The Association of Small Bombs(63)

Later, when they were exhausted out of their skulls, sitting dead-eyed around a fire at night, the fire like a performer throwing its hands this way and that, someone would pass a packet of biscuits and the others would accept and a warm, happy communal feeling would engulf them. Shockie remained standing off to the side.

“What is his position?” Ayub asked one particular night after he’d proved himself during training, shooting straight while running. All that practice with his country pistol had paid off.

“That’s Shaukat Guru. You’ve heard of him,” Rafiq said.

Ayub was blank.

“Yaar, he’s one of the most dangerous men in India. He’s set off bombs in every Indian city.”

“And now he is—?” asked Ayub.

“He’s like a coach.”

Yes—that’s exactly what he looked like—a sports coach. He even had that bulky avuncular look under the sweater.

“He’s stopped doing it himself?” said Ayub.

“He’s sick,” Rafiq said. “Has a bad heart. Afraid of going phut with the bombs. Said he didn’t take care of himself when he was younger and that’s why he’s turned out this way. You know, back in the day, even for militants, they didn’t believe in training physically. You were given your guns, your equipment, and you had to figure it out yourself. Given all that, he did very well. One of his bombs in Delhi killed hundreds, they say. Do you know Lajpat Nagar market?”

Ayub froze. He nodded without betraying anything.

Shockie stood in the distance, swaddled and sentry-like in the fulminating firelight. Was it possible that Malik Aziz, Shockie’s friend in prison, was guilty? Ayub wondered. He had thought a lot about the silent inmate over the years and had come to the conclusion that, despite his brave silence, he must be suffering from a mental illness, that he had been arrested precisely because he was somewhat retarded. Talking to his relatives in Anantnag had confirmed this—though, being village people they were eager to agree with whatever Ayub said, and anyway they changed their minds on any subject a million times. Village people had no central conception of truth or time or even of other people’s memories; they always just played dumb when he told them they’d changed their stories. What if Malik was a terrorist after all? Ayub was seized by rage. If he were a terrorist it would have been helpful if the behnchod had admitted it and let other innocents go. Ayub had even tried to reason with him on trips to the prison. “Just say something. If you have done it, you can save the lives of others.” But nothing. Ayub really did think prison was the worst way to spend one’s life. This made the sacrifice he was making all the more grand, of course. If he were arrested, he would be able to help people inside, apply his leadership skills. Unless he were kept in isolation.

Despite the fact that he had almost given himself up for arrest at the rally, he had a total fear of solitary confinement, believed it would absolutely break him. He was a person who thrived on company, who desired camaraderie, even in its lowest, most base form; he felt that just seeing other people, no matter the circumstances, even if the people were enemies, filled you with health, gave you a reason to live (we are monkeys). Without other faces it would be over; he’d be thrown down the well of madness.

In the forest now, he prayed. They were all delivering their evening prayers—Tauqeer carried a stopwatch so they could pray at the exact time every day for the exact duration. Please, God, spare me if I end up there, Ayub muttered, pressing his forehead against the root of a tree. Give me an infection. Gangrene. Put ice and bacteria in my chest. Let me go off, like a switch. I know what I am doing is wrong, but know that this mistake was made in the spirit of goodness, sacrificing short-term happiness for long-term change, out of a desire to establish your empire on earth. (He had never stated it like this before; it sounded too grandiose, but not when said directly to God.) Most men think in years and days. Allow a few of us to think in eons. Spare us.



Soon after, Ayub’s talent for speaking was discovered. He lectured the other revolutionaries on world history, American politics, Marxism, concurrent events in Bosnia and Chechnya. But he could never grip them in quite the way he had gripped the members of Peace For All. These were men of action, impressed by action.



“What was Malik like before the blast?” Ayub asked Shockie one day, during a break in the afternoon in the forest. “You know, he never spoke once he went in. He was the only prisoner I dealt with who refused to speak. A man even made a documentary about him. When this filmmaker threatened to kill him, he shouted no. So it wasn’t that he couldn’t speak or hear.”

“Don’t tell me this,” Shockie said.

Ayub saw there were tears streaming down his face even as he kept his hands behind his back.

Was Malik his brother? An innocent sacrificed at the altar of terror?

Then Shockie told him the story. How they’d been best friends. How he’d been tortured at a young age by Indian soldiers. How Malik was part of the group but had renounced violence just before he was taken in. “That’s the sad part,” he said. “He had given up that way of life when he was arrested.”

“Why didn’t he speak?”

“I don’t know. He must have been trying to protect us. He used to love to talk.”

Watching Shockie cry, Ayub thought, Something is not right about this man. You can’t be a terrorist and be so emotional and unguarded.