Uzma Khan - Thinner Than Skin

In the valley, they were calling him Fareebi, the shapeshifter, and she did not consider this wise, for once you give a shape a name, you give it life. They said he came down the slopes of the Pamirs as softly as a cat and snuck into their huts while they slept. By the time his footsteps were tracked to a hut, he had become something else. A wisp of smoke, a jinn of the lowlands. Only after he left could the plains return to normalcy, even if this meant more dog killings and stupid sheep and sedentary wives.

He was inside her hut, she could feel him there. Her husband was in the forest, with the cattle. Her son would also not be home. It was the second time since Ghafoor’s return that they would be alone, and she feared that this time, she could not turn her back to him. She had no sugar to offer, but she could still offer him tea. She almost smiled, imagining how his mouth would grimace at the taste. This man who drank mare’s milk and wore a different name each day.

She pulled away from the hut, toward her husband in the forest. Sometimes, it was desirable to put a mountain between yourself and someone else.

It was our last morning in the valley. I can’t say I was as relieved as I should have been. Perhaps it was the beady eyes on the graves last night, or the knowledge that I’d become someone who could be unsettled by stone engravings, or the feeling that, even as I prepared to leave, I was still walking back from the graves.

My pessimism wasn’t entirely without reason. While checking out of our hotel, we heard the news. The army had launched a missile strike in Waziristan yesterday, and, not even an hour ago, at a police station in Mansehra, a policeman had been handed a box of holy dates from a date tree near the Kaaba in Mecca. The firing pin was attached to the cover of the box and when he pulled the lid off, he tore himself and three others to pieces. It was a crude, Sovietera device, and, within minutes, a second one had detonated at a police station in Balakot, south of the graves. No one asked if it was to protest the missile strike. The gloom thickening around us was born of more sinister knowledge: the bombers had succeeded even as the valley crawled with military convoys. Intelligence would have more reason to increase its presence here, the militants would have more power, and the people of this valley, even less. There never had been a killer hiding here before but now there would be. He need not even hide. Fareebi, the shapeshifter, had been set loose.

As we piled our bags into the jeep, Irfan and I discussed the other rumor adding to the despair. The missile had not been launched by Pakistan but by an American drone armed with missiles that were MALE, with Pakistan’s consent, from one of its airfields, where, not too long ago, wealthy Arabs had been invited to launch their falcons on endangered Houbara Bustards. The thirty civilians dead included three children.

Despite this, astonishingly, some people didn’t delight in seeing us go, or at least, seeing them go. They blessed Farhana and embraced “Mr. Whistly,” who, genuinely caught up in the moment, executed the three-swing hug with such adeptness everyone lined up for more. Eventually, he settled in the front seat, Farhana angled herself next to Irfan at the back, and, reluctantly, Irfan shifted closer to me.

We took the road up to Babusar Pass, at the border between the North-West Frontier Province and the Northern Areas. No one spoke. I wished we could have flown over this part of the journey, avoided it entirely. Of course, avoiding the past week would also have been optimum. Seven years ago, Irfan and I had trekked up from here, to see the mating of glaciers. Zulekha had been with us. Her brother, who’d die with her, had been back at the hotel, playing escort poorly. Their absence filled the canyon.

Next to me, Irfan hunkered, pulling himself close, eyes wet. Though he still hadn’t admitted it, I knew it was for a glimpse of the glacier that he’d suggested this route in Karachi. We were not going to avoid it now, no matter how tense the air grew inside the jeep, no matter how hard life was going to be for those we were leaving.

I could see Farhana lean back in the seat, on Irfan’s other side. We seemed acutely aware of each other, or perhaps that was only me. I was sure she’d know which glacier we’d soon be stopping at. My most beautiful moment, the one I’d shared with her in the bay window of her purple house. How changed she was from the woman beside whom I’d reclined, as we played opposites! How different the world had become! For instance, back then, I’d never been called a murderer.

I turned my head slightly in her direction, trying to catch more of her profile. Did she remember details of the ceremony, the way I’d describe it for her as we lay together at her window?

When we reached a place from which to look across the valley, Irfan asked the driver to stop. We walked to the edge of the road.

Beyond the chasm, I could see the glacier, the one that had crept down the cliff for the past seven years. I remembered the mat of husks and walnut shells so vividly I could smell it, and I saw the backs of those porters as they trudged, in a ritual of silent awe, all the way to the marital bed. With equal proximity, I could hear Zulekha kiss Irfan’s cheek. And I could hear his sorrow, as he stood beside me now, alone, more alone than even I could feel, a sorrow that was louder than our combined memories. Two friends, one with a wife cold in the ground, the other with a lover cold on the road.

On the slopes beneath the glacier were scattered a few sheep and goats, and, closer, juniper trees, whose leaves were still burned by shamans on special occasions. The late afternoon sun fell just at the lip of the glacier.

“That’s the one, isn’t it?” It was Farhana, standing beside me. Her first words directly to me since leaving our cabin back in Kaghan, to move in with Wes.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Tell me again.”

I was surprised. Did she want evidence of just how terribly we’d changed? I did not question the request. I told her again, knowing, after uttering each word, that the story had lost its shine, that each word itself helped to erase the shine by exposing our loss.

First, I repeated, the village elders decided which glaciers to mate. The female ice was picked from a village where women were especially beautiful, the male, from one where men were especially strong. We were only allowed to watch after swearing an oath of silence, because words disturb the balance between lovers in transit. We were told it was bad luck for other eyes to watch …

“You never told me that part.”

No, I had not.

A long pause.

Then, Wes was there. “What are you looking at?”

I said nothing. Neither did she.

“Is it one they seeded?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Farhana.

“It looks young,” he said. “It has to be at least sixty feet thick to be called a glacier.”

“It’s seven years old,” I said.

“Seven?” he repeated. “You sure?”

“They’ve always made do without science,” said Irfan, at my side again.

I took out my camera. As I photographed the glacier, I thought of one of the first things I’d learned about seeing through the lens: normalize the view. Which meant the right exposure on the area the human eye is most inclined to drift toward, which, at this moment, was that sliver of bright light at the edge of the white smudge.

Farhana began explaining to Wes what I’d once explained to her. The old tradition of marrying glaciers was coming back, as a way to offset a dwindling supply of meltwater. “Winter temperatures on the rise, summer temperatures dropping. More snowfall, but less melt. So,” she concluded, pointing across the abyss, “after seven years, that could be sixty feet.”

“Thanks for the lesson.” He ruffled her hair. “How many glaciers have I studied?”

“Sorry.”

“How far are we from Gilgit?” He asked Irfan.

“Not far,” said Irfan, pulling him away.

Farhana and I were left alone. I lowered my camera.

Behind us, a row of military trucks raced up the highway, slowing to examine our group. I heard them call out to Irfan and watched as they waved their guns in the air as casually as cigarettes. I let Irfan tackle them.

Across the valley, a farmer was nurturing his field with water he’d probably helped create. The sun was creeping off the glacier’s lip and onto the dark gravel. He stopped to enjoy the light, just as we did. A goat grazed at his feet, bells chiming. I pushed thoughts of Kiran’s goat and bells far into the chasm ahead. In its place surfaced an image of us from last year. We were standing on guard, gazing out at the Pacific Ocean, where gunships once pointed to the minefields outside Golden Gate. Take me back, she’d said. Take me back to the places you love.

Gradually, the black earth immediately before us ignited, as if the sun had chosen that precise point upon which to rest its fiery fingers, swallowing the man and the goat. We kept at our lookouts, squinting into the glare, waiting for the sun to release the captives. From the corner of my eye, I noticed a rolling, as of a raincloud. As the glacier slid into shadow, we could still hear the bells of Kiran’s goats.

There was always someone looking to make a delivery, but he had not been looking. He was in the pocket of men whose city was being destroyed. Or so they said. He had not recognized them, that day in the café in Gilgit, when the man with the soft leather palms had passed him the box. He was sure he had not seen them four summers ago in Kashgar. They had each spoken a name and claimed an identity. It could be about as real as Ghafoor’s. Rahman or Rahmanov. Umar or Umarov. What was he now? Names, he had once told Maryam, they always change.