The Silenced Cry by Ana Tortajada

Author:Ana Tortajada
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

TUESDAY, AUGUST 8, 2000.

Islamabad.

You won’t seem like a stranger if you adapt to what’s in front of you.

We get up at five in the morning. As has been the plan, today we leave for Islamabad. It’s a five-hour road trip, and so we decide to take the bus, on account of its air-conditioning, even if it’s a relatively expensive mode of transportation here: a dollar per passenger.

We pack our bags for the two-night trip. Our driver comes to pick us up and takes us to the station, where he’ll wait until he’s sure we’re safely on the bus, loaded mostly with Pakistani businessmen who will be making the trip with us. We are the only women on board. Dark curtains are drawn over each window, plunging the interior of the bus into shadow.

On our way to the station, we drive past the children carrying the steaming cans again. Azada explains to us that they contain smoldering aromatic substances whose vapors are supposed to be good for one’s health.

The bus station is a place of dust, noise, and constant activity. Travelers, vagrants, beggars, drivers, conductors, and children selling sundry items to the travelers: sodas, cookies, and candy.

We take seats near the back of the bus. Once full, it somehow reminds me of a small movie theater. Finally, we’re off. I open the window shades so I can look out at the places we’re driving through. But once the sun gets too strong, the driver asks us to close them again. I don’t want to travel the entire way without seeing anything, and so I stick my head between the curtain and the glass so I can continue to peek out. We cross a bridge spanning a river. I’m surprised to see two different colors of water: reddish brown and greenish blue. Azada tells me that the waters of two rivers are mixing here. One of them is the Kabul River.

Kabul, Kabul … These waters really come from Kabul? Will we actually make it there? I am sure of it. We’ll get our visas. It will all work out fine.

As we drive—and just as when our plane came in for a landing the other day—the landscape and its colors begin to change. The dust, dryness, and ochre tones give way to humidity, greenness, and exuberance. Kipling’s India, perhaps. Islamabad is the new capital of the new Pakistan. It was designed ten years after the split with India; a city with no history and no past, so as to contradict the two traditional major cities: the center of political power in Lahore, and the center of economic power in Karachi. It’s much like Brasília, in these ways. It’s designed very geometrically, with wide avenues, modern buildings, embassies, institutions, and offices. Beautiful and cold. Ostentatious and artificial. I’m older than it is. But it sits alongside Rawalpindi—“Pindi,” as it’s been nicknamed—which is ancient and legendary. We’re in Punjab, in the area known as Five Waters.

Azada has taken her shoes off so she can draw her legs up onto her seat.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.