Salman Rushdie - Shalimar the Clown

When the men of the house were awake the family held a kitchen-table council of war. “Because Big Man Misri did us all a favor and rid the world of those worthless Gegroos before he died, the Lashkar-e-Pak now has Pachigam in its sights much more than Shirmal,” Anees said quietly. “This is bad. Even without the Gegroos those crazy LeP bastards have maybe forty or fifty soldiers in the area and there is no question that they will pick their moment and attack.” Firdaus Noman shook her head. “How can a woman’s face be the enemy of Islam?” she asked angrily. Anees took her hands in his. “For these idiots it’s all about sex, maej, excuse me. They think it is a scientific fact that a woman’s hair emits rays that arouse men to deeds of sexual depravity. They think that if a woman’s bare legs rub together, even under a floor-length robe, the friction of her thighs will generate sexual heat which will be transmitted through her eyes into the eyes of men and will inflame them in an unholy way.” Firdaus spread her hands in a gesture of resignation. “So, because men are animals, according to them, women must pay. This is an old story. Tell me something else.” Anees nodded in his grave, unsmiling way. “That’s why I’m here,” he said. “My unit has decided that we will defend Pachigam and Shirmal too, if need be. Don’t worry. We have a hundred good guys and can get some friends to assist. But you must be prepared. Hide weapons in every house but don’t try to fight them when they first come. Be patient and take whatever insults they hand out. When we start the battle, then and then only you can help us beat the living shit out of them, excuse me, maej. Soldier’s talk.” Firdaus thumped the table, softly. “Little boy,” she said, “you won’t know what the living shit looks like until you’ve seen me at work.”

The Lashkar-e-Pak came to Pachigam on horseback three weeks later, in broad daylight, not expecting any resistance. The leader, a black-turbaned Afghan homicidal maniac aged fifteen, ordered everyone into the street and announced that since the women of Pachigam were too shameless to conceal themselves as Islam required they should take off their clothes completely so that the world could see what whores they really were. A great murmur arose from the villagers but Firdaus Noman stepped forward, took off her phiran and began to undress. Taking their cue from her, the other women and girls of the village also started to strip. A silence fell. The LeP fighters were unable to take their eyes off the women, who were stripping slowly, seductively, moving their bodies rhythmically, with their eyes closed. “Help me, God,” one of the LeP’s foreign fighters moaned in Arabic, writhing on his horse, “These blue-eyed she-devils are stealing away my soul.” The fifteen-year-old homicidal maniac pointed his Kalashnikov at Firdaus Noman. “If I kill you now,” he said nastily, “no man in the whole Muslim world will say I was unjustified.” At that moment a small red hole appeared in his forehead and the back of his head blew off. The Baby Che group was getting to be known for the marksmanship of its snipers as well as for its land mines and it had a reputation to protect.

The battle for Pachigam didn’t last long. Anees’s men had been well positioned and were eager for the fight. The LeP militants were encircled and outnumbered and, in a few minutes, also dead. Firdaus Noman and the other women put their clothes back on. Firdaus spoke sadly to the dead body of the fifteen-year-old Lashkar commander. “You discovered that women are dangerous, my boy,” she said. “Too bad you didn’t get a chance to become a man and discover we’re also good to love.”

The extermination of the LeP group of radicals failed to reassure some of the villagers. The old dancing master Habib Joo had passed away peacefully in his bed some years earlier, but his grown-up sons and daughter, all in their twenties now, sober, quiet young people who had inherited their father’s love of the dance, still lived in the village. The eldest son, Ahmed Joo, came to inform Abdullah Noman that his younger brother Sulaiman, his sister Razia and he had all decided to go south with the pandit refugees. “How long can Anees protect us?” he said, and went on, “We don’t think it’s a good idea to be Jewish when the Islamists come to town again.” Abdullah knew that the Joo children were gifted dancers like their father, they were the future of the Pachigam bhands except that the Pachigam bhands didn’t seem to have a future. He didn’t try to stop them. The next day the village’s dance troupe was further impoverished when the Sharga girls came to say that they, too, were leaving. Himal and Gonwati had been terrified by the stories of the attacks on pandit families and had forced their father the great old baritone to go with them. “This is no time for songs,” Shivshankar Sharga said, “and, anyway, my singing days are done.”

Sad to say, the Joos and Shargas were not saved by their decision to flee. The crowded bus in which they were heading south met with an accident at the foot of the mountains not far from the Banihal Pass. The driver, terrified of being stopped by anyone, security forces or militants, had been charging onwards as fast as possible. He screeched around a certain bend only to discover that one of the huge piles of garbage that were accumulating everywhere in the valley on account of the breakdown of the sanitation system had toppled forward across the road. Frantically, he took evasive action, but the bus ended up on its side in a roadside ditch. The driver and most of the passengers were seriously injured and one of the older passengers, the noted singer Shivshankar Sharga, was dead.

There followed a long topsy-turvy wait in the crashed bus. The air was full of petrol fumes. Everyone who could scream or cry was doing so. (Himal was screaming, while Gonwati wept.) Others, less vocally capable, contented themselves with moans (the Joo siblings fell into this category), while still others (e.g. the deceased baritone) were unable to make any sound at all. Eventually the emergency services showed up and the injured passengers were hospitalized in a nearby medical facility. The emergency room was dirty. The sheets in it were badly stained. Rusty red marks ran down the walls. There were few beds and the mattresses on the floor were filthy and torn. The passengers were placed on the beds, on the mattresses, on the floor and along the corridor outside. One single doctor, an exhausted young man with a thin moustache and a numbed expression on his face, addressed the crash victims, who continued to scream (Himal), weep (Gonwati) and moan (Ahmed, Sulaiman, Razia Joo) while he spoke. “It is my onerous obligation before proceeding,” the young doctor said, “to offer you our obsequious apologies and to seek from you an obligatory clarification. This is odious but indispensable current routine. Heartfelt apology is primarily offered for understaffing. Many pandit personnel have decamped and policy does not permit replacement. Many ambulance drivers also are being accosted by security forces and are being extremely chastised and therefore no longer are reporting for duty. Apology is secondarily offered for shortages of supplies. Asthma medication is unavailable. Treatment for diabetics is unavailable. Oxygen tanks are unavailable. Owing to load shedding certain medicaments are not refrigerated and condition of said medicaments is dubious. Replacements, however, are unavailable. Apology is additionally offered for failure of all X-ray machines, sterilization devices and such equipment as is designed to analyze blood. Apology is further extended owing to supply of blood not tested for HIV. Ultimate apology is regarding presence of meningitis epidemic in this facility, and for impossibility of quarantining same. Guidance at this time is sought from your good selves. Under circumstances as sorrowfully outlined above you will kindly and severally confirm or de-confirm your wish to be admitted to or de-admitted from this facility so that treatment is able to proceed or de-proceed. Have no doubt, ladies and gentlemen, that if you trust in us we will make our best effort.”