The Sweetness of Tears by Nafisa Haji Read Free Book Online Page B

swords were struck in self-inflicted frenzy on bare heads and blood flowed freely from split scalps to drip down faces twisted in grief and pain. And small, curved blades hanging from chains were swung in lateral rhythm, whipping the air with a metal twang to beat upon bare backs from which horizontal rivulets of blood sprung and trailed stains onto hot pavements, shimmering in the heat of the sun.
    There were other boys there, Jaffer among them, along with other cousins that I was a little less wary of than before, and they were excited. They had seen it all before. All of them, many of them younger than me, had been initiated in the practice of zanjeer ka matham with their fathers, using mini-size blades that were dull and relatively harmless and hung from smaller chains designed for use on smaller bodies.
    My stomach clenched at the sight of blood dripping everywhere. The scenes of bloodshed struck me as all the more grotesque because the wounds were self-inflicted. Jaffer’s father—my uncle, who was with us, too—thrust me into the circle of young boys, where Jaffer and the others had already claimed their spots, shed their shirts, and commenced an awful imitation of the swaying, chain-swinging motion that older men in bigger circles, which I could still see, only yards away from us, performed with far greater effect. In my hand, my uncle placed a new set of chains, the dull blades winking at me with the reflected light of the sun. My stomach unclenched suddenly, and though I had observed the half-day fast, the faqa, which is customary for the day of Ashura, a stream of bilious liquid stained my shirt before my head lightened and I fell, faint, to the ground.
    I woke up in my grandfather’s arms, crying for my mother. The other boys would have laughed at me, but it was Ashura, too somber a day for laughing. For hours, I walked on the sidelines of the procession, unable to participate, impatient and crying to be with my mother, back among the women.
    O ne day, when my mother and I were on the terrace, the quiet of our street was disturbed by a small commotion outside of the house next door, the house with the jamun tree in its garden. A car had pulled up and the residents of the house spilled out onto the street with exclamations of joy that drew me close to the wall. My mother stood up to reel me back, but her eyes, too, were caught by the scene below. A man in a white shirt and black tie had emerged from the car, greeting the old lady next door, suit jacket slung over one shoulder. Servants were emptying the trunk, pulling out suitcases. I heard my mother gasp beside me. As if he heard it, too, the man looked up toward us, causing my mother to step backward, too late. The man had seen her. I saw him frown, his eyes on the space she had occupied. His gaze shifted to me, his eyes locked with mine. Then he walked into the house next door.
    Something about the scene stayed with me. I found myself suddenly fascinated by that man—curious about who he was and where he’d come from. That side of the terrace, under the shade of the jamun tree, became my favorite. My curiosity made me less timid. Now I would steal away to the terrace without my mother, something I had been expressly forbidden to do. Until the day I saw the man sitting in the garden, drinking tea and reading the newspaper. I wanted him to see me. The jamun tree was in season, the ripe, nearly black, ovoid fruit on its upper branches within reach. I picked some and began to throw them down into the garden where the man sat. The third jamun hit closest to its mark, landing at his feet, catching his attention. But when he looked up, I lost my newfound courage and ducked. After long moments of listening to the thud of my own heart, I chanced a look over the top of the wall and caught his eye, briefly, before ducking down again.
    “Is that a monkey up there? Trying to catch the attention of this poor, weary crocodile?”
    This irresistible invitation, one I had