Long Night of Storm

by Indra Bahadur Rai

  One night, Man Bahadur saw in his dream a man he had never laid eyes on, never met.

  In Man Bahadur’s own words:

  I had never before seen the man anywhere, neither had I ever read of a character like him. The man, nearly six feet tall, wearing red shoes, khaki trousers, a jacket with green stripes and a felt hat, was striding in my direction, not looking at me or paying any attention, overtaking all other pedestrians. When he reached quite close, I carefully studied his face. The dream muddied there for an instance. When it became clearer, he was addressing me:

  ‘I owe you ten rupees, don’t I? If I say I’ll pay you back, I’ll make sure to keep my word. If I’d known I’d need the money right now, I would have carried it on me.’

  ‘Well, when will you pay me?’ I asked impatiently. He turned his dark, flat face with its slender, pointed nose and a bright pair of eyes and said, ‘I shall always carry a ten-rupee note on me. Whenever you meet me next, just ask, and I promise to give it to you. If I go back on my words, may a jeep run me over and kill me.’

  The man looked very scared as he took the oath.

  In the morning, as I watered the flowers in my garden, I quizzed over what portents the dream might contain. Because it is said that money is a nest of strife, I worried that I might quarrel with someone during the day and so became careful.

  I was walking towards my workplace, taking care to keep to the edge of the road, when I reached the exact spot that I had seen in my dream. People walked past. I paused to carefully examine the spot. If I were to get into a quarrel, this would be just the place. But everybody was quietly walking about their own business. I counted myself a fool and continued on my road. Just then, I saw a man was approaching me from the distance. He was wearing a double-breasted green coat and khaki trousers with rounded cuffs. He was surely scared in a big way, and was crossing the road in a hurry. I came to a puzzled halt. He was also wearing a felt hat, but he just wouldn’t look in my direction. When he came very close I carefully scanned his face. It was the same man! I wasn’t in the least scared; instead, I was overcome by a desire to play mischief. ‘I am going to try and ask him for money,’ I thought.

  I hurried after him, matching strides, until I stopped him and said, ‘Give me my ten rupees.’

  The man stared at me with wide-open eyes. Then he examined me from head to toe. He comprehended nothing. He tried to ask me something but his parted lips merely trembled a little. Then he took a step backward. I continued to stare him down, as if I’d swallow him whole. One of his hands tentatively went inside the coat, took out a green ten-rupee note, and he quietly handed it to me.

  I took the money and walked away.

  Right up until the post-office hid me around a bend, I felt as if he had turned around to watch me.

  I told nobody about that incident. I was afraid that people would listen to the story and make all sorts of comments, add to it and exaggerate it into a different story. But I would, without fail and every day, take out the ten-rupee note and inspect it. Worried that it was a fake, I even compared the serial number to the list of serial numbers for counterfeit currency written down in my notebook. The note wasn’t a fake. A few days later I began to suspect: ‘Can I use this to buy something?’ On that day, I bought a book with it. The shopkeeper accepted it and put it in his box. I screamed in panic and asked for the note to be returned. I gave another note in exchange and ran homewards.

  I spent the night in trepidation, worried that perhaps my secret was fraying at the edges, slowly being revealed to the world.

  The man wasn’t seen in my dreams again. I didn’t run into him during the day either. Occasionally, I would go to the police station to ask if there was news about anybody being run over and killed by a jeep. Later, I felt as if the constables at the station had become suspicious of me. Worried that my secret could become exposed there, and out of caution, I no longer visited the police station.

  Just when it seemed everything had become tranquil, he appeared right at my door one early morning. He had become very skinny. He also became very frightened upon seeing me. But I only felt anger. Because I had to face him again.

  ‘Don’t be upset to see me,’ he came nearer and said in a pitiable voice. ‘Are you angry because you have to return the ten rupees? But you do have to return that!’

  ‘No! You won’t get a single paisa!’

  ‘Why won’t I?’ he continued in a polite but firm voice. ‘Explain to me why I gave you those ten rupees!’

  I was hard pressed for an answer.

  ‘You tell me—why did you give it to me? You must have had a reason to, otherwise why would you? Explain to me the accounts between us, and if I owe you that money, I will give it to you right now. If I go back on my word, may a truck run me over and kill me!’

  He stood there, with the light gone out of his face.

  I left for the bazaar.

  He returned the next day, just as early in the morning. He pottered around in the yard for nearly half an hour, waiting.

  ‘It’s only because I don’t have anything at home to eat! How can you toy with a man’s life!’ He was on the verge of tears. ‘Give me the money. Right now. I’ll buy rice.’

  I really was beginning to toy with him. I repeated my old lines.

  ‘Show me the accounts first. Show me what I owe you—I’ll definitely give you the money then. But don’t be a child and whine that someone else’s money is yours. It just can’t be true that I have borrowed a measly ten rupees from you.’

  As he was leaving, he said—‘Enjoy it! I hope you get fat on the ten rupees you have tricked out of me. You’re toying with me now, but you’ll come to regret my murder someday. Some hooligan you are! I may die, but I’ll show you…’

  A few days after that I met him on the same road. He didn’t speak to me. He scuttled away along the edge of the road. I had kept his money in my pocket. I had grown attached to the money. The day when I would have to part with it, I would…

  A week later, as I was walking to work, I saw him approaching with a friend. His friend was distinguished by his fur hat and police boots. Even though I pretended not to notice, I saw him pucker his mouth to point me out to the friend. The things he must be saying to slander me! I tried hard to ignore them. The fur hat sniggered as he passed. But I didn’t lose my patience. I walked along my road, not paying them any heed.

  From the next day on, I didn’t dream of the man or run into him in person. Nine or ten months passed, and he still didn’t appear. A certain regret started nagging me. What if he really had had nothing to eat? Did I bring about his ruin? If only I could meet him, I would… I desperately searched for him, but I never found him. And then something new happened: I even forgot his face, how it looked. Then I became absolutely convinced that he had already died.

  I inquired about him with many people—perhaps someone knew where he used to work. I went to the hospital, but nobody had been run over by a jeep.

  Something had started gnawing at me from the inside. I was always afraid that I would descend into psychosis, that I would lose my mind later. A lifelong attachment to this ten-rupee note would remain, surely; but if I were unable to return it, I would possibly become increasingly deranged with each passing day. I desperately needed to talk to somebody about my condition. If only I could reach his grave and howl to my heart’s content…

  I suddenly remembered the fur-hat. I must find him, I thought—to meet him was to resolve all issues…

  In the morning, I stood at the same spot along the road. Fur-hat didn’t pass that way.

  He didn’t show up the next day either.

  I was waiting on the third day. And, surely, he approached from the distance. As he walked, he halted, hesitated, as if to make sure that I saw him.

  ‘Where is your friend?’ I rushed to his side and asked breathlessly.

  He hesitated.

  ‘Where is your friend? Where is he?’ I asked anxiously. And, in the excitement, I had his arm in a
tight grip, as if I was worried that he would run away and disappear forever.

  ‘Which friend?’ he asked instead.

  ‘Your friend! He walked with you through here one day.’

  ‘Who could it be?’

  ‘Quit dithering! The one in the khaki trousers, a green coat, and a felt hat…’

  ‘He wasn’t a friend of mine.’

  ‘Whoever he is—where is he now?’

  ‘He died.’

  ‘He died?’

  ‘Been two months now.’

  I let go of his arm.

  ‘He had no job, no money—he starved to death. He fell ill, but he must have thought it better to put a clean end to it rather than waste away in bed. He killed himself by jumping off the cliff at Kagebhir,’ he said.

  I couldn’t muster anything more to say.

  When I went to bed that night the sights of Kagebhir kept flooding into my eyes. What would people think of me if I go there in the day and scream? But I reached Kagebhir in my dream.

  It was moonlit.

  The tall, naked and dark trunk of an Indian trumpet tree. He clutched bags full of banknotes and stood at the precipice.

  I looked down the cliff. It was a rocky outcrop, scraggly with clumps of bracken. There I shouted, ‘I never got to know who you were. I have your ten rupees. Dreams enchanted me. That is the only reason why I didn’t return your money. You shouldn’t have had to die. I really have grown attached to your banknote. But if anybody asks for it I will return your money to him.’

  I was still thinking of what else I could say to him when a man emerged from the base of an alder.

  ‘How could I be dead? I only pretended to die, just to get the money. Fur-hat taught me everything and sent me to you,’ he laughed. ‘So, will you return my money now?’

  I was also laughing.

  When the laughter ceased I took out his banknote from my pocket, offered it to him, and said, ‘Oh, take it right away! God! Your money! There’s no way I am going to hold on to it anymore.’

  When he saw the banknote in my hand he jumped as far away as he could, as if he had discerned the outlines of a treacherous plot.

  ‘I won’t take this banknote. This note I won’t take, not now, no way!’

  I threw the note to the ground and said, ‘Once it has left my pocket, it can’t return. The money is there. Pick it, keep it. I’m leaving! See!’

  The man screamed. ‘I absolutely refuse to take this money today. If you force me, I’ll really jump off this cliff and kill myself.’

  And, what if, when he jumps off the cliff in this dream, what if he dies in real life, in the bed where he is sleeping right now? A new anxiety smothered me.

  ‘All right then. I will keep it for the night, but take it away tomorrow,’ I said, and picked up the banknote.

  Early this morning somebody knocked on the door.

  It was the same man.

  ‘Return the ten rupees,’ he proudly demanded.

  I was astonished. But I said in a steady voice, ‘Why did you refuse to take the money when I offered it to you last night?’

  ‘Aren’t you a clever one!’ he said bravely. ‘You’d borrow my money in reality and try to return it in dreams!’

  I felt as if I had vaguely understood something. My head hurt. I squeezed out a final question, ‘Do you want the same banknote, or can I give you another note?’

  He replied with ease, ‘Give me whatever you want. But don’t give me bad money.’

  Acknowledgements

  I am immensely grateful to Mr Indra Bahadur Rai for trusting me with the task of translating these stories. I have but succeeded in capturing a fraction of the grace, density and economy of his original. I also acknowledge the hard work and courage of translators who have translated some of these stories before, and I invite other translators to create new translations of I. B. Rai’s short stories, in English and in other languages.

  Anurag Basnet—I wouldn’t have been able to muster the courage to attempt translating these stories without you in my corner. My friends and fellow editors at La.Lit, along with Nepali writers and poets who have allowed me to translate their works, are always a source of inspiration.

  A new generation of readers in Nepal and abroad will have access to a small share of I. B. Rai’s works. My hope is that this book will encourage new readers to explore more of Mr Rai’s literary legacy, and also push more readers towards becoming translators and emissaries between languages and cultures.

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed, or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Version 1.0

  Published by Speaking Tiger in paperback 2018

  Original copyright © Indra Bahadur Rai

  Translation copyright © Prawin Adhikari 2018

  ePub 978-93-87164-63-5

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