by Threes Anna
Peter feels a twig sticking through his sock. He hopes the man doesn’t choose his boots. This is immediately followed by the fervent wish that Felix will not have to give up his. Without them, his wound will only get worse.
The Jap takes his time trying on the boots. Once in a while he shouts something to his subordinates, who are standing close by with loaded rifles. After trying on the fifth pair of boots, he gestures that he wants their socks as well. The men hesitate at first: surely one pair of socks is enough? But the man insists that they all have to take off their socks. The men are even more uncomfortable, and are overcome by a childish sensation of modesty. The Jap stuffs a pair of socks into the toe of each boot and then tries them on. Satisfied, he stands up. When he sees the soldiers of the British-Indian Army looking expectantly at the pile of boots, he starts shouting. The men have no idea what he is shouting, and Felix makes a move as if he is about to pull his boots from the pile. This almost gets him shot, and he quickly retreats. The little Jap picks up a sock and holds a lighted match to it. When the sock catches fire, he throws it onto the pile of socks, setting it alight. Then someone shouts that they’re to form a line, and they begin marching. They go straight past their own piled-up shoes, which refuse to burn, and march into the jungle. It is almost dark.
THE GROUND CUTS, pricks, stings, lacerates, chafes, sucks, slides, slashes, hampers, scratches, itches, slices, slithers, bumps, scrapes, catches, and torments. He cannot see what is left of his feet, but he is aware of a gash filled with dirt under his left foot and he suspects that the nail on his big toe is hanging by a thread. The soles of both feet are pierced by thousands of the tiny spines that lie on the path. Or maybe there is no path. They’re constantly warding off low-hanging branches and tripping over tree stumps, and anyone who slows the pace can expect a blow from a rifle butt. Peter can’t fathom why they started walking just as it was getting dark. No one has a lamp, not even the Japs. They stumble on, in total darkness.
The sounds of the jungle are drowned out by the groans of the men. He feels like crying himself. He knows from experience that tears help to ease the pain, but they won’t come. Felix, who’s walking behind him, is silent. For the first hour he moaned softly at every step. Peter surmises that, like the others, he has exceeded his own pain threshold.
Branches lash Peter’s face. He is conscious of a creature slithering away beneath his feet. What was it? Perhaps a tiny viper that was equally startled, or a leech that wasn’t fast enough, or maybe one of those giant slugs that make their home among the thorny roots.
AS IT BEGINS to get light, Peter looks over his shoulder to see how Felix is holding up. The young officer has disappeared. Behind him is a stumbling Jap with a rifle. Did he whack Felix because he couldn’t keep up the pace? Why didn’t he call out? Peter blames himself for not seeing to it that Felix was in front of him when the row of men set off. The Jap looks at him dispassionately. Did he simply step aside when Felix collapsed, leaving him behind? There is nothing to be gained by speculating on what happened, since no one has an answer. Dead or alive, Felix has been left behind in the jungle. They will never meet again.
The evening that Felix told his story was special. It was a full moon and they had found a decent place to shelter for the night. They lay in a circle, sucking on the small sour berries that grew there. Felix had looked up at the moon and asked them if they had ever heard the story of the moon-woman. The unanimous answer was no. So Felix sat up and, in an unexpectedly gentle voice, told them about a woman with a long braid who was always dressed in white. With every word he spoke, Peter was more convinced that Felix was describing the woman he loved, and that he had never told her of his love. They lived in the same village, and from his window he could see how the moon rose behind her house. And when that heavenly body was round and full, there was always a snow-white sheet on the wash line. That square of cloth, flapping in the wind, had cast a spell over him. But he had never lain under that sheet alongside his beloved. The war had called him and taken him away. And now no one would ever know where he died, not even Peter, who for weeks had tended to his wound.
THERE ARE NO stops, not for a minute. It’s the thirst that plagues them. It intensifies from sunrise on, slowing the tempo. Their feet are red and black with blood. The procession continues on its way, occasionally moving faster when they come to what resembles a path. The pace is excruciatingly slow. The men fall and scramble to their feet as quickly as they can. These falls, and their frequent cries of pain, enable them to pass messages to one another without the knowledge of the Japanese. Now they all know that Felix has disappeared, and that the little Jap has put the boots in his rucksack and is barefoot again, apparently unbothered.
They stumble along, and are now entering their second night. No one can figure out why the Japs don’t stop to rest. The Japs must be just as exhausted as they are, although not as thirsty, since they each have a water bottle.
The prisoners’ falls and their efforts to get to their feet again also provide them with the opportunity to devise a plan and pass it on. When it gets dark, they’ll take the last Jap by surprise and then get rid of the two armed soldiers in the middle. In possession of three rifles, they will then be able to eliminate the others. It’s Peter’s job to disarm the Jap who brings up the rear.
Although it was originally his plan, Peter never expected the others to take it seriously. It was something he had thought up because it might boost the general morale. He looks over his shoulder at the man walking behind him, whom he can hear but cannot see. Maybe he never noticed that Felix had fallen? Maybe the boy simply allowed himself to fall to the ground because he didn’t want to be a burden?
Peter drops to the ground. The Jap doesn’t stumble, as he had hoped, but kicks him hard. Peter climbs to his feet and groans, this time without a message for any of the others. He could kick himself for coming up with such a stupid plan.
The soldier in front of him moans: “Is anything happening?”
Just as Peter is about to tell him that the plan didn’t work, they stumble into a deserted village. By the light of the stars, he can distinguish a few empty huts with a chair in front of them. Even before he can hope that they are going to rest, a gate made of branches is shoved open and they are led into an enclosure where two British soldiers are sitting on the ground. The younger of the two jumps to his feet. Peter recognizes him immediately. It’s Benjamin Parker from Hull, with whom he made the long trip to the border by train. The boy opens his arms wide in welcome and in that same instant a shot rings out. The young soldier — who confided to Peter that he was crazy about chocolate cake and had never kissed a girl — falls dead at their feet. Peter bends down, wants to pick the boy up, is unable to believe that he’s dead, just like that. Then the barefoot Jap growls, “Go sit I shoot you!” Peter realizes that the Jap understood all their groans, and that he is lucky to be alive.
The dead soldier Benjamin stares glassily at Peter with his remaining eye. Peter wonders if the soldier shot Benjamin as revenge for their escape attempt, which he had dreamt up in order to keep up their morale. Opposite them, on the other side of the enclosure, sits a British soldier, apparently older than the others, who, like his dead comrade, is no longer wearing a jacket and is constantly scratching his arms and neck. Peter wants to tell him to stop scratching, since it increases the chance of developing boils and infections, but no one, including Peter, dares speak. “Now you’re a captain,” the major in New Delhi had said. He’d been handed an envelope containing three stars, which he had to sew onto his jacket. He found it more difficult than suturing a surgical wound. He looks around at the handful of men and concludes that he is the highest in rank. The responsibility that this entails takes him by surprise, and he resolves not to give up. He will see to it that the men recover their faith in themselves.
A crow announces its arrival with hoarse cries. The pitch-black bird lands next to the body, which
is now decaying more quickly as a result of the heat. Peter tosses a stone at the bird. It flutters up momentarily, but then attacks the open wound that until recently contained the eye. The sooner the rotting flesh is done away with, the better it will be for the health of the men. Peter suspects that the Japs have left the body there deliberately, as part of their strategy. In the extreme heat, the process will be accelerated, but even a week is too long — the exhausted men seated around the body are weak, and they are getting weaker. In the end, the flies, which number in the thousands, will have taken possession of the body. If he can manage to remove the trousers from the body, the process of rotting will be accelerated.
After fifty hours without sleep or water, he sees the little Jap and his rifle through a kind of haze that hangs in front of his eyes. And yet he knows that the man is looking at him. He bows his head, pulls his foot toward him, and begins to work the dirt out of his wounds. He feels his way, since the glazed mist shrouds his vision. When he thinks he is finished, he rubs his tongue over the roof of his mouth to produce a bit of saliva, which he spits onto his hand and then works into the wound, by way of disinfectant. The soldier next to him is momentarily surprised when, without a word, he picks up his foot and does the same thing. He forgets that he is hungry and thirsty. He is only aware of the large, hairy foot covered with cuts and scratches.
One of the Japs watches with interest as he treats the feet of the other soldiers, one by one, without saying a word. Except for the feet of the older Englishman, who is still wearing his boots. After treating the last pair of wounded feet, the captain crawls over to the body of the soldier. The guard’s finger glides toward the trigger. Peter picks up the arms and legs of the dead soldier and lays the body straight. In such extreme heat, rigor mortis disappears more quickly than usual, and without exerting too much force, Peter manages to pull the body out of the grisly posture it assumed after falling to the ground. The flies buzz around him. He can tell by the feel of the greenish body that it is becoming pulpy, and that the process of decomposition will proceed much faster than he had expected.
The dead soldier had not eaten for a long time, like all of them, and the trousers are far too big, which makes it easy to strip them off. Then it occurs to him that he can use the material to bandage his comrades’ feet. Among the angry flies on the soldier’s chest, he sees the glint of a small silver cross on a chain. Peter picks up the emaciated hands and folds them, one over the other, on the chest. This is the only ritual he is able to perform. With the boots and the trousers in his hand, he crawls back to his place. Clad only in stained khaki underwear, the body appears quite chaste and boyish. Only the flies and the missing eye take away from the dignity of the green soldier lying in state.
For the first time in days, he has slept, leaning against one of the stakes of the enclosure. It is still dark when he wakes up. He is aware that the slightly sweet odour of the cadaver has been transformed into the bitter smell that ushers in the second phase. In the coming hours the body will swell up like a balloon. His hunger has completely disappeared, but not his thirst. His lips are cracked and his tongue searches desperately for moisture in the hidden recesses of his mouth. As dawn comes, he is aware that the haze before his eyes has disappeared. He picks up a small stone from the sand, pulls the trousers onto his lap, and begins to cut open the seams. He resolves that as long as he remains alive, he will get his men out of this situation.
1955 Bombay ~~~
MADAN RUNS DOWN the street, carrying a length of cloth wrapped in paper. Now that he is an apprentice in the weaving mill, he seldom goes out on the street. He sleeps under the lean-to on the roof, alongside Subhash. He eats with the weavers in the tiny room next to their looms, and during the day he carries out the tasks assigned to him by Chandan Chandran. After spending several days unpicking cloth, he has figured out how the fabric is woven. In the following weeks he helps to regulate the thread tension and wind up the spools. Chandran, his boss, has taught him how to hem a piece of cloth, using a coarse or a fine stitch, depending on the material. He wouldn’t have been sent to deliver the fabric wrapped in brown paper if things hadn’t been so busy and the coolie had already returned with the bicycle. Chandran stressed that it was a rush job, so Madan runs as fast as he can to the villa behind the temple with the tall tower. In the past when he ran through the streets, he was always with Abbas and they were always on the run. Now, as he passes the same buildings and the same alleyways, he’s on a mission.
He knows where the temple with the tall tower is. Sometimes they were given a plate of food, if they’d had no luck begging and the priest was in a good mood. Now he runs down the alley, hugging the wall that surrounds the villa. There’s a guard at the gate. He’s wearing a uniform with shiny buttons and a cap with piping. He stops Madan. “Who are you looking for?”
Madan shows him the package.
“Who’s it for?”
“For Madame,” he squeaks, but his message is unintelligible.
The man looks at him in horror and snatches the package out of his hands, as if he’s afraid Madan has contaminated it.
Madan would have liked to duck under his arms and run to the front door in order to deliver the package himself. That would almost certainly have earned him a tip, as the coolie told him. But the guard looked at him with such suspicion that he is afraid to go any farther.
IF HE’D OPTED for the shortest route back to the weaving mill, he would have gone back down the same alleyway, past the temple. But the harbour, which is a bit farther away, draws him like a magnet. He doesn’t want to go there — but he has to.
He is shocked at the sight of the two dilapidated sheds. There is something threatening about them. It’s as if they’ve gotten tired of waiting for him. His feet, which had been propelled forward, suddenly come to a halt. Confused, he stares at the spot where the two sheds join. The crevice they used to creep through has largely disappeared. It’s as if the sheds have subsided, bringing them closer together. Not even a scrawny dog or a fat rat could get through. With some hesitation, Madan places his hand over the opening and feels the current of air racing through it. Cautiously, he sticks his nose into the crack and takes a deep breath. Where are you, Abbas? Where are you? He smells old wood and tar instead of decay and rot. Madan takes a step backwards. He looks around, wondering if this is the right spot. Maybe the opening is farther on. But none of the buildings look even vaguely like the sheds the two of them used to squeeze past. Except for the two in front of him. He presses his face into the narrow chink and peers into the space. Where are you? It’s pitch black and he can’t see a thing. In frustration, he slams his hand against the narrow opening. I haven’t forgotten you. Isn’t there some maxim or watchword he can pronounce to make the walls give way? I didn’t mean to desert you. You have to believe me. Calmer now, he runs his hand over the narrow opening. I wanted to come back, but I didn’t dare. His fingers curve into the opening. I was scared. Afraid that you would look like that dog. Remember . . . at the station. I was afraid that you would smell like that dog and the rats would have eaten part of you. I didn’t want to see that, because you’re my friend. My only real friend.
1995 Rampur ~~~
THE WINDOWS WERE wide open, and her fingers danced over the keys. Playing the piano blocked out all the thoughts, the worries, the brooding. Listening to romantic music, she was transported away from her bedroom . . . she was dancing off, out the door and into a celestial space filled with heavenly tones. On the edge of the night table her fingers played Mozart’s love sonata, Schubert’s Moments Musicaux, Debussy’s Clair de Lune, and Liszt’s Liebesträume, one after the other. She could play them all from memory, and never once did she think about the day she sold her piano.
Sita had fallen to her knees, grasped the hem of Charlotte’s skirt, and beseeched her. Parvat, who was much younger than Sita’s other children, was suffering from a mysterious illness. Every evening for months
, he had run a high fever, vomited all the food that Sita had prepared for him, and then become delirious until sunrise. At the break of dawn the fever would subside and he would be hungry again. During the day, the child was perfectly normal. He went to school and played with his friends. Until evening, when the sun set. Within five minutes his fever would shoot up, to a dangerous level. Sita sat up with him all night, positive that he wouldn’t live until morning. There was no money for another doctor, and she had come to the big house on the hill to ask for help. Charlotte knew that her bank account was empty, but she also knew the value of her grand piano. She did not hesitate for a moment. That was the first time she called a dealer.
By sunset the piano had disappeared from the house and a medicine man from Calcutta was at the boy’s bedside. Various herbs were immediately ordered and all objects made of copper were banished from the house. Charlotte never understood exactly what he had done, but two weeks later the boy had returned to normal, and life went on as if there had never been a problem. Except perhaps for Charlotte, who wouldn’t admit how much she missed her piano.
Suddenly she was jolted out of her reverie. She became aware of a shrill, piercing sound. A fire engine sped by, its heart-rending siren going full tilt. The sound seemed to fill the night. She peered out the window to see if there was any sign of a fire on the horizon. All she saw by the yellow light of a street lamp was a line of people, all of them carrying buckets on their heads. These people were not on their way to the fire: like everyone else, they had no more water and were going in search of wells where they might find some. If the monsoon doesn’t come pretty soon, we’re all going to die, thought Charlotte.
