Part 2 (1/2)

'A cavity.'

'What for?'

'Get yourself a woman.'

I shut my eyes. The wind whistled between the mountains.

'Chef, you should not say that.'

'Get yourself '

'Chef, what does this city look like in winter?'

'A white calico,' he said. 'Snow covers all the rooftops and streets down in the valley and hides all the ungainly parts, just like a sari hides the ungainly parts of a wom '

'White, the color of mourning,' I stammered.

'Kip, no more mourning-forning,' he said.

'What is that?'

'You need a woman.'

'Chef, in summers are there mosquitoes in Kashmir?'

'Mosques and mosquitoes.'

'What?'

'The mosques we can manage, but we are still learning how to eradicate the mosquitoes.'

'How does one eradicate?'

'Hit them in the b.a.l.l.s.'

'Chef is joking.'

'There is another way. If you make them fly out of the mosques, the wind will freeze their b.a.l.l.s. You see the flags outside the mosques? Sometimes they flutter like insane creatures in the wind. Cold winds come from the glacier and madden them.'

'Where is the glacier?' I asked.

He pointed towards the distant mountains on my right, and my gaze remained fixed on the glaring whiteness that covered them.

'Siachen Glacier, kid.'

So that was Siachen. It was staring back at us. I grew silent. I had been feeling its presence for a while. The beast had swallowed my father. Father's plane had crashed on Siachen. The wing landed not far from the bakery in Srinagar, but the main body of the plane disappeared in a deep creva.s.se.

'That glacier is bigger than the city of Bombay, kid.'

I took a deep breath.

'I knew your father,' he said, clearing his throat.

'Did you know him well?'

'Only from a distance. I knew him, he didn't know me. I was only a cook.'

I kept silent.

'Seeing the wing had fallen in the bazaar the loathsome Kashmiris stepped out of their shops and chanted anti-India slogans. Our boys had to shoot one or two to disperse the crowd. The wing as you know is now in the War Museum in Delhi.'

'Did Father have his uniform on that day?'

'Let the dead rest,' he said. 'At your age you must think about women.'

He moved closer. His breath fell on my face, smell of cardamom.

'Your father has become one with the glacier, Kip. It was not long after the President decorated his chest with the Param Vir Chakra, the highest decoration our army gives to the brave.'

'He fought two wars with the enemy.'

'Yes. And because of that the army wanted to make you an officer.'

I said nothing. I turned my gaze towards the bikes, which were leaning against a tree not far from us, his saddle higher than mine.

'But I have heard that you could not clear the medical exam, Kirpal. Is this true? Is this their indirect way? To make you a chef first, and then promote you? An officer's son will always become an officer. Certain things never change in our country.'

I surveyed his face and thought 'I am looking at eyes that have looked at my father.' There were things he knew about my father that he would never reveal to me.

'Is it possible?' I asked, moving away from him. 'My worst fear is that the glacier might release Father's body in the land of the enemy and '

'No,' he interrupted. That was impossible. He drew a picture of the glacier on a torn sheet of paper. Then he asked me to label it in 'Inglish'.

'You see, Kip, the tongue of the glacier is in India and the whole ma.s.s is s.h.i.+fting slowly towards our side. His body will definitely be released on the soil of our country. The only way the body might transfer to Pakistan is if the glacier starts retreating very fast and becomes a part of the river, which is unlikely.'

'Nothing is unlikely,' I said.

'Certain things are unlikely,' he said and touched my cheek.

I asked him to withdraw his hand. Chef took a while.

'Not so long ago,' he said, 'there was an old Norwegian tourist who while trekking through the Himalayas found the body of his father at the foot of Siachen. The glacier had released the body fully preserved. His father was much younger than him.'

'I read that news in the paper,' I said. 'Two days later the glacier released the body of a soldier whose plane crashed before the Part.i.tion.'

'Good news,' exclaimed Chef. 'The soldier belongs to India.'