“God have mercy upon us,” Bi Amma said apprehensively, and she fell silent.
But there was no mercy. Two or three days later, Sharifan came with more news: “Ai, Bi Amma! All over the neighborhood, so many rats are dying!”
“Truly?”
“Oh yes, when I passed by the rubbish pile, I saw them lying dead in heaps.”
First the rats died, then people began to die. From outside came the chant of “Ram nam satya hai.”
“Oh Sharifan, just look and see who’s died.”
“Bi Amma, Pyare Lal’s son Jagdish has died.”
“Hai hai! He was a strong healthy young man, how did he die?”
“Bi Amma, pustules came out on his body, and in a few hours he was dead, just like that.”
“Pustules? You wretch, what are you saying?”
“Oh yes, Bi Amma! I’m telling the truth. The plague—”
“That’s enough, keep your mouth shut! In a house full of people you shouldn’t mention the name of that ruinous disease.”
Pustules came out on Jagdish, then on Pandit Dayaram, then on Misra-ji. Then they kept coming out on other people. Funeral processions left from one house, then another house, then house after house. Bi Amma and Sharifan together kept count of them, up to ten. Then they lost count. In a single day, such a number of houses sent out funeral processions! As evening came near, the streets and lanes grew empty. No sounds of footsteps, no voices of laughing and talking people. Not to speak of all the rest, today even Chiranji and his harmonium had fallen silent — Chiranji who through winters, summers, rainy seasons, used to sit every night on the terrace with his harmonium and sing,
“Laila, Laila, I called out in the forest,
Laila lives in my heart.”
When morning came, the feel of the town was utterly changed. Here and there a shop was open, all the rest were closed. Some houses had already been locked up, others were being locked up now. In front of one house a bullock-cart stood, in front of another a horse-cart. People were going, the town was emptying out. The town was emptied both ways: some people left the town, others left the world.
“Bi Amma, more Hindus are dying.”
“Bibi, when cholera comes the Muslims die, when plague comes the Hindus die.”
But then the plague ceased to distinguish between Hindus and Muslims. More funeral processions came out to the sound of the kalimah as well.
“Daughter-in-law! Keep Zakir inside, he’s constantly going out.”
“Bi Amma, the boy won’t obey me.”
“All right, if he goes out to look any more, I’ll break his legs!”
But no threat had any effect on him. The sound of “Ram nam satya” came — and he dashed out to the front door. Behind the funeral procession the grieving women passed by, carrying wood for the pyre and wailing aloud. After they had passed, how desolate the street seemed. Sharifan ran and seized him, and brought him inside.
A bullock-cart came rattling along, and halted before the door.
“Oh Sharifan, just look and see what guests have come in this disastrous time.”
Sharifan went and returned. “Bi Amma, they’ve sent a bullock-cart from Danpur, and sent word that it should bring everyone out.”
Bi Amma went straight to the big room, where Abba Jan sat apart from everyone, day after day, on his prayer-carpet.
“Nasir Ali, my son! Your uncle has sent a bullock-cart.”
Abba Jan reflected. Then he said, “Bi Amma, the glorious and exalted Prophet has said, ‘Those who run from death, run toward nothing else but death.’”
The bullock-cart had arrived empty; it went back empty. And Abba Jan dissolved saffron in a china cup, dipped a purified pen into it, and on heavy paper wrote in clear letters:
I have five personages by whom the power of destructive diseases can be eliminated: they are Muhammad and Fatimah and Hasan and Husain and Ali, Ali, Ali.
He went to the front door and pasted this paper on it, then went back and sat down on his prayer-rug.
When Doctor Joshi came out of his clinic and went into somebody’s house, it used to be an event. But now the Doctor Sahib, stethoscope around his neck, appeared in the neighborhood at all hours, sometimes in this street, sometimes in that. The Doctor Sahib was Rupnagar’s Messiah. People said that even in the big hospitals of Delhi, no doctor could equal him. But now the Messiah’s power was waning, the power of death was growing. The Doctor Sahib’s wife herself broke out in pustules, and drew her last breath before the Doctor’s very eyes.
“Even the Doctor’s wife has died.”
“Yes, she has.”
The people sitting on Bhagat-ji’s terrace could say no more than this. Faith in Chiranji Mal Vaid’s knowledge and in Hakim Bande Ali’s learning had departed long ago, at the first shock. Now Doctor Joshi’s Messiah-hood too had lost its status. Now death was an inescapable reality. The dying died in silence. Those who arranged the funeral processions looked exhausted.
How tired he himself had grown! A funeral procession passed, and he just stood there, staring at the empty street. The street before his house looked so desolate. The shops and houses had mostly been locked up. Vasanti’s house had a lock on it too. Here and there a shop opened its door a crack for a little while, then soon closed it again. He grew tired of looking at locked doors, closed shutters, and the empty street, and even before Sharifan insisted, he came back into the house, which itself was always sunk in silence. Abba Jan, distant from them all, detached from questions of life and death, sat on his prayer-rug, his fingers busy with his prayer-beads. Bi Amma sat on a cot, with her sewing. A word or two from Ammi, or Sharifan. Now shock had vanished from their eyes — shock, and fear as well. Other eyes too had lost both shock and fear. Everyone had accepted the plague as an established, eternal reality. Yes, but one morning Bi Amma awoke to find that her body was trembling. In this state she offered her prayers, and lay for a long time making her prostrations. When she lifted her head from her prostrations, her wrinkled face was wet with tears. Then she drew the end of her dupattah over her face, and very softly began to weep. Abba Jan, seated on his prayer-carpet, looked at her closely. “Bi Amma, what’s the matter?”
“My son, the Imam’s coach has come.” She paused, then said, “Such a light, as though a gas-lantern had been lit. As though someone were saying, ‘Prepare the majlis.’”
Abba Jan reflected. Then he said, “Bi Amma! You’ve had a vision.”
Through Sharifan, the news of the vision spread from house to house. Ladies came from every house that had not been shut up. The majlis took place, and there was much weeping and lamentation.
“Ai, Bi Amma! Have you heard? The cursed ill-fated disease has been halted.”
“Oh, tell the truth!”
“Yes, Bi Amma! Doctor Joshi has said so.”
“Thanks be to God.” And again tears welled up in Bi Amma’s eyes. When she lifted her head from her prostrations, her wrinkled face was still wet with tears.
•
Just as the loaded, overflowing bullock-carts had gone away, so they came, loaded and overflowing, back again. Every little while a new horse-cart came creaking along, and another shut-up house was opened. The shut-up houses were opened; old ragged clothes and blankets were brought out of the houses, piled up in the street, and burned.
Now it was evening. Far off, from the courtyard of Vasanti’s house, the clattering of large and small pots and pans could be clearly heard. And along with the sound of the temple bells came a familiar voice: “You there, Vasanti! It’s dusk, light the lamp.” And Vasanti came to the door, barefooted, in just the same way, put a new wick into a new lamp, and lit it. She was about to go back inside, when he crossed the road and approached her: “Vasanti!”