Then Ashraf saw the point. “Yes, with a new name. A Hindu name. It’s a very good idea.”
“Let’s do it right now,” said Ishvar. “I can get a new board from your uncle’s lumberyard. Can I take the cycle?”
“Of course. But be careful, don’t go through a Muslim area.”
An hour later Ishvar returned empty-handed without having reached his destination. “Lots of shops and houses on fire. I kept going — slowly, slowly. Then I saw some people with axes. They were chopping a man. That scared me, I turned back.”
Ashraf sat down weakly. “You were wise. What will we do now?” He was too frightened to think.
“Why do we need a new board?” said Narayan. “We can use the back of this old one. All we need is some paint.”
He went next door again, and the hardware-store owner let him have a blue tin that was open. “It’s a good idea,” he said. “What name are you going to paint?”
“Krishna Tailors, I think,” said Narayan at random.
“The blue will be perfect.” He pointed to the horizon, where smoke and a red glow filled the sky. “I heard it’s the lumberyard. But don’t tell Ashraf now.”
Night had fallen by the time they finished painting the letters and remounting the signboard. “On that old wood the paint looks very new,” said Ashraf.
“I’ll rub a handful of ashes over it,” said Ishvar. “Tomorrow morning, when it’s dry.”
“If we are not all reduced to ashes while we sleep,” said Ashraf softly. The fragile sense of security woven out of his neighbours’ assurances was starting to fray.
In bed, every noise in the darkness was danger approaching to threaten his family, until he was able to identify it as something innocuous. He relearned the familiar sounds to which he had fallen asleep all his life. The thud of the coal-merchant’s charpoy, who liked to sleep in the open, in the back yard (he slammed it down every night to shake out the bedbugs). The crash of the banya’s door being locked for the night; swollen and sticking, it needed a firm hand. The clang of someone’s pail — Ashraf had never found out whose, and what was being done with it at this late hour.
Sometime after midnight, he awoke with a start, went downstairs to the shop and began removing the three framed Koranic quotations that hung on the wall behind the cutting table. Ishvar and Narayan stirred, roused by his fumbling in the dark, and put on the light.
“It’s all right, go to sleep,” he said. “I suddenly remembered these frames.” The wall paint was darker where the frames had hung. Ashraf tried unsuccessfully to wipe away the difference with a damp rag.
“We have something you can put up instead,” said Narayan. He dragged out their trunk from under the cutting table and found three cardboard-stiffened pictures equipped with little string loops for hanging. “Ram and Sita, Krishna, and Laxmi.”
“Yes, definitely,” said Ashraf. “And tomorrow we will burn these Urdu magazines and newspapers.”
At eight-thirty a.m. Ashraf opened the shop as usual, releasing the padlock from the collapsible steel doors on the outside, but without folding them back. The interior wooden door was kept ajar. Like the day before, the street was deserted.
About ten o’clock, the coal-merchant’s son called through the grating. “Father said to ask if you need anything from market, in case it is open. He said it’s better if you don’t go.”
“God bless you, son,” said Mumtaz, “yes, a little milk, if possible, for the children. And any kind of vegetables — a few potatoes or onions, anything you can find.”
The boy returned empty-handed in fifteen minutes; the market was bare. Later, the coal-merchant sent a pitcher of milk from his cow. Mumtaz relied on the dwindling flour and lentils in the house to prepare the day’s meals. Well before dusk, Ashraf padlocked the grating and bolted the doors.
At dinnertime the youngest ones wanted Ashraf to feed them like yesterday. “Ah, you are getting fond of that game,” he smiled.
After the meal, Ishvar and Narayan rose to return downstairs, to let the family prepare for bed. “Stay,” said Ashraf, “it is still early, nah. Without customers, the devil makes the hours move slowly.”
“It should get better from tomorrow,” said Ishvar. “They say the soldiers are soon taking charge.”
“Inshallah,” said Ashraf, watching his youngest play with a rag doll he had made for her. The oldest girl was reading a school book. The other two amused themselves with scraps of cloth, pretending to be dressmakers. He signalled to Ishvar and Narayan to observe their exaggerated actions.
“You used to do that when you were new here,” he said. “And you loved to wave the measure tape, make it snap.” They laughed at the memory, then lapsed into silence again.
The quiet was broken by a hammering at the shop door. Ashraf jumped up, but Ishvar stopped him. “I’ll look,” he said.
From the upstairs window he saw a group of twenty or thirty men on the pavement. They noticed him and shouted, “Open the door! We want to talk to you!”
“Sure, one moment!” he called back. “Listen,” he whispered, “all of you go next door, very quietly, from the upstairs passage. Narayan and I will go down.”
“Ya Allah!” cried Mumtaz softly. “We should have left when we had the chance! You were right, my husband, and I called you foolish, I am the foolish one who did not — ”
“Shut up and come on, quick!” said Ashraf. One of the girls started to sniffle. Mumtaz took the child in her arms and quieted her. Ashraf led them out while Ishvar and Narayan descended to the shop. The banging was furious, directed with hard objects through the grating upon the wooden doors.
“Patience!” shouted Ishvar, “I first have to undo the locks!”
The crowd fell silent when the two figures became visible through the grating. Most of them had some sort of crude weapon, a stick or a spear; others had swords. A few men were wearing saffron shirts, and carried tridents.
The sight of them made Ishvar tremble. For a brief moment he was tempted to tell them the truth and step out of the way. Ashamed of the thought, he unlocked the grating and pushed it open a bit. “Namaskaar, brothers.”
“Who are you?” asked the man in front.
“My father owns Krishna Tailors. This is my brother.”
“And where is your father?”
“Gone to our native place — a relative is sick.”
There was some consultation, then the leader said, “We have information that this is a Muslim shop.”
“What?” said Ishvar and Narayan in unison. “This has been our father’s shop for twenty years!”
From the back of the crowd came complaints. No need for so much talk! Burn it! We know it’s a Muslim shop! Burn it! And those who lie to protect it — burn them, too!
“Is it possible that Muslims work in this shop?” asked the leader.
“Business is not good enough to hire anyone,” said Ishvar. “Barely enough work for my brother and me.” Men shuffled up beside him, trying to look inside the shop. They were breathing hard, and he could smell their sweat. “Please, see all you want,” he said, moving aside. “We have nothing to hide.”
The men glanced around quickly, taking in the Hindu deities on the wall behind the cutting table. One of the saffron-shirted men stepped forward. “Listen, smart boy. If you are lying, I will myself skewer you on the three points of my trishul.”
“Why should I lie?” said Ishvar. “I’m the same as you. You think I want to die to save a Muslim?”
There was more consultation outside the shop. “Step on the pavement and remove your pyjamas,” said the leader. “Both of you.”
“What?”
“Come on, hurry up! Or you won’t need pyjamas anymore!”
In the ranks there was impatience. They banged their spears on the ground and shouted to torch the place. Ishvar and Narayan obediently dropped their pyjamas.