Lub-dub-lub-dub…
The booming from inside her chest was furious and incessant. It rose above the tumult around her: roars; wails; bangs; clangs; crackles; thuds; groans.
Dub-lub-dub-lub…
She licked her cracked lips, caked with dust and ash, and spat out brown spittle. Her breath came in rapid wheezes as she wrinkled her nose against the acrid smoke and fine ash floating in the dark air. She squeezed her eyes shut and frantically wiped away the tears with the back of her pudgy hand.
“Nafisa?”
“What, Murad?” Nafisa frowned at the little boy holding her other hand. With his big, round eyes bedewed with tears, his scrawny neck bent all the way backwards over his bony shoulders to look up at her, he looked tinier and more frail than usual. Gently, she dabbed away the fresh blood that had oozed out of the small cut on his left cheek, then wiped her finger clean on her frock, which was already stained with blood.
“Ammi?” Murad whimpered.
“Shh, shh,” Nafisa hissed and squeezed his hand hard. “Don’t make a noise.”
“Pee,” Murad whispered. Nafisa sighed, looked around the room and cautiously led him to the toilet at the back of the dingy storeroom lined with shelves laden with fabric and readymade garments. She helped him out of his grubby shorts and ushered him into the toilet.
“You will soon be two – you should learn how to take off and wear your own clothes, stupid,” she said, as she waited for him outside.
“Done!” Murad announced.
“Wash your hands and come out fast.”
“Why do I need to wash my hands?”
“Because I am your elder sister and I said so,” Nafisa snapped. “Doesn’t Ammi always say that you should listen to your big sister?”
Their bickering was interrupted by sudden crashing sounds outside the bolted doorway, near the toilet, followed by an explosive whoosh. Nafisa rushed into the toilet to find the boy staring at a small ventilator window near the ceiling. They could see the bright, high flames outside throwing up balls of oily smoke.
Nafisa dragged the half-dressed Murad out of the toilet and slammed the door shut. She yanked up his shorts, hurried him to a corner of the storeroom and made him sit on a carton of t-shirts.
Pointing a strict forefinger at her brother, Nafisa stepped hesitantly towards the narrow passage that led to the back door. Flashes of red and orange strobed from the gap under the door; wisps of smoke seeped in through the cracks, making her cough. Dashing back to the storeroom, she rummaged through the racks of clothes. She found a pile of flimsy cotton towels, pulled out two and rushed to the toilet. Turning on the tap in the washbasin, she drenched the towels.
“Nafisa?” Murad whined from the corner.
“Stay there if you don’t want to be slapped!” Nafisa yelled over her shoulder.
She ran back to the door and plugged a wet towel into the finger-thick gap under it. Coughing furiously, she hung the second towel over some nails jutting out of the rough wood. It covered a crack – about six-inches long – at the side of the door.
Stepping back, she eyed her handiwork with pursed lips and narrowed, watery eyes. The smoke entering the room had reduced considerably. She had just turned and started to walk towards Murad when she stopped dead in her tracks. A loud bang – like a big firecracker – came from outside the shopfront.
Nafisa had heard the noise before – on the night when Ammi and Khalid Mamu had taken her and Murad out to the sprawling graveyard nearby. Khalid Mamu had brought a big, round flatbread in a cardboard box. Nafisa had loved it. It was cut into triangles and had many different food items stuck on top. It was crunchy, juicy and had a strange mix of tastes – from tangy to sweet and hot. The bread had chicken pieces too, in the form of small discs. She had never eaten anything like that before.
Ammi and Khalid Mamu were drinking some smelly, brownish liquid from a bottle he had brought. Ammi had looked so happy that night. She always looked happy when Khalid Mamu gave her that drink. But sometimes it also made her very sad and cry.
After some time, Ammi asked Khalid Mamu for something, and he took out a small metal pipe with a handle at one end. He had laughed and pointed the thing at a gnarled tree. Then, BANG! The flash and the loud noise made Nafisa’s ears ring so bad that she covered her ears. She could see Murad cry. There was a jagged hole in the tree trunk, Nafisa noticed. Khalid Mamu scooped her up and hoisted her on his shoulders while Ammi carried Murad and they had all fled the graveyard. Ammi kept laughing all the way home.
The bang she heard from within the storeroom had sounded just like that night. Nafisa remembered the jagged hole in the tree. She rushed to her brother and hugged him tightly. There was a moment of absolute silence outside, then she heard enraged cries, angry shouts … and another bang. She felt Murad’s shoulders convulse and she gripped him tighter.
“Ammi…” her brother choked.
“Shh, shh!”
Nafisa struggled to keep their voices down. She heard screams, sound of shuffling feet, loud thuds and thumps. There were grunts, moans and curses. There was the sound of metal scraping the pavement. The deafening crash of glass shattering. The rattling of the metal grill at the entrance to the shop. The roar of a frenzied mob approaching, faint at first but increasing in pitch and intensity till it engulfed them like a hurricane.
Nafisa pulled her brother’s head to her chest, wrapping her arms around him as though to shield him from the pandemonium outside. She squeezed her eyes shut against the blinding flashes that assaulted them. She could feel his skin pucker up with goosebumps as she waited…
Excerpted with permission from Inside Burn, Sanjay Bahadur, HarperCollins India.
