Train to Pakistan (5 page)

When the girl had finished her song, Hukum Chand flung a five-rupee note on the carpet. The girl and the musicians bowed their heads. The hag picked up the money and put it in her wallet, proclaiming: ‘May you ever rule. May your pen write hundreds of thousands. May …’

The singing began again. Hukum Chand poured himself a stiff whisky and drank it in one gulp. He wiped his moustache with his hand. He did not have the nerve to take a good look at the girl. She was singing a song he knew well; he had heard his daughter humming it:

In the breeze is flying

My veil of red muslin

Ho Sir, Ho Sir.

Hukum Chand felt uneasy. He took another whisky and
dismissed his conscience. Life was too short for people to have consciences. He started to beat time to the song by snapping his fingers and slapping his thighs to each ‘Ho Sir, Ho Sir.’

Twilight gave way to the dark of a moonless night. In the swamps by the river, frogs croaked. Cicadas chirped in the reeds. The bearer brought out a hissing paraffin lamp which cast a bright bluish light. The frame of the lamp threw a shadow over Hukum Chand. He stared at the girl who sat sheltered from the light. She was only a child and not very pretty, just young and unexploited. Her breasts barely filled her bodice. They could not have known the touch of a male hand. The thought that she was perhaps younger than his own daughter flashed across his mind. He drowned it quickly with another whisky. Life was like that. You took it as it came, shorn of silly conventions and values which deserved only lip worship. She wanted his money, and he… well. When all was said and done she was a prostitute and looked it. The silver sequins on her black sari sparkled. The diamond in her nose glittered like a star. Hukum Chand took another drink to dispel his remaining doubts. This time he wiped his moustache with his silk handkerchief. He began to hum louder and snapped his fingers with a flourish.

One film song followed another till all the Indian songs set to tunes of tangos and sambas that Hukum Chand knew were exhausted.

‘Sing anything else you know,’ ordered the magistrate with lordly condescension. ‘Something new and gay.’

The girl started to sing a song which had several English words in it:

Sunday after Sunday, O my life.

Hukum Chand exploded with an appreciative ‘wah, wah.’ When the girl finished her song, he did not throw the five
rupee note at her but asked her to come and take it from his hand. The old woman pushed the girl ahead.

‘Go, the Government sends for you.’

The girl got up and went to the table. She stretched out her hand to take the money; Hukum Chand withdrew his and put the note on his heart. He grinned lecherously. The girl looked at her companions for help. Hukum Chand put the note on the table. Before she could reach it he picked it up and again put it on his chest. The grin on his face became broader. The girl turned back to join the others. Hukum Chand held out the note for the third time.

‘Go to the Government,’ pleaded the old woman. The girl turned round obediently and went to the magistrate. Hukum Chand put his arm round her waist.

‘You sing well.’

The girl gaped wide-eyed at her companions.

‘The Government is talking to you. Why don’t you answer him?’ scolded the old woman. ‘Government, the girl is young and very shy. She will learn,’ she exclaimed.

Hukum Chand put a glass of whisky to the girl’s lips. ‘Drink a little. Just a sip for my sake,’ he pleaded.

The girl stood impassively without opening her mouth. The old woman spoke again.

‘Government, she knows nothing about drink. She is hardly sixteen and completely innocent. She has never been near a man before. I have reared her for your honour’s pleasure.’

‘Then she will eat something even if she does not drink,’ said Hukum Chand. He preferred to ignore the rest of the woman’s speech. He picked up a meatball from a plate and tried to put it in the girl’s mouth. She took it from him and ate it.

Hukum Chand pulled her onto his lap and began to play with her hair. It was heavily oiled and fixed in waves by gaudy
celluloid hair-clips. He took out a couple of hairpins and loosened the bun at the back. The hair fell about her shoulders. The musicians and the old woman got up.

‘Have we permission to leave?’

‘Yes, go. The driver will take you home.’

The old woman again set up a loud singsong: ‘May your fame and honour increase. May your pen write figures of thousands—nay, hundreds of thousands.’

Hukum Chand produced a wad of notes and put it on the table for her. Then the party went to the car, leaving the magistrate with the girl in his lap and the bearer waiting for orders.

‘Shall I serve dinner, sir?’

‘No, just leave the food on the table. We will serve ourselves. You can go.’ The bearer laid out the dinner and retired to his quarters.

Hukum Chand stretched out his hand and put out the paraffin lamp. It went out with a loud hiss, leaving the two in utter darkness save for a pale yellow light that flickered from the bedroom. Hukum Chand decided to stay out of doors.

The goods train had dropped the Mano Majra wagons and was leaving the station for the bridge. It came up noisily, its progress marked by the embers which flew out of the funnel of the engine. They were stoking coal in the firebox. A bright red-and-yellow light travelled through the spans of the bridge and was lost behind the jungle on the other side. The train’s rumble got fainter and fainter. Its passing brought a feeling of privacy.

Hukum Chand helped himself to another whisky. The girl in his lap sat stiff and frigid.

‘Are you angry with me? You don’t want to talk to me?’ asked Hukum Chand, pressing her closer to him. The girl did not answer or look back at him.

The magistrate was not particularly concerned with her reactions. He had paid for all that. He brought the girl’s face nearer his own and began kissing her on the back of her neck and on her ears. He could not hear the goods train any more. It had left the countryside in utter solitude. Hukum Chand could hear his breathing quicken. He undid the strap of the girl’s bodice.

The sound of a shot shattered the stillness of the night. The girl broke loose and stood up.

‘Did you hear a shot?’

The girl nodded. ‘May be a shikari,’ she answered, speaking to him for the first time. She refastened her bodice.

‘There can’t be any shikar on a dark night.’

The two stood in silence for some time—the man a little apprehensive; the girl relieved of the attentions of a lover whose breath smelled of whisky, tobacco and pyorrhea. But the silence told Hukum Chand that all was well. He took another whisky to make assurance doubly sure. The girl realized that there was no escape.

‘Must be a cracker. Somebody getting married or something,’ said Hukum Chand, putting his arms round the girl. He kissed her on the nose. ‘Let us get married too,’ he added with a leer.

The girl did not answer. She allowed herself to be dragged onto the table amongst plates covered with stale meatballs and cigarette ash. Hukum Chand swept them off the table with his hand and went on with his love-making. The girl suffered his pawing without a protest. He picked her up from the table and laid her on the carpet amongst the litter of tumblers, plates and bottles. She covered her face with the loose end of her sari and turned it sideways to avoid his breath. Hukum Chand began fumbling with her dress.

From Mano Majra came sounds of people shouting and the
agitated barking of dogs. Hukum Chand looked up. Two shots rang out and silenced the barking and shouting. With a loud oath Hukum Chand left the girl. She got up, brushing and adjusting her sari. From the servants’ quarters the bearer and the sweeper came out carrying lanterns and talking excitedly. A little later the chauffeur drove the car into the driveway, its headlights lighting up the front of the bungalow.

The morning after the dacoity the railway station was more crowded than usual. Some Mano Majrans made a habit of being there to watch the 10:30 slow passenger train from Delhi to Lahore come in. They liked to see the few passengers who might get on or off at Mano Majra, and they also enjoyed endless arguments about how late the train was on a given day and when it had last been on time. Since the partition of the country there had been an additional interest. Now the trains were often four or five hours late and sometimes as many as twenty. When they came, they were crowded with Sikh and Hindu refugees from Pakistan or with Muslims from India. People perched on the roofs with their legs dangling, or on bedsteads wedged in between the bogies. Some of them rode precariously on the buffers.

The train this morning was only an hour late—almost like pre-War days. When it steamed in, the crying of hawkers on the platform and the passengers rushing about and shouting to each other gave the impression that many people would be getting off. But when the guard blew his whistle for departure, most of them were back on the train. Only a solitary Sikh peasant carrying an ironshod bamboo staff and followed by his wife with an infant resting on her hip remained with the hawkers on the platform. The man hoisted their rolled bedding onto his head and held it there with one hand. In the other he carried a large tin of clarified butter. The bamboo staff he held
in his armpit, with one end trailing on the ground. Two green tickets stuck out beneath his moustache, which billowed from his upper lip onto his beard. The woman saw the line of faces peering through the iron railing of the station and drew her veil across her face. She followed her husband, her slippers sloshing on the gravel and her silver ornaments all ajingle. The stationmaster plucked the tickets from the peasant’s mouth and let the couple out of the gate, where they were lost in a tumult of greetings and embraces.

The guard blew his whistle a second time and waved the green flag. Then, from the compartment just behind the engine, armed policemen emerged. There were twelve of them, and a subinspector. They carried rifles and their Sam Browne belts were charged with bullets. Two carried chains and handcuffs. From the other end of the train, near the guard’s van, a young man stepped down. He wore a long white shirt, a brown waistcoat of coarse cotton, and loose pyjamas, and he carried a holdall. He stepped gingerly off the train, pressing his tousled hair and looking all round. He was a small slight man, somewhat effeminate in appearance. The sight of the policemen emboldened him. He hoisted the holdall onto his left shoulder and moved jauntily towards the exit. The villagers watched the young man and the police party move from opposite directions towards the stationmaster who stood beside the gate. He had opened it wide for the police and was bowing obsequiously to the subinspector. The young man reached the gate first and stopped between the stationmaster and the police. The stationmaster quickly took the ticket from him, but the young man did not move on or make way for the subinspector.

‘Can you tell me, Stationmaster Sahib, if there is a place I can stay in this village?’

The stationmaster was irritated. The visitor’s urban accent, his appearance, dress and holdall had the stationmaster holding
back his temper.

‘There are no hotels or inns in Mano Majra,’ he answered with polite sarcasm. ‘There is only the Sikh temple. You will see the yellow flag-mast in the centre of the village.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

The police party and the stationmaster scrutinized the youth with a little diffidence. Not many people said ‘thank you’ in these parts. Most of the ‘thank you’ crowd were foreign-educated. They had heard of several well-to-do young men, educated in England, donning peasant garb to do rural uplift work. Some were known to be Communist agents. Some were sons of millionaires, some sons of high government officials. All were looking for trouble, and capable of making a lot of noise. One had to be careful.

The young man went out of the station towards the village. He walked with a consciously erect gait, a few yards in front of the policemen. He was uneasily aware of their attention. The itch on the back of his neck told him that they were looking at him and talking about him. He did not scratch or look back—he just walked on like a soldier. He saw the flag-mast draped in yellow cloth with a triangular flag above the conglomeration of mud huts. On the flag was the Sikh symbol in black, a quoit with a dagger running through and two swords crossed beneath. He went along the dusty path lined on either side by scraggy bushes of prickly pear which fenced it off from the fields. The path wound its narrow way past the mud huts to the opening in the centre where the moneylender’s house, the mosque and the temple faced each other. Underneath the peepul tree half a dozen villagers were sitting on a low wooden platform talking to each other. They got up as soon as they saw the policemen and followed them into Ram Lal’s house. No one took any notice of the stranger.

He stepped into the open door of the temple courtyard. At
the end opposite the entrance was a large hall in which the scripture, the Granth, lay wrapped in gaudy silks under a velvet awning. On one side were two rooms. A brick stairway ran along the wall to the roof of the rooms. Across the courtyard was a well with a high parapet. Beside the well stood a four-foot brick column supporting the long flag-mast with the yellow cloth covering it like a stocking.

The young man did not see anyone about. He could hear the sound of wet clothes being beaten on a slab of stone. He walked timidly to the other side of the well. An old Sikh got up with water dripping from his beard and white shorts.

‘Sat Sri Akal.’

‘Sat Sri Akal.’

‘Can I stay for two or three days?’

‘This is a gurdwara, the Guru’s house—anyone may stay here. But you must have your head covered and you must not bring in any cigarettes or tobacco, nor smoke.’

‘I do not smoke,’ said the young man putting the holdall on the ground and spreading his handkerchief on his head.

‘No, Babu Sahib, only when you go in near the Book, the Granth Sahib, you take your shoes off and cover your head. Put your luggage in that room and make yourself comfortable. Will you have something to eat?’