Madras on Rainy Days: A Novel (38 page)
Read Madras on Rainy Days: A Novel Online
Authors: Samina Ali
What could he do? Around the three, others stood or sat on their haunches, heads thrown back now and then, an arm flung up to drink from a bottle. He closed his eyes and sat against the trunk. He would have to wait for this to be over.
A police jeep materialized over the crest of the hill and rolled past. Without sirens. He did not understand what was going on. Then he saw policemen leaping out. And the men on the street scurrying away, some into the woods. Except for one who remained on the ground, splayed in the middle of the road.
He grabbed his bike and began running with it, gripping the handlebars and running. He did not know where he was headed, just away from what he could not yet believe. Jeeps sped past him in the other direction. These with lights flashing and sirens wailing, at last announcing a guarding presence.
By one, he was spotted and caught. Held in jail overnight for questioning. He told them the truth. Told them what he had seen. Told them what he had just told us. And from them, the questions they asked, half serious, half dramatic—putting on a performance to show they were doing their duties—he gathered it was a young couple who
was returning home from a late movie or outing. They were driving down the hill on a scooter when they passed the slow moving gang on motorbikes. They did not know to be invisible. So they were surrounded. Just like that. Rifle barrels were stuck inside the spokes of the scooter wheels. They toppled. Struggled. Somehow the man got to his scooter and rode to the jail-
khanna
for help. Screaming the entire way.
was returning home from a late movie or outing. They were driving down the hill on a scooter when they passed the slow moving gang on motorbikes. They did not know to be invisible. So they were surrounded. Just like that. Rifle barrels were stuck inside the spokes of the scooter wheels. They toppled. Struggled. Somehow the man got to his scooter and rode to the jail-
khanna
for help. Screaming the entire way.
There had been eight members. All young men. All carrying weapons. Only two had gotten caught. And because the man on the scooter, the victim who had come to them for help, did not possess an ID to show them who he was, he was put in jail along with the others. For the police weren’t sure yet which side he was on.
Sameer ended there, and we remained silent, as though waiting for more. But what more could we bear to hear? Then the plump mother, who had again left her daughters at home, gasped. With a hand over her mouth, she gazed about the gathering until her eyes fell on me.
“Beti!” she cried, then pushed through the group, and I stepped down off the stoop and into the courtyard with them. She held me as though I were one of her own daughters, her breasts pushing into me. Then she pulled back and examined my face a long while, seeing me, seeing her own flesh.
After she released me, the woman from across the street, the one whose son would have to try to survive here with a Hindu wife, folded me into her arms, and in this way, one by one, we held each other close, pressing body to body, feeling our heat, smelling our sweat, patting each other as a way of reassuring ourselves that we were still here, still whole. Men with men. Women with women. Then, finally, husbands and wives.
Sameer walked up and pressed his forehead to mine, eyes pushed shut.
AFTER I HAD showered and lain down to rest, Sameer came into the room and woke me. Taqi Mamu had just been over. He hadn’t stayed
long. He just wanted to make sure we were all safe. And he had brought a message. Something so terrible that Sameer begged my uncle to be the one who told me.
long. He just wanted to make sure we were all safe. And he had brought a message. Something so terrible that Sameer begged my uncle to be the one who told me.
It was Henna who had been out there in the dark. Henna who had been raped. What Sameer had mistaken as two figures on top of a third had really been one man—then others—on top of Henna and her baby. Her pregnant body had been mutilated by the broken glass of a whiskey bottle.
It was Henna who had died.
DRUMS WERE BEATING in the distance. Sometimes growing louder, sometimes fainter, so that I thought one of the neighborhood Ganesh statues was being carried off, but then the beating would grow louder again.
Sameer and I were riding to Abu Uncle’s, and at the turn onto his street, just at the corner of the main road, an enormous tent had been erected. On the outside, the shiny skin was red and blue, while the inside was the pale hue of an almond. Crimson and gold streamers were tied together and hung to make the sign of the swastika, denoting good luck. At the center of the tent, elephant-headed Ganesh, tremendous and majestic, sat on an ornate brass podium. His skin was pink, his crown gold, his neck and hands thick. He was wearing layers of jeweled necklaces that reached his oversized stomach. Around his feet, gold anklets. He sat cross-legged, meditative, powerful. The god of protection. The remover of obstacles. Where had he been last night?
Large speakers set up around the stage were blaring Telugu songs and prayers. Small boys lingered about the base, dressed in glistening shirts, teeth glowing white against dark skin. When Sameer and I rode past, they stared at us, expressionless.
We turned onto Abu Uncle’s street, and the songs and prayers faded, along with those frightful faces. But as soon as he switched off the engine, I heard the distant drums, and thought of those boys’ features grown into men’s and wondered if this was what the murderers
looked like. In that way, I realized that for some time to come, I would be looking into the faces of men, Hindu men, Indian men, men of all kinds, to catch a glimpse of what Henna had seen in her final moments. Six had gotten away!
looked like. In that way, I realized that for some time to come, I would be looking into the faces of men, Hindu men, Indian men, men of all kinds, to catch a glimpse of what Henna had seen in her final moments. Six had gotten away!
“I can’t come in,” Sameer said. “I can’t face them. Please try to understand.”
When I didn’t answer, he wiggled the bike so I would hop off, and I went and stood at the side of the road, just before the gates to the house. How was I going to face them myself?
“I couldn’t have saved her,” he said. “Even if I had gone to Hanif when he was calling for help, what could I have done? They would have killed me, too. You know that, right?”
I stared at him, not answering.
He shut his eyes and raised his hands to his scalp, fingers bumping up against his helmet. “Jesus Christ, Layla, you’re right, I should have gone to help. I heard him shouting. All I had to do was step out from under that bloody tree. Show myself.” He whacked his helmet with fists. “I watched her die, baby. I did nothing to save your sister. I did nothing but protect myself. I am a coward, Layla, hate me, hate me for being a coward, nothing else!”
I shook my head. “Nafiza’s dead. Henna’s dead. What’s the use in hating?” Then I said, “I hate those men so much I feel nothing else. I’m overcome with hate. I can’t even feel sorrow. Sameer, I want to feel sorrow. I want to feel Henna.”
He grimaced, as though I was hoarding grief in some saintly way to keep from condemning him.
I said, “Not more than an hour, please. I can’t take being here myself.” Just as I was turning toward the gate, he lurched sideways at me and the motorcycle angled onto his weaker thigh. He grabbed my arms and shook me.
“Don’t you see how many lives I have ruined!”
We struggled and the motorcycle shifted back and forth between his legs. Then I jerked away, and he lost balance. As the bike was falling, he leapt off. It crashed to the ground. He began stomping on
the back wheel with his thick boots. Three, five, seven, twelve times. He gave a final kick then unstrapped the helmet and whacked metal against metal. The bike trembled, as though alive. Then he threw the helmet, and it hit the spokes and rolled to the middle of the road. He didn’t pick it up. He marched to the boundary wall and crouched against it, hands in his hair, knees to his face. He was crying.
the back wheel with his thick boots. Three, five, seven, twelve times. He gave a final kick then unstrapped the helmet and whacked metal against metal. The bike trembled, as though alive. Then he threw the helmet, and it hit the spokes and rolled to the middle of the road. He didn’t pick it up. He marched to the boundary wall and crouched against it, hands in his hair, knees to his face. He was crying.
“I heard them, Layla. Don’t you see? The police interrogated them in the next cell. They were laughing. They weren’t terrified. They knew they wouldn’t be punished. One of them was the son of such and such minister. They were just passing time until the call came to release them.”
I picked up his helmet and stood before him, the weight of it in my hands. “Henna’s dead. Nothing will bring her back.”
He began tearing at his scalp. “I can’t stop hearing their voices. They’re echoing inside me. They were snickering at her body. They said her breasts were engorged, all juicy like mangoes—and just as sweet. Baby, they drank her milk!”
I dropped the helmet next to him. “It’s not possible. She hadn’t had the baby yet. Another three weeks.” Even as I said it, I knew it could happen. The production of milk with the production of new life. The mother’s milk not meant for such crimes.
“Fucking hell, this bloody country. Your parents were right to leave.”
I looked about at the houses that were as familiar to me as Henna’s. We had played together on this street. Marbles, kites,
gilli-dandol.
It was along this stretch she had taught me how to ride a bike. On the tar, we used her school chalk to draw those same designs we saw before the houses of our Hindu neighbors, diamonds broken into triangles, signs of luck and prosperity, fertility. Our play changing with the seasons. Then our bodies changed, and we were kept inside—hidden and safe from what? Now women were watching me from windows, curtains pulled back to reveal one eye, half lips, nose. I yanked off my chador. Let them see who I was.
gilli-dandol.
It was along this stretch she had taught me how to ride a bike. On the tar, we used her school chalk to draw those same designs we saw before the houses of our Hindu neighbors, diamonds broken into triangles, signs of luck and prosperity, fertility. Our play changing with the seasons. Then our bodies changed, and we were kept inside—hidden and safe from what? Now women were watching me from windows, curtains pulled back to reveal one eye, half lips, nose. I yanked off my chador. Let them see who I was.
“Jesus Christ, she was in the ninth month. The baby was whole when they sliced it out …”
I closed the gate on him.
INSIDE THE BOUNDARY wall, the house and its surroundings were quiet. I had expected crying, wailing, even screaming laments, so the silence shook me. The drums continued pounding in the distance, and I found myself growing to depend on the sound, the only thing reassuring me of my own continued existence. The world pulsed through me.
This was the city cottage Nana had moved into after Partition, when his
manzil
was overrun. He had divided it in half soon before dying, giving the front portion to Taqi Mamu and his wife, the back to Asma Kala and her husband. But after Ameera Auntie lost her fourth child here, the couple had shifted to another place nearby, thinking this land was bad luck. There, they lost four more. The last time I’d come here was when we’d picked up Henna for our excursion to Golconda. What had she told me then, hugging her pregnant belly as we stared off at the majestic tombs, that she feared disaster, Hanif’s arrival bringing some sort of end. Indeed, the heart knew when it was driving toward its own death.
manzil
was overrun. He had divided it in half soon before dying, giving the front portion to Taqi Mamu and his wife, the back to Asma Kala and her husband. But after Ameera Auntie lost her fourth child here, the couple had shifted to another place nearby, thinking this land was bad luck. There, they lost four more. The last time I’d come here was when we’d picked up Henna for our excursion to Golconda. What had she told me then, hugging her pregnant belly as we stared off at the majestic tombs, that she feared disaster, Hanif’s arrival bringing some sort of end. Indeed, the heart knew when it was driving toward its own death.
No one was in the front part of the house, and I thought the grief must have sent them all to Taqi Mamu’s. But as I was about to walk there, I glimpsed the door curtain to Henna’s room blowing in the breeze, as though waving to me, inviting me in. I walked slowly down the side yard, keeping an eye on the door, hoping to find my family, hoping they weren’t there.
The door was open, and though no voices came from inside, I caught sight of Asma Kala’s feet just below the swaying curtain. They were scratching at each other. I hesitated and stopped at the clothesline. Black fabric hung like flags of defeat. Among polyester pants and cotton saris, I found a sari-blouse I knew would fit me. It hung
wrinkled and dry, the short sleeves reaching for the earth. They could have been wings. And the thing itself a dead and hung crow. I swallowed it in one hand and snatched it off, placing it next to my nose. Nothing but the smell of soap and sun. Angry, I pulled off all the items, clenching them against me, then holding them away. Like that, I brought them into Henna’s room. An offering like no other. My final surrender.
wrinkled and dry, the short sleeves reaching for the earth. They could have been wings. And the thing itself a dead and hung crow. I swallowed it in one hand and snatched it off, placing it next to my nose. Nothing but the smell of soap and sun. Angry, I pulled off all the items, clenching them against me, then holding them away. Like that, I brought them into Henna’s room. An offering like no other. My final surrender.
Inside, the space was dark, the windows shut against the dying sun. The only sunlight that came in was a long strip that tumbled onto the floor each time the curtain blew back. Then it crept away, as though it had made a mistake by coming here. An air cooler was turned on in one corner and blew stale, warm air. The water inside had evaporated and not been refilled. The machine droned.
Abu Uncle sat on his daughter’s bed, one leg pulled up, the other bent under him. He was wearing the white T-shirt and loose pajamas I knew he slept in, unable to dress for this day and what it had ushered in, the end of his life. His head was bowed, and I saw he was examining the pattern of the bedsheet, following the design with a finger, then making swirls and loops beyond it. He pulled the finger back and slid it over again. Then again. The third time I realized he was not following any pattern. The third time, I recognized the Urdu script. He was writing Henna’s name, over and over. Writing her name with skin.
I turned away, toward Asma Kala, who was sitting far from him, on a chair next to the door. She was staring at her feet, slipping them in and out of her
chappals,
the kind her father had never let her wear, the toes rubbing at the heels. Even though my shadow fell across her, covering the whole of her being in darkness, she did not notice. Not knowing what to do or say—not even knowing how to address her without breaking down myself—I tried to slip back outside. My sandals skidded on the tile floor, and both she and Abu Uncle glanced up and raised their brows at me in greeting, in their usual way. Asma Kala even gave me a small smile.
chappals,
the kind her father had never let her wear, the toes rubbing at the heels. Even though my shadow fell across her, covering the whole of her being in darkness, she did not notice. Not knowing what to do or say—not even knowing how to address her without breaking down myself—I tried to slip back outside. My sandals skidded on the tile floor, and both she and Abu Uncle glanced up and raised their brows at me in greeting, in their usual way. Asma Kala even gave me a small smile.
“I brought in the clothes,” I said, setting them next to her. Someone
had moved all the chairs from the house into this small room and arranged them in a line against the wall, facing the bed.
had moved all the chairs from the house into this small room and arranged them in a line against the wall, facing the bed.
“These are Hanif’s parents.” She raised her chin to point at the end of the row.
I was startled to find the old couple sitting quietly next to each other. They had chosen to be in the corner, under two closed shutters and next to the bathroom door, their bodies receding into darkness. Six chairs sat empty between them and Asma Kala. All of us were dressed in black but Abu Uncle. No matter the sorrows of the world, today I was mourning Henna.
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