Feryal Gauhar - No Space For Further Burials lyrics

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six We have begun to dig more graves in the shadow of the walls of this compound. The earth is dry and hard; there are many stones and jagged objects buried beneath the sur- face, and sometimes I can recognize the remains of a young child or a woman, a swatch of torn fabric, sometimes deep red like a pomegranate, sometimes blue like the sky above. Many times I have felt my hands stroke the severed limb of someone I may have known, the skin cold and layered with the fine dust of this desolate land. It is as if these limbs and the fragments of clothing were the people themselves, the people for whom these graves were dug, hurriedly, before more bodies began to pile up against the wall, waiting for a space for burial. He comes to me every morning and we begin the day with an effort at conversation. Over the last few days the enamel cup he has kept aside for my tea is left cold and emp- ty, an indication, I suppose, of depleting rations. Or perhaps he is not happy, not happy with me, with my inability to understand him, my lack of imagination, my failure to decipher his drawings on the earthen floor of my cell. He is unhappy at the seeming ab- sence of any effort on my part to crack the code of his language. He has many tongues, this boy. And fluid hands with which he etches the stories he tells, embellishing his accounts of war with objects found in the courtyard—shards of broken vessels, smashed bottle caps, empty vials, shattered syringes. Once, earlier on, he brought a large catalog to me, pa**ing it through the bars of this cell as if it was a sa- cred text. I noticed then how nimble his fingers were, long and sinewy, almost with a life of their own. His hands and his eyes danced as he spoke, forcefully, the words tripping over his strong teeth. When he handed me the catalog I was still looking at his mouth as he said words I barely understood. His mouth worked fast, spit forming foam at the edges. I knew that he had probably not had more than the gruel of potato peels which the caretaker's wife pa**ed around in a large bucket, her young son pulling it along on a rickety wooden cart with one wheel missing. Yet he was so alert that morning, eyes dart- ing from mine to the book and then to the four corners of the crater-filled courtyard. He urged me in an almost comic medley of sounds and words—I recognized the broad Rus- sian, some German, some French, and even English—he urged me to look at the book, especially at those pages he had marked with feathers and string and even a clutch of matted hair. He whispered urgently to me, like a man crazed, to consider seriously his request to get him the things he craved, the things he knew I could get for him, if only we could find a way to contact the mail-order section of Sears, Roebuck & Company from this deserted bit of hell. As soon as I began flipping through the worn pages of a 1960s collection of American clothing and kitchen gadgets and camping equipment, he turned my attention to a pair of suede hiking boots, fur-lined, an orange parka, down- filled, a pair of goggles, and a pair of yellow corduroys. I love America, he said, and he smiled, then laughed, his mouth opening wide. Bul- bul, he called himself, after the redbreast robin sang to his mother the day his father died. That was many years ago, when the war had just begun. On most days the waiting is endless, and I find myself actually longing for chaos to hit the compound so that there is something to watch, something to make the hours fly. I have lost track of time, and other than a vague idea of how many months I have spent locked up in this cell, I sometimes think the day is about to begin when it is dusk, and then I am afraid, for none of the people here know the difference, most of them having lost even the memory of their own names. Of course Waris, the caretaker, knows every- thing, and his wife the cook—they are not from among the inmates here. But everyone else is crazed, even Bulbul, who looks like he is on the edge of sanity, the way he leers at me sometimes, his eyes gleaming and his lips wet with saliva. What is he thinking? What are they all thinking in this valley of the dead? What am I to think when the sun disappears behind those godforsaken mountains and night falls over the compound like a shroud? What am I to believe in when there is no one to whom I can tell my story, when there is no one who will believe it? one September 18, 2002 They are going to attack the compound again. I can tell by now when a raid is about to begin because of the silence which precedes it. These people here, the inmates of this asylum, may not be as crazy as they look, for they seem to sense the coming of d**h and destruction as acutely as animals before disaster strikes. I have watched them from my cell, the ones directly across from me in the courtyard, the ones who have found their way out of their cells since the locks were broken at the time of the first raid. I was not here then, but Bulbul told me in his combination of many languages that the looters came through a hole in the wall after the first bombing, which k**ed many of the men who had been let out by the staff to stroll in the compound or to get some sun. Bulbul winked at me when he described the rape of several of the younger boys, and of the old nameless crone who weaves anything she can find into her hair. Bulbul winked and grinned and wet his mouth and then held up his forefinger and thumb in a circle, pa**ing the middle finger of his other hand rapidly through that circle, grinning the whole time, almost laughing. He stopped suddenly, when some memory slipped across his eyelids. Anarguli too, he said. And then he was silent, as if something had broken in him the day the marauders raped the girl he loved so deeply. I saw him from the bars of this cell the day I was taken, having made the mistake of going on a reconnaissance mission alone, desperate to seek something which con- stantly slipped through the haze of my consciousness. Since my arrival in this country, I had felt restless at the camp where we waited out the days in boredom and the nights in fear. Most of us had no idea what to expect, rarely having stepped out of our homes in small towns across America. For many this was the first real adventure of their lives, hunting down the enemy, k**ing for sport. This was not boot camp, this was the real thing, the actual arena where all that we had trained for would unfold before us like the video games we played at the local arcade. At the base we were told that a dissenting warlord had begun attacking the vil- lages outside the city, many of them perched like sentinels on the edges of the sur- rounding mountains. I had not intended to go alone but found myself unable to endure the long days at the camp, waiting for something to happen, waiting for orders to pursue what we were here for, liberty and democracy, both of which seemed as elusive as the enemy. Perhaps going on the mission was not really the crucial mistake. Perhaps it was the fact that I clambered out of the jeep to peer inside the large, gaping hole blast- ed into the boundary wall of a dilapidated building clinging precariously to the peak of the hill nearest the city. I strayed, following the rutted trail of other jeeps which had traveled this path on unknown missions. At a certain point outside the dam- aged wall, the ruts in the trail sank deeper into the ground and the wheels of the jeep began to slip on sandy soil. I left the jeep to see how badly wedged the tires were, and that was when I made the mistake of peeking into the courtyard of this place where I will probably spend the rest of my days, looking out at the madness around me, locked into a cell with an earthen floor and one small window with bars protecting me from the outside. The rebel soldiers saw me as soon as I bent down outside the wall to pick up the radio transmitter which had fallen off my lap when the jeep came to a sudden halt, hitting a large rock and then sliding into a ditch. It must have been the sound of the tires slipping and the engine revving which alerted them—it seemed as if they had just looted the compound and were beginning to return to their mountain hideouts when they saw me. They dragged me to the man who appeared to be in charge, yelling orders and shouting abuse. Even in the frenzy of the a**ault, I remember him carefully wrapping the charred remains of what was probably a chicken that had been hastily barbecued over an open fire. He looked at me cursorily, picked his teeth with a chicken bone, burped, and wrapped up the meat in a piece of paper he had picked up from the ground. There were many such scraps flying around the courtyard, leaves too, and feathers from the recently slaughtered chicken. The man had come right up to me and grabbed my face with his hands, squeez- ing my jaws in a powerful grip. He looked me straight in the eyes and then slowly lowered his hand to my chest, stroking my uniform as if it was silk, lingering over my name tag. He probably couldn't read, but he peered at it for a while and then turned his head aside and spat on the ground. He grabbed one of my arms and pushed me toward another man who stood by, his Kalashnikov held in one hand as if it were a reed or a stalk, weightless. The commander pointed at the rooms along three sides of the courtyard and his soldiers pushed me toward one of these rooms, this cell, this terrible space which is like a grave, a tomb for the living. In- side the cell they shoved me to the ground and removed my shoes and socks, then my uniform. They hit me when I resisted. I heard the commander yelling to Waris that I was to be kept in the cell until they returned, that I was not to be let out under any circumstances. That much I understood from the gestures he made. It would take a little longer for me to understand the words he barked in his guttural voice. I saw the boy who calls himself Bulbul that evening, just a glimpse of him. It must have been the outrageously red scarf he wraps around his filthy shirt collar that caught my eye. I stood at the bars of the small window, staring out at the courtyard, trying to make sense of what had happened, wondering whether this was real, whether I was imagining this insane scenario. It started to quiet down, one or two seemingly able-bodied men had herded the sick ones into their cells, and a woman began to collect the odd bits of paper still floating around in the evening breeze. I watched her talking to a child, a thin young boy about eight, scrawny and ill-clothed, his mouth dark where saliva had dried in a circle around his lips. The child never answered, but kept playing with a wooden cart that had only three wheels. The woman did not look at him while she gathered the bits of paper and tucked them into her shawl. She just continued talking to him as if he was part of the conversation, as if his silence spoke words she could understand. That's when I saw the edge of the red scarf float out of a clay oven fixed in a corner of the courtyard. In my confusion I thought it was a flame, for that is what one would expect to see leaping out of a tandoor meant for baking large, unleav- ened naan. Upon glimpsing the long, sinewy fingers which intrigue me so much now, I looked again, pressing my face against the cold bars of this cell, wondering if I had begun to hallucinate. First his head appeared, his eyes narrow slits a**ess- ing the situation, testing the air. Finally, after the woman and the child had made their way inside the compound, the rest of him emerged from inside the oven. He wore a pair of faded denim jeans and a T-shirt emblazoned with the logo of a sports shoe company. And the red scarf, which he unwrapped and then wrapped again around his neck, carefully, as if he had all the time in the world, as if nothing was wrong, as if this is the way it had always been, this state of war. He sauntered across the courtyard toward the rooms, rolling on the balls of his feet while patting his disheveled hair into place, on a casual evening stroll. Just before disappearing into the compound he looked toward my cell, shook his head, and whistled. I kept staring at him until he vanished into the veranda running along three sides of the compound. There was nothing after that, only the wind and the dust and the rustle of dry leaves. September 24, 2002 This is Tarasmun, this place. It is an asylum for the mentally ill, the physically handicapped, the blind, deaf, and dumb, and the unwanted. There are roughly forty inmates here—Waris the caretaker tells me there were twice as many before the raids started. Many of the men were k**ed in the bombing, some of the younger ones had died of illness, others of poor conditions, and still others for lack of care. Each time there was a raid, the looters would take away the medicine and whatever remained of our rations. The food they consumed in their hideouts, deep caves carved into the sides of these impossible mountains, and the medicine they sold on the black market. Everything is available on the black market—cans of condensed milk, ciga- rettes, even alcohol and videos of lewd film songs with cavorting women in tight sheath like clothes. Waris says Bulbul is the one who told him this; the boy even carried a picture of one such woman in a pink shift and black Rexine boots. This picture was cut in a circle and placed in the cap of a small tin which held his many treasures. I saw it when Bulbul came to exchange things with me, offering his plas- tic comb and a snort of the tobacco he held in the box if I would give him my underwear. I told him I would rather die than let him strip me of my shorts, but he didn't understand, and laughed at me, telling me that I was going to die in any case, that it didn't make any difference if I had my shorts on or not. When you're dead, he shouted, you're naked in front of God. And in front of the men who will bury you. I have never really known if Bulbul is sane or not—sometimes his kindness is overwhelming, and at other times his cruelty cuts into the flesh like a dagger. The day after Bulbul saw me in the cell, he appeared at the small window with a dented enamel mug and peered at me through the bars. I had spent the night hud- dled in a corner on the damp floor, nothing but a filthy burlap sack to cover me. Bulbul handed me the mug of hot tea and then stared at my near-naked state. After a while he smiled, then extended his hand through the bars and gestured for me to offer him mine. I did so, hesitating only because he seemed to not have washed in a long time. But his hands were clean, his fingernails scrubbed and polished. I shook his hand tentatively, fearing this gesture on his part, fearing what was to come next. Who among these people would befriend me, who could I trust? Bulbul squeezed my hand for a moment, then he stroked the inside of my palm with his finger. I dropped his hand as if it had pa**ed an electric current through the con- tact. When I looked up at him he was grinning, rapidly flicking his tongue in and out of his cavernous mouth. I wanted to throw the hot tea onto his face, but thirst compelled me to calm myself. He stood at the bars for a while, then saluted me sharply and left. September 25, 2002 I am trying to keep count of the days I am here by drawing a calendar on the last page of this book which must have been a register of some sort. There is a list of medicines on several of the pages, a kind of stocktaking. The rest of the pages are empty. The book is bound with red tape running along its spine. Bulbul found it in the office, which has already been ransacked by several groups of looters. He is fascinated by the fact that I can write—he showed me his own name in the Arabic script and then asked me to write it for him in English. I did, and then I watched as he traced the lines of the letters with his finger, as if he were caressing the cheek of a young child. September 26, 2002 This morning the soldiers came again. They were not the ones I had been captured by; I couldn't recognize a single one. It seems that anyone can gain access to this place because of the hole blasted into the wall. I watched them from my cell as they went around exploring the compound, looking for things to loot, for people to ha- ra**, women to brutalize. There is a system to these raids—Waris the caretaker does not resist them anymore, probably having learned that to do so would amount to nothing except more harshness, more cruelty. Bulbul says the last time soldiers came through the hole they locked Waris in the kitchen and took his wife into an empty cell. Bulbul had heard her cries. The child they have adopted, Qasim, does not speak, a deaf-mute probably. Bulbul says he heard him cry that night. The rest of the compound was silent, as if the tongues of all the people here had been pulled out and chopped into pieces and scattered to the wind. Bulbul tells me the stories about what goes on in the compound during the raids. I have begun to understand his language, the combination of foreign words he uses to explain the violence and desperation of the soldiers. We communicate in a jumble of words, even sounds, as Bulbul paints pictures of what has tran- spired here, what he thinks will happen, and where he would rather be: America, he tells me so often, and shows me the Sears catalog again and again, smiling and nodding as if his departure were imminent, guaranteed on the first flight out. Bulbul tells me that this place was supported by the government before the country fell apart and power was hounded like a sack of grain in a famine. There was a doc- tor and several nurses, some ward boys, and a few janitors who tried to keep the place clean, washing out the cells daily, even airing the dirty blankets and dousing the inmates with lice-k**ing solution every so often. Bulbul remembers the time he was taken to the dispensary to be inspected for lice—he had protested that he was clean, but the ward boy stripped him down nevertheless and threw a bucket of cool antiseptic lotion on him. Khushboo, good smell, Bulbul said, taking a deep breath and flaring his nostrils. He insists that he still smells good, although I try to avoid breathing when near him. There is a sour odor in the air all the time—obviously, the janitors no longer clean the cells, the latrines have not been cleared since the first raid, and there is hardly any water left for bathing. Bulbul, in fact, is among the cleanest here, after Waris and his wife, Noor Jehan. She always looks like she has just washed, and sometimes I wonder if she is siphoning off the water in the well and keeping it for herself and her family. The well stands in the middle of the courtyard, under the only tree which still has its limbs intact. This is where the inmates usually gather during the day, sitting under the shade of the tree, trying to remember the resonance of their own voices. The well had been covered with a wooden lid but that seems to have disappeared, and now all kinds of things float on the surface of the muddy water—once, I be- lieve, I even saw a severed finger, or perhaps it was a twig, or my imagination play- ing tricks, or the distance from my window. It's hard to know what is real here—it's hard to know anything at all except the fact that the nights are longer and colder, and the days bleak and hopeless. September 27, 2002 I have asked Bulbul to get me some more paper and some of the pens he managed to save from the bonfire that the rebels built the last time, burning everything they could find in the office of this asylum. I saw the fire rage through the middle of the courtyard, and heard the vials of medicine shatter in the heat, gla**y screams of protest punctuating the deep breathing of ravenous flames. Bulbul promises me plenty of writing material. He holds up a charred twig and scratches it along the wall, drawing a picture of a girl with large eyes and full lips. He looks at me and then smiles as he draws a heart around the girl. Then he leans forward and kisses the girl on the mouth, making a long, drawn-out sound like a man dying. I do not know how to react—I see a young man kissing a charcoal drawing of a girl etched onto a wall and I don't know how to feel. Even as I smile I am aware that there is a great sadness here, behind these walls, outside that wall with the gaping hole in it. September 29, 2002 Bulbul tells me that Waris has asked him to help the few able-bodied men rebuild that hole in the wall. Waris believes it is the only way they can keep the looters out. I believe that after his wife was taken into that cell and possibly a**aulted, Waris wants to make sure nothing of the sort will happen again. It is a good plan, to re- pair that hole in the wall. It will secure the compound. It will also remove any chance I may have of getting the hell out of here. I don't know what to say to Bulbul—he looks at me as if he needs to report the day's events to me. I really don't want to know half of what he tells me—most of it seems implausible, much of it doesn't make any sense, and quite a bit is probably his own imagination. But at least it gives me something to look forward to, locked up here, waiting for this young man with the incongruous red scarf to saunter across the courtyard and disclose the day's details to me in a strange combination of tongues. October 2, 2002 I cannot believe what has happened. It is difficult to write so soon after disaster has struck this compound. My fingers are stiff from the cold and my back aches af- ter long hours of crouching in the corner, hiding from the moonlight that would certainly have given away my presence. The looters came again last night. There were many of them, from what I could make out at that time of night. Tarasmun has lost its electricity connection, and oil lamps are lit only in emergencies. It was pitch dark when the sound of rushing men woke me up from a fitful sleep. My first instinct was to look through the bars but something kept me down, hidden in the corner. Perhaps it was my own fear slith- ering down my back and paralyzing life and limb. I could only hear what went on— I heard Waris shouting to his wife, I heard her as she rushed past the cell, the child Qasim probably running along with her, the irregular squeak of his three-wheeled cart sounding like a fingernail against a chalkboard. I heard other voices, guttural voices belonging to men I couldn't see. There was more shouting, then the clang- ing of metal doors, then the wailing and screeching of the inmates I had begun to know by sight. I could not identify them from their sounds of anguish, I only knew that they were terrified. There were gasps of pain and the sound of whipping and kicking. I heard Waris yelling again, asking someone to let these men go, that they were miskeen, innocent. They could not be blamed for the war. Waris must have been gagged. I did not hear him again, except for muffled sounds and the stifled thwack of a slap. I heard men crying, some shouting incoherently, using words I had not yet understood. There are so many languages here, and the only one I have managed to understand is the one which speaks of fear. October 3, 2002 Bulbul has not come today. I do not see Noor Jehan the cook or Qasim the mute. It is cold in this cell where the sunlight rarely creeps in. I have not eaten since yes- terday. October 4, 2002 Nobody walked in the courtyard this morning. There are no sounds here, only the wind and the leaves and the branches rubbing against each other. Where is every- one? Am I alone now in this godforsaken bit of hell? October 5, 2002 Thank God Bulbul brought me a cup of tea. Thank God he is well. Thank God for his red scarf and the willing grin which curves around his face like a crescent. Waris came to me today. This is the first time this man has actually come across the courtyard to talk to me. He is not very old, nor too young, but incredibly impressive even in his tattered turban and weathered wool vest. Bulbul calls him Graan Kaka, Elder Uncle. It is a term of respect. This much I have learned here, that uncles and aunts do not have to be relatives. They are family, even if they have nev- er seen you before. And they take you into their lives as if they had always known you. Waris has provided me with a set of clothes to keep me warm and to keep me from shaming myself in the presence of his wife. His eyes are comforting and warm like cups of tea on a winter morning, and his hands are rough and capable, stringing words in the still air with majestic flourishes. He is as royal a man as I have met, this peasant who has surely seen better days, whose voice reveals that he is not my enemy, that he is hunted too, and haunted by terrible memories which replay themselves on the insides of his closed eye. Waris speaks to me in Pashto which I do not understand. My three-month lan- guage immersion concentrated on the language of the city and of the royal court, Persian. Waris speaks a little English, learned from the doctor who used to run this place. The doctor and his staff fled during the first raid—several of the women nurses were taken by the commander of that incursion. It is said that they will nev- er be seen again, and if they are, their families will never accept them. This is the mysterious thing here, in this land of so much conflict—a stranger is an uncle, but one's own daughter is a stranger once she has been taken away against her will. Despised and discarded, not worth the spit which burns holes in the dusty ground of tribal justice. But that is not what Waris came to tell me this morning. He had a proposition to make, one that I did not take much time to consider. Bulbul acted as interpreter while Waris spoke eloquently, nodding his head each time Bulbul was able to con- vey his intention to me. I am to be let out of the cell, Waris says. I am needed to help with those who were hurt yesterday in the raid—there is a bleeding man with a gash on his head, and a young girl who does not eat or sleep. There is also a small child who has been raped. He had been left for dead, but the morning after the raid, when Noor Jehan emerged from her hiding place, she found that the boy was still breathing, lying still in his own blood on the cold floor of the cell. He is Qasim's age, possibly not yet ten. Waris does not know if he will live—he has lost a lot of blood and lay on the floor all night with nothing to cover him. The looters stripped him of his clothes, although they must have been too small to fit any one of them. Perhaps there are young boys in their ranks, children, like the one they brutalized in the dead of night. October 6, 2002 I have spent the day in the shattered office of this asylum, rummaging through the debris for anything that could be used to stem the blood trickling out of Sabir Shah's head. Sabir is the one-legged man who has a face like nothing I have seen before. It is rutted and scarred, much like the landscape of this forsaken valley. Bul- bul informs me that Sabir was attacked while still in his village. The only man there with an education, Sabir was accused of blasphemy by a cleric. The council of vil- lage elders was told that Sabir had thrown the holy book onto the ground and then trampled it with his boots. The elders called for the village council to decide his fate. Later that day, before a judgment could even be rendered, the accusing cleric threw a bottle of acid on Sabir's face, blinding him in one eye, making the flesh around his jaw fuse with his neck. Sabir was not deranged in any way; he was as able-bodied as any of us—despite his one eye and one leg. I do not know how he lost his other leg; Bulbul still has to tell me that story. In the raid last night Sabir used his crutch to hit one of the men who rushed in- to his cell. The man had dragged a young boy into a corner when Sabir swung his crutch at him. The crutch hit the man hard, but not hard enough, for he returned the blow with equal or more vigor, hitting Sabir across the head with the bu*t of his rifle. Then the soldier untied the string which held his trousers up and sodomized the child, a thin, sickly boy who hardly had any use for his hopelessly twisted limbs. Sabir says he did not see this; he was blinded even in his good eye by the blood spurting out of the gash on his forehead. But he heard the man grunting and the child gasping in pain. That was enough to suggest to us what happened last night—that and the child's devastated condition. I did not find anything that could be used as a bandage in the office. Waris took a bedsheet and tore it into thin strips which I used to stem the flow of blood. I know we must find some antiseptic to heal the wound, but there is nothing left here. On the wall of the cell I can see the smudge of fresh blood left from the night before, and on the floor I can see where the child lay in his own excrement, stained with red. We have taken the child into the kitchen where it is warmer. Noor Jehan is cleaning him up, she has tried to make him drink some gruel, but his lips have turned blue and his eyes have begun to roll upward. This is much worse than I had imagined, and I do not want to think what will happen without proper medical help. Sabir will survive—he has survived much worse—but this child is a paraplegic, already ill and deformed. What chance does he have to live? What chance do any of us have if things continue this way, if nobody finds us, trapped in this nightmare? two October 8, 2002 We are waiting for the night to play itself out. It is colder now, and in the morning I saw the snow on the peaks surrounding us. Waris has given me his frayed shawl which I have draped over myself to keep the cold out. He lets me stay in the kitchen where it is warmer, and where Bulbul, Sabir, and Noor Jehan attend to the ailing child. Noor Jehan rocks him back and forth and tries continuously to make him drink the tea she keeps warm on the embers of the dying fire. I can see the liquid drib- bling out of his mouth and onto the curve of his bony neck. In the treacherous light of the fire I can make out the veins running under this child's fragile skin, blue rivers of hope. There are sores encrusted all over his body, ravaged by disease, wasted by neglect. He is calmer now, it seems as if the color is returning to his lips. Noor Jehan insists on wetting his mouth with the warm tea, just to give him strength, she says. She has added some of the precious sugar she has hidden in a coarse sack behind the kitchen door. Perhaps the sugar will give the child the strength to pull through the night. Perhaps Noor Jehan's crooning will keep him alive, her gentle care and the warm tears cascading down her face. October 9, 2002 We have to dig another grave this morning, at sunrise, when the snow on the peaks seems to glow with crimson light like the cheek of a young girl. It will be a small grave, narrow but deep enough to hold the crippled body of the dead child. It is still dark. I have stayed up with Waris and his wife while Bulbul slept propped up against the sacks of potatoes Sabir Shah managed to acquire on a re- cent trip to the nearest village. How he gets around with one eye and one leg is be- yond me. The crutch he uses is ancient; its wood has chipped with use and age, and the rubber cap at the bottom is worn down to a thin sliver, falling open like the skin of a wounded animal. But Sabir somehow sneaks food into this compound, using resources known only to him. He is only half a man, but seems to have twice the strength of all of us here. My fingers have grown numb trying to write in the cold, trying to reach for the warmth of the fire that went out ages ago. I have only the moonlight to guide me, and in its shadows I see the desolation of this place more clearly than I can during the day. There is no one around; the others have been quiet since the raid. It is as if the fear has been beaten out of them, as if life itself has taken a beating. I can hear Bulbul snoring gently—he is young, younger than me, a beard and mustache barely covering his elongated jaw. His stringy limbs are stretched out on the earthen floor of the kitchen like he is at home, among his own, in the comfort of his loved one's arms. Sabir has appeared, armed with a spade and a pick-axe. I must go with him and look for a suitable place for the grave. I leave Waris and Noor Jehan to grieve for the dead boy. He will have to be bathed in fulfillment of religious obligation, and then a shroud will have to be found for him, a clean length of cloth which will en- velop his emaciated body, a cocoon for the journey ahead.