A Thorn for Miss R.: Book I: The Night Watchman

by Sakiv Koch

  Mother came to my rescue.

  “He’s hurt and needs rest—,” she started to say, but Father silenced her with a wave of his arm.

  “I feel like taking a stroll,” I said without any hope of being allowed to go anywhere and started to get off the bed.

  “I shall return soon,” I told another lie in my desperation to be gone.

  Father acted as though he had not heard me. He stemmed my painful rise to my feet by grasping my chin in his hand and upturning my face to display its features to King Sanjay.

  “Look here, Your Majesty,” Father said, putting despise for me and reverence for the king in the tone of his voice simultaneously. “Didn’t I tell you that this lowlife creature doesn’t deserve the honor that you intend to bestow upon him? Didn’t I advise you not to attempt lifting this man out of the gutter in which he dwells so joyfully and so shamelessly?”

  Ma could hold her tongue no more. She addressed the King directly.

  “Do not forget, Your Majesty, that my poor boy saved your life. And please do not listen to my husband in this matter. He pretends, even to himself, that he doesn’t love his son anymore. He has somehow convinced himself that my Neel is not worthy of anyone’s love, that he is not trustworthy. You’ve never before, and you’ll never again see a man more deceived, more self-deceiving.”

  “Would you please be quiet?” Father requested in a commanding tone.

  Ma stood up and put her hands on her hips. Her cheeks flushed. A stray lock of her hair repeatedly took flight and fell back across her face with the rage of her breath. War trumpets sounded in my ears. Ma had relinquished her flag of peace and taken up the spear of her tongue.

  “Do you think I shall be quiet?” She growled, growing more ferocious by the second.

  “Why don’t you go home?” Father counter-questioned.

  She retorted, but I didn’t hear what she said. My head was reeling. Did Sanjay intend to bestow an honor upon me? Did he intend to elevate me to a higher position in life? How? More importantly (and more puzzlingly), why?

  I would learn the answer to my first question within moments. The second question was more elusive, more complex, although Ma had uttered a simplistic version of that answer a few minutes ago and the king was about to repeat it the very next instant.

  “Yes, he saved my life once,” Sanjay said, emitting a longish sigh, putting an end to the verbal blows my parents were still exchanging. “I’ve made up my mind,” he continued. “If Neel would accept the position, I offer to appoint him the captain of the corps of Surajgarh's Royal Guard. I am leaving for Toronto soon, and the captain would accompany me there.”

  Thrill and chill mingled in my heart. The night watchman of my boyhood and Sohan Singh, the then Captain of the royal guard, had both died on that night of horror years ago. I had taken up the first man’s duties first, and I was fated to become what the second man had been.

  Chapter 16: The Secret Shame

  Rachna flung my hand aside and turned violently upon me.

  “I hate, hate, hate you,” she cried. “Go away, and never come near me again. Never!”

  Shyam lay on his stomach a few feet away. Utterly defeated. His blood and sweat had turned the road’s dust into a thin mud, which now smeared his face. My father pinned him down to the earth with a knee grinding into the small of his back.

  Father had Shyam’s throat in the grip of his intertwined hands. And even as Rachna forbade me so vehemently to never come in contact with her again, her father began to make gurgling sounds of agony.

  There she stood with a pain-contorted face before me, hair flying wildly, tears trickling down her face, spirit and heart and soul bleeding from deep lacerations, mind darkening with a terrorized panic.

  And what did Neel do to calm her, to reassure her? He swaggered—swaggered!—to where his victorious father knelt over her defeated parent, looked with pride and love at the gloating face of the winner — an unrecognizable face, which should have disconcerted Neel, but didn’t — and strutted back to where Rachna stood crying.

  “Come on,” said I to her condescendingly, with a finger raised before her face (which she turned away from me with a jerk). “It was a fair and square fight. The better man won. That’s all.”

  She did not look at me while I spoke. In all probability, she didn’t even hear me. She ran to where Shyam lay writhing in pain and wrapped her hands around my father’s right elbow.

  “Please, please…please release him. Please let him go,” she entreated as she tugged at Father’s arm.

  Her appeal made no impact whatsoever.

  “Please, don’t hurt my father,” she continued to beg. “He’s never harmed anyone”.

  This statement did have a series of effects on Father: his lips drew back from his teeth (his incisors looked like a vampire’s). A snarl-laughter escaped his lips. His fingers dug deeper into Shyam’s throat.

  “Oh, yes, he has never hurt anyone,” Father said cynically, arching Shyam’s head farther backward, coming within an inch of snapping the strongman’s spinal cord.

  Shyam struggled for breath. His eyes climbed higher into his head so that only their whites showed. A film of spittle formed over his chin’s stubble. The men and women gathered around the fighters had just gotten out of their beds. They were bewildered.

  It was evidently very hard for them to believe that anyone could defeat their strong-as-a-bull neighbor in single combat, and defeat him so summarily. Most of them stood with their mouths hanging open. A bottle fly buzzed in and out of a hungry-looking young man’s jaws, which he snapped shut a fraction of a second too late, missing a quick, free snack.

  The hungry man’s stomach rumbled audibly and his expression turned fiery. He strode with determination toward Father, to whom Rachna still stood clinging. She appeared desolate now, no longer struggling or pleading, but just watching (with unseeing eyes) the invisible trickle of life seeping out of Shyam.

  “Hey, who do you think you are?” the hungry-fiery man asked Father fiercely. “Get off Shyam right now!”

  As though it had finally woken up, the crowd stirred and surged a couple of feet forward with new-found bravery.

  “Get off him!” some of them shouted in unison. Father paid no attention whatsoever to the hungry youth or to the knot of men and women behind him. The hungry man started to extend his hand to grasp Father’s arm, but he screamed, doubled over, and collapsed — as the result of a punch Father threw squarely in the hungry man’s stomach (an organ which was hurting him already). Father’s fist moved with a feline speed so that Shyam didn’t get more than a split-second’s respite from Father’s death-hold on his throat.

  Father felled the hungry-man without so much as looking at him, without relinquishing the fearful curve of his lip which bared his teeth and gave him the appearance of a bloodthirsty madman. As the hungry man writhed on the ground, and Shyam’s massive body started to go limper and limper, the small crowd’s courage drained away.

  The people receded double the distance they had covered just a few moments ago. I watched all this from a few feet away. In growing disbelief and dismay. A street fight in a peaceful hill-town is disorienting, particularly when it is the first thing you get to see in the morning (and in my case, it succeeded my witnessing the cat’s butchering in the nighttime).

  But this particular fight had not disoriented the headstrong brat I had become, especially as my father had emerged victorious in it against such towering odds. It had been somewhat relieving, too, since it had taken Father’s attention entirely off me (I had run away from home the previous evening) and focused all of his furies on someone else.

  But murder? Father was clearly intent upon killing his opponent. Something horrible beyond description in itself. To add to the horror, his opponent happened to be Rachna’s father. And Rachna happened to be…someone…whose value to me was both infinite and zero.

  It waxed and waned. Like the moon. Full-bodied, bright, and dominant (Condition A). Red
uced to nothingness, almost-invisible, and forgotten (Condition B).

  At times, Condition A reigned with such intensity you could swear it had become permanent. My devotion to her made you smile. The very next instant, while the sweet smile still played upon your lips, a thick, dark cloud blotted them out (both Condition A and your smile) so fast and so completely you would now be convinced that Condition B shall hold sway forever.

  On that morning, when Father straddled over Shyam’s back and strangled him ever so slowly, with a demonic relish, Condition A exerted an overpowering influence over me. I could feel every iota of Rachna’s trauma, her agony. They were immense. Impossible to bear. They propelled me to act.

  I grabbed the arm that the hungry-youth had been unable to. I shook it.

  “Papa, Papa, let him go!” I pleaded. “He didn’t hit me. You rescued me just in time.”

  The arm I held jerked. I staggered half-a-dozen steps away. This wasn’t about me. Had nothing to do with Shyam’s almost hitting me earlier that morning.

  I knew it was about a woman. And I wished that woman, Ma, had been there at the moment. If anyone could, she could stop Father from orphaning Rachna and making me fatherless (by hanging for Shyam’s cold-blooded murder, committed in broad daylight before twenty witnesses).

  All of eight or ten minutes had elapsed since Father and Shyam had come face to face that morning and exchanged their first blows. The people gathered around were growing more restless by the moment. All of them, including Rachna, could now see where this was headed.

  “Go and see if you can find that good-for-nothing constable,” an old woman thumped a boy on the back and sent him scouting for the sole representative of the state police force in that town. She then turned upon the male members of the crowd.

  “Crawl back to your beds, cowards! Allowing your neighbor to be killed in front of his daughter!”

  The said daughter had sunk to the ground. She looked more like a heap of torso and limbs than a living person. Her mouth: agape, a little void of despair. Her face: devoid of blood, slack, dazed. Her eyes: strained of their softness and luminosity—dimmed and glazed. The rise and fall of her chest: imperceptible, as though she had stopped breathing, as though she had quit the world ahead of her departing father.

  The old woman spat figuratively in the face of the crowd, marched forward, took hold of a fistful of Father’s hair in her hand, and yanked with all her might. A couple of other women followed suit and started scratching, slapping, and even biting Father. She-wolves mauling a lion. Irritating him more than hurting him.

  The hungry-man, holding a hand to his stomach and gasping in pain, joined in their efforts to get Father off Shyam. And then all of the onlookers moved in, as one. I bit my lip and covered my face with my hands. I wanted to pitch headlong into the battle and hit and bruise and kick and punch all Father’s assailants.

  I wanted, simultaneously, these selfsame assailants to succeed in saving Shyam’s (and by extension, my father’s) life. A state of mind Ma called ‘Hope-Churner’: when two geometrically opposed wishes twist a heart in contrary directions. A fresh commotion suddenly broke out while my fingers shut out the world from me.

  I lowered my hands. The crowd shrieked and scattered in all directions in a sheer panic —the old woman and the hungry man included. Father was upright on his feet. Shyam lay prone on his face between Father’s selfsame feet. My head spun. Was Shyam dead? He lifted his head feebly off the ground just then. I sighed in relief.

  The Escape Artist stood wielding a tool of his trade in his hand — a thin metallic chain, which he almost always carried concealed under his clothes. He had lashed out at his attackers with that improvised weapon. Three or four people held their heads or faces and moaned in unison.

  Father meant to finish the job, whatever it took, and the consequences could go to hell. I could have sworn that an evil spirit had taken possession of his body. He was such an altered man (so much altered that he was no longer a man).

  Throughout my life, I have come to experience, over and over again, a phenomenon that I sincerely hope never arises in your body. It’s a scary feeling — you have to literally start dancing in place even though your world is about to shatter around you.

  What happens is this: your blood is coursing wildly through your veins. It freezes over all of a sudden, remains frozen for a moment, and then rushes forward again in a mad torrent. Your body starts to itch uncontrollably from inside. There’s no scratching out that itch. You just squirm and grimace and make a fool of yourself. I have come to call it the ‘Needle Dance.’

  The Needle Dance happened to me that morning when I saw Rachna shoot off the ground with astonishing speed, fly at Father, and bounce back like a ball.

  Father bent down over Shyam and wrapped the chain around Shyam’s neck. In whichever way he had wronged Father, Shyam was about to unwillingly atone for his sins.

  The end was at hand. But Father desisted all of a sudden. The links of the chain encircling Shyam’s throat did not tighten in Father’s hands.

  A bit of garbage came skittering by and prolonged Shyam’s life. Father was looking at something or someone with an expression of incredulity on his face, as though he had just woken up and found himself in that strange situation.

  I followed his gaze and saw the organic scarecrow (or the breathing trash-can) standing at a little distance, holding her swollen tarpaulin garbage-bag in one hand. Her garb, consisting of strips of brown sackcloth and fully-leafed green branches, appeared even more bizarre (and concealed even less of her body) in daylight.

  Father’s mouth worked and an indistinct sound emitted from it. Everything and everyone stilled. After a few moments, Shyam rose first to his knees and then to his feet groggily. He unwound the chain from around his neck, dropped it at his feet, and massaged the hollow above his collar bone.

  And then he, too, saw the ragged woman. He stiffened. Father was saying something to her. She had now become the focus of everyone’s attention. But she stood aloof from all around her, absorbed in just one person — Rachna.

  She looked at Rachna with a palpable intensity for a long time.

  “Don’t sad child” she croaked, speaking in her peculiar way, eating up words from her sentence. Rachna stared back vacantly at the woman for a moment before the woman, the crowd, Father, I, and everything else shrank to nothingness in her eyes. The enormity of her relief at Shyam’s narrow escape overwhelmed her.

  She did not even attempt to get up. She now covered her face with her hands and wept out the horror she had been made to live through (once again, primarily through me).

  The organic scarecrow turned her head abruptly and glanced at Shyam and Father. The two men lowered their heads. In shame. I could tell it was in shame.

  My father’s head sank in shame before the half-clad, half-sane rag-picker.

  Chapter 17: The Quicksilver Man

  Ma called herself half-part rose, quarter-part cactus, and a quarter-part touch-me-not. I had no problem understanding fifty percent of the ingredients of her constitution, but the other half baffled me. Let’s take a look at the various flowers/plants she likened herself to:

  Rose: Ma was beautiful. She smelled great. She could grow petals of joy at will and suffuse the air with their fragrance. Clear-cut and straightforward.

  Cactus: cactus?! Prickly. Sickly-green. Bitter to the core. Ma? Most definitely not. Confusing comparison.

  Touch-me-not: “Neel, tell me its binomial nomenclature,” Ma would ask when I was a child and she still hoped to make me a learned man.

  “Samosa Pudina,” I would answer with a serious face, cringing inwardly, afraid that she would eat up a lot of my playtime.

  “Mimosa Pudica,” she corrected me with a knowing smile. “And remember, we’re not referring to Impatiens here.” Pudica is ‘shyness’. Impatiens is ‘impatience’. (Imagine a night watchman’s knowing tidbits of Latin!)

  This plant droops when you touch it. I had never known Ma shrink
from any touch, any person, any challenge. And, Ma was decidedly more impatient than shy. A clear-as-mud analogy.

  Ma’s score: 1/3. Subtract another mark for the inherent contradiction between her three metaphoric elements. Such incongruity was hard to visualize, even with all her versatility as a performing artist and a domestic philosopher.

  But, when I started to take the splashes from the fountain of her life-philosophy a bit more seriously, I discovered a common factor between the three.

  Thorns.

  To a more or less degree, in one way or another, all of them are thorny.

  Thorns. Little wooden daggers.

  ◆◆◆

  Firelight danced upon Hugli’s waters. A well-mannered wind gusted in from the Bay of Bengal and greeted the bonfires blazing upon the river’s shore. The towering flames, in turn, repeatedly bowed and curtsied to the would-be spectators already thronging upon the scene.

  A small canvas city now stood where there had been only empty land a few hours before. A little, fragile-looking locomotive chugged with astonishing speed from one point to another on the milling grounds, sending workmen flying out of its zigzag path.

  It steamed furiously, with a chant-like regularity: “Can’t believe I’m here, can’t believe I’m here. Bengal! Bengal?!” it puffed while speeding toward a line of wagons and carts parked under a clump of trees.

  The engine tripped over a rock and toppled headlong, metamorphosing into an old woman the moment it became stationary.

  “Oooouuuuuiiiiiiiii! Nadyaaaa…,” cried Akilina, making no effort to get off the ground and waving away a few solicitous crewmen who came forward to help her. “Come to me, darling,” she called out, looking towards a huge, domed tent at some distance. “I am not sure I’ll survive this nasty blow…aaah.”

  She gasped as a tiger’s roar shook the air.” A Royal Bengal Tiger in Bengal!” She murmured to herself. “What madness prompted me to listen to that madman, Sasha, I will never know. It is all that little minx’s doing!”