The Track of the Wind. Jamila Gavin

was two years before Jaspal returned to his village. The two friends had greeted each other joyfully – hardly able to believe that the other was alive. Bit by bit, Jaspal learned the terrible fate which had befallen Nazakhat’s family.

      ‘They came again,’ whispered Nazakhat.

      Both knew ‘they’ meant the jathas, the Sikh war bands who had ruthlessly tried to defend what they saw as their homeland. It was because of the splitting of the Punjab into two. One part in India would be ruled by Hindus and the other part in Pakistan would be ruled by Muslims. The Sikhs could not accept it, and fought like trapped tigers. Should they not have a homeland too?

      ‘We should have got out earlier,’ said Nazakhat despairingly. ‘Gone to the Pakistan part – but this has been our home for generations. We all lived like brothers – Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus. We thought we could see it through. But the jathas were like crazed demons,’ he wept. ‘I saw them all killed – my father and brothers – with swords and knives. They showed no mercy; not even for my mother, my sisters or my grandmother.’

      ‘How did you escape?’ Jaspal had whispered, hardly able to comprehend such a loss.

      ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know. I was there. I saw my little brother dying. I held him in my arms. I nursed him and rocked him and begged him not to die. A Sikh saw me. He raised his sword and brought it down to strike off my head. I felt its wind as it slashed past my ear, but it just crashed into the ground beside me and he didn’t touch me. After that, it was as though I was invisible. They went on slaughtering – any Muslim they could find – and burning and screaming. I just sat there with my dead brother in the middle of it all – the smoke, the flames and the blood – until they went. Then there was a silence – a terrible silence. More terrible than anything. No one moaned or stirred or called out even to God. No dog howled. No vulture screeched. No wind blew. It was a hell of non-existence. Why didn’t they kill me, Jaspal? Why?’

      ‘Because,’ Jaspal said as softly as a stalking tiger, ‘because they recognised you as a brother. My brother. Look.’ Jaspal took out his kirpan – his dagger. He held out his left hand and slashed its palm. Red drops of blood immediately spouted. ‘Will you be my blood brother?’ he asked, staring intently at Nazakhat. Without a word, Nazakhat held out his left hand and allowed Jaspal to slash it. As the blood flowed, the two boys clasped hands and rubbed their palms together and then licked the mingled blood.

      ‘Brothers for ever!’ cried Jaspal.

      ‘Brothers for ever!’ Nazakhat agreed joyfully.

      Nazakhat stared now at the faint scar which crossed the fate line and life line of his palm. He felt a great chasm of despair opening up inside his stomach. ‘Brothers for ever?’

4 The sparrow meets the hawk

      When Jaspal left Nazakhat after the film, he headed for the Golden Temple. That was where the action in the film had taken place. Jaspal had been to the temple many times. Now, all he wanted was to step on that dazzling white marble and imagine Baba Deep Singh whirling his sword in defence of the temple. He wanted to see where the blood had been spilled and hear the clash of swords and spears.

      He wound his way through the bazaar, looking neither to the right nor the left; ignoring the teeming shops and hawkers yelling their wares, until at last he was outside the great white façade.

      He removed his sandals, washed his hands and feet, and joined a flurry of families entering the complex. The fathers and sons strode ahead, their turbaned heads held high; while the mothers and sisters, lost among their billowing cotton trousers and veiled heads, herded the little ones along.

      He reached the top of steep marble steps. Below him, the vast pool of holy water, the amrit, the nectar of ecstasy, glittered too bright to bear.

      Suddenly, he was alone, even though hundreds milled around him. He descended the steps and on to the intricate inlaid patterns of the marble terrace. At first, he just walked, so unaware of his feet on the cool marble that he might as well have been floating. He walked between the colonnade of pillars, his eye fixed on the golden shrine which jutted out into the centre of the lake, as if the craftsmen of the temple had tried to recreate the sun.

      On and on he walked, seeing not the peaceful families and pilgrims who moved in a quiet throng but the shrieks and screams of fighting warriors, their blood spewing across the white marble, and the lake strewn with bodies and limbs. Jaspal thought of martyrs and saints and wondered what qualities were needed to be a martyr. Could he survive pain and torture and look death in the face? He had felt hatred many times, but now his hatred was mixed with a new sensation; that of ecstasy.

      He stopped and undressed down to his shorts. He unwound his turban and bared his head with his hair bound into a topknot. Hiding his knife among his clothes, he descended the steps into the pool and lowered himself into the water. It was silk-cool. Down, down he went, till the water was up to his chest – and then – immersed himself completely.

      In the refracting light he seemed to see, not the tumbling bodies of dying Muslim enemies and Sikh warriors, but other images, which try as he might, would not go away; images of those English children, their golden heads with streaming hair and wide blue, puzzled eyes, which couldn’t believe that only water poured in through their open mouths.

      And why not me, Lord? Why not me? Jaspal cried in his head. Why had he not drowned too along with Ralph and Grace when the boat went down in the palace lake? They were his friends. He couldn’t deny it. He had loved them too – even though they were English. Jaspal tried to forget the events which happened six years ago, when together they had crossed over the threshold into the realms of death. Whatever other terrible sights he had witnessed, nothing else had brought him closer to death, and he couldn’t prevent the unbidden image; the unexpected voice or sound; the glint of sun on water. It would trigger the memory, and that long sad afternoon would unwind, forcing him to live those moments again and again. He remembered the pale bodies sinking down, their arms and legs waving like strange plants. Then, just as he and the twins were about to let loose their souls for ever, Marvinder brought him back to the living and the twins were left behind in the land of death. Today it struck him. Perhaps there was a reason why he and only he had lived. Perhaps he had been saved for a purpose.

      His air gave out. He thrust himself to the surface gasping and choking.

      ‘Ha!’ A voice called from the side. ‘You were under a long time. I was just about to jump in and pull you out.’

      Knuckling the water from his eyes, Jaspal looked to see who addressed him. Night had fallen. The golden dome of the temple glowed like an eclipsed sun behind the figure, and silhouetted a man as he knelt at the side of the tank. Bending into the darkness, it seemed to Jaspal that a giant waited at the side watching him – a giant of a warrior with a high pleated turban and a great curving sword glistening at his belt.

      Jaspal waded up the steps and stood dripping and uncertain. He squeezed the water out of his hair and clothes.

      ‘Here, have this,’ said the man as if it were an order, and handed him a thin towel. He was on his feet now and towered above the boy.

      Obediently, Jaspal began to dry himself. Bending to towel his arms and legs, he stole glances at the guardian warrior. The flickering oil lamps brought colour and focus. The man’s height wasn’t an illusion. He was very tall. Well over six foot, but gaunt and thin like a ravaged tree. His high dark blue turban made him seem even taller and more imposing. But it was not just his height which was impressive, it was his thick, black, long beard; his mouth, with strangely chewed lips which, when he smiled, revealed uneven teeth with gaps, but white as pearl. His nose, which had once been broken, jutted out like the beak of a hunting bird. His cheeks hollowed into the prominent bone structure of his skull. His brow was like the overhang of a cliff, under which his eyes seemed to hide, disappearing into narrow crevices, but suddenly reappearing, wide, black and mesmerising, as if they could see and control your very soul.

      As Jaspal began to shake