Two Short Novels (18 page)

‘Oh, Saki,’ Maqbool repeated the hackneyed phrase of poetry. ‘Bring me a new hot cup of salt tea
. . . .
’ And he smiled at her, even as he turned to Juma, Qadri and Saleema and Mahmdoo
. . .

They warmed to him and turned to him, expecting to speak.

He looked at them and then began:

‘All the way to Srinagar I was obsessed by the thought of writing a poem on the terrors of death. But when I got there I saw so much life, so much of life that my fears fell away from me. It is a question of faith, of belief in ourselves and in the struggle
. . . .
And then we can hope to be free
. . . .
I went through all kinds of moods on the road. I lived through the moods of the people. I thought of their resignation before Allah. But something in me could not accept, though I was spiritless enough, until I saw the people of Srinagar
. . . .
Then the spirit came into me. And all my being rose in protest against the evil which has been thrust upon us
. . . .
Now we cannot ignore the sincere faith which the people of Srinagar have put into us — the people of Baramula. They expect us to hold out. I know that death is not an amusing thing. And I realise that it may be difficult here. And then, at the end — it won’t be like a fairy story, happy ever after. But we will still have to wage a persistent struggle. We will have to suffer, and suffer
. . . .
But that is how men grow — become men
. . .
’

There was a knocking at the door downstairs. This time mother being away, Noor looked out of the window. A whole group of Pathans was there, shouting:

‘That bandit Maqbool is up there? Send him down! The son of a donkey! He has given us the slip twice!’

Noor returned from the window, pale and speechless.

‘Go and hide,’ she said to Maqbool.

By this time his mother and father had gone, running to the windows, while Jumma, Qadri, Saleem Bux, and Mahmdoo, got up to take cover.

‘Maqbool is not here,’ his father lied.

‘Open the door!’

‘Go away,’ Maqbool’s mother shrieked.

And she was answered back with profanities.

Mahmdoo came forward and, detaching the fainting Noor from Maqbool, thrust the boy away, saying: ‘Run, if you can
. . .
go
. . .
somewhere
. . .
’

The shrewd glance in Mahmdoo’s eyes contrasted with the vulnerable tenderness in his voice: ‘Go, go
. . .
’

‘Go away and hide,’ whispered Juma.

Maqbool passed his hand over Noor’s forehead and looked around desperately. Then, with a jerk of his head, he had decided: ‘I will go to the haystack,’ he said to Mahmdoo.

‘I am coming with you,’ said Gula.

‘Gula!’ Mahmdoo snarled at his son.

But his son had already gone ahead towards the kitchen and waited there to follow Maqbool.

‘The only way out is from the rooftop,’ Noor said opening her eyes wide. ‘Come, I will show you
. . .
’

And she got up to go and show her brother, but collapsed on hearing heavy steps behind her. The Pakistanis had broken the door downstairs, and were rushing up when Maqbool mounted the steps to the loft of the house from which the window led to the roof top.

As the sentries came into the sitting room, holding the confectioner, Mahmdoo, before them, they shouted.

‘Where is he? Son of the Devil!
. . .
Identify him!’

The man waved his hand emptily.

‘Rooftop, rooftop!’ Noor was moaning in Kashmiri. ‘Maqbool hurry away to the rooftop
. . .
’

‘What does she say?’ one of the sentries queried, his red beard glowing like fire.

The confectioner could not speak. But even against his will, his eyes roamed towards the direction where Maqbool had gone.

‘The swine, he has given us the slip again. Follow him
. . .
up there!
. . .
It seems he has gone there
. . .
’

Maqbool crouched on the precarious edge of the sloping roof of his father’s house to survey the position. It would be best to get on to the flat roofs of the houses at the end of the lane and then jump off from there to the fields.

Before he had decided to do this, however, he heard steps coming up to the loft. So there was no time to pause and think. He must run for it.

A strange stillness was in his soul. Then panic. His heart drummed. And in front of him he could see the hazards of treading on the tin gutter into which the wooden roof ended. Ten yards of it, before he could reach the first flat roof, of the house of the carpenter Akbar. He took the chance.

Crashing of old tin bending under his feet
. . . .
Crackling of dead leaves
. . . .
And crunch-crunch of the wooden supports.

The sunlight from the even blue sky guided him in a half playful mood. The odds were that either the tin would give way, or he would fall to his death: or that his pursuers would snipe at him and pick him off, because they were such wonderful marksmen. Or that he would get past the width of his own house into Akbar’s roof . . .

He found himself getting to the first objective
. . .

As he had half expected, a bullet rang through behind him, just missing his left arm.

He must be bearing a charmed life, for the fire had come almost from thirty yards away.

He wriggled, in spite of himself, feeling he had been shot, though he knew he was safe.

This made him turn his face to the small window of the loft, and he saw that the sniper was the sentry to whom he had spoken at the confectioner’s shop.

He ducked his head behind the projection of the sloping roof and waited for the next move.

Only foul mouthed abuse. And the challenge: ‘Come out!’

A prolonged moment.

Apparently the sentry was trying to decide whether he should follow him or adopt some other strategy.

This gave Maqbool time to measure the distance from Akbar’s roof to the house at the end of the lane. About a hundred and fifty yards
. . .

He would have to walk, exposed on roofs and walls. And the next bullet may get him.

He would wait.

‘Surround all the houses!’ the Pakistanis were shouting. ‘And shoot him!’

From the cover which he had taken, it was three yards to the thick wall of Akbar Khan’s house. He breathed deeply and tried to get his nerve back.

Instinctively, he lifted the lapel of his shirt to offer a target.

The shot inevitably followed. He had reckoned on five seconds before the sentry could reload.

So he darted towards the wall.

Another bullet coursed down, by him.

There was no escape. He jumped into the sloping roof of the verandah of Akbar Khan’s house. Then, without pause, he leapt into the courtyard.

Shrieks
. . . .
Shouts
. . . .
Weeping
. . .

But he was set for his objective — the door.

He unlocked the latch and emerged into the lane.

The pursuers had all entered the hall of his own house and the coast was clear.

He ran.

Panting, almost exhausted, his hands grazed badly, he took the curve of the lane, cleanly, almost as a master sprinter. His eyes were nearly blind with the smoke of confusion. His heart beat like the drum of the tribesmen, speaking his death knell with each beat. He moaned involuntarily.

Then a barrage of rifle fire opened up behind him. Bullets whizzed past. Obviously, they had come down from his father’s house. Not too near yet. But they might catch up with him.

One cartridge went into the side of a door ahead, into old Rajba’s house.

Shouts.

They must be following now.

He leapt over the projection by Zooni’s the weaver woman’s house.

He skipped over the hens, which went fluttering before him, cackle, cackle
. . .

Silence.

Again shouts, abuse and challenges.

He couldn’t tell who was encouraging him to run and who was asking him to stop.

His mother must be weeping, his sister must have fainted
. . . .
‘Thanks be to Allah!’ his father must be saying
. . .

Allah! Where was Allah! Why was he always against the innocents?
. . .
There would be no salvation unless the religion of fate went by the board and the soul became alive?
. . .
Noor’s face was like a crumpled flower before his forehead — as she lay helpless!
. . .
And his mother’s drawn face, uglied by fear
. . .
at the back of his head. But his father’s face did not appear! Anyhow, how could God punish them so?
. . .

The strong uprush of feelings made for slowness.

He pulled himself together, looked back and saw his pursuers running in a horde, nearly overpowering him.

That moment of the vision of his enemies became a prolonged agony — so clear was the picture of heads and torsos, with rifles pressing forward.

He put all his will into the race to get away.

Another barrage of fire.

One bullet at his heels.

He jumped.

It would be safer to keep leaping.

Perhaps they didn’t want to kill him outright. That was why they were shooting at his feet.

As he jumped and came down on earth, his right foot fell in the large greasy puddle of the open drain and slipped on the slime.

He fell head long.

What a stupid thing to do! The fellows must be right on him.

He heaved himself from where he lay and stood up.

The advance guard of the pursuers was on him.

Hitting him with the rifle ends, shouting abuse and filth in their broken speech, slapping his face, and thrusting their fisticuffs into his sides, they pulled him from side to side, slapped him again and pushed him forward, till he fell.

They dragged him up and, supporting his sinking form, pushed him forward again, the forth of anger in their shouting, crazed mouths.

The Pakistanis took him to the courtyard of an old caravanserai, which had been used, until their descent upon the town, as stables-cum-residential quarters by the tongawallahs of Baramula.

The dirty, bare courtyard was congested with a horde of tribesmen, who sat drowsily on string charpais,
leaning on their bedrolls and gossiping, as the hookah gurgled in their midst. Most of the ferocious men stared somnolently at the prisoner as he came in, ahead of the rifle points of his captors. Maqbool felt so self-conscious that he did not raise his eyes and went blindly forward.

‘A
kafir
!
’ one of the guards announced to his brethren.

For a moment, the hubble-bubble did not gurgle anymore, as all eyebrows were raised towards the victim. Then some horses, tied to halters at one end of the stables, neighed in succession, as though they were sensitive to Maqbool’s plight. And the congeries of men began to pass comments to each other.

Maqbool felt the strong tang of the dung that had been scattered by the horse’s hoofs into the courtyard and he noticed huge flies buzzing on the refuse.

As his attention was distracted, a tall, lanky man, with a cartridge belt slung from his left shoulder to the right side of his waist, came over and accosted him.

‘Oh, do you not value your life — that you defy us?’

Maqbool felt the impulse to be histrionic and answer back, but he restrained himself.

His captors made what sounded like a report in a staccato speech to the tall fellow, who gave some orders to the guards. As a result of this exchange, his captors pushed him towards the little door of a cell.

‘The orders of Zaman Khan,’ one of the guards bawled, ‘you will remain here till Sardar Khurshid Anwar comes to decide your fate.’

Maqbool felt a tremor of relief at the thought of being out of their reach for a while, if even for a little while. He willingly went forward, feeling the mouths of the rifles still digging into his back. At length Zaman Khan advanced, unlatched the iron latch from the hook on the panel of the rather battered old style door, and flung it open. One of the captives viciously kicked him from behind, so that he nearly fell headlong into the dungeon, but was saved by the end of a huge bedstead which occupied half the room. An instinctive groan escaped him: ‘This will make you into a believer, infidel!’ said the guard who had kicked him.

Zaman Khan gave further orders even as he closed the door and fastened the latch in its place.

Maqbool’s heart pounced fiercely in spite of his will to suffer what was coming, as the inevitable punishment for his rebel’s pride.

In the darkness of the narrow, cavernous Mughal style cell, apparently the home of a tongawallah from the broken leather straps which hung on the pegs on the wall, Maqbool came face to face with his own fears.

He seated himself on the bed, his legs dangling from the perch.

All kinds of thoughts rushed through him. What would his parents be thinking? To be sure, his mother must be weeping, his father sullen and angry, and his sister sad and shedding tears in secret as was her habit. If only he could have been allowed to talk to them at length, to comfort them and to tell them that he had decided to fight it out and die, he would have been content.

But these barbarians had pushed him out. Strange that their slogan was
‘
Allah ho Akbar
!’
As he was not a Muslim at all, but only born a Muslim, he need not be shocked, he felt. He had not said the Friday prayers for a long time — no prayers at all since the last Id day, and that was also because there was the feast of sweet vermicelli to follow the morning’s ritual in the mosque. He recalled that his mother had asked him to keep at least one fast as a token during the holy month of Ramzan, but he had always laughed away her pleas and said that, as a political agitator, he kept so many enforced fasts, forgetting to eat while wandering from village to village . . . . So the raiders were, after all, being just, from their point of view. To them, it was ‘jehad’, a holy war, in which all the defenders, and their friends, were infidels who must be destroyed . . . . There was something terrible about this single-mindedness, which drove people to the extremes of brutality without a stirring of their consciences . . . because he himself would have had doubts before killing people . . .