connection. “If it had anything to do with that nonsense sent to make women’s life hell, as if the world wasn’t tough enough without it,” she scoffed, “then it would have ended when I stopped bleeding, and that happened so long ago that it isn’t polite to ask.”
Nazarébaddoor remembered that long ago when she had been a young child she once found herself in the city in the company of her father for reasons which she could no longer bring to mind. In spite of the beauty of the streets of Srinagar with their overhanging wooden houses out of whose upper stories women could lean toward one another and exchange gossip, linen, fruit and perhaps even surreptitious kisses, in spite of the shining mirrors of the lakes and the magic of the little boats cutting across them like knives, the young Nazarébaddoor had felt horribly ill at ease. “So many people so close by,” she explained. “It was offensive to me.” Suddenly, and uncharacteristically, for she was a happy, sweet-natured child, not a rebel, the claustrophobic pressure of urban life became too much for her. She picked up a stone from the street and hurled it with all her might at the glass window of a shop selling
numdah
rugs. “I don’t know why I did it,” she told Firdaus years later. “The city seemed to be a kind of illusion, and the stone was a way of making it vanish so that the forest could reappear. Maybe that was it, but I really can’t be sure. We are mysteries to ourselves. We don’t know why we do things, why we fall in love or commit murder or throw a stone at a sheet of glass.”
The thing young Firdaus loved best about Nazarébaddoor was that she talked to a girl exactly as she would to an adult, pulling no punches. “You mean,” she asked wonderingly, “that one day I could cut off somebody’s head and I wouldn’t even know why I was doing it?” Nazarébaddoor farted noisily under her phiran. “Don’t be so bloodthirsty, missy,” she admonished. “And, by the by, the subject under discussion right now is not you. There is a stone in the air, flying toward its mark.”
The moment the stone left her hand the young Nazarébaddoor regretted it. She saw her father’s stunned eyes staring at her and for the first time in her life entered the trance of power. A form of blissful lethargy enveloped her and she felt as if the world had slowed down almost to the stopping point. “It won’t break! The window won’t break!” she heard her voice shouting out in the middle of that delicious stasis, and in that timeless period while the world stood still she saw the stone deviate slightly from its path so that when motion returned to the universe an instant later the missile struck the wooden window-frame of the numdah store and fell harmlessly to the ground.
After that she discovered the extents and limits of her powers by a process of trial and error. In the same year as the incident of the stone the rains failed and there was great concern in Pachigam. The child Nazarébaddoor overheard two villagers discussing the subject as they walked in the forest. “But will the rains come?” one asked the other, and the lovely slowness descended on Nazarébaddoor once more. “Yes,” she answered loudly, astonishing the two men. “They will be here on Wednesday afternoon.” Sure enough, after lunch on Wednesday it began to pour.
People started squinting at Nazarébaddoor with that mixture of suspicion and admiration which human beings reserve for those who can foretell the future. The path to her cottage began to be well trodden, by lovers asking if their sweethearts would return their love, by gamblers wondering if they would win at cards, by the curious and the cynical, the gullible and the hard-hearted. More than once there was a campaign against her in the village by people whose reaction to abnormality was to drive it away from their doorstep. She was saved by her discretion, by her refusal to speak if she didn’t know the
Nazarébaddoor remembered that long ago when she had been a young child she once found herself in the city in the company of her father for reasons which she could no longer bring to mind. In spite of the beauty of the streets of Srinagar with their overhanging wooden houses out of whose upper stories women could lean toward one another and exchange gossip, linen, fruit and perhaps even surreptitious kisses, in spite of the shining mirrors of the lakes and the magic of the little boats cutting across them like knives, the young Nazarébaddoor had felt horribly ill at ease. “So many people so close by,” she explained. “It was offensive to me.” Suddenly, and uncharacteristically, for she was a happy, sweet-natured child, not a rebel, the claustrophobic pressure of urban life became too much for her. She picked up a stone from the street and hurled it with all her might at the glass window of a shop selling
numdah
rugs. “I don’t know why I did it,” she told Firdaus years later. “The city seemed to be a kind of illusion, and the stone was a way of making it vanish so that the forest could reappear. Maybe that was it, but I really can’t be sure. We are mysteries to ourselves. We don’t know why we do things, why we fall in love or commit murder or throw a stone at a sheet of glass.”
The thing young Firdaus loved best about Nazarébaddoor was that she talked to a girl exactly as she would to an adult, pulling no punches. “You mean,” she asked wonderingly, “that one day I could cut off somebody’s head and I wouldn’t even know why I was doing it?” Nazarébaddoor farted noisily under her phiran. “Don’t be so bloodthirsty, missy,” she admonished. “And, by the by, the subject under discussion right now is not you. There is a stone in the air, flying toward its mark.”
The moment the stone left her hand the young Nazarébaddoor regretted it. She saw her father’s stunned eyes staring at her and for the first time in her life entered the trance of power. A form of blissful lethargy enveloped her and she felt as if the world had slowed down almost to the stopping point. “It won’t break! The window won’t break!” she heard her voice shouting out in the middle of that delicious stasis, and in that timeless period while the world stood still she saw the stone deviate slightly from its path so that when motion returned to the universe an instant later the missile struck the wooden window-frame of the numdah store and fell harmlessly to the ground.
After that she discovered the extents and limits of her powers by a process of trial and error. In the same year as the incident of the stone the rains failed and there was great concern in Pachigam. The child Nazarébaddoor overheard two villagers discussing the subject as they walked in the forest. “But will the rains come?” one asked the other, and the lovely slowness descended on Nazarébaddoor once more. “Yes,” she answered loudly, astonishing the two men. “They will be here on Wednesday afternoon.” Sure enough, after lunch on Wednesday it began to pour.
People started squinting at Nazarébaddoor with that mixture of suspicion and admiration which human beings reserve for those who can foretell the future. The path to her cottage began to be well trodden, by lovers asking if their sweethearts would return their love, by gamblers wondering if they would win at cards, by the curious and the cynical, the gullible and the hard-hearted. More than once there was a campaign against her in the village by people whose reaction to abnormality was to drive it away from their doorstep. She was saved by her discretion, by her refusal to speak if she didn’t know the
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