All this lassitude was swept away instantly by a single report of a travelling English doctor, a man who moved through the country-side, giving aid to all at his nightly camps, without regard to position, age, or gender. He had acquired, in the short time of his voyages through Avadh, a reputation for the greatest skill, saving those ill with fever and given up for dead, rescuing from unbearable pain those maimed by accidents, and even, it was said, restoring sight to some blind from childhood; and so this man was the object of petitions from many, and even those most orthodox and wary of foreigners put aside their fears and sought his advice.
It was Gul Jahaan who first heard of this man, and she began instantly to plan with the passion of a slowly-drowning creature seeing a chance at redemption; she sold some of her jewellery, had new clothes made, and all this referring to him only as the English doctor. Sanjay proceeded slowly, wary and full of memory, but unable to keep hope suppressed, feeling it like a rolling but unstoppable wave; in the matter of the English, he told himself, he had learnt automatic distrust and watchfulness, and so he wrote letters to acquaintances, sent messengers, and waited for information regarding this too-generous Englishman. Sanjay waited in a curious fever, half hope and half spite, so that finally when he learnt the name of the doctor he laughed hysterically and long; life, it seemed to him, had its own curious and juvenile sense of aesthetics, because the name, was, of course: Sarthey.
He knew the rest without having to ask, that this was the son of the man he had once known, and that the son was now a precocious and well-known practitioner; that he was brilliant, having published two books on the treatment of infectious diseases; that he was now travelling in Hindustan with the stated purpose of gathering material for a third on tropical maladies. It was understood, of course, that he was handsome, that he was tall, that his hair was long —for an Englishman —and that his eyes were blue; all this Sanjay knew, and he tried to explain all this to Gul Jahaan, intending to say, we shouldn’t go, I know we shouldn’t. But even as he started he saw the new light in her eyes, the way her chest rose and fell quickly in joy, the half-smile that flickered on her face as she looked at him with love, not listening to him at all; he shook his head in defeat, and said, ‘Well, I suppose we’ll go.’
‘Of course we’ll go,’ she said.
They joined the doctor’s camp when he came close to Lucknow, to a small and unheard-of village, five miles away on the other side of the Gomti. They crossed the river in a hired boat, and Sanjay sat in the bow, looking back, watching the familiar city recede in the dusk, become shadows, then herald itself in a blaze of diminutive lights that grew small and smaller. The English camp was angled in straight lines around the doctor’s simple grey tent; the first things that Sanjay noted were the swept, gravelled pathways that had been laid through even this temporary camp, which fell neatly around these bisecting lines like a chequer-board. The sufferers waited patiently in the darkness, organized into ranks by the doctor’s servants; Sanjay spoke to one of these attendants, and then came back to Gul Jahaan.
‘We have to wait,’ he said, shrugging.
‘We’ll wait.’ Her voice was muffled by her burqua. ‘Wait.’
Suffering has its own equality: in the darkness Sanjay sat next to village labourers, farmers, and thought about this; every now and then there was a muffled sound, a distant groan, a shifting of cloth as somebody got laboriously up and shuffled a few steps. When the call came, the light in the doctor’s tent was painful, white and sharp from some new kind of lantern that burnt with an unprecedented blue flame; Sanjay squinted, and the icy quality of the light was such that he first missed the speaker who addressed a question to him.
‘Is he blind?’ This was someone else, speaking in English.
‘No, I am not,’ Sanjay said in English. ‘The patient is outside.’
‘You speak English?’ This time Sanjay saw him: he was dressed in black, in a formal English suit of the type Sanjay had only seen in woodcuts, a black cravat, so that at first Sanjay could only think, he must be warm in that.
‘Yes,’ Sanjay said, finally. ‘I speak English. My name is Parasher.’
‘Pleased. I am Doctor Sarthey. And the patient?’
‘She is outside.’
‘Well, I am sure you understand that I must speak to her, to the patient herself.’ The smile on the doctor’s face was small and intimate, asserting a common, shared knowledge.
‘Of course,’ Sanjay said, feeling foolish despite himself. ‘I will go and call her.’
Outside, Gul Jahaan raised the purdah from her face, the better to speak to him; she listened to him gravely, then asked: ‘Will I have to expose my face to him?’
‘It is likely.’
‘I have done worse,’ she said. ‘And this is for our sons and daughters.’ She rose and walked rapidly past him; inside, she spoke strongly and directly, and without hesitation extended her wrist to the doctor. He, in turn, seated on an iron chair, prescribed rest, broth of fowl, some medicine he would provide, and finally advised, when the child was born, the presence of a good doctor.
‘Tell him that we have no other doctor,’ Gul Jahaan said. ‘Tell him that we will come with him.’
‘Travel with me?’ the doctor said when Sanjay translated. ‘It is hard, and also…’ But he stopped, looking at Gul Jahaan’s small face, framed by her black burqua, very serious and attentive as she looked at him unwaveringly.
‘Yes,’ Sanjay said. ‘She is very determined.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I suppose it is all right, then.’
They had come prepared for this; Sunil, his bald head now shiny with the gravity and importance of a renowned cook, headed Gul Jahaan’s entourage. They had come with carts, beds, mosquito nets, and so they settled themselves a little distance from the English tents, adopting naturally the orderly rows and arrangements of the other settlement. That night she turned to Sanjay joyfully: her pleasure was always slow, unhurried, completely conscious, but tonight it seemed like a form of knowledge itself; they sat in front of each other, joined, still except for secret movements and fluctuations, looking into each other’s eyes, and it went on until passion gave way to a greater lucidity, it was dark but he could see her perfectly, as if her dark hair, the roundness of her breasts, all were radiant with some inward light, he laughed suddenly because the air was so clear, every touch of her fingers carried inward along his body like a word, his head floating and transfixed and transformed by her, her smell, her presence which was everywhere.
The next day, it became clear to them that they were in a foreign camp: the young doctor forbade any sort of performance by Gul Jahaan; she was known of all over Avadh, and so there were more visitors, villagers and townsmen, and some of them asked the pleasure of hearing her sing. Sarthey forbade it, without anger or sternness, but nevertheless he said, ‘That is impossible.’ In all other respects he was courteous, and Gul Jahaan accepted his wishes as a condition of being a part of his camp; every day, he examined her, and kept a close watch over her diet, sometimes sending delicacies to her kitchen. Sanjay, for his part, often spoke to him, and Sarthey seemed delighted with his English, his interest in things English, poetry especially; soon the doctor took to bringing books to Sanjay, treatments of history, discussions of currencies and trades, practical discussions of geography and progress, the vast potential of the future. At first their conversation consisted of these things; then they began to have silences between them, as they rode along in the early morning, and Sanjay recognized these incredulously as the natural quietness between friends. These moments, as the sun washed a thin line of red on the furthest clouds, had the unmistakable taste of intimacy, and despite himself Sanjay could not dislike the Englishman: he was curious about everything, and wanted to know the names of plants; his hair pulled back from his forehead tightly, but his face, thin and serious as it was, had the habit of suddenly smiling, at which times he would bunch over in his saddle, hold an embarrassed hand over his mouth, and giggle. Al
though Sanjay knew they were the same age, he felt incomparably older, as if he was already tasting the time of ashes and compromise, while the other, yet, knew not even the complete and unbroken hopes of youth. And above all, further and more valuable than anything, was Sarthey’s intelligence, not wit, but a slow circling watchfulness that approached and prodded and tested and finally held; to discover this in the Englishman was shocking, because all his life Sanjay had secreted a prideful loneliness, a certain belief in his precocity and understanding, the like of which he had recognized in no one else except this one, this man. So Sanjay reminded himself of the past, and predicted without doubt a future of disaster, but there it was, this companionship, unbidden and without reason; despite everything, at those times in the mornings Sanjay found no humiliation in asking question after question, what is it you do in the morning in England when you get up, how is breakfast made, and without pause came answers and then questions in return.
Gul Jahaan seemed to regard their meetings with the amused toleration of a woman for men’s things, and she took to referring to Sarthey as ‘your Englishman,’ and professed a fear of him, of his blue eyes and ascetic air. But Sanjay, standing by to translate, watched sometimes in the evenings as he dispensed treatment: his precise fingers on the bandages, the knots square and neat, the clear gaze as he laved out wounds and boils, the doctor’s eye that detached itself from the pain, the twitching faces, and yet was actively compassionate; all these things Sanjay found gentle.
At this time another letter came from Sikander. It was delivered by a seller of sweets who left the little packet of paper tucked between two rosogullas.
Sanjay,
I am wounded.
Another war, another combat: I will not weary you with the unfortunate details of a soldier’s life. Enough to say that the struggle for supremacy over Hindustan rages on, the alliances shift, soldiers die. This time we were caught in the open in an unequal fight, no support and no hope, we fell back as best we could but they broke our square. Then it was cavalry all over us and teror; I slashed about, and there was a moment, as I ran, of suddenly thinking about my wives, my children, and then I cut a man down, easily. I was shouting something, I don’t know what, I couldn’t tell you, leaping forward, and they fell back from me, frightened; then out of the corner of my eye I saw a rider spurring at me, turned to face him, saw him raise a pistol, felt a thick blow against my thigh, as if someone had taken an iron rod and swung it about at my abdomen, a blow blunt and numb, saw the flash at his hand, and I floated to the ground, and it seemed to me as I hit that the sound of the shot boomed forever in my head.
When I awoke, Sanjay, it was night, and I was pinned to the earth by a huge shaft of pain through my belly. The pain had its strictures about my body, its paths carved from my groin everywhere so that at each movement it tightened about me. At first I was afraid, but finally I forced my hand down and felt, but all I fingered were the raw edges of a wound, the shapelessness of the body when it is burst in some way. As I touched this rupture I felt that chaos reeled over me, and I cried out, not from pain, but in fear of this derangement that wanted to eat me, grind me all up into an obscene mixture. Mother, I shouted, Mother, Mother. Do you know what I feared, Sanjay? It was that battle-field aftermath, the parts of men scattered like refuse, everything pulped together, not anymore this and that, one and another, but all gone into the great whirl of fire and filth —it was this great loss, this anarchy that strangled the breath from me. I let my fear take my senses from me, gratefully I let it all go, but the moon came up and I saw it and could not hide anymore: Mother, Mother, Mother. I whispered with others beside me, we wept all of us like a chorus in the darkness, and in the flat white light everything became a sharp blackness, shadows and the edge of steel like fire, blood is black at night. Then I heard a woman’s voice: Sikander, I am here. Mother, I said, but I saw her, a lovely tall woman in white, her skin illuminated from within, a red mouth, it was Kali. She came to me, Sanjay, and in horror and awe I shook, tranced and unaware, the night fell apart in fragments, the moon trembled and slid into the earth. When I came back to myself, could see again, think, I heard a voice, Sikander, is that you, is that you? It was Uday: I could hear the pain in his voice, the agony from an anonymous cannon shot that shivered his leg; he told me, he saw it coming a moment before it hit, and then it shattered him. Learn a lesson, young Sikander, he said, in this war skill can only take you so far, when it wants to find you, the bullet will, no honour, nothing keeps it from you. So we talked, and the pain ebbed but I felt it come again, the spinning of the sky, a chariot wheel spinning and spinning and flying apart, myself in a hundred places and pieces, Uday’s voice, now hold on, youngster, hold on, steady, but I was gone, the darkness parted and from far away I saw the mound of crushed bodies, the spears broken and impaled, heard the ravings of the wounded, water, water, please water. It seemed then that Kali was holding me in her arms, cradling me in her arms, my head on her breast, and I looked up into her wild eyes and said, Mother; then she was above me, seated cross-legged on my groin: Sikander, why do you fear? She laughed, her dark hair floating about her face, and now she was dancing on my body, from head to toe her feet pressed me, and she said, Sikander, you were not made to be happy. Finally she lay beside me, stroked my forehead, and said, don’t be afraid, there’s nothing to be afraid of, and I knew she told the truth, the pain fell away, I smiled and fell asleep.
When I awoke I knew somehow that it was past midnight, I knew where I was, and now there was no longer that vertigo, that terror of before. I tried to sit up as best I could, to see my men and what could be done for them, and they were in the torments of a special soldier’s hell, where time is forever, your blood flows, you cannot move, and there is no water. All around me I heard the cry for it, weak, desperate, hopeful, mad, as the condition of the man might be; over this there was Uday’s voice, talking, encouraging, but even there I could hear the way his lips were sticking, the tongue moving like a leathery beast in the dry cavern of the palate. Is it very bad, O master, I asked, and he said, it is not so bad that it will not pass, and his words burdened me with grief, because suddenly I knew he was talking, not without hope, of his own death.
And so the night passed; in the morning came two old people, I saw them walk towards us from far, a man and a woman, very old and from their dress peasants, bearing water-skins. They were wrinkled and thin, blackened by a life of brutal work, but their eyes had the compassion of a thousand years. They passed from man to man, giving water and comfort and hope; the woman came to me, and I drank gratefully, and she folded a coat and put it under my head. She smiled, toothless, and said, we are farmers. But Uday would not take their water: he said, thank you, but I cannot, it would break my caste. I said, take it, Father, because even the scriptures hold that caste rules do not apply in times of disaster; but he said, it may be so, and I hold no man weak for taking water now, but I will not do it. So I began to speak to him about rationalism, science (remembering the conversations I had heard in my father’s house), religion; we had, in short, a theological and philosophical debate, lying there in the tall grass with our bodies holed. We touched upon every question of belief and doubt you can think of, and even the other wounded grew quiet and listened; and finally I demonstrated to him the error of his thinking, and that it was not only possible but his duty to drink. But he said, I am an old man, I have lived too long and I have seen too much change, you are no doubt right, I am in error, I am sorry I upset you, but I have lived a long time in this dharma, and I will die in a few hours, I will keep to it. But your suffering —I could not help bursting out —but how you must suffer! He said, this is my dharma.
So all through the long day I watched him, and he lay pierced in a thousand places, steadfast; in the evening our opponents came back, having broken off the engagement, and they gathered us up and took us to shelter, to good doctors. But Uday was dead. As they lifted me up the old woman said to me, do not weep, do not weep for death. Uday w
as dead, and I could not remember the moment in which his voice stopped. As they lifted me up the pain flared and brought a cry from me, but in the sound was something of relief, of release; somehow in the confusion there was a sense, there was the sky above me, fringed with black birds, the eyes of the old woman and her husband, their kindness, the unbreakable dharma of Uday, the dead around me, and life which opened to me once more, and I said to the water-bringers: I vow by the pain I have suffered that beyond right and wrong, this and that, us and they, I will build a temple, a mosque and a church, all of these in honour of my mother and my father, in honour of these men who have ridden with me, and in honour of what is to come. I was half-mad by now, but the old ones said, this is good. I will do it; even though, now in tranquil recollection, I do not know what I meant, cannot recall exactly what it was I saw on the field, I will do it.
I am permanently wounded; to be blunt, the ball took one of mine. I am healed, but I suppose I am halved. Mistake me not, I am as capable as before, let us say; but before I lived carelessly, I asked the world for victory, and that was all I asked. Now I am not so sure; now I am somehow unable to sleep, and victory, when it comes, is not all sweet. I am rambling, ahead to my further adventures.
I healed, was released by our foes, and took again command of my troops, but the misfortune which had threatened for long was finally against us, as you well know. The Marathas fight the English: the moment of decision is here. We waited for this so long, Sanjay, and we all knew it was coming, but after all, I fight not for the Marathas. What happened was this: a few days after the campaign started, Perron —you remember him, the posing Frenchman who ran from Thomas at Georgegarh —well, this Perron called all the country-born officers in his command to his tent. None of us could think why, but we went, and Perron, seated in state, told us our fates: while he did not doubt any of us individually, he said, it had been decided that those officers who were of partial English descent could not be wholly relied upon in the war to come. And in this supremely important war no doubts could be entertained, and therefore we were to be released from our services, and were free to do as we liked, with assurances of safe-conduct, etc., etc. At this there was a wild howl from those assembled, and a movement forward, and Perron blanched a little and his guards hitched their pieces; I stepped forward, and spoke: I am a Rajput, and my loyalty is unquestioned, you insult me. No insult is intended, he said, but there was a particular satisfaction in his voice, a faint gloating when he made his announcements; he hated the English, you see, and so he hated us. I am a Rajput, I said again. Undoubtedly, he said, but you are also something else. At this Chotta started forward, and by instinct I reached out to check him, and the sight of his face, blotched with angry red marks, a thousand of them, shocked me into self-possession: Chotta would have killed him. So I nodded my head, unable for anything to bow, and led them out, into the bright sun outside, and we walked through the military bustle we had known all our lives, suddenly foreign.
Red Earth and Pouring Rain Page 47
