Trespassing (25 page)

‘I’m earning now,’ Salaamat retorted proudly.

Hero’s lips curled in a sneer. ‘You are, are you? How much?’

‘Two thousand rupees,’ he blurted, regretting it instantly.

Hero threw his head back and laughed. ‘Then,’ he held his arms out magnanimously, ‘I invite you to step into my shop and urge you to spend the money well.’

Despite himself, Salaamat was tempted. The tiny stall was a pocket of solace, of a dazzling blue solace. He stepped inside. Beside him, the older child polished a pair of lapis
lazuli earrings set in silver. Dozens of peacock feathers were nailed to the carpets hanging on the far wall, while against it lay slabs of aquamarine crystals. He touched a string of beads that glistened like a pool of dusky blue oil. It would sit beautifully on Rani’s collarbone, while the earrings would become Sumbul even better than silk. ‘How much for both?’

‘For you,’ declared Hero, ‘only three thousand rupees.’

‘You know how much I have.’

‘We will reach a fair price. But first, I want to show you something else. Something that will delight you.’ He pulled him toward the shop’s rear. The carpets on the wall were in fact curtains, and there was no wall. Hero pulled back the lower corner of one rug, careful not to snap a peacock feather, and they entered another room. ‘Call if we get customers,’ he ordered the boys.

It took Salaamat an instant to adjust to the odd light. When he did, he saw two men on stools shining guns. They were both fair-skinned and decked in finely embroidered vests. Smoke from oil lamps rose in the air and the flames shivered, throwing into relief the firearms displayed on the walls.

‘Tea for my friend,’ said Hero.

In the shadows Salaamat distinguished a figure hunkered over a small burner. A sweet smell began to rise. Two more stools were arranged next to the men in vests who grunted at Salaamat. A cup was handed to him. The dark room was cool and Salaamat thirsty. He sipped gratefully. Peering around, he then noticed the two men who walked along the walls, examining the firearms.

One of them, short and with a jutting, rectangular jaw took a gun down and brought it over to where they sat. ‘There are more than one hundred thousand of these Tokarev pistols in the country yet your price has not come down. The bullets are cheap. Parts easy to repair. You cheat us.’

Hero yawned. ‘Then why do you come back?’

The man swiveled and spoke rapidly in another tongue to
his partner. Salaamat’s heart pounded. He understood them.

‘This Pathan son-of-an-owl knows he has the best collection in this Godforsaken nuthouse.’

‘We should crack his skull.’

‘We can get the bullets lodged inside it.’

‘We’ll feed them to his sister while we fuck her.’

He turned back to Hero. ‘We want a case of the Tokarevs. And our Chief wants another one of those Rugers.’ He pointed to the pistol being shined by one of the vests.

Hero bowed in mock servitude. ‘As you wish. The Chief likes the best. Those Amreekans make first-class pistols and this is the most popular one in the world:.22 caliber with a detachable ten-shot magazine. See this button? Push and the cartridge slides in. That’s a unique feature. But,’ he chewed his tongue, ‘the best is never cheap.’

‘How many sisters does he have?’
the partner hissed from the back.

‘Karim,’ said Hero. ‘Let our faithful client hold the Ruger.’ Karim thrust his cloth one last time into the pistol’s barrel, twisting it inside like a pipe cleaner. Then he offered it to the customer. ‘Feel it,’ Hero smiled beatifically. ‘The stock is made of Amreekan akhrot. The rest is stainless steel. I will gift you the case and an extra magazine.’

‘They always come with that,’ Jutting Jaw snapped. ‘You don’t fool us.’

Salaamat was beginning to feel an odd tickle in his throat. It was as if Karim had thrust the cloth down him instead of the barrel and was jiggling it.

The Sindhis spoke his tongue and this was soothing, yet they were not like the people in his village. He didn’t know if they’d want him to understand them, and what they’d do if they didn’t. He was an insider, but still on the fringe. And yet, the longer he listened, the more desperate he grew for them to know him. It was as though he was riding in his bus and had only this one chance to stand on the
leopard-skin seats, lean out the tinted windows, and utter a scream long silenced, ‘Here! It’s me!’ He took another sip of the tea.

Jutting Jaw weighed the pistol in his hand and grinned.
‘The Chief will reward us well for this.’

‘Nadir, bring out more Amreekan ones,’ commanded Hero.

The other vest went to the back of the room, toward the burner. He opened a trunk and returned with three different kinds of guns. He began to recite, ‘Every strong man’s favorite shotgun is the Remington, favorite rifle is the Colt and favorite machine gun is the Ingram. Every common man has the Kalashnikov – you ought to have something different.’

‘Show the Winchester,’ Hero yawned again. Nadir retrieved the rifle and handed it over. ‘This is our most prized addition. It’s an antique. Look at the floral carving at the base of the barrel. Who can resist it?’

The partner came forward. He was taller than Jutting Jaw and wrapped in an ajrak.
‘The bastard knows he has us now.’
He ran his fingers along the engraving. ‘
It’s finer than a Turkish scabbard. Maybe the Chief will even let us use it.’

He looked up and noticed Salaamat. ‘Who’s this?’ He pointed the muzzle at him.

Hero continued smiling magnanimously. ‘He ought to be one of you. Instead, he’s suddenly feeling very shy. Must be the tea.’ The vests snickered. ‘He’s understood everything you’ve said. Every filthy compliment you’ve paid me.’ He laughed.

Something crawled inside Salaamat’s forehead, just above the bridge of his nose. He laid a hand there and held his breath. Both men were dark like him but without his pale blue eyes.

The one in an ajrak insisted,
‘Speak.’

Salaamat gulped the last of the sweet tea. It left a cool,
menthol shiver on his tongue. He said,
‘Your words are music to my ears. I hate this man.’

The men looked at each other and burst into laughter. Then the Pathans switched to their tongue and laughed too. This made the Sindhis guffaw. More tea was made. More stools brought. The buyers sat down.
‘Shake hands,’
they said to Salaamat.

He shook the muzzle of the Winchester. ‘My name’s Salaamat. Not Ajnabi like this jackass.’

‘Fatah,’ said Jutting Jaw, gripping the rifle’s other end. ‘Second Commander. Not a cheat like this rat.’

‘Muhammad Shah,’ said the other, slapping his hand on the stock. ‘First Lieutenant and tea advisor. Next time, don’t drink it. You’ll wake up puking acid.’

Salaamat’s fingers curled around the slender barrel as he continued shaking it. He swayed, feeling increasingly queasy.

Hero offered him the butt of a Kalashnikov. When Salaamat took it, Hero said in a mocking child’s voice, ‘We make more than two thousand rupees.’ And to the others, ‘How many of these?’

The vests stood up and began wrapping the supplies. Fatah counted rupees. Salaamat learned there were thirty bullets in the magazine of an AK-47, and that each bullet cost a mere ten rupees. The machine gun itself was four thousand, the Winchester, sixty-five. Others, sold by the case, cost anywhere in between. These men had more cash than even a bus-owner.

He felt Fatah slipping something into his shirt pocket. He wasn’t sure what. His vision was blurry and he thought he might vomit. But he clung to the machine gun’s cylinder. It was as smooth as the slim neck of the frosted blue vase outside. It was cold, fragile. If he let go it would snap and little blue splinters would pierce his skin.

‘It’s a small world,’ said Muhammad Shah, in Urdu again. ‘From Amreeka to the Soviets, we all meet here.’

‘From the mountains to the sea, where black fish like you breed,’ said Hero.

If there was a fight, Salaamat missed it. While losing consciousness, he crumpled to the floor, believing he dived down the neck of a vase, into a vast blue bowl.

When he came to, Salaamat’s head was an inferno. He touched it: his fingers came away sticky. Squinting, he saw he lay in the middle of a street in flames. Tires burned. A mob threw stones. He crawled onto the pavement behind him, seeking a door to duck inside. But there was only broken glass, burning carts, people scrambling, and the sound of shotguns. Shops had their shutters securely down. Those that didn’t were being smashed. He tried to stand up. Stumbling down the street, he vaguely recalled a different world of glass.

The stench of charred rubber mingled with singed hair, food and plastic, and his stomach heaved. A dismembered car stood deserted in the middle of the road, the holes where doors had been yawning, screaming. He remembered the maze. And the tea. He reached into his shirt pocket: the bills were gone. In their place was a scrap of paper. When he opened it, a pair of silver earrings inlaid with blue lapis lazuli fell into his hand. The ones he’d wanted. The paper
had a phone number. He remembered the two dark faces who spoke his tongue. And the three pale men on stools. And the one he’d never seen at the back, making the tea. Which had stolen his first earnings?

Three years of drudgery, three with no home or family, three listening to Handsome’s men jeer him. And now this. Hadn’t God thrown enough humiliation his way? He turned back. But then he paused: to get to Hero’s shop, he’d have to pass the mob.

When a man ran by him, he grabbed his arm and demanded, ‘What’s happening?’ His face was seared and oily. He must look like that.

‘You should be heading that way,’ the man said, pointing away from the building with Hero’s shop. He pulled away.

Slowly, Salaamat followed.
I’ll be back,
he swore.

When the next shot rang he found himself wondering which kind of gun had fired it. He’d never known each could be so different. Some shapes were finer than others, and the finish varied greatly, just like in bus-body-making. But when instead of a single shot, he heard a burst of several dozen in succession, he remembered the machine guns. Salaamat began to run.

An old man’s face shone an eerie green in the last glare of the fire that consumed the bus.

‘It was a nice one,’ muttered a youth beside him. ‘New. Not even two weeks old. There was a big ant there,’ he pointed at the fender.

Salaamat knew before he’d even reached it. Maybe because of the purple strip a child kicked all the way down the street – the only part that survived. Or maybe he’d simply heard death in the smoke that swished toward him. It smelled different this time, different from all the burned rubber he’d walked past to get to the bus stop. Maybe it was the smell of premonition. His entire life had been pointing to this moment. He was a fool not to see it before. He was always meant to stand here, at this junction.

There was no turtle now. The paint, metal, and pictures were all singed and furled. Only one wooden plank still burned. Orange flames rose around it half-heartedly. They’d bored into the iron, shattered the disco lights, stripped the
plastic seats, gorged the tinted windows, blackened the silver steering wheel.

Salaamat walked around his bus.
His.
His months of barely any sleep; his runny eyes; his hands sliced by steel; his glittery fish; his Rani; his chronology. His first income, also gone. He kicked the front tires. Smoke permeated every cell in his body. He shut his eyes, overcome by an exhaustion that was absolute. There was not one thing around him that suggested the order he’d slogged to construct since the day he’d left his village. No, before that: since the trawlers and his attack. His father’s cowardice. His mother’s silent humiliation. Her death. Or maybe even earlier. Maybe the lines on his hands, if he could read them, told that it had all gone wrong at his birth. That was the real mistake.

There were no beautiful things to focus on in this life. He had to begin another. And he knew now which road would take him there. The scrap of paper in his pocket pressed into his chest. He tossed it in the cinders. But first, he memorized the number.

Salaamat visited the farm often after that. Sometimes he rode on buses with torn red seats and sometimes he stood. He noticed little about any of them. He spoke to no commuters. And he paid no attention to the daily strikes or the burgeoning body count.

‘I won’t be seeing you for a while,’ he said to Sumbul one morning in mid-April. She sat under a mulberry tree, feeding her second child.

The last time he’d been held like a baby was the day his grandmother found him drifting in the sea. She’d rocked him after his uncles pumped his chest. And she’d sung, just like Sumbul sang now.

She buttoned up her shirt but he glimpsed a nipple twice the size of a Fanta bottle cap. She was only fifteen. She, who’d been flat as a coastline and lithe as a fish. A strand of hair strayed loose from her braid. He gently arranged it behind her ear, grazing her earlobe, where a thin ring hung. ‘Remember how you screamed when Dadi put those in?’

‘I thought she’d pierced my heart and I’d bleed to death! If I’d known then what God still had planned for me, I’d have screamed a thousand times louder.’ She laughed.

He reached into his pocket. ‘These are for you.’ He placed the lapis earrings on the baby’s cheek. He’d been saving them for this last visit before he joined Fatah and his men. He’d gotten his money back too, and much more besides.

Sumbul gasped, holding the earrings up for inspection. ‘Where did you get them?’

Salaamat carefully removed the old circles from her ears. ‘Do you like them?’

‘Of course,’ she laughed. ‘They’re beautiful. And they must have cost a fortune.’

‘Shake your head.’ She did. ‘They were made for you,’ he smiled, admiring how her creamy brown neck offset the smooth dark stones. ‘You need a mirror.’

She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. ‘I can see my pretty gift in your pretty eyes and need no mirror.’