I Shall Not Hear The Nightingale (12 page)

Beena took off one of her gold bangles. ‘Give this to your eldest for her dowry. And now sing me a song.’ Beena flung the bangle on the ground.

The hillwoman picked it up and placed it on her open palm. ‘Bibi! You are unmarried and will need it yourself. Take this back.’

‘No! I don’t take back anything I have given. Now sing.’

The woman came up to Beena, touched her feet, and began a loud sing-song of blessing. ‘Bibi, may all your wishes be fulfilled! May you get a handsome
bridegroom; may you be the mother of seven sons; may you. . . . ’

‘Stop! stop!’ laughed Beena. ‘You have seven sons yourself; one will be enough for me. Now sing.’

‘I will sing you a song of a young girl waiting for her lover.’

She began to hum. When she had the notes correct she put the palm of her hand across her left ear and started to sing. Once more her soft, plaintive voice rose above the roar of the stream and the crying of barbets and flooded the valley like the sunshine. Beena shut her eyes and listened to the invocation to the gods to grant a young girl’s wishes: to bring her lover back home in time to hear the koel calling in the mango groves and see the rain falling in torrents; to make him take her till every part of her body was full of pleasure and full of pain.

The singing stopped suddenly. Beena opened her eyes. The old woman had drawn her veil. Beena looked up. Madan was standing beside her. ‘What sin have I committed that I should not be allowed to hear the singing?’ he asked with a smile.

‘Hai Bhraji, I didn’t hear you. I thought you were asleep.’

‘How can sleep come to me when you are away!’

Beena’s face coloured up. The hillwoman got up, wrapped her grass in a bundle, and called to her goats. ‘Aoh, aoh. Urrieyeh. Bibi, a thousand blessings on you. We will always pray for you.’ She hurried down the hillside driving the flock of goats in front of her.

‘Are you angry with me? You haven’t spoken to me all day.’

Beena stood up. Madan took her hands in his and pressed them against his heart. ‘You don’t love me,’ said Madan with a leer.

‘How can you say a thing like that? I like you more than anyone else. ... I also like your wife and your sister. I am very fond of you all,’ she replied. She could not bring herself to utter the word ‘love.’

Madan let go her hands and assumed a very hurt expression. ‘Let’s go back.’

‘Please don’t be angry with me,’ pleaded Beena. She came up to his side and took his hand. He did not reply; he withdrew his hand from hers and started to walk back. ‘Please don’t be angry with me, Bhraji, please!’ she pleaded tearfully. ‘I’ll do anything you want me to do, but don’t be cross with me. I will do anything. . . . ’

Madan stopped and turned to her. He held her firmly by her arms. ‘You swear you will do anything I ask?’

‘I swear.’

‘Come to my room tonight when everyone is asleep.’

Later in the afternoon more clouds appeared in the sky and a black wall came up on the southern horizon. There were flashes of lightning which could be seen across the bright sunlight.

‘I think the monsoon is here at last. We should get back home before it starts,’ said Sita.

They sat up and saw the black clouds towards the south looking like a range of mountains. The cicadas had begun to call. Then the bells of St. Crispin’s Church in Mashobra began to toll for evensong.

‘We must have tea at Gables Hotel,’ said Madan.

‘They have excellent sandwiches and cakes. They charge you just the same whether or not you eat them.’

‘In which case we better eat all they give us,’ said Champak laughing. ‘We have no dinner ready and it will be too late to cook anything.’

They got their things together and began to walk homewards. The road was too rough to cycle and was crowded with people going to Gables Hotel for tea. By the time Madan found a table and got a bearer to serve them, the wall of black clouds from the southern horizon had spread over the sky and a strong breeze sprung up. People started to leave. Rickshaw coolies and syces of horses were agitating to get their clients to move on before the downpour started. They were amongst the last to be served. Madan was in a bad temper. He did not mince his words with the bearer. ‘You serve Indians after the English people have finished! Is their money better than ours?’

The bearer grinned sheepishly. ‘No, sir, for us all are the same. They were in a hurry; it might start raining any moment.’

‘Don’t Indians get wet?’

The bearer shuffled his feet uncomfortably.

‘Jao — go’ roared Madan, ‘get me the bill.’

Madan’s outburst gave him a sort of right to command. He proceeded to order everyone. ‘I think you girls should be on your way,’ he told his sister and Beena. ‘I shall be slower as I have to bring Champak. We may catch you up at the Carpenters’ Bazaar. But don’t wait for us. Go home and get something hot ready; tea or something.’

The two girls got up. ‘Don’t go too fast,’ warned
Madan. ‘The road will be crowded with horses, rickshaws, and mule caravans.’

‘We can look after ourselves,’ replied Sita. ‘Don’t be too long.’ They waved a farewell and left on their cycles.

Madan scrutinized the bill carefully before paying. When the bearer brought him his change, he left a large tip on the plate and asked for a packet of cigarettes. The bearer brought him the cigarettes. Madan lit one, stretched his legs on another chair, and relaxed. After everyone had left, he stubbed his cigarette, looked up at the sky. ‘We’d better be moving,’ he said at last and got up.

They walked up the road to the Mashobra bazaar and stopped to survey the scene. Twilight was rapidly sinking into the night. Across a range of hills, the lights of Simla sparkled in stellar profusion all over Jacko Hill. Shopkeepers were putting up the shutters of their shops; smoke oozed through the crevices of the wooden planks smelling of wood and spices and tobacco. There were muffled sounds of the hubble-bubble of the hookah, of coughing and spitting and subdued conversation. The chirping of millions of cicadas was like the deafening roar of a waterfall.

Madan folded his raincoat over the bar of his cycle and smoothed it with his hand. Champak came on the other side. He put his arm around her waist and gently raised her on to the raincoat. He put his right leg across to the other side and got on the saddle. Once more he put his arm round Champak’s waist and brought her closer to him till her head touched his chin and her thighs were between his knees. He let the cycle roll down the hill.

They had hardly gone a hundred yards when it began to rain. ‘We will get wet,’ said Champak turning her face backwards.

‘We’ll stop under the cliff which is sheltered from rain.’

When they came to the cliff, they saw many people with bicycles taking shelter. Madan slowed down but did not stop. ‘I know a house farther down the road which has an arched entrance thickly covered with wild roses; that will be better.’

The house was another half-mile. By the time they got to it their clothes were completely wet. Madan put the bicycle against the wall and opened the gate. They went in and stopped under the arch made by the creeper. There were no roses, but honeysuckle, which grew with it, was in full bloom. Its acid-sweet smell was heavy in the dark, leafy tunnel.

‘I am absolutely drenched,’ said Champak holding out her shirt in the middle. ‘How foolish of us to sit on the raincoat instead of wearing it. You put it on before you catch a chill.’

‘We can share it,’ answered Madan. He spread the raincoat over his shoulders and put his arms around her waist. She leant back and let her head rest on his chest.

‘Your shirt is soaked,’ she said turning back. She opened the slit below the first button and drew her finger across his chest. ‘You will catch a cold,’ she murmured turning away from him and pressing her head back on to his chest.

‘You are also wet,’ replied Madan in a whisper. He undid the top button of her shirt and let his hands slip
on to her warm, rounded breasts. She turned her face up to him; their mouths met with hungry passion. Madan gently pushed her against the wall on the side and kissed her on her eyes and glued his lips on hers. The breath in his nostrils became heavy.

Champak wriggled out of his grasp: ‘What will the girls say if we are late?’

‘What will they say? They must have been held up by the rain! What else?’ He waited for her reaction. She flung her arms about his neck and bit him fiercely on the nose. Madan kissed her on her nose, chin, and neck; then buried his face between her breasts. She pushed him back. ‘Not here,’ she whispered. ‘Somebody will see us.’

Madan became impatient. As he moved towards her his shoulder brushed against a pole supporting the arch on which the roses and honeysuckle grew. A heavy shower of raindrops came down from the leaves. ‘You see,’ said Champak laughing, ‘the gods also say not here. Come along.’

Madan caught her by the arm. Before he could pull her towards him, a tinkle of bells came round the corner and a line of mules carrying wooden crates filed past. The muleteers coming behind paused by the gate and then moved on. They had hardly gone out of view when half-a-dozen rickshaws came round the bend. There was more tinkling of bells. ‘Hosh . . . bacho,’ shouted the coolies as they ran past on their bare feet.

‘Even the coolies say, “Careful . . . keep off,”’ said Champak teasing. ‘If you behave like a good boy, I will come to your room after the others have gone to bed.’

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Sita and Beena did not wait at the Carpenters’ Bazaar and went on home to get out of their wet clothes. They changed into their nightdresses and made themselves some tea. Madan and Champak came in an hour later.

‘We stopped under the cliff hoping the rain would stop. It was jammed with people. So we came on,’ said Champak holding up the hem of her shirt to show how wet it was.

They went to their rooms to change. Madan came back wearing his full-sleeve sports sweater and white flannel trousers. Champak joined them a few minutes later. She wore a bright red kimono. She had put on a fresh paint of lipstick and loosened her long black hair about her shoulders. ‘Absolutely wet,’ she explained, running her fingers through it and tossed it back. She settled down on the sofa and crossed her legs lotus fashion like a female Buddha.

They had their tea and discussed the monsoon. Beena didn’t say a word. Madan lit a cigarette. He did not know how to put her off. Should he take her aside and apologize to her for having made the unbrotherly proposal in a rash moment? Before he could make up his mind Champak yawned and got up. ‘I don’t know about you people, but I am very sleepy. It is this fresh air and the rain. Sat Sri Akal.’ Sita and Beena who shared a room also left. Madan got up with a sigh. Beena, he decided, was not the sort who came into men’s bedrooms. He switched off the lights in the house and retired to his room.

Beena turned on the table lamp and saw a letter from her mother lying beside it; the servant had left it there.
She got into bed and tore open the envelope. As usual, most of it invoked the Guru’s blessings for someone or other. In the end she mentioned how the monsoon had burst the night before the first of Sawan and how cool it had become. Then followed the passage from the Granth:

O, Black Buck, why lovest thou
The pasture of fenced-in fields?

Forbidden fruit is sweet but for a few days

It entices and ensnares

Then leaves one sorrowing . . .

There was a postscript asking her to read it to Champak and also to write back soon and give a detailed account of how they were getting on in Simla and whether or not Madan’s wife had joined them.

Beena put the letter under her pillow and switched off the table lamp. The confusion that already existed in her mind became worse confounded. The desire to go into Madan’s room brought a feverish longing in her body. It was followed by visions of Madan’s wife and child; and the hot perspiration turned cold and froze on her. Then came the figure of Madan in his cream-coloured, hand-knitted sports sweater and flannel trousers — tall, handsome, and overpowering — stripping her and taking her as a man should take a woman; and the fever wracked her system. Once more the implications of what would follow — her mother’s cold censorious eyes, the words in the letter burning through the thickness of the pillow . . . ‘Forbidden fruit is sweet but for a few days. It entices and ensnares, then leaves one sorrowing.’ The images followed each
other in quick succession, alternately rousing hot passion and immersing her in cold water. After an hour of sleepless tossing in bed, her mind became possessed by one figure, a mammoth one, of Madan smoking, smiling, and beckoning her. Others receded to a dim background and the fever took complete possession of her.

She heard Sita’s steady breathing. She whispered her name several times to make sure. She got out of her bed, picked up the letter from under the pillow, and tiptoed out of the room. She decided to see if Champak was also asleep. She could say she had just seen her mother’s letter and brought it to give to her.

The rain fell on the corrugated tin roof with a deafening roar and drowned all sounds of creaking wood and opening and shutting of doors. Beena called softly to Champak and then tiptoed to her bed. It was empty; even the bedcover had not been removed. She went to the adjoining bathroom and slowly pushed open the door; it too, was empty. She tiptoed through the sitting-room to Madan’s room. The door was shut. She put her palms gently on it and pressed. It was bolted from the inside. She put her ear against it and heard sounds of human voices. She stood rooted to the ground like a statue. All longing turned to cold, sickening hate. She went back to Champak’s bedroom and left her mother’s letter on the pillow. She opened her bedroom door and went out on to the balcony. She stood in the pouring rain staring steadily at Madan’s window. An hour later a light came on in his room and was extinguished a few minutes later. Another light came on in Champak’s room which also went off after a couple of
minutes. And all was dark and silent save the thunder of rain on the roof.

The meeting with Taylor did not help to settle the issue for Sher Singh; it only introduced an element of fear to the confusion that already existed. At the two extremes were the Deputy Commissioner and the terrorists: one stood for the status quo with the power to maintain it; the others, for change and the insecurity that is the price of change. In the case of terrorism, the price could be one’s life. Presiding over the two extremes was his father with his conveniently dual morality: ‘Keep up with both sides.’ For him loyalties were not as important as the ability to get away with the impression of having them. To be found out was stupid, even criminal. There was also his temper, of which Sher Singh was as scared as he was of the police. He had his tacit approval of his association with the Nationalists, but he knew that if Buta Singh learnt that he had got mixed up with the terrorists, his father would disown him and throw him out of the house. In addition to these factors, there was his own temperament. Despite his love for his country, he knew he was not the sort who ever burnt his bridges himself.