Kabir

Aman refused to talk about her any more. When I asked, he would change the topic. He began to ask me questions instead. About the home I had left behind. My mother. My father. He had a way of listening that made you talk about things you had buried deep. I told him about my brother and the sixer that changed our lives.

‘Have you ever played cricket after that?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I said.

‘Come on,’ said Aman. ‘Let’s go play.’

I refused. ‘I’ve never touched a cricket bat again. I don’t want to.’

‘What happened was an accident. You can’t punish yourself by giving up the thing you love the most.’

‘My brother suffered for me.’

‘Adding your suffering to that won’t change anything. Don’t give up on something you love so easily.’ He was looking at me as he said it. ‘Happiness is not so easy to find.’

I shrugged. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let us be happy for a little while.’ I felt so sad and guilty that I agreed.

We played cricket under the white trees with a slat of wood and a rubber ball, struggling to see through the falling snow. I refused to bat, so I bowled. Aman batted, and he was awful at it. We laughed so much that snow fell off the trees as the sound echoed around us.

I didn’t want to touch that bat, but Aman was so damn inept that I finally had to demonstrate how batting was done. I just meant to show him how, but I touched it and then I didn’t want to let it go. Aman bowled, I batted, and we played in the snow until the world turned to twilight and the stars came out. Happiness came back to me, and it had been so long since I had been happy that I couldn’t recognize it.

I’m stupid. It didn’t strike me till after he was dead that he was playing that badly on purpose.

That night, it stopped snowing. The rumble and thud of lumps of snow falling from the trees ended. Silence descended. It meant my brother would be back soon.

I made a decision. ‘You must go back to her, Amanbhai,’ I said.

He looked at me with those sad eyes of his. ‘I don’t think there is much chance I will get out of here alive.’

‘No. I won’t let them kill you,’ I said.

‘You may not have much choice in the matter,’ he said softly. ‘I am a hostage. Your brother hates me. My father is the DGP, and they want to make a point.’

I had decided what I had to do. ‘Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll let you go. Just run away.’ It was a betrayal. I was betraying my brother and the cause. But Aman had become a brother too.

‘I will if you come with me,’ he said softly.

‘I can’t. I have a cause.’

‘Come away with me. Come on. I’ll take you to Mumbai. We’ll get you in a college. Maybe you’ll even find a girlfriend.’

‘I can’t, Amanbhai.’

But that night I lay awake thinking about going to college in Mumbai. Hanging out with friends. About worrying over nothing more than an exam. About walking into a canteen and ordering a cup of coffee. A simple cup of coffee and all the freedoms it implied.

And I lay awake thinking about her. The girl with a voice like light. But in the end, it came back to my brother. I couldn’t leave him. Not after all that he had borne for me. I could not betray him to that extent.

Aman stayed awake too. He was writing something by the light of the lantern. I could hear the rustle of papers. I thought it was a poem. But towards midnight, he said, ‘I know you’re not sleeping,’ and handed me a letter. It had her name on it.

‘Why are you giving this to me? Give it to her yourself.’

‘I want you to take it to her.’

‘But she lives in Mumbai . . .’ I began and stopped. Mumbai. A world away from here. A world forbidden to me.

He just looked at me. ‘If anything happens, you must take it to her. Promise me you will.’

‘Nothing will happen, Amanbhai. You will leave tomorrow. And I won’t tell them a thing, I swear. I’ll throw them off the trail.’

‘Still. Just promise me.’

I made him the promise while the wind sighed and the night lay silent.

‘Mere ma ki kasam, bhai, I will do it.’

The next morning, I woke him up before there was light in the sky. I had packed a few things.

‘Come on, Amanbhai. You have to leave now,’ I said. ‘It hasn’t snowed through the night. I will point you in the right direction. And I will cover the tracks you make as far as I can.’

He looked at the little bundle in my hands. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I won’t go. Not unless you come.’

I wasn’t expecting that. ‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘This is my life.’

‘It is not. It is not the life you should be having. It is not even the life you want.’

‘I can’t go with you,’ I said.

‘Then I will not go,’ said Aman stubbornly.

I argued. I begged. I even used her name to try and get him to leave. ‘She is waiting for you, Amanbhai. You can’t let her wait.’

‘I want you to meet her. I want to take you back with me and say to her, “This is my friend Afzal. He’s starting a new life.”’

‘If you stay here, you will die!’

‘No,’ he said softly. ‘If I leave you here, you will die.’

Such a stupidly stubborn man. At one point I lost my temper and threatened to kick him off the porch. He started laughing. It made me so mad. But how can you stay mad at someone who smiles so teasingly at you? And who only wants to save your life?

I sat down next to him. ‘Let’s pretend,’ he said. ‘Let’s pretend that we aren’t here. That you’ve come with me. We are in Mumbai.’

‘In college,’ I said, unable to help joining in.

‘In the canteen,’ he said, smiling. ‘Hanging out. I’m reading a book.’

‘What else is new?’ I said, rolling my eyes. ‘All you do is read poetry.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m ordering a cup of coffee,’ I said slowly. ‘And when it comes, I’m going to drink it. One sip at a time. And if I’m lucky, there may be a girl across the room who drinks every sip with me.’

I said it, and it became real. I knew that I would leave. That I would go with him. To Mumbai. To college. He knew too. It was evident in the grin that spread across his face.

‘So now what?’ I asked.

‘Now we have some tea,’ said Aman, calmly. ‘Then we both leave.’

I was so exhausted with arguing, I didn’t protest.

He made strong tea with ginger, and we sat on the porch and drank it. My last cup of tea. My last time on that porch. My heart lifted.

Aman was humming as he drank. I realized what the song was. ‘Bombay se aaya mera dost’. I burst into laughter. Then I began to sing with him. We both got up and capered on that porch, singing and dancing in our happiness. Then my voice faltered and stopped.

‘What is it?’ said Aman.

There were shadows standing under the trees. They moved, and my brother and three men stepped out into the clearing.

‘Singing,’ said my brother. ‘The fucker is singing.’

He ran forward and swung the barrel of his gun, clubbing Aman, who fell from the porch into the snow. His blood was bright against the white ground.

‘Bhaijaan! What are you doing?’

‘No,’ he said, turning to me. ‘What are you doing? I left you a prisoner. Not a singing companion. This man is our enemy. Not a friend.’

But he had become one. I didn’t dare say a word. Aman was getting groggily to his feet. My brother kicked him hard. He fell to his knees and stayed there.

‘Do you know what your father did yesterday?’ my brother said. Aman said nothing, just watched him warily, blood dripping off the side of his head. ‘Do you know what he did?’

I felt my heart sinking. My brother was very angry. I had seen the things he did when he was angry.

‘We asked for three men in exchange for you. Instead, your father led a raid on a safe house. He expected to find you there. You weren’t. But three of our brothers were, and now they are dead.’

He shoved his face close to Aman’s. ‘Your father is a murderer. And he must be punished.’

Aman spoke softly. ‘I am not responsible for what my father does. I do not believe in violence. I am sorry for your loss. Very sorry.’

‘You’re sorry? It’s going to take more than that.’ My brother put his gun against Aman’s forehead. ‘I am going to deliver you to your father. Dead.’

I jumped from the porch to the ground and stood in front of Aman.

‘Bhaijaan, he doesn’t believe in violence. He thinks what his father is doing is wrong.’

My brother stepped back and looked from him to me.

‘Why do you plead for him?’ he asked.

I said, ‘He has nothing to do with the police. Or politics. That is just his father.’

‘He is an Indian,’ spat my brother. ‘He is the son of a murderer.’

‘He is a good man,’ I replied. This made my brother furious.

‘A good man?’

‘Bhaijaan, please. He is like a brother to me.’ I knew I had said the wrong thing. I knew it in the silence. I saw it in the expression on my brother’s face—I had signed Aman’s death sentence with my words.

My brother put his face close to mine. I could smell the alcohol on him. ‘I am your brother,’ he said. ‘I am the same brother who was in their jails for three years. Who never saw light for three years. Who bore pain. Who bore torture. Who bore everything. For what? For you.’

‘I know, bhaijaan,’ I said. ‘I know. Forgive me.’

‘And you have forgotten me for . . . this?’

‘No. I can never forget you. Forgive me.’

‘Forgive you? When you turn your back on everything that I did for you? When you betray us? Betray me. Betray your own brother.’

‘You are my brother. I cannot betray you,’ I said.

My brother put the gun in my hands. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Prove that you are my brother. Put a bullet through his head.’

The gun was heavy in my hands. I looked at Aman on his knees in front of me. He looked up at me. His face was calm. Almost smiling.

‘Shoot him,’ said my brother.