Vikram Chandra - Red Earth and Pouring Rain

‘Go.’

‘Tell her Jahaj Jung is here.’

‘Jahaj who?’

‘You know what, Bengali. Go, tell her.’

‘Jahaj Jung is the one with the cannon?’

‘Yes.’

‘A fine soldier, they say?’

‘Yes.’

‘A good man?’

‘A generous man, yes,’ Thomas said, and a coin arced through the air and disappeared into the Bengali’s belt.

The halls of the palace were dimly lit; tiger skins and swords and round shields gleamed in the flickering torchlight. Thomas and Reinhardt followed the Bengali officer through dark rooms and up staircases, their heels clicking on polished stone and wood, spurs clinking; higher and higher, and then Thomas heard, far away, low laughter, the laughter of girls, turning into long trails of giggles. The rain swept down suddenly, drumming against glass windows in three gusts, one after the other, and then the three men emerged onto a roof.

‘Wait here,’ said the Bengali.

Under a red-and-yellow canopy, a large silver swing creaked back and forth; the Bengali stepped over the moving, bejewelled forms seated on the carpeted floor and leaned close to the swing. Eddies of water skittered over the roof and scattered themselves on parapets and railings. Thomas wiped his face with a sleeve, smelling, faintly, the aroma of tobacco, the heaviness of rich perfume and the wetness of the earth itself; Reinhardt muttered under his breath and blew his nose.

The Bengali beckoned. ‘Come,’ he said.

The woman reclining on the swing raised an ivory mouth-piece to her lips and inhaled; a hookah murmured; Thomas bowed.

‘Salaam walekum,’ he said, echoed by Reinhardt.

‘Walekum salaam,’ she said. Her voice was rough, alternating between girlish highs and deep huskiness; a.tiny white diamond perched on a nostril called attention to the perfection of the nose, to the sculptured length that stopped just short of the awkwardness of too-long; white smoke drifted up from full lips, shrouding large, dark, kohl-rimmed eyes. There was a fullness about the face, an almost-plumpness that hinted at soft fleshiness hidden below the dark blue silk of a loose kurta-garara.

‘We heard you need officers, Highness,’ Reinhardt said.

‘Yes, but how well do you ride?’ said the Begum.

‘Well enough,’ Thomas said, smiling.

‘Good. Come. The Chiria Fauj marches nearby, I hear. I want to see it.’

She rose from the swing in one swift movement. The men followed her down the stairs, through the dim halls and corridors, out to the front gate where a company of mounted soldiers waited beside four saddled horses. They rode through the darkness, mud splashing, leaves and branches brushing their faces and arms; occasionally, when the clouds scattered, Thomas saw the Begum, riding far out in front, bent low over the mane of her white horse. He twisted in his saddle and slowed, letting Reinhardt come up to him.

‘Crazy,’ he shouted over the rolling beat of hooves. ‘Mad.’

Reinhardt glanced at Thomas, his lips twisted back in a grimace that revealed uneven teeth, and said nothing. Thomas settled back in his saddle; soon, in the swaying back and forth, in the sounds of night and the hooves and saddlery and water, in the regular bunching and relaxation of the faithful muscles beneath him, Thomas lost track of the passing of time; when they halted near a grove of trees, he had to shake his head and breathe deeply, as if he was awakening from a deep sleep.

The Begum dismounted, beckoning to Thomas and Reinhardt.

‘Put these on,’ she said, throwing a bundle of black cloth at Thomas.

‘A burqua,’ Reinhardt said.

‘I don’t want to be recognized,’ she said, pulling a voluminous length of cloth over her head; when she had finished every inch of her body was covered except her eyes. She arched an eyebrow at Thomas and Reinhardt. ‘What delicate women you make.’

Thomas bowed, and Reinhardt muttered something in French; the two Europeans and the Bengali followed the Begum around the grove of trees and into the outskirts of a little town. The streets were crowded, even at that late hour of the night; little boys ran excitedly from one side of the street to the other, waving wooden swords and brightly-coloured bows. The Begum and her companions found a perch on the raised veranda of a halwai’s shop; Thomas looked at the Begum through the fine netting that covered the burqua’s eye-slit, trying to see her eyes. The fragrance of sweetmeats still lingered about the veranda, despite the closed doors, and Thomas was suddenly hungry, the back of his mouth aching for the taste of laddoos, jalebis, balushahis and imurtis; the Begum turned to him abruptly.

‘Do you know why we are here?’ she said.

Thomas shook his head.

‘Because the world is old, and this is something new.’

‘What?’ Reinhardt said. ‘What?’

‘Hush,’ the Begum said, as a steady tramp was heard from the head of the street. The boys scattered to the walls, and the Chiria Fauj marched through, in the numbing rhythm of the long march, faces blank, feet falling together, thrump-thrump-thrump, eyes fixed on the back of the neck of the next man in column, yet looking through the sweating flesh and hair at something maybe a thousand feet away; they marched determinedly, seemingly seeing and hearing nothing.

‘Fine,’ Reinhardt whispered under his breath, ‘fine men.’

Thomas saw the Begum’s head move, saw a quick little stiffening of the neck. The ranks passed by, steady and straight, and finally, preceded by a murmur of voices, a black horse pranced near, nervous, its flanks trembling, bearing a tall figure dressed in a green coat. The hand on the reins was still and very pale in the yellow light of the torches, the chest rose and fell evenly, the shoulders were thrown back and the head tilted up, eyes cast over the heads of the soldiers, over even the clustered houses, up at something lost in the black clouds and the night.

‘He rides like a king, this de Boigne,’ Thomas whispered.

The Begum’s head moved again, and then she stumbled back, falling slowly, gracefully; Thomas reached out and caught her, clutching at her around the waist. The moon broke through the clouds then; with the Bengali shouting ‘A lady has fainted,’ Thomas and Reinhardt carried the Begum through the bazaar and out into the darkness of the fields. They stopped near the grove and laid her on the ground, her head cushioned on Thomas’ knee; the Bengali raised the flap away from her face. Her eyes bulged, the breath whistled in and out of her taut nostrils, her lips convulsed. Even in the dim moonlight, Thomas could see that the Begum’s skin was splotched with dark stains that chased each other over her face, like the massive black shapes of distantly-seen fish in deep water. The Bengali began to chant something under his breath; Thomas recognized the long resonant vowels of Sanskrit.

‘Has this happened before?’ Thomas asked.

‘Never,’ said the Bengali.

‘She’s saying something,’ Reinhardt said.

A globule of saliva bubbled out of a corner of her mouth and slid down her chin.

‘The thing,’ she said.

‘Begum,’ the Bengali said, gently wiping the moisture from her face.

‘The idea. The instrument,’ she said, her jaw moving strangely from side to side. ‘The thing. The idea. Everything will become red. Everything will become red.’ She shuddered again, and tears broke from her eyes and raced down the sides of her face; her body relaxed, her eyes closed. They carried her to the horses, and took her home, riding slowly; the Begum seemed to be sunk in a deep sleep, impervious to the guttural calling of thousands of frogs and the incessant metallic twittering of the crickets.

The next morning a peacock spread its tail against the red and grey of a monsoon sky, tiptoeing back and forth along a garden wall in the palace. Thomas and Reinhardt sat in a canopied veranda, sipping at cups of lassi. The peacock spun slowly, carefully, arching its neck.