She placed him carefully on the floor and ran her hands over the fabric. She made his small but thick bedding for him from scraps of fabric she collected over the years. When her mother would make a new suit, Bagvinder would grab the pieces off the floor that were cut to make a neckline or hem a seam. Her mother didn’t mind her daughter’s habit, and thought it quite frugal of her, but she chastised her regardless. She would say, “Don’t be a beggar child. Indu, you never take scraps from the ground.”
Bagvinder smiled and rolled the edge of his razai. As she rolled, she recalled each suit her mother made from that patch fabric. With each roll, came another memory. With each memory, came a greater sensation of distance. She wished Nishaan would cry, fuss, or laugh. She wished for something, anything to distract her from her loneliness and growing uncertainty. Then the thunder cracked and a gust of wind blew cold air through the open door and windows. Bagvinder released the razai and went to close them. As she reached her arm to close the window glass, she saw the sky open and then the dark rain fell and penetrated the earth. The kikar swayed. She shut the window.
In the distance, she saw a hunched figure moving closer. She went to the door and stood outside, still covered by the overhang. The rain hissed; she put her hand out to feel the cool pressure of the droplets that were the size of bullets. The figure was moving towards her house, now that was certain. It was Bashaer Auntie. She could tell by the way her hip stiffened with each step.
“Go inside, betí!”
Bagvinder stepped back into the house and held the door open for her elder.
“Oh, ho. What a rain!” Bashaer Auntie carried a package wrapped in paper. She put it on the table. “I brought you dried milk, and some things. And this.” She handed her a telegram.
“What is this?”
“Read it. Gagan sent word to uncle.”
Bagvinder read the few words on the paper: Take train to Lahore. Abrihim will meet there. He will know you. Take you to Amritsar.
“Ibrahim. His schoolfellow. He will meet me in Lahore.”
“Good, boht achhi.”
Bagvinder hugged her Auntie and didn’t want to let go. She handed her a handkerchief to dry off her rain-dampened face.
We took the only road, the Grand Trunk Road. Traveling on the GT Road was like falling off your horse and getting your foot caught in the stirrup—you prayed for survival. It was a wicked passageway from Delhi to the northern Indian states. Bicyclists, tractors, cars, pedestrians, bovine, and trucks piled high with people, hay or livestock crowded the two-way throughway. Though to my eyes the movement on the road appeared chaotic, I saw sheer confidence in all others who journeyed across the dirt and pavement—a confidence that came from centuries of migration, travel, and need. The road was lined with tall eucalyptus covered in sleeping fruit bats the size and shape of gigantic three-foot long eggplants. These eucalyptuses were reminders of Sher Shah Suri who planted them to mark the border of his royal highway.
“You should hurry. Before they come here. They’ve already begun to search for Sikhs. They lit a fire in the gurdwara in Mardan. You will have to be careful until you reach Lahore. Keep your eyes down and don’t speak.”
Bagvinder thanked her with a nod and went to unwrap the package, but Bashaer said, “No, please, just wait until you have arrived safely on the train. Then you should open it. Okay?”
“Achha, okay.” Bagvinder’s hands trembled as she carried the package and placed it next to her shawl bundle. She picked up Nishaan. He was smiling. Bagvinder’s eyes clouded over.
“Here, let me help.” Bashaer Auntie went to Nishaan’s razai and began to roll it up from one corner. As she almost finished the task, she screamed and dropped the blanket.
“Cobra!”
They both backed away from the small brown serpent that hid beneath the quilt. It didn’t seem interested in their fear; it only moved closer to the wall to hide.
“Wáhe gúrú. Wáhe gúrú. This is an omen.”
“It is good luck, if anything.” Bashaer Auntie picked up the broom. “He never touched Nishaan.” She lifted the quilt up and away from the cobra. “Come now. I will walk with you as far as the edge of the compound. From there I will watch until the train comes.”
Bagvinder nodded. “Thank you, Auntiji.”
My eyes couldn’t avoid staring at the signs along the roadside that lead to the border: “India VS. Pakistan, Are You Ready?” Though they referred to the current cricket match between the countries these roadside notes were too reminiscent of border tensions for me. I shivered, uncertain whether I was ready to be here, where I was—where my grandmother and father had been almost fifty years before. When we pulled off the road and slid into a dirt parking lot I realized that for the first time since my visit, I was afraid, not of the people, not of the fierce stares that penetrated the windows of our car, but the thick scent of war that carried the glances. We walked, my father, mother and grandmother, our feet were pressing against a path that millions had walked, crossed, fled, ran—and today we were just spectators. The area that offered daily showings of the changing of the guards was a Greek inspired outdoor stadium. We sat at the top. The sun burned though my shawl that covered my head, no water in sight. From our vantage point we saw India’s guards marching in unison—massive men well over six and a half feet tall, wearing theatrical grimaces and moustaches Rajasthani in length. Their shiny black boots clap clapped hard against the concrete. Their arms extended in military march. The leader called to his troops. This was the changing of the guards. This was the changing of the flags. From our side of the razor wire I could see the outline of the Pakistani theater filled with Muslim men and women and children staring between the chinks at our side. It felt as though two caged lions were set only ten feet from one another. Growls and roars rumbled. Hundreds of people chanted “Hindustan Zindibad!” and “Allah O Akbar!” chimed back. I looked to my grandmother, then father and mother to gauge their interpretation. I was waiting for something to happen, some mistake, misstep, insult or confusion…I was waiting for it to begin again.
She wrapped Nishaan in the edge of her saree. The rain covered all of them, but Bagvinder could not feel the cold. Her head was full of colliding thoughts that she could not separate.
“Please take what you can use from the house.”
“I will keep your chest safe. We will see each other again.”
One guard in particular was posing for photos. Each time he felt a camera pressed him for his image he puffed up his chest and made his eyes pull together in darkness. Over and over again I saw this man embrace all that was expected of him. He was a structure. He was stone.
The sun was hidden by thick clouds and made it seem like night. They heard voices coming from over the hill. Already many had gathered to wait for the train. It would come soon, they said. It would have to stop here and let them on. Bashaer Auntie’s pace slowed. She held Bagvinder’s cheek in her hands and kissed her forehead. She slipped a roll of money into her hand. Then she kissed Nishaan.
I reached for my mother’s hand. “Where’s Mao?” she asked in her usual light humor, this time weighted by everything that began to suffocate us.
“I can’t breathe.” I looked down at the guard and waited for them to change, for them to move past their grimaces and grunts. He stared through the bars of the gate at a Muslim guard, same size, same grimace, and nodded.
Bagvinder continued to move towards the crowd. The rain made it hard to hear. She saw a light moving quickly towards them from the tracks. Then she heard the screeching breaks. She turned and looked up at Bashaer Auntie’s form as the crowd swallowed her.
I couldn’t watch any longer. I was pulled towards this invisible line to see if I could sense the past, to sense the border’s invisibility that was now made violently corporeal with miles of razor wire and electric fences that stretched twenty feet into the air, slicing clouds. It was dizzying. The audience was enjoying the spectacle, the performance. My head was spinning from the heat and memory. I saw the border, so close. It was only dirt, nothing extraordinary aside from the theater, grimaces and hollers. My stomach turned. I stood to find shade. My family followed. We saw it. It was done. Now we were going to make a u-turn in the dirt road and drive back to the city, to the house that was built with money from the Partition reparations, to the house with the plaque that offered homage to the man who did not cross this border, who never reached his family, whom I never met.
Olivia Chadha is a doctoral student in English at SUNY Binghamton. She is currently finishing her first novel. Discuss "Crossings" with Olivia on the Another Subcontinent Forums