Vikram Chandra - Red Earth and Pouring Rain

‘Oh, why are you fighting in the lane, you dirty children? Fighting outside my door, making bad noises. Go away. Go, run away, or I’ll come after your heads with a rolling-pin.’ It was the woman from inside, Hercules’ woman; she stood at the door of her hut, hands on her hips, hair rolling over her shoulders, mouth red from the paan. ‘And who are these? Why are you bothering these fine boys. Go away, leave them alone.’

‘Are they your customers too, then, Amba?’ a boy called from the rear, and at that she ran after them, swinging her arms, dealing out slaps and cuffs, and they scattered, laughing. Finally, she came back to them, huffing.

‘Come inside,’ she said. ‘Wait for a while and the little oafs will go away. Then they won’t bother you.’

Inside her hut, Sanjay tried resolutely not to look at the small puddle of light that gathered along the wall at the back, and concentrated instead on a minute inspection of the images of gods and goddesses that were arranged on the numerous ledges, crannies and shelves built into the walls.

‘Are you lost? Why did you come here? Poor boys, this isn’t a place for you. You are lost, aren’t you?’

This was directed at Chotta, who was staring at her, lips puckered, eyes shining, as if he was about to burst into tears. She looked curiously at him for a moment or two, then Sikander turned to her.

‘Yes, we’re lost,’ he said.

‘How did it happen? Did you just pay no attention, and get lost in some game? Where do you live?’

‘Char Bagh.’

‘Ay, what a long way you’ve wandered. Don’t these other two talk at all? I suppose they’re scared. But don’t be scared, this is a place you all would have found a way to, sooner or later. You three just got an early start all right. All of you from Char Bagh come here, no matter how high and mighty you act.’ She laughed; the pink of the inside of her mouth was very bright against her dark skin, and again Sanjay felt his belly full of an incredible longing. ‘They all come here, Brahmins and Rajputs and Company men. Here, touch-this-and-don’t-touch-that and untouchability and your caste and my people and I-can’t-eat-your-food is all forgotten; this is the place that the saints sang about, little men. Here, anybody can touch anybody else, nothing happens. When you are a little older, when you understand a little more, you too will come and touch, and maybe by then I will be an old woman, but remember me. Here you can forget the world, and be friends with every man. Do you see what I say? I have a friend, a little way down the lane, in a big house that she was brought to when she was just a child, but she remembers something from before, when she was home, far and far to the south; she sings it sometimes, and I ask her, What is this? What does it mean? Whose song is this? and she says, listen, sister, I don’t know who wrote it, but it means this:

What could my mother be

to yours? What kin is my father

to yours anyway? And how

did you and I meet ever?

But in love

our hearts have mingled

like red earth and pouring rain.’

She put her hands on her knees and leaned forward, raising her eyebrows. ‘Do you understand, babies? That’s what happens here.’

She smiled, exposing again the pink gums; Sanjay pulled at Sikander’s arm: let’s go.

‘We have to go now,’ Sikander said.

‘Be careful.’

Outside, they stumbled through the streets, feet scraping through dust; Sanjay put up a forearm to shield his eyes from the light, squinting, and noticed, now, how many women sat in door-ways, clad only in petticoats, and how they looked bluntly at passers-by, sometimes calling out to them, ‘Come, come to my house.’ Now, he saw many smiling, oily men with flower-garlands around their wrists lounging between the shops, and other men who walked slowly through the lanes, stumbling a little, speaking in louder-than-necessary voices intended to project jocularity, fraternity, but Sanjay wondered at the underlying, unmistakable presence of fear and hope. He looked back at Chotta, who was dragging his feet, looking down at the ground; Sikander saw the glance, and looped an arm around both their shoulders.

‘We’re almost out,’ he said.

Chotta’s pout seemed to intensify, and Sanjay wanted to say, no, she said we’ll be back, we’ll come back like these others, like lost children, but instead he forced a smile, and they walked on.

In the dry nullah-bed, Sanjay’s knees gave way, and he sat down, exhausted, on top of the curving channels carved by once-running water. He was covered with a film of cold perspiration, and once or twice he felt something hot and sticky rush up to the back of his throat. Sikander and Chotta squatted next to him, resigned to waiting; they scratched absently in the mud, making patterns, sometimes figures, mostly horses.

They heard the singing first, a high, cracked voice in a strange language, and then the man appeared — he was a tall man, a firangi, with pomaded, dirty white hair, a scar that stretched from his forehead across an empty eye-socket, a bottle in his hand; bits of blackened lace hung in little wisps off his blue coat. He stopped at the edge of the nullah, leaning down towards the boys.

‘Ah, there you are,’ he said in English. ‘There you are, my little friends. I was thinking I had lost your trail. I introduce myself — I am Moulin, the would-be adventurer but most-times cook.’ He paused to take a swig from his bottle. ‘I shall climb down to you, boys. I shall, appropriately enough, descend into a sewer.’ He slid down the side of the ravine, half-sitting, and then came up to them, weaving a little. ‘What hostile little faces you have! But that is why I followed you, I saw you walking through the bazaar, and I thought, there are the three saddest boys I have ever seen. And what are they doing here? So I came after you, because, I, Moulin, am sad, too. I, gentlemen, am the saddest Frenchman you will ever see. But are you understanding anything I am saying?’ He switched to rough Urdu: ‘Do all you understanding English?’

Sikander and Chotta nodded, but Sanjay stared up apathetically, too drained to even shake his head.

‘Then,’ Moulin said, sitting down beside them, ‘we will converse in English, my Urdu being but rudimentary, even after all these years.’ He paused to devote his full attention to the bottle again, then wiped his mouth. ‘Rudimentary Urdu. But how is it that you two speak English? And aren’t frightened of me — I am, after all, that most fearsome of things, a white man. Doesn’t your mother tell you, hush, baba, or the firangi will come and take away your little clay cart, and all your toys? And he’ll take your father’s land? And your mother’s honour? No? Oh, you don’t want to talk? No matter.’

He settled himself with some ceremony, spreading the tails of his coat around himself, like black wings. ‘I will talk. I will advise you. How, then, about a story? I will tell you a story concerning myself, and something I did, with a friend, when I was younger. Like all good soldiers’ stories, this one involves two cavalrymen, a beautiful woman, a good horse, a sword. In fact, even now I have this sword, look.’ He pulled at his belt and slid it around till they saw a sword hilt, carved from white jade in the shape of a horse’s head.

‘Listen. Once, long ago, when I was young, almost as young as you, I met a man, a man named La Borgne, a Savoyard. In the rough-and-ready way of men meeting in a foreign land, I conceived an instant liking for him, and so I invited him to my home. At the time, my fortunes were good, I was a soldier serving a certain power (never mind which one; in the end they are all the same), my house was full of servants, and so I entertained my friend with a magnificent meal. He ate, and I watched and envied him the pleasure of discovering, for the first time, the delights of the Mughlai cuisine. After, he slept; his face relaxed, and I wondered at the look of peace on his face, for certainly he was a man free of dreams. I confess: after eating like that, I am susceptible to the chimeras that lurk within; my friends tell me that my eyes dart from side to side, my limbs twitch and sometimes I get up and wander under the top-heavy trees. So I watched him, and then, as he slept, I heard the quick rolling rattle of hooves, and far away, a party of horsemen cantered. La Borgne awoke, and we both watched the riders, and the setting sun; curious, I summoned my spies and sent them out after those far-away men.