I Shall Not Hear The Nightingale (16 page)

‘Before it can do any mischief,’ added Buta Singh.

‘Precisely.’

They both became silent. Buta Singh expected Taylor to tell him what he wanted him to do. Taylor believed the hint was good enough. Then, seeing that Buta Singh had not taken the cue, added, ‘Can you help in tracking down these people?’

‘If Sahib assigns me this duty, I will carry it out. I should have thought this sort of job is more for a policeman than for a magistrate.’

Taylor relit his pipe; it did not need relighting. Could he make the suggestion directly or would Buta Singh take offence? ‘Buta Singh, I wasn’t thinking of official action. These chaps are obviously some young hotheads who have got a little worked up. If we knew who they were, we could keep an eye on them and save them from their own acts. Even talk to them in a friendly way.’

Buta Singh realized what Taylor was driving at; he kept his eyes fixed on his feet.

‘Don’t misunderstand me, Buta Singh,’ said Taylor quickly, ‘I am not suggesting anything dishonourable. Your son could do a good service to his friends and his country. You know we are anxious to get out of India and hand over the reins of power to you people as soon as the war is won. But we will not leave the country to the Japanese or the Germans. And these acts are calculated to do just that — hand over India on a silver platter to the Fascist powers.’

Buta Singh did not look up.

‘I seem to have upset you, Buta Singh; I am sorry. Let’s forget about it. I’ll let the Police Commissioner handle it in his own way.’

‘I will speak to my son, sir,’ answered Buta Singh at last.

‘No, no, don’t. Just forget about the whole affair.’ Taylor got up abruptly and shook hands. Just as Buta Singh was going out of the room, he called him back. ‘Oh, I almost forgot. Last time your son came to see me, he asked for a licence for a rifle. I have made one out for him. Give this to him with my compliments. Goodbye. And don’t bother about what I said.’

T
aylor did not have to do any more than ignore Buta Singh and the strain became too much for the old man. He came unbidden a week later and assured the Deputy Commissioner that he would get the required information. Another week passed. Buta Singh’s resolve to speak to his son remained unfulfilled for the simple reason he never saw him. When he left for the law courts the boy was still in bed; when he came back, he was away. He had dinner with his daughter-in-law. Every time he asked her, ‘Where is Sher?’ she replied ‘I do not know’ — and nothing more. Night after night he whiled away the hours doing his files waiting for his son to return. Night after night, he nodded, dozed off to sleep, woke up again, switched off the light, and went to bed resolved to broach the subject the next day. There were many questions he wanted to ask. When had Sher Singh decided to buy a rifle? Why hadn’t he mentioned it to him? Why hadn’t he told him that he had asked Taylor for a licence? It did cross Buta Singh’s mind that the boy might be up to no good in wanting the weapon; it did not occur to him that he might already be owning one illegally. Buta Singh planned to utilize the situation to get round his son to try to get the required information. No, that was a horrid expression. To cooperate in keeping peace and order and save India from a Fascist invasion. Sher Singh might not see it that way unless it was put
tactfully. It was worth waiting for. If Sher Singh did what he was asked, the New Year’s Honours list would certainly have something for his father.

Then came the first of the month. Buta Singh resolved that was to be the day. Three days before the date he told the servants and Champak that everyone was to be present at the gurudwara in time. On the morning itself, he was up before anyone else and went to the servants’ quarters to get Shunno and Mundoo to sweep the room and put things ready. He knocked on his son’s bedroom door and told him not to be late. He had decided to bring up the subject casually at breakfast as a sort of follow up of the discussion on the morning’s news.

Things seemed to go as planned. Everyone turned up at the gurudwara as told. Sher Singh looked fresh and cheerful. So did Champak. She wore a close fitting Punjabi dress which accentuated the largeness of her bosom and narrowness of her waist. It was odd, thought Buta Singh, how the girl he saw every day without taking much notice of her looked more fetching one morning than on another! There were several children outside, with Mundoo as usual bossing them and the dog. Shunno brought in the tray of prasad and placed it in front of the Granth. Buta Singh picked up the fly-whisk and began to wave it over his head with one hand; with the other, he looked for the right page to read. He was not used to conducting the prayer and it made him slightly nervous. He found the chapter and put the fly-whisk down. He removed his beard- band and brushed his moustache off his lips. He placed his forehead reverently against the Book and shut his
eyes to say a private prayer for the fulfilment of his own wishes. His eyes were still shut when he became conscious of someone entering the gurudwara. The man had prostrated himself before the Granth. He stood up and announced his arrival by greeting everyone at the top of his voice,
‘Wahe guru ji ka Khalsa, Wahe guru ji ki Fateh
’ (‘The Sikhs are the Chosen of God, Victory be to our God.’) It was the village headman.

Buta Singh’s face flushed with anger but he kept it under control. This was a temple where anyone could come and worship and there was nothing he could do about it. He read the passage for the month quietly to himself, made his obeisance, and left. Champak followed him.

At the breakfast table Buta Singh kept the newspaper in front of him to cover the scowl on his face. He did not want to be irritable with Champak, but he could not help saying with suppressed wrath: ‘I don’t understand the sort of people your husband mixes with! Low, third class types! He should use his intelligence a little more.’

Champak did not look up from her plate.

Buta Singh could not bring up the subject that morning. He swore to himself to do it in the evening even if it meant sitting up later than before.

That night Buta Singh waited a long time for his son to return home. Once again the vigil was in vain.

Sher Singh took the headman to the sitting-room and ordered breakfast for him.

‘Sardarji, why do you put yourself to all this trouble?’ asked the headman, munching a thickly buttered toast. He wiped the butter off his moustache with the hem of his shirt and gave it a twirl. ‘You should not have bothered. This is like my own home.’

‘You’ve come from such a long distance,’ answered Sher Singh in the same tone, ‘this is nothing.’

‘Why nothing, Sardarji? This is everything! All I want is your kindness.’ He picked up the tumbler of buttermilk, cleared his lips of his billowing moustache, and drank it up in one long gulp. He emitted a loud belch which tapered off into praise of the Great Guru, the True Emperor. He combed his beard with his fingers and placed a heavy hand on Sher Singh’s knee. ‘Tell me some news.’

‘What news? Life just goes on.’

The headman belched again and stroked his beard patiently. ‘Oh, congratulations!’ he said as if he had just recalled something.

‘Congratulations for what?’

‘Congratulations for what! This is no way to talk to friends. You know very well; the gun licence. Taylor Sahib’s clerk told me he had issued one for you and given it to your revered father.’

‘Oh, when?’

‘Again you hide things from friends! When we first met you said you had a licence and now I discover you have been given one only fifteen days ago. You ask the big Sardar, your father.’

Sher Singh wondered why Buta Singh had not questioned him about the rifle. Nor had he handed him the licence given by Taylor. Did he know that the rifle
was already in the house? In any case Sher Singh was relieved that the headman would not be able to blackmail him any more.

‘Here, friend, what do you say! You were worried about these things.’ The headman thrust the three empty rifle bullets in his hand. Sher Singh wanted to fling them in the peasant’s face, call him a dirty pig, spit at him, and kick him out of the house. But he quietly took the shells and put them on the table. This was the last time he was going to see this fellow, why not let the meeting end peacefully?

The headman gave no indication of wanting to leave. He combed his beard, twirled his moustache, and slapped Sher Singh’s knee. ‘Tell me some news.’ ‘What news? Life just goes on.’

‘Wah ji wah!
Great men do great deeds.’ The peasant smiled mischievously and pinched Sher Singh’s thigh. What was he up to now? ‘Great deeds, great men,’ he said with a sigh. He continued after a significant pause: ‘Tell me, you know how to make bombs?’

‘Bombs?’

‘Bombs.’

‘How should I know anything about making bombs. Why, do you need some?’ asked Sher Singh, laughing nervously.

‘Is this friendship or a chaff of chick-peas? Our little canal bridge is full of holes. Had the poor thing done any harm to anyone? My best bullock broke its leg in one of the holes. It had cost me Rs 300. I said, it doesn’t matter if my 300 are drowned; this is my friend’s hobby! But these canal chaps have been trying to find out. They came to ask me. You see, the bridge
is within the area of my village. I said nothing to them.’

Sher Singh felt cornered once more. It was humiliating for a well-to-do, educated, rising politician like him to be put on the spot by an illiterate, uncouth, peasant informer. ‘Sardar Sahib, I will say nothing about you. Once one makes friends, come what may, one must prove true to that friendship. Don’t you agree?’

Sher Singh agreed.

‘I could never say anything about you,’ the headman repeated. ‘But who are these Babus with you? Something should be done about them.’

Sher Singh wanted to yell like a madman. Instead he maintained a sullen silence. The headman continued: ‘I ask nothing of you, but these Babus must pay for my bullock. I will say nothing to the canal people; they can go and have their mothers raped, but these Babus. . . . ’

‘I will get you the money.’

The headman clasped him by both the knees. ‘No, brother, not you. If I take anything from you, may I be cursed as if I had eaten the flesh of the sacred cow. But these Babus, are they relations of ours? If you tell me who they are, I could get the money from them myself.’

‘No, I will get it for you. This evening at seven o’clock at the bridge.’

There wasn’t another place within cycling distance of the city which was as desolate as the spot near the little bridge over the canal. For several miles on all
sides the land was flat as a pancake. It also looked like a pancake: a stretch of yellow with a layer of fine powdery saltpetre. Nothing grew on it except bushes of calotropis and thorny saguaro cactus. There was also the marsh. Most of it was a muddy swamp with reeds growing in some places. The only evidence of human life was a footpath along the canal bank which no one ever seemed to use, and the little bridge, which if used at all, was probably used by stray cattle. The flat waste of saltpetre, scrub, and swamp had an eerie loneliness about it.

The boys came in their sports kit carrying their hockey sticks as they had done a few days earlier. Near the bridge, they divided themselves in three groups. Two groups, of four each, took their positions fifty yards on either side of the bridge behind calotropis bushes. The remaining four, including Sher Singh and Madan, sat in the open on the bridge. The bridge had no holes in it as alleged by the village headman. Nor did Sher Singh have the Rs 300 to pay him for the bullock which had broken its leg.

Sher Singh looked at his watch. It was 7:15 p.m. The sun had set. In another ten minutes the twilight would darken into night.

‘Perhaps you should have come alone. He might have taken fright seeing four of us here,’ said one of his companions a little wearily.

‘Of course I could have come alone. I’ve told you several times he was most keen to meet you. He certainly isn’t the sort who would be frightened of people like us. You know what Sikh peasants think of city dwellers! And this chap, you might remember, is a few
inches taller than Madan and fat and full of hair; he looks like a gorilla. I wouldn’t like to meet him alone in the dark.’ Sher Singh laughed a little nervously. ‘If he doesn’t turn up in another ten minutes, we will go back. He can have his mother raped.’

They all hoped the ten minutes would pass quickly and they could go to their homes.

Suddenly, the Lambardar appeared from behind them. The boys jumped when he greeted them with a loud
‘Wahe guru ji ka Khalsa, Wahe guru ji ki Fateh
.’ A leather belt charged with cartridges ran down from his shoulder to the waist. At the lower end was a holster with the black butt of a revolver sticking out. The entire congregation is here,’ he said cheerfully and sat down beside them.

‘You said you wanted to meet them; that is why they are here. I said to myself, “If my brother asks a favour, I should do it for him.”’ Sher Singh introduced the boys — this time with their correct names.

The headman shook hands with the three boys. ‘What have I to do with names? All I want to know is that they are my brother’s friends and that is enough for me,’ he said with a broad smile.

The twilight was fading rapidly and, as usual, it was the peasant who was more at ease. ‘Tell me some news,’ he said quite unconcerned and slapped Sher Singh on the thigh.

‘What news? Life just goes on.’

Madan changed the tone of polite humbug.

‘Lambardara, you said your bullock had broken its leg in a hole in the bridge. There are no holes in the bridge.’

The headman was quick to react to the rude tone: ‘What do you know about bullocks, Babuji? You stick to your shopkeeping and account books.’

‘You want us to pay you Rs 300 for a damaged bullock. We have brought the money but we must have proof before we pay. Show us the hole in the bridge and your lame bull.’

For a moment the headman believed the money was in his grasp. Then his shrewd rustic sense told him they were bluffing. ‘I don’t give any proofs. This is not a court of law.’

The tone cleared the atmosphere. They all stood up.

‘In one breath you call Sher Singh “brother,” ’ said Madan sharply, ‘in the other you want to make money off him. What sort of bastardy is this?’

‘Keep your tongue in check. You know who you are speaking to?’

‘Yes. A police informer. The son of a pig. ... A raper of his mother.’

The Lambardar’s hand went to his holster. Before he could draw his weapon two of the boys fell on him. He shook them off like a wounded wild boar shakes off pie dogs at the end of a chase. Madan and Sher Singh covered him with their pistols.

‘Put your hands up or I’ll shoot you like the filthy dog you are.’

The headman extended his arms towards Sher Singh as if to embrace him. ‘Brother, you also have become angry!’ he said appealingly.

Sher Singh stepped back and fired. The headman bent over with a loud ‘Hai.’ His hand moved to his gun. The boys behind him saw and gave warning.
Madan fired a second shot. The headman let out another loud ‘Hai,’ sagged down on his knees and slowly stretched himself on the path. Blood poured out of his wounds. His last words were not addressed to God or the Great Guru but to his killers. ‘I’ll sleep with your mothers. . . . I’ll sleep with your sisters. . . . I’ll. . . . ’ It made it easier for them to finish him off. Each one of the boys fired a shot in the headman’s body so that the crime was shared. They unstrapped the holster and the cartridge belt and dragged the corpse down the slope towards the swamp. It was warm and twitching. An occasional gurgle came out of the dead man’s throat. They dumped it into a ditch and covered it with earth and stones. They dug up and relevelled the path where he had fallen and bled. They washed their hands in the canal and made for the city as fast as they could.

There was a brief farewell at parting. The boys were to leave the city immediately for different destinations. Madan was to return to Simla.

Sher Singh was left alone to face his amorous wife, his ill-tempered father — and himself.