8

The bathroom sink in my cabin was clogged. I moved to the kitchen, cracking the window as I shaved. I heard voices. It was Irfan, Zulekha and a third voice, perhaps the restaurant cook, discussing the reasons for the heightened security in the valley. Shia–Sunni riots had erupted in Gilgit District to the north and Mansehra district to the south, particularly near the town of Balakot, where the martyr Syed Ahmad Barelvi lay buried. Barelvi had once called for jihad against the British and dreamed of an Islamic state ruled by Islamic laws. Nearly two hundred years later, his followers were still dreaming his dream. They had training camps and, according to the third voice, men from the camps had started harassing the villagers here, trying to recruit their sons.

On our way to the valley, Irfan had whispered, ‘We carry a heavy responsibility, travelling with them.’ He’d nudged his chin in the direction of Farhana and Wes.

‘She wants to return,’ I’d declared, refusing to say more, while he stared at me in disbelief.

‘We’ll need an armed guard,’ he said at last.

‘I know.’

‘This isn’t what we’d planned.’

‘I know.’

‘Something happens to them, international fiasco.’

‘I know.’

‘Something happens to us, so what.’

‘I know.’

Never was a wind between teeth more exasperated.

In the weeks following our fight at the Fort, I returned to the coast often, always alone. A small part of me knew it was to cleanse my palate, as if to revive something that had been lost on that wild stretch of land when it included Farhana.

My eye was hungry. I photographed the Monterey pines and
the valley Quercus. The agave that bloomed before death. The pups that replaced them. California buckeye. Desert five-spots. Star tulips, and bell-shaped pussy ears with stems as thin as saliva. Diogenes’ lantern, the sweetest of flowers, yellow as the yawning sun.

I crawled back to her house. Mirror, mirror, I bayed at her glass. Forgive the ugliest of them all!

When she flung the door open there was a man behind her. Farhana introduced him as Wesley.

‘Call me Wes,’ he said.

‘You’re not a Wes,’ she gazed at him.

I stepped inside.

‘I think I’ll leave you with your beau.’

‘Oh, stay. You guys should talk.’

Why?

‘Nadir, I can arrange for us to go!’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We’ve applied for funding. We’ll get it.’

We?

‘A month to study glaciers in the western Himalayas!’

Wes smacked my shoulder. ‘I want to know how those locals manage their water supply. You know, through seeding ice.’

I glared at Farhana. ‘You will get it or already have?’

She soared into my arms, flinging all three of us side to side.

Later that night, when we were alone, she let me photograph her naked spine for the first time.

‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Why today?’

She peeled off her sweater, shirt, bra, still delirious with the joy
of having skilfully engineered her return. And all this time I’d believed she was waiting for me to say yes. There was no consent involved. We were going.

‘Why today?’ I insisted.

She giggled. It was as if she were drunk and wanting to have sex with me after refusing when sober. It was her choice, yet I was having to make it.

‘Come on, Nadir. Pick up your camera. I know you’re dying to.’

‘Actually, I’m not.’

‘Sure about that?’

I hesitated. To say yes would mean choosing no. I said no.

I didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t want Farhana, neither behind my lens
nor in the flesh. Even when she wound her braid around her, I couldn’t see the calla lily. It was all too conscious, too rehearsed. And yet, and yet. As I put her through my lens and captured that twisting torso, her ribs protruding, a thought flickered in my mind. Was it her pleasure that was dulling mine? I shook the thought away. It wasn’t even pleasure. More like victory. I could see it in her gaze. It had killed the wonder this moment was always meant to hold. As she adjusted her hips and I kept on snapping, I tried to conjure it up, this wonder, this thing which cannot always be there, which is entirely fleeting and numinous, which, like luck, or talent,
or wealth, cannot be equally distributed between those who love, between those who mate. Snap! She was raising her chin so high. She was rising from the bed. She was turning off all the lights.