Boats on Land: A Collection of Short Stories (2 page)

For almost a year, we existed companionably enough, mostly because the bilati men were indifferent towards us, and all we felt on our part was awe and more than a little fear. They stayed within the confines of the plantation, training, taking care of their animals, settling in, and we kept to our village and the countryside beyond, preparing for weekly market days, attending archery competitions and quietly ploughing our fields, eking out a living from Pomreng’s hard, red soil. I think trouble started when the soldiers ventured into the village. Around the camp I heard them talk of the tedium of their work, the place, their lives. Of having nothing much to do, and nowhere to go. Sahib Jones, though a fair and just master, frowned upon epicurean revelry, so the men weren’t given many days leave to travel to Shillong. Although they didn’t lead what could be called a tough life. Far from it. Apart from a few instances where cattle were carried off by tigers, there was no great danger from other perpetrators. The men were filled with boredom and restlessness. They started attending market days, and bullied the sellers over their prices, sometimes walking off without bothering to pay. Sahib Sam and his friends didn’t do this, I noticed, but among the villagers who didn’t know one soldier from another, grumbled murmurs started about them in general. ‘When are they going to leave?’, ‘Who do they think they are, stealing from us.’

The place where the men liked to meet and play cards was Bah Lumen’s jadoh stall located at the end of the only main road that ran through the village. Apart from tea, the stall also served local kiad, a clear, strong alcohol made from rice, that the bilati men enjoyed immensely. At first the owner was pleased—‘They all drink like fish…it’s good business’—until fights started breaking out, food and drinks were ordered on credit, and women of (what my mother called) unsavoury character started appearing on the premises. They seemed alright to me, cheerful and friendly, and generous with their laughter. Sometimes when I helped out at the jadoh stall for a little extra money, I’d see the men call a girl over, negotiate a price, and then disappear to the barracks.

‘The brothels are in Laban, not in my food shop,’ complained Bah Lumen, and Mama Saiñ would tell him that the town was too far for hot young blood to travel and he might as well start charging a commission from the whores. There were rumours that some soldiers, Trotter and his gang I suspect, would pick up village women returning from the fields or from fetching water from the river, and carry them off on their horses. Sahib Sam, I was relieved to see, paid attention only to one young lady—Bah Lumen’s eldest daughter, Haphida, a pretty girl with clear skin, bright eyes and hair so long it touched the back of her knees. She would shyly bring over his food and tea, and he’d try and converse in the few Khasi words he’d learnt, but, as I came to understand later, you didn’t need language to decipher a lingering glance or touch of the hand. If Bah Lumen disapproved, there was nothing he could do, and he only voiced his objections to Mama Saiñ or to no one in particular as he chopped onions or stirred a pot of lumpy yellow rice.

‘These outsiders, what do they think? He’ll get my daughter pregnant, and we’ll have a half and half on our hands. I’ve heard it happens. All over the place, little bastards running around with blue eyes and white skin.’

While he and the village seethed in slow resentment, Sahib Sam and Haphida, oblivious to the world outside their own, met every day, in the lull between afternoon tea and the evening revelry. Often, I saw them go for walks, and though I followed close behind, I hardly heard them converse. They’d stroll leisurely by the river, while twilight hovered over the valley, darkening the hills around us, and make their way to the waterfall. There, they’d sit on one of the large boulders, Haphida’s hair flowing onto the ground. He’d gather it up carefully and place it on her lap, or pluck wild ‘tiew khlaw for her to braid into her locks. Once, they kissed, tentatively at first, and then suddenly with great urgency, as though time and the world were passing them by. Other kids from the village, who’d been bathing nearby, whistled from the undergrowth, sending a shower of stones from their catapults.

‘Ei, Sahib bilat, kbih noh,’ they shouted, while Haphida flushed a deep crimson. She refused to tell Sahib Sam what they’d said but I presume he guessed for he shouted back, saying he’d have them whipped.

The breaking point, though, between the village people and the soldiers, had nothing to do with the two lovers. One market day, when Trotter walked off with a bunch of corn cobs he didn’t pay for, the local farmer spat at the soldier’s boots.

‘What did you just do?’ shouted the red-faced pig.

‘You’re a thief,’ said the farmer in Khasi, ‘a thief with no balls.’

Or something like that. The versions vary. Yet I suppose it didn’t matter what he said, Trotter would have had his revenge simply for being talked back to. The man was tied to Trotter’s horse, and dragged behind him for a day. When he was finally released, his body was caked in blood and dust, his skin shredded to mulch. He didn’t last the night.

The village council met in Mama Saiñ’s hut, and gathered around the heath. Close to the glowing embers stood a wooden thlong, perpetually filled with water. Our people believed it could predict the future—the higher the water level, the better the harvest. Right now, though, no one cast a glance at the vessel. There were other, more tragic things to discuss. I was there to stoke the fire and serve tea spiked with kiad to bolster their ravaged spirits. A muted rebellion ran through the crowd in the room. One young man couldn’t contain his anger any longer. ‘Something must be done,’ he spluttered.

Mama Saiñ, flames dancing in his eyes, sipped his drink in silence. A murmur rose around him, voices filled with anger and grief. It was cruel what the bilati men had done (what
some
of the bilati men had done I wanted to add, but didn’t dare), they needed to be punished, to be driven out of the land, the village would fight them and take its revenge for all the wrongs the outsiders had committed.

Finally Mama Saiñ spoke. ‘What will we fight them with?’

A silence fell broken only by the hiss and crackle of the fire. The bilati soldiers had guns, while we wielded only primitive swords and shot inadequate wooden arrows.

‘There are enough of us against them,’ someone shouted. ‘Damn their guns, we can overpower them by sheer strength and numbers.’

A chorus of agreement swelled in the room.

Mama Saiñ shook his head. ‘We would lose too many men. Would you have your own brothers slaughtered in vain like chickens?’

The debate continued for almost an hour, until an old man, whom everyone called Nong Kñia, spoke up. He’d been sitting in the corner, quietly observing the proceedings. ‘Rangbah,’ he said softly, ‘we can fight them with words.’

Gasps of disbelief and laughter escaped the crowd. The old man remained stoic and silent, his silver beard catching the firelight. His face, though lined and aged, held the resolute stamp of pride. Mama Saiñ nodded, and looked around at his people. ‘We have one weapon, poor as it may seem, the power of ktien—the word. It is our last resort because it is dishonourable to fight an enemy without giving him a chance to defend himself.’

‘That could be corrected,’ said the old man. ‘We won’t strike the men.’

‘Then what?’ said a man sitting closest to the fire. I recognized him as the younger brother of the farmer who’d died. ‘They killed Jymmang. We need to kill them.’

The old man shook his head. ‘There are other ways to render them powerless.’

Late that night, after my younger siblings were put to sleep, my mother and I warmed our hands by a small coal chula. I asked her who the Nong Kñia was and what he meant by ktien. My mother, her face sunken in tiredness, looked at me and smiled. ‘He is the bearer of the word. The one who performs our rituals and communicates with the gods. The memsahib says she would like to teach me to read and write, with something called “alphabet” that her husband has invented for our language. I explained to her that we have no need for these things—books, and letters, and writing—and that everything we know about the world is in the sound of our words, ki ktien. It has the power to do good…’

‘Like what?’ I asked quickly; I rarely heard my mother talk of these things. She was always too busy or, at the end of the day, often exhausted. ‘Like your grandfather,’ she replied. ‘He could heal a person by uttering a mantra. Once, I remember I cut my hand while splitting bamboo…and he held it, and spoke into it, and the bleeding stopped. People would come to him if they had fish bones stuck in their throat—he’d chant the words and rub their neck with oil and ash, and the bone would be gone. He told me there are mantras that hungry travellers can chant for an animal to appear before them so they can feed, and to bring clean water from a river, or fruit from a tree.’

The embers in the chula were dying; I knew we wouldn’t be sitting around it for long.

‘But can it also be used to bring harm?’

My mother nodded.

‘Is that what Nong Kñia and Mama Saiñ will use on the bilati men? All of them?’

She pushed herself away from the chula. ‘Who can say what mantras the Nong Kñia knows…’

For days after, I moved around distracted and restless. The hours passed by glistening with sunshine and sudden autumn showers, yet they’d shifted, a little askew and out of line. I was nervous, constantly waiting for something to happen. The other villagers seemed to feel the same as they left to work in the fields or opened their makeshift shops for business. They talked about it endlessly in hushed whispers over smoking pipes and cups of tea, but no one knew exactly what the elders had planned. I tried to keep the soldiers, especially Sahib Sam, within my sight as much as possible—following them around, an unobtrusive shadow. One afternoon, the bilati men were exercising and training their horses in the field at the bottom of the hill; soon they would take them back to the stables and it would be time for lunch. I was helping my mother with the washing, hanging it out to dry. I glanced at them repeatedly; when would they all drop dead? Or would they fall ill and languish slowly? Whatever it was going to be, I had to do something, I decided. I had to warn Sahib Sam. When I finished wringing the bedsheets, I hovered as inconspicuously as I could by the gate leading to the field, trying to spot him. After a while, I realized he wasn’t there. Had something already happened? I could feel my heart thump heavily against my chest. Perhaps I was too late. Then I remembered that at this time, he usually met with Sahib Jones and retired to the barracks until lunch. I raced up the hill, scattering a hen and her family of chicks, and headed to the long rectangular stone building that housed the soldiers. To my relief, I could see Sahib Sam sitting on the veranda, smoking, reading a book. I crept up to him and waited to be acknowledged.

‘Hello, boy.’ His eyes were the colour of our April skies.

Suddenly everything I wanted to say sounded silly to my ears. What would I tell him? That a couple of old men were plotting to murder the entire regiment? And how? Through a mantra? But he was looking at me expectantly, and I had to say something to explain my reason for being there.

‘Is everything alright?’

‘The people in the village…they are angry about Bah Jymmang,’ I said, hoping his Khasi was good enough for him to understand me. He frowned, but I could see comprehension dawn on his face.

‘Yes, I heard about what happened. It was terrible…’

‘They plan to harm you,’ I interrupted. ‘Be careful.’

And then I fled, leaving him staring after me, the book open on his lap.

Yet I suppose no amount of warning could have prepared Sahib Sam and the other soldiers for what happened. Or saved them. It took everyone by surprise, including the people from the village. As the Nong Kñia had promised, his mantra didn’t harm the bilati men; it was much worse. It happened a fortnight after our village meeting, when everyone had almost given up on the elders taking their revenge, when dark murmurs spread of the younger men wanting to sneak into the barracks to slit the soldiers’ throats while they were sleeping. That afternoon, they say it started with Trotter’s horse who refused to be led into the stable; he whipped and yelled at the creature until it obeyed. Inside, while the animals were being rubbed down, they appeared unusually restless, swishing their tails, flaring their nostrils, and pricking their ears, as though listening to a sound no one else could hear. Then they began shifting fretfully in their stalls, stamping on the hay, kicking against the walls. I could hear the bilati men shout out orders to the animals—‘Stay, boy, stay’—and to each other. Soon, the horses grew impossible to control or contain—they reared and neighed, baring their teeth, knocking over their masters, trampling on bodies fallen to the floor. A fierce madness overtook them, their eyes turned white and wild, and, full of a great and invisible terror, they dashed blindly out of the door with men trailing behind them. I saw them charge down the hill, a herd of savage horses, their bodies steaming, their manes flying out behind them. People tried to move aside but some were slow and got crushed beneath their hooves. They barely had time to scream. Once the horses were outside the village, they galloped down the road by the river, the one which Sahib Sam and Haphida had walked down so many evenings. They made straight for the waterfall, and leaped, soaring over the emptiness and falling into the mist. The pool at the bottom was the colour of blood for almost a week.

‘It was like they were possessed by the devil himself,’ the soldiers told Sahib Jones later, while he was tending to their wounds. I followed behind him, carrying a tray of clean rags and medication. ‘They were out of control.’ Most of them said they’d never seen anything like this before, even though they’d worked with horses for most of their lives. ‘It doesn’t bode well,’ I thought I heard Sahib Jones mutter.

That night the fires in the camp burned brighter and longer as though to keep away the forces of darkness. The air was pungent with fear. No one slept. The soldiers huddled together, if not for warmth, then comfort, drinking, speaking of England, of their homes across the sea. The Nong Kñia had been right; there were other ways to render them powerless.