The Sin of Killing: The Dance of Changing Winds

By Jamaluddin Jamali

After her divorce, young and beautiful Salma has come from Lahore to her elder sister’s farm in Depalpur, and forgetting everything, has taken a new start for her little daughter Najma and her nephew Ahsen. A young man whom she had once loved during her collage years lives there. He is the farm manager’s son, and he still loves her. She avoids him as much as she can. What happens next changes everything forever. Now twenty years later, Ahsan who feels guilty for so many things, is battling with the demons of his past. A tale of love, loyalty, betrayal and new beginnings. It is general fiction. The Dance of Changing Winds....

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jamaluddin Jamali
• Release date: Jul 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311499851

Jamaluddin Jamali

Jamaluddin Jamali is a journalist and writer based in Lahore, Pakistan. Writing is not a pastime for him; it is a passion, and you can easily see it in his writing. Check out his novel The Sin of Killing, a multi-layered tale of a Pakistani woman and two children battling against the darkness surrounding their lives.

Book preview

Prologue

Some faces frozen in time ask me questions that I can not answer. I feel as if they are saying, ‘You are the real culprit.’

I spend part of my time driving on the roads between Lahore and Dev Singhwala, Depalpur, going to see my family and then almost always frightened by something rushing back to Lahore. A blast has exploded my memories. The limbs of my memories are scattered everywhere, and I am gathering them. And that is just a feeling. A consuming guilt that is consuming me. I feel guilty when I go to see the grave of our dog. It is under a tree at our cattle shed. It has levelled with the ground, but I know where it is. He had died fighting for us, protecting our property. He was buried where he took his last breath. I had buried him with my own hands, though his grave was dug by a farm worker. My cousin Najma was also with me. Standing there, she had prayed for the dog, though I was against the praying. I had said:’You stupid, who prays for dogs…’

Dev Singhwala is an old village in Depalpur, a town in Okara district of Punjab, Pakistan, known for its potatoes. Back in time, a river flowed here that somehow later changed its course, dried up, or it was diverted by ancient men to examine its fish and frogs.  The river is no longer there. Its memories are everywhere.  In hot summers its angry dust rises up in the air and sitting on the leathery leaves of lush green trees tries to tell its sad story to everyone. The species of reeds and weeds of the bygone ages have hidden their bushy faces in ‘the graveyard’ levelled long ago for sowing crops. However, their infinite weed seeds still sprout up at empty patches of ground and seem to make claims on the land. Sometimes, children find the river's sandy skeleton buried in the soil’s deep belly like a secret and ponder their motherland's hidden history with renewed interest. 

It has several faces. Though nothing is new here, everything appears new, green and fresh with the water of new age canals, fertilizers and unfailing agricultural technology. The herbicide and pesticide sprayers, harvesters and tractors (men not included) roar the village fields in all seasons. The soil, which has plenty of ancient sewage, and compost in it, seems to whisper continually in the ears of greedy growers to sow more into its chocolate body. As though it is trying to say, ‘Come!  Take potato, maize, wheat, paddy, sugarcane, vegetables and pulses, mango, orange, lemon, grape fruits, loquat, melon, guava, red pomegranate and everything that I produce! Come!’ 

A little away from the village, perhaps for privacy, we lived at Hasnat Agricultural Farm where farm workers were our neighbours. It was my grandfather’s farm. His private world. My father was a part of that world. Not lord. He looked like an outsider, as if he would have come to the farm for a cup of tea. A visitor. He was a lawyer, and the darknesss could be beneficial for him, but he never liked it. He liked light. The city life.

Because of its proximity to Depalpur-Okara road, the farm was easily approachable, so the students of the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, now and then visited the farm to complete their research in the hybrid crops, and seeing the soil loving the seeds and the seeds loving the soil, they felt enthralled, and not believing what they seen, some of them would kneel down to see it closely as if they had never seen the soil loving the seeds and the seeds loving the soil. They, however, never noticed the soil’s anger. I had noticed it. I had seen its angry face, for I was close to it. I lived there.

I even saw the soil crying. I saw it crying for the younger sister of my mother, Auntie Salma. Or it was me who was crying. My sympathies were with her. She was a victim. I was her supporter. But practically I did nothing for her, or I could not. Both things were true. I was a child back then.

She had a history. Her history claimed her. It was waiting for her to come. It had laid a trap for her, and when she came and entered into it, the trap that had a devil’s mind closed its shutters before she could turn back, and flee.

One

She would call me a curious dog. Was I? Maybe. She was, though, sure about it. She liked saying that. The dog thing. A thing that I did not like. I liked dogs, but not human beings painted as dogs. Maybe by the phrase she meant only a curious boy, not dog, but she would say it in such a way that I only heard the last word in the phrase, dog.

She was good to me. As a woman she could be anything, but as a mother, she was wonderful.

I remember how once in the heat of June when she was supposed to have her afternoon nap, she came out looking for me and of course, she was angry. She found me in the thicket at the back of our house towards the bricked path to the cattle-shed.

I was studying a festivity of ants kneeling on the top of a flourishing ant hole with the seriousness of a UN monitor studying a peaceful activity in a war zone. There was already a lot of food in the ant house but they were still bringing in more. The ants were excited and seemed to be preparing for some mega event in their ant world, some birthday or wedding perhaps.

 Oh, God, look at him! Ahsen... what’re you doing here? I heard her yelling at my back. I was startled. I looked back and stood up trying to say something. She had come like a raiding police party and seeing her I felt like a thief caught thieving.

 Nothing, I was… just… watching… them. I saw a wave of anger building on her face and my sentence stuck midway in my throat.

What?

Ants. They...

She opened her lips to say something. Maybe shut up.  But she held it back and said nothing. She silently grasped my thin arm and started walking, hauling me along the path to our house. My arm was hurting in her grip. Now a puzzled anger had taken seat on her face as if she didn’t know what to do with me, as though she couldn’t decide whether to take me to safety or throw me back with the creepy-crawlies to reek. The abusive phrase ‘curious dog’ rose up from the pool of her mind, and slipped out of her mouth, her lips, and nastily hung around in the hot air near my ears making a terrible buzz of hovering, swarming bees. The buzzing continued until my body reacted to it and anger rose from my legs and surging up with my blood made my legs awkwardly uncooperative. She used more force to pull me along giving me dragging jerks asking me to be normal. It worked. She was determined. After a while, I stopped resisting. Walking fast but with small steps, an inherent habit of her feet, she brought me home. Her cheeks wore shades of cherry, either with the heat of June or the exertion of hauling me. She took me straight to the bathroom, pulled off my T-shirt and then pulled down my trousers to give me an urgent bath. She had spotted some brown ants engaged in long bites on my skin; others were still roaming to choose the right places on me. To bite. I hadn’t paid much attention to their presence on me. Ant bites are not dangerous, I knew. I was not worried until I saw tears welling up in her eyes as she pulled unfriendly brown ants from my brown skin, one by one from my arms, shoulder, neck and thighs. Then, I heard her cry loudly and the white tiled bathroom walls watched her pull me against herself, closing me in her caring, soft arms, sitting down right there. And in her trembling fold, I stood frozen at equal height with her like a human stone with eyes in it. Until her sobbing ended, we were one body, her warm tears slithering down my small, neutral shoulders. The feeling mother and the unfeeling son. When we unlocked, I noticed there was a flood of sorrow in her young eyes. I struggled to understand; why was she crying? Was it due to me? No, there were other things, it was not just me, I realized. She brushed aside some thought and began to give me a soapy bath with her hands moving like a machine. On my baby skin. It was the skin that she knew from day one, like her own. I was one of her limbs, growing separately like a branch that sends its separate roots in the available patch of soil and starts growing up.  She was my mother. I was her ‘son’. The time had made us one. After a detailed wash she went out, brought clean and pressed clothes from the room, dressed me up hurriedly, and took me to the room where on a double-bed Najma was taking her afternoon nap in yellow frock under a sluggish ceiling fan, knowing nothing about the bathroom cry, the BBC news. It was a sudden outburst of some deep suppressed shriek over the sad twist caused by time in her life.

Lie down. Have some rest, she said, pointing to the bed. She had finished her business of the day and was about to leave, but then I don’t know what came into her mind, she suddenly started a questioning session with me.

By the way, what were you doing there? she asked casually. Surprised, I looked up, but said nothing.

Answer me, she said, her questioning eyes studying me.  I was standing before her like a crooked offender looking down, muscles of my neck stiffening. I was trying not to have eye-contact with her.

 Look up! she said, lifting my chin with her right-hand fingers. It was an embarrassing moment for me. I looked up, unwillingly.  Her eyes were teaming with questions. Why can’t you stay in the house? Can’t you play here?" I had no answer, so I could not answer. Not answering irritated her.

There was a regime of silence everywhere in the house. My grandmother, Fatima, was also taking a June slumber in her room, knowing nothing about the ‘bathroom cry’ and the serious investigation happening in the room next to hers. The door that could carry some air to her and awake her mind and her ears was closed.

Our maid, Bashiraan, was on short leave; one of her daughters was sick. Auntie was tense and so infuriated by my obstinate silence that she pushed me back with both of her hands; I fell down on the floor. It helped me. As I fell the expression on her face changed. She bowed down to the floor in a flash and picked me up.

          Did it hurt? I am sorry.... She inspected me to find where it had hurt. It’d hurt my feelings only, and she could see it on my face and realisation made her defensive.

But why don’t you listen? It wasn’t a question. It was a statement which meant you never listen. You wander aimlessly in scorching heat. I can’t see you going astray. I’m here only for you… and Najma? Did you see yourself today? You were sitting over ants. You didn’t even realise they were eating you, she said in a hurt voice. On grime and rotting leaves, you were lost in I don’t know what... she said, making up the case against me.

I said nothing, only watched her talking. I knew she wanted to amend me, but I didn’t know what was wrong with me, or what was wrong with the simple act of watching the ants. I just liked watching them going into the earth and coming out with secrets and answers. But I did not tell her that I loved the secrets buried down in the earth.  I just stood before her like an accused waiting to hear the court’s judgment.

       Okay, leave it! She said, changing the subject. The grilling session had completed, or tired of it she left it unfinished. 

Will you eat something? she asked me, returning to her normal self. I shook my head in the negative.  She had pushed me away with disgust clear in her eyes and I was in an awful mood. But after a while when I realised that she had compensated it, I forgave her. What about milkshake? she said smiling. Okay, I said. Come then. She took me to the kitchen. Apple or banana? she confirmed like a cook.  I said: Apple.  She knew I liked apple milkshake. She couldn’t bear silence and was trying to keep the ball rolling.

 You like apple?

Yes, I said.

How much?

A lot, I said, returning her smile.

The maid’s absence was hammering the kitchen air, making a strange noise. It broke when Auntie started working there and the milkshake machine started roaring.

The milkshake she made was as white as milk, frothy and delicious.  She took a glass of it for herself and tasted it. How’s it? she asked. I smiled for her, and then our two smiles widened and filled the kitchen air.

When the milkshake relaxed her, she said, You should spend time with Najma.  You don’t like her company? she asked, her eyes on me.

No, I like her.

That’s good. I want to see you together. And you can go out, but you will ask me first, she said, stressing every word.

I nodded, excitedly. I felt as if we were signing a pact, agreeing to its terms and conditions.

She said, I must know where you are. And when you go, take Najma also with you. You should play with her, not alone. That will keep you normal.

Take her out and play with her. That will keep you normal. What is she saying… am I not normal? Grappling to understand what she had said, I looked up and saw a thick layer of seriousness on her face, and no smile appeared there until she saw that her seriousness had made me look terribly serious. It was a forced smile.

Her wounds had not healed yet though her first marriage and the upheaval caused by her divorce had begun to look like thing of past. Would they ever heal? Her wounds were so deep. In her soul. Her first husband had gone from her life. His name was Nauman. I think a lot about him. I don’t hate him. Because for hating him, I have to hate many other people, too.

Her brothers were quite well off. One of them, Uncle Usman, was a parliamentarian, member of the provincial assembly, Punjab. He was an anti-change Muslim League man. They had a lot of agricultural and commercial property in Okara, and she had an inherited share in the property, but had never claimed it. Her husband, though, had been asking her to take her share from them. He had a piece of commercial land in Lahore, in Township market, and was planning to build a plaza on it and for it he needed funds. He thought his government job could not fulfill all of his dreams. The plaza, he thought, would generate a flood of rent income for him. Forever.

However, as a woman, she saw it differently. She knew its repercussions. Taking her share meant losing her brothers and their blessings forever, so she couldn't convince herself to talk to them and had been ignoring her husband’s reminders. In her world, it was considered wrong for a girl to demand her inheritance.

One night she refused telling him clearly she couldn’t demand it for her brothers. When he realsied she had shattered his all hopes, he got mad with male anger. Of course, he was a male. The heat grew the whole night and in the morning they had had a final argument, and it ran out of their control, and trying to establish his authority or gain control over her, he slapped her on the face. Smacking sometimes helps. Sometimes it doesn’t. That day it didn’t. It was a bad day. In the mindless moment trying to protect her face, she returned his slap in the same manner and the thing that had once made them one broke into pieces like a vase of flowers.

How dare you slap me, you bitch, the civil engineer roared, furious with disbelieve. The society allowed him to do what he had done and barred her from retaliating. I think she didn’t know what she was doing. She wasn’t herself. She had done nothing; in fact, it was the woman in her who had reacted. Not her anger, some ancient female anger had come out exploding through her.

With the ‘how dare you’ an angry, impulsive divorce rose up from the depth of the civil engineer’s soul and with a foaming face, he threw it on her face, three times, the required number, to balance his unbalanced ego. The acidic words burnt to ashes the celebrated contract of matrimonial love, which, when it was signed by the elders of society amid a big roar of congratulations, had looked to be perpetual. This in a moment she became a feather on air. A homeless refugee.

When her mother learnt about it, she called my father and asked him to rescue her from Lahore. Go and bring her before more damage, Nani had said. She didn’t explain what more could happen to her. What could be more than that? Sobbing, Auntie had given Nani on phone a horrible version of what had happened and what else could happen to her. The civil engineer had already torn her being apart. Could he tear her being again? I don’t think so. A torn thing couldn’t be torn further. There is no logic in doing this. You can’t smash the same kite ten times. You do it only once, and it is done. But this world is not short of illogical men. Nani’s apprehensions could not have been baseless. She was a woman of experience. The civil engineer could burn her alive or she could kill herself or him. Anything was possible. Auntie was not herself; anger had changed her. She could do anything. Nani knew her daughter. Her product. Therefore, as directed by his mother-in-law, my father like an obedient son-in-law rushed to Lahore rescue Auntie and Najma. When my father reached their house in Township, the engineer was not there. He had slipped out of the house after smashing everything. There was a huge painting hanging on the wall of his drawing room. It had three horses. And they were racing. Galloping. What attracted one’s attention to the huge painting was how their race was frozen at one point. How they couldn’t get out of the painting despite their constant running. They were sweating from their own heat, their muscles stretched in the run. They seemed to be emerging from a jungle. It was a painting. In real life they might have died. The art had preserved their race. Their skin colours were different. White. Brown and Black. But their race was same; their end was also was same. They looked like three friends and at the same time three rivals, too. Whether they were running to beat each other or to reach somewhere was not clear. They were paint-caught in the middle of their run. No history about them was available. The painting had no bottom note: When they were born, where they were bred, where they lived, where they were going… There was no such record. The horses were not real. They were only images. Handmade illusions. The clean-shaven, fair-skinned, serious-looking engineer perhaps loved watching running horses.

Red with anger, Auntie picked up her things and sat in the dull white Corolla. The dull white car, its air filled with combating male and female theories, flew them out of Lahore; it took its first regular breath in Okara where Auntie’s mother was waiting for her.

There was a big confusion in the air between Lahore, Okara and Dev Singhwala that day about who slapped and who returned it. Tears welling up in her wide eyes involuntarily, like an innocent accused, she told everyone that she hadn’t slapped him, and that she had just returned it, his slap, but nobody understood the thin difference. Slapping was clear, returning was not, or they didn’t want to see the difference.

Her first sorrow, her divorce, was bearable, but the second one which was caused by my mother’s unexpected death devastated her. What happened to my mother is still an unanswerd question.

When her memory surges up in my being, a shaking moan rushing to my lips, and I say, ‘O, Mother! Where are you? Can you see me through the satellites of God? From the skies above I hope you can see everything by the eyes of your soul, without any of the technologies that we, the living, need....’

As I think about her, with anger and grief, my blood begins to rush to my temples. I can’t bear how she died. Her life could be saved, but no one seriously tried. A rose-petal thing killed her. A baby. Her own baby. I hate the baby.The rose petal thing never showed up on the universal highway that led to our world, as it had long before refused to see the light of the day, refused to see the face of our earth. It was my unborn brother (or sister) who somehow became biased against our world, and refused to come out, who in the end staged a suicide right in the womb. The baby was given all the vitamins, all the protein rich foods (mutton, chicken, soups and pure buffalo milk), as well as an ample supply of fresh fruits to eat right in its ‘nurturing base’, yet it had reservations about our world.

I hate the ingratitude shown by the baby-shaped thing which germinated inside my mother. I couldn’t understand what kind of mind it had; I think it was an under-grown idiot who destroyed its own ‘nurturing base’ like a termite that eats the wood in which it lives, consumes the trunk of the tree which feeds and houses it. The strange creature didn’t even give us a chance to solve the problems it was facing; it gave no indications; no sign, so we could even know what happened to it. The baby (or whatever it was) didn’t even cry once in its ‘listening membranes’ so that we could know its problem. It instead chose to finish itself silently without letting anyone know. Later the doctors tore the baby into pieces with their ripping tools, further damaging my mother. The doctors claimed that they’d pulled out all the dead mass and that they had washed the room of her womb; they were liars; they had left some of the decaying tissues behind, and the dead tissues took her life, sucking her waters.

The fever caused by the infection didn’t go until her last day. Sometimes more than the baby, I hate the doctors of Okara and Lahore who couldn’t fix even a small infection and fever caused by a small baby. When my mother died, doctors of a private hospital in Lahore were treating her infection. She died on the hospital bed, questioning the progress of medical sciences. In the world where all diseases and their cures are believed to be from God, doctors behave like clowns, asking families to pray for their patient’s life, for the success of their operation-theatre acts.

So when doctors failed, Auntie Salma, uncles and my father brought her body home, crying. First they said doctors are responsible, but soon after that the blame shifted and fell on God and fate. On my mother’s fate. Our fate. My father could file a case against ‘the negligent womb cleaners’ of Okara and send them to the gallows for what they had done by their criminal negligence. They deserved a life term in jail and, he being a man of law, could send them to the destination they deserved, but he didn’t do this. He didn’t seriously think along these lines because he knew that such a thing, if flashed out, could highlight his own negligence towards his dear wife. They could say, and some of them even did, that he should have taken her to some reliable lady doctor in Lahore for a regular medical check-up at her fruiting, producing time, but then he was busy judging the minds of judges, contesting unknown people’s cases in courts, some of them for free, running all the time between Depalpur and Lahore for an unknown future agenda, throwing her into the hands of Okara’s doctors.

When my mother died, he wept endlessly for her. At that time like an agent of God, Dadaji my grandfather, came up with a proposal and persuaded him to take a replacement instead of endlessly crying over the loss. The bait attracted him and he agreed to take it and when he consented, Dadaji, my grandfather, talked to the Company. What could be the Company’s response! The Company, with a salesman’s smile, gave him an alternate product. The replacement he got was Auntie Salma and he also got a replacement for his lost baby; that replacement was Najma. It could be called a generous compensation. Lady for lady, baby for baby. The wise people made new partners, for undeniable coupling needs,