Uzma Khan: Thinner Than Skin

“This man is lying.”

“Where are you going?”

“Hurry up!” They called from inside.

“I–I don’t know.”

“What did you say?”

“He isn’t the one we want.”

While they argued, a black Honda and white Hyundai drove up. “Check it,” called a man from inside the Honda, before it had even screeched to a stop.

“Be careful, he might be carrying explosives,” said a man from inside the Hyundai.

Did I hear them correctly? I began to laugh.

Immediately I was surrounded. There were six men around me now, each pointing a gun to my head, and one of them began to shout. “ What’s this ?” He pushed my head so I was leaning forward, gaping at the box wrapped in red cloth. They would not touch it.

“That’s mithai,” I said, my voice shaking.

“It’s him,” a skinny man with a face like a screw said to the large man whose hand was still pushing my head. The large man kicked the backs of my knees so I fell to the ground. “Get up!” said the skinny man, and when I tried to get up, he slapped the back of my head and told me to kneel. And now the most extraordinary thing began to happen.

While the trucks and cars started driving away, the six men took long steps backward, still with their guns pointed at my head. They walked steadily and heavily away from me, as though in me they had stumbled upon an unexploded mine. I was entranced by their mistake. They were afraid of me. The weak one, the one to always bring up the rear, the one who ran away. The man moving the slowest was the skinny one, who had two diagonal lines extending from his cheekbone to his nose, and two more diagonal lines on the other side of his face extending from his nose to his jaw. I was looking at those lines as he began to bark his orders.

“When we are there, at that tree with the cloth tied to its branches,” he pointed behind him and I raised my head to see the end of the road and what might have been a tree, “you will open the box. Understand?” I nodded. In truth, behind him I saw only shimmering brown earth. The day was scorching, and the dust on the horizon was growing thick. Where was everybody? I’d never been entirely alone even once on this trip, even when I’d wanted to be. Eyes had followed me everywhere. Where were they — my accusers? Didn’t they want to see me now?

“ Do you understand? ” he kept repeating as he withdrew into the searing sky. I kept nodding, even when I knew he couldn’t see me. “ Understand? ” Yes. Yes, I understand. My neck agreed. My spine too; all of me was bowing in consent. All of me was jerking up, and flopping down. Yes! I understand! It took me a while to see that I was not merely nodding, but sobbing.

“ Open it now .” Perhaps they had a megaphone, for the voice appeared to reach me from very far away, yet it was clear.

I stared at the sky. I stared at the red cloth.

“ Open it NOW! ”

There was a bomb and they were making me open it. It was not mithai or fruit. Irfan had not put it there. How did it get there? I remembered dropping my pack, when I got lost on the mountain the first time. The escort had found me, and the pack, and returned it. And before we’d parted, he’d asked me where the second box was. It was with Irfan.

Then I remembered the holy dates. The ones gifted to the policemen in Mansehra and Balakot. The ones that came in a box inside which lay a small handmade bomb, with the firing pin attached to the lid. The blast was enough to kill those within range. I was definitely within range; the other men were not.

I stared at the red cloth. I did not touch it. There was no picture of a date anywhere I could see. Those other boxes, I imagined them wrapped in shiny gold paper that folded neatly around the edges. I imagined the paper crinkling at the slightest touch, though the touch of those men would not have been slight. I imagined the pictures of fat, juicy dates on a glossy cover, perhaps with nuts. But this was just a red cloth.

Farhana was with Irfan.

I heard a gunshot and then a shout. “ Son-of-a-swine, open it NOW! ”

Naturally, it wouldn’t always come disguised as holy dates. It could be anything. Including mithai. Including fruit.

The skinny man was walking toward me, yelling that he would shoot me first, before I could open it. This confused me. I thought he wanted me to open it? Before I could understand, the butt of his rifle hit my cheek. I heard a crack. I fell sideways. Two more men had joined him and only now did it register that none of them were in uniform. This confused me too. Thwack! This time the blow was aimed at my gut. The fist that pulled away was as large as a melon. I drooled blood on his shoe. I could not see very much.

“We are telling you one last time. When we are at that tree,” he lifted my chin and yanked it sideways, and I screamed, because under his fingers the side of my face rippled like oil, “when we are there, you will open it. Do you understand, you bastard? You son of a whore?”

They began to back away again.

“Now: OPEN IT.”

I could hear my voice come out of my throat in a gargle. “No! Please! Please no!”

There was no answer.

Let me walk away. Like you. See how it is, in that innocent wrapping? Let it lie there. Let it rest. Bury it. No one will know. I will never tell. I promise. On my life .

I straightened myself as best I could to a kneeling position again. I kneeled before these men, who were now safely beside some tree I could not see. My mind was raging but my body was capitulating. I kept kneeling, even as I wanted to tear them apart with my teeth. I wanted to thank them too, for letting me live, if that is what they chose to do, out of the goodness of their hearts. I wanted to kick them to pulp. I kept kneeling. I wanted to silence the part of me that asked why we live subject to those we can’t respect. Why? Why do we agree to live like this? How can we respect ourselves? How would I ever get up again?

I began to gargle again. “Listen, please listen! Let me live!”

Gargle gargle gargle.

It occurred to me that it might be better to die.

I could simply open the box. No more humiliation. I could end this right now. I reminded myself that I’d wanted to end this even earlier, on the glacier, before the escort reminded me that I wanted to live.

I picked up the box. It was light. Very light. Weren’t bombs heavy? What else could be inside? Cherries? Small slippers?

Very slowly, I twisted loose the knot that tied the four ends of the cloth together. It was a style that would have perfectly suited the wrapping of a stack of hot chapaatis.

The box was uncovered now. The box was small and white. I smelled no chapaatis and that was okay because I wasn’t hungry.

I touched the lid of the box.

I tried praying but it didn’t really work. I was angry with God, at that particular moment.

Again I pleaded for life. “I beg you, I’ll do anything!” Again I hated myself.

After what seemed like a very long time, I received an answer in the shape of a kick to my teeth. I lay curled on my side in the dirt and continued to receive the blows.

I did not know how much time passed before I noticed that the sun was drying the blood in my mouth and this was uncomfortable. It is curious how, even when every inch of the body is in pain, it is possible to isolate a hurt, make it a separate thing, cushion it with exclusive attention and care. I tried to wet the dried blood with my spit but moving my lips made me tear the scabs at their corners. I kept trying. I had to wet my lips without moving them. I could do this.

Ahead of me, a field was aflame. If this was delirium, it was not unpleasant. The fire in the distance had a warm orange glow. At its center sizzled a cluster of seeds with a purple sheen. The chaos was elsewhere, far from that orange glow, and no one would disturb me as I focused all my desire on tending this small corner of a troubled earth: the corner of my mouth.