The Blind Man's Garden Page 9

  Yasmin stands looking at the garden from the veranda, wondering why the vines and the branches are flowerless, wondering why there is a ghostly impression of a figure in coal dust or ash against a wall.

  At the pond Rohan sees the heap of dead birds, insects rising from it in a glittering black vortex as he lifts a paradise flycatcher with its pair of long white ribbons for a tail, three times the length of its body. He walks towards the clothesline strung between the eucalyptus tree and the tall glad jacaranda. He had passed the line earlier without really seeing what was hanging on it: a single item and it seems to be the shirt Jeo wore to Peshawar six days ago. It is pinned upside down, the sleeves almost reaching the grass. The fabric has many gashes in it and its original grey colour is stained by what appears to be blood or dark red ink. A rag with which someone tried to clean something rusty. Did Naheed make two of these? This must be one of the earlier practice ones. And he stands examining it for seams.

  From a shelf Basie picks up the large sphere of ruby-coloured glass with verses of the Koran indented into it. It must be glass – too heavy and too clear to be plastic. It is a pendant for a necklace or a talisman to be worn around the neck on a black cord. He has never seen it before and he brings it to the window and holds it up to see the sun enter and inhabit it, illuminating the verses from within.

  He walks to Tara’s place but there is no one there. A man is sitting in the sun in front of the neighbouring house. He has wet henna paste on his hair and a sheet of newspaper is protecting the collar of his shirt from stains and he tells Basie that the two women are at Naheed’s in-laws’.

  ‘I have just come from there,’ Basie says.

  The man shrugs. ‘Then maybe they have gone to the doctor. Or the bazaar. Who can understand women and their whims?’

  Basie returns and hears Yasmin and Tara, hears Naheed and Rohan. He doesn’t know what they are saying, only their voices reaching him from somewhere, and then he sees Naheed walking towards him, dressed in ash as though she has been caught in a lightning storm.

  10

  A follower of Allah knows nothing of chance. In this life everything is significant and meaningful. So why has this happened? A drop of his bloody soul struggle, the ruby shines in Rohan’s palm.

  He looks at the clock with its black hands. Before Jeo was born, he had placed his ear to Sofia’s skin, just above and to the left of the navel, and listened to the small second heartbeat, there in the darkness before life began. Now the boy is in the other darkness and Rohan doesn’t know where to find a sign of him, what wall or barrier or skin or veil to place his ear on.

  In the night garden the hibiscus blossoms sway on the vine like birds, their crimson darkened by several shades. The berries of the Persian lilac trees are poisonous so they remain on the branches throughout the year. The bulbul is the only bird that seems to have immunity and all day they were feeding noisily on the clusters.

  ‘Uncle.’

  He turns to see Basie on the red path, a storm lantern in his hand. Behind him is Tara.

  ‘Aunt Tara says she would like to speak to the two of us.’

  ‘Just a few moments of your time, brother-ji,’ Tara says.

  He points towards the bench under the Mysore fig tree.

  ‘I want to talk to you about Naheed’s future,’ she says, sitting rigidly.

  ‘Naheed’s future? As long as I am alive, sister-ji, the girl will be provided for. This remains her home.’

  Basie, sitting beside her, assents too.

  ‘No.’ She shakes her head. ‘I want her to marry again.’

  Basie and Rohan look at each other.

  ‘Of course,’ Rohan says. ‘She should. She’s only nineteen years old.’

  The light of the lantern is caught under the dark canopy of the tree, shadows washing over the ground as they converse quietly.

  ‘I know it’s too soon to talk about these matters,’ Tara says, ‘and I feel ashamed for having brought it up when Jeo is buried not even ten days, but I just didn’t want you to forget that you have a responsibility to Naheed.’

  ‘That will never happen,’ Rohan says. ‘She is like Yasmin to me.’

  ‘I don’t want my daughter to spend the rest of her life as a widow.’

  ‘We’ll find a good man for her,’ Basie says. ‘Let’s allow a period of time to pass, and then we’ll begin to look.’

  ‘That is all I wanted to hear,’ the woman nods.

  ‘You mustn’t ever think you are alone, Aunt Tara,’ Basie tells her. ‘You have us.’

  ‘What does Naheed think?’ Rohan asks.

  ‘I haven’t yet spoken to her about this matter.’

  ‘Of course.’

  They remain where they are, surrounded by a penetrating silence until Naheed appears at the kitchen door with a candle, the banana fronds made luminous by the light, and she looks at the three of them across the distance. ‘The food is ready.’

  She comes forward and takes Rohan by the hand and leads him away, Tara following. Very quickly after she came into the house as a bride with her forehead decorated with starlike dots, the girl had taken responsibility for the everyday affairs of the family. Yasmin’s work had flourished because of her; Naheed cooked, and insisted that Yasmin and Basie come here after school instead of going to their own place. She took over the running of several aspects of their household too, allowing Yasmin to concentrate on her teaching, and at the weekends – when Jeo returned from medical school in Lahore – the entire family gathered here, and it was all arranged and organised by her, with unobtrusive advice and guidance from Tara.

  ‘I’ll join you in a minute,’ Basie tells them.

  He sits on the veranda where Jeo’s motorcycle is parked beside the pillar. Basie has visited several organisations that have been sending boys to Afghanistan but has been unable to discover who sent Jeo and Mikal. He doesn’t even know who managed to bring Jeo’s body back from the war. Nor do they know where Mikal is, alive or dead.

  *

  On Fridays the dead person is said to recognise the visitor to his grave. Rohan, accompanied by Tara, Yasmin and Naheed, arrives at the cemetery to say prayers for the comfort of Jeo’s soul.

  At the entrance there stand four women veiled head to toe in black and holding yard-long sticks. Around their heads they wear green bands with the flaming-swords motif of Ardent Spirit’s flag. The black-clad figures bar their way and one of them says, pointing to Naheed, Tara and Yasmin, ‘You three cannot enter.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Tara asks.

  ‘Women are not allowed into graveyards according to our religion.’

  They express their disbelief but are told the same thing again:

  ‘It is not allowed in our religion for women to visit graveyards.’

  ‘Since when?’ Rohan asks. ‘Muslim women have been visiting graves for hundreds of years.’

  ‘That is an innovation and has to be put an end to. We are here for that purpose.’

  Confronted with the necessity of exposing their eyes through the slits of their cloaks, the women are hiding the true colour of their irises by wearing coloured contact lenses, the green, red and blue circles darting.

  Yasmin gives a sound of annoyance and tries to move past them but the women stiffen and raise their canes.

  Yasmin stops. ‘I have to see my brother. He died in Afghanistan.’

  They seem to consider the fact for a moment. ‘It doesn’t mean anything as far as this matter is concerned. You will not go in, it is Allah’s wish.’

  ‘My mother is buried here,’ Yasmin says, adding with a gesture towards Naheed: ‘And her father.’

  ‘You can say prayers for the soul of your dead at home. And rest assured that we too will do that for the man martyred in Afghanistan. He was our brother and died defending Islam.’

  ‘You are stopping a martyr’s widow from visiting him,’ Tara says. ‘This is my daughter and she was married to the dead man.’

  ‘If you are a martyr’s wi
dow,’ a woman turns to Naheed, ‘what are you doing stepping outside the house with your face uncovered?’ All of them look towards Naheed now. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself. He gave his life for Allah and you are disgracing him.’

  Another woman visitor who has been barred from entry is standing under a nearby tree. ‘My one-year-old son is buried in there,’ she says to Tara.

  Yasmin moves and one of the figures swings at her face with the metal-tipped cane twice in quick succession, coming a step closer with every swing, Yasmin taking a corresponding step back each time. The tip passes just an inch from her face.

  ‘It’s because of people like you,’ the woman points to them all with her cane, ‘that Islam has been brought so low. Filthy, disgusting, repulsive infidels are attacking Muslim countries with impunity.’ And to Rohan she says, ‘Don’t you know better than to walk around with your women uncovered, you vile pimp?’

  Yasmin, the gentlest and most congenial of women, raises her voice. ‘Don’t talk in that manner to someone three or four times your age.’

  ‘Age doesn’t mean anything,’ says the woman furiously. ‘If he is wrong I am his superior in Allah’s eyes and He gives me authority to reprimand the abhorrent wretch.’

  It is obvious that nothing can be done. Rohan goes in alone to say a prayer while Tara, Naheed and Yasmin wait outside. They will have to visit the grave in the darkness, deep at night.

  11

  Naheed’s face appears among the reeds and she gasps for air, her eyes filling up with light after the minutes under the water. She climbs out of the river, her hair falling with a shifting weight along her back. She stands coughing up water while around her brilliant groups of butterflies sun themselves on the muddy green slime. They often leave the garden to roam the arches above the worshippers in the mosque on the other side of the crossroads. She walks through the garden, where spots of sunlight are going in and out of focus as the foliage shifts overhead, and enters the house and changes into a dry set of clothes. She lowers herself onto the bed, lightly brushing the counterpane, white with a geometric pattern of raised white threads.

  Out there Rohan is sitting in a square of mild sunlight and he opens his eyes at her approach.

  She crouches beside him.

  ‘Do you say the prayers I told you to?’ he asks. ‘To atone for the sin of having seen Jeo’s body after his death.’

  ‘Yes.’

  The marriage contract is dissolved at the moment of death. A wife becomes a stranger to her husband and must not lay eyes on him.

  ‘Strictly speaking you shouldn’t even have looked at the face. But Allah understands. We humans are weak so it’s hard to avoid committing sins.’ He closes his eyes. ‘It is always better to begin atoning for them as soon as possible. That way we won’t have to fear the consequences in the grave and later on Judgement Day.’

  She looks around.

  ‘I wanted to see Sofia’s face before she was buried,’ he is saying, ‘more than anything, but I knew I shouldn’t.’

  Suddenly she gets up and, leaving him there, goes back to the house with hurried steps and enters the room she shared with Jeo.

  She stands looking at the far corner, the heart beginning to beat painfully in her chest. She raises her hands to her forehead, eyes fixed on the dark brocade of the armchair.

  She moves towards it and drops onto her knees and reaches underneath, the open palm skimming the floor as it moves blindly forwards. When her fingertips make contact with the cold metal object down there she almost cries out. She withdraws her hand and looks at the fingers as though expecting to see an injury there.

  She reaches out with both hands – as when trying to capture a bird – and grips the toy truck that has been standing stationary against the back wall since the evening of Jeo’s departure.

  Her fingers grip the painted wheels so they won’t spin and empty out the energy that had flowed into the toy from Jeo’s body when he wound it up with the key. She stands holding it tightly, locking the gears and cogs of its mechanism.

  She is shaking. As a test she releases the pressure on the wheels for a fraction of a second and the wheels turn in the air and she gives out a sound of pain.

  At last she places it on the floor and watches it move away from her. She walks alongside it to the other end of the room and then continues out of the door, overtaking and leaving it behind, unable to bear witness to the moment it stops.

  12

  Mikal sits with his back against the wall in the cold interior, the chain at his ankles rattling with every movement of his body. Never away from his mind, not even for a single second, is the thought of flight. Not since he regained consciousness at the Taliban fort in October.

  He doesn’t know where Jeo is.

  The last thing he remembers of the fighting on that October day is the battle-torn smoke and a bright burst of poppy before his face. They tied him up with lengths of barbed wire while he was insensible and carried him outside, and when he opened his eyes he couldn’t move and near him a pack of dogs was eating the blood-soaked earth of the fort’s courtyard.

  He caught a brief glimpse of the group of American soldiers who had co-ordinated the battle against the Taliban fort. The Americans were now confronted with the corpses of more than a hundred enemy men, and they told their Afghan allies to dispose of them as quickly as possible before they were filmed by a passing satellite.

  Mikal became the prisoner of a warlord, who cut off the trigger finger on each of his hands and nailed the two pieces to a doorframe along with those taken from dozens of other captives.

  Fearing gangrene, he begged them to extract the bullets from his body, but to no avail. But then two nights later, while he slept, a large group of them came at him with scalpels and blades. A rumour had circulated that the Americans had used solid gold bullets.

  He spoke to ask them where Jeo was, asked if they knew someone named Jeo, but received no information.

  Carefully he pulls his bandaged hands into his sleeves for warmth. His body is combat-seamed and a little raw elsewhere too, where the bullets went in, where the bullets were taken out. The left arm, that was torn open by a dagger-tip in search of gold, is restricted in its functions – he can touch the right shoulder with it but not the left one.

  He must escape and find Jeo and then both of them must go back to Heer.

  13

  Naheed enters the room where Tara is sitting in a chair.

  ‘Mother, I am pregnant.’

  Tara is attaching a red glass button to a tunic. She completes the stitch she has begun and only then stands up, carefully, placing both her hands on her knees.

  ‘Mother, did you hear what I said? I am pregnant.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  The reaction is more muted than Naheed had expected.

  ‘Yes. I have counted and …’ She shakes her head. ‘It doesn’t matter. I am pregnant.’

  ‘When was the last time you and Jeo –?’

  ‘Just before he left.’ Naheed comes and stands in front of her. She links her arms around Tara’s neck and rests her head on her shoulder. Tara embraces her with reluctance.

  ‘We’ll have to tell Father,’ Naheed says. She is about to part but Tara won’t allow the embrace to be broken, their faces inches away from each other. The woman looks directly into her eyes and says, very firmly,

  ‘No.’

  It is a few moments before Naheed realises what Tara means. She steps away.

  ‘We are not telling anyone about this.’ Tara moves towards the door and shuts it while Naheed looks on aghast. ‘No one will marry you if you have a child.’

  ‘I don’t care about that.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘I can’t contemplate even for a second what you are suggesting.’

  Tara is standing with her back resolutely against the closed door. But after a while, in a softer voice, she says, ‘I am not suggesting anything. I just think we should wait a little before telling Rohan.’ She doe
sn’t meet Naheed’s eye as she speaks. ‘Don’t you think he is in enough anguish already? We should wait until completely sure. If it turns out that you are mistaken, you would have raised the poor man’s hopes needlessly.’

  Tara moves away from the door.

  Naheed sits down on the chair but then shakes her head and stands up.

  ‘Stay away from the door, Naheed. I can marry you off if you are just a widow. But a widow with a baby – you’ll be alone for the rest of your life.’

  Naheed can hardly believe she is living through these moments. Tara strikes her face with such strength that she has to back away and lean against a wall. In the few seconds it takes her to recover, Tara has gone out and bolted the door from the other side.

  *

  The emergency deepening around her with every minute, Tara tells herself to think fast. She knows a woman who can be of help in this matter.

  Hundreds of thousands of poor defenceless Afghanistanis have been murdered by the Americans in cold blood. No one tells you about it … From outside comes the sound of a loudspeaker fixed on top of a van, telling everyone that it is a critical moment for the holy war in Afghanistan, encouraging them to join the jihad. Several such vehicles have been roaming Heer of late, all with the Ardent Spirit flag painted on the sides.

  Tara reaches for her burka.

  And hundreds of thousands of American soldiers have been killed by the brave Muslim fighters. No one tells you about those either. The Americans are on the verge of defeat so we need just a few more volunteers …

  Fastening the ties and buttons of the burka, she goes down the stairs and out into the street. Once again she is taken aback by the silent implacable passing of time, the months and the years. The truth is that she hadn’t noticed Naheed growing up until the day she found a blood-soaked handkerchief in a corner of the room, and her first thought was that a cat must have brought in a dead sparrow and eaten it there. Naheed meanwhile was under the impression that something like a large pimple must have burst somewhere inside her, and was staunching the blood with whatever piece of cloth came to hand.