The Ghosts of Kashmir

Madan Singh watched the shadow of the army jeep elongate as the pale sun swung over Dal Lake. Soldiers went back and forth from the jeep to an enclosure fortified by sandbags. Sentries peered over machine gun barrels as people walked by huddled in pherans and shawls. No one leveled eyes with the soldiers. The fog arrived, swirling around the dome of the Hazratbal mosque, erasing its graceful contours. Through a gap in the window, the wind whistled. Madan shivered.

“Where is the lawyer?” a voice asked.

Madan looked up startled. He had heard neither knock nor footstep. A hunched old man in tattered, musty clothes stood at the door. He was coughing into a handkerchief. Having arrived only a week before, Madan knew the man wanted his mentor, Ghulam Mohammed. “He's away at the High Court. Can I help you?”

The visitor bent over in another spasm of coughing. He looked like he was in his seventies, with fading hair and a patchy beard flecked with white. As he gasped for breath, Madan remembered his mentor's advice to use the early moments of an interview to size up a client. Ghulam Mohammed said good lawyers could figure out what their clients wanted before they had uttered a single word. People's troubles and secrets, he had declared, were like their medical ailments, jealously guarded but visible to the trained eye. Did they seem aggrieved or anxious? Did they seem in a rush to acquire legal representation? Did they post a bodyguard at the door — a sign that criminal connections were probably involved?

“I need a lawyer,” the old man finally said. His voice was raspy, as if from disuse. “My Basheer, my son has — are you a lawyer?”

“I am,” Madan said crisply, waving at a recently framed certificate on the wall. The National Law School of India, Bangalore, hereby attests that MADAN DOHA SINGH has completed all requirements toward the degree Bachelor of Laws. Madan had hung a flowering plant to hide the date on the bottom of the certificate because it was only weeks old. Before t