Amitav Ghosh - Flood of Fire

Yes, Kesri, what else?

Kesri jumped to his feet and lifted the canvas flap of his tent. It was well past midnight now, but across the parade ground, in the adjutant’s tent, a lamp was still burning.

Go, Kesri — go now.

Kesri caught hold of Pagla-baba’s hand. I’ll go, he said, but listen — tell Gulabi to come to me tonight. I want to see her — one last time.

Theek hai .

A moment later, Pagla-baba slipped away, as softly as he had come. Kesri stepped out of his tent, stiffened his shoulders and began to walk towards the officers’ lines.

Had the adjutant been anyone other than Captain Mee, the thought of intruding upon him at this hour of the night would not have occurred to Kesri. But his bond with Captain Mee was different from the usual relationship between sepoy and officer: looking at the lamp in the adjutant’s tent he had the distinct feeling that Captain Mee was expecting him.

‘Sir? Mee-sah’b?’

‘Yes? Who is it?’ The flaps at the tent’s entrance parted and Captain Mee’s face appeared between them.

‘Oh it’s you, havildar. Come in.’

Stepping inside, Kesri saw that Captain Mee was in the process of packing. An overfilled trunk stood beside his cot and a heap of papers lay piled on his desk.

‘I’m leaving early tomorrow,’ said Captain Mee curtly, ‘for Calcutta.’

‘I know, sir,’ said Kesri. ‘That is why I have come.’

‘Yes, havildar. Go on.’

‘I also want to go, sir. With you.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, sir. I want to go as balamteer.’

Captain Mee’s face broke into a wide smile. He stepped up to Kesri with his hand outstretched: ‘That’s the barber, havildar! Knew you’d come up trumps. Don’t know why you’ve changed your mind, but I’m fizzing glad you have!’

Kesri flinched, for he knew that the captain was probably lying in order to spare his feelings. In all likelihood Captain Mee was well aware of the exact reasons for his change of mind. As with any good adjutant, very little happened in the battalion without the captain knowing of it. Scuffles and quarrels; thefts and arguments — nothing evaded his attention. Having himself served as Mee-sahib’s first and most trusted informer, it was no secret to Kesri that the captain had sources in every company and platoon. News of the meeting in the subedar’s tent would have reached him within minutes of its conclusion and he would have grasped immediately what it meant for Kesri. Sentences of ostracism had been passed before in the paltan, not just among the sepoys but also among the officers: when they did it to one of their own they’d say that he had been ‘sent to Coventry’; among them too it amounted to a sentence of expulsion.

Kesri understood that it was not out of ignorance but tact that the captain had made no reference to his plight and was deeply touched: ‘Thank you, Kaptán-sah’b.’

Captain Mee brushed this aside. ‘Well it’s settled then,’ he said. ‘I don’t think the CO will object, but still, I’d better get you to sign the papers right now so that he can see them first thing in the morning.’

Through the rest of the interview Mr Mee’s demeanour remained crisply matter-of-fact. But at the end, when all the paperwork had been completed, his manner changed: he stepped out from behind his field-desk and placed a hand on Kesri’s shoulder.

‘I’m glad you’re coming along, havildar,’ he said in an unusually sombre voice. ‘It’ll make things much easier — we’ve always understood each other well, haven’t we? I doubt there’s another pair of men in the battalion who know each other as well as you and I.’

The directness of Captain Mee’s words took Kesri aback. He would not have expressed himself in this way, but it struck him now that the adjutant was right. It was a fact that after having spent two decades in the paltan, none of his fellow sepoys had uttered a word of sympathy; the only man who had put a friendly hand on his shoulder was not someone of his own caste and colour, but rather an Angrez on whom he had no claim whatever. The thought caused an unaccustomed prickling in Kesri’s eyes and he realized, to his shock, that he was near tears.

Fortunately, the interview was almost at an end.

‘All right then, havildar,’ said Captain Mee. ‘Please report to the officers’ mess after choti-hazri tomorrow.’

Ji aj’ten-sahib . Kesri snapped off a salute and stepped outside.

It was very late now and the campground was empty. Back in his tent Kesri packed a few of his things before lying down. For a while he listened for footsteps thinking that Gulabi might come, although in his heart he knew that she wouldn’t. He could not find it in himself to blame her for staying away; if she were found out the subedar was sure to visit some dire punishment on her: to risk her livelihood, and that of her girls, would be foolhardy.

Even though he understood her situation, the thought that he would never see her again filled him with sadness. No one knew his injuries as well as she did. Her touch was so deft that she could make the sensitive edges of old scars pulsate with feeling; her fingers worked such magic that it was as if old wounds had been miraculously transformed into organs of pleasure. Now it was as if all his scars were weeping for her touch.

He remembered the very first time he had lain with Gulabi, as a raw recruit, and he recalled how a voice in his head had warned that he would pay for his pleasure one day. Now that the day had come, he resolved that he would go back to practising the disciplines of celibacy that he had abandoned on joining the Pacheesi: to return to the wrestler’s state of brahmacharya would be his penance for the years he had wasted as a sepoy.

Kesri thought of his years with the Pacheesi — the battles and skirmishes, and the pride he had taken in the paltan — and a bitter, ashen taste filled his mouth. He remembered that it was Deeti who had conspired to get him into the battalion, and he wondered if it had been written in their shared kismet that she would also be the cause of his leaving it. Yet he felt no rancour towards her. He had only himself to blame, he knew, not just for having cherished a vain hope, but also for sacrificing Deeti to his own ambitions and sending her into the family of Subedar Bhyro Singh, knowing full well what those people were made of.

If Deeti had willed this retribution on him, he would not have blamed her.

*

For Zachary, the consequences of his night with Mrs Burnham were even worse than she had predicted: not only did he have to deal with a heavy burden of guilt and remorse, he also had to cope with the bone-chilling fear of her husband’s vengeance. Everywhere he looked, he saw reminders of Mr Burnham’s power. What would the Burra Sahib do if he got a whiff of his wife’s infidelity? The thought sent shivers through Zachary and he cursed himself for having taken such a senseless risk, merely for a single night’s gratification.

Yet, strangely, contrition was not enough to expunge the night from Zachary’s memory. Even as his head was aching with apprehension other parts of his body would stir and tingle as they exhumed, from their own storehouses of memory, recollections of the explosive pleasures that he had experienced. Then his self-reproach would turn to regret and he would curse himself for not having made the night last longer; involuntarily his head would fill with imaginings of what he would do if he could but relive that night, just one more time.

But that was impossible of course. Hadn’t she said, with absolute finality, ‘this is the last and only time’? He often repeated those words to himself, for they offered a kind of comfort when his burden of guilt and fear weighed most heavily on him. But there were times also when the sound of the words would change, even as they echoed through his head, and he would wonder whether they had been said with as much conviction as he had imagined. Sometimes one thought would lead to another and he would begin to dream of receiving another message from the boudoir, heralding another assignation and another sprint across the garden.