Karma (8 page)

-  Well try understanding this! It was a Hindu servant who marked my door with charcoal. So the mob knew which house to incinerate!

Dear Maya,

You were right to save yourself.

White gloves

The rocking of the train puts me to sleep.

In the dream a uniformed man is directing traffic. He stands on a dais in the middle of a crowded street. Taxis, rickshaws, motorcycles, bicycles go round and round like a giant traffic circle without an exit.

At first, he uses his white gloves to orchestrate the traffic, but no one is paying him any attention. The cars circle until they become stuck. People are shouting at each other in anger, but no one can move.

The traffic policeman unwraps his turban and whips it at the cars. The direction of the cloth tells the drivers which way to go. The drivers are shouting because it is too confusing. No one can move. The man is unperturbed.

He continues to spin the cloth; it floats, ripples in the bright air, a ribbon of intention, a ribbon of thought coming from his own mind, and then I see, for the first time, that it's not a policeman, it's the prime minister. She's directing traffic. She's the one not listening to the drivers. And now the cloth is a whip coming down on their heads.

At first the people cower, are brought to their knees as they ward off the blows, but still the traffic is not moving, so their anger grows. They want to move. They are tired of being stuck in this circle. One man stands up to her and his bravery spreads. They rush at her, knocking her from her platform in the centre of the road. Their hands pull her body apart.

The night should have ended

We sigh when the sun rises. Another day further from the madness.

The Hindus face the morning rays and chant, palms together, heads bowing, beads in hand.

A Muslim man spreads out his prayer mat and kneels. The train changes direction and he turns too. To Mecca.

When the Sikh man speaks I know the words.

My father's voice in the early light. The sun has risen every day of my life with this song.

Is it possible Bapu is reciting this prayer? In a quiet place, where it's safe to call out his faith? Or perhaps he hides? And dares not breathe? Or make a sound to save his life? Perhaps he searches for me now in the burned skeleton of the Rama Hotel. Or waits on Platform 3.

A woman pulls sections from a guava and passes them around the car. Juice rolls down our faces while the steel wheels spin. We are at peace.

Hindus, Muslims, and a Sikh. A Canadian girl of a mixed-religion. Dressed as a boy.

When the sun rises, is it always a new day?

Where?

He'd have come if he could. Wouldn't he?

Naked

A naked child pees on the floor. A shimmering little pool. She leans down to touch it.

When the train makes a turn, a thin yellow tributary separates and runs towards the door. The child laughs.

But when I smell the sour urine I only smell fear.

I pull my scarf over my mouth and nose. Take short breaths.

In out

in out

breathe through the mouth don't smell

The child pees some more. But this time cries.

The wheels grind. Spark.

And brake.

Mirage

They come across the yellow fields running with dark faces and teeth bared through ribbons of heated air a mirage of false water.

The train slows as if waiting for them to catch up.

What's happening?

Why are we stopping here?

Is it wolves?

But they are not wolves

(we should have prayed for wolves)

but men instead four-limbed and angry carrying iron rods and knives hands gripping gasoline cans voices shouting into the hot dry air their fury stirring the dust like a wind.

(we should have prayed for wolves)

They slam their bodies against the slowing train. They cling to the window bars. They climb to the roof and throw people into the air. A voice demands we unlock the door of our carriage.
Open or be burned!

I tell myself I'm still sleeping: the unwound turban meting out

punishment

a gang of men severing the body of the

prime minister

the pounding of their fists

on this train

on this car

are only hammering the metal walls of my head.

Open or be burned!

We must save ourselves!
someone cries.

But it is no dream

my hands and arms know

my nostrils know

even my lungs and

my shallow breaths

know

what my heart cannot fathom

know

what's going to happen next

because in dreams you cannot close

your eyes and mine are shut tight.

We must save ourselves!

The door opens.

Oh my God. Who unlocked the door?

No!

Leave him!
I shout.

What are you doing?

Leave him!

Leave him alone!

He's done nothing!

It wasn't him who killed the prime minister!

Don't take him!

You have no right!

The Sikh man clings to me as if I'm a pole or a mast and a sea is rising all around us. I try to hold him in my arms. Dig my fingers into his flesh like hooks, but the men pull at him while hitting me. I grab for the thigh, the knee, the foot that shakes with terror, and I am left with a shoe. A black leather shoe with the narrow lace tied neatly into a bow. Its emptiness horrifies me. The dark cavern where the foot had been. Where the foot . . . .

Please don't take him.

He could be your brother.

Your uncle.

Your father.

He could be all you have left in this world.

Man as child

They bind his legs with the long cotton of his turban. His dark knotted hair revealed to God —his reverence, protection of the self, now unwound. He is a child without the turban, crying in terror as the gasoline cools his sweat like ice.

The match catches fast. A magic trick. Flesh conjuring the wind. Sweeping across the yellow field, turning the man into a pillar of fire.

His scream splits my chest open.

But I can't move.

I am held down by my horror.

The Sikh grows in his death.

Only a man and yet such a blaze.

Made of spirit and bone.

He grows in his death larger than anyone could imagine. Transformed into a dragon without a body.

And he is nameless.

Don't breathe

I stuff my scarf

over my nose

stuff it in my mouth

swallow it

hold myself down

don't breathe

don't breathe

if I don't breathe

I won't smell

I won't smell

I won't smell

the reek of murder

No whistle

The train pulls away before the flames die. No whistle is needed.

The women wail.

I wail.

A funeral hymn.

The Sikh was large in his death.

We were small in our cowardice.

We should be mourning for our own lost souls.

We didn't do enough.

We didn't do anything at all.

Dear Maya,

Not everyone can be saved.

The journey should have ended

Hours ago, days. Months. An epoch. The passengers have aged beyond recognition, creased faces, shaking hands holding stomachs, heads, children, and the sun won't set and give us peace— it's tethered to the train like a hot balloon, dragged through a bleached sky.

The train inches its way across the tired land, the wheels pushing through ash, cutting through scorched limbs. Small fires smoulder, marking the route. Other trains have been this way, stopped by wolves (if only it had been wolves) in the middle of nowhere.

The black line of track scores the wounded earth.

Like a cracked heart.

My question

Who opened the door?

Would the lock not have held?

They look away, but I keep asking:

Who let them in?

Was it you?

Or you? Who?

Which one of you?

- It doesn't matter.

-They would have come anyway.

- They would have killed all of us.

- Did you not see their faces?

- And the cans of petrol?

Then we all should have died
.

We deserved to die if we didn't try to save him.

- Maybe it was you.

What?

- Maybe it was you who opened the door.

- Yes. It was. I saw.

- It was him.

- The strange boy. Him.

- Yes, I saw it too.

- It was you who opened the door.

- We saw.

- We all saw.

- It was you.

- Why did you open the door?

- Who are you?

The guilty one

Even the peeing girl points to me.

It was you.

I want to hit them.

Send them flying across the car.

Can't they see what's happening?

How our guilt turns to rage?

How it burns in our muscles?

How blame is the only salve?

I shout at them to look away.

Leave me alone!

But they can't.

They stare in accusation.

Like me, they are rooted at this moment in time where fear makes black eyes unblinking, and skin burns like paper.

It was you who opened the door.

Is Delhi burning?

Tell us. Quick.

The train slows in the Jodhpur station and already the voices are clamouring for news.

Is New Delhi burning? How many dead?

Those who've been waiting for eleven hours throw themselves against the hot metal like lizards in the sun. They peer through the bars. Arms, eyes, hearts searching. For relatives. For arms, eyes, hearts that might be missing.

Where is he?

They pound the cars.

Where is Simar? Where is Navjeet?

Where is Ravinder?

They force their way onto the train.

Where is Hardeep?

They search the faces of those who remain.

What have you done with them?

The train is only two-thirds full.

What? Set on fire?

The wailing begins again. They cannot be calmed. A single note of the deepest sorrow.

aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

I slither onto the platform, lean into the pulsing mass of torsos and heads. I push against the dark crowd, but they push back, their limbs tangled with mine. My muscles burn, but I cannot get free. I feel my flesh tighten over bone. Fuse to my rage.

Where were you?

It was you.

Knives of heat pierce the white air.

Mata and Bapu were wrong

I am not
life
.

I am not
illusion
.

I am the
Goddess of Death
.

I open my eyes into the hot rays of sunlight and let them catch fire. Then I turn my gaze to the crowd with a burning hatred.

I mix up my words. And my languages. Hindi and Punjabi and English are stirred into an angry tongue. I am the embodiment of the painful history of this country.

It wouldn't take much.

To rip you open.

Your thin rippled chests crumpling under my fists.

I could reach into the pits of your desperate bellies and pull out your livers.

Watch me.

Watch me meet your rage with mine.

Watch me set you on fire with my vengeance.

I swing my arms and feel flesh against my knuckles. A small inch of space opens and I swing again. A man sputters and steps back. Another punch. A cheekbone this time. More space. Now there's room for my legs to move. I kick at anyone who's near me, striking them like chickens until they half fly away and a path opens up before me.

They will not fight me. They will let me go. But my will collapses.

I stand in the silenced crowd and suddenly cannot move. I am unable to take a step from the women and men who will soon find out that their husbands and fathers and brothers and sons have been left in a field. Smouldering.

I fall. Headfirst into the wide gap I've carved with my rage. When my knees hit the ground, the crowd closes over me like a healing wound.

I cannot breathe under the stomping legs and am glad for it. Soon I will no longer smell the scent of death. Except my own.

November 4, 1984

Voices

- Is it a girl?

- I don't know. Look at the hair.

- A widow then, like us?

- Can't be. Look at the clothes.

- Maybe a
farange
? From England?

- But the skin is dark like ours.

- Then an Indian. A boy.

- But so pretty. Like a
kothi.

Music

Are you all right?

Words sing in my ear.

Are you all right?

A cool voice. A breeze. Sliding in from a far-off ocean, not a land voice. Words softly spoken but sharply enunciated. A woman.

Are you all right?

All right. All right. Hum. Hum. I try to sing along.

The woman's face is thrown into shadow by a bright light hovering behind her head. But I can make out a black braid, draped over the shoulder. And a blue sari and a dark leather bag by her side.

I am Dr. Parvati Patel. What's your name?

When she leans over me, I hear the sound of ice tinkling against glass. Golden bracelets circling the small wrists.

And then I remember.

The man's arms had been thin and brown too. But swollen blue veins were their only adornment.

I am glad you're awake.

Her hand touches my forehead. I hear myself groan. Like an animal in pain.