Amitav Ghosh - The Circle of Reason

Shombhu Debnath, ill at ease, shifting his feet, went on disjointedly: Yes, it’s best that we go. It’s me and her and the child that he wants. He has no quarrel with you: you’re two halves of an apple if you only knew it, one raw, one rotten, but the same fruit. I’m his real enemy, and I’ve won as much as I want to win, and now it’s time to run. Any healthy animal tricks what it can’t beat. He’ll never find me, and I’ll start again somewhere. This is how I came here — with a woman and a child and a bundle of clothes — and this is how I’ll go.

Balaram threw him a quick, anxious glance, and turned back to the red-dust path. Shombhu Debnath, misinterpreting his look, said hurriedly: Don’t worry about me, I’ll manage; I even have some money saved away (and he patted a lump next to the knot of his dhoti). The boy and the girl won’t grudge it to me; after all, I’ve brought them up. It’s not much, but enough to buy a loom somewhere. No need to worry about me. It’s them I’m worried about, Rakhal and Maya. Maya won’t come; she cries but she won’t come. Anyway, that’s God’s doing. I’ve brought her up, and now she’s old enough and she has her own life here. And the boy, why, he won’t even look at his father now.

Shombhu Debnath stopped, but there was no sign that Balaram had noticed. Shombhu Debnath stepped into the circle and shook his shoulder. Balaram started and sprang upright. A thick silvery lock of hair fell across his eyes, and brushing it away he noticed Parboti-debi for the first time. In embarrassment, he straightened his collar and tried to brush the dust and grime off his shirt. With an immense effort, he smiled politely and folded his hands. Nomoshkar , he said, and stopped, for he could think of nothing else to say. Going out? he started again, in desperation. You’re waiting for Bhudeb-babu, I suppose. He was here a moment ago; he’ll probably be back soon … He swallowed his words in confusion, and threw up his hands in a small, barely perceptible gesture, defeated by her presence. Instead he turned angrily on Shombhu Debnath: What is it? What do you want now? Can’t you see we’re busy? Let me get back to my work.

Shombhu Debnath tried to summon a laugh. Balaram-babu, he said, I don’t want anything for myself. I only want you to go back into the house and go away to Calcutta for a holiday. You must stop this: this is madness. There’s no reason to go on like this. No reason. Stop; I beg you, stop, and go away somewhere for a few days.

Balaram ran his eyes coldly over him. Certainly not, he snapped, and turned back to look at Bhudeb Roy’s house.

As the knowledge of his helplessness slowly dawned on Shombhu Debnath, his face crumpled. He groaned: He Shibo-Shombhu . Balaram-babu, you’ll destroy everyone without even stopping to think about it. You’re the best sadhu I’ve ever known, Balaram-babu, but no mortal man can cope with the fierceness of your gods.

Shombhu Debnath fell to his knees and clutched at Balaram’s feet. Tears streamed out of his red eyes. Balaram-babu, stop, he said, catching his breath in sobs. For the last time, I beg you, stop.

Balaram did not take his eyes off the house down the path, his enemy’s lair, so familiar that it was almost friendly, but now he saw in front of him a crowd of students, their clothes and features blurred and indistinct like an old photograph. They are crowding in all around him, on the floor, on the great flight of stairs opposite him, in the corridors. They are looking up at him — for he is standing on a chair — listening to him, listening intently. He can see that they are with him, that he has carried them past their initial embarrassment, accustomed them, in fifteen short minutes, to hearing someone talk rationally about underwear. He sees them stir; a little more and they’ll be cheering, just a little more. And then he hears a suppressed giggle somewhere in the stir and he raises his voice to meet this most dangerous of threats, laughter: a clean body is a new body, a new body a new life … For a moment it hangs in the balance, but then the laugh breaks through, and behind it is Middle Parting’s Calcutta-sharp face, split by an immense grin. Staring, disbelieving, he hears him shout: And what’re your little knickers like? He sees thin, shy Dantu throwing himself against Middle Parting, trying to stop him, and then he sees him going down as Middle Parting and his friends push forward. He hears them roar: Let’s see his clean little knick -ers for ourselves. We should have finished the job the first time. Come on. And the crowd breaks and surges towards him. He totters on his chair in unspeakable, bowel-loosening terror.

But this time he is not pushing his way out, not racing down the corridor with Middle Parting’s whoops behind him, his legs are not over the balustrade of the balcony, the ground is not rushing up to meet him. No, not this time.

Balaram stood erect and tall and looked straight into Shombhu Debnath’s streaming eyes. No, I cannot go, he said, rejoicing in the strength of his voice. Nobody shall move me from here. Here I stand, and here I shall stay.

Despite his tears, Shombhu Debnath could not stifle a chuckle. Stand on what, Balaram-babu?

Once Shombhu Debnath was on his way, Maya, painfully dry-eyed, ran out of the house, and together she and Alu watched him leading Parboti-debi and the little girl into the rice fields on the far side of the bamboo forest. Soon they were lost in a clump of coconut palms. Rakhal was looking angrily in the other direction and Balaram was crouched over an oil-drum, staring down the path.

Soon after, the gates opened and a car drove out, turned right and speeded away, sending up two plumes of dust. They could not be sure whether Bhudeb Roy was in the car: Rakhal said he was, but Alu had not seen him. After that the house was quiet. Rakhal grew restive. They’ll be back soon, he said, rubbing his hands restlessly, and then the real fight will start. But the sun climbed higher in the sky, the oil-drums began to radiate waves of heat, and the house was still quiet. Once Rakhal skirted through the rice fields, crouching low, until he could look through the wrought-iron gates. He saw four men sitting under the mango tree in the garden and smoking, but nothing else. Back in the circle of drums, he spat: Dush-shala ; I should have got them with the bomb the first time.

Why didn’t you? said Alu. Rakhal looked at him in surprise: What? Get them with a bomb and spoil it all for myself? No, I want to get them when they’re really close; when I can pick out the motherfuckers who’re wearing the clothes they stole from me. I’ll break their bones individually, with my own hands, and then I’ll wrap them up in those very shirts, those very trousers, and throw them back over the garden wall. Here, look: this’ll break more bones than they’ve got. He pulled a bicycle chain, dotted with rust, out of his pocket and handed it to Alu.

Maya snatched it away, crying: For God’s sake, dada … But Rakhal looked at her so fiercely that she handed it back to him. Yes, kill us all, she said, we’re all weapons — and went back to the house.

At midday, with the sun overhead, the oil-drums began to blast heat, like a furnace. Even Balaram, though he never took his eyes off Bhudeb Roy’s house, drew back from the drums. Rakhal and Alu decided that they had to move into the house at least until the sun grew a little less fierce. Balaram protested feebly, but Rakhal was not in a mood for argument, and he threatened to carry him if he wouldn’t go of his own accord. So they all went, carrying Balaram’s squirt-guns and two buckets of carbolic. They went straight up to the room above the front door, so that they would be able to keep a watch on the path outside and Bhudeb Roy’s house.