Vikram Chandra - Red Earth and Pouring Rain

When we reached the English they kept us honourably, but more or less as prisoners; finally, a few days later, we were asked if we would serve with them. There was nowhere else to go, Sanjay, but still I hesitated, and then they said to me, your men, your old regiment, are here too, and will serve us. I said, let me see them, and they took me to my soldiers; in front of me, the English asked, will you serve with us, and there was no reply, only a muttering. Then the English said, we will let you choose your own commander, who will you have in command, and in a single voice they shouted, Sikander, Sikander, and in my ears it had the clang of a falling sword. Sikander, Sikander, my boys called, their lance-heads flashing in the sun, and I said, without thinking, it came from somewhere inside me, all right, we will wear yellow, and our motto will be, Himmat-i-mardan, maddad-i-khuda . And they called my name, Sikander, Sikander. And I said to the English, I will serve you. I will serve you, but not against my former master, Holkar, and they accepted; so now I take my regiment north to the doab, to pacify, to police, to guard Delhi. So I serve the English, Sanjay. Was I betrayed, or did I betray? As I sit here writing, it is the hour of cow-dust, and all around me I can hear the tinkling of bells; I am alone in my tent, inside its red walls, and I can hear the water of a stream close by. I remain, as always, your friend,

Sikander

As the days of Gul Jahaan’s pregnancy went by, her face became round, and Sanjay was busy bringing her the sweet things she wanted to eat: ras mallai, gulab jamuns, jalebis, and all the time the countryside was quickened into unease by rumours of war. When Sanjay told Sarthey that perhaps they should stay closer to towns, should even consider halting for a period, the Englishman only shook his head, saying that the work must go on. This work, which was not to be interrupted by the English war, was more than medicine; it included also the planting of certain iron rods in the ground, and their measurement with an instrument that Sarthey peered through, all this being duly noted on large sheets of paper. This systematic sketching, which paid particular attention to elevations, declensions, and water-courses, was sometimes interrupted by the sighting of a new species of animal or bird, which unfortunate creatures Sarthey invariably shot and pictured in yet another sketch-book. All this curiosity Sanjay regarded with admiration, with wonder at the Englishman’s voraciousness, his appetite for detail, but when Sarthey’s delving pierced through the surface, when it undertook to prick and slice open, Sanjay was unable to watch. The first time that Sarthey took a squirrel and spread it out on a flat board, Sanjay watched not knowing what was coming next: angle-pointed scissors that snipped an opening from the groin to the chest, metal pincers that peeled back the layers of fat to the packed organs in the belly, and a skilful extraction of a grey sac that contained white, half-formed shapes. At this Sanjay turned away, and afterwards, although he would carry the ruled rods, the measuring instruments, the sketch-books, and even the black leather bag with its rows of knives, he preferred to be excused when the cutting started. This Sarthey agreed to always with a patient shrug, as if to imply an adult toleration of childish squeamish-ness: ‘You are sentimental, my dear fellow’ was the usual comment, with which verdict Sanjay agreed wholeheartedly, but still he was unable to make his body acquiesce, to make his stomach understand what he could perceive to be the intellectual and whole truth.

Seated away from the cutting table, Sanjay was given to thinking about his strange relation with the Englishman; should he confess — if that was the word — his true identity and his old encounter with the elder Sarthey? But more importantly, he was mystified by the friendship he felt for the Englishman: Sanjay, you who once cursed the race, why are you attracted to this man, why do you seek his company and inquire after his opinions? For this there was no answer; at night, lying by Gul Jahaan, his head pushed up to her stomach, it was difficult to think past his soon-to-be son, and the future was so powerfully illuminated by the impending birth that he thought it impossible to look beyond.

Finally, the hour itself came near; it was summer, and even outside, under a mosquito net, the air was close, lying like a blanket over the face. Sanjay thrashed about on his bed, moving first one way and then the other, and finally he pulled off every piece of clothing except his neck-band; still, he found no sleep. So, getting up and pulling on his loose cotton pajamas, he walked some distance to a water-matka, and dipped his hand in the cool, clay-smelling surface, noticing how the moon swam in it, and for several moments he was preoccupied by the fragrance of the water and its cold, but then he turned around suddenly. There had been no sound, and there was as yet nothing to see, but he knew something was there; Sanjay stepped back into a shadow and waited. When he saw the dark figure he laughed silently: he recalled the posture from long ago — that it was Sarthey was clear from the height, but the furtiveness, somehow feline, was what he had seen in his childhood. Laughing, Sanjay began to follow the Englishman, wondering what sort of lover Sarthey had: a woman from among the maids, the servants? Or was it one of the hired soldiers from the escort? But it seemed a long way to go in the dark, and then Sarthey left the camp behind, and made his way along the little rivulet they had camped by; it seemed too much walking for a bath. Finally, Sarthey descended into the ravine cut by the water, and scrambled all the way to the bottom, where the reduced flow trickled along; and Sanjay lay on the bank above and watched while the other stripped off his suit and crouched in the course.

In the white light Sarthey’s hair was black, and lay like a solid streak between the thin bones of his shoulders; Sanjay could see the narrow back and the delicate, descending chain of the spine. Sarthey was still, and then it became clear to Sanjay that he was holding himself with great force, so that beneath the rigidity there was a minute but rapid trembling. He rose from the water, then knelt by the dark puddle of clothes, and drew something from it; Sanjay was unable to make it out until it spun above Sarthey in a dark line and fell with a crack. For a very long time Sanjay watched as the belt curved and made a sound like a thick piece of wood swinging into wet cloth, again and again, again and again, and when Sarthey’s back went black, when it glistened black, Sanjay crawled away and stumbled back to Gul Jahaan, and lay with a hand on her hip till daybreak.

In the morning there was hardly a pause between the grey coolness and the white heat of the sun, and Gul Jahaan began to have her baby. Sanjay sat outside the doctor’s tent, cringing at every moan, but finally the screams subsided, and now the tent was glowing a rich orange, as if a fire were burning inside. A woman threw aside a flap and beckoned: ‘Come.’ Inside, Gul Jahaan lay in a sopping wet pile of sheets, her face a bright red and her eyes turned back, breathing in a rapid succession of pants, and over her leaned Sarthey, his face so vital with curiosity and inquisitiveness that he seemed happy.

‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ he said without looking up. ‘There.’

His gesture was towards a cradle (once made to order in Lucknow) that stood in a corner, now blackened and charred but barely visible because of a yellow-white effulgence that made it hard to see; shielding his face with his fingers and half-turning from the burning light, Sanjay leaned and saw, in quick flashes, a perfectly-formed boy, beautiful beyond telling, but blazing with such inner heat that Sanjay felt it pressing against his face like fingers. When Sanjay turned back, the doctor pointed towards Gul Jahaan, and now she trembled as if in a fit of ague, all the cold damp cloths pressed against her were useless, and she turned her head towards one side, and died. Under the cloth of the tent the heat was ferocious, and Sanjay rushed out, but in all the land there was no relief, the deepest shade breathed an air full of dragging thorns, Sanjay felt each pulse of his heart throb in his head. Walking was cruel but he could not keep still for fear of madness, and so all day he stumbled from tree to building, hating the nameless, dusty town that went drudgingly about its business. All day Sunil walked after him, giving him water and trying to force him to eat, and when it was evening (he could not remember when the day had turned), Sunil led him back to the camp.