Rex Maurice Oppenheimer
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Steel Notes Magazine
JOURNEY
TO INDIA
Terror In Kashmir
Rex Maurice Oppenheimer
The clouds looked like the white beards of wise old men as they hung around the Himalayan peaks that surrounded the Vale of Kashmir . Pathways that animals and humans had trod for centuries descended the green foothills , past glinting slate roofs and stone buildings , as they funneled down to Nagin Lake .
Sitting in her shikara Nikki began to row , watching the current swirling around the oar as though hoping to read her fortune in the color and movement of the water , her own reflection wavering on the surface . Her image dissolved as she stroked , and sent the canoe gliding past the floating gardens of lotus and lily .
She pulled in the oar sat back and took a deep breath , inhaling a moment of peace . As evening approached and darkness fell , women in saris balanced vessels on their heads and trudged along the bank . Nikki wished she could stop everything and draw the whole world into this quiet . Yet she was also straining to move on , to put the oar back in the water and propel herself forward , across the lake , across the sea , to trudge her own path of meaning .
Nikki ’ s search for meaning , which had begun as a schoolgirl ’ s poems when she was 16 , had somewhere along the line turned into a struggle for survival . Her dreams and desires , like hotheaded lovers who fight and fuck , had led her on and cut her off . Now , at 27 , perhaps fate had finally given her a sign that everything had always been leading to this . It was going to be okay .
Rowing through the blue-green Kashmiri dusk , she entered the main body of the lake . Her shikara bounced on the wind-rippled water as she headed toward the far shore and the houseboat she shared with Anatol .
Anatol was the only man who had ever made Nikki feel protected . They had met when some vendors and touts had accosted her on the street in Srinagar . Young boys , who at first had just pestered her to buy some trinkets , but soon they had become dangerous . They cornered her and herded her into an alleyway . One had put his hand on her breast , while his friend pulled a knife from his belt . Nikki was about to scream , when another clasped her mouth with his hand , his hot breath close on her neck .
Suddenly , Anatol had appeared . The boys stopped and looked at him . He spoke to them quietly , in Kashmiri or Urdu , she wasn ’ t sure which , but they had listened to every word . Then all of them ran in different directions .
Nikki still didn ’ t know what Anatol had said to frighten them . She asked him , but he just said that he ’ d told them to leave
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89
Terror
in Kashmir