The Assassin's Song (17 page)

My father, however, took no stand regarding Shastri and NAPYP's activities in our village. The question only occurs now, Was his the silence of the detached, or the silence of the fearful?

Hidden desires.

Shilpa sat with Bapu-ji in the pavilion; she had a copy of the Gita in her hand, from which she read to him from time to time, and he interpreted. It was late afternoon. Another assistant came and sat with them for a while, then left. Soon after, Shilpa stood up from her chair, went to stand behind my father, and tenderly, lovingly massaged his head, her long fingers grasping, caressing the crown, rubbing his scalp end to end, side to side. Her face was flushed from the heat, her parrot-green sari clung to her long, willowy body. Her thick long braid fell in front of her. Leaning against the large Jaffar Shah grave, I watched this intimacy, wondered why I had never seen Ma in such closeness with Bapu-ji. His face, under the ministrations of this devotee, had attained a serene glow. I didn't know he had headaches, for that is what I assumed the massage was for, or that he could even fall sick. The doctor always came for Mansoor or me.

Didn't Bapu-ji see the woman in the devotee, despite his own chaste nature; didn't he smell her perfume, the sweat of her exertion, hear her breath go in and out, her deliciously pointed breasts heave in accompaniment? If Sahebs didn't see the world like weaker mortals, then what of me, who could see nothing else about Shilpa but her womanhood most of the time? Would there come a time when I would become pure like him, unsusceptible to male stirrings and worldly desires?

I knew that even Nur Fazal, our Pir Bawa, had fallen once, given in to the charms of a heavenly temptress; the result had been a calamity for the fledgling community of Patan, in which my ancestor Arjun Dev had been
killed; and the sufi had then suffered an agony of separation and confusion, his link with his spiritual master blocked by an implacable wall. That could happen to my father, I thought, watching his head relax to the tender touches of a woman, close to her chest. I should pray for him.

Shilpa gave me a rich smile over my father's head, briefly hummed the song, “Mané chaakar rakho-ji,” Make me your servant, Lord, then straightened up to indicate that she had finished. “There, Saheb-ji,” she said, giving the tiniest pat to his scalp, and gathering the loose palu of her sari, which must have sent a wave of perfume over him, she drifted off towards the house.

Ma had returned from her zenana show at the cinema and I could hear them exchanging words in the courtyard.

“What could I do,” Shilpa said, “if you were not here, Chachi? He had a headache and all afternoon there has been a stream of visitors—”

“Good thing, then, you just happened to be around to put your hands on him,” Ma retorted, but the bite was lost on Shilpa, who replied sweetly, “Chachi, I wish only that I could come more frequently to serve my Saheb, but I simply cannot get away enough.”

Bapu-ji calm in his chair, eyes closed.

Soon Shilpa came floating out, called me and Mansoor over, and served us tea on the floor at the edge of the pavilion, with dhokla she had brought with her from Ahmedabad. Then she ran back to the house and brought out a glass of sweet milk and biscuits for Bapu-ji. Having served him, she caught my eye, saying, “Karsan, come with me to clean up Rupa Devi's temple.”

“But it is for women only,” I protested. The only men who went there were the pavayas, the transvestite eunuchs, groups of whom occasionally passed our village on their way to their own shrine to the north. They looked like pretty women and enjoyed teasing the boys, coming on to them and embarrassing them no end.

“As long as you are still a boy and with a woman, that is all right.” She smiled. “Wouldn't you like to go with me? Come. And don't worry, the pavayas are not around.”

We turned left at the road outside and headed towards the temple with our brooms. On the way we passed my friends, who were playing cricket, and they paused their game to grin and gawk at us. I tried my best to
appear to ignore them and not gloat at being seen in the company of a lus cious woman.

“Do you know about Rupa Devi?” Shilpa asked.

“She was the wife of Pir Bawa,” I explained, sounding a little cocky, and annoyed too that she would ask me such a question. I had used the formal term for “wife,” with perhaps some emphasis. Shilpa smiled, ran a hand over my head. “You are such a serious boy,” she said, coming very close to me. I almost died there on her breast.

“Rupade Rani was Pir Bawa's wife only in a spiritual sense,” I continued, red in the face; “when she tried to be his real wife, she died. She was very young …” I stopped because here the story became confusing— Master-ji could never explain it to satisfaction in his Saturday class, becoming progressively uneasy, then finally scanning around for someone to scold, an ear to pull.

We continued to the temple. It was a simple whitewashed structure, with a domed roof topped by a spire on which flew a ragged red flag. It was said that when Rupa Devi died, she had been laid here for the night, but in the morning her body had disappeared and there were flowers in its place. Shilpa and I fell silent, and as we approached, our feet stirring up the fine tannish powder that covered the earth here, we heard murmurs coming from the farther side, where the entrance was. Suddenly a girl of about fourteen appeared, then another, and another, and they trotted off without a word. One of the girls appeared to be pregnant, and Shilpa stared long after them, then stared at me.

I knew how babies were made, Mr. David had told us about it during his sessions, and my friends and I had discussed it. And so I blushed when Shilpa gave me that look.

There was a curtain of old flowers and beads and a bell at the threshold that we both struck as we entered the temple, releasing a tinny sound meant not to travel far but to announce our presence to the goddess. Inside the small, dark room was a gaadi, a throne on which stood the half-profile picture of a beautiful lady in a blue sari, her face made up, her red lips full and smiling. The picture ended at her waist, her two hands raised and joined in a namaskar or prayer. Beside her were three smaller pictures, of the goddesses Durga, Lakshmi, and Saraswati.

One day, so the story went, a painter in Allahabad had a vision of a
goddess. The look in her eyes, the shape of her lips and brow, and the dimple on her chin—these gave her a peculiarity he could not forget. He travelled far and wide all across the land in search of the home that must belong to that face. He visited all the famous pilgrimage places, from Kanya Kumari to Kashmir. Finally he met an ascetic on his travels who told him to go to a place called Pirbaag in Gujarat; when the painter arrived and laid his eyes on Rupa Devi's temple he knew at once that this was the place he was looking for, the home of his goddess. He set up his canvas and painted his picture of her, this portrait now in front of us, spending many weeks on the project, paying attention to every detail, the hues on every nail of the hands, the pearls in her earrings, the jewellery round her neck, the folds of her sari. Now here she was, more beautiful than any picture I knew. I had seen her once with Ma when I was little, and then again on my way to pick up a stray cricket ball, when I had been accosted by three pavayas, one of whom had made a grab for my crotch and teased, “Is anyone there? Thief or sipai?”

There were fresh flowers in front of the goddess, on the throne, left presumably by the three young women who had just run off. We added our flowers to the lot, replaced the strings of stale jasmines and marigolds at the doorway, and swept the floor. The dust from the sweepings we daubed piously on our foreheads and lips. This was the same treatment given Pir Bawa's mausoleum in the main shrine.

When we were finished, Shilpa went and stood before the throne, joined her hands and muttered her prayers; then, taking three long steps back, she turned around and we were ready to go.

“It is a rare being who is granted the privilege of serving a god, or an avatar,” she said to me in a trembling voice. “Rupa Devi was one of them.”

I nodded, dumbstruck, and we walked back.

Her god was my father. Ma disliked her but could not keep her away from the shrine, and besides, she was useful when she came, giving Ma the opportunity to sneak off to the movies. To see Dilip or Sunil Dutt or Rajendra Kumar at the women's zenana show at the cinema she had to leave Bapu to the eager attentions of Shilpa.

When later in the afternoon Shilpa was ready to head back to her home in the city, at her request I escorted her outside to the bus stop. As we stood
there waiting together, while I was doing my best to look grave and sound adult to impress her, she suddenly interrupted me: “How is your Mr. David?”

“He is an excellent sir, Shilpa-ji! The best!” I said, dropping my act and only too happy to talk about Mr. David. She had not met him in several weeks now, and it was natural she should ask about him. “Really?” she replied.

“And you know what?” I added, eager for more praise. “He's teaching me to box!”

Assuming my boxing posture, I hopped around to show off, threw a few mock punches in her direction. But she was in no mood for humour then.

“He's different, Karsan,” she told me harshly, her face expressing distaste. “You are old enough to know what I mean. You should not get too close to him.”

I was old enough but I did not know what she meant. Was it that he was a Sidi—a negro? Or did she believe in caste after all? Did Africans have castes? Nkrumah of Ghana? Nyerere of Tanzania? Sir Abubakar Tafawa Belewa of Nigeria—now there was a Muslim; what caste did he come from?

It all sounded silly; of course I did not heed her admonition, how could I? Mr. David was my hero.

When a few weeks later Mr. David came to Pirbaag, it was the morning of Bakri Idd, the Muslim festival. I discovered that this was in fact a celebration of Abraham's sacrifice, except that to the Muslims the son demanded by God was Ismail, not Isaac; and it was a goat that had saved Ismail, which was why they ate goat that day. Mr. David sat down for a celebratory tea with us in our courtyard. He wore new clothes and his brown shoes gleamed with polish; he had put on cologne. But he was wistfully sad. In the nawab's palace in Junagadh, where he had spent his early years, the Idd celebrations had been glorious, with the slaughter of goats and the communal recital of namaz. The nawab gave generous gifts to his retainers. Mr. David recalled a tricycle, and a toy car in which he could sit inside and drive around. But not very fast, he added, making a face for the benefit of us boys.

Afterwards Mr. David went to the Balak Shah shrine alone. It was the
day they would eat meat there. The Balakshahis ate meat only on special occasions. On Bakri Idd a goat was sacrificed in a neighbouring village and two steaming thalis of biriyani were brought to the Child-imam's shrine in a rickshaw to be consumed by anyone inclined to do so.

To my surprise, Mr. David did not return to us later that day but took the bus straight home. That night as I sat with my books at my table in the courtyard, I felt strangely listless. My teacher's visit, instead of uplifting me as it usually did, had depressed me. The day had also reminded me of the story of Abraham, how Isaac—or Ismail—hadn't mattered when the all-important call came. He had not had any say in his fate. Ma brought me my glass of warmed milk, then hovered nearby, something evidently on her mind. She had been this way most of the day; earlier there had been a conference with Bapu, always difficult for her to manage. “What, Ma?” I asked. “Karsan—” she began. “Kaho!” I persisted. She then told me not to become too friendly with Mr. David, people were saying he was a strange one. She would not elaborate.

The next day Raja Singh was at hand, having spent the night in town. The truck was smelly, for he had been transporting sacrificial goats in the area.

“Three Russkies in one rocket,” he said with a chuckle, announcing the latest space episode. “What next from those godless ones?”

I sat silent beside him, brooding.

“What's up, friend? Kuch taqlif hai? What is bothering you?”

“Singh-ji, about Mr. David—”

“Arré, that one turned out to be a homo; be careful of him.”

“What is a homo, Sirdar-ji?” Of course, I knew, my ears were burning. I only hoped he knew different.

Sirdar-ji was silent, his eyes fixed on the road. A camel cart inching along the road received some choice Punjabi epithets.

“You don't know its meaning, yaar, you boys don't talk about it?” he asked at length.

I shook my head.

“Larkeon ko pasand karté hai,” Sirdar-ji said. Someone who likes boys, not girls. “You understand?”

“So what if he likes boys?”

“Ghand marté hai,” said Raja Singh, steel in his eyes.

I turned away shocked out of my wits, wanting now only to vomit. He had used the sort of coarse expletive common to the roughest of the older boys, and given it a horrifying reality.

“Sasrikal, Ji,” I said finally, as I got off the truck outside the school.

Raja raised a hand in response. “Good luck, Ji,” he replied in English, on his face a look of genuine concern for me.