Children of Dust (5 page)

T
he mysterious Balochi neighbors who owned the Land Rover blocking the alley, as well as the largest house and compound in the
mohalla
, inspired a lot of curiosity. Unlike everyone else, they kept their door closed. Their children never played outside. They didn’t try to initiate conversation with anyone. They didn’t send anyone to the mosque.

They were arms traders, as it turned out.

One early morning Ammi saw various men come out of the house and unload a fruit truck full of crated weapons. When she went and told Pops, he praised them for “being able to fabricate any weapon without ever going to school.” He also commended their business plan, explaining that the Afghan War had produced a surplus of weapons that now got sold all around the country. The Balochis were “just like sugarcane juicers,” according to Pops, “except they sell bullets and
bandook
s.”

Occasionally my cousins and I went to our roof and tried to peer across through their windows. We wanted to see a Stinger missile or a stash of Kalashnikovs. Sometimes late at night, while we were sleeping on the rooftop, I heard the Land Rover roar to life and drive out of the alley, rattling bricks and causing propped-up
charpai
s to fall. By the time I woke up again the next morning, the Jeep would have returned, dusty and muddy.

For all their secrecy, the Balochis had a mole: the matriarch. She came regularly to sit with Dadi Ma, who attracted all the beleaguered housewives from nearby
mohalla
s. They came to sit at her feet and complain about their husbands, and in turn she handed them lentils to sift.

The Balochi wife was named Sabra. She had given her husband many boys, but now, as she grew old, according to Balochi custom she had been moved to the children’s room and her husband had brought in a new wife. Sabra came to complain about that supplanter. Specifically, “about how black-skinned that one is,
astaghfirullah
!” Everyone came to know the villainous second wife as Black Baloch.

Sabra wanted to see Black Baloch’s downfall and asked Dadi Ma whether there was any dark magic she could use.

“No!” Dadi Ma said vehemently. “No black magic. We have to think about the afterlife!”

“If you’re thinking about the afterlife,” Ammi countered, “then we shouldn’t backbite the woman either. Those who do
gheebat
will be made to eat their sister’s flesh in hell.”

That reminder about the severe punishment that Allah would mete out to backbiters was thrown out any time gossip-mongering occurred—which was often. The comment was usually made by the woman who, at that particular moment, felt most guilty about the discussion. The other women, equally guilty of the crime overall if not at that moment, lowered their heads and picked at their trays with a forefinger and thumb, flicking the desiderata that dirtied the lentils. Then, because gossip was a major industry—one that couldn’t be shut down even under threat from Allah—the conversation resumed.

Ultimately, Dadi Ma didn’t need to resolve the tension between Sabra and Black Baloch, because their husband did it for them. He went to Balochistan and brought home wife number three. When he threw Black Baloch out of the bedroom, the ignominy caused Sabra and Black Baloch to immediately enter into an alliance. They often came over to our house, together as friends now, to ask about possible black magic, though Dadi Ma constantly rebuffed them.

One day, late in the afternoon while the men were at work—my father at the small clinic that he was trying rather unsuccessfully to
establish—Ammi, Dadi Ma, and the aunts were sitting on the veranda. Suddenly the curtain was swept open by Black Baloch, who rushed in alone. She had a panicked looked in her eye, and her face was white. She was wearing neither a
niqab
nor anything on her feet, as though she had run out of the house unexpectedly. Dadi Ma summoned a glass of water and told Black Baloch to sit down.

“What is it?” she asked in a calming voice.

“Unbelievable! It’s Sabra! Oh, the end has come!”

“Tell already!” said one of the aunts.

“Everyone is going to find out now! What will happen to the reputation of our men!”

I was on the rooftop, rolling marbles with my cousins, but we all headed downstairs to listen when it became clear that there was drama in the making. By the time we reached the ground floor, the women were wrapping up in
chador
s and shawls to cross the alley and head into the Balochi fortress.

“We have to do condolence,” Ammi explained to us.

“This is really unbelievable,” said one of the aunts. “I don’t understand how this could happen.”

“That poor creature!” Dadi Ma said, reciting a prayer.

Black Baloch led the caravan of condolence across the street. My cousins and I followed, pleased that finally there was a way into the mysterious Balochi house.

As the yellow door into the courtyard swung open, a rooster scuttled and squawked and several of the countless hens clucked. A small goat scurried past with an awkward limp, making a go at the exit, but one of the boys grabbed its rope. In a corner of the courtyard sat Sabra, rocking back and forth on her straw
chowki
.

“Evil men!” said my older aunt.

“Poor creature!” said Dadi Ma. “Look at how uncomfortable it looks!”

“Which one was it?” Ammi asked, looking around the courtyard.

“Evil men!”

“Just
did
her? Just like that?” Dadi Ma asked Sabra.

She wiped tears and nodded.

“You know, Ammi
ji
,” Black Baloch said to Dadi Ma, “it
is
kind of funny.”

Dadi Ma looked at her sternly, and then her expression softened. “It is
somewhat
amusing, yes.”

Suddenly a chuckle erupted from Black Baloch. Then all the women started cackling.

“Which goat was it?” Ammi asked.

Sabra pointed to the limping goat whose rope was held by one of the boys.

“It was your son, Sabra?”

She nodded. “My oldest.”

“Evil men!” said my older aunt again, still aghast.

“Oh my,” Ammi said. “Look at the poor goat’s expression.”

“Bring it here, boy; we have to soothe it,” Dadi Ma said. She read a
surah
from the Quran and then put her hand on the violated goat’s head to bless it.

“He didn’t even care that it was so young,” Black Baloch said.

“How awful!” said Ammi. “I don’t know if it will survive.”

Then the women began discussing whether the goat’s meat had become un-Islamic. It was resolved that the animal should be slaughtered and its meat distributed to charity. As for the culprit, it was apparent that he needed to be married.

Before the marriage could happen, however, the Balochis fixed up their Land Rover, outfitted it with a machine gun, and left town.

Pops said that they probably moved to Karachi. He claimed that they had become rich enough to become one of the elites of Pakistan.

A
mmi became pregnant with my brother Zain at a time when Pops had few patients and we had no money, so everyone in the compound at Sehra Kush worried how we would manage our finances. In fact, Ammi had to go stay with her relatives in Lahore for the delivery. However, when she brought Zain back, all the earlier concerns were forgotten. The baby had the ability to elicit smiles from everyone. As he grew up, his favorite activity was to bash Flim and me on the head with his favorite spoon.

One day, while Ammi was cooking in the courtyard, she saw that Zain was looking up at the rooftop. Inching along in his walker, he approached the staircase, pointing and cooing. She followed him, and as she drew near she began screaming: someone dark and menacing seemed to be staring down at mother and son. A few days later she heard pigeons congregating in the same staircase, but when she went to check there was nothing there. Then finally, at all hours of the day, she began to hear the sounds of
jinn
s whispering from the darkness of the staircase, calling for Zain. The sinister presence on the roof lasted seven days all told.

On the seventh day Zain was playing with another infant as Ammi and Dadi Ma sat and gossiped. I was outside, tossing a ball with my cousins. Suddenly screams went up inside.

When I ran to the bedroom, Ammi was holding Zain upside down, shaking him as if he had swallowed something, while Dadi Ma shouted, “He’s not breathing! He’s stopped breathing!”

Ammi remained calm but she couldn’t get a reaction from Zain, whose body had gone limp. She tried CPR and the Heimlich maneuver, but still he didn’t respond. Suddenly, one of my uncles burst through the curtain, swooped Zain into his arms, and ran toward Pops’s clinic, approximately a mile away. By this time, Ammi was wailing too, and both she and Dadi Ma ran into the alley without a
chador
or
niqab
.

Inside the house, speculation began as to what had prompted Zain to stop breathing. Someone noticed peanut shells on the floor and concluded that he had choked on their contents. Ammi, when she came back in to await news from the clinic, said that she feared it was the mysterious presence she’d been feeling for a week that had strangled Zain. Dadi Ma pulled out a copy of the Quran and recited loudly, rocking back and forth aggressively as if the momentum of her body might affect the direction of destiny.

At the clinic, Pops performed a tracheotomy on Zain, but it was fruitless. A little before the
azan
for the evening prayer rang out, Zain was pronounced dead. Pops wrapped the body in a little sheet taken from the storage room of his barren clinic and walked his dead son back to Ammi.

Even before Pops arrived, word of Zain’s death had reached Ammi via the children shuttling back and forth between house and clinic. She screamed and then cried, her body alternately doubling and straightening in agony.

I had little idea of what to do. I stuffed my tennis ball in my pocket and went to the bedroom upon some adult’s instructions, but I still listened intently to all the goings-on and watched what I could. I heard Ammi trying to get outside and “go to my Zain.” Her curly hair flew wildly as the other women restrained her.

By this time ladies from across the
mohalla
were streaming into the house. They lined up against the wall, standing stoically, neither joining in the fray nor commenting to one another. With blank expressions on their faces, they murmured verses from the Quran.

Zain’s body was brought into the house and passed from uncle to uncle until Tau and Dada Abu took the body and put it through the ritual washing at the
nalka
. Pops, masking his emotion with activity, left to make arrangements for the funeral prayer. Ammi, meanwhile, refused to accept that Zain was gone and kept trying to snatch him away from those washing him. Despite her pleas, she was held far away, twisting and writhing at a distance because women weren’t allowed to give a corpse its ritual washing.

Zain was wrapped in a white shroud and his body was placed on a little bed set atop a large box in the center of the courtyard. As the gathered crowd picked up copies of the Quran, they sat down in a circle around the platform and began reading
surah Yasin
.

It still hadn’t really sunk in for me that my brother was dead. I was too caught up in watching Ammi’s mourning. Gradually, though, the death was brought home to me. A woman thrust a Quran in my hand and told me that the departing soul would be comforted if the words of
surah Yasin
went along with it. I looked at Zain’s body and at the dark evening sky, searching for a column of light in which the angels taking Zain’s soul could be traveling. Another woman said that reciting the Quran would cure my grief.

Wanting the comfort of my mother, I went to the room where Ammi was being held. Numerous women rubbed and massaged various parts of her body, all the while exhorting her to give in to the balming effect of the Quran. Dadi Ma and other elderly women whispered how the Prophet Ibrahim lives with the dead children in the seventh heaven, and how a child that dies before the age of two is considered to have died during
jihad
and is thus considered a
shaheed
, or religious martyr, meaning that he can take his parents to Paradise on the Day of Judgment. This didn’t comfort Ammi.

Eventually I fell asleep in the midst of all the wailing.

By the time I woke up in the morning, Zain had been buried, Ammi had collapsed from exhaustion, and Pops was nowhere to be found. One of my recently arrived aunts hugged me and then informed me that I should head off to the mosque to pray and participate in the
qurankhani
, a communal gathering during the period of mourning at which the Quran was recited.

I walked through the house and looked for a
chador
because it was cold. Suddenly I was aware of everything. Here was the place where my brother had taken his first steps just a few days ago. Here was the place where my brother had choked. Here was the place my mother had wept. Here was the place my brother was given his last rites. Here was the place where his dead body had lain. Yet now, a few meager hours later, the entire house dripped with indifference. There was nothing to suggest that Zain had ever been there. The alley, which the day before had been filled with people, was empty. The housewives expressing concern had gone home, having fulfilled their social obligation and recited the requisite amount of
Yasin
.

I left the house and wandered for a time. When I came upon the square where the donkey was parked, my eyes fell upon the mosque. Bathed in the soft blue of early morning, the building’s architectural simplicity—a minaret, a dome, and an archway—left a deep impression upon me. It was the one place that welcomed my sorrow.

Before prayer, I sat on a straw mat in the cold courtyard, inhaling the dusty gloom. I pulled the edge of my
chador
across my face as Ammi had done and drew the other end like a hood. Then, thinking of the night long ago when Zain had hit me on the head with a spoon, I cried for my brother.

I
n the subsequent days, an investigation into the cause of death was launched. The peanut shells were suspected, but an X-ray Pops had hastily taken didn’t support that thesis. Lack of scientific certainty opened the door for muted conversations about black magic. A prime culprit with witchlike tendencies was necessary, and one such person was found in the figure of Gina, my Uncle Saroor’s wife.

From the first day their marriage had been tainted by something mysterious. Uncle Saroor was a well-built, attractive, and lively man in his twenties who dressed like the gangsters from Punjabi films and kept his mustache in meticulous condition. His wife was nearly forty years old, her skin leathered and pock-marked. It was rumored that he had married her for her wealth, an idea corroborated by an argument that
broke out when she didn’t bring a fridge as part of her dowry. Others claimed that she had used black magic to trap him. In any case, they didn’t get along well, and this made the family wary of her.

On Uncle Saroor and Gina’s wedding night, all the couples in the family pretended it was their wedding night too and acted accordingly. Within a few months it was revealed that four women in the family were pregnant—one of whom was Ammi, with Zain. Three of the four pregnancies were successful: all but Gina’s. This meant that not only was she a rich, aged spinster who had managed to get herself a young man, but she was also completely useless, since she couldn’t produce sons like the others. Naturally, given this background, the blame for Zain’s death fell upon her.

The first shot was fired by my dad’s older brother, Tau, who on the night of the death claimed that Gina had something to do with it. Due to the intensity of the moment, his comment had been forgotten. After the three-day mourning period, however, sources began to reveal strange occurrences involving Gina.

“I was in the latrine,” Dadi Ma whispered, leaning into Ammi. “I saw something burned. I don’t know what! Allah knows what it was! But that Gina, she definitely looked at Zain with envy!”

“You’re suggesting it was
jadu?”
Ammi blanched, at the mention of black magic.

Dadi Ma stayed silent and nodded. Then she consulted with Tau. Being a member of the Tablighi Jamaat, he was the most religiously inclined in the family. Holding his henna-tinged beard in his hand, he mulled the possibility of
jadu
for a minute and then whispered that he knew a
jadu tornay walay ka alim
—a religious man who could break hexes.

A preliminary visit was initiated by the two women with the
alim
. Since he was very close to Allah, he instructed Ammi and Dadi Ma to wear
niqab
in his presence; further, he refused to look in their direction. (Women had the propensity to tempt him and potentially lead him to think sinful thoughts.) After listening to the problem, the
alim
instructed Ammi to return in a few days, bringing with her a shirt that contained her “musk.”

This time taking Pops along, Ammi and Dadi Ma went back with the shirt. The
alim
smelled it and then instructed Ammi to walk around in front of him. Then he gave her a plain piece of paper, read something over it, and said, “If you now concentrate, you will see the picture of the person who did this.”

Dadi Ma pressed up close, expecting to see Gina.

“I see someone!” said Ammi.

“Gina?” Dadi Ma asked. “You see her?”

“No,” Ammi said in confusion. “I see a man. The dark man from the roof.”

The
alim
told Ammi to ignore what she saw and suggested to her that she should see a woman—a description that fit Gina. Ammi concentrated harder but didn’t see anything. The
alim
then gave Ammi seven pieces of folded paper and instructed her to take a bath every day with one piece mixed in the water. He advised her to be especially thorough with washing her hair. Then he gave a prescription to Pops.

It was unclear whether the
alim
had broken the hex, but a few days later Dadi Ma noted that Gina was being excessively sweet toward Ammi. “Now that she knows your child ended up the same as hers, she’s happy,” said Dadi Ma.

The hex-breaker’s ineptitude had the effect of redirecting discussion about the causes of death back to science. A doctor from the United States with whom Pops consulted after the
alim
made a persuasive case that Zain had died as a result of a strange version of sudden infant death syndrome.