Red Earth and Pouring Rain (62 page)

‘Is he blind?’ This was someone else, speaking in English.

‘No, I am not,’ Sanjay said in English. ‘The patient is outside.’

‘You speak English?’ This time Sanjay saw him: he was dressed in black, in a formal English suit of the type Sanjay had only
seen in woodcuts, a black cravat, so that at first Sanjay could only think, he must be warm in that.

‘Yes,’ Sanjay said, finally. ‘I speak English. My name is Parasher.’

‘Pleased. I am Doctor Sarthey. And the patient?’

‘She is outside.’

‘Well, I am sure you understand that I must speak to her, to the patient herself.’ The smile on the doctor’s face was small
and intimate, asserting a common, shared knowledge.

‘Of course,’ Sanjay said, feeling foolish despite himself. ‘I will go and call her.’

Outside, Gul Jahaan raised the purdah from her face, the better to speak to him; she listened to him gravely, then asked:
‘Will I have to expose my face to him?’

‘It is likely.’

‘I have done worse,’ she said. ‘And this is for our sons and daughters.’ She rose and walked rapidly past him; inside, she
spoke strongly and directly, and without hesitation extended her wrist to the doctor. He, in turn, seated on an iron chair,
prescribed rest, broth of fowl, some medicine he would provide, and finally advised, when the child was born, the presence
of a good doctor.

‘Tell him that we have no other doctor,’ Gul Jahaan said. ‘Tell him that we will come with him.’

‘Travel with me?’ the doctor said when Sanjay translated. ‘It is hard, and also…’ But he stopped, looking at Gul Jahaan’s
small face, framed by her black burqua, very serious and attentive as she looked at him unwaveringly.

‘Yes,’ Sanjay said. ‘She is very determined.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I suppose it is all right, then.’

They had come prepared for this; Sunil, his bald head now shiny
with the gravity and importance of a renowned cook, headed Gul Jahaan’s entourage. They had come with carts, beds, mosquito
nets, and so they settled themselves a little distance from the English tents, adopting naturally the orderly rows and arrangements
of the other settlement. That night she turned to Sanjay joyfully: her pleasure was always slow, unhurried, completely conscious,
but tonight it seemed like a form of knowledge itself; they sat in front of each other, joined, still except for secret movements
and fluctuations, looking into each other’s eyes, and it went on until passion gave way to a greater lucidity, it was dark
but he could see her perfectly, as if her dark hair, the roundness of her breasts, all were radiant with some inward light,
he laughed suddenly because the air was so clear, every touch of her fingers carried inward along his body like a word, his
head floating and transfixed and transformed by her, her smell, her presence which was everywhere.

The next day, it became clear to them that they were in a foreign camp: the young doctor forbade any sort of performance by
Gul Jahaan; she was known of all over Avadh, and so there were more visitors, villagers and townsmen, and some of them asked
the pleasure of hearing her sing. Sarthey forbade it, without anger or sternness, but nevertheless he said, ‘That is impossible.’
In all other respects he was courteous, and Gul Jahaan accepted his wishes as a condition of being a part of his camp; every
day, he examined her, and kept a close watch over her diet, sometimes sending delicacies to her kitchen. Sanjay, for his part,
often spoke to him, and Sarthey seemed delighted with his English, his interest in things English, poetry especially; soon
the doctor took to bringing books to Sanjay, treatments of history, discussions of currencies and trades, practical discussions
of geography and progress, the vast potential of the future. At first their conversation consisted of these things; then they
began to have silences between them, as they rode along in the early morning, and Sanjay recognized these incredulously as
the natural quietness between friends. These moments, as the sun washed a thin line of red on the furthest clouds, had the
unmistakable taste of intimacy, and despite himself Sanjay could not dislike the Englishman: he was curious about everything,
and wanted to know the names of plants; his hair pulled back from his forehead tightly, but his face, thin and serious as
it was, had the habit of suddenly smiling, at which times he would bunch over in his saddle,
hold an embarrassed hand over his mouth, and giggle. Although Sanjay knew they were the same age, he felt incomparably older,
as if he was already tasting the time of ashes and compromise, while the other, yet, knew not even the complete and unbroken
hopes of youth. And above all, further and more valuable than anything, was Sarthey’s intelligence, not wit, but a slow circling
watchfulness that approached and prodded and tested and finally held; to discover this in the Englishman was shocking, because
all his life Sanjay had secreted a prideful loneliness, a certain belief in his precocity and understanding, the like of which
he had recognized in no one else except this one, this man. So Sanjay reminded himself of the past, and predicted without
doubt a future of disaster, but there it was, this companionship, unbidden and without reason; despite everything, at those
times in the mornings Sanjay found no humiliation in asking question after question, what is it you do in the morning in England
when you get up, how is breakfast made, and without pause came answers and then questions in return.

Gul Jahaan seemed to regard their meetings with the amused toleration of a woman for men’s things, and she took to referring
to Sarthey as ‘your Englishman,’ and professed a fear of him, of his blue eyes and ascetic air. But Sanjay, standing by to
translate, watched sometimes in the evenings as he dispensed treatment: his precise fingers on the bandages, the knots square
and neat, the clear gaze as he laved out wounds and boils, the doctor’s eye that detached itself from the pain, the twitching
faces, and yet was actively compassionate; all these things Sanjay found gentle.

At this time another letter came from Sikander. It was delivered by a seller of sweets who left the little packet of paper
tucked between two rosogullas.

Sanjay,

I am wounded.

Another war, another combat: I will not weary you with the unfortunate details of a soldier’s life. Enough to say that the
struggle for supremacy over Hindustan rages on, the alliances shift, soldiers die. This time we were caught in the open in
an unequal fight, no support and no hope, we fell back as best we could but they broke our square. Then it was cavalry all
over us and teror; I
slashed about, and there was a moment, as I ran, of suddenly thinking about my wives, my children, and then I cut a man down,
easily. I was shouting something, I don’t know what, I couldn’t tell you, leaping forward, and they fell back from me, frightened;
then out of the corner of my eye I saw a rider spurring at me, turned to face him, saw him raise a pistol, felt a thick blow
against my thigh, as if someone had taken an iron rod and swung it about at my abdomen, a blow blunt and numb, saw the flash
at his hand, and I floated to the ground, and it seemed to me as I hit that the sound of the shot boomed forever in my head.

When I awoke, Sanjay, it was night, and I was pinned to the earth by a huge shaft of pain through my belly. The pain had its
strictures about my body, its paths carved from my groin everywhere so that at each movement it tightened about me. At first
I was afraid, but finally I forced my hand down and felt, but all I fingered were the raw edges of a wound, the shapelessness
of the body when it is burst in some way. As I touched this rupture I felt that chaos reeled over me, and I cried out, not
from pain, but in fear of this derangement that wanted to eat me, grind me all up into an obscene mixture. Mother, I shouted,
Mother, Mother. Do you know what I feared, Sanjay? It was that battle-field aftermath, the parts of men scattered like refuse,
everything pulped together, not anymore this and that, one and another, but all gone into the great whirl of fire and filth
—it was this great loss, this anarchy that strangled the breath from me. I let my fear take my senses from me, gratefully
I let it all go, but the moon came up and I saw it and could not hide anymore: Mother, Mother, Mother. I whispered with others
beside me, we wept all of us like a chorus in the darkness, and in the flat white light everything became a sharp blackness,
shadows and the edge of steel like fire, blood is black at night. Then I heard a woman’s voice: Sikander, I am here. Mother,
I said, but I saw her, a lovely tall woman in white, her skin illuminated from within, a red mouth, it was Kali. She came
to me, Sanjay, and in horror and awe I shook, tranced and unaware, the night fell apart in fragments, the moon trembled and
slid into the earth. When I came back to myself, could see again, think, I heard a voice, Sikander, is that you, is that you?
It was Uday: I could hear
the pain in his voice, the agony from an anonymous cannon shot that shivered his leg; he told me, he saw it coming a moment
before it hit, and then it shattered him. Learn a lesson, young Sikander, he said, in this war skill can only take you so
far, when it wants to find you, the bullet will, no honour, nothing keeps it from you. So we talked, and the pain ebbed but
I felt it come again, the spinning of the sky, a chariot wheel spinning and spinning and flying apart, myself in a hundred
places and pieces, Uday’s voice, now hold on, youngster, hold on, steady, but I was gone, the darkness parted and from far
away I saw the mound of crushed bodies, the spears broken and impaled, heard the ravings of the wounded, water, water, please
water. It seemed then that Kali was holding me in her arms, cradling me in her arms, my head on her breast, and I looked up
into her wild eyes and said, Mother; then she was above me, seated cross-legged on my groin: Sikander, why do you fear? She
laughed, her dark hair floating about her face, and now she was dancing on my body, from head to toe her feet pressed me,
and she said, Sikander, you were not made to be happy. Finally she lay beside me, stroked my forehead, and said, don’t be
afraid, there’s nothing to be afraid of, and I knew she told the truth, the pain fell away, I smiled and fell asleep.

When I awoke I knew somehow that it was past midnight, I knew where I was, and now there was no longer that vertigo, that
terror of before. I tried to sit up as best I could, to see my men and what could be done for them, and they were in the torments
of a special soldier’s hell, where time is forever, your blood flows, you cannot move, and there is no water. All around me
I heard the cry for it, weak, desperate, hopeful, mad, as the condition of the man might be; over this there was Uday’s voice,
talking, encouraging, but even there I could hear the way his lips were sticking, the tongue moving like a leathery beast
in the dry cavern of the palate. Is it very bad, O master, I asked, and he said, it is not so bad that it will not pass, and
his words burdened me with grief, because suddenly I knew he was talking, not without hope, of his own death.

And so the night passed; in the morning came two old people, I saw them walk towards us from far, a man and a woman, very
old and from their dress peasants, bearing water-skins. They were
wrinkled and thin, blackened by a life of brutal work, but their eyes had the compassion of a thousand years. They passed
from man to man, giving water and comfort and hope; the woman came to me, and I drank gratefully, and she folded a coat and
put it under my head. She smiled, toothless, and said, we are farmers. But Uday would not take their water: he said, thank
you, but I cannot, it would break my caste. I said, take it, Father, because even the scriptures hold that caste rules do
not apply in times of disaster; but he said, it may be so, and I hold no man weak for taking water now, but I will not do
it. So I began to speak to him about rationalism, science (remembering the conversations I had heard in my father’s house),
religion; we had, in short, a theological and philosophical debate, lying there in the tall grass with our bodies holed. We
touched upon every question of belief and doubt you can think of, and even the other wounded grew quiet and listened; and
finally I demonstrated to him the error of his thinking, and that it was not only possible but his duty to drink. But he said,
I am an old man, I have lived too long and I have seen too much change, you are no doubt right, I am in error, I am sorry
I upset you, but I have lived a long time in this dharma, and I will die in a few hours, I will keep to it. But your suffering
—I could not help bursting out —but how you must suffer! He said, this is my dharma.

So all through the long day I watched him, and he lay pierced in a thousand places, steadfast; in the evening our opponents
came back, having broken off the engagement, and they gathered us up and took us to shelter, to good doctors. But Uday was
dead. As they lifted me up the old woman said to me, do not weep, do not weep for death. Uday was dead, and I could not remember
the moment in which his voice stopped. As they lifted me up the pain flared and brought a cry from me, but in the sound was
something of relief, of release; somehow in the confusion there was a sense, there was the sky above me, fringed with black
birds, the eyes of the old woman and her husband, their kindness, the unbreakable dharma of Uday, the dead around me, and
life which opened to me once more, and I said to the water-bringers: I vow by the pain I have suffered that beyond right and
wrong, this and that, us and they, I will build a temple, a mosque and a church, all of these in honour of my
mother and my father, in honour of these men who have ridden with me, and in honour of what is to come. I was half-mad by
now, but the old ones said, this is good. I will do it; even though, now in tranquil recollection, I do not know what I meant,
cannot recall exactly what it was I saw on the field, I will do it.

I am permanently wounded; to be blunt, the ball took one of mine. I am healed, but I suppose I am halved. Mistake me not,
I am as capable as before, let us say; but before I lived carelessly, I asked the world for victory, and that was all I asked.
Now I am not so sure; now I am somehow unable to sleep, and victory, when it comes, is not all sweet. I am rambling, ahead
to my further adventures.