The Track of the Wind. Jamila Gavin

great care, catching the strands in the teeth of the comb and allowing the warm night air to dry them.

      ‘The priest is reading from the Guru Granth Sahib now,’ said the man. ‘You will go and listen.’

      Jaspal wasn’t sure if it was a question or a command, but he nodded and quickly knotted up his hair and rewound his turban round his head. He followed the guardian warrior towards the Golden Temple. It was like walking into the very heart of the sun. He wasn’t sure if he was being accompanied or escorted by the giant, who was both behind him and before him, for the warrior’s long, black shadow enveloped him as he walked along the causeway. He entered the brightly lit hall and sat cross-legged on a carpet before a raised platform on which a priest sat before a huge book, the Guru Granth Sahib.

      The priest’s voice droned on and on. To his side, an attendant fanned him rhythmically. Jaspal felt like a vessel which had been emptied, but was now being filled again with something new – something that his body and soul needed for survival.

      When the reading finished, the warrior beckoned Jaspal to follow. They left the main hall and went back along the causeway to the colonnade and into one of the prayer rooms off to one side. The warrior took out an old book and began flicking through the pages. ‘What brings you here so often?’ he asked, his eyes still on the pages which he turned. ‘I’ve noticed you. You come often, but always alone. Have you no family?’

      ‘Yes, sir,’ said Jaspal. ‘But they are out in the village. I come in on the train.’

      ‘Why do you come here to the temple? Has some voice spoken to you in the stillness of your heart about God and his prophets?’

      Jaspal looked up – his face so coldly blank that even the warrior flinched under the chill gaze. ‘No voice, sir!’ Jaspal answered. ‘Just a feeling . . . ?’

      ‘A feeling?’ the warrior repeated.

      ‘A sort of feeling – that there is something that has to be done. Something I have to do. I don’t yet know . . .’ his voice trailed away, embarrassed.

      ‘Can you read?’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      ‘Read this.’ The priest opened a holy book.

      Jaspal ran his finger along the Punjabi script.

      ‘There is one God:

      His name is Truth;

      The All-Pervading Creator.’

      He read slowly but fluently, being more familiar with English script than Punjabi.

      ‘Do you go to school?’

      Jaspal shrugged. ‘I’m supposed to but . . .’

      ‘But?’ The voice was severe.

      ‘It’s boring. I know it all. I need more.

      ‘What does your father do?’

      ‘He was a scholar and a soldier, but – he’s a farmer now. He works his inheritance.’

      ‘Will you be a farmer too?’

      ‘I thought I would, when I was in England, but now . . .’ He paused.

      ‘Now?’ The priest’s voice was low and searching.

      Jaspal shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

      The priest shut the book and closed his eyes deep in thought. ‘We need hawks. You are nothing but a sparrow.’

      The guardian warrior led him out of the sanctum. ‘Have you thought of being a priest?’

      Jaspal stared. No. No. Inside him the word was no.

      ‘Think about it. But what our revered master meant was that we need our priests to be hawks. Think about the qualities of a hawk, and if you think you have them, come back to me. Come here and ask for Amarjit Singh.’

      Nazakhat must have slept. Curled up in one of the railway arches alongside the track. It was dark when he awoke. He had deliberately missed the last train, unwilling to abandon Jaspal in the town. It was not the first time they had had to walk back in the darkness, following the gleaming serpentine rails. He shook himself with annoyance. He hadn’t intended to sleep. Now he must have missed Jaspal.

      He got to his feet and stared down the track. In the far distance he could see the spotlight of an approaching train, powerful as Lord Shiva’s third eye, destroying any darkness which came within its gaze. It caught a figure standing at the side of the track. Nazakhat knew it was Jaspal before the cone of dazzling white light moved on, leaving him plunged in a black void.

      The train passed hissing and spitting; grinding steel upon steel. Golden sparks splattered the night. The sound was thunderous and deafening. A brief and awesome orange hole slid by within which half-naked, black figures shovelled coal as if stoking up the fires of hell. Then oblivion.

      Nazakhat waited a long time for the sound of the train to die away before shouting, ‘Brother!’ He began to walk along the rails unable to see if Jaspal had heard him and was bothering to wait.

      There was no answer. He walked for an hour, alone in the darkness, with only a vague glint of new moon on the rails. It would be at least another hour of walking before he reached Deri. He began to sing a film song to cheer himself up, striding across the sleepers between the rails. Then he became aware that he was not alone. Pacing him on the path alongside was a figure. Nazakhat knew it was Jaspal.

      He stopped singing. ‘So you’re there.’

      No answer.

      ‘Why are you angry?’

      No answer.

      ‘Did I do something to offend you, brother?’

      No answer.

      ‘Where did you go?’

      No answer.

      Nazakhat felt a pang of unease. ‘Why do you not speak?’ he asked.

      ‘Speaking is useless,’ said Jaspal in a low, distinct voice.

      ‘How else can one communicate?’ asked Nazakhat.

      ‘There are other ways.’

      ‘Such as?’ Nazakhat waited for Jaspal to say more but he didn’t, so Nazakhat began singing again at the top of his voice, so as not to walk the rest of the way to the village in silence.

5 The whispering stones

      The heat hangs over the land like an open mouth, its swollen tongue too parched even to lick its lips. The farmer’s hoe has dropped from his hand. He lies beneath a tree, still as a corpse, his breathing too shallow to raise his chest.

      It is at this time that the watcher feels most powerful. He climbs to the highest terrace of the palace, and with the burning sun poised directly over his head, throws off his shawl and reveals his horrible, featureless face. He is in the realm of the living but feels like an emissary from the dead. He surveys the land all around. He claims it for his own, as far as the eye can see.

      He claims the people too; just by seeing them he feels he controls them – even those who, like him, will stay awake through the heat of the day; like Jhoti. He watches her gliding down the long white road to the graveyard of All Saints Church, keeping her promise of years ago, to tend an English grave. On the way, she will snap off a sprig of sprawling bougainvillaea and pluck scarlet blossoms from the tulip tree to take to the marble-faced tomb. After she has cleared away a few tangled thorns and wiped the dust from the inlaid inscriptions, which identify the incumbents as Ralph and Grace Chadwick aged 6 years, Gone to be with Jesus, she will stretch herself out among the shadows of the memorial crosses and statues and die for a while.

      The watcher sees all this with the bored indifference of an all-powerful ruler. He sees without looking because he is waiting