Violet vipers

STORY

There’s a reason Chacha jaan is fat and surly and Chachi jaan has always worry plastered over her face. That reason was born 10 years ago.

Chacha jaan was slim, with a swimmer’s build from all those laps at Srinagar’s various lakes, and Chachi jaan’s had rosy cheeks Jaleelah had inherited; her face had been been jolly and dimpled.

In the dark entrance hall, the two had stood quietly near the Milton’s body, Chacha jaan’s jaw set, Chachi jaan’s hand on his arm. On the other side of the Milton stood Malik Sahib, Yusuf’s father, shorter than Chacha jaan, heavyset, and Yusuf’s mother, Fareedah Khatoon, a beautiful; Yusuf had inherited her looks, if not nature.

“Which room do we hide him in, Bhaijaan?” Chacha jaan had asked even though it was his house.

“The cellar?” Malik Sahib sat down, placed his hand on the Milton’s heart. “He won’t live long if we don’t get a proper doctor, though.” Chacha jaan, whom everybody called Doctor Sahib out of habit, was actually a veterinarian without a clinic, a job and patients.

“I’ve sent a boy to Doctor Hassan’s. It’ll take at least 45 minutes.” Chachi jaan said. “Is there something we can do till then?”

“They didn’t shoot him,” Malik Sahib ran his hand over the Milton’s motionless torso. “I think he jumped from a jeep. His arm is broken and,” he patted the young man’s stomach. “I am worried he might have internal injuries.”

“We’ll see about that when the doctor comes.” Fareedah Begum, who had been very quiet ever since the word “Milton” had resounded through the house, said briskly. “Malik Sahib, Taheer, carry him into the kitchen and cut the sleeve of his shirt. Naureen, warm some water. I’ll go get some cotton.”

There was a small flurry of activity as everyone moved to follow her instruction. When Fareedah Begum reached the stairs to go up to her bedroom, she found Yusuf sitting on the topmost step, his eyes wide.

“Mum, what happened?” he asked. She went to him quickly, ran her fingers through his tangled hair.

“Nothing, beta.”

“There’s a Milton in the house?” he grabbed her hand and his palms were sweaty.

“Are you afraid?” she asked him.

“No.” he said determinedly, looked into her eyes, then away. “Ye-es.”

“Don’t be.” She told him, took her hand softly out of his. “It isn’t right to be afraid.”

“Because I’m a boy?”

“No. Because you’re a Kashmiri.”

She walked away from him, went to her room, grabbed a roll of cotton and a gauze pad and returned to the entrance hall. Chachi Jaan was mopping clean the wooden floor.

“Blood.” She explained as Fareedah Begum swept past her into the kitchen.

Somebody had thrown a white sheet onto the kitchen table and upon it lay the Milton, his shirt torn, exposing a grimy chest matted with curly black hair, one arm hanging off the table at an odd angle. Malik Sahib was taking off his socks and boots. Chacha jaan was dabbing at his face with a wet cloth.

With an expertise that comes easily to women with proactive children, she cut a long piece of gauze, stuffed it with cotton and tied it around the wounds oozing blood on the man’s upper arm.

“Doctor Hassan will fix the arm.” She told the room, tying a knot, then two, before standing back, satisfied.

There was a loud screeching of tires outside. Chachi jaan rushed into the room, her eyes wide.

“You told that boy to go on a taxi?” Chacha jaan hissed at her, his eyes wide. “How irresponsible can y–”

“She told him to go on foot.” Malik Sahib cut through, made a clipped motion with his hand for everybody to get out of the kitchen. The last to leave, Fareedah Begum threw the part of the sheet hanging down the table over the Milton. Lying there on the large rectangular dining table, covered with the white sheet, he already looked like a dead body.

Shuddering, she left the room, closing the oak door behind her.

A loud rap on the front door.

“Open the door.” The words were shouted in a precise, cold way. They whirled through the air into the front door like three sharp daggers and stayed there in the wood, stuck, trembling slightly.

“Army waley.” Malik Sahib said.

“Open the door!” the voice was more urgent this time.

“Mukhbir.” Chacha jaan said and his voice was fearful – Amma says Kashmiris can’t be afraid, Chacha jaan, a small 13-year-old boy thought from where he was hiding behind the bannisters on the landing. “Koi Mukhbir tha. (There was a spy.)” His uncle repeated.

The elder brother crossed the hall to open the door. In the center of the doorway stood a young Indian military officer, his uniform crisp. The smell of his perfume seeped inside the entrance hall, making the air heavy.

“Lieutenant Amit Khatri.” The face was clean shaven, the smile wide. “Taheer Malik?”

“Shaheer Malik.” Malik Sahib tried to step out and close the door behind him but the lieutenant placed a restraining arm on his chest.

“Won’t you invite me inside for tea?” he looked over Malik Sahib’s shoulder at Chacha jaan. “Let’s talk over tea, sir?”

Chacha jaan nodded brusquely and Malik Sahib stood aside. Lieutenant Khatri entered the entrance hall. His eyes travelled from the mop in Chachi jaan’s hand to the roll of cotton Fareedah Begum had given to Chacha jaan that he had absent-mindedly carried out of the kitchen, and then to the staircase.

From the iron railings that lined the landing of the upper floor peeked Yusuf’s long, thin, pale face and Jaleelah’s dark, round, red one. On the latter’s face was a gleeful smile that seemed almost obscene under the present circumstances.

When she caught Lieutenant Khatri looking at her, she waved her hand. The tall man in the green uniform, without missing a beat, raised his arm and waved back, then beckoned to her to come downstairs.

Jaleelah, who had been dying to do that anyway and had only been restrained from doing so by Yusuf’s pleas, pulled the hem of her nightshirt (that Yusuf had been gripping to stop her from running off) from her young guardian’s hands and thumped downstairs, her feet clad in Malik Sahib’s large chappals.

“You’re an Indian, aren’t you?” she asked delightedly, disregarding the four adults’ stern stares and running up to the “guest”.

“Yes.” Khatri nodded, smiling. His eyes, however, had not moved away from Chacha jaan’s. “Who are you?”

“I’m Jaleelah.” The answer came brightly. “Would you like to come upstairs? We drink tea in our living room.”

Yusuf started to say something, then stopped. She was trying to keep him away from the kitchen, he realized.

“The living room?” Khatri’s eyes finally moved away from Chacha and looked up at the landing. Involuntarily, Yusuf drew back into the darkness. For some reason, the soldier’s sharp, glinting eyes had scared him.

“Yes.” She nodded. “We always sit there for tea and Inquilab (revolution).” She had said it in one breath. Somehow, Inquilab, the one thing that cheered up any sad face in her home seemed like just the right kind of incentive to offer somebody.

“I see.” The Lieutenant’s eyes were slits. “Chaye and Inquilab. Perfect combination.” He sat down on his haunches, tucked a folded forefinger under Jaleelah’s chin. “Who likes Inquilab best in your home?”

“Me.” She said promptly. Jaleelah was already wondering why everybody had been afraid of this nice man. In her remote life in Chinkral that had been molded into the same circles of night and day, she had never quite understood what life in Kashmir was actually about.

The “guest” wrapped an arm around her shoulder, drawing her closer to himself.

“Now here, bhai sahib, is the deal.” He said, looking over her matted bedhead, straight at Chacha jaan. Yusuf, along with everybody else, waited for him to finish the sentence. Explain the deal. He didn’t.

He sat there silently on his haunches, a large, sausage-like arm clad in green around little Jaleelah’s shoulders, his eyes on Chacha jaan, the oddly consistent smile still on his face.

The deal, however, was crystal-clear to them all, even without explanation. Children died. The lieutenant’s smile was reminding them. Children died in the name of Inquilab every day in Kashmir, especially children like little Jaleelah.

It was Chacha jaan who stepped closer to the kitchen, tossing the gauze pad onto the floor. Malik Sahib, Fareedah Begum and Naureen all stared at Chacha jaan with wide eyes, like they were seeing him for the first time.

Yusuf wondered how Chacha jaan would help the Milton by taking the Indian soldier to him. Did he plan on murdering the uniformed man in the kitchen? A tremor ran through his spine. Would Chacha jaan go to jail? Disappear? They would take Chachi and Jaleelah home to Islamabad, then. Abba will never leave you alone. He told Jaleelah in his head. I will take you to school with me.

“Inside.” Chacha jaan said.

Malik Sahib started to say something. Fareedah Begum, almost sluggishly, held his arm. He closed his mouth.

Chacha cast a glance at Chachi. She turned her face away, lips quivering. He pushed the door open with a single defiant push.

“Inside.” He repeated.

“Well done, sir.” The lieutenant with the glinting eyes stood up briskly, pushing Jaleelah away and striding out of the house.

Fareedah Begum was wiping her face silently with her chador and Abba was beside Yusuf on the landing all of a sudden, sitting on his haunches like the soldier, looking through the iron railings at the soldiers entering the house, walking into the kitchen, dragging the breathing yet dead man in the white sheet out of the kitchen, to their jeep.

Just before the door closed, the sheet slipped from the man’s face. The skin and even lips devoid of colour, the thin moustache looking like a dark scar… and, the worst of all, the eyes, large and – this was the worst part – understanding.

“I know Inquilab.” They told their audience. “I know Inquilab and I know what they do to the children. I know.”

For what felt like hours after the soldiers had left with the Milton, everybody remained exactly where they were. Jaleelah in a corner of the hall. Chacha jaan with his hand on the kitchen door. Chachi jaan with her face turned away. Fareedah Begum in the shadow of the landing and Yusuf and his father on it, looking through iron bars at them all.

This time, the first to move was Malik Sahib.

He got up silently and went to his bedroom. After some time, he emerged with a small suitcase in his hand. Grabbing Yusuf by the arm, he dragged him downstairs. Opening the front door, he turned to Fareedah Begum.

Without a word, she walked over and grabbed Yusuf by the other arm.

“Bhai jaan!” Chacha jaan squeaked. Malik Sahib raised a hand to tell him he did not want a conversation. “Bhai jaan, please.” Chacha jaan’s panicked words ran into each other and Yusuf realized he had never heard him slur before. Chacha jaan was an excellent conversationalist.

Abba jaan’s jaw moved, something growled in his chest, he closed his eyes, trying to push whatever was trying to come out, back in.

“Buzdil.” He said, and the word rolled out of his mouth, tethered to a thousand cacti, and set up shop on the floor of the entrance hall. The thorns in the word were destined to spread into every inch of Makan Taintees. Chacha jaan recoiled, his grip on the doorknob was so hard that his knuckles were white.

Somebody was wailing. It was when Abba pushed him roughly out of the front door and into the waiting taxi that had materialized out of thin air (because Yusuf had no memory of anybody calling it) that Yusuf realized he was the one crying. The last time he saw Kashmir was from the window of the airplane they boarded the next morning after a long, wearisome wait at the airport. Sunlight was seeping into the fresh earth of the valley and reflecting off of the tiny blades of the barbed wires that were all the jewellery Srinagar had worn ever since her wedding to Azadi.

To be continued…