Imtiaz Dharker

Purdah I
One day they said she was old enough to learn some shame.
She found it came quite naturally.
Purdah is a kind of safety.
The body finds a place to hide.
The cloth fans out against the skin
much like the earth falls
on coffins after they put the dead men in.
People she has known
stand up, sit down as they have always done.
But they make different angles
in the light, their eyes aslant,
a little sly.
She half-remembers things
from someone else's life,
Perhaps from yours, or mine -
carefully carrying what we do not own:
between the thighs, a sense of sin.
We sit still, letting the cloth grow
a little closer to our skin.
A light filters inward
through our bodies' walls.
Voices speak inside us,
echoing in the spaces we have just left.
She stands outside herself,
sometimes in all four corners of a room.
Wherever she goes, she is always
inching past herself,
as if she were a clod of earth
and the roots as well,
scratching for a hold
between the first and second rib.
Passing constantly out of her own hands
into the corner of someone else's eyes…
while doors keep opening
inward and again
inward.
Purdah II
The call breaks its back
across the tenements: ‘Allah-u-Akbar'.
Your mind throws black shadows
on marble cooled by centuries of dead.
A familiar script racks the walls.
The pages of the Koran
turn, smooth as old bones
in your prodigal hands.
In the tin box of your memory
a coin of comfort rattles
against the strangeness of a foreign land.
* * *
Years of sun were concentrated
into Maulvi's fat dark finger
hustling across the page,
nudging words into your head;
words unsoiled by sense,
pure rhythm on the tongue.
The body, rocked in time
with twenty others, was lulled
into thinking it had found a home.
* * *
The new Hajji, just fifteen,
had cheeks quite pink with knowledge
and eyes a startling blue.
He snapped a flower off his garland
and looked to you.
There was nothing holy in his look.
Hands that had prayed at Mecca
dropped a sly flower on your book.
You had been chosen.
Your dreams were full of him for days.
Making pilgrimages to his cheeks,
You were scorched,
long before the judgement,
by the blaze.
Your breasts, still tiny, grew an inch.
The cracked voice calls again.
A change of place and time.
Much of the colour drains away.
The brightest shades are in your dreams,
A picture-book, a strip of film.
The rest forget to sing.
Evelyn, the medium from Brighton,
said, ‘I see you quite different in my head,
not dressed in this cold blue.
I see your mother bringing you
a stretch of brilliant fabric, red.
Yes, crimson red, patterned through
with golden thread.'
There she goes, your mother,
still plotting at your wedding
long after she is dead.
* * *
They have all been sold and bought,
the girls I knew,
unwilling virgins who had been taught,
especially in this strangers' land, to bind
their brightness tightly round,
whatever they might wear,
in the purdah of the mind.
They veiled their eyes
with heavy lids.
They hid their breasts,
but not the fullness of their lips.
* * *
The men you knew
were in your history, striding proud
with heavy feet across a fertile land.
A horde of dead men
held up your head,
above the mean temptations
of those alien hands.
You answered to your race.
Night after virtuous night
you performed for them.
They warmed your bed.
* * *
A coin of comfort in the mosque
clatters down the years of loss
* * *
You never met those men
with burnt-out eyes, blood
dripping from their beards.
You remember the sun
pouring out of Maulvi's hands.
It was to save the child
the lamb was sacrificed;
to save the man,
the scourge and stones. God was justice.
Justice could be dread.
But woman. Woman,
you have learnt
that when God comes
you hide your head.
* * *
There are so many of me.
I have met them, meet them every day,
recognise their shadows on the streets.
I know their past and future
in cautious way they place their feet.
I can see behind their veils,
and before they speak
I know their tongues, thick
with the burr of Birmingham
or Leeds.
* * *
Break cover.
Break cover and let the girls with tell-tale lips.
We'll blindfold the spies. Tell me
what you did when the new moon
sliced you out of purdah,
your body shimmering through the lies.
* * *
Saleema of the swan neck
and tragic eyes, knew from films
that the heroine was always pure,
untouched; nevertheless
poured out her breasts to fill the cup
of his white hands
(the mad old artist with the pigeon chest)
and marveled at her own strange wickedness.
* * *
Bought and sold, and worse,
grown old. She married back home,
as good girls do,
in a flurry of red the cousin -
hers or mine, I cannot know -
had annual babies, then rebelled at last.
At last a sign, behind the veil,
of life;
found another man, became another wife,
and sank into the mould
of her mother's flesh
and mind, begging approval from the rest.
Her neck is bowed as if she wears a hood.
Eyes still tragic, when you meet her
on the high street,
and watchful as any creature
that lifts its head and sniffs the air
only to scent its own small trail of blood.
* * *
Naseem, you ran away
and your mother burned with shame.
Whatever we did,
the trail was the same:
the tear-stained mother, the gossip aunts
looking for shoots to smother
inside all our cracks.
The table is laden
and you are remembered
among the dead. No going back.
The prayer's said.
And there you are with your English boy
who was going to set you free,
trying to smile and be accepted,
always on your knees.
* * *
There you are, I can see you all now
in the tenements up north.
In or out of purdah. Tied, or bound.
Shaking your box to hear
how freedom rattles…
one coin, one sound.
...

The place is full of worshippers.
You can tell by the sandals
piled outside, the owners' prints
worn into leather, rubber, plastic,
a picture clearer than their faces
put together, with some originality,
brows and eyes, the slant
of cheek to chin.
What prayer are they whispering?
Each one has left a mark,
the perfect pattern of a need,
sole and heel and toe
in dark, curved patches,
heels worn down,
thongs ragged, mended many times.
So many shuffling hopes,
pounded into print,
as clear as the pages of holy books,
illuminated with the glint
of gold around the lettering.
What are they whispering?
Outside, in the sun,
such a quiet crowd
of shoes, thrown together
like a thousand prayers
washing against the walls of God.
...

The school-bell is a call to battle,
every step to class, a step into the firing-line.
Here is the target, fine skin at the temple,
cheek still rounded from being fifteen.

Surrendered, surrounded, she
takes the bullet in the head

and walks on. The missile cuts
a pathway in her mind, to an orchard
in full bloom, a field humming under the sun,
its lap open and full of poppies.

This girl has won
the right to be ordinary,

wear bangles to a wedding, paint her fingernails,
go to school. Bullet, she says, you are stupid.
You have failed. You cannot kill a book
or the buzzing in it.

A murmur, a swarm. Behind her, one by one,
the schoolgirls are standing up
to take their places on the front line.
...

When I can't comprehend
why they're burning books
or slashing paintings,
...

Paper that lets the light
shine through, this
is what could alter things.
Paper thinned by age or touching,
the kind you find in well-used books,
the back of the Koran, where a hand
has written in the names and histories,
who was born to whom,
the height and weight, who
died where and how, on which sepia date,
pages smoothed and stroked and turned
transparent with attention.
If buildings were paper, I might
feel their drift, see how easily
they fall away on a sigh, a shift
in the direction of the wind.
Maps too. The sun shines through
their borderlines, the marks
that rivers make, roads,
railtracks, mountainfolds,
Fine slips from grocery shops
that say how much was sold
and what was paid by credit card
might fly our lives like paper kites.
An architect could use all this,
place layer over layer, luminous
script over numbers over line,
and never wish to build again with brick
or block, but let the daylight break
through capitals and monoliths,
through the shapes that pride can make,
find a way to trace a grand design
with living tissue, raise a structure
never meant to last,
of paper smoothed and stroked
and thinned to be transparent,
turned into your skin.
...

We are waving to you from up here,
from the fourth floor to say
don't worry about us, we are fine.
We may be strung out, trousers vest blouse
sari skirt on this washing line
but the sun is being kind to us.
Better here than down there
where you are passing
on the Number 106, crammed
into a hot window frame
with your loud loneliness.

We are floating here,
our hearts filled with soft evening air
and the sound of conversations
in the rooms behind us,
in love with the shape
of each other and the dance
we make together,

waving to you, sending a sign
that you would see if
you were looking but

you are not.
...

The skin cracks like a pod.
There never is enough water.

Imagine the drip of it,
the small splash, echo
in a tin mug,
the voice of a kindly god.

Sometimes, the sudden rush
of fortune. The municipal pipe bursts,
silver crashes to the ground
and the flow has found
a roar of tongues. From the huts,
a congregation: every man woman
child for streets around
butts in, with pots,
brass, copper, aluminium,
plastic buckets,
frantic hands,

and naked children
screaming in the liquid sun,
their highlights polished to perfection,
flashing light,
as the blessing sings
over their small bones.
...

All the people are wearing black.
Coming out of stations, scrambling
on buses, crossing the street, stacked
on escalators
they look like letters running away
from words I am struggling to understand.
There is no way to fix them
blurred as they are by movement,
mirrors and cracked glass.
I am trying to write you down
on this white space
in longhand, calm
you, still you,
put my arms around you,
touch your face, trace
the cheekbone,
hold you long enough
for you to read
the words we have been assembling
...

Outside the door,
lurking in the shadows,
is a terrorist.
Is that the wrong description?
Outside that door,
taking shelter in the shadows,
is a freedom fighter.
I haven't got this right .
Outside, waiting in the shadows,
is a hostile militant.
Are words no more
than waving, wavering flags?
Outside your door,
watchful in the shadows,
is a guerrilla warrior.
God help me.
Outside, defying every shadow,
stands a martyr.
I saw his face.
No words can help me now.
Just outside the door,
lost in shadows,
is a child who looks like mine.
One word for you.
Outside my door,
his hand too steady,
his eyes too hard
is a boy who looks like your son, too.
I open the door.
Come in, I say.
Come in and eat with us.
The child steps in
and carefully, at my door,
takes off his shoes.
...

Every step we take
could have been a step
in another direction.
This time we choose
to go to the canal.
By the time we reach it
the day decides to stop
following us around.
While we are picking
our way down, watching our feet,
the park packs up, the city
moves a few miles away.
Children's voices are balloons
released to open sky.
Behind us footsteps fade,
streets turn into water.
Leaf by leaf, the day
grows smaller. Whoever we are now,
this has been bequeathed to us.
Every other claimant has stepped aside.
Our steps the only steps.
The last finger of light points out
landmarks we do not recognise.
Still, between the cobbled banks,
cradled by bare branches.
we know we will be safe.
Now, even the unknown path
will tow us home.
...

One day they said
she was old enough to learn some shame.
She found it came quite naturally.
...

Did you expect dignity?

All you see is bodies
crumpled carelessly, and thrown
away.
...

Yes, I do feel like a visitor,
a tourist in this world
that I once made.
I rarely talk,
...

The best way to put
things in order is
to make a list.
...

I was born a foreigner.
I carried on from there
to become a foreigner everywhere
I went, even in the place
...

It's a great day, Sunday,
when we pile into the car
and set off with a purpose -
a pilgrimage across the city,
...

Did you expect dignity?

All you see is bodies
crumpled carelessly, and thrown
away.
The arms and legs are never arranged
heroically.

It's the same with lovers,
after the battle-lines are drawn:
combatants thrown
into something they have not
had time to understand.
And in the end, just
a reflex turning away,
when there is nothing, really,
left to say;

when the body becomes a territory
shifting across uneasy sheets;

when you retreat behind
the borderline of skin.

Turning, turning,
barbed wire sinking in.


* * *


These two countries lie
hunched against each other,
distrustful lovers
who have fought bitterly
and turned their backs;
but in sleep, drifted slowly
in, moulding themselves
around the cracks
to fit together,
whole again; at peace.
Forgetful of hostilities
until, in the quiet dawn,
the next attack.


* * *


Checkpoint:
The place in the throat
where words are halted,
not allowed to pass,
where questions form
and are not asked.

Checkpoint:
The space on the skin
that the other cannot touch;
where you are the guard
at every post
holding a deadly host
of secrets in.

Checkpoint:
Another country. You.
Your skin the bright, sharp line
that I must travel to.


* * *


I watch his back,
and from my distance map
its breadth and strength.

His muscles tense.
His body tightens
into a posture of defence.

He goes out, comes in.
His movements are angles
sharp enough to slice my skin.

He cuts across the room
his territory. I watch
the cautious way he turns his head.

He throws back the sheet. At last
his eyes meet mine.

Together,
we have reached the battle-line.


* * *


Having come home,
all you can do is leave.

Spaces become too small.
Doors and windows begin
to hold your breath.
Floors shift underfoot, you bruise yourself
against a sudden wall.

You come into a room.
Strangers haggle over trivial things,
a grey hair curls in a comb.
Someone tugs sadly at your sleeve.

But no one screams.


* * *


Because, leaving home,
you call yourself free.

Because, behind you,
barbed wire grows
where you once
had planted a tree.
...

The best way to put
things in order is
to make a list.
The result of this
efficiency is that everything
is named, and given
an allotted place.

But I find, when I begin,
there are too many things,
starting from black holes
all the way to safety pins.

And of course the whole
of history is still there.
Just the fact that it has
already happened doesn't mean
it has gone elsewhere.
It is sitting hunched
on people's backs,
wedged in corners
and in cracks,
and has to be accounted for.
The future too.

But I must admit
the bigger issues interest
me less and less.

My list, as I move down in,
becomes domestic,
a litany of laundry
and of groceries.
These are the things
that preoccupy me.

The woman's blouse is torn.
It is held together
with a safety pin.
...

I was born a foreigner.
I carried on from there
to become a foreigner everywhere
I went, even in the place
planted with my relatives,
six-foot tubers sprouting roots,
their fingers and faces pushing up
new shoots of maize and sugar cane.

All kinds of places and groups
of people who have an admirable
history would, almost certainly,
distance themselves from me.

I don't fit,
like a clumsily-translated poem;

like food cooked in milk of coconut
where you expected ghee or cream,
the unexpected aftertaste
of cardamom or neem.

There's always that point where
the language flips
into an unfamiliar taste;
where words tumble over
a cunning tripwire on the tongue;
where the frame slips,
the reception of an image
not quite tuned, ghost-outlined,
that signals, in their midst,
an alien.

And so I scratch, scratch
through the night, at this
growing scab on black on white.
Everyone has the right
to infiltrate a piece of paper.
A page doesn't fight back.
And, who knows, these lines
may scratch their way
into your head -
through all the chatter of community,
family, clattering spoons,
children being fed -
immigrate into your bed,
squat in your home,
and in a corner, eat your bread,

until, one day, you meet
the stranger sidling down your street,
realise you know the face
simplified to bone,
look into its outcast eyes
and recognise it as your own.
...

Yes, I do feel like a visitor,
a tourist in this world
that I once made.
I rarely talk,
except to ask the way,
distrusting my interpreters,
tired out by the babble
of what they do not say.
I walk around through battered streets,
distinctly lost,
looking for landmarks
from another, promised past.

Here, in this strange place,
in a disjointed time,
I am nothing but a space
that sometimes has to fill.
Images invade me.
Picture postcards overlap my empty face
demanding to be stamped and sent.

‘Dear . . . '
Who am I speaking to?
I think I may have misplaced the address,
but still, I feel the need
to write to you;
not so much or your sake
as for mine,

to raise these barricades
against my fear:
Postcards from god.
Proof that I was here.
...