I will tell you something, but only if you promise to forget it.

She couldn’t reach her story directly, which is why she started from the history of everything. We lived in a small happy village next to this river, she said.

A LONG NIGHT BY KARANBIR SINGH M 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 126

At the checkpoint my grandmother clutched her purse tightly. Security stamped our passports and we crossed the border from India to Pakistan.

My grandmother asked the cab driver to take a route along the Ravi River, before taking us to her village, Malk Pura. The driver knew it was a longer route, but the longer it was the more money he made.

Along the way, my grandmother told the driver to park near a tea stall, and gave him some money for tea.

We got out of the cab and my grandmother walked quickly, her purse still closely held, past some tall grass and trees to the river. She touched the ice-cold water, and fell to the ground. I ran to her, picked her up, and took her to a place to sit. She kept looking at the river.

Then she loosened her grip on her purse and held my hand. Her breathing changed.

There was a silence, but I could hear the birds, the river flowing, and my heartbeat.

“Kabir, I will tell you something,” she said, “but only if you promise to forget it.”

I’m not good at forgetting things, but I knew at this point she was talking more to herself, and she needed me to play a character of a voice beyond my 28 years. “Of course, I can,” I said, as softly as I could.

She couldn’t reach her story directly, which is why she started from the history of everything.

“We lived in a small happy village next to this river. In those days your grandfather was a captain in the British Indian Army,” my grandmother said.