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The Shiraz Cinema was the centerpiece of an enclave of barracks and officers’ quarters, cordoned off by the elaborate trappings of paranoia—two concentric rings of barbed wire sandwiching a shallow, sandy moat; the fourth and innermost ring was a high boundary wall topped with jagged shards of broken glass. The corrugated-metal gates had watchtowers on either side, manned by soldiers with machine guns. The Gypsy carrying Musa made it through the checkposts quickly. Clearly it was expected. It drove straight through the compound to the main entrance.
The cinema lobby was brightly lit. A mosaic of tiny mirrors that sequined the fluted white plaster-of-Paris false ceiling, whipped up like icing on a gigantic, inverted wedding cake, dispersed and magnified the light from cheap, flashy chandeliers. The red carpet was frayed and worn, the cement floor showing through in patches. The stale, recirculated air smelled of guns and diesel and old clothes. What had once been the cinema snack bar now functioned as a reception-cum-registration counter for torturers and torturees. It continued to advertise things it no longer stocked—Cadbury’s Fruit & Nut chocolate and several flavors of Kwality ice cream, Choco Bar, Orange Bar, Mango Bar. Faded posters of old films (Chandni, Maine Pyar Kiya, Parinda and Lion of the Desert)—from the time before films were banned and the cinema hall shut down by the Allah Tigers—were still up on the wall, some of them spattered with red betel juice. Rows of young men, bound and handcuffed, squatted on the floor like chickens, some so badly beaten that they had keeled over, barely alive, still in squatting position, their wrists secured to their ankles. Soldiers milled around, bringing prisoners in, taking others away for interrogation. The faint sounds that came through the grand wooden doors leading to the auditorium could have been the muted soundtrack of a violent film. Cement kangaroos with mirthless smiles and garbage-bin pouches that said Use Me supervised the kangaroo court.
Musa and his escort were not detained by the formalities of reception or registration. Followed by the gaze of the chained, beaten men, they swept like royalty straight up the grand, curving staircase that led to the balcony seats—the Queen’s Circle—and then further up a narrower staircase to the projection room that had been expanded into an office. Musa was aware that even the staging of this piece of theater was deliberate, not innocent.
Major Amrik Singh stood up from behind a desk that was cluttered with his collection of exotic paperweights—spiky, speckled seashells, brass figurines, sailing ships and ballerinas imprisoned in glass orbs—to greet Musa. He was a swarthy, exceptionally tall man—six foot two, easily—in his mid-thirties. His chosen avatar that night was Sikh. The skin on his cheeks above his beardline was large-pored, like the surface of a soufflé. His dark green turban, wound tight around his ears and forehead, pulled the corners of his eyes and his eyebrows upward, giving him a sleepy air. Those who were even casually acquainted with him knew that to be taken in by that sleepy air would be a perilous misreading of the man. He came around the desk and greeted Musa solicitously, with concern and affection. The soldiers who had brought Musa in were asked to leave.
“As salaam aleikum huzoor…Please sit down. What will you have? Tea? Or coffee?”
His tone was somewhere between a query and an order.
“Nothing. Shukriya.”
Musa sat down. Amrik Singh picked up the receiver of his red intercom and ordered tea and “officers’ biscuits.” His size and bulk made his desk look small and out of proportion.
It was not their first meeting. Musa had met Amrik Singh several times before, at, of all places, his (Musa’s) own home, when Amrik Singh would drop in to visit Godzilla, upon whom he had decided to bestow the gift of friendship—an offer that Godzilla was not exactly free to turn down. After Amrik Singh’s first few visits, Musa became aware of a drastic change in the home atmosphere. It became quieter. The bitter political arguments between himself and his father ebbed away. But Musa sensed that Godzilla’s suddenly suspicious eyes were constantly on him, as though trying to assess him, gauge him, fathom him. One afternoon, coming down from his room, Musa slipped on the staircase, righted himself mid-slide, and landed on his feet. Godzilla, who had been watching this performance, accosted Musa. He did not raise his voice, but he was furious and Musa could see a pulse throbbing near his temple.
“How did you learn to fall like that? Who taught you to fall like this?”
He examined his son with the finely honed instincts of a worried Kashmiri parent. He looked for unusual things—for a callus on a trigger finger, for horny, tough-skinned knees and elbows and any other signs of “training” that might have been received in militant camps. He found none. He decided to confront Musa with the troubling information Amrik Singh had given him—about boxes of “metal” being moved through his family’s orchards in Ganderbal. About Musa’s journeys into the mountains, about his meetings with certain “friends.”
“What do you have to say about all this?”
“Ask your friend the Major Sahib. He’ll tell you that non-actionable intelligence is as good as garbage,” Musa said.
“Tse chhui marnui assi sarnei ti marnavakh,” Godzilla said.
You’re going to die and take us all with you.
The next time Amrik Singh dropped in, Godzilla insisted that Musa be present. On that occasion they sat cross-legged on the floor around a flowered, plastic dastarkhan as Musa’s mother served the tea. (Musa had asked Arifa to make sure that she and Miss Jebeen did not come downstairs until the visitor had left.) Amrik Singh exuded warmth and camaraderie. He made himself at home, sprawling back against the bolsters. He told a few bawdy Stupid Sikh jokes about Santa Singh and Banta Singh, and laughed at them louder than anybody else. And then, on the pretext that it was preventing him from eating as much as he would like to, he unbuckled his belt with his pistol still in its holster. If the gesture was meant to signal that he trusted his hosts and felt at ease with them, it had the opposite effect. The murder of Jalib Qadri was still to come, but everyone knew about the string of other murders and kidnappings. The pistol lay balefully among the plates of cakes and snacks and Thermos flasks of salted noon chai. When Amrik Singh finally stood up to leave, burping his appreciation, he forgot it, or appeared to have forgotten it. Godzilla picked it up and handed it to him.
Amrik Singh looked straight at Musa and laughed as he buckled it back on.
“A good thing your father remembered. Imagine if it had been found here during a cordon-and-search. Forget me, even God wouldn’t have been able to help you. Imagine.”
Everybody laughed obediently. Musa saw that there was no laughter in Amrik Singh’s eyes. They seemed to absorb light but not reflect it. They were opaque, depthless black discs with not a hint of a glimmer or a glint.