‘Sajjad.’ Hiroko tugged at his sleeve. Her own rage was forgotten behind the need to stop the awfulness of the anger pulsing between these two people who had come to mean so much to her. ‘Come, look. I found a word I recognise.’ She pointed to some part of the Arabic inscription on the minaret, and Sajjad moved closer to her to better see where she was directing his attention, their two dark heads almost touching.
The ease of their proximity struck Elizabeth much as it had Lala Buksh on the day of Hiroko’s arrival. She saw the quick glance Sajjad directed at Hiroko and understood more about what it meant than Sajjad did. She did not stop to think of how Hiroko might feel about it or to wonder how long it had been true – she only knew that at last she had found a way to get past that armour of charm and indifference that had allowed Sajjad Ali Ashraf to win over everyone else in her household while remaining impervious to all she ever said and did.
‘Sajjad and I were just having a chat,’ she said loudly, putting an arm around James’s waist in an attempt at casualness which almost made him jump back in surprise. ‘He was telling me the name he has in mind for his first daughter.’
James kissed the side of her head, allowing his lips to linger while he took in her scent. His fingers covered hers at his waist. She was almost distracted from her purpose, almost on the verge of turning to James and whispering that they should reacquaint themselves with the recessed archways built into the walls of the covered passageway, where, in happier times, they had sometimes slipped away during polo games on the adjoining fields to seek refuge from the sun and other onlookers. But then she heard Sajjad say something in Urdu which made Hiroko blush. What he’d said was, ‘Before you know it I’ll have to come to you for lessons in my language,’ but Elizabeth only saw that Hiroko was drifting away from her towards Sajjad, as James and Henry had already done.
‘So, Sajjad,’ she said casually. ‘How are your marital plans shaping up? James told me you said you’ll need to take a few days off for your wedding before the end of the year.’
There was the briefest moment in which there was only anticipation of what might follow, and then Hiroko turned sharply on her heels and started to walk back towards the car.
‘What . . .?’ James said, surprised by the resoluteness with which she was striding away.
‘The heat. It’s not good for her.’ Elizabeth’s childhood self felt the ghosts of those attached to the world by remorse press their hot mouths against her skin in initiation. ‘We should leave.’
‘Oh, all right.’ James looked regretfully towards the covered hallway. ‘Sajjad, come along.’
‘I’ll find my own way home, thank you, Mr Burton.’
‘Come on, James!’
James looked uncertainly at Sajjad, who waved him towards the car.
‘I will walk among the ruins and compose great poems about my ancestors, Mr Burton. Please don’t worry about me.’
Sajjad watched as the Bentley drove off, unsettling both pigeons and dust, and only when it was out of view did he lean back against the great minaret and look up to the whitening sky for some explanation of why his heart was racing so madly.
7
Civil Lines was aflame with gulmohar trees in bloom as Sajjad pedalled to work the next morning, each fiery flower-cluster reminding him of Hiroko stalking away across a barren tract of land with collapsing monuments strewn around, a smear of red on the back of her dress as though her heart had bled all the way through.
For an instant he had thought there could be only one explanation for her response to news of his wedding – but he quickly saw the vanity, the absurdity, of that thought. Of course she was angry with him; why wouldn’t she be? She had spoken to him of the death of Konrad Weiss, and what had he told her of his own life in return? Nothing but superficialities. And so it fell to Elizabeth Burton casually to announce news that one friend had no reason to keep from another.
A woman friend. Sajjad shook his head in amazement to think such a thing had entered his life. A Japanese woman friend. The bicycle wheels whirred and the seat creaked as he pedalled faster, then slower, much slower, then faster again. Could he invite her to his wedding? What would his wife – whoever she might turn out to be – say to know there was a woman outside the family who he counted among his friends; a woman who wore trousers and low-cut necklines, and smoked cigarettes, and would never dream of allowing anyone else to choose her husband, and who was beautiful. No, perhaps it was better after all not to consider inviting her to his wedding.
And yet he could see her there. Could see her standing just a little apart from the women of his family, her eyes teasingly on him in that moment before he looked down into the mirror which would show him, for the first time, the face of the woman sitting beside him who he had just married.
No, no, she could not, must not, come to his wedding.
When he dismounted in the Burton driveway Lala Buksh was waiting for him. Sajjad nodded to him as he leaned his cycle against the wall. In all the years he’d been coming here he and Lala Buksh had barely spoken to each other beyond Sajjad conveying some request of James’s to his bearer or wishing him a perfunctory
Eid Mubarak
. But in the last few weeks, as riots continued and the creation of a new state seemed increasingly likely, the two men had started to drink a cup of tea together in the morning while discussing what news the previous day had brought with it of death and politics and freedom.
Lala Buksh handed Sajjad a steaming cup, and they walked towards the kitchen entrance, where Sajjad sat on the step leading inside while Lala Buksh squatted on the ground as he would never do in the presence of the English.
‘I am going,’ Lala Buksh said bluntly. Sajjad looked at him quizzically, distracted by the thought that he would see Hiroko in a few minutes and had no idea of what he would say to her. ‘To this country for Muslims. I will go.’
Sajjad leaned his head back against the screen door.
‘The English are here for another year. Why don’t you wait to see what the situation is in ’48? Already things are much calmer than last month.’
Lala Buksh looked at his hands as they curled into fists, watching them as a scientist might watch some awful and brilliant weapon of his own creation begin to take form.
‘By ’48, I don’t know what I’ll have become.’
Unlike Sajjad, Lala Buksh lived in a neighbourhood that wasn’t predominantly Muslim. He was there only on Fridays, when he had a day off from working for the Burtons, but he confessed to Sajjad that on those Fridays – when his family poured out a week’s worth of stories from the Punjab, of Muslim men slaughtered, Muslim shops set on fire, Muslim women abducted – he had to force himself to stay at home because if he went out and saw a single Hindu his eyes would reveal what was in his heart, and it would get him killed. Or else, a Hindu’s eyes would reveal what was in
his
heart, and then . . .
Sajjad sipped his tea, not knowing how to respond to that. For years he’d watched Lala Buksh joke with the Burtons’ cook, Vijay, and flirt with Henry’s ayah, Rani, and sometimes he’d walk into the kitchen to find the three of them grumbling amiably about the Burtons. Now the only break Lala Buksh took from his duties was this one, with Sajjad. In talking to Lala Buksh, Sajjad realised that atrocities committed on Muslims touched him far more deeply than atrocities committed by Muslims – he knew this to be as wrong as it was true.
As Sajjad finished his tea in one large gulp and stood up, Lala Buksh said, ‘You didn’t come back with them from Qutb Minar yesterday.’ Sajjad made a non-committal gesture. ‘She was very upset about something.’ He picked up Sajjad’s cup and went into the kitchen.
Hiroko, on the verandah, heard the squeal of the kitchen’s screen door and knew it meant Sajjad was about to walk around to the back garden. She wasn’t sure she could look at him without revealing her envy.
She had tried so hard the previous night to bring Konrad’s face to mind but he felt so far away. He felt like another life. In this life there was simply desire for more – more than a memory of his fingers tracing the veins of her wrist, more than a memory of his tongue surprising hers. But though Konrad grew more distant the harder she tried to summon him that thing that had started to happen in her body when she slipped on her mother’s silk kimono had reawoken. Lying in the bath last night, she had slid her hand along her naked body (except it wasn’t her hand, it wasn’t her body – it was Sajjad’s hand and his wife’s body – even in fantasy she could not allow herself to believe her body could be the location of such caresses from any man) and as the hand moved lower her body had jerked, slamming her hip against the porcelain, and terrified her into pulling out the bath-plug and getting into bed, where she clenched her hands into fists and kept them resolutely away from the rest of her.
‘Good morning,’ Sajjad said, walking towards the verandah. ‘I hope you’re feeling better today.’
‘Yes, thank you.’ She looked at him and wondered how it must feel to watch Sajjad Ali Ashraf approach you and know that his body was yours to touch. The look she gave him was lightly accusing. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about her?’
‘Who?’
‘Your fiancée.’
‘Oh.’ Sajjad scrunched up his face. ‘No, no. Nothing’s settled yet. My mother and sisters-in-law have someone in mind, but I don’t even know her name. It could all be nothing.’ He placed his hand on the table, touching the spine of the book on which her fingers were resting.
She nodded, tried to ignore the strange feeling of hopefulness mingled with despair.
‘You must be considered very eligible. Though . . . can I ask you something?’
‘Of course. Anything.’
‘You told me once that you’re going to be a lawyer. But you spend your days playing chess with James Burton. I know you want more from the world.’
In all this time she had been the first person ever to say this to him.
‘Without James Burton, I’d be working with my family, hating it. So as long as he wants me to play chess, I will. But he’s said, he’s promised, there will always be a place in his law firm for me. He said just the other day, when the British leave there’ll be so many vacancies. I can wait. He lets me take law books from his libraries and read them at home. I’m not wasting my time. I’m learning. I’m getting ready.’
‘I didn’t mean to imply you were wasting your time. I think you’d make a wonderful lawyer.’ She could see this was a compliment that truly mattered to him, though she couldn’t help wondering whether it was really possible to be a lawyer without some kind of professional qualification.
‘Can I ask you something now? Does it seem strange to you? That I’ll marry someone I’ve never met? I know the Burtons think it very . . . backward.’
‘I’m not the Burtons, Sajjad. It seems to me that I could find more in your world which resembles Japanese traditions than I can in this world of the English.’ She said it almost accusingly, before smiling in acknowledgement of how little interest she had in tradition. ‘Arranged marriages used to be quite common in Japan. I’ve always thought they must require more courage than I possess.’
Sajjad didn’t feel very courageous.
‘It’s how things happen.’ He traced the lettering on the book’s spine and avoided looking at her. ‘When you marry it’ll be the English way?’
‘I’ll never marry.’
Sajjad flinched at his own insensitivity.
‘I’m sorry. I know Mr Konrad . . . I’m sorry. This is none of my business.’
‘I’ll never marry,’ she repeated. ‘But it isn’t because of Konrad.’
Sajjad nodded. And then shook his head.
‘Then why?’
Hiroko did not stop to think if she wanted confirmation or denial from him of the truth she’d recognised in a Tokyo hospital when she heard the hardened doctor’s horrified gasp as he looked at her lying on her stomach. Instead, she stood up and turned her back to him.
‘Because of this.’ She started to undo the buttons at the back of her blouse, exposing her bare flesh.
With a quick cry of shock, Sajjad turned his face away.
‘Please. What are you doing?’
Hiroko tugged at the fabric that covered her back, parting the blouse as though it were stage curtains.
‘This is just one more thing the bomb took away from me. Look at me.’
‘No. Button your shirt.’
‘Sajjad.’
The flatness of her voice made him turn towards her. Whatever he had been about to say remained for ever unsaid. She had stepped out of the shadow of the roof’s overhang and into the harsh sunlight so there could be no mistaking the three charcoal-coloured bird-shaped burns on her back, the first below her shoulder blade, the second halfway down her spine, intersected by her bra, the third just above her waist.