Red Earth and Pouring Rain

by Vikram Chandra

  ‘Careful, master,’ the mahout said nervously. ‘If you say all that you’re going to have to give him all that. He doesn’t like it when people promise and don’t give. It puts him in a bad mood, and he likes you, I can tell.’

  ‘I’ll give him, Sanjay says,’ Ram Mohan said, reading again. ‘Gajnath, don’t worry, we have all that and more. Come on, Gajnath.’

  In the camp, Gajnath knelt ponderously. Ram Mohan clambered down, with an attendant at each side, and hobbled away towards a tent. Sanjay mouthed at Gajnath, wait, wait (in the grey flesh, that old, knowing eye, with the tracks of tears underneath), and hurried off to look for familiar faces. At the peripheries of the camp, amongst piles of baggage, he found a harried-looking bawarchi shouting at his underlings. When he came back to the centre, he found Gajnath seated exactly as he had left him, legs bent at the knee before the huge body, ears flapping forward and back, trunk moving from side to side.

  ‘He wouldn’t move,’ the mahout said, exasperated. ‘What did you tell him? Have you taught him how to read now? He’ll be even more of an impossible fellow than he already is.’

  Gajnath lifted the mangos from Sanjay’s hands, and the pink, soft tip of the trunk stroked his wrist for a moment, like a finger; the bawarchi says we’ll have to wait for the barfi and the sherbet —Sanjay moved his lips —he says this is a camp on the road, not a palace, but we’ll get some sooner or later. Gajnath swung up, looming, and Sanjay laughed in delight; watching Gajnath walk away (the little mahout beside, scolding), Sanjay understood all the various allusions in Ram Mohan’s dictation to beautiful women with elephant-walks: there was that unhurried, graceful placing of one foot, then the other, the body swaying above, that delicacy. Sensing somebody behind him, Sanjay turned; the chief firangi stood a little distance away, his arms behind his back, leaning forward a little, flanked by his younger compatriots, watching Sanjay.

  ‘Charles, if you please,’ the leader said, and one of the others pulled out a notebook handsomely bound in fawn-coloured leather. ‘The Indian, no, no, start again, the native of India is singular in his inability to make the natural and godly distinction between man and the other creatures. They are apt to treat of the lesser species as if they were separate and equal nations, instead of beasts lacking in the powers of comprehension that are gifted solely to Man by his just and good God. The natives further display the capriciousness of children, which is to say that while they display a sentimental and sometimes blasphemously religious attachment to the lower animals, such as the grimacing monkey, the chewing, placid cow, and the elephant, they are capable of displaying the most callous cruelty towards these very same species.’ He paused. ‘What d’you think of that, Charles?’

  ‘Er, enlightening,’ said the young man. ‘To the readers, it will be, I mean, sir.’

  ‘Properly so,’ his elder replied. ‘Heavens, why does he look at us so? Is he trying to speak, d’you think?’

  Sanjay was trying, silently, the taste of a new sound, ‘crool-ti’; it felt like ashes.

  ’This is the one that fell, the boy from the neighbouring house.’

  ‘Er, yes, sir. I see the scars.’

  The older man bent, and squatted on his heels; close up, his pupils were pale blue, the eyes rimmed a distinct and startling red from the dust; a white collar pressed up against the loose and raw-looking flesh of his neck.

  ‘Hallo,’ he said, smiling. Sanjay was examining the blackness of the stubble against the white skin, and was startled by the smile. ‘I’m the Reverend Sarthey,’ the man said, smiling again, this time with rather conspicuous effort, and putting his hand on his chest.

  Sanjay pulled out his sheaf of paper, scribbled, and handed him a note, causing considerable surprise. ‘He writes! And not scared of us, either. Charles, see if you can make something of this.’

  ‘I’m afraid not, sir, it’s rather a fluent sort of vernacular, I should imagine, and colloquial, too. I can just about tell some of the letters from the others.’

  ‘Well, no matter. We will try to decipher your missive, young sir, and will return with an answer on the morrow. Meanwhile, adieu.’ He extended a hand, palm held perpendicular to the ground, thumb up, and for a moment Sanjay tried to decipher the significance of this strange sign (a one-handed namaste? did he want a mango?), then scrawled out another rapid note and inserted it between two fingers. The men all smiled together, then strode off; Sanjay walked slowly through the camp, running over the various nuances of the recent meeting —how much had they understood? What had they said? He wondered what they would do with his two notes: the first one asked, ‘What is si-vil-iz-a-shun?’ and the second one queried, ‘What is the meaning of di-cay?’

  Sikander’s mother owned a very large tent, a crimson shamiana that was surrounded by a red quanat screen and seemed to spread endlessly in all eight directions, compartmented and partitioned so that there was always a new nook to be discovered; the textile itself was lined with chintz embroidered and painted in abstract designs taken from the flowers and vines of some imaginary, perfect garden and from the regular, hypnotic geometry of mathematics; there were yellow flags that flew from the tent-posts at regular intervals, and striped curtains hung over the entrances and narrow windows; the floor was covered with light dhurries, and folding furniture had been assembled and laid out with cushions. After walking through the arched main entrance (painted and cut to look like stone), where two soldiers stood guard, Sanjay made his way through the maze of corridors and rooms inside, all the way to the back; hearing Sikander’s voice, he looked around for the entrance to the large zenana sitting-room, but there was only a blank white wall of cloth. He walked along parallel to it, running a hand over the smooth, heavy material, listening to Sikander’s mother telling her boys that a whole day of riding was enough, especially in this rotting heat, they were on no account to venture outside; finding a break in the wall, a place where two sections came together and were secured to a bamboo pole, Sanjay worked on a couple of knots, pulling at them with his teeth, and then squeezed himself through the resulting slit. He strained for a moment, his head turned around, shoulder and knee scraping uncomfortably on the bamboo, and then he fell through, onto a providential pile of cushions, causing Sikander’s sisters to scream and jump; he straightened up, rolling over, and sat cross-legged on the cushions, examining them unashamedly: they were a secretive, inseparable pair who constantly confided in each other, whispering mouth-to-ear in their father’s language, interspersed with a few words in Hindi or Urdu. Sikander and Chotta seemed to treat the both of them with the same formal cordiality that they extended to their father, with that careful concern that one usually reserved for guests in one’s home; on their part, the two girls —named Ai-mee-lee and Jain —seemed to prefer their father’s rooms and friends to the apartments and intimates of their mother. Sanjay saw them infrequently, had never exchanged a word with either of them, but found them both utterly fascinating: their clothes were cut to a foreign pattern, presumably native to their father’s country; they seemed to cultivate an air of generalized distaste for everything around them; and when they used a language that he could understand they unfailingly mispronounced vowels and misplaced accents in a manner that he found devastatingly charming. He smiled at them sheepishly, sticking out his tongue between his teeth involuntarily, and they tossed their heads and resumed their murmured conversation.

  ‘No, Chotta,’ Sikander’s mother said, ‘you cannot go out again. I want you to stay here, you’ve already burnt yourself black in that sun, by the time we get home again I don’t know what you’ll look like. Now where is that woman with the fruits? Has everyone died somewhere?’ Two women hurried in, carrying trays of pakoras and sherbet, and Sikander’s mother took a plate and held it out towards the girls, saying, ‘Eat, eat. Take one more.’

  ‘Try this,’ Ram Mohan said, offering a plate of barfi; he was sitting on a low couch, shifting uncomfortably, and there was something in his voice that attracted Sanjay’s attent
ion. Ram Mohan noticed his quick glance, and smiled awkwardly, saying, ‘And how are you, maharaj? My limbs are breaking; that elephant friend of yours tossed me about like a doll till everything ached and ached.’

  ‘But I want to be outside with the men,’ Chotta said.

  ‘What I’ll be like after a week or two of this I don’t know,’ Ram Mohan said, smiling again, looking not in the least bit apprehensive.

  ‘No, you can’t go outside, Chotta,’ Sikander’s mother said. Chotta, still sitting, kicked moodily at a cushion on his mattress. ‘You’re stuck in here with all of us, in the zenana.’ At this, Chotta kicked again, and the cushion rolled over slowly and fell on a tray, knocking over glasses and spilling pakoras across the carpet; everyone jumped, and so did Sanjay, but as he jerked towards the tumbling glasses, his bad eye (the other vision) jumped to the periphery, zigzagged involuntarily (which was the bad eye, right or left?), and so inadvertently took in the bright blush that coursed from Ram Mohan’s neck up to his face and bald pate, a blush so conspicuous and luminous that it caused him to change directions in mid-start and attempt to refocus; at this, of course, he lost control completely and fragmented images flashed about his head: Ram Mohan, Sikander’s mother, Sikander, Chotta, the two sisters, the water spilling across the floor and carpet, the dulled glow of the sun on the roof.

  When everything had settled down again, when the vertigo had ceased, Sanjay studiously avoided Ram Mohan’s eyes; Sikander seated himself behind Sanjay and leaned against him.

  ‘What is it, little brother?’ Sikander said softly. ‘You have that green stuffed look on your face again, like you’re bursting with pressure, which usually means you’re thinking and thinking and thinking.’ Sanjay shook his head. ‘One day you’ll think too much,’ Sikander went on, ‘and you’ll quite explode, like a cracker. Always thinking.’

  Like a cracker, like a cracker: the words stayed in Sanjay’s head that night, after the card game which Sikander’s mother insisted on; everyone played except the two girls, who watched with an expression mingling disdain and fascination as Chotta plunked down his winning cards, whooping, and as Ram Mohan dithered and agonized over his moves, as he apologized to Sikander’s mother, who accepted with affectionate indulgence. Years later, far away in Delhi, in the dismal palaces of Bahadur Shah II (who was born an emperor, made a poet by his misfortunes, and created an emperor again by his people), Sanjay would see a party of English who had come to look at the last of the Moghuls, and on their faces he would recognize that same look, that smugness and impatience that is given only to those who are travellers, who are powerful because of their ultimate indifference, that faintly-smiling detachment of the tourist; but that night it was still an incomprehensible gaze that excited his curiosity and raised his stick, hard and quivering, so that he had to tuck the end of his jama under his knees and make a tent, so that he played an utterly serious and ruthless game while the others laughed and carelessly flung away essential viziers and valuable kings.

  They slept that night in a row, Sikander between Chotta and Sanjay, and still Sanjay felt himself throbbing, with now and then a lancing twinge of pain,.and he twisted to put a flat pillow between his knees, holding himself, thinking for some reason of a snake raising its head to hiss, ffffff-fffffftt.

  ‘How you won every game tonight, Sanju,’ Sikander whispered quietly, ‘how you played. That was clever, very clever.’ Sanjay raised his head and nodded, then reached back with his free hand and traced out, on Sikander’s arm, the words king and minister, meaning that the others had been careless with their court cards. ‘Is that what you think, Sanjay? I think sometime we will be soldiers, we will raise armies, we will be kings. Can you imagine? We will get ourselves a fortress somewhere, and we’ll defeat everyone who comes against us, and I’ll lead out the cavalry, and you can be minister and send out spies, and advise.’ Sanjay sat up; on Sikander’s other side, Chotta slept face-down, limbs splayed and palms exposed, as if he had been dropped from a great height. ‘We’ll rule from the valley of Kashmir to the straits of Lanka, to the end, and Chotta will be my general, and you, Sanju, send out messages, tell them our horse is coming, our white horse, accept and give tribute, or fight.’ Sikander sat up suddenly, and they peered at each other through the darkness, sinking in shadows; suddenly, Sikander got to his feet.

  ‘Stay here,’ he said, in such a voice of command, low and casual, yet expecting obedience so naturally and completely that Sanjay lay back down immediately and tucked the pillow between his knees. ‘Go to sleep,’ Sikander said. ‘I’m going out. I’ll come back later.’

  He pushed aside a hanging and disappeared; Sanjay pressed his arms around the pillow and lowered his face to the sweet-smelling cloth. Much later, he turned in his sleep and was awakened by a not-unpleasant but bitter taste in his mouth; he was aware instantly that Sikander had returned and lay again in the middle, and also that he smelt of sweat. Sanjay pushed away the pillow and lay flat on the sheets, which now felt uncomfortably rough, and pressed down as hard as he could, crushing the unbearable, alien organ between himself and the bed; he opened his mouth and bit the cloth, felt his teeth grind, but there was no relief.

  The next morning they drank milk out of large brass tumblers, sitting on a porch at the back of the tent. The chintz that lined the inside of the encircling quanat screen had large lotuses painted on it; beyond, they could hear, faintly, the animals humphing and calling as they woke up to the sun. Sanjay scribbled a note and handed it to Sikander: Where did you go?

  ’How did you ever learn to write without being taught?’ Sikander said.

  Thinking about it, Sanjay could recall no moment of movement from not-knowing to knowledge; conversation in the form of writing seemed more natural to him than speech —when you handled pen and paper, what was said was visible and solid, and could be handed back and forth, but words from the mouth, despite the pleasure one could take in their taste and form, were ephemeral, apt to vanish like life. He answered: Who taught you to prowl in the dark?

  ‘I went where I went,’ Sikander said, thumping Chotta on the shoulder. ‘Come on. Maybe they’ll let us ride by ourselves today’ Chotta had been paying no attention to them, being intent on getting the last drop of milk out of the glass, stretching out a tongue for the last white bubble. ‘You have milk on your eyebrows, Chotta.’ At the door Sikander turned back. ‘And you, you have a white moustache. You look like an old man.’

  But Sanjay was imagining a moving patch of white in darkness, a woman’s face above a shoulder, calm beyond pain or even resignation; he sat for a long time with the white on his lip, looking down at the writing on the paper: when he thought with concentration and exactitude about that scene, that image that tended to dominate his memory and being, about the scratching against his chest from the thatch, the light catching a muscle flexing across the back of a thigh and rolling into a buttock, the small smacking sounds of movement, the lettering on the paper became black scratches, the familiar shapes of his own handwriting awkward and alien, the words themselves foreign. The sun had edged up to his toes, where he felt the heat gather at the skin; it was going to be a very hot day, a bad day for travel, but a cow lowed beyond the screen, and Sanjay felt an unaccountable, all-comprehensive tenderness, a softness of feeling that took in all the world with its horses and women and screens and mountains and dust and armies and poems and Gajnath and gods and sun.

  The days passed; their party trailed along the roads, and every evening the tents awaited them. Sometimes they passed carts piled impossibly high with hay, with the drivers dozing; often they saw farmers bending over the meadows, and women with baskets on their heads walking along the high embankments between the fields. Everyone and everything moved slowly, as if things had settled into a test of endurance, of durability until the rains descended again; everything, that is, except the caravans and convoys that passed frequently in either direction: commerce alone seemed indestructible and unmindful of the dictates of the season. Watching t
hem drive by, sweating, Ram Mohan settled down in the howdah and grew anxious.

  ‘What are they doing now, Sanju?’ he said every time they heard the crack of a whip. ‘Are they twisting their tails?’

  ‘Why are they in such a hurry?’ Sanjay asked.

  ‘I don’t know, Sanju,’ Ram Mohan said. ‘It’s the way traders are, and nowadays these seem to be in even more of a hurry than they were thirty years ago, when I first came to your parents’ house.

  ‘My father died in his sleep one night; I was the last one of the children, all the sisters had married, the brothers had moved to different towns. I had stayed in that house, had never gone out, but now the relatives and brothers told me I must choose somewhere to live, because it was finished, and I couldn’t live alone, not in those bad times. So I said, I’ll go and live with her —your mother —the eldest one of them all, and I was the youngest, perhaps that’s why she had such affection for me. So for the first time I travelled, in a cart drawn by two painted bullocks, and everywhere we heard the same thing —the Angrez are coming, the Angrez are coming. They were still fighting then with all the nawabs, as they are doing now still more to the west and the north. And the caravans were few, but those we saw ran through the blackened and blasted country-side, cursing and fearful, towards the towns which themselves were not much better. Everywhere I saw empty villages; sometimes when we stopped some maddened skeleton of a man or woman would creep out of the fields and beg food from us. Now the same thing happens elsewhere, and the Angrez say they have made this country-side safe again, but I remember how much of the chaos came from their guns, and their threats, and their presence, how at that time you only had to go to a village and say, an army in red is coming, or even just that the tax-collector was coming, and the whole village would tie up little bundles and run away. But finally I got to your mother’s house, and she sat and looked at me for a long time, and then she cried. Now the caravans and columns come and go, but these farmers, look at them, they’re not much better; the country-side is safer for going from here to there, and we are off to the river, but all roads start here and end in London, remember that, these carts with their silks, and these other heavier ones with their metals, they will build some London nawab’s palaces, and feed some pale family with a strange name.’