In an Antique Land (27 page)

But today he had no stories to tell; he could hardly keep still and every so often he would go to the windows and look outside, prising the shutters open. Soon, his curiosity got the
better of him and, after telling me to stay where I was, he slipped out of the room, forgetting to shut the door behind him. I waited a few minutes, and when he didn't come back, I ran out of the bedroom to a balcony which looked out over the garden and the lane.

My memories of what I saw are very vivid, but at the same time oddly out of synch, like a sloppily edited film. A large crowd is thronging around our house, a mob of hundreds of men, their faces shining red in the light of the burning torches in their hands, rags tied on sticks, whose flames seem to be swirling against our walls in waves of fire. As I watch, the flames begin to dance around the house, and while they circle the walls the people gathered inside mill around the garden, cower in huddles and cover their faces. I can see the enraged mob and the dancing flames with a vivid, burning clarity, yet all of it happens in utter silence; my memory, in an act of benign protection, has excised every single sound.

I do not know how long I stood there, but suddenly our cook rushed in and dragged me away, back to my parents' bedroom. He was shaken now, for he had seen the mob too, and he began to walk back and forth across the room, covering his face and tugging at his moustache.

In frustration at my imprisonment in that room, I began to disarrange the bedclothes. I pulled off the covers and began to tug at the sheets, when suddenly my father's pillow fell over, revealing a dark, metallic object. It was small, no larger than a toy pistol but much heavier, and I had to use both my hands to lift it. I pointed it at the wall, as I would my own water-pistol, and curling a finger around the trigger I squeezed as hard as I could. But nothing happened, there was no sound and the trigger wouldn't move. I tried once more, and again nothing
happened. I turned it over in my hands, wondering what made it work, but then the door flew open and my father came into the room. He crossed the floor with a couple of strides, and snatched the revolver out of my hands. Without another word, he slipped it into his pocket and went racing out of the room.

It was then that I realized he was afraid we might be killed that night, and that he had sent me to the bedroom so I would be the last to be found if the gates gave way and the mob succeeded in breaking in.

But nothing did happen. The police arrived at just the right moment, alerted by some of my parents' Muslim friends, and drove the mob away. Next morning, when I looked out over the balcony, the garden was strewn with bricks and rubble, but the refugees who had gathered there were sitting peacefully in the sun, calm, though thoroughly subdued.

Our cook, on the other hand, was in a mood of great elation that morning, and when we went downstairs he joked cheerfully with the people in the garden, laughing, and asking how they happened to be there. Later, we squatted in a corner and he whispered in my ear, pointing at the knots of people around us, and told me their stories. I was to recognize those stories years later, when reading through a collection of old newspapers, I discovered that on the very night when I'd seen those flames dancing around the walls of our house, there had been a riot in Calcutta too, similar in every respect except that there it was Muslims who had been attacked by Hindus. But equally, in both cities—and this must be said, it must always be said, for it is the incantation that redeems our sanity—in both Dhaka and Calcutta, there were exactly mirrored stories of Hindus and Muslims coming to each others' rescue, so that many more
people were saved than killed.

The stories of those riots are always the same: tales that grow out of an explosive barrier of symbols—of cities going up in flames because of a cow found dead in a temple or a pig in a mosque; of people killed for wearing a lungi or a dhoti, depending on where they find themselves; of women disembowelled for wearing veils or vermilion, of men dismembered for the state of their foreskins.

But I was never able to explain very much of this to Nabeel or anyone else in Nashawy. The fact was that despite the occasional storms and turbulence their country had seen, despite even the wars that some of them had fought in, theirs was a world that was far gentler, far less violent, very much more humane and innocent than mine.

I could not have expected them to understand an Indian's terror of symbols.

W
ITH THE COMING
of winter the rains began and soon the lanes of Nashawy were knee-deep in cold, sticky mud and nobody ventured out of their houses if they could help it. Those were quiet days, for there was not much to do in the fields, apart from watering the winter wheat and taking the livestock out to pasture so that they could feed on freshly-cut maize and berseem. Cows and buffaloes would bear rich loads of milk during these months, if fed properly, so every family that could afford to had planted fodder crops, and those that hadn't were
buying fresh feed from others. No house wanted to be without its supply of milk now, for in this season everyone relished the thought of sitting at home, away from the cold, and talking and resting through the day and eating plentifully of yoghurt, cheese and ghee.

One morning, eager for a break from the long days I had spent sitting in smoke-filled rooms, I took advantage of a sudden clearing of the skies and set out for the fields with a book. It took a while to get through the muddy lanes, but once the village was behind me it seemed well worth it. The countryside was extraordinarily beautiful at this time of year: whenever there was a clear day the wheat, clover and maize stood brilliantly green against deep blue skies, while Nashawy itself, with its huddle of earth houses, seemed like a low range of hills brooding in the distance.

I took a path that led past Khamees's land, for I often stopped by to talk to him or his brothers when I went out for a walk. They were usually to be found sitting in the spot where I had first met them, a shady knoll beside a canal, where two water-wheels stood side-by-side. One belonged to Khamees's family and the other to Zaghloul's, and they took it in turns to irrigate their fields at the times when water was released into the canal. They had planted trees there so that their cattle would have some shade while they were drawing the wheels, and since that was where they usually fed their livestock, they had also built a wooden water-trough, at one end of the clearing. It was a quiet, evocative spot, for there was a tranquil, sculptural quality to the great wooden disks of the water-wheels, lying half-buried in the leafy shade, with the tall maize standing like a green curtain against the background: in all of Nashawy there was no better place to read, especially when the wheels were turning and the
water was gurgling slowly through the canals and into the fields.

Neither Khamees nor his brothers were anywhere in sight when I arrived there, but I knew that one of them had to be close by for their family's livestock was tethered beside the trough—a buffalo, a cow, and a nanny-goat with great, pendulous udders. They were chewing contentedly on freshly-cut fodder, a great pile of a kind of maize called diréwa, grown specially for feeding livestock. I knew that it would not be long before Khamees or one of his brothers appeared and, eager to make the best of the silence, I settled down quickly to read.

I had only turned a page or two when there was a sudden rustling nearby, followed by a burst of giggles, and then Khamees's youngest brother, ‘Eid, shot out of the maize field, carrying a sheaf of plants. He took shelter behind the trough, grinning delightedly, and moments later two girls burst into the clearing, hot on his heels. They came to an abrupt halt upon seeing me, and after looking me over, murmured their greetings. I had seen them before and knew them to be the daughters of men who had fields nearby; they were dressed in flowered skirts and headscarves, and they must have been about sixteen or so. They could not have been more than a couple of years older than ‘Eid, but the difference seemed much greater, because ‘Eid was unusually small for his age—a telescopically foreshortened version of Khamees.

At first my presence seemed to make the girls unsure of themselves, but my role as a harmless fixture was well established now, and they soon forgot about me and began to chase ‘Eid round and round the water-wheel until finally his jallabeyya snagged on a beam and threw him to the ground.

The girls fell upon him where he lay, tickling and teasing, tugging his ears and pinching his knees. ‘What's the matter, ya
‘Eid, have you forgotten what you said?' one of them said, laughing. The other scratched him on the back and began to cajole, plaintively: ‘Come on, ya ‘Eid, you promised, you said you'd do it, now we're not leaving until you do.'

‘Eid, gasping for breath, was in no state to answer until he finally managed to free himself and climb back on to his feet.

‘No,' he said, with a masterful shake of his head while the two girls stood towering over him. ‘No—can't you see I'm busy?'

At this, one of the girls pinned his arms back while the other began to tickle him and just when it seemed as though he would fall over yet again, he cried out loudly in surrender: ‘Stop, stop that, you girls—wait a minute.'

The girls released him, but stood where they were, watchful and ready to spring. ‘You said you'd help,' one of them said. ‘Now you've got to do it.'

‘All right,' he said, shrugging, haughtily. ‘All right, all right, all right.'

He straightened his jallabeyya with a flourish and walked away from them, strutting like a prizefighter. As soon as his back was turned the girls ran past the livestock, exploding into giggles, and after pausing for a moment they raced into the maize field, vanishing as suddenly and mysteriously as they had come.

After they had gone, ‘Eid tossed his head with a show of disdain and seated himself beside me. ‘Did you see how they were behaving?' he said, crossing his arms across his chest. ‘Did you see? Do you see how they've filled out; how they move their bodies when they walk? I'll tell you: what those two want is to get married. That's what they want, you understand—especially the big one, the one in the green dress—she wants to get
married, she really wants it.'

Picking up a maize-leaf he began to chew on the stem, gazing narrow-eyed into the distance. ‘Actually it's me they want to marry,' he said, after a long pause. ‘Especially the big one, the one in the green dress; she really wants me—it's obvious. But I've made up my mind; I won't have her; she's too big for me. Why, if she rolled on me, I'd be finished. There'd be nothing left.'

There was a rustling sound in the maize again, and he jumped quickly to his feet. ‘There, you see,' he said, with an air of world-weariness. ‘You see—they just can't leave me alone. They're back again.'

When the two girls ran back into the clearing, a moment later, he cupped his hands around his mouth and announced: ‘I've told him; I've told him how much you want to marry me.'

The girls stood transfixed for a moment, and then, with loud hoots of laughter they began to chase him around the trough again, tickling and slapping him playfully.

‘Of course we'll marry you, ya ‘Eid …'

‘We'll both marry you …'

‘As soon as you grow a little …'

‘When you're a man …'

In a matter of seconds he was squealing and shouting, crying out to them to stop, but the chase went on until he had been reduced again to a squirming heap in the dust. Then, leaving him lying where he was, the girls vanished once again, suddenly and mysteriously.

‘It's sad,' said ‘Eid, once he had picked himself up again. ‘It's sad how desperately they want to marry me. I want to get married too—it's about time now—but I don't want to marry them. They're no good; they're not pretty enough for me.'

‘Who do you want to marry then?' I asked.

‘I know the girl I would like to marry,' he said. ‘She walks past here sometimes, on her way to her father's fields. I've said a few words to her, and from the way she smiles I know she would agree. But her parents wouldn't let her, so it's no use thinking of it.'

‘Why not?' I said.

‘Because she's in school, studying,' he said. ‘And her people are well-off, while in our family we don't have very much and often things are very hard in our house. And apart from that, her father is a Badawy, and he probably wouldn't let her marry into our family. There's nothing I can do—in the end I'll probably have to marry one of my cousins, like my parents want.'

Then, squatting beside me, he explained that he hadn't told anyone in his family about the girl he wanted to marry: it was no use hoping that anything would come of it, because there had been trouble between the Jammal and the Badawy for a long time, since long before he was born. It went back to the days of a Badawy ‘omda, one Ahmed Effendi, who had owned a lot of land around the village.

‘Look over there,' said ‘Eid, pointing with a stick. ‘Do you see the land in front of us, from there to there, almost four feddans? That was all his land, and it still belongs to his son, who lives in Cairo. Khamees and I and my brothers, we work on it as sharecroppers—it doesn't belong to us. We only get a small part of the crop, he takes all the rest. We have some land of our own, which we got during the Reforms, but that's far away and it's not half as big as this.'

Ahmed Effendi, the old ‘omda, had always treated the Jammal as though they were his slaves, said ‘Eid. He had made them work without payment, in his house and on the fields,
and as a result, once elections were started, the Jammal voted against him. There had been fights between the two clans afterwards and for a while it was just like a feud. Ahmed Effendi would gladly have evicted his Jammal tenants, but by then the law had changed and there was nothing he could do.

Towards the end of his story, Zaghloul the weaver appeared, leading a cow and a buffalo. He listened to ‘Eid while giving his livestock their feed and then he seated himself beside us. Soon, in keeping with his habit, he piled a heap of freshly-shorn wool in front of him and began to spin yarn with a hand-held spindle.