The Scatter Here Is Too Great (11 page)

“What is it? Why are you coming here?”

I lifted Za in my hand to her. “He is dying.”

It looked like she did not even hear me. She said, “Wait.” And then she ran back up the stairs. She came back and took Za and looked at it. She was panting a little. “Hmm, it is dead, I think. What happened?”

“Can't we take him to the doctor?” I asked.

She did not say anything. She just smiled when I said this.

When we came down, the door was locked. We knocked and Nani opened the door. She stood in front and asked us where we went without asking her.

Aapa replied quickly, “His chick had run out. We left in a hurry to get it.”

Nani looked at her. “But you were upstairs, weren't you? Did it run up the stairs?”

Because I had started to cry (a little), Aapa did not reply to her and tried to stop me from crying. She caught Ta and Kha and put them in their box.

The tap was turned off. I passed by Nani, slapping the big slippers on the floor. We knew she was angry.

That night, we buried Za in a flower pot that had only mud in it and said special prayers for him.

Nani worked with Aapa in the morning. She made Aapa do all the work. Aapa made breakfast; then she cleaned the house and then made lunch. Nani was mostly on the phone in the mornings. Then she would have her lunch and the nap. She woke up and then we all had tea and biscuits and other things like
nimko
and then she went and talked on the phone till dinner.

Aapa and Nani spoke very little. And that night after Za died, Nani did not speak to Aapa during dinner and not even afterward when we were in her room before going to bed.

Nani was speaking with me a lot. She asked me if I could read. She gave me a book of hers (yellow pages, white cover), pointing out the page she wished me to read. I tried to read, but I was reading very slowly and making a lot of mistakes. She corrected me as Aapa oiled her hair.

When Aapa said, “Come on, let's go. Time to sleep,” Nani said, “He will sleep with me tonight.”

So I looked at Aapa when she said, “Good night,” and smiled.

It was dark in the room and I was facing the other way on the bed. Nani said, “So what do you do in the afternoons?” She took my hand in her hand. Her hand was a little nicely cold because she washed her hands before sleeping.

“I play with Ta, Za, and Kha. Otherwise I just play with something else.”

“Where's Aapa?”

“She's working in the kitchen.”

“Does she go out?”

I was quiet. I was afraid to tell her that Aapa goes out to meet the girl who lives one floor up. So I just acted like I was sleeping.

Nani asked again, “Are you asleep already? What was she doing today? Why were you wearing her slippers?”

“What? I don't know, Nani jaan. I am feeling sleepy.”

“Hmm.” She did not say anything then. Then she kissed my head and said, “Sleep now. Tomorrow I will cook something special for you. You like halwa?”

I found it difficult to sleep with Nani because she was snoring loudly and she held my hand in hers. After some time, I pulled my hand and got off the bed.

“Where are you going?” she asked in her sleep.

“To the other room,” I said.

“Watch your step,” she said.

Aapa was awake. She opened the door when I knocked on it. When I told her that Nani asked about her afternoon visits, her eyes grew big and she covered her face and said, “What did you tell her?”

“I said I don't know.”

She became quiet and said, “Go to sleep.”

I could not see her face because it was very dark.

After that Aapa stopped going out in the afternoons and Nani sometimes came to check what we were doing. She asked Aapa about things she had given her to do and checked how she did them. But Aapa did not look happy and she became quiet as well. She would not even talk to me while she was washing dishes and cleaning the kitchen.

I saw Nani watching and standing near the chicks' home a few times. She asked me about them and I told her what they did and what they talked to each other about all the time. I also told her they missed Za very much because he was the nicest one of them all.

Kha (the red one) also died. I don't know why. I think because he ate dirty ants and dust. Even though I told him so many times to only eat what I gave him (I gave him bread crumbs and rice and other clean and nice things) and not to go around eating everything he found on the ground, but he ate all those dirty things and one day when I woke up I saw he was limping and could not stand. He did not eat or start running when I took him out of the house. He just sat there with his eyes closed.

I was sad when he died. And for two or three or four nights, Aapa did not tell me any new story as well. “I don't know any stories about chicks.” She also said she did not know any more stories. One or two times she read them from the magazines. They were happy stories but I did not like them. She could not even tell me why the evil sorcerer did not marry the princess and why he was waiting for the prince to arrive, wasting so much time. Aapa did not like that story either. She seemed angry.

Only Ta was left to play with me. In the afternoon, Aapa quietly took out the phone from Nani's room for a few minutes and took it inside her own room. (It had a long wire, not like the phone in our house, which cannot be taken anywhere because it has such a short wire.) I played with Ta when Aapa was talking quietly on the phone, but Ta did not like to play with me. He liked to be alone. He ate what I gave him and sometimes jumped as well, but he did not run like Za and Kha. So I sat in the corner and watched him walk around the kitchen.

Then one night Aapa said she will tell me a new story. The Speaking Bird and the Singing Tree.

Once upon a time there was a beautiful girl who was always sad for no reason. She had three princes who loved her and wanted to marry her. She liked one of them but she could not express her love to him, because if she declared her love for him the other two might kill him. So one day, that sad girl was sitting outside her house waiting for the vegetable hawker to buy vegetables when this very, very old woman suddenly appeared and said, “My lovely girl, the reason you are unhappy is because you don't have the speaking bird and the singing tree.” The girl was surprised when she heard this. She asked immediately, “Where can I find this, my dear old woman?”

The old woman told her where she should go to find it. It was in the Dark Mountains (they were Dark Mountains because all their rocks were dark gray). But the old lady warned her: “Remember: when you are climbing the mountain, don't turn around and look at what's behind you. Remember that, just don't turn around.”

The girl agreed to go. But when she told her plans to the princes who loved her, they persuaded her not to go and said they would go instead and get the speaking bird and a branch of the singing tree for her. In return, she promised to marry whoever brought her the singing tree and the speaking bird.

Because she loved one of the princes and wanted him to win, she only told him about the warning of the old woman. “Remember, don't turn when you are climbing the mountain,” she whispered in his ear as she saw him off.

The first prince climbed in haste and his foot slipped, and to save himself from falling, he looked back and immediately turned to stone. The second prince when climbing thought that someone was throwing stones at him. He turned to see who it was and as soon as he turned, he turned to stone. The third prince, the one the girl loved and wanted to marry, was also the most cautious and intelligent of the three. When he was climbing the mountain, he saw many stone sculptures of young men. He paused to examine them. Suddenly he heard some noise. He remembered the warning so he did not turn and continued his journey onward. As he went farther, he started hearing even stranger noises—like witches coming after him. But still he did not turn. Finally everything became calm and peaceful. He was very tired and thought he had reached the end of his journey. His heart was full of joy. He looked up to the sky full of stars and felt the cool breeze. He wanted to talk to someone about it. Suddenly, he heard the voice of the beautiful girl he loved. As soon as he turned to look, he too turned to stone.

“The rest of the story I will tell you tomorrow,” Aapa said. I said all right. I knew what was going to happen anyway. The girl would go to the Dark Mountain herself and get the bird and singing tree. But what would happen to the princes who had turned to stone?

The next afternoon Aapa and Nani had to go visit the neighbors for Qur'an khwani. So in the afternoon, Nani and Aapa wore nice clothes and went next door where lots of women with colorful clothes were also coming and taking off their slippers outside the house.

After a while, I got very bored. Ta was not playing. He just went and stood in a corner, and I missed Za and Kha. I took him onto the balcony, which he liked. I had to stop him always from going near the edge where he could fall off. I wanted to show him something in the big ground in front of us, but instead we talked about the moon. I told Ta that the moon is not supposed to be there in the morning because it is the sun's time, but Ta had gone back inside the house. I put him in his house again and went out to look for Aapa.

I could not find her slippers in all the slippers lying outside the door of our neighbor where the Qur'an khwani was happening. Then I climbed the stairs and smelled the perfume she put on herself in the afternoons. I ran up the stairs, two flights, and there I saw Aapa and the boy who had been looking into our house from his window without a shirt. He was wearing a shirt now and had his hand behind Aapa's back and his mouth was on her neck. I shouted, “Oye! What are you doing?”

Aapa pushed him away and came toward me. “Why, why have you come here?” When she came near me, she stopped and covered her face with her hand. I turned and I saw what Aapa saw: Nani was standing halfway up the stairs looking at Aapa and the boy.

What happened after that was just noise and shouting. Nani started shouting and all the women from the Qur'an khwani came out. And then Nani started crying, saying that oh our honor is destroyed our honor is destroyed. This girl has destroyed our honor. All we had was our honor and this girl destroyed it all.