A MOTHER WAITS FOR HER SON. She waits at the window, her nose pressed to the glass, her fingers clawing at the curtains. Any more pressure and she will bring down the curtains; they will come tumbling down, rod, rings, drapes, and all. The noise will bring her husband running, her daughters in tow. They will think she has done something drastic. Oh yes, they worry about her, worry all the time; they think she is distraught, depressed, crazy, when in truth she is okay. Why should she not be okay? Her son, after all, is coming home. After so long, so long! What was it? Eight months? Nine months? Twelve? Fifteen?
She cannot remember. How do you remember a part of your life when it freezes up on you, when it makes a living corpse of you and you walk through your days dragging your feet, scarcely noticing anything around you. Not the things in your house that are falling apart. Not your husband’s silence or his brittle man-grief. Nor his bewildered side glances as he tries to figure out your thoughts.
But this wait: it seems to be the longest ever. It seems like a punishment without reason. Not like those nine months of pregnancy, when she knew how it would end. When she noted every movement in her womb and celebrated it in some warm, secret place in her heart. But now that heart has aged; it feels like a burden. She wonders if the heart is a thing too fragile for life. Those charts at the hospital showed it as no more than a tiny balloon. But then it did carry the weight of the body, and of the mind. Such a terrible weight.
She sees the van turn the corner and take the road that leads to their cottage. It rolls in like a snub-nosed clown on a skateboard, its front windows bearing down on her. What a cruel joke is being played on them right now, she thinks, feeling for a moment great love for her husband and daughters. Then suddenly the love vanishes and she is glad they are in the other room, where they are probably discussing her in low voices. They do this a lot these days, and she doesn’t mind, doesn’t care.
The van comes toward her. In some way, she has prepared for this. She woke early, bathed, prayed for an hour, prayed for all of them, including the guests she did not know who would be coming later. She made breakfast, served breakfast, had none herself. Then she dusted each room slowly, methodically. Sometimes she would pick up objects—a curio, a photo frame, a vase—then freeze and forget. The maid stood by, looking at her strangely. She is used to these probing looks, people rummaging through her mind, trying to read it. It is eerie, this silence, with all of them acting as though they were at a funeral, or preparing for one. Of course it isn’t a funeral. The war has been won, a truce declared; peace reigns. That was two months ago, and now it is time for the heroes to come home. Where else could they rest? Where but in their mothers’ arms?
The doorbell rings, piercing her heart like a syringe. Again she is reminded of how tender the heart is; but then, she is the mother of a soldier and must act like one.
She trudges to the living room and lurks in the doorway, blocking out the light. Her husband and daughters are already at the front door welcoming the visitors. Four men carry in the trunk, led by a short, pigeon-chested man who introduces himself as Colonel Mehrotra, the commanding officer. He is here to pay his respects. He says he is very sorry for what happened, then sucks in his breath and lowers his gaze. Her husband grips the hand he offers and pumps it vigorously, gratefully. Strangely, she feels none of those emotions herself.
The men ask where they should put the trunk; she points to his bedroom. The doors to the bedroom are open, the curtains drawn; his bed wears crisp white sheets she ironed herself. A cool breeze sweeps in through the window. Outside, birds twitter rapturously.
She follows the men into the bedroom. They lower the trunk, then move aside, as though an unpleasant duty has just been performed. From the wall above his bed smiles the portrait of a war hero, Sam Bahadur, the man who stood up to a prime minister, the man who crawled back from enemy lines with five bullets lodged in his stomach. The hero smiles at them with warm, crinkly eyes.
So, you can live with wounds inside you? she thinks, looking at the poster. You can survive bullets, shelling, enemy fire. All you need are a mother’s prayers and blessings. She lowers herself to the floor, slowly, with effort. Behind her, the men speak to her husband in low voices. For some reason they don’t look at her.
Her daughters drop to their knees and sit on either side of her. They wrap their arms around her and rest their heads on her shoulders. She knows they are trying to tell her something—that they too are hurting, they too are carrying the burden of loss—but for now she sees only the trunk and his name, Captain Karan Ahuja, painted in white across the black metal surface.
Her husband approaches and touches her lightly on the shoulder. She can tell he is afraid of how this might end, but she continues her explorations, moving her fingers over the top of the trunk, along its sides, stopping at the cold, sharp edges. She can feel the eyes of the others on her, watching and making their inferences. Not that it matters what they are thinking.
Her husband bends and whispers in her ear, “Harmeet, my dear, it’s time.”
Quietly she rises and sits on the bed. Her daughters get to their feet and stand at a distance. They are clothed in grief, the girls, but there is nothing she can do about it. Nothing. There are times when even a mother fails to protect.
The four men step forward, surround the trunk. The colonel stands in the center, facing her husband. He looks like a prop, a cutout. She takes in his brown eyes, his sharp nose, his high cheekbones and flared whiskers, and puts him down as a pahadi, born and bred in the hills of north India. She wonders why he looks so stiff, so self-important. She can’t see her son taking orders from him.
The colonel nods to her husband, who bends and twists the key in the lock. The lock slips from its hook and dangles.
The father wrestles with the bolt. An ominous screeching fills the room. It sounds like a bird in captivity, a bird in anguish. She inches forward on the bed, close to the edge. The sisters look at each other and shake their heads. Between them they must cope with two tragedies. One has struck already; the other is brewing before them.
The man who brought them the news was his sahayak, Umeed Qureshi. They had heard of him and how he adored their brother. Every letter of Karan’s had some mention of the orderly: how he’d make him his tea and breakfast; how he’d iron his uniform and polish his shoes; lay out his soap, towel, and shaving mug, heat his bathwater to the right temperature; how, at night, he would place a mosquito net over his bed, taut and seamless, so that not a mosquito could enter; how he would make his drinks—the right proportions, to stir up an appetite; how he’d serve him dinner, dessert, coffee, liquors, clean up after him. I don’t think a wife could be any more devoted, Karan had joked in one letter home. Any woman who marries me will have to match Umeed’s standards.
Fat chance! the sisters had thought, not in this day and age, brother. But talking of women, what a prize catch their brother was! The favorite of all the mothers in the neighborhood, who wanted him as their son-in-law. It was a real competition among the women: who could impress him, who could win him over. And Karan enjoyed all the attention; he lapped it up, treating both mothers and daughters respectfully. Not that he was without humor or mischief. Once, on Guru Nanak Jayanti, he had gone around the neighborhood disguised as a monk, predicting for each of the unmarried girls that they’d marry a boy from the neighborhood, provided they made him some special dish once a week. For months thereafter, he was fed and pampered. Later, when the girls would approach him and ask coyly how he had enjoyed their food, he would say it was tasty but there was always room for improvement. He kept them guessing, on tenterhooks. And only his sisters knew his secret.
The orderly had broken the news. They had entered a jungle at the border, where they had been ordered to destroy six underground bunkers. After five successful raids, they had walked into a minefield. Before their eyes they saw their comrades blown up, heads and torsos torn apart, bodies ripped in two. It was paralyzing, chilling, not knowing whether their next step would be their last. But not for Captain Karan Ahuja, who rushed to the aid of his men. He carried two of the wounded on his back, then ordered the rest to retreat. He made it clear that they should leave, and that was the last they saw of him. He never made it back to camp. Two weeks later, after the firing had ceased, they went into the jungle and found his body. It was shredded with bullets and some wild animal had gotten to the face. That was the official story, what the family would be told by the senior officers. But Umeed Qureshi—who wasn’t supposed to be here in the first place and who had taken two days off just to come and warn them—said he didn’t believe it himself. He was sure it wasn’t the captain. He was hoping his sahib had been captured instead, in which case he would find his way home.
“By God, yes!” roared Kuldeep Ahuja, Karan’s father. “My boy was the captain of his college kabaddi team. In every competition, he always made it back from the other side. He doesn’t know what it is like to lose, to face defeat.”
“Perhaps you are aware, sir,” said Umeed Qureshi eagerly, “that Captain Sahib holds the golden dagger in his commando training course. And that is only given to those who are experts in survival, in escape and evasion. Our Captain Sahib is also a master at night maneuvers. He has taught us so many survival tricks. And that is why I am so hopeful.”
And weren’t they all, till the list of captured prisoners arrived and the name of Captain Karan Ahuja did not feature on it? Six hundred sixteen soldiers had been taken prisoner from the Indian side, and none had the name they expected.
And now this colonel and his men have brought back Karan’s belongings and are calling out the items one by one, as though they are returning parts of a life that has ended, as though it is in their power to know and decide.
They hold up the items for the family to see: his water bottle, his jacket, his watch, his belt, his Walkman, his cassettes, his mouth organ, his Swiss army knife, his books, his diary, his parents’ wedding photograph, a maroon muffler his mother knitted
herself, a marble chessboard with ivory pieces, their gift to him on his eighteenth birthday.
With each piece she collects, she shakes her head, no, no. The enemy is not out there but here in her home, and they are coming at her piece by piece, trying to convince her that her Karan is no more, that he’ll never use these things again.
“A remarkable man!” says the colonel. “Your son, a great leader. Always had his men’s back, always led by example.”
Yes, yes, she knows all that. But why are they talking of him in the past? What are they trying to prove to her?
“He would have become a general. He would have gone to the United Nations; he was destined for great things, you know. From my side, I am going to recommend him for a Param Vir Chakra, once we are done with all the formalities.” But something in her face makes him stop. He gulps twice, and a frown appears on his brow, the frown of a man who doesn’t like this situation, who realizes he has spoken his way into a corner. Averting his face, he nods tersely to one of his men, who bends and picks up a box at his feet. It is the first time they have noticed it: a matte-finished military-green box with the insignia of his regiment and above that, in cursive gold letters: Captain Karan Ahuja.
“What is this?” she asks warily.
“His helmet, madam; it was lying a few feet away from his body. It is exactly as we found it—undamaged. We thought you should have it.”
She reaches for the box with trembling hands. Opening the lid, she draws out the helmet, aware that all eyes are on her, only on her. But she couldn’t care less.
She clutches the helmet with one hand; with the other, she runs her fingers over the cool smooth surface, round and round, trying to imagine her son’s head in it. She cannot imagine she will never massage that head again, that it will never rest in her lap and look up at her with brown adoring eyes, the face of a boy who refused to grow up.
She rises from the bed and moves to the window. With her back to them, she presses the helmet slowly to her stomach. Holding it with both hands, she closes her eyes and takes in a deep breath, then another, imagining the wearer and the life that throbbed in his head.
Her daughters lurch forward, but their father holds them back.
The colonel frowns. He is not used to maudlin shows of emotion, to resistance. His men feel the tension in the room. Every man thinks of his own mother and shivers.
She opens her eyes and stares out of the window. A crowd has gathered in the driveaway. Their neighbors and some shopkeepers are huddled next to the van, whispering.
And then she turns around, Harmeet Ahuja, the mother of a war hero, the mother of a young captain with a full life ahead of him, and she says to the men in the house and mostly to her family, “See, see, our Karan has fooled us again! This is not his helmet. This is not my son’s head. I know it when I hold it my arms, when I hold it to my stomach. And this is not him!”
She looks at them jubilantly, defiantly; they stare back, resentfully. Okay, so it is up to her now to defend him, to keep her son alive.
“Go on!” she says to her husband. “Tell them what he did that day at the zoo, when he had us fooled, completely fooled. Go on!” she says firmly. “They need to understand.”
And painfully her husband recounts.
Karan was only ten years old when they visited the zoo. They went as a family, with all their aunts, uncles, and cousins in tow. He was so frisky that day, in such great spirits, holding court with his cousins and sharing tidbits about the animals they saw. Then suddenly he disappeared, and they had been frantic, searched everywhere. They had run around helter-skelter and finally approached the warden, who at once organized a search party and sent out a vehicle with a megaphone calling for Karan, Karan Ahuja. And then they had come upon the crocodile lagoon, surrounded by tall overhanging trees, and there, in the middle of the still green waters, was his cap. They had looked with horror at the long-snouted amphibians, partly submerged, their nostrils flared, their eyes unflinching, gloating. His mother had fainted. She was made to lie on a bench; his father had run around like a mad bull, calling out Karan, Karan. And then they heard a voice from one of the trees above, and there he was, laughing hysterically. He knew he would catch it once they were home. Kuldip Ahuja had a heavy hand and a temper that didn’t cool easily, but that didn’t stop Karan.
“A prankster, a born prankster,” his father says proudly, forgetting his grief for a few seconds. “Always up to something, always kept us guessing. You never knew what to expect from him.”
“Except love and laughter,” says Harmeet Ahuja, beaming.
And now the soldiers smile too. They look at her tenderly, gratefully, as though she has just relieved them of a terrible burden. Perhaps they too have childhood stories that take them away from the horrors of war, the threat of death and bereavement, the pain they might inflict on their families by their disappearance, their death.
The sisters look at the men and notice, for the first time, how handsome they are, how ruggedly good-looking, and almost instantly they blush, more out of guilt than shyness.
The father sits on the bed with his head lowered. He sits proud and stoic, unmoving. He knows he has done his duty. By narrating this story, he has bought some more time for his wife.
But the happiest of them all is Harmeet Ahuja. Turning to her daughters, she says cheerfully, “Now that these men know the truth, know what to expect from our Karan, let’s get the food out. I am sure they are hungry. I am sure they are starving. They have traveled from so far just to see us.”
Murzban F. Shroff is a Mumbai-based writer whose fiction has appeared in over seventy-five literary journals in the US and UK. He is the recipient of the Bacopa Review and John Gilgun Fiction Awards. His collection Third Eye Rising (Spuyten Duyvil) was one of Esquire’s Best Books of 2021.
Photo by Matthew Essman on Unsplash
