The Weary Generations (34 page)

‘Why are you laughing so much, you son of a blind bitch?' Harnam said to the beggar, landing a huge thump on his back. ‘Because you are going out in the world? Don't worry, you will be back here before you know it.'

‘What will you do first of all in the world, blind man?' asked another from the crowd that had gathered around him.

‘Ah, first of all, I will go to my father's grave.'

‘To say thank you to him for teaching you to pick pockets?'

‘No, no, I have some money buried in the earth by the grave. Not much, mind you, only enough to buy some food.'

‘That sure will make your wife happy.'

‘Yes, yes,' the blind beggar said, laughing.

‘So she'll drop a tenth puppy for you, eh? When will you pick the first pocket, eyeless pig?'

Suddenly, the blind man cried, ‘Get away, get away from me,' as he started madly scratching his feet.

By the time his itching flesh was calmed, the sores were bleeding badly. There were tears in his blank eyes. The moment of his departure had come and everyone fell silent. Without a word, Harnam began taking off his shoes. He took his shiny brown shoes and thrust them in the blind man's hands.

‘Here, take them.'

‘What, your shoes?' the beggar said, feeling the shoes, turning them round in both hands, as if searching someone's pocket. ‘They are mine?' he asked in disbelief.

‘Yes.' Harnam gave him another thump. ‘If you sell them, I will kill you. Bring them with you next time you come in, I want them back.'

The blind pickpocket began to laugh wordlessly. Naim was astonished to see this act of sudden generosity from Harnam, the same man who had told him two days earlier that he had committed six murders. These killings had been prompted by the behaviour of Harnam's eldest stepbrother, the son of the most senior of his father's six wives, who had usurped all their father's property and would share neither the lands nor their produce with the other brothers. The brothers, fearful of the strong man that the eldest was, went off to the town to do labouring jobs. Harnam waited for his chance, and one day killed his stepbrother, his wife and four sons, two of them as old as Harnam himself.

‘What if the beggar doesn't return with your shoes?' he asked Harnam afterwards.

‘I will kill him.'

‘Really?'

‘Sure.'

As soon as Azra stepped back into Roshan Mahal she felt the tension in the atmosphere. She spoke to the servants and learned that Roshan Agha had spent the last three days in his study on his own. She went to her room and lay down on a settee, trembling at the thought of going to see her
father. But she had to go; there was no other way. She didn't want to see another member of the family before she saw him.

Roshan Agha looked at her with sad, tired eyes. He didn't extend welcoming arms to her as he always did whenever Azra returned home after even a day of absence. Nor did he speak to her. He lowered his eyes to the large notebook in which he was writing. At that moment Azra knew that Pervez had seen her in Lucknow.

‘Baba –' wailed Azra. It had been a long time since she had spoken in a tone she had used as a child when asking for something she wanted.

Her father looked up. ‘Don't you have something to say to me – something to explain?' he asked.

‘Baba, Naim is in –'

‘I know.'

‘You know? You mean you knew?'

‘Yes.'

‘Since when?' Azra demanded, abandoning her pleading tone.

Her father looked at her silently for a moment, then said, ‘All right, from the day he was taken away.'

‘And you did nothing?'

‘It isn't easy to do things quickly in cases like these, especially in the present circumstances.'

‘You didn't even tell me?'

‘I wanted to keep you separate from his actions. It's been long enough, he will not change. I think you are doing well to stay here –'

Azra's eyes filled with tears. ‘He is my husband. His work and my staying here have nothing to do with it. I love him.'

Her father was taken aback a little by her vehemence. ‘Come here.' He raised his arms. ‘I am trying to get him out. I hope he learns his lesson from this. Come. Come to me, Ajjoo. I am sorry.'

Hearing her childhood name, one that was seldom used now, made her realize not just her father's love but also his grief.

Before going to bed that night, Azra shed all her clothes and took a long time rubbing sweet almond oil over her whole body and sat in a hot bath afterwards until it was nearly midnight, still slowly massaging her limbs.

The administrative authorities finally decided to respond to political pressure and hold trials. In a summary trial, Naim was sentenced with retrospective effect to imprisonment for addressing an ‘illegal' meeting to a term exactly equal to the period he had already served in confinement and released at the end of the one-day proceeding. Trials like these were held
in the cases of a score of other prominent men across the country. The rest of the hundreds who had been put in gaol were left there for long periods of time. Additionally, in Naim's case, they confiscated the ten acres of land granted to him for war services, although they had no power to take away the medal for distinguished conduct with which he had been decorated. On the day of his release from prison he was received back in Roshan Pur by followers from other villages as well as his own, slogans were chanted in his honour and he was buried under garlands of marigold thrown round his neck, and he gave thought to nothing else in the euphoria of freedom. At night he lay in bed beside Azra and took her in his arms, clasping her with the whole of his body from head to foot as tightly as he could, inhaling her smell, listening to the beating of her heart and feeling the softness of her firm breasts. Azra too held him tight, wrapping her arms and legs around him, wishing desperately for this occasion to renew the passion that had slipped from her grasp. For a long time there was just the breathing of the two bodies, warm and willing but still and unmoving. Then Naim's grip relaxed. He rolled away from her and lay on his back, staring at the ceiling.

After a while, he said, ‘The food. It's because of the food in there. It was like poison.'

‘I know,' Azra said, raising herself on an elbow and putting a hand softly on his stomach, caressing his wasted body. ‘It doesn't matter. I'll tell munshi to shoot some partridges. A few days of proper food …'

‘I am sorry, Azra,' Naim said.

‘No, don't be. You'll be all right before you know it.'

‘I am sorry,' he repeated softly.

That night's failure brought back to him the extent of his loss, including the prime land of which he had been so proud, although he had at times been ashamed of it too. At times he had thought he had been far from brave in the war, that he had been afraid, the fear had filled his body and soul, he had not stood up and fought in the face of mortal danger, never fulfilled the norms of what people called ‘courage' and the army ‘gallantry'. Still, with the passing of time he had come to feel that the losses he had suffered were deserving of a reward. That night, looking, with a certain regret, at the unblemished flesh of his wife, to whom the passing years had done no harm, the seeds of real self-doubt began to stir in the depths of his mind. He regained his strength in time but not his vitality of spirit. He became morose and began to fear his wife and everything connected with her. He never resumed the duties he had previously discharged in the village or on Roshan Agha's lands. The promised return of their ancestral lands had not materialized. Naim now concentrated on cultivating his six
acres, which were barely sufficient to feed the four mouths of his family and their cattle. He spoke less and less. Despite much effort, Azra remained unable to revive his soul. Eventually, she withdrew once again to Delhi, only occasionally visiting Naim in Roshan Pur. It took Naim a long time to come out of his shell, sparked once again by an incident in the uneasy relationship between himself and Azra.

It was the time when political awareness was beginning to awaken a sense of separate identity among the Muslims of India. A grand gathering had been arranged in Delhi to try and bring together all the Muslim parties in the country. For this purpose Sir Aga Khan, who lived in France, was invited, as an international symbol of Indian Muslimhood, to preside over the meeting. Naim and Azra wanted – Azra more than Naim – to go and take part in this significant national event.

They still slept together, in the same room but in separate beds laid alongside one another with a yard's space between them. Once in a while they made love – as they did on this, the night before they were to go to Delhi. Afterwards they lay in bed and talked in brief sentences, marked by long silences in between.

‘Don't you think it was a good thing to invite the Aga Khan to preside over the meeting?' Azra asked.

‘I don't know,' Naim said. ‘We'll see.'

‘He is famous.'

‘Well, he is very rich.'

‘But look at his life, so eventful. And so glamorous. I am excited. The day after is the New Year, we can go to Waheed's New Year's Eve party.'

‘I don't want to go to any party. Only with you to the conference,' Naim said.

Azra was quiet for a few minutes. When she spoke it was with a deep sadness in her voice. ‘Naim?'

‘Yes?'

‘I wish things could have turned out differently.'

Naim knew what she meant, yet still he asked, if only to say something, ‘What do you mean?'

‘Oh, so much. I wish you hadn't gone to prison, for one thing.'

It took Naim a few minutes to completely absorb what she meant. Very slowly, the entire climate of his feelings changed. He turned his head slightly to look at her. What he saw surprised him. He looked at her face, the swollen lips, the thrust of the chin, the pointedly raised breasts, round white thighs, and all he saw was a coarse sensuality, naked and without shame. He wondered how it was that he had been in love with this woman
for so long. He got off the bed and went to stand by the fireplace. He was shaking. Resting his elbows on the mantelshelf, he took his head in his hands, trying to calm himself. After a while, he returned to his own bed. Azra lay with her back to him, her eyes wide open, trying to dream about the past and wondering how and where it had gone. It took most of the night to douse the flames of bitter sadness inside her and for her to sleep for a few hours full of dread. In the morning, the distance between them increased, she spoke calmly to Naim, telling him she was going to Roshan Mahal on her own. Naim was relieved. He felt the distance between them stretching to a new limit, although he knew that there still remained some grains of love – that insoluble residue of a union between him and Azra that would not come to an end in this one night. Before he had slept in the night, however, he had decided that, one way or another, he would have to get out of this hole into which his spirit had dived.

On open ground opposite the Jamia Mosque the stage was set for the All India Muslim Conference. All the Muslim political and religious parties in the country had come to participate. All manner of people, from Bombay to Peshawar, in their regional dress and headgear, were gathered there. A ceremonial gate of bamboo poles, tall trees cut for the purpose and wrapped in palm leaves, was erected at one end to serve as the entrance. A red carpet, lined on both sides with pots of winter flowers of all colours, led from the gate to the dais, a raised wooden structure covered with fine carpets and more flower pots all round. A high-backed chair, upholstered in golden silk, stood behind a large table, also covered with silken cloth of the same hue. At ground level in front of the dais were rows of chairs extending beyond the width of the platform. The first rows were of sofa chairs and behind them several more rows of simple, armless wooden seats. Behind the chairs there was an area for sitting and standing. This durree-covered ground was full of people, some sitting in the front, others standing at the back, the foot soldiers whose innocent perseverance and cheapness of life was the blood in the veins of every movement. They sat and stood unprotected from the sun under an open sky, their cheeks hollow but eyes bright with hope, looking up to their leaders who sat in the chairs and talked among themselves. The dais and the seating area was covered with orange tarpaulin strung up overhead with the help of bamboo poles and strong ropes. To the left and right of the dais in the front row sat the official delegates of each participating party. There was Sir Shafi, who headed the Punjab faction of the Muslim League. Among them was also the poet Dr Mohammad Iqbal. In the middle were the
brothers Maulana Mohammad Ali and Shaukat Ali of the Khilafat Movement. On one side sat long-bearded Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madni and Shabir Ahmad Usmani of Jamiatul-Ulema-e-Hind. Each party had nominated twenty delegates who sat in prominent places in front of their followers. The rows behind them were occupied by the major and minor nawabs and jagirdars, dressed to the full in their jewels, medals and other finery, from the Muslim states and estates of India. Because of the Muslim custom of purdah, there were few women in the gathering.

After Azra's earlier change of heart and decision to go to Delhi by herself, Naim was not sure whether she would come to the conference. But as he entered the arena from the back, he had no difficulty in spotting her. She was sitting in one of the wooden seats in the last row, up against the first row of people sitting on the ground. Scanning the entire assembly, Naim could not see Roshan Agha, although he knew that the Agha had been planning to attend. Azra was sitting on her own, with the two chairs on either side, although they were in great demand, left vacant in deference to the woman present there, one who was not sitting in the very small separate enclosure reserved for women but with the men. Naim waded through the sitting crowd and took the chair next to her. She looked at him and there was no trace of the previous night on her face. Her eyes were bright and expectant. A few moments later the Aga Khan, surrounded by the reception committee, walked up the red carpet, a short, rotund figure in white morning suit, although it was well into the afternoon. He mounted the three wooden steps to the dais, took off his fan-shaped black hat to place it on the table, refused the rose garlands offered to him, stood his white cane against the arm of the chair and, acknowledging the slogans chanted by the sitting crowd with a wave of the hand, took his seat in the golden chair. Despite his prejudices, Naim thought the man had a striking presence. Without taking her gaze from the dais, Azra placed her hand on Naim's arm and whispered to him, ‘Just listen to him when he speaks. I heard him once. Such beautiful English, with a slight accent.'