had inherited, Sharmeen wished that Daddi would just stay quiet, that she would shut up and not say anything surprising or dramatic or explosive. She wanted Aisha to come away, leave this room and whatever broken memories it contained, but she knew better than to say anything. Telling Aisha not to do something often meant that she did it anyway, even if she didn't want to in the first place. So Sharmeen made herself wait, she had patience and endurance. It was only a matter of time.

Aisha's interest in Daddi lasted longer than Sharmeen expected. Through the winter holidays, she kept dragging Sharmeen up to that dim room every other day, made her sit next to Daddi while they talked about actors and music and boys and school. Daddi had lapsed into an almost constant silence now, broken only occasionally by sniffles and coughs and a deep gargling sound at the back of her throat. Over three weeks, she spoke only once, and that was to ask someone when the train would leave. This became something of a joke between Sharmeen and Aisha, for some reason it was very funny to randomly say to the other, in a strong Punjabi accent, 'Arre, listen, when does the train go?' By the time school began and their bags were full again, and Aisha was shocking Sharmeen with her shameless talking to boys, even this one Daddi line was forgotten. And now Sharmeen had to go up to Daddi's room only when Ammi reminded her. Aisha no longer insisted on afternoon visits, and Sharmeen was glad of this.