Vikram Chandra - Red Earth and Pouring Rain

Now there was a great whispering and going-to-and-fro amongst the watchers, and when they brought him a glass of hot milk he understood that out of concern for his sanity they had decided to silence him; he shook his head and when they laid hands on him he struggled and fought, all the time screaming, not not not not not, but finally they grip his head and force open his mouth shut his nose, Sanjay tastes warm iron-tinged milk seeping between his teeth, the warm metal pressing against his lips, voices murmuring and clucking, the sweep of god’s clothes overhead, they fly around him and their silks fan over his forehead, enfolding him in red, gold and blue, then he can’t speak, sleeps.

When he awoke two full nights and days later it was time again to go to Markline’s house, and he eagerly set forth despite the others’ entreaties.

‘Don’t go, don’t go,’ Sorkar said. ‘You’ve had a shock, who knows what you might do?’

‘Listen, Sanju,’ Sikander said. ‘You don’t have to go. We can say something, anything. We’ll tell him you’re sick.’

Sanjay shook his head: he wanted to visit Markline and he didn’t know why; when he thought of him, of his red face and shiny boots and precise manner, he was filled with a stupendous rage, but he still wanted to go. He made his preparations, and dressed with even more care than usual, leafing through his kurtas until he found one stiff and bluish with starch. The others came with him as far as the river, and as he was getting into the boat Sikander said, ‘We’ll wait for you here.’

On the water he dreamt about what was going to happen: in one minute he saw himself arguing with Markline, persuading the Englishman that the book was false, dazzling him with the subtlety of his arguments and demolishing his counter-contentions with terrible force; in the next minute he was slitting open Markline’s throat from side to side as if it were paper, the black blood gushing like thick printer’s ink. All these images became increasingly vague and insubstantial as they drew closer to the shore, and by the time Sanjay was trudging up the beach he was wholly unable to use any of them to ward off the fear that blew up with the sand and whistled into his nostrils; as he went through the gate all he was aware of was Markline’s presence in the house, everything else was gone, the trees vanished, the birds silenced, everything illogically but incontestably reduced to nothing by the terrific and invisible power of the man inside, by Sanjay’s terror. When he took his next step both his feet left the ground and he felt himself float, carried forward some twenty feet by momentum, until he cycled his legs and stretched for the gravel; both feet down again, Sanjay looked around guiltily to see if anyone had seen, and then took small shuffling steps all the way inside.

Remember, Sanjay thought, remember, but these words were all that came to him as he was led through the rooms of the white house by servants, he could not remember the face of his mother, the smell of his father; when he finally stood in front of Markline he could not hear anything but the thudding of his own heart.

‘Hello, young fellow,’ Markline said. ‘You look well today, flushed.’

No, I’m not well, Sanjay wanted to say, but found himself looking at the thing Markline was eating: a brown slab that spurted black-red whenever Markline cut into it; the Englishman was using a thin silver knife that he moved in small sawing motions, a four-tined fork with which he speared the stuff, each time causing four reddish bubbles which soon disappeared into his mouth. Sanjay moved his head, shut his eye, tried to speak but found his throat blocked tightly by something as hard as metal; he did not know what he wanted to say but knew that he couldn’t, what was possible to say he couldn’t say in English, how can in English one say roses, doomed love, chaste passion, my father my mother, their love which never spoke, pride, honour, what a man can live for and what a woman should die for, can you in English say the cows’ slow distant tinkle at sunset, the green weight of the trees after monsoon, dust of winnowing and women’s songs, elegant shadow of a minar creeping across white marble, the patient goodness of people met at way-side, the enfolding trust of aunts and uncles and cousins, winter bonfires and fresh chappatis, in English all this, the true shape and contour of a nation’s heart, all this is left unsaid and unspeakable and invisible, and so all Sanjay could say after all was: ‘Not.’

‘What might you mean, not?’ Markline said, leaning forward. He looked at Sanjay intently for a moment, a deep vertical line between his eyebrows, then said abruptly: ‘Never mind. The doctor’s coming.’ He smiled. ‘He’ll be here in a few minutes.’

Sanjay nodded, feeling a steady wave of nausea: he had seen plenty of meat before, at Sikander’s house they ate it curried every other day, but the thing on Markline’s plate seemed pitiful and distorted; try as he might he could not imagine it as part of some animal.

‘I notice you’re looking at my food,’ Markline said. ‘And that is no wonder. Your present condition might well be a result of lack of proper nutrition, or at least it is probably exacerbated by your diet.’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘Let us make a secret covenant: I will do everything in my power to cure you, but you must in return do something for me. Agreed?’

‘What?’

‘You must break with these customs that make you weak. Let us be frank — one of us here has power, the other has not. We English rule in your country because we are sustained on a scientific diet, both bodily and intellectual. If you hope to follow in our footsteps, you must abandon superstition. I know you want to, but let there be some sign between us that you have made your decision, have made the first and most important step.’ With quick squaring motions, he sliced a rectangular portion of the meat on his plate, then held it out on his fork. ‘Eat.’

Sanjay swayed back and forth, looked around for help: he saw that the table-top was of veined marble, the legs of dark teak; there were two small side-tables, each bearing a brass cannon; there was a painting on a wall, a white-gowned woman and a hovering swan; a gold clock on a mantel-piece, its hands moving in regular and mechanical jumps.

‘Eat,’ Markline said, and this time the last consonant was hard and explosive; the rank smell filled Sanjay’s head, he felt it pressing on his lips, then he felt it in his mouth, he swallowed as the four steel points scraped, retreating over his lower lip, felt his throat expand over the gristly mass, contract, but his mouth was full of blood, and he screamed, screamed once for his mother and fell.

Sanjay awoke to a piercing bright light and probing fingers; the light was near and white and overpowering, the fingers kneading his forehead and holding his eyes open. He turned his head against the fingers and pulled at the hands, moaning; his mouth tasted sour and he could smell his breath.

‘Quiet, boy, quiet.’ The voice was unfamiliar, but then Markline spoke from above him.

‘It’s the doctor, Sanjay. Be still.’

Sanjay pulled himself away and sat up; at first all he could see was spinning and intersecting diamonds of light, then the flashing subsided into a double-image of Markline holding a dark lantern which sent forth a single beam of intense, focussed light. The doctor walked around Sanjay and stood bending over him, hands on hips.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘No sign of crossing. The damage is internal, as I thought.’

Sanjay clapped a hand over his right eye, jumped off the bed and ran to the door.

‘Wait,’ Markline said. ‘Sanjay…’

‘What did I eat?’

‘Sanjay…’

‘What was it?’