The warder of the jail now seemed smaller to him. She was the supreme leader of this domain, of her “boys,” but still wanted acclaim from the outside world; he realized that the server-like men were reformed prisoners. They took their place behind the barber seats. Two pathetic inmates, young malnourished boys, sat lost in the vast chairs before the mirrors. The waiters cut with teasing, pulling, staccato precision. A show for the Khuranas.
“Come,” she said, leading them to another room.
Malik had learned about the meeting that morning; he had not had much time to prepare. He thought he was meeting a journalist who wished to hear his side of the story, and he had scrambled in his cell to put together a coherent narrative. Something about Gandhi, yes. Gandhi, Kashmir. Being a student of chemistry. He flailed wildly for details about the other innocents who’d been arrested: artisan, student, summer holidays, framed.
For him too the walk through the chambers of the jail was a new thing—most prisoners did not get to see this part of the jail. It was for visitors only. He marveled at the clean lines, the symmetric tiles, the photos on the wall—how did one gain admission here? What minor crimes did you have to commit? Of course, he dared not ask the guards. Getting to meet a sympathetic journalist was enough luck for a day. He was led into a room with tinted plastic windows on all sides and given a cup of tea. It was like being in one of those opaque government waiting rooms, complete with cheap plastic fittings. He slurped the tea slowly, amazed, savoring every last syrupy sip. Then there was a commotion and a few people walked in. As soon as he saw them, their mishmash of clothes, the white salwar kameez the woman was wearing, he knew something was wrong. The couple looked vaguely familiar: Had they been at the trial? Malik, with his photographic recall, tried to think back through the haze of heat and hunger to the dusty room in which he had been charged with the crime. Beyond his feet, in that room of his memory, people and faces foamed, indistinct in their seats.
Then a man said (this was Mukesh), “Do you recognize them?” and Malik fell silent.
“He’s not saying anything,” Mukesh said, shouting for a guard.
Vikas and Deepa were locked in a tight mutual silent stare with Malik, seated across from him. He looked back dumbly, limply. Vikas observed the smallness and narrowness of his wrists, that tell of malnutrition. He reminded Vikas of nothing more than the young, eager Kashmiri boys who had rowed his shikara on Dal Lake on his one visit to the state before the violence broke out. And yet, if you looked closely, through Mukesh’s shouting, there was something guilty, even sullen, about his nonchalance and silence. Why choose to remain silent if you were innocent? Silence is the small man’s only defense. “Now be a good boy and answer their questions,” Jagdish said, going up to him and touching his shoulder. The man did not flinch. “It doesn’t look like he’s going to say anything.”
“Give him some time,” Vikas said. “We can also be quiet.”
“Don’t you people feel ashamed?” Mukesh said. “Oye, bhainchod.”
“Maybe you should go out,” Vikas said. He gestured at Deepa, who looked hurt and meditative. Mukesh went out.
Deepa too looked at the man. The gap between them was so small. Yet she didn’t know what she could say. Her head burst with the boys’ voices and gestures and shrill demands—somehow it was these demands and questions that stayed with her most. She saw the boys lying on their stomachs on the drawing room floor covering their school readers with plastic or brown paper. She saw them pausing in doorways, stretching. Smashing a sponge ball in their room with a tiny imitation cricket bat from a factory in Ludhiana. Making high-pitched sounds in imitation of their favorite cricket commentators. Nakul sitting on the sofa, with his brown thin arms, asking, “But what is a prostitute, Mama?” A teacher had called a girl with purple nail polish that. “And she called Madhur a gasbag!” he snorted, suddenly getting up at full tilt and going into his room, where, a few seconds later, you could hear a sponge ball tocked against the wall. Nakul’s Chinese-looking eyes. His darkness, his innocence, his Olympian cuddling, his monkeyish way of nearly hanging off the bed while he slept. Tushar’s perpetual mousy, frightened look. His habit of picking his nose, which irritated Vikas. “Where do you think he gets it from?” Deepa told him.
Together these voices created a viscid pressure in her brain. “Deepa? Do you want to ask him anything?” Vikas said.
She shook her head.
Vikas spoke now to Malik: “If you are guilty, if you’ve done this, remember there will be no peace for you or your families—not now or forever. You think you’re saving Kashmir, but you’re destroying it.” A bubble of spit formed on his lips and he considered spitting, but held himself back. He pulled out a photograph from his pocket. “Recognize them? My boys. They were blown up by you. What did they have to do with this?”
The man looked at the photos but said nothing.
Vikas turned to Jagdish, who repeated, “He won’t say anything.”
Malik was taken to a cell and stripped and beaten; they watched across the room as he howled. “He hasn’t said anything since we brought him in,” Mrs. Thapar explained.