“Oh dear, then how will we get word of your Khalah Jan? There’s not even any news coming from there!”
“Trust in Him.” Abba Jan gestured with a finger toward the sky.
“Yes indeed, I trusted Him!” Ammi said with bitter anger. “Trusting Him was what brought me to this pass!”
Abba Jan looked gravely at Ammi, and then reprimanded her: “Zakir’s mother, a single heedlessly-spoken sentence is enough to wipe out a lifetime of piety.”
Repentantly, Ammi lowered her head. She fell silent. Then she began another topic: “Well, do you remember what I said to Batul then?”
“What did you say when?”
“When we left.”
“Zakir’s mother, when was the time you’re remembering? I don’t remember what you said to whom at the time!”
“Well, you may not remember — I remember every single word spoken at the time! The moment we arrived here I wrote her, ‘You come here, God is the Provider.’ She was ready to come here, but Tahirah’s husband was so crazy that he went to the East instead. The poor thing had to go there too, for her daughter’s sake.”
“Zakir’s mother! Hazrat Ali, peace be upon him, always used to say, ‘When wishes are thwarted, I recognize my Lord.’ Our wishes are dependent on His pleasure; what He desires, that’s what happens.”
Ammi once more fell silent and lowered her head, as though she bowed before the Divine will.
Abba Jan turned to him: “Perhaps you don’t have to go to the College today?”
“I’m just going.” Hastily he finished his last sip of tea, and rose.
Leaving the house, he stopped at the corner of the lane, at Nazira’s shop. Coming and going, he always stopped at that shop and bought cigarettes.
“Zakir, sir! There’s a lot of trouble today,” Nazira said abruptly, giving him the packet of cigarettes.
“And wasn’t there trouble yesterday?”
“But today there’s a lot of trouble.”
Today there was, in fact, a lot of trouble. When he reached the College he saw that here and there the big clay flowerpots had been smashed to pieces, the classrooms were empty, and the glass panes of the doors had been shattered, with broken glass lying both inside the classrooms and outside on the verandahs. The boys had disappeared. Where had they gone, all the boys? It seemed that all of them, shouting slogans, wreaking havoc, had left the college and run off somewhere else. He went to his office, sat down, and remembered which lecture he was supposed to give today. But how could he give a lecture today? Pointlessly, aimlessly, he opened the drawer and shuffled some papers; he opened the books on the table and glanced through them, then closed them and put them aside. He couldn’t decide what to do. He had left the house richly drenched in memories, self-absorbed, detached from the outside world. But in the time it took him to arrive here, the outside world had gradually taken on meaning. Now it was no longer possible for him to take advantage of the leisure and solitude to sit at his ease, smoking a cigarette, and lose himself in the world of his memories. Seeing the college all topsy-turvy, he felt a kind of oppression. Now what’s to be done? All right, I’ll go to the Shiraz. Perhaps the group might be there. No matter what, Irfan ought to be there at this hour. He stood up.
In a little while, he was in the Shiraz, sharing confidences with Irfan. Irfan was astonished!
“But after all, who was she?”
“She just was, and that’s enough.”
“And until now you’ve never even mentioned her?”
“I’d forgotten her. How could I have mentioned her?”
“You’d forgotten her?” Irfan looked at him in surprise.
“Yes, yar, I’d forgotten her. And a lot of time has passed.”
“So why have you remembered her now?”
“This is the season when all my memories are returning. All kinds of forgotten things, from I don’t know when, are coming back to me.”
“Now, when there’s so much turmoil everywhere?”
“Yes, now when there’s so much turmoil everywhere.” He paused, then spoke again. “Do you know what my mother does nowadays? Every morning when the paper comes, she asks what news there is from Dhaka. You know, don’t you, that some of our relatives had settled in Dhaka? My Khalah Jan. So my mother is worried all the time, and every morning when the paper comes, she asks what news there is from Dhaka. And when she doesn’t get a reassuring answer, she remembers that when we arrived here she wrote Khalah Jan a letter and advised her to come here: ‘Don’t go to the back of beyond, come here.’ And then all kinds of forgotten bits of stories from the time of Emigration come to her mind.”
“Then she’s in Dhaka?” Irfan hazarded a guess.
“No, she never came to Pakistan at all.”
“She didn’t come to Pakistan? I see.” He fell into thought. “And since then you haven’t been to India?”
“Never.”
“Then indeed a lot of time has passed.”
“That’s just what I’m thinking.” His voice sank to a whisper. “A lot of time has passed.”
“The procession is coming!” A group of frightened people entered with the news.
“Procession?” Various people sitting at the tables pricked up their ears.
“Yes, it’s a very big procession. It’s coming along breaking up things in its path.”
“Oh!”
Everybody sitting in the Shiraz was alarmed. A number of them rose and quickly left. Abdul shot out of the kitchen like an arrow, closed the door in an instant, and drew the curtains over the panes.
“Today there seems to be more trouble than usual,” Irfan muttered.
“Well, yesterday’s rumor turned out to be false.”
“But yesterday people took it as absolute truth.”
“Yes, yesterday it seemed to be absolutely true.”
“News and rumors both have a one-day lifespan. The next day, what difference does it make if you find out that it wasn’t news but rumor, or that it wasn’t rumor but news?”
Salamat and Ajmal entered by way of the kitchen. Salamat cast a ferocious glance all around, swept his pointing finger around the room, and said loudly, “I ask why the door is shut, and why the curtains are drawn, and why it’s dark!”
Irfan glared at Salamat and said coldly, “Because there’s a lot of noise outside.”
Salamat looked ferociously at both him and Irfan: “Yes, and because you don’t want to hear the voice of the people! But, you imperialist devil, this voice can no longer be suppressed. It will come ripping its way through curtains, and it’ll burst your eardrums too!” Then he called out, “Abdul!”
Abdul swiftly emerged from the kitchen. “Yes sir?”
“Abdul! Open the door, and draw back the curtain.”
“And let some light and air come in from outside. Light, air, and the voice of the people!” Ajmal added encouragingly.
“Don’t open the door. The procession is very rowdy,” a voice came from a distant table.
Salamat said furiously, “The masses are enraged against the capitalists and the imperialist flunkies!”
Then Salamat and Ajmal both sat down at his and Irfan’s table.
A white-haired man, who had been sitting alone for some time drinking tea, got up from his place, approached, and said, “You’re educated young men. Please tell me, what’s all this that’s happening?”
Salamat looked contemptuously at him and said, “What’s happening is what ought to happen.”
The white-haired man stared at Salamat’s face. Then he sighed, “God have mercy upon us,” and went back and sat down in his place.
“Yar,” said Salamat, “I feel that this white-haired man is even more ignorant than my white-haired father.”
“My father,” said Ajmal, “is more ignorant than your white-haired father and this white-haired man put together.”