The In-Between World of Vikram Lall (18 page)

What was Uncle up to? Was that gun now in his bag really the one for which Papa had flown into a rage, for which poor Amini had been dismissed and was probably languishing in jail, for which the servant quarters had been subjected to yet another raid by the police? Was Mahesh Uncle the one who had
stolen
the gun? Why?

My uncle went out; I heard the door click shut, a little too loudly, and I stepped out into the front room, peered through the window. He was not in sight.

My foolhardy course of action is matched only by the outrageous and distressing nature of that entire episode. How did I pick up the courage to follow him, with such a calm persistence, such thoughtfulness that I turned back from the window, went to Deepa’s and my room, picked up my shoes, and closed the door after a glance at her? I put on the shoes in haste, came out the front door, closed it with a softer sound than Mahesh Uncle had made. As I began to walk, I was attacked by a savage cold—I was still clad in pyjamas—and my teeth began to chatter uncontrollably. I turned back and gently opened the door, pulled a shawl from a sofa and, wrapping it around my shoulders and waist, came out of the house as I’d done before. I wished for Njoroge at my side. And I worried lest my sister wake up in the dark with nobody in that alien house.
My feet crunched on the hard earth. I breathed harshly the chilled outdoors air, my heart pounding, and I wondered if it could really be true what I had heard, that the heart could choke you from inside if you got too excited.

It must have been not more than five minutes since Mahesh Uncle had stepped out, but there was no sight of him as I trotted along the path leading down toward the gate.

Deep inside me now, for some unconscious reason, from having lived in the same house and having watched him and loved him, and for all the intangible ways by which we sense a person through our pores, so to speak, I knew my uncle to be up to something worthwhile, something secret and dangerous and utterly brave that no other adult in my family would understand. That was why I was here outside, beside the gate in the freezing cold, awaiting a clue to his whereabouts. I wanted to see what he did and whom he met. But I would have to keep my distance.

He was not far. He had gone to mount a horse and soon I heard the clop-clop approaching, coming toward the gate, and I hid behind a bush. Normally it should not have been easy to see me, but the shawl I had picked up was beige and reflective even in that dark. Slowly and then with quickening steps I began to follow. He was not going fast, but even at a trot quite a deal faster than I could walk, and I found myself lagging farther and farther behind and so began a frantic jog. I was anxious to stay close to him now, purely out of a fear of being attacked by a wild animal—what better refuge than an uncle within shouting distance, close by on a horse, and carrying a gun! We were on a vehicle trail that extended a short distance from the sawmill and was used by lorries and tractors and carts to bring in the logs.

All of a sudden a grey dawn had broken. I could see my uncle straight ahead, a couple of hundred yards away, the yellow of the jute bag behind him as distinct as a lamp. He was just then beginning to turn left, into the forest.

I see a boy stooped to seek cover, running in the shadow of the overgrowth beside the road: to what end? To satisfy a
savage, bursting curiosity about the adults’ world, to catch them with their guard down, see them as they are. Just as, some months before, one Sunday morning I had followed a sound from my mother, knowing inside me I was entering off bounds, and caught her and Papa in a grotesque togetherness and asked, grinning, What are you doing, Mother?

In my uncle’s case now I wasn’t as innocent: he was trotting off into the forest with supplies at his back. And I knew what the jungle portended.

When I reached the spot where my uncle had disappeared, I could see no sign of him, hear no sound. A path, roofed by a tall canopy of tree branches, led off from where I stood. I dared not venture inside that dark wood, follow that trail that could only lead to oblivion. I would never come out alive. Dejected and defeated, for the first time since I had set off after my uncle I was afraid of the consequences of my actions. What would he say if he found out I was spying on him? What would the others, especially my father, have to say about
his
nocturnal activities?

Just then I heard sounds—booming human voices in the distance, the shuffle of rapidly moving feet. Three men had suddenly become visible, where the road took a slight bend; they were jogging together and rapidly approaching. If they saw me, I was dead. In terror I crouched closer to the bushes by the roadside, but they could barely conceal me, unless I fell right into their creepy embrace. Instead, I ran onto the track.

But not very far; quickly, I hid behind a fat tree trunk. And prayed: O Rama, save me and keep your Hanumans away—there might be monkeys around—and all the other wild animals who are your friends, even the mamba, but still…keep them away…Small flying insects tormented me, getting into my eyes and eyelashes, and I closed my eyes and waited, and supplicated, and the sounds drew closer and were upon me.

The three men were on the track and walking in a single file. They all carried pangas; one had a rifle, another, a dirty gunny sack, the third, a torn rucksack…and they were Mau Mau.

I recall a pair of black army boots, laces untied or absent, pounding the earth, sloshing through a carpet of dead leaves; a deep-tan leather jacket, like a fighter pilot’s, I thought; a mat of knotted hair on one head and a beard on the face; long carefully wrought plaits tumbling down and partly covering a thin and long face, belonging to the one who carried the rifle on his shoulder.

Any moment during the yuga they took to pass me, they could have seen me, heard me breathe or shuffle my feet or moan in terror where I crouched. There was no single thought in my head, all was one big frightful moment.

Then they were gone, and I waited, gulping, regaining my faculties. Finally I stood up, slowly came out onto the trail, then let go with my feet. The same moment some creature not far away but invisible also took off with a tremendous commotion. I ran without pause.

Deepa was at the door, tearful, saying, Where have you been? I thought the lions had eaten you!

Lions? I said bravely, Don’t be silly. When I didn’t see Uncle in the house, I simply walked outside to take a peek.

Mahesh Uncle returned much later. Oh?—he said, in response to our questions—I was out in the forest marking trees for the cutters. They’ll go and chop them down now and bring them to the mill for sawing. That’s what I was doing so early while you two lay snoring!

Was he telling the truth? Perhaps, in part. I knew that he had also delivered supplies in the forest. His yellow jute bag lay carelessly, gaping open on the table, where the three of us were sitting with our morning tea.

I did not bring up the subject of his excursion and of that gun. I had been wrong in following him. He was my uncle whom I loved and trusted, who knew what he was doing. My raising the subject would only cause a quarrel between him and my father and make my mother unhappy as a result.

There was a late and large family breakfast, after which Deepa and I went for a walk with our parents, so that Mahesh
Uncle and Aruna Auntie could be by themselves to talk. Early in the afternoon we left for Nakuru.

It’s how you feel, of course, Aruna, that matters. It is your life you have to think of, Mother said.

Aruna nodded. Please don’t get offended, Didiji.

Mother shook her head, put a hand on Aruna’s.

It was night, Papa had gone to bed after the nine o’clock news. Mother and Aruna Auntie were on the long sofa in the sitting room, gathered by themselves to discuss Aruna’s decision regarding Mahesh Uncle. So they are not going to get married, I thought sadly. Aruna Auntie was a heartless Nairobi woman after all, who knew no better. The two of them glanced in my direction, where I sat at the dining room table, watching them. But they did not object to my presence. Mother was used to my listening in this way, in silence, sometimes at hours that were late for me, dismissing any concern with, He’s the recording angel, but he doesn’t say a word about what he hears.

There were tears in Auntie’s eyes.

Tell me why, Mother asked. You two seemed to get along as if you were made for each other.

Something inside me says no. It says, Don’t do it, and I always listen to that voice, it’s always right.

And you explained to Mahesh, and what did he say?

He agreed, Didiji. He said we were two of a kind and too similar. For a marriage we need something of opposites.

Mother nodded again. You go on to sleep now, she told Aruna, who stood up and went to Deepa’s room, which had been assigned to her. Mother sat by herself in that semi-darkness, her hands clasped in her lap. I got up and went to give her a hug.

The next day in the afternoon when we returned from school, Aruna was gone. She had already hugged and kissed us goodbye in the morning before we left. Later in the morning my parents had dropped her off at the railway station and she went back to Nairobi.

Those few days she stayed with us were among the most fun-filled in my life.

I saw Aruna again in Nairobi, and more recently and very briefly in Toronto, where she lives, still single. That inner voice of hers may have been overly cautious. But that time perhaps she was right in following it; for in marrying my uncle she would have had to live with the grief and remorse that awaited like karma to haunt and burden his life.

What’s wonderful about the summer here, in this northern latitude, are the long days that wane so gradually, reluctantly, hanging on to the last precious ray of the glorious setting sun. This afternoon after walking about for a while, I gardened and then climbed down the cliff to the lake’s edge for a swim—a somewhat risky enterprise, because I don’t know the water here too well. Seema has taken Joseph to the town’s midsummer festival. I declined to accompany them; my recent recollections seem to have dragged me down somewhat and I needed to be alone.

ELEVEN.

It comes to me always at night, this tableau, this creation of the mind; there is a sound in the darkness, a child’s whimper: No, no…Next, light has fallen on the scene and she is sitting on the floor, pathetic, knees drawn up, and looking up and begging for mercy…the assailant tall and invisible. Then darkness again—the light, the life snuffed out—and enough, I say, curtain. The mind’s demonic theatre abandoned mid-scene, I will take a walk in the dark, room to room, to distract myself. I will look out the window. I may even scribble a fragment of a poem, meagre as my skills are in that area. The trouble is that even though I choose to turn away from the conclusion of that scene, the general picture of the aftermath I carry vividly in the mind: the blood, the gore.

For more than forty years I have been haunted by this image of her.

There’s nothing as gut-wrenching, as irrationally tugging, as that plaintive, tragically heartbroken, throaty cry of a child.

Some days ago, late in the afternoon, I heard a child’s guttural whine coming from the back porch outside; a girl’s plea, to my mind, a sobbing piteous supplication, and out I stormed in a rage.
What
are you doing to her—