Season of the Rainbirds Read Online Free

covered it; part of one heel had remained exposed and its tough cracked skin seemed to impart a pink hue to the edges of the sheet. Flanked on either side by her two eldest daughters Asgri Anwar sat cross-legged at the head of the cot. Azhar uncovered Judge Anwar’s face. The fabric resisted separation at the wound – the shot had obliterated the throat.
    Dr Sharif entered the room. He had been sent for because one of the daughters had fainted earlier in the morning. As he advanced, the physician had to bend down several times and ask to be allowed through. The women shifted grudgingly. Because he insisted once a year on immunising children against cholera and typhoid the physician was barred from many homes. Many mothers did not want the limbs of their children ‘turned into sieves’. Undeterred, Dr Sharif would drag inside any child that passed by the surgery and, pinning the kicking and screaming girl or boy to the floor with his knee, inject the dose.
    ‘I sleep in the next room,’ Asgri was telling Azhar. ‘I heard nothing but the shot.’
    Azhar looked about him uncomfortably. There was no air in the room. ‘We’ll get them, apa,’ he said quietly. ‘Whoever they were.’
    Asgri lowered her head and made a dismissive wave with her hand. Suddenly one of the girls let out a scream and began hitting her head against the leg of the cot. At the same time she beat her breast with both hands. Her mother and sister and some of the other women tried to restrain her; the corpse shook gently on the cot. Judge Anwar was a large man, who had had the bearing of a Sikh. But the fierce constitution of his younger days had suffered in recent years from diabetes. The condition became more besetting when, on learning that the imported insulin he injected into his veins daily was extracted from the pancreas of pigs, he stopped the injections, turning instead to a local remedy – drinking boiled loquat leaves.
    Dr Sharif approached. ‘I’ve given her something,’ he said to Asgri. ‘She’ll sleep for a few hours.’ Then he turned to speak to Azhar but his words were completely drowned out: two men had come in to collect the body for washing and the women had begun their wailing. The youngest daughter – a girl as beautiful as a seventh consecutive daughter had to be – slept peacefully in the arms of an elderly neighbour. One of the men carefully lifted the sheet off the corpse’s face to allow Asgri to see her husband for the last time. During the washing rituals the body was said to sever all ties made on earth; afterwards, therefore, a woman could not look at the man who had married her, it being a sin to lay eyes on a stranger.
    ‘Has Maulana Hafeez arrived yet?’ Asgri asked.
    The man shook his head.
    ‘I want Maulana Hafeez to supervise everything,’ Asgri said curtly. ‘Everything is to be done according to the Sunnat.’ She nodded towards the man’s hands.
    The man’s fingers let drop the corner of the sheet. ‘Everything will be done according to the strictures of the Sunnat.’
    ‘I hear you’ve added neem leaves to the water,’ Asgri said; and turning to the woman sitting beside her she said, ‘Is that allowed?’
    Dr Sharif half-knelt towards the window and said above the din, ‘Neem leaves serve as disinfectant. It’s advisable to add a few to the water. It’s common practice.’
    Asgri gripped the edge of the cot firmly. ‘Call Maulana Hafeez.’ And, as though responding to the call, the loudspeaker mounted on the mosque’s minaret came on with a hoarse growl and Maulana Hafeez proceeded to announce the death and the time set for the funeral prayers.
    People in the street listened intently to the announcement. Each relayed word carried a tiny echo which in turn was accompanied by another echo, fainter still. The whole effect was that of a reflection on gently disturbed water. A sewer-worker, a Christian, went along the street, dragging behind him the long flexible bamboo pole used for