by John Masters
The weighted end of the rumal flew into William’s left hand with a precise and simple mastery. His wrists met, he jerked them in and up against the side of Gopal’s neck, under the ear. The silver rupee bit into his hand through the cloth. Gopal’s head snapped sideways. His neck cracked.
William stood up. The rumal swung free in his right hand. He found his left hand streaming it through the palm to straighten out the creases, caressing the coarse woven texture. A wonderfully pure warmth flooded him. He had only seen it once, to watch closely. He had never practised it. Now, when everything depended on it, and at his first attempt, he had killed cleanly, single-handed.
Hussein crouched beside the body, an emanation of light from the corpse itself limning the misery in his face.
William exulted softly, ‘I did it! We’re safe!’
Hussein looked down at the body of Gopal the weaver, then up at William. William’s exultation drained away and left him trembling. He said, ‘I had to. Don’t you see? Everything depended on it—our own lives—that the people we didn’t save last night should not have died for nothing. That—that…’
‘Yes, I saw. You had to. I told you.’
‘O Christ Jesus our Saviour, forgive me, forgive me! I had to!’
‘You had to. I told you. Come on, quick.’
‘Where?’
‘On top of the wall, up there. Push him under the eaves. And his saddlebags. We’ll bury him tonight, after the feast, here.’
They strained and heaved and it was done. William wiped his face and leaned against the wall. ‘What about the pony?’
‘Feed it. Leave it. We’re off tomorrow.’
William turned quickly and retched and retched but could not vomit. In his mouth he tasted sugar.
Hussein said curtly, ‘Come on.’
They went out, lifted the pitchers of water, and slowly climbed the stairs.
Yasin greeted them cheerfully. ‘Well done, stranglers! That was quick work. I’m nearly ready here.’ He took the water from them and set it on the fire to boil. William stood in the middle of the room, looking at his hands, until Hussein kicked his shin in passing and said, ‘Salt, Gopal, and cloves! Get them out.’ William started, and hurried to do what he was told.
Piroo and the Jemadar came in. They mentioned the strange pony in the stable and asked if anyone knew who it belonged to. William dared not speak, but Hussein said, ‘Heaven knows! Nothing to do with us, anyway.’ The Jemadar shrugged.
Exactly at sunset the first of the band arrived for the feast. During the next hour they trickled in by twos and threes, climbing the steps like wraiths, opening the door a crack, and slipping in. At dark the last group came, carrying two black goats and two white goats smothered in blankets so that they could not bleat. These were the men of the bear troupe, by rank humble diggers of graves and therefore inferior to the rest. The Jemadar closed the door, shot the bolts, and hung up a blanket to cover the cracks so that no light would show out between door and lintel.
The band stood in a respectful, nervous huddle at one end of the room, William among them. He shivered still, and thought that Gopal the weaver must be cold by now.
Yasin bowed a minute in prayer and began the last rites of his office. He laid a white sheet on the square of turmeric and lime, completely hiding it. He brought the pots and spilled out the rice in a little white mountain on the sheet. He picked up a half-coconut shell, set it on top of the rice, and filled it with ghi. He pushed two lint wicks into the liquid, crossed them, pulled out their ends and lit them, making four small smoky flames. Last he laid down on the sheet the pick-axe, its blade pointing north, a twelve-inch knife, and three large jars of arrack. Then he stood to one side.
Piroo and another led forward the two black goats. The goats were young and perfectly formed at every point. The troupe leader shuffled out, a short sword swinging in his hand. The goats walked forward unprotesting and stooped down to sniff the rice. Piroo and the other let go of their halters, knelt, and held them by the hind legs. The goats faced west. Yasin suddenly emptied a pot of water over them with a wide scattering movement of his right hand. One goat bleated and reared up and tried to kick its heels loose from Piroo’s grip. The other stood still for a moment, then shook itself violently to get the water out of its coat.
Instantly Yasin called, ‘A fit sacrifice!’ He grabbed the knife from the sheet and drew the blade across the shivering goats neck. He did not seem to press hard, but the goat’s blood poured out over the floor and ran in a lake to the edge of the sheet. Simultaneously the troupe leader’s sword swept, and the other black goat’s head sprang off and rolled across the corner of the sheet, over the pick-axe, and came to rest against one of the jars of arrack. So the two black goats died, one in the Mohammedan manner, the halal, and one in the Hindu manner, its head struck off at a single blow. And so, a minute later, the two white goats died. Gopal the weaver stiffened under the eaves of the stable, and the brand of Cain burned in William’s forehead.
The band cried out softly in pleasure, pressed forward, and set to work. The fire sprang up as they blew on it and put on more wood. Smoke rose, clung under the rafters, and crept down and round the blanket curtains and out of the windows. Men skinned the goats and gralloched them, and threw the skins and the offal on a soiled sheet. They cut up the meat and thrust it into smoking pans. The smell of turmeric and spice and chili and hot butter filled the room. The Jemadar swabbed up the blood and water on the floor. Yasin blew out the wicks in the coconut shell and lit three lanterns. William watched, and helped, and saw a hurry and scurry, and in it many men working as one, without orders.
They sat down in a circle to eat. The rice was cold, the meat hot. The Jemadar passed round the arrack, and each man held up the jar with both hands and poured a thin stream down his throat, not letting the mouth of the jar touch his lips. William ate with his right hand, scooping up a fid of rice, dipping it in his gravy bowl, carrying it to his mouth, pushing it in with a flick of his thumb. He saw all that went on about him and tried to remember; but he was not sure what he was seeing and what imagining. He drank the arrack thirstily and soon forgot why he had to remember. He was William Savage, taking ritual part in a decorous, blood-bathed fantasy. He was Gopal the weaver, eating contentedly, with respect, and carefully carrying all his bones and refuse to the soiled sheet. But Gopal the weaver lay under the eaves in the stable, and William Savage was cold.
Long before the meal ended his stomach pressed against his waistband, but he kept on, like his companions, until every last grain of rice was gone and all three arrack jars were empty. The Jemadar stood up, swaying slightly on his feet. ‘Our feast is over. The blessing of Kali be on us all!’
All stood. Yasin took up the pick-axe and returned it to its place under his bedding, the point carefully toward the north. He folded the rice sheet away to be washed and swept up the turmeric and lime and threw it on the offal. The men of the bear troupe lifted the soiled sheet, with the offal and refuse, and folded the corners over. Piroo took the blanket off the door and went out and down the stairs. He came back and nodded, and the bear leader said to the Jemadar, ‘In the stable?’
Hussein looked steadily at William. William heard, and to control his trembling held his hands tight to the sides.
The Jemadar answered, ‘Yes. Deep.’
‘Huzoor sahib!’
The bear men left with the offal. In twos and threes, over a period of thirty minutes, the rest left, except for the five who inhabited the room—the Jemadar, Yasin, Piroo, Hussein, and William. William listened, and listened, his ears seeming to burst with the effort. The bear men must be digging in the stables. He heard nothing; no one came back up the stairs.
After an hour the Jemadar stuck his head out of the door and sang a snatch of the song he had sung by the Nawab’s fire a week ago:
‘Moon of the north, thy hands are lotus blossoms…’
He came in, closed the door, and smoothed his beard with the back of his hand.
‘Now!’ He rubbed his hands together, smirking. ‘Now, let’s have a little fun.’
Chapter Eighteen
The Jemadar went to the corner, brought out his zither, and sat down again in the middle of the room. He began to pluck the strings. Hussein and William sat beside him, squatting forward. Piroo rummaged under his kit and brought out two hidden jars of arrack. Yasin produced a hookah, set it on the floor, and placed a glowing lump of charcoal on the bowl. In a minute he swung the mouthpiece away, coughing. ‘The Prophet forbids me to touch strong spirits. At a feast Kali orders me to drink. What am I to do?’ He was quite drunk, and did not speak at all flippantly, but like a man worried over a conflict of spiritual loyalties.
Hussein squatted, and drank, and stared at the floor. William drank, and tried to push away the vision of the dead weaver; but when he had done that a worse memory remained: the lovely warmth of the killing. He thought suddenly of Mary, wet-lipped and hungry in the darkness. It was like that, and his knees melted as he thought of her. But it was horrible—and passionately desirable. It was the open-armed, sucking-soft body of Kali, and her embrace. He feared Kali now, and he knew why Hussein had said he must learn to fear her.
The door opened, and his legs trembled so he could not move. The Jemadar turned to him with a smile. ‘The girls,’ he said. ‘One each for you, and me, and Hussein here. Those two’—he pointed his chin at Yasin and Piroo—‘are woman-haters, they say. Come on in!’
The three girls were young. One was sultry and heavy-lidded, and as she walked seemed to sway from the top-heavy weight of her breasts. She squatted down next to the Jemadar. He grabbed her, and she leaned invitingly away from him.
The second girl had a hard, thin face and lips avaricious for things other than love. She sat down beside Hussein and began to ply him with liquor.
The third girl closed the door, hesitated, and came slowly toward William. She was not beautiful; she had a plain, pleasantly round face, full hips, strong legs, and brown cowlike eyes. She squatted at his side, tucked in the folds of her dress between her thighs, and reached for the hookah. She said, ‘What’s your name?’
‘Gopal.’
‘Gopal. Gopal? Haven’t we met before?’ She peered at him with an uncertain smile.
‘No. Perhaps. What does it matter?’
‘Nothing at all, Gopal. Give me a drink. The customers have made me very thirsty tonight.’ She smiled again, simply, as if she had said only that work in the fields was exhausting. She leaned against him as he picked up the jar. She opened her mouth, flashing her large teeth, and he poured a gill of arrack down her throat. He felt her warmth against him and held his breath while the glow spread through him and all the ugly visions retreated, and faded, and vanished.
The Jemadar sang, plucked the string of the zither, and tried to keep a hand free for his woman. He was the kind of man—amoral, happy to float on the surface of life, possessed of charm and a pleasant wit—who could make a party go well in any company. The arrack jars passed round, the smoke of tobacco and charcoal cleaned the greasy after-coating of the meal off the roof of William’s mouth. The girl pressed on him. She was like an English milkmaid, and he put his arms round her. She wore a loose bodice of the pattern common with harlots.
The eight of them sang together for a time, and the Jemadar became too drunk to follow his woman far up any path of desire. She saw it and began to throw liquid glances at Yasin, who smiled mournfully and shook his head.
Suddenly the Jemadar plucked a violent discord from the strings. The jangle died out in the rafters. He said, his sentences reeling together, ‘We’re all friends here. We’ve known each other for a long time. What’s the matter with the Deceivers?’
William glanced up cautiously as the question penetrated the fuddle in his head. The girls did not start or show surprise.
‘What’s the matter with us, eh? Fifty years ago, my father’s time, we didn’t have to bury the pick-axe in camp, just threw it down a well, and in the morning an officer went to the well, called, the pick-axe jumped out into his hand.’
‘Have you ever seen that happen, Jemadar-sahib?’’ Yasin asked gloomily.
‘Me? No. How should I? Those days, Deceivers kept the law strictly, didn’t kill women, Sikhs, low castes, oilmen, deformed people, all the rest of the law. But we have done those things ever since I was inish—initiash—inished.’
Yasin raised his head. ‘I do not believe the pick-axe ever sprang of itself out of any well. That is a superstition. It is not the ill will of Kali that causes our misfortunes but our sinfulness, and our weakness that disobeys her clear signs.’ He was so drunk that he spoke slowly, with unnatural clarity.
The Jemadar said belligerently, ‘Oh, you think so? What about getting rid of merchandise then? Isn’t it true that in the beginning Kali did it for us, we didn’t have to dig or anything? Didn’t someone spoil it, look round against orders, see Kali throwing the bodies up in the air, catching them in her mouth, eating them? And wasn’t she angry because the man had seen her naked—teats sticking out and all lovely and naked?’ He suddenly remembered his harlot and thrust his hand inside her bodice and dragged out her breast. ‘Like this!’
The woman glanced down, then around at the men, with smoky pride. Yasin sat up straight and began to speak, his voice dropping to the organ note of his prayers, deep, slow, intoxicated now with arrack as well as religious ecstasy, but ploughing majestically on, finding the words.
‘Hear you, hear you the sacred story of our rights! Hear you, and know the only truth of the Deceivers, beyond which all is superstition. Hear you!’!
The listeners settled back, as though to hear an oft-told tale, and watched Yasin. The woman pulled the bodice around her and hid her breast.
‘In the beginning was the spirit, and of that spirit the Creator created. He gave the spirit to men, and of the spirit women gave birth, and the world began to be peopled. After the beginning came Raktabij Danava, the Demon of Blood and Seed. He killed men as the Creator created them. Kali, obeying the spirit in her, went out to destroy the Demon. The Demon strode through the oceans of black water away from her, and the oceans lapped his waist, and he hurled defiance at Kali, and killed men as the Creator created them. Then Kali went over to the Demon, and waved her destroying sword about her head, and stuck out her blue-black tongue and spat blood from her mouth, and struck at the Demon of Blood and Seed to kill him.’
Yasin drew breath. The Jemadar jerked his hand in a drunken spasm and set the zither strings humming. William saw phantom shadows fighting on the wall and shut his eyes.
‘The Demon’s flesh was cut deep, deep! The blood and seed flowed out from his wound and poured on the earth. Where each drop touched the earth another Demon sprang up in that place, armed, and ready to kill what the Creator created. Kali swung her sword and hacked at the new-born Demons. She killed them, and from their wounds the blood and seed spurted out and fell on the earth, and where every drop fell another Demon sprang up, and ran about the world killing what the Creator created, and Kali ran about after them, and struck desperately with her sword, and the Demons bled, and from each drop of their blood and seed a new Demon sprang up.
‘Kali rested, and wiped the sweat from her blue-black arms with a handkerchief, and two drops of her sweat fell on the earth. The Creator saw her distress and from her drops of sweat created two men. And Kali said to the men, “Take my handkerchief. Kill the Demons of Blood and Seed so that no drop of their blood and seed falls to the earth.” And the men took Kali’s rumal, and went out over the world, and strangled the Demons, so that no drop of their blood and seed touched the earth, but they died. And when it was done they returned to Kali and said, “Great Goddess, we have done thy will and obeyed thy orders. Here is thy rumal.” And Kali said, “Keep my rumal. Use it to live, as you have used it that the Creator’s creation of mankind may live. Mankind owes you men, and will owe you to the last reckoning, however many you kill. All mankind, all, is your
s. Only obey me, obey my omen on the left and my omen on the right. Listen, and watch, and obey always that you may prosper always.” And the men went away and hid Kali’s rumal until sixteen generations had passed from the creation. Then their children’s children’s children’s children’s children’s——’ He stopped suddenly. ‘That is all the words of the sacred story of the rights of the Deceivers, and all else is superstition.’ He rolled over on his side and went to sleep.
The Jemadar woke up, asked why everyone was so damned quiet, and began to play on his zither. William thought the inside of his head would soon explode; he got up and stumbled to the corner to wash his face and get a drink of water. As he stood there, supporting himself in the angle of the wall, his girl came over to him and held him under the shoulders.
She said, when he had drunk, ‘Come to me now.’
All the events of the day whirled about in his head, blown by the fumes of arrack. He was not a person but a place, cloudy with red blood and white rice, and booming to the organ surge of Yasin’s voice. Father. I have sinned and am no more worthy to be called Thy son. He had eaten the sugar. Kali was Death. Kali was a woman. The zither urged him to spend desire. The girl’s hands demanded him and crept over him. He put down the beaker, and touched her, and found her full, warm, and waiting.
