Train to Pakistan (14 page)

‘Why were they allowed to stop?’ asked Hukum Chand sharply. ‘You know very well the orders are that all incoming refugees must proceed to the camp at Jullundur. This is serious. They may start the killing in Mano Majra.’

‘No, sir, the situation is well in hand up till now. These refugees have not lost much in Pakistan and apparently no one molested them on the way. The Muslims of Mano Majra have
been bringing them food at the temple. If others turn up who have been through massacres and have lost relations, then it will be a different matter. I had not thought of the river crossings. Usually, after the rains the river is a mile in breadth and there are no fords till November or December. We have hardly had any rain this year. There are several points where people can cross and I have not got enough policemen to patrol the riverside.’

Hukum Chand looked across the rest house grounds. The rain was falling steadily. Little pools had begun to form in the ditches. The sky was a flat stretch of slate grey.

‘Of course, if it keeps raining, the river will rise and there will not be many fords to cross. One will be able to control refugee movements over the bridges.’

A crash of lightning and thunder emphasized the tempo of the rain. The wind blew a thin spray onto the veranda.

‘But we must get the Muslims out of this area whether they like it or not. The sooner the better.’

There was a long pause in the conversation. Both men sat staring into the rain. Hukum Chand began to speak again.

‘One should bow before the storm till it passes. See the pampas grass! Its leaves bend before the breeze. The stem stands stiff in its plumed pride. When the storm comes it cracks and its white plume is scattered by the winds like fluffs of thistledown.’ After a pause he added, ‘A wise man swims with the current and still gets across.’

The subinspector heard the platitudes with polite attention. He did not see their significance to his immediate problem. Hukum Chand noticed the blank expression on the police officer’s face. He had to make things more plain.

‘What have you done about Ram Lal’s murder? Have you made any further arrests?’

‘Yes, sir, Jugga badmash gave us the names yesterday. They
are men who were at one time in his own gang: Malli and four others from village Kapura two miles down the river. But Jugga was not with them. I have sent some constables to arrest them this morning.’

Hukum Chand did not seem to be interested. He had his eyes fixed somewhere far away.

‘We were wrong about both Jugga and the other fellow.’ The Inspector went on: ‘I told you about Jugga’s liaison with a Muslim weaver’s girl. That kept him busy most nights. Malli threw bangles into Jugga’s courtyard after the dacoity.’

Hukum Chand still seemed far away.

‘If your honour agrees, we might release Jugga and Iqbal after we have got Malli and his companions.’

‘Who are Malli and his companions, Sikh or Muslim?’ asked Hukum Chand abruptly.

‘All Sikhs.’

The magistrate relapsed into his thoughts once more. After some time he began to talk to himself. ‘It would have been more convenient if they had been Mussulman. The knowledge of that and the agitator fellow being a Leaguer would have persuaded Mano Majra Sikhs to let their Muslims go.’

There was another long pause. The plan slowly pieced itself together in the subinspector’s mind. He got up without making any comment. Hukum Chand did not want to take any chances.

‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Let Malli and his gang off without making any entry anywhere. But keep an eye on their movements. We will arrest them when we want to … And do not release the badmash or the other chap yet. We may need them.’

The subinspector saluted.

‘Wait. I haven’t finished.’ Hukum Chand raised his hand. ‘After you have done the needful, send word to the commander of the Muslim refugee camp asking for trucks to evacuate Mano Majra Muslims.’

The subinspector saluted once more. He was conscious of the honour Hukum Chand had conferred by trusting him with the execution of a delicate and complicated plan. He put on his raincoat.

‘I should not let you go in this rain, but the matter is so vital that you should not lose any time,’ said Hukum Chand, still looking down at the ground.

‘I know, sir.’ The subinspector saluted again. ‘I shall take action at once.’ He mounted his bicycle and rode away from the rest house onto the muddy road.

Hukum Chand sat on the veranda staring vacantly at the rain falling in sheets. The right and wrong of his instructions did not weigh too heavily on him. He was a magistrate, not a missionary. It was the day-to-day problems to which he had to find answers. He had no need to equate them to some unknown absolute standard. There were not many ‘oughts’ in his life. There were just the ‘is’s. He took life as it was. He did not want to recast it or rebel against it. There were processes of history to which human beings contributed willy-nilly. He believed that an individual’s conscious effort should be directed to immediate ends like saving life when endangered, preserving the social structure and honouring its conventions. His immediate problem was to save Muslim lives. He would do that in any way he could. Two men who had been arrested on the strength of warrants signed by him should have been arrested in any case. One was an agitator, the other a bad character. In troubled times, it would be necessary to detain them. If he could make a minor error into a major investment, it would really be a mistake to call it a mistake. Hukum Chand felt elated. If his plan could be carried out efficiently! If only he could himself direct the details, there would be no slips! His subordinates
frequently did not understand his mind and landed him in complicated situations.

From inside the rest house came the sound of the bathroom door shutting and opening. Hukum Chand got up and shouted at the bearer to bring in breakfast.

The girl sat on the edge of the bed with her chin in her hands. She stood up and covered her head with the loose end of the sari. When Hukum Chand sat down in the chair, she sat down on the bed again with her eyes fixed on the floor. There was an awkward silence. After some time Hukum Chand mustered his courage, cleared his throat and said, ‘You must be hungry. I have sent for some tea.’

The girl turned her large sad eyes on him. ‘I want to go home.’

‘Have something to eat and I will tell the driver to take you home. Where do you live?’

‘Chundunnugger. Where the Inspector Sahib has his police station.’

There was another long pause. Hukum Chand cleared his throat again. ‘What is your name?’

‘Haseena. Haseena Begum.’

‘Haseena. You are
haseen
. Your mother has chosen your name well. Is that old woman your mother?’

The girl smiled for the first time. No one had paid her a compliment before. Now the Government itself had called her beautiful and was interested in her family.

‘No, sir, she is my grandmother. My mother died soon after I was born.’

‘How old are you?’

‘I don’t know. Sixteen or seventeen. Maybe eighteen. I was not born literate. I could not record my date of birth.’

She smiled at her own little joke. The magistrate smiled too. The bearer brought in a tray of tea, toast and eggs.

The girl got up to arrange the teacups and buttered a piece of toast. She put it on a saucer and placed it on the table in front of Hukum Chand.

‘I will not eat anything. I have had my tea.’

The girl pretended to be cross.

‘If you do not eat, then I won’t eat either,’ she said coquettishly. She put away the knife with which she was buttering the toast, and sat down on the bed.

The magistrate was pleased. ‘Now, do not get angry with me,’ he said. He walked up to her and put his arms round her shoulders. ‘You must eat. You had nothing last night.’

The girl wriggled in his arms. ‘If you eat, I will eat. If you do not, I will not either.’

‘All right, if you insist.’ Hukum Chand helped the girl up with his arm around her waist and brought her to his side of the table. ‘We will both eat. Come and sit with me.’

The girl got over her nervousness and sat in his lap. She put thickly buttered toast in his mouth and laughed when he said ‘Enough, enough,’ through his stuffed mouth. She wiped the butter off his moustache.

‘How long have you been in this profession?’

‘What a silly question to ask! Why, ever since I was born. My mother was a singer and her mother was a singer till as long back as we know.’

‘I do not mean singing. Other things,’ explained Hukum Chand, looking away.

‘What do you mean, other things?’ asked the girl haughtily. ‘We do not go about doing other things for money. I am a singer and I dance. I do not suppose you know what dancing and singing are. You just know about other things. A bottle of whisky and other things. That is all!’

Hukum Chand cleared his throat with a nervous cough. ‘Well …I did not do anything.’

The girl laughed and pressed her hand on the magistrate’s face. ‘Poor Magistrate Sahib. You had evil intentions, but you were tired. You snored like a railway engine.’ The girl drew her breath in noisily and imitated his snoring. She laughed more loudly.

Hukum Chand stroked the girl’s hair. His daughter would have been sixteen, seventeen, or eighteen, if she had lived. But he had no feeling of guilt, only a vague sense of fulfilment. He did not want to sleep with the girl, or make love to her, or even to kiss her on the lips and feel her body. He simply wanted her to sleep in his lap with her head resting on his chest.

‘There you go again with your deep thoughts,’ said the girl, scratching his head with her finger. She poured out a cup of tea and then poured it into the saucer. ‘Have some tea. It will stop you thinking.’ She thrust the saucerful of tea at him.

‘No, no. I have had tea. You have it.’

‘All right. I will have tea and you have your thoughts.’

The girl began to sip the tea noisily.

‘Haseena.’ He liked repeating the name. ‘Haseena,’ he started again.

‘Yes. But Haseena is only my name. Why don’t you say something?’

Hukum Chand took the empty saucer from her hand and put it on the table. He drew the girl closer and pressed her head against his. He ran his fingers through her hair.

‘You are Muslim?’

‘Yes, I am Muslim. What else could Haseena Begum be? A bearded Sikh?’

‘I thought Muslims from Chundunnugger had been evacuated. How have you managed to stay on?’

‘Many have gone away, but the Inspector Sahib said we could stay till he told us to go. Singers are neither Hindu nor Muslim in that way. All communities come to hear me.’

‘Are there any other Muslims in Chundunnugger?’

‘Well … yes,’ she faltered. ‘You can call them Muslim, Hindu or Sikh or anything, male or female. A party of
hijras
[hermaphrodites] are still there.’ She blushed.

Hukum Chand put his hand across her eyes.

‘Poor Haseena is embarrassed. I promise I won’t laugh. You are not Hindu or Muslim, but not in the same way as a hijra is not a Hindu or Muslim.’

‘Do not tease me.’

‘I won’t tease you,’ he said removing his hand. She was still blushing. ‘Tell me why the hijras were spared.’

‘I will if you promise not to laugh at me.’

‘I promise.’

The girl became animated.

‘There was a child born to someone living in the Hindu locality. Without even thinking about communal troubles the hijras were there to sing. Hindus and Sikhs—I do not like Sikhs—got hold of them and wanted to kill them because they were Muslim.’ She stopped deliberately.

‘What happened?’ asked Hukum Chand eagerly.

The girl laughed and clapped her hands the way hijras do, stretching her fingers wide. ‘They started to beat their drums and sing in their raucous male voices. They whirled round so fast that their skirts flew in the air. Then they stopped and asked the leaders of the mob, “Now you have seen us, tell us, are we Hindus or Muslims?” and the whole crowd started laughing—the whole crowd except the Sikhs.’

Hukum Chand also laughed.

‘That is not all. The Sikhs came with their kirpans and threatened them saying, “We will let you go this time, but you must get out of Chundennugger or we will kill you.” One of the hijras again clapped his hands and ran his fingers in a Sikh’s beard and asked, “Why? Will all of you become like us and stop
having children?” Even the Sikhs started laughing.’

‘That is a good one,’ said Hukum Chand. ‘But you should be careful while all this disturbance is going on. Stay at home for a few days.’

‘I am not frightened. We know so many people so well and then I have a big powerful Magistrate to protect me. As long as he is there no one can harm a single hair of my head.’

Hukum Chand continued to run his hands through the girl’s hair without saying anything. The girl looked up at him smiling mischievously. ‘You want me to go to Pakistan?’

Hukum Chand pressed her closer. A hot feverish feeling came over him. ‘Haseena.’ He cleared his throat again. ‘Haseena.’ Words would not come out of his mouth.

‘Haseena, Haseena, Haseena. I am not deaf. Why don’t you say something?’

‘You will stay here today, won’t you? You do not want to go away just yet?’

‘Is that all you wanted to say? If you do not give me your car, I cannot go five miles in the rain. But if you make me sing or spend another night here you will have to give me a big bundle of notes.’

Hukum Chand felt relieved.

‘What is money?’ he said with mock gallantry. ‘I am ready to lay down my life for you.’

For a week, Iqbal was left alone in his cell. His only companions were the piles of newspapers and magazines. There was no light in his cell, nor was he provided with a lamp. He had to lie in the stifling heat listening to night noises—snores, occasional gunshots, and then more snoring. When it started to rain, the police station became more dismal than ever. There was nothing to see except rain falling incessantly, or sometimes a constable running across between the reporting rooms and the barracks.
There was nothing to hear except the monotonous patter of raindrops, an occasional peal of thunder, and then more rain. He saw little of Jugga in the neighbouring cell. On the first two evenings, some constables had taken Jugga out of his cell. They brought him back after an hour. Iqbal did not know what they had done to him. He didn’t ask and Jugga said nothing. But his repartee with the policemen became more vulgar and more familiar than before.