Each time he told the truth they hit him harder.
His wails speared clean through her body like javelins and drifted across the lake. When her eyes got used to the darkness outside, she saw a flotilla of boats full of soldiers bobbing on the black water, the aquatic equivalent of a cordon-and-search. There were two concentric arcs, the outer arc was the area domination team, the inner one, the support team. The soldiers that made up the support team were standing in their boats, probing and stabbing at the water with knives tied to the end of long poles—improvised harpoons—to make sure the man they had come for did not make an underwater getaway. (They were mortified by the recent, but already legendary, escape of Haroon Gaade—Haroon the Fish—who got away even after the raiding party thought it had cornered him in his hideout on the banks of the Wular Lake. The only possible exit route he had was the lake itself, where a team of marine commandos lay in wait for him. But Haroon Gaade got away by hiding underwater in a clump of weeds, using a reed of bamboo as a snorkel. He was able to remain concealed for hours—until his flummoxed pursuers gave up and went away.)
The boat that had carried the assault team was docked, waiting for its passengers to return with their trophy. The man in charge of the operation was a tall Sikh wearing a dark green turban. Tilo assumed, correctly, that he was Amrik Singh. She was shoved on to the boat and made to sit down. Nobody spoke to her. Nobody in the neighboring houseboats came out to find out what was happening. Each of them had already been searched by small teams of soldiers.
In a while Gulrez was brought out. He couldn’t walk, so he was dragged. His big head, covered by a hood now, lolled forward. He was seated opposite Tilo. All she could see of him was the hood, his pheran and his boots. The hood wasn’t even a hood. It was a bag that advertised Surya Brand Basmati Rice. Gul-kak was quiet and appeared to be badly hurt. He could not sit up unsupported. Two soldiers held him up. Tilo hoped he had lost consciousness.
The convoy set off in the same direction that Musa’s boat had taken. Past the endless row of dark, empty houseboats and then right, into what looked like a swamp.
Nobody spoke, and for a while there was silence except for the drone of boat engines and the plaintive mewling of a kitten that filled the night and made the soldiers uneasy. The mewling seemed to be traveling with them, but there was no sign of a kitten on board. Finally she was located—Khanum the harlequin—in Gulrez’s pocket. A soldier pulled her out and flung her into the lake as though she was a piece of garbage. She flew through the air, yowling, with her fangs bared and her little claws extended, ready to take on the entire Indian Army all by herself. She sank without a sound. That was the end of yet another bewakoof who did not know how to live in a mintree occupation. (Her sibling Agha survived—whether as collaborator, common citizen or mujahid was never ascertained.)
The moon was high, and through the forest of reeds Tilo could make out the silhouettes of houseboats, much smaller than the ones meant for tourists. A ramshackle wooden construction fronted by a rickety wooden boardwalk—a backwater shopping arcade that hadn’t seen customers in years—sat just above the waterline on rotting stilts. The shops, a chemist, an A-1 Ladies’ store and several “emporiums” for local handicrafts, were all boarded up. Small rowboats were docked on the shores of what looked like boggy islands dotted with old wooden houses fallen to ruin. The only sign that the eerie silence which lay upon the swamp was not entirely unpeopled was the crackle of radios and the occasional snatches of songs that drifted out of the barred, shuttered shadows. The boat sat low in the water. That part of the lake was choked with weed so it felt surreal, as though they were cleaving through a dark, liquid lawn. Debris from the morning’s floating vegetable market bobbed around.
All Tilo could think of was Musa’s little boat that had taken the same path less than an hour ago. His had no motor.
Please God, whoever you are, wherever you are, slow us down. Give him time to get away. Slowdown?slowdown?slowdown?slowdown?slowdown?slowdown?slowdown
—
Someone heard her prayer and answered it. It was unlikely to have been God.
Amrik Singh, who was in the same boat as Tilo and Gulrez, stood up and waved to the escort boats, indicating that they should go ahead. Once they were gone, he directed the driver of the boat they were in to turn left into a waterway so narrow they had to slow down and literally push their way through the reeds. After ten minutes of suffocation they emerged in open water again. They made another left turn. The driver cut the motor and they docked. What followed appeared to be a familiar drill. Nobody seemed to need instructions. Gulrez was lifted up and dragged ashore through a couple of feet of water. One soldier remained on the boat with Tilo. The rest, including Amrik Singh, waded ashore. Tilo could see the outline of a large, dilapidated house. Its roof had fallen in and the moon shone through its skeleton of rafters that loomed against the night—a luminous heart in an angular ribcage.
A gunshot followed by a short explosion alarmed the ground-nesting birds. For a moment the sky was full of herons, cormorants, plovers, lapwings, calling as though day had broken. They were only playacting and settled down soon enough. The odd hours and unusual soundtrack of the Occupation were now a matter of routine for them. When the soldiers returned there was no Gulrez. But they carried a heavy, shapeless sack that needed more than one man to lift.
In this way the prisoner who left the boat as Gul-kak Abroo returned as the mortal remains of the dreaded militant Commander Gulrez, whose capture and killing would earn his killers three hundred thousand rupees.
The toll for the day was now eighteen plus one.
—
Amrik Singh settled back into the boat, this time seating himself directly opposite Tilo: “Whoever you are, you are charged with being the accomplice of a terrorist. But you will not be harmed if you tell us everything.” He spoke pleasantly, in Hindi. “Take your time. But we want all the details. How you know him. Where you went. Who you met. Everything. Take your time. And you should know that we already know those details. You won’t be helping us. We will be testing you.”
The same depthless, blank, black eyes that had pretended to laugh about pretending to forget his pistol in Musa’s home now stared at Tilo in the moonlit bog. That gaze called forth something in her blood—a mute rage, a stubborn, suicidal impulse. A stupid resolve that she would say nothing, no matter what.
Fortunately, it was never tested; it never came to that.
The boat ride lasted another twenty minutes. An armored Gypsy and an open military truck were parked under a tree, waiting to drive them to the Shiraz. Before they got in, Amrik Singh removed Tilo’s gag but left her hands tied.