“Bi Amma! Abel was Cain’s brother?”
“Yes, dear son. Abel was Cain’s brother.”
“Then why did Cain murder Abel?”
“A curse on his blood — it was thinner than water!”
He heard this, and wondered, but now there was a little touch of fear mixed in with his wonder. In his encounters with wonder, the first ripple of fear. He rose and went into the big room, where Hakim Bande Ali and Musayyab Husain sat as usual, asking Abba Jan questions and listening to the answers. But Abba Jan had made a leap from the beginning of the world, and had already reached the end of the world.
“Maulana, when will Doomsday come?”
“When the mosquito dies, and the cow is free of fear.”
“When will the mosquito die, and when will the cow be free of fear?”
“When the sun rises in the west.”
“When will the sun rise in the west?”
“When the hen crows, and the rooster is mute.”
“When will the hen crow, and when will the rooster be mute?”
“When those who can speak fall silent, and shoelaces speak.”
“When will those who can speak fall silent, and when will shoelaces speak?”
“When the rulers grow cruel, and the people lick the dust.”
After one “when” a second “when,” after a second “when” a third “when.” A strange maze of “whens”! The “whens” that had passed away, the “whens” that were yet to come. What “whens” and “whens” Bhagat-ji recalled, what “whens” and “whens” were illumined in Abba Jan’s imagination! The world seemed to be an endless chain of “whens.” When and when and when—
•
But now the thread of imagination abruptly snapped. The sound of slogans being shouted outside suddenly penetrated the room and scattered his memories in all directions.
He rose and looked out the window. Glancing over the field opposite, which for some days had been serving as a rally-ground, he saw countless heads crowded close together. The rally was in full swing, and suddenly people had begun shouting slogans. Closing the window, he sat down again in the chair, and began to leaf through a book and read bits of it here and there. After all, he had to prepare his lecture for the morning. But even though the window was closed, the sound of slogans could still be heard. He looked at his watch: eleven o’clock. The rally has just begun, there’s no telling when it’ll be over. What if it should be the same bother as yesterday, and the night’s sleep lost! Nowadays rallies are like that. They begin with shouts, and end with shots. But it was strange; he began to wonder at himself. The more the turmoil increases outside, the more I sink into myself. Memories of so many times come to me. Ancient and long-ago stories, lost and scattered thoughts. Memories one after another, entangled in each other, like a forest to walk through. My memories are my forest. So where does the forest begin? No, where do I begin? And again he was in the forest. As if he wanted to reach the edge of the forest; as if he was searching for his own beginning. As he moved along in the darkness and encountered a bright patch, he paused, but again moved on, for he wanted to arrive at the moment when his consciousness had first opened its eyes. But he couldn’t grasp the moment. When he put his finger on a memory, dense crowds of other memories drifted along in its train. Then he moved on to explore what he remembered as the first event in Rupnagar.
•
But every action in that town seemed to be spread out over the centuries. The caravan of nights and days passed so slowly there, as though it weren’t moving at all, but had halted. Whatever came to rest somewhere settled down and stayed there. When the electric poles arrived for the first time and were stacked here and there along the roads, what a revolutionary event that seemed to be! A thrill ran through all Rupnagar. People paused in their progress, and looked with wonder at the tall iron poles lying there.
“So is electricity coming to Rupnagar?”
“It sure is.”
“Swear on my life?”
“I swear on your life.”
Days passed, the curiosity diminished. Layers of dust settled on the poles. Gradually they grew as dusty as the heaps of stone chips which had been brought there in some prosperous time to repair the roads — but which had then been forgotten and had become a part of the dust-choked landscape of Rupnagar. Now the poles too were a part of the dust-choked landscape. It seemed that they had lain there forever, and would lie there forever. The affair of electricity was already a thing of the past. Every day when evening fell, the lamplighter appeared, ladder on his shoulder and oil-can in his hand, and went around lighting the various lanterns fixed to wooden posts or hanging from high walls. “Hey, you, Vasanti! It’s dusk, light the lamp!” With her tawny complexion, fresh young face, rumpled sari, forehead adorned with a dot, bare feet thup-thupping, she came to the doorway. She put a wick into the lamp in the wall-niche, lighted it, turned and promptly went back into the house, without looking toward him as he stood in his own doorway staring at her. In the Small Bazaar, Bhagat-ji put a drop of mustard-oil in the lamp on the dirty lamp-stand, lit it, and considered that his shop had been illuminated. By the gutter near Bhagat-ji’s shop, Mataru lit a torch and anchored it in the ground by his tray, and a few seconds later called out, “Ginger-chips!” But the brightest light was in Lala Hardayal the Goldsmith’s shop, where a lamp hung from the roof, its light reaching beyond the shop and making a spot of brightness in the street. In the town, this was the whole supply of light. And even this — for how long? One by one the shops closed. In the niches by the doors the flickering lamps grew dim and finally burned themselves out. Then only the lanterns fixed to wooden posts glimmered on a few street corners. All the rest was nothing but darkness. Still, in that darkness, wide-open eyes saw a great deal.
“Bi Amma! Last Thursday it happened, just at twilight. When I passed by the village hall, I thought I heard a woman sobbing. I looked this way, I looked that way, no one at all. Near the door of the hall, there was a black cat sitting. My heart almost stopped beating! I shooed the cat away. When I went on, ai, what did I see, but on the wall of the old lady’s house by the neem tree, the same cat! I shooed it away again. From the wall, it jumped down inside. When I went on and came out by the lane with the high well—ai, Bi Amma, believe me, there was the same cat again! It was sitting on Lala Hardayal’s terrace, sobbing the way a woman would sob. I was petrified!”