The Peacocks Dance

The Peacock's dance

The peacock had not danced today. Allah Ditta knew it would dance no
more. But still he opened the window in time to see the dance of the
peacock. Perhaps there never was any peacock, or any dance. He could
not be sure, but there must have been something of beauty, for how else
did he have a peacock's feather. And why did this feather pull him to
itself? And why did it send burning shock waves through his body when
he rubbed it across his face?

The peacock could dance no more. On that day he knew he had seen its
last dance, and on this occasion it had not stopped its dance even
after looking down at its own feet. Nor had he seen it shed its
legendary tears. It was then that Allah Ditta had wondered, perhaps
youth had been a delusion, and friendship, its unfaithful companion -
all trapped in a flimsy ribcage of time.

The peacock had danced its last. He had seen the three boys coming out
of the thick canopy of Ivy that had been trained over the rotting
wooden fence behind which was held the outer limit of Bracken bank
estate. They were young, perhaps only just out of their teens. They too
had been mesmerised by the dazzling brilliance of the cascading
psychedelic beauty of the peacock's ritual. Allah Ditta had seen them
peering through the fence; gaping at the dance of the peacock.

The peacock had opened its crown for the last time. Its circular shadow
falling backwards over the freshly mowed lawn must surely have been
ignorant of the impeding doom. Why else would it have embraced the
shade of a solitary cloud sliding above in an expanse of heavenly blue?
Allah Ditta was to wonder this for the rest of his life. Whilst the
shade of the cloud, slithered off the shadow of the dancing peacock,
the three boys quickly ran across the streaks of the lawn and hid
themselves under the protective arms of a Weeping Willow.

A strange stillness hung in the humid air of his damp room. It was
broken by the frustrated cries of a fly, trapped behind the yellowing
net curtains that were swaying gently, like a ripple in an old lake, as
though a hidden hand was moving up and down. If it had not been for the
fly, Allah Ditta may not have heard the sighs of the memories carried
to him by a hot summer's wind.

"Why are you whispering pain in my ear?" Allah Ditta asked the wind as
he looked at himself in the mirror. He did not fully recognise the
balding white bearded old wreck of a man who grinned a mischievous
youthful smile back at him. A small round face, with thin lips and a
patchy silver beard looked out for someone who had withered away and
ceased to be. He saw the quivering lips move and he said in protest,
"Memories! Men in mirrors have no need of you."

Staring in the mirror he saw the eyes of the mischievously youthful
face looking out of the window. For a moment he thought he saw the
peacock dancing, but then shook his head in disbelief. A wave rippled
through the curtain and he heard the fly buzzing louder and then it
crashed against the glass and went silent for a moment. Just as he was
about to turn away from the mirror, the fly noisily resumed its hunt
for freedom. The wind whispered a ghostly lament into Allah Ditta's
ears and he smiled with the thought that half a century or so ago,
before coming to England, he had thought that this country was so clean
that there were no flies here.

Drawing the net curtains back Allah Ditta only confirmed that which he
already knew. There would be no dance today. Sticking his head out of
the window, Allah Ditta inhaled the scent of Jasmine flowers. He felt
the scent burning a hole in his body as it went deeper and deeper into
his soul. He began to drift back to another time.

It had been the end of a day in which the relentless heat of the summer
had been broken by the first droplets of the monsoons. It had rained
after many months and the earth was thirsty. Even the birds of the
rugged red brown hills surrounding his village had stopped singing,
perhaps in anticipation of the rains proper. Or maybe Allah Ditta had
thought, they like him had been intoxicated by the fresh fumes of the
dry earth being hit by the first raindrops.

He used to meet his Beloved in a small crevice of the snaking hills in
whose palm sat his village. Children of the village lived in awe of the
crevice. It was said by the wise departed, that each year, just before
the beginning of the monsoons, the moure, a mysterious peacock, used to
come and spread its feathers, waiting for its lover. But she could only
come to him, but for a moment, once every hundred years. And his love
was so strong that he waited and waited. Finally the day of the reunion
arrived. But evil men, from distant lands, talking in strange tongues
came and captured the moureni and took her away. She was never seen
again. The loss of his lover made the moure's heart explode inside his
chest and his feathers flew out of his body and scattered into the
hills. Lovers have searched for these ever since.

Unlike other children, Allah Ditta and Zakia had no fear of the crevice
and against the wishes of their parents, had always played in it. Once
when he had been around sixteen, Zakia had had to leave the village for
a few weeks. Allah Ditta had gone to the crevice in the middle of the
night and played his flute till just before dawn. The children of the
village started to believe that the moure had returned and was singing
for his moureni.

Just after the last Azaan, when the faithful went to pray at the
village mosque, Zakia had worn a peacock feather in the knot of her
Jasmine oiled black hair. Drops of sweat shone like pearls on her soft
dark skin. He declared his life's dream to her.

"You cannot get to England," Zakia said light heartedly. Her flaming
eyes shining under a blazing full moon. With a quick dexterous movement
she caught a glowworm. Her fist glowed in its desire. Letting it go she
said, "See, tandarnas never let go of their light."

"There is nothing a man cannot do if he should set his mind it," Allah
Ditta mused stroking the feather.

"An aajri, who plays his flute to please shadows," Zakia said pulling
the bamboo instrument, out of the top pocket of his kurta, "how can
someone like him, without two annas, raise rupees?" She rubbed the
flute through his dark curly hair. Raising it skywards she drew an ark
in the air. The flute cried.

"I need no ticket." Allah Ditta sulked falsely pulling Zakia's thin
body into a tight embrace. Closing his eyes he descended into a joyous
silence hailing deeply on the Jasmine in Zakia's freshly washed
hair.

"Will an angel take you to England?" Zakia asked pushing him away only
to adjust herself closer to his moist body.

"Silly!" Allah Ditta smaned. Something slimy rubbed against his
foot. "Snake!" Allah Ditta shouted in terror, "Cobra!"

"Shh, now," Zakia said calmly brushing dust off her long thin arms.
"Snakes don't sting lovers." Shaking grit out of her chapples she
added, "Unless they forsake love."

"What else can I do?" Allah Ditta asked sullenly

"You will do here what you will do there."

"How will I ever make a home?"

"God will help."

"How will I marry you?"

"We are already married. God is my witness."

"I have to do what I have to do," Allah Ditta said in a soft voice
whose journey to Zakia's ears a whistling wind had interrupted.

Zakia returned a forlorn smile.

They remained in a deep love filled silent embrace. Glow-worms
flickered about them. The sound of the animals and the people of the
village rose up in an unintelligible cacophonony above the lovers, like
a dark rumbling monsoon cloud, which only threatens to shed itself and
then passes.

*****
Zakia had found the peacock's feather, by the side of the GT road,
stuck in the thorns of a wild bush, but she had lied to Allah Ditta,
telling him she had found it in the crevice. Of course, he knew this
not to be the truth, but this sweat lie, tasted so good, that he would
not exchange it for anything in the world.

A few days after this meeting Zakia had given Allah Ditta a gold
bracelet that had been passed down through the generations to her. He
had given this as a deposit to the agent, with the promise of sending
money back to him, so that Zakia could take it back.

Their last clandestine meeting of love had been brief and solemn. It
was the night before he was leaving for England. The whole village had
come to say their farewells. Just after the last Azaan, he had left for
the crevice and there waiting for him had been Zakia, with wet eyes,
shining in the moonlight.

"No words my love," Zakia had said, "I have given you all I have and I
have cried for both of us." Plucking the peacock feather out of her
hair she had placed it gently in his hand. Before he had had a chance
to say anything she had turned around and slipped out of the crevice
disappearing into a swarm of glow-worms.

******

A few drops of rain fell down from the cloudless English sky and
pattered on Allah Ditta's head, chasing away with its coming the swarms
of memories meandering in his mind. Taking a deep laboured breath he
became conscious of the imprisoning embrace of the jasmine. He held his
breath for a while and then slowly let out a tired sigh as he tried to
free himself from the scented clasp. It was futile. A thick sticky
aroma started gnawing the back of his throat. He was leaning out of the
window, with his clenched fist shaking by the ledge.

The sun was now gleaming off the tops of tall erect poplars that stood
uniformly along the western wing of the gardens. A halo of light hung
over the tips of the trees and the sun peeped through the branches.
Straining his eyes he tried to find the glow-worms from the crevice of
his youth, now floating in the poplars. But it was only the winking
sun, twinkling in between the leaves, swaying to the moans of an
easterly wind. Allah Ditta tried to dive back into the sweet taste of
the shadows now floating in his head. Alas, those melodious memories of
the crevice of his love, drowned in to a blank void in which he now
slipped. The taste of the Jasmine continued to linger on, with the
scent whisked away by the winds.

With the fading scent of the Jasmine, Allah Ditta felt the world around
him being drained of sound. Closing his large quivering eyes, he felt
the wind tickling his thick silver brows. Raising his head skywards he
inhaled deeply, taking in a faint lost whiff of Jasmine, that had
somehow lingered on in between the crossing winds. After holding his
breath for a few moments he opened his eyes, half expecting to see his
old friend, dancing, in the same spot that had now been burnt in his
memory. The wind went silent. The trees moved ever so quietly. No birds
sang. The peacock was not dancing. The silence was so intense that it
rang like a tuning fork inside his head. He felt a strange burning
sorrow rumbling in his gut. It was sorrow tied down by loss. Of what,
he could no longer articulate. Nor did he fully understand the reason
why he rushed to block out all memories of that which he wanted to
remember. Something in his clench hand was burning into his skin. Allah
Ditta tried to open his fist. A tremor ran through his leathery hand. A
voice inside his head warned,

"Open wounds never heal."

A sudden gust of wind violently shook the leaves of the poplars. The
sun flickered. A bird screamed somewhere in the branches. He knew the
scream well. But this was the only time he had heard it flushed with a
joyous anguish - of a soul being released from bondage. Allah Ditta
looked into the blinking branches with sparkling leaves, searching for
a glimpse of his old friend. But he knew he would not find him. As the
scream was faded, Allah Ditta managed to open his hand, and there, in
his palm, stuck in heavy sweat, almost covering the deep gorges in the
valley of his hand was a withering peacock feather.

"And why have you not spread your crown and danced for me today?" Allah
Ditta whispered into the wind. The edges of the feather began to
separate and flicker gently. Allah Ditta answered what he thought was a
question brought in by the wind, "I knew you did not want to be warned.
Is that not so Beloved?" He waited for an answer and recalled the
moment when he had seen the last dance of peacock.

The three boys had sat under the weeping willow and had not moved as
the peacock started to dance. The cloud above the peacock's shadow
thinned out and began to disperse. The boys made their move. They
rushed from their hiding place and spread out in different directions,
encircling the dancing peacock. Then, ever so slowly, they
advanced.

The soft wind played a warm enchanting wail, to which the peacock
turned in Dervishish harmony. The boys had seen Allah Ditta looking out
at them. But they knew there was nothing an old wreck could do. As the
boys got closer to the peacock, Allah Ditta had felt his throat
tightening. Raising his unsteady hand he had been about to shout a
warning to the peacock. Seeing this the boys stopped in their tracks.
The peacock looked across at Allah Ditta and he felt a surge of joy
racing through his body. But words left him.

The boys waited for a few moments, and then raced towards the peacock.
One of them threw a large white net curtain over the bird. The other
two pounced on it. The peacock had given in without protest. After
fastening the peacock's legs with a think nylon rope, the boys began to
pluck the feathers out of its body. It was only then that the peacock
had cried and Allah Ditta understood that cry. Why should the peacock
have to live bereft of the beauty of the camouflage of its crown? Once
they finished tearing the feathers out of the peacocks, the boys tied
their booty into a large bundle inside the net curtains and had left
laughing. They tossed the bleeding body into a rubbish bin.

By the time Allah Ditta reached the place of the peacocks dethroning,
the boys had long since gone. Their laughter lingered on in the air,
dripping with the shadows of screams of the peacock's.

"I won't desert you." Allah Ditta said raising his arm towards the
rubbish bin. Lifting the lid off the bin Allah Ditta looked straight
into the eyes of the peacock. The peacock closed its eyes dejectedly
and turned its head away. "Come my friend," Allah Ditta said in a soft
voice tempered with harshness of age, "I will nurse you."

Allah Ditta lowered himself into the bin and reached out for the
peacock. The peacock turned its head round and opened its eyes as Allah
Ditta's hand touched its body. He felt its terror race through his
body. He felt the world around him beginning to spin as he heard a
muzzled voice from somewhere deep in the shadowy mists of his mind.
Slowly, ever so slowly, a voice, not human, but humanely soothing, like
a note of a flute, trapped in the crevice of some hills, it continued
to echo upwards. Getting closer and closer with the passing of each
second. It was as though the flute was playing and the notes were being
carried by the wind.

"Why did this to happen to me here?" The voice asked. It became clearer
with the uttering of each word, until it sang its own melody so clearly
that Allah Ditta felt he was a part of the voice itself. He understood
that the peacock had at last decided to talk to him. The peacock in his
hand did not move its beak. Lovers do not need words.

"There is no answer to this question." Allah Ditta answered.

"Why did they take her from me?" The peacock asked. "We had waited for
a hundred years for our momentary re-union."

"You had no need to come to this cold cold place." Allah Ditta
said.

"It was destined so. But why did you watch my dance every day?"

"In your open wings, I saw my Beloved's accusing eyes and behind
shadows of your outstretched crown, I saw her spirit moving."

"I was just praying for one last glimpse of my soul's enslaver."

"And what became of your prayers?"

"My dance was my prayer and I am before you still praying. But why did
you watch my dance alone?"

"I am alone."

"What of your children?"

"My children!" Allah Ditta felt a sudden prickly shock run through his
body as his mind flashed back toward a time before, somewhere else.
When the grey bearded man was yet a youth. "My children," Allah Ditta
repeated to himself as faces without names, in shapeless bodies flashed
through his mind. Each one filling him with memories that turned sour
before he had had time to savour their sweetness.

"Yes your children. Where&;#8230;" the peacock said.

"Only one child." Another voice interrupted the peacock.

Allah Ditta trembled in terror, but then a reunited lover's warmth
rushed through his being as he recognised Zakia. She was saying,

"Only one child I had and that was yours. But those wolves, who parade
as yesterdays protectors and tomorrows guardians, fed it to stray dogs,
and this on that day when Allah let him breathe his first breath. And
still you did not come back."

Allah Ditta tried to run away into another voice, but wherever he
turned he was engulfed by Zakia's word. "I was trapped in debt,
beloved. All I wanted to do was to repay that, build a house and then
come back to you."

"But your house was built and still you did not come back." Zakia
said.

"It could not be finished, for my mill closed down and I could find no
other work."

"But you did find other work and I still waited and still you did not
come back."

"Yes, but Cousin Hamza was getting married, and cousin Sarah was in
hospital and uncle Majid's only son accidentally killed a man in Saudi
Arabia and I had to pay for all these and many more."

"You did all that and you still did not come back."

"I was coming when they opened the gates of Mangla Dam without any
warnings and my house was washed away in those waters that had been
forcibly imprisoned for so long.'

"Those waters subsided."

"I became unworthy of you."

"Though I would always have felt betrayal's pangs, my love would have
forgiven you."

"Then children came."

"I would have accepted them too."

"You too left this world."

"White man's greed placed fat across your eyes. We could have lived in
a house of straw and it would have been bonded in our love, which would
withstand any hurricane. We could have had that which foreign lands can
never give. We could have changed our own world, and if we had failed
trying to do this, then we would have failed together and not suffered
separations embrace. We could have planted in our children dreams that
they could have had whilst awake. They too could have gone to our
crevice of legends. But you became bewitched by a world you didn't even
know. A world of bewitching things. A sweet prison, of tortured
dreams."

"We will meet soon." Allah Ditta said

Allah Ditta waited for a reply but there was only a resentful void. The
peacock broke the silence,

"Youth only has beauty if it can change its own time and life only has
meaning trying to save Beloved. Now my friend, farewell."

Coming back to consciousness Allah Ditta had stared deeply into the
peacock's eyes for one last time and then with a quick movement of
tired hands he had wrenched its life.

The moist feather in Allah Ditta's hand was all but free from the
chains of his sweat. He could see an outline of the peacock dancing. It
was there, floating in the air above the head of the male nurse who was
pushing an old wheelchair bound man.

"Your son phoned earlier Mr Ditta and said he is very busy and won't be
able to visit you today." The nurse shouted across to Allah Ditta as he
passed by his window.

Allah Ditta heard a fly buzzing in the curtains and then he saw it
escaping skywards. Just then a sudden gust of wind washed the peacocks
feather out of Allah Ditta's trembling hand. He watched the feather,
twisting and turning, spiralling upwards, and upwards. Placing his
emptied hand into his pocket he pulled out a gold bracelet and kissed
it gently. A few tears rolled out of his bloodshot eyes.