Summary
Lenny describes how Lahore has changed since the population exchange. The Hindus and Sikhs with their colorful clothes and particular hairstyles are gone. Beadon Road now “looks like any other populous street.” In place of all these people who are gone there is “only hordes of Muslim refugees.” In the neighborhoods of the cities, shops and homes have been scavenged. Mobs of looters first take away things like furniture and clothes, then poorer groups come and take doors, ceiling fans, rafters, and so on. Gardens are overgrown. Some houses have been taken over by new occupants. Near the Singhs’ old house there is a refugee family living secretly. They are frightened and mourning their dead. Other houses remain empty and Lenny notes how quickly an empty house decays. They look haunted, just as Ayah’s eyes do. She is mourning Masseur. Ayah no longer sees friends. Most of them have left Lahore. She walks around the city with Lenny, visiting places that Masseur used to go with them. She remembers the songs he would sing.
Mother is no longer going out in the car as much. Lenny thinks that there are fewer burning buildings too. Or is she just getting used to it? Processions are still happening with their crowds of people yelling religious or nationalist slogans. However, they have “lost their urgency.” That is, until one morning when a mob of men are chanting near Lenny’s family’s house. Everyone there senses that this is something dangerous. Mother and Ayah come out on the veranda like a “lioness with her cubs.” Then men begin shouting “Allah-o-Akbar!” or “God is great!” Then Lenny notices that Ayah has disappeared. Because she is Hindu, she must hide. The men come with carts and baskets into the family’s driveway. Imam Din then comes out and yells at them. They ask where the Hindus are and Imam Din says they are none. He insults the man. Because of his advanced age and tough demeanor, and the fact that he too is Muslim, the crowd respects him and begins calming down. The crowd said that there were Hindu names on the gates, but Imam Din explains that the Hindu family has left and the one remaining is Parsee. They also ask about Hari the gardener but Imam Din explains that he is Muslim now. They ask for proof, including his circumcised penis and an Arabic prayer. As for the sweeper, he has become Christian. Then they ask about Ayah and Imam Din tells them she has gone. They do not fully believe him though he swears to God. Then Ice-candy-man appears and asks Lenny where Ayah is, promising that he will protect her. As soon as Lenny tells him, she realizes that she has betrayed Ayah. Men start pushing past Imam Din and Yousaf. They run through the house as the mob gets bolder. They drag Ayah out violently, touching her as they push her into the cart. As Lenny watches the look of fear in Ayah’s eyes, she gets angry at herself for not having been able to lie.
Analysis
The chapter begins with descriptions of the rich human diversity of Lahore before the partition of India and Pakistan: “colorful turbans, hairy bodies, yellow shorts, tight pajamas, and glittering religious arsenal of the Sikhs” and “Brahmins with castemarks—or Hindus with dhoties and bodhis.” Now the city has changed and there are refugees everywhere. These refugees are shown to be scared and traumatized. Those who have moved into abandoned homes are just grateful to be there. At the same time, there are mobs who roam the city stealing and looting what has been left behind by Hindus, Sikhs, and others. Just as the city has transformed, these houses change too. They look haunted. In a powerful simile, Ayah’s eyes haunted by memories of Masseur are compared to a “house pining for its departed." In another strong image, Ice-candy-man follows Ayah around the city as she follows the memory of Masseur’s song: “it impels Ice-candy-man to climb the steep steps of the minarets after us…He follows us everywhere as we walk, hand in hand, two hungry wombs…Impotent mothers under the skin.”
An important theme in this chapter is how easy it is to get used to new realities. Lenny wonders whether the mobs roaming the streets really have gotten quieter or whether the fires burning the city really have decreased, or whether people have just adapted to these new realities. “Does one get used to everything? Anything?” Lenny asks.
At the same time, the mob that comes to Lenny’s family’s house shows that the violence is continuing. The group of people looking for remaining Hindus are first described as a single mass as if all the angry have transformed into one creature. Yet after Lenny is able to spot the butcher and others, the crowd dissolves into real people: “And then the men are no longer just fragmented parts of a procession: they become individual personalities whose faces I study, seeking friends.” Yet individual friends can also deceive. Ice-candy-man’s face is “hypnotic, reassuring, blotting out the ugly frightening crowd.” He tricks Lenny into giving up Ayah’s hiding spot. The sinister or mysterious side of Ice-candy-man’s personality now becomes clear. His descriptions of chasing Ayah around the city foreshadowed this other side of him. Though he has acted like he loves Ayah, he gives her up to the crowd without hesitation. And Lenny returns to the theme of truth and lies. In earlier chapters, she expressed her dissatisfaction with being unable to lie. She was told about this aspect of her personality by Mother, Godmother, and others. Now her honesty has dire results. Watching Ayah being taken away, she chastises herself through animal comparisons: “I am the monkey-man’s performing monkey, the trained circus elephant, the snake-man’s charmed cobra, an animal with conditioned reflexes that cannot lie…”
