Vikram Chandra - Red Earth and Pouring Rain

Sikander stretched, raising his body off the couch with his extended limbs. ‘Oh, what a lovely dream I was having,’ he said. ‘Of lions, lions, and great cities.’

Shaking with excitement, Ram Mohan called for servants and instructed them to take the boys inside and to stay with them, to not leave them alone; then he hurried to his room and pulled a trunk from under his bed, from which he extracted his Diwali gifts, a silk kurta from Lucknow, a fine dhoti from Benares, and leather jootis from Jodhpur. He put on the clothes speedily, but by the time he managed to get his turban tied his fingers ached. He stepped into the crisp new shoes, threw an embroidered white cloth over his right shoulder, and walked out into the main hall at the front of the house.

When he asked for a closed palanquin and bearers, the servants stared and whispered to each other, and he had to look a little irritated and snap out reprimands before the vehicle arrived; he managed to sound confident as he gave instructions to the crew, but as soon as they had trotted out the front gate, into the road, he felt a sudden rush of bile at the back of his throat, which made him sink back into the cushions, pulling at the curtains to open up a crack, to let some air into the stifling darkness. The streets outside seemed strange and unfamiliar, the houses — with their shuttered and loopholed doors and walls — mysterious and forbidding; he realized, then, that he hadn’t left his sister’s home from the day he had arrived seventeen years ago. By the time they halted, in front of a red brick house surrounded by high walls, a vein which curved over his right temple throbbed painfully with each beat of his heart; he cupped his hands over his eyes for a minute, then pushed the curtains aside and stepped out onto a marble stairway lit by lanterns.

‘I would like,’ he enunciated clearly, painfully, to a mustachioed major-domo, ‘to request the honourable commander to grant me the favour of an audience.’ The man stepped back, and Ram Mohan realized that in his eagerness to say the right thing properly, he had forgotten not to spit on the plosive consonants. He went on: ‘I realize it is highly informal of me to appear like this, without notice, but I hope the Commander Sahib will excuse my bad manners. I come on urgent business.’

The retainer disappeared, gesturing at a couch and nodding up bowls of water and paan-containers; a few minutes later, he reappeared.

‘Come.’

Uday Singh was practising in a tiled court-yard, stripped to the waist, spinning a ten-foot lance slowly above his head; his shadow loomed above, dancing on the white walls.

‘I’m sorry to receive you like this,’ he said, moving the lance from hand to hand without interrupting the slow rhythm of his circles. ‘But as you said, Sahib, you came without notice. So I presumed that you wouldn’t take offence at my lack of courtesy’

‘No matter,’ Ram Mohan said. ‘No matter. No matter.’ He forced himself to take a deep breath and look away from the black point of the weapon. ‘I came, I came to ask you about the boys.’

‘What boys?’

‘Our boys. Skinner’s boys, and my sister’s boy.’

‘Why would I know anything about them?’

‘You brought the laddoos.’

‘What laddoos?’

‘You know. You brought them. I was there.’

‘I must have forgotten.’

‘You have to remember. How could you forget? You brought the laddoos that enabled their birth.’

‘What a strange idea. Even if it were true, what then?’

‘Where did they come from? Who was the man who sent them? What were they?’

‘Too many questions. I haven’t any answers.’

‘You do.’

‘I don’t, really.’

‘You must tell me. You must.’

Uday stopped moving and straightened up, and as if by chance the lance angled towards Ram Mohan’s chest.

‘Why must I?’ Uday said.

‘You must.’ Ram Mohan stepped forward. ‘You must. For her. For the sake of Sikander’s mother.’

‘Her? Is that why you came? For her?’

‘I saw today, in the garden behind my brother-in-law’s house, a king-cobra spread its hood above Sikander, shielding him from the sun and weeping at the same time. I saw today Chotta Sikander reach out and take poison from that same cobra’s mouth like one takes water from a spout, and drink it like other children drink cow’s milk. I saw today Sanjay speak to that cobra as if they were old friends exchanging greetings or a couple of versifiers comparing couplets. That’s why you must tell me who and what these boys are.’

‘A cobra?’

‘A king-cobra, black and flecked with gold and with a hood as big as this.’

‘You look after these boys?’

‘I am with them day and night.’

‘All right,’ Uday Singh said, laying down the lance and sitting on a stool. ‘Sit, please. You should know. I don’t know how you’ll feel about all this, but you should know. Listen…’

I first saw her (Uday Singh said), the woman who is now Skinner’s wife and the mother of Sikander, during the siege of Bejagarh, when we had finally blown up the East Gate and were in the city, in the palaces. All around us the shells were still falling as we chopped up their defences. I served then, as I do now, under this Skinner, a careful, stolid man, without much in the way of dash or daring, but a soldier, nevertheless, in a monotonous, determined way. So we broke into the city at the first hint of light, and struggled up the hill, coming up against little knots of resistance every so often and taking casualties, but we were already certain that we had won, and finally, with whoops of joy we plunged into the palaces, eager for the rubies and gold inside that were ours for the taking.

And in a certain palace, a richly-appointed place, we saw, down a corridor, what seemed like a few men running, and we decided we had caught up with some stragglers, so we rushed on after them, losing sight of them, then spying them again, like jungle dogs after antelope; a shell landed then, tearing through the roofing, and wood and masonry flew everywhere, and I saw a gap open ahead of me, and without thinking, in my momentum, you understand, I ran through it, and saw instantly my old friend and once-comrade, George Thomas, known to the world as Jahaj Jung, and he was standing as if stupefied, in front of a woman of beauty.

Even as I ran towards them her loveliness began to work on me, and I felt the sounds of war fade away, and my breath left my body, and I wanted to weep, so it was as much to release myself from this as to warn him that I was coming that I shouted, JAHAJ JUNG!’ and he turned, stiffly, still not seeing me, and me, I was trying not to look at her, trying to keep my attention on my weapon, and on him, because I knew I must face him. Then Skinner said something, with the arrogance he must have been born with, and I spoke to Thomas, but he jumped at me, came at me instantly, you see, without a word of greeting or recognition, as one expects from an old comrade, even if the circumstances of fate and combat should pit one against the other, and so he surprised me, surprised me not only by the quickness of his attack but with the mad strength of his blow, which threw him off balance and open to my thrusts, had it not splintered my sabre and sent me stumbling back. So I picked myself up and chased after him, angry beyond words at his rudeness and insensitivity — you see, after all, one does not expect such behaviour from friends — but in the crowd and confusion of fighting, I quite lost track of him, so on the street outside the palace, I was obliged to give up the chase.

I went back inside and found Skinner organizing a guard around the few women who were left, the few who were seated on the black-and-white floor of the great hall we had found them in, their heads bowed in shame, and I felt pity for them, because now, denied death, they had nothing left but dishonour; Skinner was strutting about, looking busy, and I noticed he was paying particular attention to one of the women: he knelt down, next to her, and said, in his abominable Urdu, his face ruddy, a smile on his lips, ‘Don’t worry. You’re safe now,’ and she said, her voice muffled by the dupatta, ‘Just let me kill myself.’ He said, ‘No, no, nonsense. Nothing of the sort,’ and she glanced up quickly, and the veil moved, and I saw her eyes flash with hatred, but again my heart moved for her loveliness and I cursed myself for not having the courage to kill her there, then. But she lived and Skinner took her in marriage, and what could she do? — her city was dead, her people were dead, her family was dead, her time was dead.