Uzma Khan - Thinner Than Skin

Her father once said, even the act of seeing can be a theft, even a murder. He might also have said the opposite. The act of not seeing can be a theft, even a murder. It was my refusal to see Kiran — first in the boat, then in the lake — that had killed her. And if Farhana hadn’t seen her, ever, Kiran would still be alive.

So where did this leave us? I wanted her, pure and simple. Tonight, I really would leave it all behind. She was not with Wes. She was still with me. All I had to do was get her back and get her back I would, in the dark, on a climb I was told I shouldn’t make. She said I wouldn’t die, so what reason was there to stay away? It would be even better than courting her with calla lilies. I would court her on ice.

They stood inside the hut.

“What about that man Ghafoor? The one who burned down the forest inspector’s house years ago? We know how dangerous he is. Do you? Do you know the company he keeps? There are bad ones in every flock. They always find each other. And make trouble for others. Especially true believers. Like you. You are a believer?” The larger man poked Suleiman’s chest with his rifle.

“Oh yes,” answered Suleiman.

“Because there are rumors that your wife here prays to another god. Even—” he spit “—a goddess.”

“Oh no, sahibji. You must not believe these things.”

“Because I have heard that she is a kafir.”

“Please! Don’t say such things.”

“Because men have sworn she prays to buth, and is herself quite dangerous.”

“No! I beg you—”

“She practices witchcraft.”

“Kind sir, what you say—”

“But I do not believe it.” He moved the rifle to Suleiman’s wooden leg, and began tapping it through Suleiman’s shalwar. “Because you are God-fearing Muslims who are unfortunate victims of some evil gossip. It is the way of your kind. No unity, no nation. No sense of loyalty at all. Yet I fully believe even you would never go against those who are here in this valley, far from our families and homes, just to protect you.”

“Yes!”

“You will work with us?”

“Yes!”

“For the sake of your family and your home.”

“Yes!”

“Say the first kalma.”

Suleiman began to recite. The policeman kept the butt of his rifle on Suleiman’s leg, but his eyes were on Maryam. Tap tap tap. She moved her lips. She was only halfway through the very short prayer when the tapping was replaced by a shout, “If you are believers, why don’t you treat your guests according to the recommendations of the Prophet, peace be upon him?” She withdrew in mid-recitation to make them breakfast.

When they left, she noticed that the dogs had not barked. She realized that all summer long, the dogs had not barked. They had not barked the day the two policemen — different men, they were always different, yet they were exactly the same — had come looking for the bomber and eaten breakfast and soiled her bed and pissed inside their hut. They had not even barked at the lake, the morning Kiran’s body had washed up on shore. They were gaddi dogs, at one time so fierce no one could come near them. But some time this year, she could not say when exactly, they had grown as listless as the dry grass they slouched on all day.

It was the same the next morning. A messenger came to deliver the news: two boys had gone missing in the valley. The dogs did not stir when the man arrived and, with the exception of the left ear of one, the dogs did not stir when the man left.

Maryam waited for the ear to droop. A tail rose slightly, as if to register her anticipation. She found this more arresting than the news. She could not think about the news. The news could not be allowed even a corner in her home. The news about the two missing boys, especially. It could find a space and it could build a web and then you fell into it and never got out and then the news became you and you turned into the missing boys, or else your children did.

Her hands were still wet from milking Kola’s mother, who had given birth again. She could milk a goat with one hand; it was the buffaloes that needed milking with two. She could just about hold the teats with the fingers of her right hand but squeezing them caused her pain. She needed her son for the buffaloes and he had helped her this morning, as he had helped every morning since her injury, before leaving for the store.

He was good with teats. He stroked them in a way that made her wonder what else he was stroking. He never had to be taught. The first time, she was amazed at how easily the buffalo, Noor, accepted him. His fingers moved up and down her udder, petting, cajoling, alternating between the four teats as though he were ringing bells. He played each in a rhythm all his own, back and forth, at times barely brushing one to make it swell, other times, lingering with his knuckle. Within moments, all four had distended till they threatened to burst. Then he took one in each hand, pressed hard, and tugged. Two teats at a time. It took him twenty minutes to relieve Noor; it used to take her thirty.

She was still studying the dog’s ear. Of the two boys who had gone missing, neither was her son. Her relief was warmer than milk. The news began to creep away. The dog’s ear stayed upright as she returned to the goat. And that was when her relief faded. The news raced back on a hundred little legs. The dogs had not barked. If the men who took the boys were to enter her dera, the dogs would let them. She would wake up in the morning to the lowing of buffaloes, wondering why they had not been milked before Younis left for the store, and, rushing to his bed, find him gone. Outside, the dogs would be lying idle in the dirt, one ear cocked.

The messenger had not been able to say who had taken the boys. The men in uniform or the men in skullcaps? “They all begin to look the same.” He had said, voicing the fear of everyone in the valley. He was a year or two older than her son. Like her son, he would be wondering which side to join.

Kola’s mother, Makheri, had small teats, even after a second kidding. She carried them the way she carried her head, high and erect. Maryam had hoped that by now her udders would loosen, but no, they were still tight, still difficult to milk. She could brew a tea of cardamom and mint, as in the past, but it had not helped then, it would not help now. Kiran had named her, because troublesome is what she was, yet Kiran had always defended Makheri when Maryam complained about her teats. Like her brother, Kiran took naturally to milking the animals. Maryam brushed the thought away. She could not let the spirit of her beloved girl shame her into slowing down with this goat! She hastily finished — perhaps with excessive force — and left with the bucket, failing to return a few minutes later to check that the job was truly done. So what if a few prized drops remained in the teats? So what if she was grown as listless as the dogs!

All her children had their father’s patience. Perhaps, when she was old, the two who remained would be patient with her.

Inside the hut, she poured the milk into an earthenware pot that sat on ice in a tray. Twice a day, her son delivered the ice, to keep the milk cool. In the mountains, they did not have to worry about these things. But they were not in the mountains. She ought to accept it. She ought to slosh the milk, make the butter. This too was difficult with one hand but she was not going to ask her son to stoop so low. Nor would she bother her husband.

It was not the season to make butter, but they were running out of supplies, in part because so much had been given away to placate the men who now occupied her valley. The milk too. They wanted tea brewed in raw milk on every “visit.” They called it God’s blessing, milk straight from the source, while leering at her breasts, while telling her to pray. They wanted it stirred with all the sugar the cup could hold. She would have to see about getting smaller cups.

Maryam sat at the edge of the bed, staring at the pot with the milk.

So now they were after Ghafoor. They had a name and a face for their own mess. And those two boys who had gone missing — what did they have to do with it?

The news had taken up residence in her home.

Years ago, before Ghafoor burned the forest inspector’s home—if it was him — before the inspector was even hired, his boss had singled out her dera to harass. This man claimed that their grazing permit was fake. He said they had made it themselves. When her husband showed him the state stamp, the man laughed. “This? No, your stamp must look like this.” And he took from his pocket a piece of paper, the likes of which they had never seen before. They could not read. They could only say sorry. The man fined them a month’s worth of milk and tried to force them to accept a settlement program. “Learn to farm,” he said, tearing up their permit.

She had watched members of her dera give in, allowing meager plots of land to be allotted to them. She saw the fight seep from their pores like moisture from a milkpot. She saw her brother, still living in the Punjab as a laborer, bound to contractors who pocketed his sweat. She even had a cousin who would likely be a forest inspector one day, smuggling trees downstream or in wedding caravans, while fining the herders for over-grazing. When her husband, who vowed never to become sedentary, berated the betrayal over dinner one day, her son, who was then no more than six, said he would rather be a forest inspector than a herder. She had slapped him. Kiran, then barely four, had not spoken to her brother for days.