Vikram Chandra - Red Earth and Pouring Rain

As Janvi listened, her face grew calm; she looked around at the Parashers, and it seemed that she really saw them now, and in the following days and weeks, as the story grew, as it accumulated flesh over the bare bones of that first day, as it collected characters, motivations, conflicts, thunderous scenes of battle, quiet moments of reflection, climaxes, beginnings, her small body seemed to accumulate energy and purpose, so that Ram Mohan marvelled at how she had been transformed into a paragon of motherly health: still quiet, but now it was as if she was gathering herself for something momentous. When her time came, she gave birth without any fuss, and appeared the next day at her usual seat, smiling.

‘Child, child,’ Shanti Devi said. ‘You should be resting. Where’s your new daughter?’

‘He has her,’ Janvi said. ‘They are his, both daughters, I don’t care. But now. I have to meet privately with Uday Singh. Will you tell him to come here?’

‘Who?’ Arun said.

‘Uday Singh. His second-in-command. I want to talk to him without my husband knowing.’

‘I can’t go around whispering to soldiers about private meetings,’ Arun said. ‘If somebody finds out, they’ll think I’m planning a regicide or a coup or something. I’ll be lucky if they let me poison myself. No, no.’

Janvi turned to Ram Mohan, who was massaging his leg, seated cross-legged next to her couch. ‘Will you?’

‘Me? Me?’ In his agitation, he relaxed his customary guard over his lips and tongue, resulting in a vaporous discharge of spittle. He covered his mouth quickly and tried to smile.

‘Oh, don’t you send him out there, to totter around, spraying secrets at anyone who has two minutes to listen,’ Arun said. ‘Don’t do that. Then we shall certainly hang.’

‘What is her choice if you don’t, ji?’ Shanti Devi said, raising her eyebrows. ‘What but it?’

‘You would do it too, wouldn’t you, you smirking fool?’ Arun pulled at the sacred cord that looped over his shoulder, sending it hissing around his body. ‘No, no, enough. This I won’t do. Already I’ve allowed danger to hang over my house. No more.’

‘What danger are you talking about?’ Shanti Devi hooted. ‘You’re always talking about danger that nobody else can see.’

‘And you, you, you’re always ready to do anything if she asks. Not a care in the world if your own family lives or dies or anything.’ Arun turned, stopped to glare at Janvi, and then went striding off towards the house. Shanti Devi heaved up after him.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’ll settle him in five minutes.’

They heard the fight as it drifted through the various rooms of the house; from a minor skirmish it developed speedily into a full-scale engagement: at first the shouting spoke mostly about the logic of the situation, about the probability of danger and the limits of obligation, but then soon the voices shrieked about wounds taken and given long ago, about years-old insults and ancient family feuds, and snatches of the quarrel echoed amongst the trees, frightening the birds into sudden flight: ‘If it hadn’t been for my father you would have still been back chanting slokas in that sleepy village of yours for a tenth-of-a-paisa a morning; all because of him you’re here today wearing fine clothes and putting on courtier’s airs.’ ‘And what airs do I put on now? What do I do but work day and night to support you and that brother of yours. For two dozen years I’ve supported that slobbering idiot brother of yours; in all this time he’s never done a day’s work.’ ‘Leave my brother out of it. Don’t say a word about my brother.’ ‘Oho, so your family’s sacred. We can’t discuss your family, but you’ll insult my poor mother day and night. I see, I see.’

Ram Mohan ducked his head between his knees and scratched aimless designs in the dust between his toes; he tried to shut out the familiar design of abuse that was forming in the house, the old repeated pattern of insult that circled around the one thing always finally unsaid, the one resentment that accumulated more bitterness, like a pus-filled canker, the one fatal accusation held close to the heart by both sides but left unused: ‘You have given me no children.’ But today the husband and wife scratched and tore at each other with unusual ferocity, probing and hurting until Ram Mohan could stand it no more: he flung himself prone and locked his arms over his head, pounding the ground with his feet; he felt a hand on his shoulder.

‘Be quiet,’ Janvi said calmly, gazing off at the house. ‘They’ll be finished with each other soon.’

‘I wish I could go,’ he said. He had never left the house alone. ‘I wish.’

‘Yes,’ she said, and her eyes moved, and she watched as he pulled his feet up under him and crouched, hands resting palm up before him; then she sat back and waited. When the sun settled behind the house and the chattering of the birds became an unbroken clamouring, Shanti Devi walked out to the garden again, not exultant but with the certain, magnanimous tread of the victor.

‘It’s all right. Everything is all right.’ she said. ‘He’ll go.’

So, two days later, in the grey of early morning, Uday Singh appeared at Arun’s gate, his face hidden by a shawl wrapped around his shoulders and head; amongst the trees, he bowed low to Janvi and swept his palms together, saying ‘Khama ghani, hukum’; after he had seated himself on a white sheet spread in front of her couch, she waved the others away, and they watched the two motionless figures as the garden filled with the clear light of first winter. Occasionally, under the call of cicadas, they heard the murmur of her voice, level and constant; finally, they heard Uday say something, and then he strode past them, flinging the shawl about his shoulders, his face held carefully impassive, and that afternoon the court was told that Uday Singh, commander in His Majesty’s armies, had been given leave for compassionate reasons and had ridden north on personal business. Now, Janvi was quiet and gentle and fulfilled; she seemed to enjoy the warmth of the afternoon sun and the little bursts of wit that peppered the play about Sikander; every afternoon, when Arun read out their morning’s work, becoming, in succession, Sikander, the teacher, the holy men at the edge of wilderness, and Porus, Ram Mohan watched her face carefully, trying not to blink, measuring her reactions and cutting and pruning the work accordingly.

One evening, when the worst of the winter was over, they had finished their reading and discussion, and were gathering their booklets and pens in the early twilight when a dark figure vaulted over a wall in a flapping of cloth. Ram Mohan dropped an ink-stand, stumbled back, tripped and sat jokingly, stammering in fear, ‘Ah-ah-ah-ah.’

‘Don’t be frightened, boy, it’s only me. If they knew I came back and brought something for you, Parasherji, they would suspect us both. There were questions enough when I left. I just got back, and I think they know. So I came in the dark.’ Uday laid a bundle wrapped in white cloth before Janvi; he quickly untied the knot on top and peeled back layers of muslin, and a soft orange glow lit his face from below. Ram Mohan pulled himself closer, and reached out to touch, wonderingly, the little orange balls made of smaller spheres.

‘Laddoos,’ he said. ‘You went away for three months to bring back laddoos.’

‘From what confectioner?’ Arun said. ‘From what witch have you brought these things back into my house? Why do they glow like that?’

‘Pretty,’ Ram Mohan said.

‘Don’t touch them,’ Arun said.

‘Listen, hukum,’ Uday said. ‘Like you said, I went and spoke to him, but he is caught up in an extraordinary combat for a kingdom, or something greater than kingdoms. So he couldn’t come, but he said “Take these to her. Tell her to eat them, one at a time, to put each one whole into her mouth. Tell her she will have sons. Tell her she will have sons worthy of their mother. Tell her she will have sons who will face the world. Tell her to have sons.” So I have come back with these for you. Now I must go. They must be expecting me at the palace.’ He hid himself in the folds of a grey blanket and clambered up the wall.