Uzma Khan - Trespassing

‘Don’t start on that.’

‘Forgive him, Salaamat Bhai. Just let it go. He was weak. We all have our weaknesses. If Ama forgave him, you should do the same.’

‘What kind of man would loll in bed while his wife slaved in a stinking factory?’

‘The kind I too have married. Only I’m on a farm and it doesn’t stink.’ She glanced at his waist. Strapped to it was a pistol. ‘Are you going to tell me what kind it is?’ she asked sarcastically. ‘I see it’s different from the German one you had last time. That was, let’s see, half pistol and half Kalashnikov. You got it at a subsidized rate, if I’m not mistaken. All thanks to the bountiful General.’

‘Do you think I’d be any safer without it?’ he retorted.

‘You’d be safer if you stayed away from people who used it,’ she rejoined.

‘And do what, spend my life feeding maggots?’

Her lips trembled. She picked up the child and as her head tilted to the side, a tear rolled down to her ear and on to the blue lapis. He sighed, wiping it off.

She leaned into his shoulder, whispering, ‘I love you. I don’t want to lose more of us.’ And then she talked, as she so often did, of their family’s last year at the village, and how she’d ached for him, her favorite brother.

Much as this pained him, it was so delightful. He stared proudly at the stones and let her ramble, sensing it would be a long time before anyone would speak of love again.

Sumbul arranged her dupatta on the ground and rested the baby there. Then she took Salaamat in both her arms and twirled his coils with her fingers. ‘I always wanted hair like yours.’

‘Yours is much more beautiful.’

‘Then at least give me your strange blue eyes. Just like Dadi’s.’

‘But I love looking into yours. Round and cinnamon-colored.’

You hear everything I say.’

‘Yes. All of it.’

‘Then you aren’t deaf any more.’

‘Sometimes I am. But somehow, never with you.’

She laughed, ‘One of those is a lie.’

He promised, ‘When I come back, I’ll buy you many more jewels. I’ll have so much money you won’t even have to work here.’

‘And if I want to, will you still give me money?’ she teased.

He grinned. ‘I’ll always give you half. And we can send that stupid husband of yours to a land of permanent rest.’

‘Shh. Children listen in their sleep.’

‘Good. She should know there aren’t only men like her father. There are men like her mamu.’ Then he pushed Sumbul gently away. ‘I must say goodbye to Chachoo now. Don’t worry about me.’ He kissed first her forehead, then the baby’s. ‘I will return.’

Sumbul pledged to always adore and defend him, at any cost.

Salaamat passed his brothers standing guard at the farm’s gate. He embraced them quickly and with a minimum of words. They’d not missed him when he’d left the village; he owed them little in return.

He walked the half-kilometer to Makli Hill, where his father’s brother was the guardian of the tombs. The man had decided not to work at Mr Mansoor’s farm or his house, and Salaamat respected him for it. Whenever he came to see Sumbul, he visited Chachoo as well.

Little was left of the tombs besides broken walls and chipped tile. But one in particular still offered a glimpse of its six-hundred-year-old self, and it was outside it that his uncle usually paced, as he did today.

Salaamat kissed the man’s grizzled cheek. He was tall like himself, and stronger of build than Salaamat’s own father. He’d been a good fisherman. Now he wandered here alone all day, staring at the deathbeds of kings and queens.

The iron gate leading into the tomb’s courtyard was unlocked. This was rare. ‘Visitors?’ Salaamat asked.

Chachoo paused. ‘You could call them that.’

‘Let’s go in as well.’

The old man paused again. ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t disturb them.’

‘And why not?’ He stepped inside. Reluctantly, the old man followed. ‘I like coming here,’ Salaamat said over his shoulder, climbing the narrow, decrepit staircase to a verandah that wrapped around a second chamber. ‘I prefer it to the farm Sumbul loves.’

He moved carefully, stopping to finger the cool blue mosaic tiles of the brittle terrace. He wondered about the hands that had made the delicate pattern, or fired the clay, or glazed it, and for an instant, wondered if he’d miss his work at the workshop. After all, he’d been good at it.

He turned to his uncle. ‘What did you do today, Chachoo?’

The old man shrugged. ‘What I always do. I walked off my age. And watched these mirrors dance on the rock.’ The sun bounced off his cap and tiny yellow diamonds flickered on the sandstone. He pointed to this. But when Salaamat reached another staircase, this one leading to the crypt, he placed a firm hand on his shoulder. ‘I must speak plainly. I’ve been paid today to keep others away from here.’

Salaamat was about to ask him why, when he realized he could hear a rippling murmur. Voices. Despite the old man’s repeated warnings, he pushed Chachoo aside and began descending the stairs, eventually arriving in the dim chamber housing the crypt.

Above him rose a richly carved dome supported by four pillars. Several hundred bats swung from the ceiling, gazing down from their nests of chiseled vine. Their invasion gave the design, already in relief, an even more three-dimensional appearance. Mid-way up the canopy’s length and spanning its breadth hung a net. It kept the tittering aerialists at bay. The mesh was ideal for snaring insects: the bats were like spiders in a web they didn’t even have to weave. Every time Salaamat came here the colony appeared to have doubled. Now, as he approached the first pillar, one creature shot down like a trapeze artist toward him, only to bounce back up at the net.

But today he and his uncle were not the only ones the bats struck at. There was someone else behind the next pillar. Chachoo frowned but Salaamat kept advancing.

In the dusky tomb he gleaned two figures. Surely one was Mrs Mansoor? Yes, that was her, exactly as she’d been that time in the garden, sitting beside a table laid for tea. Except now she stood. They’d never met on his visits to the farm, but he recognized the straight, boyish physique and short, masculine hair. She hadn’t changed. Salaamat leaned forward, but Mrs Mansoor obstructed the other figure from his view. He listened. Her voice, and a man’s. Why would husband and wife pay Chachoo to keep their meeting quiet?

The old man caught up with him.

‘Who is he?’ Salaamat whispered.

Chachoo shook his head.

There was a movement behind the pillar now. The man reached for her but she pulled away. In this way, he came into view. It was not Mr Mansoor. Their voices rose.

‘You should not have asked to see me,’ she was saying.

‘I have a right to stay in touch.’

A moment later, two bats plunged toward them and all four figures ducked.

‘Oh what a place to meet!’ the woman cried.

Outside, before Salaamat left him, Chachoo cautioned, ‘Today you are a witness. But you are also deaf, dumb and blind.’

JULY 1992

Anu said goodbye to a friend who’d come to condole, and offered her afternoon prayers. Then she entered the television lounge where Daanish was reading the paper. He sat where the doctor had always sat while doing the same. But first, the doctor would set breadcrumbs out in a small saucer for the birds. He’d then settle in that chair, which granted the best view of them feeding, and smack his thighs when the sparrows fought each other. Daanish would run in from the kitchen where she was giving him breakfast and if any other kinds of birds — parakeets, bayas or babblers — visited, father and son would talk at length.