Departure (22 page)

“Is it true, Bondar Shar, that all police spies are paid as badly as you?”

“Worse. I am a senior police spy. An apprentice police spy earns twenty rupees a month. Of course, he would not be attached to a person like yourself.”

“Of course. In other words, you are exploited as badly as the workers—with no recourse.”

“How do you mean—no recourse?”

“I mean, you can't organize,” Shimer said.

“Organize what?”

“A union. Let me point out to you—the tonga drivers have a union, the cotton workers, the water carriers, even the bearers and sweepers. In the strike of the cotton workers, we won them four rupees a month advance. Even among the peasants, we are building an organization. Do you know that in America, a police spy works eight hours a day, not a minute more?”

“For what pay?” Bondar Shar asked cunningly.

“Twelve, fourteen hundred rupees a month,” Shimer shrugged. “Personally, I am not overly interested. Our work is not for police spies—our work is for the people—”

He talked on, and Bondar Shar listened. For a whole hour, Bondar Shar listened, and then he said to Shimer:

“If I were to bring a few other police spies, six or seven, but personal friends of mine, you understand, could you find time to talk to them?”

“I could find time,” Shimer agreed.

But, thinking it over, Shimer wondered what he could say and what sense it would make. To Bose, the editor of the daily paper in the district, he said:

“What hope is there for a police spy?”

“The hope of death,” Bose, a cheerful man, replied.

“Yet a police spy is human.”

The little girl who read copy—she had seen three brothers die in the famine and a fourth in a British jail—interjected, “The question becomes one of form and content, my dear Shimer. The form is human, but the content is a yellow scum.”

“I am a sympathetic man,” Bose reflected. “But sympathy is not a bottomless well. Shall I feel sympathy for the cobra if I cut off its head?”

So Shimer held his peace, recalling the tremendous openmouthed excitement of Bondar Shar, and the next day he went to the meeting at the appointed place, an abandoned clay pit where no one ever went, the foolish considering it to be haunted by the ghost of an angry holy man. But since neither Communists nor police spies believe in ghosts, it was considered to be an excellent place.

Not six or seven had Bondar Shar brought, but fully twenty, and Widee Shimer gazed most curiously at the varieties of men who squatted about. They were long and short, and in their faces were evil, avariciousness and hopelessness, too, cunning and bewilderment, but, common to all of them, a hunger that had never been satisfied, not even for a day, or for an hour. Looking at them, Shimer was filled with disgust and repulsion; he felt like that one in Rig-Veda who was made a confidant of snakes and crawling things, yet, the more he looked at them, the more certain he was that their hunger was not of the belly alone. He sighed, regretting that he had come here, and began to speak slowly, and laboriously. He spoke of many things, of the classes of men and of the oppressed and the oppressors, and ever as he spoke he watched the faces of the twenty accursed men in the clay pit.

“In this land,” Shimer said—“aye, and within walking distance of this very place, stands the Taj, the most beautiful of all buildings on the face of the earth. It is like the blessed winter sunshine poured into a vessel of pearl and alabaster, yet what is it but a memorial to ten thousand slaves who built it, the beautiful tower of terrible suffering? How many tears are mixed with the mortar? The memory of slaves in a land of slaves—”

So he spoke, and an hour passed, and then another hour, and he came to the end of his words. Comrades he could not call them; he looked at them and they looked at him, and then Bondar Shar rose and said apologetically:

“Thank you, Widee Shimer. It is an honor to have the supervision of a man like yourself as my responsibility. Yet, before you came, we spoke among ourselves of other matters. We would form a union, so that our wages might grow and feed us.”

The others nodded. There was a long, long moment of silence as Shimer weighed it in his mind, considering this side of it and that side of it, but finally he too nodded and told them:

“Very well. These and these are the things you must do to form a union of police spies.”

So it was that Widee Shimer went away from the clay pit, troubled and puzzled, and the first union of police spies in India came into being. So it was too, that two weeks later, Widee Shimer arose in the morning, went out of his little shack, and discovered that a new police spy had been assigned to him.

“Where,” he asked him, “is Bondar Shar?”

But the police spy said nothing.

“Is he sick? Has he been transferred? Or is there trouble in his family?” Widee Shimer demanded, a little annoyed with himself for being interested in the affairs of a police spy. But the new one said nothing; the new one only pursed his lips and narrowed his brows, as a police spy should.

Meanwhile, Bondar Shar sat in the office of the resident chief, who wore a white twill jacket, knee-length, white shorts, and beautiful white silk socks that came to just a few inches below the place where the shorts ended. The resident's cork helmet sat on his desk behind him; his knees were crossed, and he flicked at flies with a shiny black leather quirt. He was a most pleasant man, and he questioned Bondar Shar most pleasantly.

“You are a civil servant?”

And Bondar Shar said, “Yes—yes, indeed,” not at all deceived by the pleasant manner, but terribly, terribly afraid.

“And you took an oath to support the crown?”

“Indeed,” Bondar Shar agreed.

“Not just a civil servant,” the resident said reflectively, “but a part of the secret service. His Majesty's most honored service. You realize that, of course?”

“Of course,” Bondar Shar whispered.

“I discussed that with the commissioner. It troubles him. It troubles me, too. You understand?”

“Of course,” Bondar Shar said, so sick, and yet just a little proud that he should have been the subject of discussion with the commissioner.

“We can't have organization within the service,” the resident said sadly. “We can't have a union, you know. We shall want the names of everyone who was associated with it, you know. After you write down the names, I shall see that it doesn't go too hard with you.” He pushed a sheet of white paper toward Bondar Shar.

“What names?” Bondar Shar muttered. But he knew, and the resident knew that he knew. The resident had been a long time in India, and, as he put it, he knew the native, and Bondar Shar was very much of a native. So the two of them sat there and looked at each other, and the resident thought that some day the very devil would break loose in this land of four hundred and fifty million souls—although he admitted to himself privately neither that they were human nor that they had souls—and Bondar Shar, on the other hand, contemplated his own soul, its worth, its strength, and the madness that was running through him, through his fear and his terror, and prompting him to do a curious thing.

He shook his head, remembering his five children, his wife, his little girl in particular, the sweet, pungent smell of Old Delhi in the wintertime, the taste of a bheesty's bag in the summertime, and all the other good things men remember at such times.

“No?” the resident asked softly.

“No, Sahib,” Bondar Shar said, whispering, for he knew that terrible things would follow.

And then the resident did not argue or threaten, because he had been a long time in India.

First they pulled out Bondar Shar's nails. One by one, they pulled them out, and it hurt a great deal. At first, Bondar Shar cried like a baby, but in the end he was screaming like a woman in labor. Then they turned him over to the Gurkhas, because even though he screamed like a woman in labor, his screaming was sound and not the names of certain men. His screaming was prayers and oaths and pleas, and obscure things that only a police spy could think of, but never the names of certain men. So they gave him to the Gurkhas and told the Gurkha staff sergeant in charge that what they wanted were some names. The Gurkhas did things to him. Little men from the hills, terrible men who know neither God nor honor, but only war and the use of their wicked knives. The Gurkhas did things that cannot be described. And when Bondar Shar was red all over and without consciousness, they went to the resident and said:

“He made many sounds, but not the names of men. Now he is dying. Never before was there such behavior on the part of a police spy, whom all men know to be cowards and swine. Only the poison of Communism can explain it.”

“Then put him in a basket and bear him to his home!” the resident snapped, filled with disgust—since such things are not pleasant to white folk of gentle birth—and also with anger at the Gurkhas for going so far.

So they put him in a basket and bore him to his home, and presently there was a funeral, a little procession, true enough, for that is a land of many funerals, but a procession nonetheless, with four professional mourners, the wife and the children, and Widee Shimer.

A whole day Shimer spent, with the funeral and with the family, and then he came back to the little building in Old Delhi, where the red flag flies morning, noon and night.

“Where were you?” Bose asked him. “Are you an organizer or a gentleman of leisure?”

“Is there a girl at last?” the young lady who read proof inquired.

“Or did you decide you needed a vacation?” the trade-union secretary demanded.

“I walked in the procession of a cursed and despicable police spy, who became something other than a police spy,” Shimer said quietly, and then, because in that land he who mourns the dead does nothing else, Widee Shimer turned to his work with the living.

Thirty Pieces of Silver

M
Y DEAR AND
beloved Joseph:

It is some time now since the death of the Rabbi—of whom I have written before, as you know—yet I find myself deeply troubled by certain implications in your last letter. Are not men our concern, and should we not understand them? So that even so will He be blessed who fashioned man, not out of alabaster, but out of the good earth which gives us all other forms of living. I have always hated superstition—and the Rabbi did too, I might remind you—which is not needful to a good man, but to the evil and ignorant, the one to make with spells and incantations and the other to devour them. Therefore, should I not be disturbed, my good friend, when I find even you repeating this or that old wives' tale concerning the thirty pieces of silver—which were not thirty pieces at all, mind you, but a good deal more in many ways, as you shall see.

Money was concerned, by all means, and other things than money, too; but hindsight is no justification for this type of tolerance. Figuratively, thirty pieces of silver were paid; are they not always? Even when I was a child, the patriot Chaim ben David was sold over to the Romans to be crucified; and the village folk took thirty pieces of silver and laid it on the doorstep of him who had betrayed him. Thus a prophecy finds answer and proof in the hearts of the people, for their dreams do not change, nor their oppression; and one will always be found like this one, to make a sale of the living flesh and blood.

Nor did he hang himself, as it is already said; such men do not hang themselves; nor did the silver money paid as the price rot away. No, my friend, there is a stronger acid in that money, but it works slowly, slowly. Indeed, each piece of money has found its companions, and he—that unspeakable one—waxes well indeed. Yet a different kind of curse is visited upon him, as the Rabbi—blessed be his name—would understand, were he alive today; not the apparent miraculous devil, which the simple folk so readily conjure up, and which the Rabbi so patiently dismissed; but instead, a hatred of the act itself—a hatred that will some day root itself in the hearts of all people, so that even his memory will be cursed and thrice accursed.

Then, for the sake of the gentle Rabbi whom we both loved so well, let me tell you how it actually came about, some of which I witnessed and some of which I had firsthand from most trustworthy observers.

First the character of the man, the complexity that was indeed simplicity. Our beloved teacher knew this, and wherefor did he accept Iscariot, but for knowing he was not a bad man? Yet, what is good and bad, but the love that one man has for another and the degree of it; and when this small portion of love that he, Iscariot, was capable of turned to fear, the Rabbi took no action. From there on, Iscariot believed in nothing, for a positive belief is not separable from love. Fear is no substitute, for fear of evil can lead only to a compact with evil.

Iscariot was not a fool; neither was he a wise man; and all that was his own in the brief moment of his belief, he came quickly to despise, for there was no show and glitter to it. Shame, instead, led him to seek the approval of those he finally served, and then that became right, and the other wrong, and all morality departed.

Let me illustrate precisely what I mean. For the betrayal itself, he could have found a logic and a justification—as indeed he did, I am sure. When they entertained him, when they listened to him, when they flattered him, it was simple recourse to mock at all the Rabbi taught, to laugh at all the Rabbi preached, to slander all the Rabbi promised. I was not a blind follower of the Rabbi, but I understood the sweet humility of him and the almost incomprehensible goodness of his soul, yet I myself know how easily that could be turned into its opposite with just the cheapest, easiest kind of cynicism. To do so was no great feat on the part of Iscariot, but why did it not halt there? In a sense, that is the key to this discussion of ours.

You know that they were coming to Jerusalem, and Pilate conferred with the elders, with those wealthy and shameless ones, so that it might all be done quietly. For, make no mistake, he fears us; with all of his legions, his might and power, he fears that wild Jewish flame that flares so quickly and so hotly. Do it quietly, he said; and that was the word they passed on to this creature. And he answered them, saying, not with a blow but with a kiss.