Read Online Closure by Jacob Ross - Free Book Online Page B

too big, but Mother never once told me off. She would just pick them up, smile and roll them again into the right size. My father was out somewhere, doing whatever he did, always turning up just as the rotis came out of the tandoor.
    â€œA few other women, four neighbours, came with their dough. They always did. Ours was a big tandoor. Mother placed our flour, all neatly rolled into perfect balls, on a silver tray and put it on my head, then she went to greet the women. I followed her and we all went to the tandoor. She began chatting with the women about how bad the times were getting. All the Sikhs in Choha Khalsa were dead, they said. Sukho was in flames. No one knows who is alive and who is dead. All the Sikhs from Domeli had left. Ours was a big tandoor.” She looked at me and asked, “Did I tell you that already?”
    I nodded.
    â€œMother had built our tandoor with her own hands. It was big enough for lots of rotis to cook in. She usually let the other women make theirs first, but today, for some reason, she started on ours. She had just put four or five rotis into the tandoor when our door smashed open and soldiers with guns burst in. There were so many of them. The women screamed. I ran behind mother.
    â€œ ‘You are leaving for India, right now,’ they said.
    â€œMother held my hand tightly. Her hand was hot and she was trembling.
    â€œBefore anyone could say anything, the soldiers pushed us out of our house. Mother kept looking back at the tandoor saying, ‘My roti will burn. My roti will burn.’ But the soldiers just pushed us out of the house. Outside, there were more soldiers and so many terrified people. I called out to father, but how could he hear me, amongst all those others who were calling out names?
    â€œWe walked to the railway station; mother never let go of my hand. I kept calling out for father all the way. Even as they made us get onto a train, I kept calling him. I had been on a train before, but this was not like any other. It was so full of people; some bleeding, others crying. I remember the eyes! The eyes – they were all bloodshot. As the train pulled away, I heard a raging river of screams, screams I have never stopped hearing.
    â€œMother never talked much after that and when she did, she would say, ‘My roti will burn.’ ”
    â€œAnd what happened to your father?” I asked.
    â€œI never did see him again.”
    She didn’t say anything else all the way to Gujarkhan. When we got there, I parked my car behind the courts. She remembered the banyan tree and she led the way as if she had never left. We walked around some narrow streets for a while.
    She would suddenly stop and say, “My house was here,” and then shake her head, walk this way and that and then stop again and say the same thing.
    After a little while of doing this she said, “It’s been too long.”
    We headed back to my car. She walked slowly now, lost in thought.
    Just as we got into the bazaar she said, “When I was young, there was a Christian called Khaled, who used to sell little sweets on a raeree, a little wooden cart which had a broken wheel.”
    â€œMaybe someone remembers him,” I said.
    She shook her head, “After all this time!”
    I looked around till I saw an old shopkeeper. He was a big fat man who was looking at us whilst picking up fistfuls of daal from a sack close to him and letting it fall through his fingers. I went up to him and asked, “Uncle, do you remember a Christian who sold sweets around here, before the partition?”
    He looked at me for a while, then looked the woman up and down and said, “The Christian is still here, still selling things on a raeree.” He then told his son – a round little spitting image of himself – “Take them to Khaled Masih.”
    We followed the boy through the bazaar up towards the GT road. After a short while he stopped and pointed,