Red Earth and Pouring Rain (63 page)

I healed, was released by our foes, and took again command of my troops, but the misfortune which had threatened for long
was finally against us, as you well know. The Marathas fight the English: the moment of decision is here. We waited for this
so long, Sanjay, and we all knew it was coming, but after all, I fight not for the Marathas. What happened was this: a few
days after the campaign started, Perron —you remember him, the posing Frenchman who ran from Thomas at Georgegarh —well, this
Perron called all the country-born officers in his command to his tent. None of us could think why, but we went, and Perron,
seated in state, told us our fates: while he did not doubt any of us individually, he said, it had been decided that those
officers who were of partial English descent could not be wholly relied upon in the war to come. And in this supremely important
war no doubts could be entertained, and therefore we were to be released from our services, and were free to do as we liked,
with assurances of safe-conduct, etc., etc. At this there was a wild howl from those assembled, and a movement forward, and
Perron blanched a little and his guards hitched their pieces; I stepped forward, and spoke: I am a Rajput, and my loyalty
is unquestioned, you insult me. No insult is intended, he said, but there was a particular satisfaction in his voice, a faint
gloating when he made his announcements; he hated the English, you see, and so he hated us. I am a Rajput, I said again. Undoubtedly,
he said, but you are also something else. At this Chotta started forward, and by instinct I reached out to check him, and
the sight of his face,
blotched with angry red marks, a thousand of them, shocked me into self-possession: Chotta would have killed him. So I nodded
my head, unable for anything to bow, and led them out, into the bright sun outside, and we walked through the military bustle
we had known all our lives, suddenly foreign.

The road we took then, Sanjay, was the longest of our lives; we said good-bye to our men, stanched their weeping and their
talk of mutiny and left the camp. The direction we took was the only one open to us —we travelled towards the British; what
I am is a soldier, and that was the only service available then, and now. But before we had gone far, distance hid our comrades
from us, and the road narrowed between fields and groves of trees, and all was peace; I bid my friends to go on ahead, told
them I would catch up shortly. I left the road, found a shade of mango trees, and leaned up against one of them; my legs gave,
and I sat, my legs apart like a child, and then I dropped forward and wept, smearing my face with the dust of my country.

So we went on towards the English. We had not gone far, the next morning, when disorganized groups of Maratha horsemen began
to stream past us, replying to our shouts with only the cry that the English were coming, the English were coming. Then we
saw Perron, hatless, fleeing down the road on a blown horse, and I ran out and caught his reins. It is all over, he said,
all over, the English surprised us, flee, flee, and he was delirious with panic, his big yellow eyes rolling. But you haven’t
fought them, I shouted, look, none of your weapons have been discharged, you have done nothing, and he would say only that
they had come upon the camp unseen and unsuspected, it was all over. Come, we will help you, I said, make a stand here, rally
your men, we will beat them, but he began to weep, it is over, it is over. So I let him go, and said to the others, come,
we will go and rally, and we will stop the English, and I began to saddle my horse, and Chotta followed me, but the others
looked on grimly, and by the time I had finished tightening the cinch-grips I was weary with hopelessness and rage: if we
had been with our men that night perhaps there would have been no carelessness, no surprise, no panic, no unfought defeat.
The
bigotry of this European and his fellows lost the Marathas this battle, maybe this war, maybe their kingdom; he had looked
at me and had not seen the soldier’s salt, the Rajput’s vow. What men are these, Sanjay? Truly we are in Kalyug. In the dust
of that road, when everything fell apart, and I was alone under the great sky, far from my men, what I felt most was the meanness
of an enormous trap closing slowly about me, its oily hinges and its power that somehow was crushing me flat. I am fearful.

When we reached the English they kept us honourably, but more or less as prisoners; finally, a few days later, we were asked
if we would serve with them. There was nowhere else to go, Sanjay, but still I hesitated, and then they said to me, your men,
your old regiment, are here too, and will serve us. I said, let me see them, and they took me to my soldiers; in front of
me, the English asked, will you serve with us, and there was no reply, only a muttering. Then the English said, we will let
you choose your own commander, who will you have in command, and in a single voice they shouted, Sikander, Sikander, and in
my ears it had the clang of a falling sword. Sikander, Sikander, my boys called, their lance-heads flashing in the sun, and
I said, without thinking, it came from somewhere inside me, all right, we will wear yellow, and our motto will be,
Himmat-i-mardan, maddad-i-khuda
. And they called my name, Sikander, Sikander. And I said to the English, I will serve you. I will serve you, but not against
my former master, Holkar, and they accepted; so now I take my regiment north to the doab, to pacify, to police, to guard Delhi.
So I serve the English, Sanjay. Was I betrayed, or did I betray? As I sit here writing, it is the hour of cow-dust, and all
around me I can hear the tinkling of bells; I am alone in my tent, inside its red walls, and I can hear the water of a stream
close by. I remain, as always, your friend,

Sikander

As the days of Gul Jahaan’s pregnancy went by, her face became round, and Sanjay was busy bringing her the sweet things she
wanted to eat: ras mallai, gulab jamuns, jalebis, and all the time the countryside was quickened into unease by rumours of
war. When Sanjay told Sarthey that perhaps they should stay closer to towns, should even consider
halting for a period, the Englishman only shook his head, saying that the work must go on. This work, which was not to be
interrupted by the English war, was more than medicine; it included also the planting of certain iron rods in the ground,
and their measurement with an instrument that Sarthey peered through, all this being duly noted on large sheets of paper.
This systematic sketching, which paid particular attention to elevations, declensions, and water-courses, was sometimes interrupted
by the sighting of a new species of animal or bird, which unfortunate creatures Sarthey invariably shot and pictured in yet
another sketch-book. All this curiosity Sanjay regarded with admiration, with wonder at the Englishman’s voraciousness, his
appetite for detail, but when Sarthey’s delving pierced through the surface, when it undertook to prick and slice open, Sanjay
was unable to watch. The first time that Sarthey took a squirrel and spread it out on a flat board, Sanjay watched not knowing
what was coming next: angle-pointed scissors that snipped an opening from the groin to the chest, metal pincers that peeled
back the layers of fat to the packed organs in the belly, and a skilful extraction of a grey sac that contained white, half-formed
shapes. At this Sanjay turned away, and afterwards, although he would carry the ruled rods, the measuring instruments, the
sketch-books, and even the black leather bag with its rows of knives, he preferred to be excused when the cutting started.
This Sarthey agreed to always with a patient shrug, as if to imply an adult toleration of childish squeamish-ness: ‘You are
sentimental, my dear fellow’ was the usual comment, with which verdict Sanjay agreed wholeheartedly, but still he was unable
to make his body acquiesce, to make his stomach understand what he could perceive to be the intellectual and whole truth.

Seated away from the cutting table, Sanjay was given to thinking about his strange relation with the Englishman; should he
confess —if that was the word —his true identity and his old encounter with the elder Sarthey? But more importantly, he was
mystified by the friendship he felt for the Englishman: Sanjay, you who once cursed the race, why are you attracted to this
man, why do you seek his company and inquire after his opinions? For this there was no answer; at night, lying by Gul Jahaan,
his head pushed up to her stomach, it was difficult to think past his soon-to-be son, and the future was so powerfully illuminated
by the impending birth that he thought it impossible to look beyond.

Finally, the hour itself came near; it was summer, and even outside, under a mosquito net, the air was close, lying like a
blanket over the face. Sanjay thrashed about on his bed, moving first one way and then the other, and finally he pulled off
every piece of clothing except his neck-band; still, he found no sleep. So, getting up and pulling on his loose cotton pajamas,
he walked some distance to a water-matka, and dipped his hand in the cool, clay-smelling surface, noticing how the moon swam
in it, and for several moments he was preoccupied by the fragrance of the water and its cold, but then he turned around suddenly.
There had been no sound, and there was as yet nothing to see, but he knew something was there; Sanjay stepped back into a
shadow and waited. When he saw the dark figure he laughed silently: he recalled the posture from long ago —that it was Sarthey
was clear from the height, but the furtiveness, somehow feline, was what he had seen in his childhood. Laughing, Sanjay began
to follow the Englishman, wondering what sort of lover Sarthey had: a woman from among the maids, the servants? Or was it
one of the hired soldiers from the escort? But it seemed a long way to go in the dark, and then Sarthey left the camp behind,
and made his way along the little rivulet they had camped by; it seemed too much walking for a bath. Finally, Sarthey descended
into the ravine cut by the water, and scrambled all the way to the bottom, where the reduced flow trickled along; and Sanjay
lay on the bank above and watched while the other stripped off his suit and crouched in the course.

In the white light Sarthey’s hair was black, and lay like a solid streak between the thin bones of his shoulders; Sanjay could
see the narrow back and the delicate, descending chain of the spine. Sarthey was still, and then it became clear to Sanjay
that he was holding himself with great force, so that beneath the rigidity there was a minute but rapid trembling. He rose
from the water, then knelt by the dark puddle of clothes, and drew something from it; Sanjay was unable to make it out until
it spun above Sarthey in a dark line and fell with a crack. For a very long time Sanjay watched as the belt curved and made
a sound like a thick piece of wood swinging into wet cloth, again and again, again and again, and when Sarthey’s back went
black, when it glistened black, Sanjay crawled away and stumbled back to Gul Jahaan, and lay with a hand on her hip till daybreak.

In the morning there was hardly a pause between the grey coolness and the white heat of the sun, and Gul Jahaan began to have
her baby. Sanjay sat outside the doctor’s tent, cringing at every moan, but finally the screams subsided, and now the tent
was glowing a rich orange, as if a fire were burning inside. A woman threw aside a flap and beckoned: ‘Come.’ Inside, Gul
Jahaan lay in a sopping wet pile of sheets, her face a bright red and her eyes turned back, breathing in a rapid succession
of pants, and over her leaned Sarthey, his face so vital with curiosity and inquisitiveness that he seemed happy.

‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ he said without looking up. ‘There.’

His gesture was towards a cradle (once made to order in Lucknow) that stood in a corner, now blackened and charred but barely
visible because of a yellow-white effulgence that made it hard to see; shielding his face with his fingers and half-turning
from the burning light, Sanjay leaned and saw, in quick flashes, a perfectly-formed boy, beautiful beyond telling, but blazing
with such inner heat that Sanjay felt it pressing against his face like fingers. When Sanjay turned back, the doctor pointed
towards Gul Jahaan, and now she trembled as if in a fit of ague, all the cold damp cloths pressed against her were useless,
and she turned her head towards one side, and died. Under the cloth of the tent the heat was ferocious, and Sanjay rushed
out, but in all the land there was no relief, the deepest shade breathed an air full of dragging thorns, Sanjay felt each
pulse of his heart throb in his head. Walking was cruel but he could not keep still for fear of madness, and so all day he
stumbled from tree to building, hating the nameless, dusty town that went drudgingly about its business. All day Sunil walked
after him, giving him water and trying to force him to eat, and when it was evening (he could not remember when the day had
turned), Sunil led him back to the camp.

‘The child is safe, the child is safe,’ he was told as soon as they saw him. Indeed, the boy’s brilliance was much diminished:
it was possible now to look directly at him, and although one could not sustain the gaze for too long it was feasible to touch
his skin lightly. The women attending to him with buckets of water and muslin cloth murmured admiringly about the infant’s
complexion, but Sanjay asked, ‘Where is Gul Jahaan?’ The doctor, they said, and Sanjay turned and ran, not knowing why but
as if there was some urgency, towards the English
tent; at the door there was some flurry as if to stop him, but he brushed by it, went in and saw, on a raised wooden table,
a flat white figure, arms out and palms up, mouth slightly open. There was a vertical cut that ran from the sternum down to
the pudenda, two flaps that opened outwards and raised away to expose the packed and distinct layers of the body, the surprising
depth and width of the places where organs had been removed, namely two grey packets and a striped and red-stippled pocket
that lay in an orderly row at the edge of the table, and even as Sanjay came in, Sarthey, leaning over and with delicate but
sure prongs and scissors, came up with a large yellowish triangle. Sarthey turned his head slowly over his shoulder, still
holding it, and in his eyes was the hard glaze of concentration, wide-pupilled, and his arms were wet to his shoulders. Extremely
curious, he began, very curious, and then seemed to recognize Sanjay, upon which he straightened, my dear fellow, my dear
fellow, but Sanjay was already out of the tent, running, and without pause he caught up the boy to his chest, ignoring the
burning; he ran, and fled the camp of the English.