Kashmir Point

Score the sheet with your x-acto knife,
following the blue lines on the underlying floor plan.
Now run the blade on this groove until the acrylic comes apart.

Kamil hovered around me as I worked on the cuttings.
I had been at 118-N a few months now, in this time I had learned many things among them arithmetic, the use of a calculator—

Try not to cut the paper underneath.

I had learned also the language of floor plans,
the acts of construction and measurement at scale and techniques for miniature model-making among other tricks of architecture.

When I set out from Bagh to work in this city, I expected that I’ll be working with my hands, but not like this. Working at the scale of 1 inch to 10 feet required patience, a stable hand with which to build passages the width of a finger, a kind of concentration that I am capable of but am not used to sustaining. It is similar to a brief mood that sometimes sets in after the morning prayer,
except now I had to draw it out for hours and hours.

Kamil was not great at being still. He got squeaky and was always saying things.
When he sat in a chair, his legs moved restlessly.
When he clicked on the computer mouse, his free hand tugged impatiently at his hair.
But I had years of practice. As a young shepherd I took my neighbors’ goats out to the fields and watched them graze all day.

For our miniature construction, we used translucent sheets of orange. Kamil would measure out the lengths to scale. I’d cut the pieces and then hold them together, joining one plane with the other.
I would keep very still as Kamil applied the adhesive.

~

It was the spring of 2007. Bougainvillea flowers bloomed on both sides of the residential street, bunching and falling over the boundary walls of large houses. I was out of breath having just walked up the steep hill to Kashmir Point. I didn’t check for the number plate, but the house had been easy to spot. It was tall and set back like a mountain. Its white walls were long, and uniform, but with intricate grooves in them. Uncle Iqbal from the village had worked here many years, sweeping the floors, fetching stuff from the market, chopping down the wood, and so on. But after the big earthquake last year, he had returned to Bagh and set up a roadside canteen. I was the eldest son, so my father had sent me here, hoping that I would emulate Iqbal’s success.

~

I remember the first time I met Kamil, a face had peered at me from above the gate.
He had lively dark eyes and hair like coal.

Later I would learn many things about him–that he was a loud kid, demanding and domineering–but I didn’t know then how I would get into the habit of looking at his strong brown neck, especially where it emerged from his shirt collar, and that I’d come to gaze at his lips with a new kind of license...

At that time, I had been assigned a room in the out house. It was complete with a small bed, a lamp, and a radio. My duties were unclear at first, but overtime I began to work in the studio.

~

His quickness and his even temper—and his green eyes, his pale cheeks, his youth—all this had saved Asim from the typical housekeeping work reserved for those who come to the doors of large houses in this part of the world and had earned him hourly employment
in the kaarkhana of M. Abdullah.

~

Our acrylic model was made in stackable parts. The building had a three-sixty degree view of the lake. Each floor level could be lifted in this way to reveal what was underneath.

We made cross sections, adding human silhouettes to show patterns of use and habitation.

In this period between idea and built reality we allowed ourselves to imagine that we might also run up the stairs into the hanging gardens, or take our tea on the 5th floor balcony as the sun sets across the Jhelum river.

~

One evening we sat together listening to the radio. This is what we talked about then: how will we know if other life forms are intelligent? (By looking for the messages they send). Is there life on other planets? (Yes). Can Seneca, the dog, see us through the workshop walls?

Eventually Kamil fell asleep next to me. I listened to the radio until its battery died. By the time my eyes opened late at night, the lamp bulb had burned itself out. I could hear Kamil’s soft breathing in the dark room.

~

We built out of thin cardboard all the major shapes in the city. We added layer after layer of contour to make the topography. It took several cuts to form the hills and to show the steep run off into the lake.

After a day’s work, the two of us lay in the grass, in the shade of the tall cypresses of 118-N.
I peeled an orange for both of us to eat.

When I am sad, I draw houses on AutoCAD, Kamil told me. In these houses there are large libraries and long chambers to walk alone in.

What is a library? I asked. Giving him an orange slice.

It is a place for holding books. Kamil tried to explain. It is a place where books are arranged so that you never lose them. Basically it is a room with many shelves, like the shelves in our workshop, but instead of tools, books.

I can build a library for you, I said.

The next day, we played a game of football against each other. Kamil was bad at it. Clumsy, and easily exhausted. Fretful and angry when he did poorly. I scored twice. He got upset, and went off the field.

Monsoon rain. Kamil said it was the most peaceful sound, like God playing his xylophone, this rain rolling over gentle rocks and rushing down deep into the nullahs.

We were running the last sprints of the day. Even with the rain, I felt a tingling heat in my back—a sense that someone had been peering at us from behind the bougainvillea branches that twirled up the terraces of 118-N. I was the older one, although no more experienced than him, but perhaps more attuned to this pattern of things, the sense that life could begin and end on our next step, but that we had no choice but to carry on with a process that had always been ongoing.

Cascades of rain beat down on the hard earth. Our lights had gone out, so the work could not continue. We played hide and seek to pass this time. I searched for him, and eventually I found him in a bush. On a whim, I wrestled him to the ground. He was ticklish, kicking his legs in protest. I had gotten muddy as I pinned him down. I didn’t understand then the loud engine of my heart. I wanted and so I bit his neck. His skin searing hot against my mouth. I pulled away to look at him. How did I know to do this, I am not sure, but there I kissed him hard on his lips.

“What are you doing! Pigs!” Miss Abdullah admonished from above. We scuttled out of sight. Ears reddened with shame.

He didn’t come down to the workshop much after that. He said he was working on a different project, some cut and fill calculations for Mujahid town road. Monsoon passed. Kamil went away to the capital city for further schooling.

By then, my work had also ended at 118-N. I packed my bags and returned to the village, where a crisp snow-covered landscape welcomed me. Across this expanse, the trees were bare, devoid of pinecones.

Snow fell incessantly that winter, obscuring the particulars of my surroundings. I was accompanied then by a small bird that would return, landing on my window, as if seeking a reason to stay. When I looked out across a landscape so blank and open, I saw no signs, any particular sense of home had by now been erased. The small rooms I had made with Kamil, gone. The translucent orange of the walls, gone. The blue of the lake, its delectable fish, all gone.

But soon after spring came, and many flowers appeared where once the snow had fallen. I settled into the routine glow of village life. I made the trek regularly to Nerian Sharif, where Pir Siddiqui took notice of me. I was increasingly honorable in my commercial dealings, though I allowed myself to weep openly during the Pirs’ lectures. As the Bagh highway opened back up, I obtained tools to set up my workshop. I began to work, building wooden doors and cabinets for the folk in my village.