The Wish Maker (58 page)

It got worse. A Muslim shop in Mozang was burned by a mob of angry Sikhs. (Previously it was a hardware shop, because it sold locks and keys and hinges for doors, but now shops too were known by their religions.) There was a rumor in the neighborhood: Amrita’s brother Ajit had been in the Sikh mob. A woman said she had seen him that evening, sweaty and panicked in his damp shirt and trousers, hurrying in the darkness to the safety of his house.

Daadi’s mother said, “Lock your windows. Lock your doors and windows. You don’t know who is going to do what.” She was going around with the rolling pin.

Daadi’s father didn’t tell her to broaden her mind.

Late at night they were woken by a banging at the door.

Daadi stepped out of her bed.

“Who is it?” said Chhoti, her younger sister.

“Stay here,” said Daadi. She opened the door and went outside.

“Go in,” said her mother, who was going herself to the gate. Daadi’s father was walking ahead of her. He was holding something.

“Go
in
!” said her mother, showing the lower row of her teeth.

Daadi saw that it was a gun.

She went back into her room but stood at the door.

“What is it?” said Chhoti.

“Nothing,” said Daadi.

She thought of a wide-eyed man with a gun and saw him open the gate. It shocked her to see that his face was her father’s.

She opened the door a little and breathed slowly.

People were coming in.

“She will sleep here,” Daadi’s mother was saying.

They knocked.

Daadi opened the door and found Amrita.

Daadi’s mother said, “They are staying with us for the night. Let her come in.”

Daadi stepped aside.

Amrita stepped into the room.

Daadi saw that Amrita’s mother was crying but without the contortions of pain or sorrow on her face.

“Close your door,” said Daadi’s mother. “And don’t open it for anyone.”

They went away.

Amrita was breathing like an asthmatic.

Daadi closed the door and said, “What happened?”

“Nothing,” said Amrita between her deep, heavy breaths, her shoulders going up and down.

They went to lie down on Daadi’s bed.

Chhoti’s voice said, “It’s too dark.”

Daadi said, “Go to sleep now.”

They lay together in the silence, two girls with their hands on their hearts.

In a whisper Daadi said, “What happened?”

Amrita said they were fleeing. Some Muslim men had tried to enter their house in the evening. But their Muslim bearer had taken an oath on the Quran and said that the owners weren’t at home. The men said they knew it was a lie; and they said they would return in the morning, and would not accept another oath, even if it came from a Muslim.

Daadi said, “It is all politics.”

Amrita said nothing.

Then Daadi said, “Don’t worry about anything.”

And Amrita said, “I won’t.”

They left before it was morning, when the world outside was still blue. A black car came to collect them. Daadi’s mother had prepared a breakfast but they didn’t want to eat; Amrita’s father said they had to cross the border before the sun was out.

Daadi walked with Amrita to the car. Her sullen lips looked more sullen than ever. Daadi could tell it was because Amrita was feeling afraid and not sullen. She hoped no one would make the mistake and think otherwise.

Amrita’s father was wearing his turban and his glasses and his black lawyer’s coat. He said to the driver, “Do we have oil?”

The driver said there were two spare boxes at the back of the car.

“Then we will be fine,” said Amrita’s father, and knocked his knuckles on the shiny black bonnet of the car. He put his hands in his pockets, looked at his shoes, looked at the door of his house, looked at the sky.

“Inshallah
,
”
said Daadi’s father, who was frowning.

They embraced.

Amrita began to wave.

Daadi watched her recede with the jeep, which soon became an insect on the road, then a dot, and then nothing.

She went back inside.

The rains were fierce. Roads cracked by rioting and torching and the frantic movements of people were filled with water. The canal flooded; heavy trees came down and floated in the streets. By September the water had dried, and the shining sun revealed a new city. Shops reopened with the schools and colleges. At night the windows were yellow with light. It looked like any other summer, but it felt different: the shops had new owners, the schools and colleges new students. Evacuated houses had new residents. Some were demolished, their rubbled foundations sold for small amounts. The house next to Daadi’s was repainted. A Muslim merchant moved in. He was alone—his wife and children were still in Amritsar—and he didn’t have the money to buy furniture. He didn’t own a telephone. In the evenings his veranda was silent.

Daadi finished school and was persuaded by her teachers to stay on for two years and obtain a bachelor’s degree. But it was an uncertain time. The Hindu teachers had left, and the new ones had to learn the subjects in the syllabus as they went along. In that time Daadi made a new friend, a girl called Seema who belonged to the Ahmadi sect—her mother was a convert—and was related through her father’s sister to people who now had land and were selling that land and building factories.

“Wajid Ali Shah,” said Seema one morning. She climbed into the taanga and placed her hand on the arm rail. She was tall and slim, had rounded, bony shoulders and wore glasses with elongated rims. “He is the son of Maratib Ali Shah. Their family is coming up.” She meant that they were growing in importance.

Then she said, “They are having a concert and Roshanara Begum is going to sing. She is like a big black cow. But when she starts to sing she becomes a beauty.” Briefly Seema closed her eyes, as if recalling the transformation, though it was evident that she had made it up and was now repeating for authority. “Once she starts singing she cannot stop it. She says it is no longer in her control!” Seema touched her collarbones and laughed.

Daadi was quiet.

The taanga was going toward Rattigan Road. The men walking on the footpath saw the taanga, and saw the two young women at the back of it, both wearing burqas with their faces uncovered.

Seema said, “The concert will be in Lawrence Gardens. The gentry of Lahore is coming. We will have to wear saris.”

Daadi said, “I am not going.”

Seema said, “It is your decision. But I will be going.”

Daadi was unaffected.

And Seema sighed, looking out at the world and blinking from behind her glasses, her fingers continuing to clutch the bumping arm rail.

They went to Lawrence Gardens on a Saturday night. And it was chilly, the first intimation of winter; people came in shawls and were carrying cushions.

“To sit on,” said Seema, who had brought two embroidered velvet cushions and held them under each of her arms. She was going up the steps that led from the base of the small hill and into the amphitheater. “Keep following me,” she said.

Daadi lifted her sari from her ankles and went up the steps, one at a time.

A man and woman were behind them, the man in a stiff sherwani jacket and the woman wearing a blue sari.

Seema paused at the landing, smiling at the couple, allowing them to go first.

The couple went up quickly.

Seema said, “They are Chiniotis. The wife is from here. Now she is one of the Chiniotis, so she is dressing and behaving like them. We know their whole family.”

She tripped.

She said, “Sorry, sorry.”

People continued to go up the steps.

“Give them to me,” said Daadi, and took the cushions from Seema.

The amphitheater had bare brick steps that led down to a moatlike partition, which contained no water, and behind which was the stage. The elevation of the hill, the shade of the trees, the glow of the lights and the movement of bodies gave the place a rich, removed feel. Seema and Daadi were sitting on the upper steps with Seema’s father and mother on each side. Seema was naming the people in the audience, and her parents were listening attentively. “Yes,” her father was saying. “Yes, you are right, you are right.”

“And that is Chughtai,” said Seema.

“Where?” said her mother.

“Over there,” said Seema, and indicated the steps below with her eyebrows. She looked at Daadi and said, “He is the painter.”

Seema’s father said, “He is the very best.”

Seema said, “He is friendly with my father. He offered to give him a painting but my father declined.”

Seema’s mother opened her purse, brought out a small embroidered pouch, opened the string and poured a powdery substance into the palm of her hand. She tossed it into her mouth, closed her eyes and chewed consideringly. She said, “He is always declining offers.”

Seema said to her father in an urging, childlike way, “Go to him and shake his hand.”

He said, “I will, I will.”

Seema’s mother laughed, crunching the mix in her mouth, and said, “He won’t do it. Just wait and see.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said a voice.

They looked at the stage. A man was standing before the microphone. He wore a cement-gray suit, tight at the waist and flaring below like a frock, and stood with his shoes joined at the heels. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said again, “I have the honor tonight, of inviting to this stage, the Malika-e-Mauseeqi, the Queen of Music, in whose praise one can only say the following.” He held out the palm of his hand and, with lurching repetitions, recited a couplet in Farsi. Then he raised his voice and said, “Please join me, in welcoming to this stage, the esteemed personage, of Roshan! Ara! Begum!”

The audience was clapping. The man was blinking and smiling. The Queen of Music was walking onto the stage with her musicians.