Shalimar the Clown (13 page)

The news of a fourth son was brought to Abdullah, whose pride in fatherhood had to be shelved for the moment, there being so much to be done before the guests arrived; and, besides, he was already preparing for the role of Zain-ul-abidin, metamorphosing into the old-time Sultan who represented for him everything that was best about the valley he loved, its tolerance, its merging of faiths. The pandits of Kashmir, unlike Brahmins anywhere else in India, happily ate meat. Kashmiri Muslims, perhaps envying the pandits their choice of gods, blurred their faith’s austere monotheism by worshipping at the shrines of the valley’s many local saints, its pirs. To be a Kashmiri, to have received so incomparable a divine gift, was to value what was shared far more highly than what divided. Of all this the story of Budshah Zain was a symbol. Abdullah closed his eyes and sank ever deeper into his favorite role. As a result he was unable to be present to comfort his friend the pandit when Pamposh Kaul died in the bloody mess of her daughter’s premature birth.

A flight of winged shadows fled from the garden with her soul. Pyarelal wept beneath the illuminated trees while the Sufi philosopher embraced and kissed him, weeping as copiously as he. “The question of death,” said the
khwaja
through his tears, “proposes itself, does it not, panditji, every day. How long do we have left, will it be kind or unkind when it comes, how much more work can we do, how much of life’s richness will we experience, how much of our children’s lives will we see, et cetera.” Under normal circumstances, the opportunity to discuss ontology, to say nothing of the finer points of Sufi and Hindu mysticism, would have overjoyed Pyarelal Kaul. But nothing was normal that night. “She knows the answer now,” he wept back in reply, “and what a bitter answer it is.” The sobbing khwaja stroked the distraught widower’s face. “You have a beautiful daughter,” he said, choking. “The question of death is also the question of life, panditji, and the question of how to live is also the question of love. That is the question you have to go on answering, to which there is no answer except in the going on.” Then there were no more words. They both wailed long and loud at the baleful, gibbous moon. Before there was a Mughal garden here this had been a jackal-infested place. The weeping of the two grown men sounded like jackals’ howls.

Death, most present of absences, had entered the garden, and from that moment on the absences multiplied. It was dusk, and the appointed hour had arrived, the warm scents of the banquet were rising from the kitchens, and in spite of tragedy everything was ready on time; but where were the guests? It was cold, certainly, and perhaps that put some people off; the first few Dassehra revelers who did arrive were bundled up for warmth and looking dramatically unlike people who had come to have fun. But the expected flood of visitors never materialized, and, what was worse, many members of the royal household staff began to sneak quietly away, the bearers, the guards, even the chefs from the uppermost terrace, the maharaja’s own chefs who had been preparing the food for his personal entourage.

How could the occasion be saved? Abdullah Noman rushed around the garden shouting at people but got few of the answers he needed. Beneath a Mughal pavilion he found the magician Sarkar with his head buried in his hands. “It’s a catastrophe,” said the Seventh Sarkar. “People are too afraid to come out in this snowstorm—and from what I’ve been hearing it’s not only the snow that frightens them!—and so my greatest achievement will only be witnessed by a bunch of village buffoons.”

The shamiana tents, their bright colors glowing in the light of the great heat-braziers and gay strings and loops of illuminations bouncing across the trees, stood almost empty as the evening darkened toward night, looking ghostly as they loomed out through the snow. Bombur Yambarzal, unnerved by the phantom banquet, sought Abdullah’s advice. “What does that sorcerer mean, it’s not only the snow? If people are too scared to show up,” he said, almost timidly, the change in his demeanor an indication of the depth of his uncertainty, “do you think it’s safe for us to stay?” Abdullah’s heart was already in turmoil, the joy of Noman’s birth warring in his breast with his feeling of despair at the death of sweet Pamposh. He just shook his head perplexedly. “Let’s wait it out awhile,” he said. “We should both send people into Srinagar to ask around. Things must become clearer than they are.” Abdullah was not himself. There would be no performance of
Budshah
that night and he was trying to shake loose the shade of Zain-ul-abidin, pieces of whom were still stuck to his psyche. This was confusing. It was the second time that day that he had needed to exorcise the spirit of a king, and he was spent.

In the absence of the great majority of guests, all manner of rumors came into the Shalimar Bagh, hooded and cloaked to shield themselves against the elements, and filled the empty places around the dastarkhans: cheap rumors from the gutter as well as fancy rumors claiming aristocratic parentage—an entire social hierarchy of rumor lounged against the bolsters, created by the mystery that enveloped everything like the blizzard. The rumors were veiled, shadowy, unclear, argumentative, often malicious. They seemed like a new species of living thing, and evolved according to the laws laid down by Darwin, mutating randomly and being subjected to the amoral winnowing processes of natural selection. The fittest rumors survived, and began to make themselves heard above the general hubbub; and in the hissed or murmured noises emanating from these survivors, the loudest, most persistent, most puissant rumors, the single word
kabailis
was heard, over and over again. It was a new word, with which few people in the Shalimar Bagh were familiar, but it terrified them anyway. “An army of kabailis from Pakistan has crossed the border, looting, raping, burning, killing,” the rumors said, “and it is nearing the outskirts of the city.” Then the darkest rumor of all came in and sat down in the maharaja’s chair. “The maharaja has run away,” it said, contempt and terror mingling in its voice, “because he heard about the crucified man.” The authority of this rumor was so great that it seemed to the appalled villagers of Pachigam and Shirmal that the crucified man materialized then and there on the lawns of the Mughal garden, nailed to the white ground, the snow around him reddening with his blood. The crucified man’s name was Sopor and he was a simple shepherd. At a remote hillside crossroads in the far north the kabaili horde had come sweeping past him and his sheep and demanded to know the way to Srinagar. Sopor the shepherd lifted an arm and pointed, deliberately sending the invaders in the wrong direction. When, after a day-long wild goose chase, they realized what he had done, they retraced their steps, found him, crucified him in the dirt of the crossroads where he had misled them, let him scream for a while to beg God for the death that wouldn’t come quickly enough for his needs, and when they were bored of his noise, hammered a final nail through his throat.

So much was new in those days, so much only half understood. “Pakistan” itself was a former rumor, a phantom-word that had only had a real place attached to it for two short months. Perhaps for this reason—its move across the frontier from the shadow-world of rumors into the “real”—the subject of the new country aroused the most furious passions among the rumors swarming into the Shalimar Bagh. “Pakistan has right on its side,” said one rumor, “because here in Kashmir a Muslim people is being prevented by a Hindu ruler from joining their coreligionists in a new Muslim state.” A second rumor roared back, “How can you speak of right, when Pakistan has unleashed this murderous horde upon us? Don’t you know that the leaders of Pakistan told these cutthroat tribals that Kashmir is full of gold, carpets and beautiful women, and sent them to pillage and rape and kill infidels while they’re at it? Is that a country you want to join?” A third rumor blamed the maharaja. “He’s been dithering for months. The Partition was two months ago!—And still he can’t decide who to join, Pakistan or India.” A fourth butted in. “The fool! He has jailed Sheikh Abdullah, who has sworn off all communal politics, and is listening to that mullah, Moulvi Yusuf Shah, who obviously tilts toward Pakistan.” Then many rumors clamored at once. “Five hundred thousand tribals are attacking us, with Pak army soldiers in disguise commanding them!”—“They are only ten miles away!”—“Five miles!”—“Two!”—“Five thousand women raped and murdered on the Jammu border!”—“Twenty thousand Hindus and Sikhs slaughtered!”—“In Muzaffarabad, Muslim soldiers mutinied and killed their Hindu counterparts and the officer in charge as well!”—“Brigadier Rajender Singh, a hero, defended the road to Srinagar for three days with just 150 men!”—“Yes, but he is dead now, they slaughtered him.”—“Raise his war cry everywhere!
Hamla-awar khabardar, ham Kashmiri hain tayyar
!
”—
“Look out, attackers, we Kashmiris are ready for you!”
—“Sheikh Abdullah has been let out of jail!”—“The maharaja has taken his advice and opted for India!”—“The Indian army is coming to save us!”—“Will it be in time?”—“The maharaja held his last Dassehra Durbar at the palace and then hightailed it to Jammu!”—“To Bombay!”—“To Goa!”—“To London!”—“To New York!”—“If he’s so scared what chance have we?”—“Run! Save yourselves! Run for your lives!”

As panic gripped the people in the Shalimar garden, Abdullah Noman ran to be with his wife and sons in the little makeshift screened-off maternity area Firdaus had had constructed in a corner of the Bagh. He found her sitting grim-faced on the ground, nursing the baby Noman, and beside her were Pandit Pyarelal Kaul and Khwaja Abdul Hakim, standing with bowed heads by the body of Pamposh. Pyarelal was singing a hymn softly. Abdullah could not speak for a moment. He was full of feelings of self-reproach at his own ignorance. He had known nothing, or next to nothing, of the trouble rushing down upon them. He was the sarpanch and should have known; how could he protect his people if he knew nothing of the dangers threatening them? He did not deserve his office. He was no better than Yambarzal. Petty rivalries and prideful self-absorption had blinded them both, and they had brought their people toward this terrifying conflict instead of keeping them safe and far away. Tears fell from his eyes. He knew they were tears of shame.

“Why are you singing that song of praise?” Firdaus’s voice dragged him back into the world. She was glaring savagely at Pyarelal. “What do you have to thank Durga for? You worshipped her for nine days and on the tenth she took your wife.” The pandit received the admonition without rancor. “When you pray for what you most want in the world,” he said, “its opposite comes along with it. I was given a woman whom I truly loved and who truly loved me. The opposite side of such a love is the pain of its loss. I can only feel such pain today because until yesterday I knew that love, and that is surely a thing for which to thank whoever or whatever you like, the goddess, or fate, or just my lucky stars.” Firdaus turned away from him. “Maybe we are too different, after all,” she grumbled under her breath. Khwaja Abdul Hakim took his leave. “I do not think I will stay in Kashmir,” he said. “I do not want to watch the sadness destroying the beauty. I have it in mind to give my land to the university and go south. Into India; always India; never into Pakistan.” Firdaus’s back was toward the khwaja. “You’re lucky,” she muttered without turning to wish him good-bye. “You’re one of those who has a choice.”

Abdullah asked for and received his swaddled baby boy. “We need to go,” he told Firdaus and Pyarelal gently. “The rumors flying around here are making people crazy.” All day, he thought, there have been kings and princes in my head. Alexander, Zain-ul-abidin, Jehangir, Ram. But it’s our own prince’s indecision that has unleashed this holocaust, and nobody can say whether or not India, that newly kingless land, can save us, or even if being saved by India is going to be good for us in the end.

A drum boomed immensely in the night, louder and louder, commanding attention. So potent was the drumming that it froze people in their tracks, it silenced the rumors and got everyone’s attention. The little man, Sarkar the magician, was marching down the central avenue of the garden, hammering away at his mighty
dhol.
Finally, when all eyes were on him, he raised a megaphone to his lips and bellowed, “Fuck this. I came here to do something and I’m going to do it. The genius of my magic will triumph over the ugliness of the times. On the seventh beat of my drum, the Shalimar garden will disappear.” He banged the drum, one, two, three, four, five, six times. On the seventh boom, just as he had foretold, the whole Shalimar Bagh vanished from sight. Pitch blackness descended. People began to scream.

For the rest of his life the Seventh Sarkar would curse history for cheating him of the credit for the unprecedented feat of “hiding from view” an entire Mughal garden, but most people in the garden that night thought he’d pulled it off, because on the seventh beat of his drum the power station at Mohra was blown to bits by the Pakistani irregular forces and the whole city and region of Srinagar was plunged into complete darkness. In the night-cloaked Shalimar Bagh the earthly version of the tooba tree of heaven remained secret, unrevealed. Abdullah Noman experienced the bizarre sensation of living through a metaphor made real. The world he knew was disappearing; this blind, inky night was the incontestable sign of the times.

The remaining hours of that night passed in a frenzy of shouts and rushing feet. Somehow Abdullah managed to send his family away on a bullock cart, which Firdaus had to share with the dead body of her friend and, next to deceased Pamposh, Pyarelal Kaul cradling his baby daughter and unstoppably singing praisesongs to Durga. Then by a lucky chance Abdullah collided with Bombur Yambarzal again. Bombur in the darkness was a quivering wreck of a man, but Abdullah managed to get him on his feet. “We can’t leave our stuff here,” he persuaded Yambarzal, “or both our villages will be crippled for good.” Somehow the two of them rounded up a rump or quorum of villagers, half Shirmali, half from Pachigam, and this raggle-taggle remnant dismantled their special
wuri
ovens and hauled many dozens of pots full of feast-day food to the roadside. The portable theater had to be dismantled as well, and the materials for the plays packed in great wicker panniers and taken down the terraces to the lakeside. All night the villagers of Shirmal and Pachigam worked side by side, and when dawn crept over the hills at the end of that dark night and the garden reappeared, the waza and the sarpanch hugged each other and made promises of unbreakable fellowship and undying love. Above them, however, the shadow planets Rahu and Ketu existed without actually existing, pulling and pushing, intensifying and suppressing, inflaming and stifling, dancing out the moral struggle within human beings while remaining invisible in the brightening heavens. And when the actors and cooks departed from the Shalimar Bagh they left behind the giant effigies of the demon king, his brother and his son, all filled with unexploded fireworks. Ravan, Kumbhakaran and Meghnath glowered across the trembling valley, not caring whether they were Hindus or Muslims. The time of demons had begun.