B005OWFTDW EBOK (34 page)

Jamil Ahmad

NIZAM DAHIRI
Split Drawing
, 2007
Ballpoint pen on paper. 55.8 x 71.1 cms.
Photography © Maheen Zia.

I
n the tangle of crumbling, weather-beaten and broken hills, where the borders of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan meet, is a military outpost manned by about two score soldiers.

Lonely, as all such posts are, this one is particularly frightening. No habitation for miles around and no vegetation except for a few wasted and barren date trees leaning crazily against each other and no water other than a trickle among some salt-encrusted boulders which also dries out occasionally, manifesting a degree of hostility.

Nature has not remained content merely at this. In this land, she has also created the dreaded
bad-e-sad-o-bist-roz
, the wind of a hundred and twenty days. This wind rages almost continuously during the four winter months, blowing clouds of alkali-laden dust and clinker so thick that men can barely breathe or open their eyes when they happen to get caught in it.

It was but natural that some men would lose their minds after too long an exposure to such desolation and loneliness. In the course of time, therefore, a practice developed of not letting any soldier stay at this post for two years running so that none had to face the ravages of the storm for more than four months.

It was during one of these quiet spells that the man and woman came across this post hidden in the folds of the hills. The wind had been blowing with savage fury for three days and if its force had not suddenly abated, they would have missed the post altogether and with it the only source of water for miles around. Indeed, they had steeled themselves to travel on during the approaching night when the impenetrable curtain of dust and sand seemed to lift and reveal the fort with its unhappy-looking date trees.

The soldiers, who had remained huddled behind closed shutters while the wind blew, had come out into the open as soon as the sky cleared. Sick and dispirited after three days and nights in darkened airless and fetid-smelling rooms, they were walking about, busy cleaning themselves and drawing in gulps of fresh air. They had to make the most of this brief respite before the wind started again.

Some of the men noticed the two figures and their camel as they topped the rise and moved slowly and hesitantly towards the fort. Both were staggering as they approached. The woman’s clothes, originally black, as those of the man, were grey with dust and sand, lines of caked mud standing out sharply where sweat had soaked into the folds. Even the small mirrors lovingly stitched as decorations into the woman’s dress and the man’s cap seemed faded and lacklustre.

The woman was covered from head to foot in garments but, on drawing closer, her head covering slipped and exposed her face to the watching soldiers. She made an ineffectual gesture to push it up again, but appeared too weary to care and spent all her remaining energy walking step after step towards the group of men.

When the veil slipped from the woman’s face, most of the soldiers turned their heads away, but those who did not saw that she was hardly more than a child. If her companion’s looks did not, the sight of her red-rimmed swollen eyes, her matted hair and the unearthly expression on her face told the story clearly.

The man motioned the woman to stop and walked up, by himself, to the subedar commanding the fort. He kept a frenzied grip on the barrel of an old and rusty gun that he carried across his shoulders.

He had no time to waste over any triviality.

‘Water,’ his hoarse voice said from between cracked and bleeding lips. ‘Our water is finished, spare us some water.’ The subedar pointed wordlessly towards a half-empty bucket from which the soldiers had been drinking. The man lifted the bucket and drew back towards the woman who was now huddled on the ground.

He cradled her head in the crook of his arm, wet the end of her shawl in the bucket and squeezed some drops on to her face. Tenderly, and feeling no shame at so many eyes watching him, he wiped her face with the wet cloth as she lay in his arms.

A young soldier snickered but immediately fell silent as the baleful eyes of his commander and his companions turned on him.

After he had cleansed her face, the Baluch cupped his right hand and splashed driblets on to her lips. As she sensed water, she started sucking his hand and fingers like a small animal. All of a sudden, she lunged towards the bucket, plunged her head into it and drank with long gasping sounds until she choked. The man patiently pushed her away, drank some of the water himself and then carried the bucket up to the camel, which finished what was left in a single gulp.

He brought the empty bucket back to the group of soldiers, set it down and stood there, silent and unmoving.

At last the subedar spoke. ‘Do you wish for anything else?’

A struggle seemed to be going on within the man and after a while, very reluctantly, he looked back at the subedar. ‘Yes, I wish for refuge for the two of us. We are Siahpads from Killa Kurd on the run from her people. We have travelled for three days in the storm …’

‘Refuge,’ interrupted the subedar brusquely, ‘I cannot offer. I know your laws well and neither I nor any man of mine shall come between a man and the law of his tribe.’

He repeated, ‘Refuge we cannot give you.’

The man bit his lips. He turned as if to move but then, once again, faced the subedar. ‘I accept your reply,’ he said. ‘I shall not seek refuge of you. Can I have food and shelter for a few days?’

‘That we shall give you.’ The subedar hastened to atone for his earlier severity. ‘Shelter is yours for the asking. For as long as you wish it, for as long as you want to stay.’

There was a long line of rooms some distance away from the fort. These had been hastily constructed during the First World War when the strength of this fort had, for a short period of time, increased almost a hundredfold. Sand had started collecting against the walls as soon as the construction was raised. Slowly and steadily, it had risen. Most of the walls and roofs caved in under its crumbling pressure. Mounds of sand now occupied these rooms. However, there still remained a few rooms which had not yet caved in.

It was in one of these rooms that Gul Bibi and her lover were provided their shelter. For a few days, the couple hardly stirred outside their one small room. The only signs of life were the opening and closing of shutters as the wind died or strengthened or when food was taken to the hut by the soldiers. Some time after the food had been left at the doorstep, the door would open furtively and the platter would be dragged in, to be pushed outside a while later.

As days passed, the couple appeared to gather more courage. They would occasionally leave the door open while the man stepped outside to look after his camel. Then one day the girl too came out to make a broom out of some thorn shrubs for sweeping the room. After a few days of inactivity, the man, of his own volition, started fetching water for the troops on his camel. He would load up the animal with water skins and visit the springs twice a day. Once he brought to the fort, as a gift, a few baskets, which the girl had woven out of date palm leaves. ‘They are to keep your bread in,’ he explained to the soldiers. And this is the pattern life followed as time rolled by. Days turned to weeks and weeks to months. Winter gave way to summer. Some soldiers left as their period of duty ended. Others arrived to serve their turn at this outpost.

With each change – even the most minor – the couple appeared to withdraw into themselves for a while. They hardly ventured outside, and none of the shutters would open. Then, after some time, they would cautiously emerge and slowly adjust to the change. In this state, they reminded the soldiers of small frightened desert lizards which rush frantically into their burrow at the slightest sign of danger.

As each party of soldiers left, some would leave behind for the couple anything they could spare out of their meagre possessions. A pair of partly worn-out shoes, a mended bed sheet, some aluminium utensils. These they would tie into a parcel and place at the doorstep of the hut before the army truck drove them back to the headquarters. Then the soldiers also started taking up a collection on every payday and insisted on handing it over to the man for fetching their water. He refused the money the first time, but as the soldiers appeared to get upset at this rebuff, he forced himself to accept without expressing his gratitude in words. With no discernible expression on his face, he would take the proffered money, stuff it into a pocket of his tattered waistcoat and walk away. Indeed, there were times when his look of infinite patience, his aloofness and lack of expression made some new arrivals among the soldiers feel uneasy. But as time passed, each new group would accept him, though they failed to breach the barrier he had drawn around himself.

The real change came with the birth of their child.

They had become accustomed to the same collection of drab buildings with their sullen and frustrated dwellers, each begrudging the days wasted at this bleak outpost and desperately longing for a return to more habitable places, to the sights and sounds of crowded bazaars, the smell of water and vegetation, the feel of clean, freshly laundered clothes. But with news of the birth, the air of resentfulness and bitterness, which seemed permanently to envelop this post, appeared to lighten.

To most of the soldiers, there was sheer wonder in the wizened looks of the infant with his black locks of hair, as he was carried around by the mother. The baby’s thin, plaintive cries brought back memories of their own families whom they had not seen for years.

With the birth of their son, the couple too seemed to shed their fears. Indeed, they appeared to be relieved finally of their worries and tensions.

As soon as the season of sandstorms was over, the woman wove an awning out of desert scrub and rigged it over the door to provide protection from the strong sun during the coming summer months. She mixed some clay and water and coated the room, the floor and the door front with it. She did more than that. She made a low wall about six inches high and enclosed an area, the size of two beds, in front of their room. She also made a gate into this small courtyard of hers – a gate with two small towers each topped with a small round knob. After completing it, she stood proudly waiting for her man to return in the evening to see her handiwork.

She had to wait for a long time because his camel had wandered away while grazing. When he finally returned, he looked at her work for a long time before speaking. ‘My love, take away the towers, there is something about them I do not like.’

She stood still for a while and then, as the meaning sank in, she rushed frantically towards them and crumbled them back into clay.

S
ubedar followed subedar as each year ended and a new one began. Indeed, the couple measured the passage of time by the change of subedars. When the sixth one arrived, they realized that the boy was five years old.

A sprightly and active child he was too. Fed on army rations, he looked older than his years. He spent his days inventing games and playing them by himself or skipping from boulder to boulder, following the soldiers on their patrols. By evening, he was tired and would creep into his mother’s lap and sleep for a while before they started the meal.

One evening, when the man returned with water from the springs, the boy was still asleep in his mother’s lap.

She turned as if to get up but the man stopped her with a gesture. ‘Stay for a while, I like looking at you. There is an air of peace around you.’

‘I wonder what his life shall be when he grows up. What would you like him to be?’ He looked at the woman.

She thought for a while. ‘Let him be a camel herder, handsome and gentle as his father,’ the woman murmured.

‘And fall in love with the Sardar’s daughter, his master’s wife,’ the man countered.

‘And carry her away,’ continued the woman.

‘Into misery and sorrow and terror,’ flung back the man.

‘Don’t ever repeat this. You must never talk thus,’ she whispered.

The sleeping boy suddenly opened his dark eyes and said laughingly, ‘I have been listening to you and I shall tell you what I shall be. I shall be a chief, I shall have horses and camels. I shall feast your friends and defy your enemies wherever they be.’

Gently the woman pushed the boy away from her lap and started getting the evening meal ready.

O
ne winter morning, while the couple were sitting in front of their hut, a camel rider suddenly appeared and rode his camel straight up to the fort. His arrival was so unexpected that it left them no time to hide. So they remained sitting impassively while the man finished his business and rode away without casting a glance in their direction. Nevertheless, as soon as the stranger rode over the crest, the couple gathered the child, who had been playing in the dust of the courtyard, and moved inside the hut as though its chilly interior suddenly offered more warmth than the sun outside.