The Splendor Of Silence (53 page)

A little sound of repugnance escapes Marianne, but she says nothing, her head bent toward the floor as though she cannot bear to even look at Ken anymore. The hurt is the most in her, Sam thinks, for he was never quite as enamored of Ken as Marianne was, and she has transferred her grief for her Kachin villagers into affection for him.

"What happened to the girl?" Sam asks.

"She had a pretty name," Ken says, and his face puckers with distress, overlaid with mortification, which seems strange to Sam. "Rosalie. Rosalie Gonzalez. I did not think much about that last name or what it meant, mostly because I did not know. We danced for five months together, she gave me her affections sparingly, she kissed me, she let me take her to a hotel, but that was just once, and it was the best sex I had ever had. I saw her naked in the light of the bedside lamps, in the light of an early morning, and saw not one single blemish on her skin--that she carried under her skin, in her tainted blood. But I did not see it, for I was in love with Rosalie. I wonder," Ken says, worry patterning his brow, "if it would have mattered if I had known right from the beginning that she was a half-caste, that some weird trick of fate had given her the white skin, the hazel eyes, the demeanor of people like us even though she was, in the parlance of the Cardamom Club, just four arenas to the rupee. One fourth British, and not a drop of blood more." He begins to cry, though his aim at them with his pistol is steadfast. He was in love with Rosalie, Sam thinks, but a little, mean part of his brain is in the end much stronger than any love he might harbor. Hence that malevolence in him when he thinks of her, when he thinks that he has been willfully tricked by her. The Kens of this world are not really made for love; they are too parsimonious.

"I took her out for one last time," Ken says, "and then slashed her face with my pocketknife so that she would not so easily defraud another serviceman." He sobs now, loudly, his nose running, tears submerging his face, hiccups racking his thin body. "Oh, Sam," he says, "I loved her." Then, most incongruously, "It was a true love, a real love, and it was for love that I injured her. Now she is mine and can't be anyone else's lover."

Marianne is sobbing too, her heart atomized into a thousand pieces. Sam knows that her sorrow is partly for Rosalie, but also partly for Ken, who could have been a strong and courageous human being but has lost all his capacity for goodness and, as far as she is concerned, is doomed to hell. The Japanese boy says this: "Koitsu wa ikashite okou; yasashii kao wo shiteiruna. Kini itta. Sonic wo nigashite yore."

Sam understands what he says, just as he understood what he had said when Sam first ran into the house and blew away his ankles. Sam has known that one of the other two, Ken or Marianne, was going to dupe him, and even from the beginning he has thought it would be Ken because it was a man the Japanese soldier had looked up at when he said, I thought you were the enemy. Now this boy is asking for the gift of Sam's life from Ken, he says, He has a kind face, let the man live. Why, Sam wonders, was it because he did not kill the boy, because he tied his wrists behind him but lightly, or because he bandaged his ankles?

As the boy's reedy voice, mangled by pain, cuts through the air and hangs between them, Ken raises his pistol deliberately and shoots him through the heart. The Japanese soldier's body convulses once, then twice, and then he sinks with a sigh to the ground, falling on his cheek, his arms akimbo as life ebbs out of him.

Before Ken can turn his attention to Sam and Marianne, another shot rings out in the room and a look of extreme surprise and hurt comes into Ken's eyes even as a round hole, initially bloodless, blooms in the center of his forehead like the red tikka that Hindus wear to mimic Shiva's third eye and ward off evil influences. Ken dies, but he does not move from where he sits, only his pistol drops from his hand to the floor.

Sam fleetly drags himself across the floor even before the last echo of the bullet fades away and grabs Ken's pistol, which he throws across the room. It bangs with a tremendous clatter against the wall and bounces before coming to a rest.

"You saved my life twice," Sam says to Marianne, who is staring at the smoking pistol in her hand with something akin to amazement. He had not known Marianne had a weapon until she had shattered the python's head, and neither had Ken. When they reentered the bungalow, Ken had taken away Sam's pistol, but not Marianne's.

"I had to kill him," she says. "You would not have; you would hav
e t
ried to talk him out of his betrayals and in the process he would have killed us."

Sam, still lying on his left side, holding his right arm tightly against his body, says, "I did not think it was necessary, and I must say, I did not expect it of you."

"This courage?" she asks wryly.

He nods, his heart thundering in his chest.

"Because I am old?"

He nods again, feeling a sense of shame.

"It is because I am old that I recognize evil and poison where I see it, Sam, and I know when to get rid of it, and when to try and placate it. You have to know when to kill, and when to grant the mercy of life."

At this astounding statement, from a missionary's wife no less, Sam has to smile. "Like God?"

She nods, serious. "Yes, like Him. In wars, we must be almost like gods."

They leave the bungalow in the middle of the night, traveling down the dirt path to Ledo in India with the feeble flame of their torchlights shaded by a piece of cloth. They both know they cannot stay at the bungalow for the night because the Japanese are sure to return to keep their rendezvous with Ken. However, Sam, who has so far been the most cautious of them all, the most anxious not to call attention to their presence in the jungles, deliberately skins the chicken with his left hand and roasts it over an open fire. After they eat, they pack the rest of the food in plantain leaves. Marianne attempts to reset Sam's dislocated right shoulder, but she has no strength left and her arms hang limply by her side after just one try. She creates a sling for him though and pads the sling at his shoulder with the cotton stuffing from a damp and smoldering mattress.

Sam still has to carry his haversack, hung over his left shoulder, because the photos Ken has taken of the Calcutta docks are in it. Along with the photographs is Ken's pistol and the fifteen chocolate bats that he has hidden and not shared with them even when they were at their weakest and most ravenous, just outside the Kachin village. Inside also, in a Japanese script that Sam can just barely read (his training only extends to conversational Japanese), are Ken's orders for this meeting. He has deliberately crashed his plane into the hillside so that he can hike to this bungalow, hand over the photographs, and perhaps, if his cover is no
t b
lown, return to his unit as usual, a hero in their eyes who marched through Japanese territory in Burma and lived to tell of it.

It has begun to rain again, but this rain, this warm, dripping rain, cleanses them both; it is like a baptism, a new life. They know they will reach India safely, at least now that they do not travel with treachery in their midst.

Chapter
Thirty-One.

One of the first distasteful confrontations experienced by Indian officers when they joined a unit was that of blatant racism. Chaudhuri recalls the second in command of the North Staffordshire Regiment who habitually belted out epithets for Indians, such as wogs, niggers, and nig-wigs. When Chaudhuri politely expressed his discomfort at the major's use of such language, the latter expressed genuine surprise, noting that he did not think Chaudhuri would mind, for he considered him as "one of us."

--Pradeep P. Barua, Gentlemen of the Raj: The Indian Army Officer Corps, 1817-1949

*

E
ven as Mila and Raman waited outside the police station for news of Ashok, Kiran was at the Victoria Club that afternoon, not drinking for once, but seated on one of the bar stools and looking outside at the dulling light that heralded the setting of the sun.

He could not remember very much of the previous night; all he could recall was his head swimming in gin, a fight about something with Sims who was being arrogant and a bastard. He flexed his shoulder and felt the tightening of skin over his clavicle where the wound from Sims's bite was just beginning to heal. What had that been about? And why had he even fought with Sims, who had always been a good chap? Kiran blamed himself now that he was sober again and had come to the club to find Sims and apologize. What if Blakely and Sims found their amusements elsewhere, without him? What would he do then?

He watched the light slant in a golden arc over the lawns where the mela tents had been just a few days ago. Now, all that remained were the holes in the grass where the tent stakes had rested and a few paper flags torn from the strings of flags that had festooned the meta enclosure. For just a moment, all of his discontent came back to him and Kiran slouched on his stool, wondering where his life was headed and what he was going to do. It was all very fine for Sims and Blakely, they had jobs, after all, were officers with the Rifles. But he had nothing but Papa's disapproval.

Kiran saw Sims and Blakely cross the lawn in front of him, coming in from a cricket game, their clothes gleaming white, Blakely carrying the bat on his shoulder. As they approached the open verandah of the bar, a man cut across the grass in a steady trot, and, panting, came to stop beside them. Kiran squinted into the sunshine, shading his eyes with his hands. It was the horse dealer from the Lal Bazaar. What could Sims and Blakely have to do with him? Surely they already owned their horses?

He got down from his bar stool and went running down the steps onto the lawn. Sims and Blakely saw him, quite clearly, and just as clearly turned their backs and started to walk away. Kiran paused, struck by a sudden hurt, and then started to run again.

"I thought you meant to ignore me," he said as he came up on them. "We did," Blakely said deliberately, not looking at Kiran. "Bugger off." "What?" Kiran stopped where he was, stunned beyond speech.

"Your brother," Sims said, enunciating every word as though he was speaking to an uneducated idiot, "tried to kill Colonel Pankhurst today. You heard what Blakely said, bugger off."

Kiran's heart stopped. "What nonsense is this, Sims? Ashok would never--"

"He did," Sims said harshly, "and your sister is a whore."

Even before he realized what he was doing, Kiran pulled at Sims's shoulder to turn him around, drew his fist back, and bashed it into Sims's face. He felt the bones of Sims's nose pulverize under his hand, and blood and snot flew out to smack him in the face.

"How dare you!" he shouted. Sims toppled to the grass and Kiran had raised his foot to stomp on his chest when he was hit on the back with the cricket bat. He thought he could feel the middle vertebrae of his back crackle and crumble as the air was knocked out of his lungs and he fell, the world blacking out around him before he hit the ground.

Just as he began to lose consciousness, he heard Blakely say, "We saw your sister in the brothel yesterday. She is a whore; why else would she be there?"

Kiran came to ten minutes later and found himself being dragged by his collar to the front of the Victoria Club. A red haze swam before his eyes and the pain in his spine almost knocked him back into unconsciousness, but he kept himself awake with determination. He began clawing on the ground, digging his heels into the hard earth, scratching at the arms that had pulled his shirt tight against his neck until he was almost choking. Then, he felt them release him and he lay on the gravel driveway that led to the front porch of the Victoria Club.

Three bearers came into his view as he lay there, and they were carrying large, galvanized tin trays that looked familiar, but Kiran could not find the words in his brain that matched the function of those trays. He saw Sims, his entire face bloodied, take one tray and upend its putrid contents over his head. It was only when the first rush of excrement came cascading down into his open mouth that Kiran knew what they were doing--they were emptying the thunderboxes from the lavatories over him. He cringed and curled his legs and arms into his body, spitting out the taste of shit, rubbing his blinded eyes. But the stink was everywhere. Maggots crawled over his shirt and made their slimy, fetid way under the waistband of his pants.

Kiran began to cry then, knowing that his whole life in pursuit of these men--men like these--had been a huge, futile waste. He had not thought he fit in as Indian; he had thought he could be languidly English himself, become what he most admired. A small part of his brain told him that Blakely and Sims were not exactly upper drawer, either here or in England, but he had so much wanted to be them because there was no one else around in Rudrakot. If he had made friends with men from a better class of society, his class, the class they--Papa, Mila, Ashok, and he--belonged to, this would not be happening. Kiran tucked his head into his chest, the filth and feculence drenching him. Flies came to settle on him as though he were a living carcass. He scraped his tongue with his teeth so that he could dig out the shit and spit it out. He cried, his tears mixing with the slime, knowing that in the end.

In the end, he had climbed a steep nothing.

Chapter
Thirty-Two.

Our mission is a high and holy mission. We are here to govern India as delegates of a Christian and civilised power. We are here as representatives of Christ and Caesar to maintain this land against Shiva and Khalif. In that task we shall not falter, we will oppose ideal to ideal, force to force, constancy to assassination ... If you agitate, you will be punished; if you poach sedition, you will
b
e imprisoned; if you assassinate, you will be hanged; if you rise, you will be shot down."