Jaspreet Singh: Chef

‘Siachen Glacier, kid.’

So that was Siachen. It was staring back at us. I grew silent. I had been feeling its presence for a while. The beast had swallowed my father. Father’s plane had crashed on Siachen. The wing landed not far from the bakery in Srinagar, but the main body of the plane disappeared in a deep crevasse.

‘That glacier is bigger than the city of Bombay, kid.’

I took a deep breath.

‘I knew your father,’ he said, clearing his throat.

‘Did you know him well?’

‘Only from a distance. I knew him, he didn’t know me. I was only a cook.’

I kept silent.

‘Seeing the wing had fallen in the bazaar the loathsome Kashmiris stepped out of their shops and chanted anti-India slogans. Our boys had to shoot one or two to disperse the crowd. The wing as you know is now in the War Museum in Delhi.’

‘Did Father have his uniform on that day?’

‘Let the dead rest,’ he said. ‘At your age you must think about women.’

He moved closer. His breath fell on my face, smell of cardamom.

‘Your father has become one with the glacier, Kip. It was not long after the President decorated his chest with the Param Vir Chakra, the highest decoration our army gives to the brave.’

‘He fought two wars with the enemy.’

‘Yes. And because of that the army wanted to make you an officer.’

I said nothing. I turned my gaze towards the bikes, which were leaning against a tree not far from us, his saddle higher than mine.

‘But I have heard that you could not clear the medical exam, Kirpal. Is this true? Is this their indirect way? To make you a chef first, and then promote you? An officer’s son will always become an officer. Certain things never change in our country.’

I surveyed his face and thought ‘I am looking at eyes that have looked at my father.’ There were things he knew about my father that he would never reveal to me.

‘Is it possible?’ I asked, moving away from him. ‘My worst fear is that the glacier might release Father’s body in the land of the enemy and -’

‘No,’ he interrupted. That was impossible. He drew a picture of the glacier on a torn sheet of paper. Then he asked me to label it in ‘Inglish’.

‘You see, Kip, the tongue of the glacier is in India and the whole mass is shifting slowly towards our side. His body will definitely be released on the soil of our country. The only way the body might transfer to Pakistan is if the glacier starts retreating very fast and becomes a part of the river, which is unlikely.’

‘Nothing is unlikely,’ I said.

‘Certain things are unlikely,’ he said and touched my cheek.

I asked him to withdraw his hand. Chef took a while.

‘Not so long ago,’ he said, ‘there was an old Norwegian tourist who while trekking through the Himalayas found the body of his father at the foot of Siachen. The glacier had released the body fully preserved. His father was much younger than him.’

‘I read that news in the paper,’ I said. ‘Two days later the glacier released the body of a soldier whose plane crashed before the Partition.’

‘Good news,’ exclaimed Chef. ‘The soldier belongs to India.’

‘Do we know for sure?’

‘Hundred percent, kid,’ he said, pinching my cheek. I stood up and wiped my uniform.

‘Your face turns color like the plane trees,’ he said.

We biked down the hill, and bought eggs, goat meat, karam, lotus roots, and vegetables from the bazaar.

Autumn is not a season in India. In Kashmir autumn arrives in the month of October. Through the soot-coated kitchen window I would watch the chenar trees dance. They moved like dervishes in the wind. I had never seen autumn before. Both sides of the streets were lined by plane trees. The whole valley would burst into Technicolor. The leaves turned as they fell on the roofs and the streets, turning any surface into a red and yellow and orange carpet. The wind carried them, swirled them, then abandoned the leaves one by one. Contemplating their sadness I would forget my own, and I would forget, too, the Siachen Glacier. Even if blindfolded, I will still be able to detect the chenar leaves. I can’t forget the smell of cut grass, and the smell of plane trees. How sad the trees look when shedding leaves, and yet how happy, as if trying to kiss the whole world. Autumn is not the end of happiness. It is the beginning.

I was almost twenty years old, bursting with energy and I had yet to sleep with a woman. Realistically, what were my chances? In the camp there were wives of other soldiers and officers. Outside the camp lived the Kashmiris. So there was no chance at all.

Often I would cycle past the Kashmiris’ timber-framed houses and past children with runny noses and the old men with henna-dyed beards smoking hookahs. But it was rare to spot a woman. Then one day, standing by the banks of the river, I noticed a young woman washing apples. No sari, but loose drawstring pants and a loose knee-length robe, a pheran. Her breasts jiggled inside. The pheran was wet around her belly, the salwar was rolled up to the knees. Both feet inside the water, and the channel was clear and cold and transparent and very quiet. Now and then she stirred the quietness with the apples and her delicate feet. I observed her, standing on the rock. The nape of her neck was smooth and clean. Kashmiri women do not dress in a normal way. In summer the women wear light cotton pherans. In winter they prefer dark woolen ones made of pashmina. The garment is embroidered in front and on the edges. When it gets very cold the women tuck their arms inside. Some carry firepots close to their bellies (as if heavy with a child) and the arms of the pheran oscillate left and right like pendulums of time.

She turned only once and our eyes locked for a brief second.

‘What are you going to do with the apples?’ I asked.

She smiled, stepped out of the water and started heading towards the street behind the trees. She was more or less my age.

Next day, same time, I returned to the same rock by the river. Salaam, I heard a man’s voice.

‘Come have tea at our house.’

‘Who are you?’ I asked.

‘I am her relative,’ he said.

‘Whose relative?’

‘I am the brother of the woman you had a conversation with yesterday.’

‘Hardly a conversation,’ I said.

‘Don’t worry. I am a well-respected man with a very responsible job. I drive the city bus.’

‘I have no time,’ I said. ‘My break is over.’

‘Come for two minutes only.’

The man guided me through narrow cobble-stoned streets (with open sewer drains on both sides) to his house. Boys were playing cricket in the street. Just outside he requested me in good Urdu to remove my shoes. The moment we entered he said, ‘Two teas.’ We sat on a carpet with a variety of floral designs. Beautiful calligraphic scrolls hugged the walls, and the furniture smelled of pine wood. ‘Are you married?’ he asked. It was his first question. ‘No,’ I answered. ‘Aha,’ he said. ‘You looked to me as if you were not married.’

It was then the woman entered the drawing room. She was carrying a tray. On a plate, which trembled on the tray, she had brought along tscvaru. The shortbread was coated with poppy seeds. She did not look at me directly. She bent low and served us tscvaru. Her hair was long and alive and for a moment I thought she was going to join us.

‘The samovar is on,’ she said and disappeared into the kitchen.

‘I have never seen a samovar,’ I said to the brother. ‘May I observe it in the kitchen?’