Shining Hero (17 page)

By now his mother would have been smoothing his hair with her fingers, making him bend down by a pond so that she could rinse his face, beating the dust out of his shorts with her palms. As he approached the mighty elephant gates, the only thing that gave him courage to keep going was the feel of the golden disc under his shirt. His mother had told him, ‘They will know who you are when they see it.’

The uniformed durwan was scowling even before the filthy ragged child was within ten yards of the gates.

‘I have to see …’ Karna tried to remember how such a lady should be addressed. ‘I have come to see Memsahib Koonty.’ His voice came out very shrill.

‘Clear off,’ shouted the durwan. ‘There has been a great tragedy in this house, the zamindar has been murdered and they do not want urchins like you coming in and troubling them.’

Karna felt his lips go dry at the news but all the same tried again, ‘But I need to see her.’

‘Her husband has just died,’ shouted the durwan. ‘So go away and stop making trouble.’

Karna looked back once as he went tramping down the road. The durwan was settled back with his paper. Karna was briefly tempted to try to dash back and make his way through when the man wasn’t looking, but realised this would be hopeless. The man would catch him in moments, once he was inside the grounds. He would have to get in secretly. Although the place looked well guarded, with high tight fences, Karna felt sure that, because he was so little, there must be some gap somewhere that he could sneak through.

It took him an hour to circle the estate and in the end he decided that his best chance was the river that formed one border. There was a bamboo water fence designed to keep intruders out but he was small and thin, and he thought there must be a gap. He dived in, fully dressed and felt the water washing away the filth and dust of his journey. He had to swim alongside the bamboo water fence
for quite some time before he found a gap big enough to get through.

As he approached the back of the Hatibari he kept a careful watch for more durwans. But there was no one except for one small boy who was swimming. The boy looked up, raised splashing hands and shouted, ‘Go away.’

‘You go away,’ Karna shouted back and kept steadily on. ‘I live here.’

The boy and Karna met mid-river and began treading water and glaring into each other’s faces.

‘Who said?’ demanded Arjuna.

‘My mother,’ said Karna.

‘Don’t talk stupid,’ scoffed Arjuna. ‘This is my family’s river and you are not allowed here. My uncle gets angry when village children swim onto our land.’

‘I am not a village child,’ said Karna grimly. ‘And I don’t know who your uncle is.’

The boy raised his eyebrows. ‘You don’t know? He is the zamindar of all the land round here.’

Karna scowled. ‘Then you are Arjuna.’

Arjuna peered closely back. ‘Yes. But who are you?’

‘My name is Karna and I am your brother.’

‘My name is Arjuna and you are a liar because my mother doesn’t have any other child, and if you don’t go away I will call the durwans. They are just around the corner. And when they catch you they will beat you up.’

‘I bet there aren’t any,’ challenged Karna. ‘You’re just saying that because you’re frightened of me.’

‘Why should I be frightened of a kid like you?’ scoffed Arjuna. ‘Usually a durwan is watching by the river, but today they are all busy because a lot of people are coming for my father’s … something. I can’t remember the name.’

‘What is it anyway?’

‘A puja to tell his soul to go away and not come back,’ said Arjuna.

‘Why do they want his soul to go away? Is he wicked?’

‘No of course not,’ cried Arjuna hotly. ‘He’s the goodest person I know.’

‘Then why do they want his soul to go away?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Arjuna sadly.

‘Won’t your mother tell you? My mother told … would … tell me everything.’

Arjuna started laughing. ‘I knew you were telling lies and that your mother and my mother are not the same person.’

‘You are my stinking brother and I hate you and your stinking mother threw me in the river when I was a baby and I hate her too,’ screamed Karna. ‘And I love Dolly who found me and brought me up and she’s really my mother now except that she is dead.’

Arjuna said, ‘My father is dead too. He died last month.’ He found this sentence awkward. In the early days he had kept saying, ‘My father went to die,’ as he would have said, ‘Went to Calcutta,’ but he had been corrected so often that he had now, apparently, got it right. Yet to Arjuna’s ears it still sounded wrong.

Karna trod water and waited.

Arjuna added, ‘But I expect he’ll be back soon because he never goes away from us for very long.’

Karna asked scornfully, ‘How old are you?’

‘Five.’

Karna winced because this boy was a year younger and already taller. He said, ‘When you are six like me you will know about deadness and then you will not be so stupid.’ Then he thought of the bottle of Ayurveda medicine that he had left at his mother’s side even though he knew she was really dead. Karna went on, ‘And my mother who is Dolly and not Koonty said that because Koonty is my mother you’ve got to give me everything because I am the oldest.’

‘Huh, I’m not going to give you anything except this.’ Arjuna slapped his fist into Karna’s face. Karna lay on his back and kicked his heels into Arjuna’s stomach.

Arjuna gasped and took in a mouthful of water.

‘And I hate you and hate you and hate you most of all and I wish I
could kill you,’ yelled Karna. Arjuna got Karna by the hair and pulled him under the water till the bubbles stopped rising. Karna came up with a gasping plop, took two breaths and went for Arjuna again.

Arjuna flung himself backwards and started to swim for the bank, Karna coming after him like a mongoose after a snake. Karna, dog-paddling behind Arjuna who was performing a polished crawl, battered the water wildly and felt his heart nearly cracking as he strove to catch up and hit Arjuna again.

Arjuna stopped at last and looked round, laughing and contemptuous at the sight of Karna struggling and panting, some yards behind. He said. ‘You can’t even swim properly and I think you are such a stupid boy that you couldn’t possibly be my brother.’ Karna grasped his head and pulled him under the water. Arjuna grabbed Karna by the ears. Clutched together, their limbs shaking with effort, they faced each other with magnified eyes through the green water. Silver bubbles rose from their noses. Their hair stood up on end and waved in the current like water weeds. Karna’s lungs felt as if they were going to burst. Arjuna raised his underwater eyebrows, questioning, ‘Are you giving in?’ Karna slowly shook his head. ‘No.’ He wished desperately that Arjuna would die under the water, but was growing afraid that he was going to die himself. Then suddenly it was over. The pair popped up onto the surface together.

‘I won,’ shouted Arjuna jubilantly.

‘One day I really am going to kill you,’ yelled Karna.

Panting, they crawled out and lay side by side, gasping. Then Arjuna said, ‘If you really are my older brother then you will be able to pee further than me.’

‘I bet I can, too,’ scowled Karna. He was renowned, on the pavements, for his long-distance peeing.

Arjuna won. Nothing Karna could say or pretend could change the fact that Arjuna’s gold arc had dashed leaves at least a foot beyond where Karna’s had fallen. Karna tried and tried, and that only made things worse.

‘I told you,’ chanted Arjuna in delight. ‘That proves it. You are
just a village boy who tells lies. Now go away. I don’t want you in my garden.’

‘It’s my garden too,’ shouted Karna as he buttoned back his dripping shorts. ‘And I’ve got to see your mother because she is my mother too.’

‘Stinking liar,’ shouted Arjuna. ‘She can’t see anyone. I thought I told you.’

Karna leaped up and began to run towards the house. Arjuna raced after him. ‘Don’t you dare. You come back here.’

Karna reached a flower bed and leaping into it, began jumping up and down, stamping on the flowers and crushing them as though the zinnias and the canna lilies were responsible for his deprivation. Malis who were cutting the blue-grass lawn behind humped Haryana bulls yoked to an antiquated mower, raised their fists and shouted angrily at the sight of the urchin vandal. Karna screamed back at them and ran on past the mango trees, coconut palms, ashoka, grevillia, among which swoops of rose-ringed parakeets shrieked and dived for fruit. He raced over groomed lawns lashing out at statues as he passed, with Arjuna at his heels. This beautiful garden with tall trees hiding the lowly huts of villagers and their tatty fields was the birthright that he had been denied. Fury gave extra speed to his legs as he rushed towards the shining white house that sparkled like a polished tooth, because this was where he should have lived all his life, instead of on the pavements of Calcutta.

Karna leapt up the steps three at a time, Arjuna still following him. As he entered, mud and water dripping from his clothes, a small and black-skinned woman sprang at him, waving her arms ferociously and shouting, ‘Get out of here, you dirty boy.’ Then, turning to Arjuna she said, ‘Look at you, Arjuna Baba, dropping water over the clean floors when all these people are coming at any moment and the servants have spent a whole week, polishing. Have you no thought for others at this sad time, Arjuna Baba? And who is this beggar boy you have brought with you?’

‘His name is Karna, Boodi Ayah, and he wants to see my mother,’
said Arjuna, apparently unperturbed by the indignation of the old woman. ‘I told him he can’t, but he won’t go away.’

The ayah gave Karna a sharp shove on the shoulders. ‘Get out of here.’

Karna pulled out his golden disc. ‘Look, look,’ he shouted. ‘My mother said that when Koonty Ma sees this she will have to keep me.’

Boodi Ayah leapt at Karna. ‘So that is where it was all this time.’

‘It was round my neck when I was born,’ gasped Karna, dodging out of reach.

‘It belongs to Koonty Memsahib and she has been troubled by its loss for a very long time.’

There came a cry from upstairs. A sad-looking woman with untidy hair and a crumpled sari stood there. ‘What is happening?’ Koonty asked.

Boodi and Arjuna both spoke at once.

‘It’s this bad boy, Ma,’ cried Arjuna. ‘He says he is my brother.’

‘This is the wicked boy who stole your golden disc, Ma,’ said Boodi Ayah.

Karna flourished his medal, shouting, ‘This.’

Koonty stared and said after a while, ‘It is the very one.’ Her voice was hollow as though something of her soul had already left her body. ‘Where did you find it, boy? Did you see my baby? Was she still alive?’

‘Ma has not been well,’ the ayah said to Karna. ‘And you are upsetting her. Give us that medal and get out of here.’

Karna screamed, ‘I am that baby. You are my mother. It is your duty to give me education because I am your child.’

‘You are my child?’ said Koonty.

‘Don’t listen to him, Ma,’ cried the ayah. ‘Such a wicked boy saying such wicked things.’

‘Come nearer so I can see you properly.’ Karna moved into the light and stood waiting, while Koonty scrutinised him.

‘My mother, Dolly, who found me in the river, told me to come to you,’ Karna said.

‘Can’t you see how you are troubling her?’ shouted the ayah and to Koonty, ‘You are upsetting yourself, Ma.’

‘This child is too small,’ Koonty announced at last and turning prepared to mount the stairs again.

‘It’s because you have not given me food that I am small,’ yelled Karna at her retreating figure.

‘And he is ugly,’ said Koonty without looking round. ‘It is not possible that this is the child of the beautiful tall sun god. Also the child was a girl and this one is a boy. Get my medal back and throw him out.’ Wearily she began to climb the stairs. Her shoulders were shaking as though she was weeping.

‘I am that boy. I am your child,’ Karna shrieked.

‘Get my medal back,’ she called again and then was gone from sight.

‘My mother said I must come to you,’ screamed Karna as the servants came at him. They almost got him as he rushed through the great double doors. He did not pause for thought. He ran for the river, dived in and was swimming away before any of his pursuers had even reached the bank.

Koonty was closing the door of her room when she realised. She came rushing out, shouting, ‘He had golden eyes. Stop him. Stop him.’ She was too late. The boy was gone.

Karna’s journey back to Calcutta, cowering in the stinking dark of the under seat, was filled with despair. He thought with bitterness of Arjuna who wore white socks and lived in a house made of marble while he, Karna, had nothing and no one in the whole world. He was hungry and at this very moment Arjuna was probably eating a meat curry. Meat curry. Once there lived an indigestible demon who would disguise himself as a meat curry and get his brother to serve the dish up to his victim. When the victim had eaten the food the demon’s brother would call, ‘Come out, Brother’ whereupon the demon would tear through the victim’s stomach, ripping him to death. Karna would have liked to try this trick on Arjuna in that moment, though in the end the demon was outwitted and digested by the powerful stomach juices of Holy Agastaya. When the brother
called the demon out, all that emerged was a little burp. Karna’s own stomach juices rumbled as he travelled under the seat back to Calcutta. He got off the train at last, stiff and exhausted, and for a while stood in the middle of Howrah Station, not knowing what to do or where to go next. At last, summoning up courage, he crawled out under the barriers, and went plodding away along the road, heading for the place on the pavement where he and his mother had been living for the last two years.