Amitav Ghosh - The Glass Palace

‘I have no weapons,’ he said in Hindustani.

The soldier ignored him. ‘Show me what’s in your bag,’ he said.

Dinu opened the mouth of his cloth bag.

‘What’s inside?’

Dinu reached in and took out his water-container and a leaf-wrapped packet of boiled rice. There was a look in the soldier’s eyes that gave him pause. He undid the strings of the packet and handed it to him.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘Take it. Eat.’

The soldier held the packet to his mouth and wolfed the rice down. Dinu saw that his condition was even worse than he’d first thought: the whites of his eyes had a jaundiced tinge and he looked malnourished, with discolourations on his skin and blisters at the corners of his mouth. After watching him for a minute, it seemed to Dinu that there was something about the soldier that looked familiar. Suddenly he knew who it was. In a disbelieving voice he said, ‘Kishan Singh?’ The soldier looked at him uncomprehendingly, narrowing his yellow-flecked eyes. ‘Kishan Singh — don’t you remember me?’

The soldier nodded, still holding the rice to his mouth. His expression changed hardly at all: it was as though, by this time, he were too fatigued to make the effort of recognition.

‘Kishan Singh,’ Dinu said, ‘is Arjun with you?’

Kishan Singh nodded again. Then he turned on his heel, tossed the leaf wrapper aside and went back into the trees.

Dinu reached into his cloth bag. He took out a cheroot and lit it with a shaking hand. He seated himself again on the tree-stump. In the distance, another figure had stepped into the clearing, followed by a group of some thirty men. Dinu stood up. For some reason he couldn’t understand, his palms had begun to sweat, dampening his cheroot.

Arjun stopped a few paces away. He and Dinu stood facing each other across the tree-stump. Neither of them said a word. At length Arjun gestured at the tai. ‘Let’s go up there.’

Dinu nodded his agreement. Arjun set his men on guard round the tai, and he and Dinu climbed up the ladder, seating themselves on the rotting floor planks. Close up, Arjun looked to be in an even worse way than Kishan Singh. A part of his scalp had been eaten away by a sore; the wound extended from above his right ear, almost as far as his eye. His face was covered in lacerations and insect bites. His cap was gone and so were the buttons of his uniform; his tunic was missing a sleeve.

Dinu would not have come if he’d known that he would be meeting Arjun. It was now more than three years since they had last met and so far as Dinu was concerned Arjun was guilty, by association, for much of the horror and devastation of those years. Yet now that they were face to face, Dinu felt neither anger nor revulsion. It was as though he were looking not at Arjun, but at his pounded remains, the husk of the man that he had once been. Dinu opened his cloth bag and took out his remaining packets of rice.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘You look as if you need something to eat.’ ‘What is it?’

‘Just some rice. .’

Arjun raised the packets to his nose and sniffed them. ‘That’s good of you,’ he said. ‘The men will be grateful. .’

He got up and went to the ladder. Dinu heard him telling his men to distribute the rice among themselves. When he came back, Dinu saw that he had given away all the packets. He understood that pride would not allow Arjun to accept food from him.

‘What about a cheroot?’ Dinu said. ‘Can I give you one of those?’

‘Yes.’

Dinu handed him a cheroot and struck a match. ‘Why are you here?’ Arjun said.

‘I was asked to come,’ Dinu said. ‘I’ve been living in a village. . not far from here. They heard that your men were heading in their direction. . They were worried.’

‘They have nothing to worry about,’ Arjun said. ‘We try to stay away from local people. We have no dispute with them. You can tell them they’re safe — from us at any rate.’

‘They’ll be glad.’

Arjun drew on his cheroot, and blew the smoke out through his nose. ‘I heard about Neel,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry — for you, for Manju. .’

Dinu acknowledged this with a gesture.

‘And what about your family?’ Arjun said. ‘Have you had any news — of Manju? The baby?’

‘I haven’t heard anything for the last three years,’ Dinu said. ‘They were here for a while. . after Neel died. . they were in the same place that I am now. . with old family friends. Then they went to Mawlaik, to try to cross over. . They haven’t been heard from since. . my mother, my father. . None of them. .’

Dinu chewed on his thumbnail and cleared his throat. ‘And did you hear about Alison. . and her grandfather?’

‘No.’ Arjun’s voice was a whisper. ‘What happened?’ ‘They were heading south from Morningside. . the car broke down and they ran into some Japanese soldiers. . they were both killed. . but she fought back. .’

Arjun covered his face with his hands. Dinu could tell from the rhythmic tremor in his shoulders that he was sobbing. Dinu felt only pity for Arjun now. He reached across the floor and put an arm around his shoulders.

‘Arjun. . Stop. . It won’t help. .’

Arjun shook his head, violently, as though he were trying to wake himself from a nightmare. ‘Sometimes I wonder if it’ll ever end.’

‘But, Arjun. .’ Dinu was surprised by the gentleness in his own voice, ‘Arjun. . it was you. . you who joined them. . of your own free will. And you’re still fighting on — now. . even after the Japanese. . Why? What for?’ Arjun looked up, his eyes snapping. ‘You see, Dinu — you don’t understand. Not even now. You think I joined them. I didn’t. I joined an Indian army that was fighting for an Indian cause. The war may be over for the Japanese — it isn’t for us.’

‘But, Arjun. .’ Dinu’s voice was still gentle. ‘You must see that you don’t have a hope. .’

At this, Arjun laughed.

‘Did we ever have a hope?’ he said. ‘We rebelled against an Empire that has shaped everything in our lives; coloured everything in the world as we know it. It is a huge, indelible stain which has tainted all of us. We cannot destroy it without destroying ourselves. And that, I suppose, is where I am. .’

Dinu put his arms round Arjun again. He could feel tears welling up in his eyes, yet there was nothing he could say; there was nothing to be said.

This is the greatest danger, he thought, this point at which Arjun has arrived — where, in resisting the powers that form us, we allow them to gain control of all meaning; this is their moment of victory: it is in this way that they inflict their final and most terrible defeat. For Arjun, now, he felt not pity but compassion: what must it be like to visualise defeat so accurately, so completely? There was a sort of triumph in this — a courage — the value of which he did not wish to diminish by arguing.

‘I should go now,’ Dinu said.

‘Yes.’

They climbed down the vine-swathed ladder. At the bottom, they embraced again.

‘Be careful, Arjun. . be careful.’

‘I’ll be all right.’ Arjun smiled. ‘One day we’ll laugh about this.’ He waved and walked away into the shoulder-high grass.

Dinu leant against the tai’s ladder and watched him go. Long after the soldiers were gone, he remained where he was. When Raymond appeared, out of the darkness, Dinu said: ‘Let’s stay here tonight.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t feel well enough to go.’

This encounter with Arjun left Dinu profoundly shaken: now, for the first time, he began to understand the irreducible reality of the decision that Arjun had made; he saw why so many others whom he’d known — men such as Aung San— had made the same choices. He began to doubt his own absolute condemnation of them. How does one judge a person who claims to act on behalf of a subordinated people, a country? On what grounds can the truth of such a claim be established or refuted? Who can judge a person’s patriotism except those in whose name he claims to act — his compatriots? If the people of India chose to regard Arjun as a hero; if Burma saw Aung San as her saviour — was it possible for someone such as him, Dinu, to assume that there was a greater reality, a sweep of history, that could be invoked to refute these beliefs? He could no longer be confident that this was so.