Vikram Chandra - Red Earth and Pouring Rain

‘Listen,’ Sikander said. ‘We can’t hide it in here. Our retreat’s cut off, there’s no way out except through the court-yard, there’s four of them besides Markline, but if you create a distraction I could maybe —’

‘No need,’ Sanjay said. ‘Here, give them to me.’

‘What? What for?’

‘Give. I’m hungry.’

‘Listen, you’re dreaming or something still.’

‘No, I’m not dreaming, I see very clearly now. Look, I’ll even take the band off and look at you double-eyed and say clearly, give them to me, I’m hungry. I see now this has to happen whether we want it to or not.’

‘What? What are you talking about? What are you going to do?’

‘Give.’

Sanjay took a packet and opened one corner of it, raised his chin and opened his mouth until his jaw cracked, and then poured the letters in, in a single continuous stream, hard-edged, rattling, he felt his gullet expand and his tongue lacerate and his mouth filled with blood but they went in one by one and together and then the paper was empty.

‘More.’

‘O my mother, how did you do that?’

‘I am our mother’s son. I can do anything. More. Italics next, if you please.’ He could feel a ghastly grin stetching his face; one by one Sanjay opened the packets and felt the type descend, felt it in his throat and chest, felt it reach his stomach; he felt it weigh his body and harden his skin.

‘Come,’ he said, when it was finished, spitting blood. ‘Let’s go and see the tamasha. Have they searched the roof?’

‘First place they looked.’

‘We’ll sit up there.’

‘Your throat, I saw them in your throat, it bulged like a python’s belly. It’s black.’

‘What?’

‘Your throat.’

‘Come on.’

They went through the court-yard, raising their arms away from their bodies when Markline’s servants came towards them, look, we have nothing. Sorkar was crouched on the ground in front of Markline, his head down, with Kokhun and Chottun just next to him; Sanjay stared fearlessly at the Englishman and walked past him without a word. On the roof, as he lowered himself into a squat, in an area of shadow where he could look into the court-yard below without being seen, he felt something sticky running down the backs of his thighs; he sat and opened his mouth and let the blood flow down his chin.

‘We have to get you a vaid,’ Sikander said.

‘Nothing’s going to happen to me, be still.’

Below, there was a shout, and a few moments later a red-wrapped package was laid at Markline’s feet. ‘Could this be it?’ he said. ‘Looks too small to me, and besides I wonder if you’d really have the audacity to use Bacon’s code in a book you knew I was going to read. But this was kept like a secret, tucked away behind clothes and such, was it not? Let’s see what it is.’ He lifted away a flap and the pale yellow leather shone through the twilight. ‘I’ll be damned! Here it is! My stolen book!’ He threw himself back in his chair, then leaned forward to put his forearms on his knees, his face close to Sorkar’s. ‘Look at me. Why did you keep it for so long?’ Sorkar shrugged. ‘What are we to do with you? I come to investigate one sin and find no evidence of it only to find another grown pale and cracked with age. Shall we send you home? Shall we have you jailed? Shall we have you whipped? How shall the punishment suit the crime? How will you bear up? Why, you seem sullen, do you blame me if I punish you? Do remember, dear fellow, the words of the great poet, glorius mundi himself, “To punish me for what you make me do, Seems much unequal —”’

‘Willy’ Sorkar said.

‘What?’

‘It was Shakespeare, not the other.’

‘What have we here? A Stratfordian? A Stratfordian who speaks out despite the threat of violence, the possibility of a whipping, the sack and forced return to the ancestral village, perhaps jail and a starving family! I see now what must happen, what we must have: a public burning, a demonstration of the eventual destruction of all error and misbelief, a dissipation of rank superstition and blind trust. A torch, bring that torch here. Now, my dear fellow, this is how it will be: you will take that tome, and page by page, starting with that atrocious portrait of the imposter, burn it, thereby admitting the error of your ways and the giving up of your claims.’

Above, Sikander had to get up and move away from Sanjay, because a black pool had formed on the roof, a sluggish puddle an inch thick and widening every moment; despite the flow from his body, from his mouth and anus, Sanjay felt himself getting stronger: his body was becoming heavier and heavier, and now he noticed that his double vision was ebbing, that his two images of the world were slowly but unmistakably converging. He watched the scene below with detachment, feeling anger in some remote, alien part of himself, hidden by an inevitable crust of calm and acceptance; and below, Sorkar looked up quickly at Markline, his dark face and white eyes in a flickering pool of light, no anger or pain, and without protest he took the torch, opened the book and ripped off, cleanly, the picture of the earringed man with sad eyes. In the clear gold liquid of the fire the Stratford man’s face blackened and blackened and then disappeared. The pages hardly whispered, a quick crackle, before they disappeared in the leaping convection of the flame; when it was all finished there was an infinitesimally thin layer of black ash over the court-yard, a touch of bitterness in the air, the sky black overhead, and Markline left without another word.

When Sanjay descended from the roof, his body was encrusted by a black layer of blood from his mouth to his toes; it covered him like a new skin and cracked as he moved. He felt each step he took as a metallic impact that started at his heel and vibrated throughout his body; his flesh was now so dense that he was afraid he would leave imprints on the brick of the court-yard.

‘I can see you clearly,’ he said to Sorkar. ‘The doubleness is gone.’

‘What happened to you?’ Sorkar said.

‘He ate his type,’ Sikander said. ‘Swallowed it.’

Sorkar uncrossed his legs and leaned forward in the darkness: ‘And he is still alive.’

‘I feel strong,’ Sanjay said. ‘Stronger than ever in my life.’

‘So he cured you after all,’ Sorkar said, laughing shortly.

‘I have to wash myself,’ Sanjay said, taking Sikander’s arm as he walked past him and leading him away. ‘Alexander’s voice is gone too. I wish to be gone from here,’ he whispered into Sikander’s ear. ‘Away from Englishmen.’

‘Wait,’ Sorkar called after him. ‘What was it that you hid in his book?’

‘We have a right to know,’ Kokhun said.

‘What was the message? What was the code?’ Chottun said.

‘Just read it,’ Sanjay said.

‘There was no code?’ Sorkar said.

‘No mathematical code. Just pick the letters with the thickened serifs.’

‘Why couldn’t Markline read it?’

‘It’s in Hindi. He must have thought it was gibberish.’

‘You took a risk.’

‘No risk. If he lived in this country for two hundred years he wouldn’t gain a word of Hindi, and he’s too proud to ask.’

‘What was the message?’

‘It was this: “This book destroys completely, this book is the true murderer.” Just that, repeated again and again. Excuse me. I must wash myself.’

‘Yes,’ Sorkar said. ‘We must get back to work.’

‘Work? After all this? After what he did?’

‘I must work.’

‘He insulted you.’

‘Yes.’ Sorkar struggled to his feet and walked heavily towards the press, followed by Kokhun and Chottun.

In the bath Sanjay poured bucket after bucket of cold water over his head, holding up his face to the purifying stream. The blackish layer on him dissolved and vanished, vanished down the drain in a thick stream clouded by black particles, and it seemed to him that the skin revealed underneath was more pale than he remembered; soon he was clean again, all the colour gone, except what looked like a purple-bluish bruise which encircled his throat like a collar. He took up his eye-band, shook it out, folded it over into a wide strip and wrapped it around his throat; as he did this Sikander appeared at the door.