Chapter 7
She held her passport in her hand, staring at the dark blue flap. The Indian emblem with the three faces of the lions stared back at her. Brilliant gold on dark blue.
Satyamev Jayate
REPUBLIC OF INDIA
She stared at the words. She was an Indian, a Kashmiri, in Kashmir. Did that make her a criminal here?
Her fingers shook.
A loud bang made her flinch. Amaal glanced up at the window of her flat.
Construction material had fallen on the plot opposite hers.
She widened her eyes, trying to recover.
The evening was falling away and her body was beginning to feel cold.
The fever wasn’t completely gone yet. The hand holding her passport was now shivering violently.
She slapped her other hand over it. Still. Amaal squeezed, trying to draw a complete breath.
Her doorbell went off and she startled.
It’s just the doorbell, she reasoned with herself.
She recovered from the haze and set her passport down.
Amaal grabbed her sweater from the armrest of her sofa and wrapped it around herself.
If this evening followed the last four days, then she would be shivering in agony within the next hour.
She needed to cook something and eat before that happened.
She still didn’t know if she was needed back at the KDP office.
Her mobile had fallen away, where, she still did not remember.
Maybe in the pandemonium of the shooting.
She should have gone straight to the office after being evacuated.
But she had been unable to control her own shaking body.
She decided to see whoever was at the door, then go to her neighbour’s house and make a call to Fahad.
Amaal turned the lock and pulled open the door, surprised to see the last man she would expect on her threshold.
“You?”
“You forgot this.” Samar held her BlackBerry out.
“Where…? I… thought it was lost…”
“It has been going off with calls from your Mom and Dad. That is why I got it right now.” He handed it into her open palm and began to turn. Amaal noticed he wore a green scrubs top over his pants. That’s when she remembered. He had pressed his T-shirt to the little girl’s wound.
“Do you need me?” She called out.
He turned, eyebrows raised.
“At the office, I mean. All this has happened, I should have come there first.”
“You are on sick leave. Stay home.”
“Not if you need me there.”
“There’s nothing that a media coordinator can do about this. Rest.”
“What happened?”
“They threatened the locals from going to the event, Atharva still managed to coax them after namaaz. Word reached them and they came and opened fire to send a message.”
“They?”
“Separatists. Militants. Terrorists. Many names.”
The silent, cold lobby froze. Amaal stepped out of her flat — “You came from Badamwari?”
“Hospital.”
“The girl? Those… people?”
He stared at her for a second, then nodded — “Being treated.”
Amaal had a feeling he was lying. But she did not have the courage to call him out right now. Or listen to the truth if he was actually lying.
“Do you want coffee, food…?”
“No.”
“Water? Anything? It’s been…” she paused. She couldn’t even remember how many hours it had been.
“Water.” He finally relented, turning and walking back towards her. Amaal stepped inside and heard him close the door. She went to the kitchen, starting the purifier to fill a glass just as her mobile blared to life. Dad.
“Hello? Dad, hi…”
“Amaal!” Her father exclaimed. “Thank god! Seema, I have her here. She is ok. Are you ok?”
“Yes, yes, my phone got lost. I just got it back.”
“What is this news? That event you hosted had militants shooting? What is wrong with you?! This is it. Six months I sat quietly. Now you saw what happens there? It is not safe to be, forget live. Come back. Come back immediately. I am already on the internet booking your ticket.”
The water overflowed, and she quickly knocked the tab shut. “Dad, relax…”
“No…!” “Give her to me!” She heard her mother’s voice. Amaal picked up the glass and carried it outside. Samar stood at her window, his back taut, his shoulders broad as they blocked the flare of light from the streetlamp outside.
“Amaal!” Her mother’s calm voice came on. “Are you hurt?”
“No. I am fine.”
Samar’s body didn’t tauten more at the sound of her voice.
It was then that Amaal knew that he had been aware of her presence in the hall even before she had entered it.
She trudged closer and offered him the water over his arm.
He took it, not moving from there, giving her the out to take the call inside her bedroom.
“Dad is right this time. Amaal, we cannot take this, so far away from you. Anything can happen. Media jobs can be found anywhere, better ones here. Come back.”
“Mom, I want you to understand me at least.”
“I do, I did. Three people have died today, several are injured. We have been calling you for three hours straight. We don’t even have your colleagues’ numbers or your office number. Jameela is out of her mind. Who else do we contact there?”
“I will give you the numbers. There’s my team, my bosses, KDP’s office landlines…”
“No. Dad just booked your return ticket from Delhi for this Thursday. He is now looking for Srinagar to Delhi…”
“Stop, stop, please…” Amaal breathed, the day coming and caving in on her with her parents’ helpless rants. She hated it. She hated that they were right. She hated that they deserved their peace of mind. She hated that her eyes went to her passport lying in the middle of the sofa. Amaal shivered.
She kept her voice steady. She had not told her parents about malaria. She had also emotionally blackmailed Jameela Aunty to keep quiet.
“Mom, ok, I will think about it.”
“I am not asking you, Amaal. I am telling you. Pack up whatever you can, leave the rest. Jameela will have her driver handle the house and everything.”
“Ok, ok, just give me until tomorrow.”
“No.”
“Mom, please!” She put her foot down. That got her mother’s high horse to slow down.
“Ok.” She said. “Right now, don’t leave the house. Dad is calling up his old friends to see if it’s just one place or more areas are affected.”
“No other areas are affected, it was just the event…” Amaal raised her eyes to the back of Samar’s head. He turned, as if he had eyes there. “It was just the event, ok?” She asked him. His head gave a nod.
“Ok. Dad got one Srinagar-Delhi via Amritsar. He is sending you the tickets.”
“I hope they are refundable.”
Silence.
“It was a joke.” Amaal tried.
“Start packing.” Her mother ordered and ended the call. The relief in her voice was indescribable. And Amaal wanted to assuage that worry. She began to reach for her passport but her fingers were so stiff that she couldn’t even grasp it before it slipped to the floor. She gaped at it.
A pair of black boots stepped towards it. Dusty. Dirty. Maybe even bloody. He bent down and picked it up.
“You should listen to your parents.” He held out her passport.
She accepted it — “So eager to get rid of me.”
No reaction on his face, as was expected.
He drained his glass of water and set it on her small dining table.
When he began to push away from her and towards the door, Amaal found words falling out of her mouth.
Not because he was a friend or colleague.
In her little time here, he had been neither to her.
He was a perfect stranger still. A stranger who had treated her.
Maybe that’s why words stumbled so easily out of her lips.
“I had a naive dream.”
His steps slowed, but did not stop.
“We left our home here with my hammock hanging between two apple trees. Mom said she packed it but we didn’t find it in any of the boxes.
The people who bought the house here said it wasn’t there either.
It was lost, and even if it wasn’t, where would we put it in our flat there?
I was young, but you don’t forget such things.
I thought… my parents were too impulsive then, too easily scared.
That is why they rushed us out of here in the 90s.
As I grew up, got into LSE, started reading and researching about Kashmir, the brutal realities and history became clearer and clearer.
But even after watching hours and hours of documentaries and news clippings, reading research papers, hearing about firsthand accounts…
I was still convinced that the ground would be safe enough. That… it would not be… me.”
Amaal startled, as if jolted. The back of Samar’s head came back into focus, and she realised she had ventured far away in her head. And that he had stopped.
“Sorry. It’s been a day. Do you want tea or something else… something to eat?”
“I am leaving.”
He traced his footsteps out of her hall and down the small lobby to her door. He turned the lock, opened it and stepped out. When she thought he would keep going, and began to close the door, Samar turned.
“This is the reality here.” His curt, solemn words fell on her like blades. “Nobody can promise it would not be you. But if you live to reach the other side, Badamwari will bloom without blood.”
“Is this you scaring me into leaving or… giving me a hint to stay back?”
He turned and walked away.
————————————————————
It was after 11.30 that night that Samar trudged into the mansion and towards their office.
The place was a graveyard today. Nothing bad had happened here, but everything felt off.
Like it always did after a raid. Even if everybody had come back accounted for, it was always this graveyard silence that stilled every breath.
Even if celebrations rang loud and fires burned bright, at night, before turning in, everybody would feel the ‘what if.’ At least once.
Samar pushed open the door and found Atharva sitting on his chair, his laptop open in front of him. Adil was sprawled on the chair beside his, staring at the ceiling.
“Your bleeding stopped?”