Read Online Their Language of Love by Bapsi Sidhwa - Free Book Online
Authors: Bapsi Sidhwa
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displeasure. ‘Come here baby … Come to mama,’ she cooed, attempting by her manner to transmit a lesson in compassion towards animals, a quality she found woefully lacking in the general population of Pakistan.
But after licking his kicked rump,
baby
trotted off to once again minister to the rickety ankles of the skeletal mare. The nervous animal shook her head and, snorting into the burlap feedbag hanging from her neck, dispersed a halo of chaff and straw. Then she arched her ragged tail, splayed her feet and let loose an acrid yellow stream.
Chikoo gave a startled yelp and backed off. The gardener swore at the cart driver as if the mare’s disgraceful conduct was his fault. The cart driver loosed a stream of Punjabi invective documenting the beast’s incestuous liaisons and, waving his ragged shawl, strode across the lawn. He lunged at the mare’s bridle but, jerking her neck up in protest, she continued peeing until the swelling rivulet flowed halfway down the cement drive and into the gardenia hedge.
The fur on his neck bristling, Chikoo gingerly sniffed the vapour rising from the liquid. The sweeper, Grace, who had already worked her way up the drive with her spikyreed broom and was languidly raising a small cloud of dust outside the gate, eyed the soiled drive stoically. Grace had four children. Like most poor people in Pakistan she did not know her own age, but Ruth guessed she was around thirty. She had shyly permitted Ruth to drive her to the family-planning clinic where the lady doctor had inserted an IUD in her uterus. That was almost two years ago.
By now the neighbouring servants, attracted by the colourful choice of words and the alarmed cries, were peering over the walls. The bearded cook and Ruth’s maid Billo, her frizzy hair and corpulent bosom hastily covered by a shawl, had also emerged to investigate the commotion and add their raised voices to the salvo of reproaches and suggestions. Yanking at the bridle and cursing, the driver turned his creaking cart around. He climbed onto the cart and whipping the animal into a slow, awkward canter, clattered down the drive to park his cart outside the gateway.
Taking care to avoid the rosebushes and pots of chrysanthemums skirting the lawn, the gardener dragged the hose-pipe over the grass and, from a prudent distance, washed the offending liquid into the hedge-trough.
The gardener laid the nozzle in the grass—and in the moment of quiet that followed, Ruth became conscious of the airplane’s drone that till then had lurked only on the periphery of her awareness.
The others heard it too. It was suddenly quite loud. Their postures frozen, shading their eyes with their hands, they all looked up into the cloudless sky.
The airplane, appearing lost and rudderless in the bluebrilliance of the day, was drifting in an arc that included their house. It melted from view to circle the makeshift airport and moments later it roared up from behind some trees. It was flying lower. It no longer looked so toy-like.
‘Hijack!’ the cook shouted. ‘Ruth Memsahib, Indian jet is hijack!’
Ruth had thought as much.
There was excited chatter in Punjabi and Urdu. Shouts were exchanged with neighbours across the walls. The gardener, cook and cart driver, who had to contend with Chikoo snipping at his heels, ran to the back of the house. Protecting their clothes from the glass shards encrusted on top, they clambered over the wall and jumped into the Air Force Camp premises. The back of the Camp edged the airport and Ruth guessed that the commandos, jeeps, fire-brigades and ambulances had already scrambled into position along the runways.
Billo and Grace, their swarthy faces lifted to the sky, ambled over to Ruth.
‘Airplane very low, Memsahib,’ observed Billo, shaking her head ominously.
‘Han,’ agreed Ruth. ‘
Jehaz bohut neechay hai
.’
They honed their language skills in this way. Ruth still took Urdu lessons from the elderly tutor she had
But after licking his kicked rump,
baby
trotted off to once again minister to the rickety ankles of the skeletal mare. The nervous animal shook her head and, snorting into the burlap feedbag hanging from her neck, dispersed a halo of chaff and straw. Then she arched her ragged tail, splayed her feet and let loose an acrid yellow stream.
Chikoo gave a startled yelp and backed off. The gardener swore at the cart driver as if the mare’s disgraceful conduct was his fault. The cart driver loosed a stream of Punjabi invective documenting the beast’s incestuous liaisons and, waving his ragged shawl, strode across the lawn. He lunged at the mare’s bridle but, jerking her neck up in protest, she continued peeing until the swelling rivulet flowed halfway down the cement drive and into the gardenia hedge.
The fur on his neck bristling, Chikoo gingerly sniffed the vapour rising from the liquid. The sweeper, Grace, who had already worked her way up the drive with her spikyreed broom and was languidly raising a small cloud of dust outside the gate, eyed the soiled drive stoically. Grace had four children. Like most poor people in Pakistan she did not know her own age, but Ruth guessed she was around thirty. She had shyly permitted Ruth to drive her to the family-planning clinic where the lady doctor had inserted an IUD in her uterus. That was almost two years ago.
By now the neighbouring servants, attracted by the colourful choice of words and the alarmed cries, were peering over the walls. The bearded cook and Ruth’s maid Billo, her frizzy hair and corpulent bosom hastily covered by a shawl, had also emerged to investigate the commotion and add their raised voices to the salvo of reproaches and suggestions. Yanking at the bridle and cursing, the driver turned his creaking cart around. He climbed onto the cart and whipping the animal into a slow, awkward canter, clattered down the drive to park his cart outside the gateway.
Taking care to avoid the rosebushes and pots of chrysanthemums skirting the lawn, the gardener dragged the hose-pipe over the grass and, from a prudent distance, washed the offending liquid into the hedge-trough.
The gardener laid the nozzle in the grass—and in the moment of quiet that followed, Ruth became conscious of the airplane’s drone that till then had lurked only on the periphery of her awareness.
The others heard it too. It was suddenly quite loud. Their postures frozen, shading their eyes with their hands, they all looked up into the cloudless sky.
The airplane, appearing lost and rudderless in the bluebrilliance of the day, was drifting in an arc that included their house. It melted from view to circle the makeshift airport and moments later it roared up from behind some trees. It was flying lower. It no longer looked so toy-like.
‘Hijack!’ the cook shouted. ‘Ruth Memsahib, Indian jet is hijack!’
Ruth had thought as much.
There was excited chatter in Punjabi and Urdu. Shouts were exchanged with neighbours across the walls. The gardener, cook and cart driver, who had to contend with Chikoo snipping at his heels, ran to the back of the house. Protecting their clothes from the glass shards encrusted on top, they clambered over the wall and jumped into the Air Force Camp premises. The back of the Camp edged the airport and Ruth guessed that the commandos, jeeps, fire-brigades and ambulances had already scrambled into position along the runways.
Billo and Grace, their swarthy faces lifted to the sky, ambled over to Ruth.
‘Airplane very low, Memsahib,’ observed Billo, shaking her head ominously.
‘Han,’ agreed Ruth. ‘
Jehaz bohut neechay hai
.’
They honed their language skills in this way. Ruth still took Urdu lessons from the elderly tutor she had
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