East Into Upper East (2 page)

We didn't see him again for two years. At first I was glad he was gone, and I told a lie to everyone about how I had sent him to Ludhiana to look after a new business I was starting there. I even told this lie to Sohan Lal, and he kept quiet, knowing there was something it was better for him not to know. If only I, too, could have remained as ignorant! But my peace was gone, even my sleep was gone. Every night my wife lay beside me, and she too was awake, and I knew she was seeing again what she had described to me—the expression on his face when he turned round to her from the safe. He had raised his hand, and though she didn't see the knife in it she quickly put her arm over her chest—and what if she had not done so! Even in the dark, I covered my eyes so as not to see such a thing. I thought also of how he had taken the key of the safe out of my pocket and had had it copied in a shop, and of how he had thought all this out while he sat with me at meals, so quiet and sweet-natured, and while he had stood before the mirror and combed his hair up into a wave, his eyes serious and pure like a child's.

So at first I was glad he was gone. Then I began to miss him. I thought of the bundles of money he had taken with him and of how unsafe it was for anyone, let alone a young boy, to travel with so much cash. Secretly, I arranged to put out a search for him. I changed my story and I told everyone, even relatives, that he had run away—probably to be in films in Bombay, like so many other boys. I inserted advertisements in many newspapers all over India, in English and in Hindi, with his photograph and, printed underneath, “Bablu, come home. All is forgiven.” The advertisements offered a reward of two thousand rupees. There was no result.

During all this time only my wife knew the true story. She kept quiet—even with her own family, her own brothers. She told them only what I had instructed her to say: first, that he had gone to Ludhiana, then that he had probably run away to Bombay, where
the film studios are. Her arm healed slowly; she was often in pain, but no one knew what had happened except me. Up to this time we had enjoyed frequent marital intercourse; now we only lay silently side by side. I thought not of her but of him—not of his turning around from the safe with his arm raised but of his traveling alone with the money and of what could have happened to him. She knew what I was thinking, and to calm me she made those sweet noises at me she makes at our children when they are sick or crying.

So two years passed, and in that time our new house was built. The house was also intended for Sohan Lal and his family, but because his wife does not get on with mine—it is the usual story with sisters-in-law—they all stayed behind in Kabir Galli. Of course, I was sad to see our joint family split in this way, but secretly I hoped that Bablu would come back one day and then I would find a wife for him and they would live with us in our precious new home. And then he did come back, and he did live with us—not with a wife but with that one, the other one, Sachu, he called himself.

Although the things Sachu had done and the way he lived only came out afterward in court, he seemed to carry them around with him, so that wherever he was the air became foul. He was small and thin, like Bablu, and except for his colorless eyes there was nothing to notice. He wore a dirty, torn pajama, and a dirty, torn shirt over it. Bablu, too, was in rags. All the money must have gone long ago and they were destitute. They were hungry, too. When I saw my brother fall like a starving dog on the food we gave him, I said, “If you had written one word, I would have sent whatever you needed.” Sachu said, “Don't worry, I've brought him home now.” Neither of them ever said much, but when there was an answer to be given it was Sachu who spoke. And it was he who said, “Don't forget the reward—two thousand rupees.” He laughed, so I thought he was joking. It was always difficult to know what he meant, because his eyes were always blank like glass.

Our new house was built in such a way that the room where visitors are received is separate from where the family lives. This room is at the front of the house and is much larger than the rooms crowded together at the back, where we keep our cots and cooking
vessels and other very simple furniture. For the front room we have bought a sofa and matching chairs and a table with a glass top, and there is a glass cabinet in which my wife keeps pretty dolls and other ornaments. Here we also have a television set and a radio. This room was now given over to Bablu and his friend, and they made themselves comfortable there. It was hard to see Sachu putting his dirty feet on the blue velvet sofa, but it was better than to have him in the back of the house with the family. So I kept quiet, and my wife also kept quiet. She had to—the same way she had to about the wound in her arm. We didn't even speak out our fear to each other.

When Sachu asked me again for the two-thousand-rupee reward, I gave it to him. After all, it was his right. And when he asked me, “Aren't you grateful I brought him home to you?” I said yes. It was true. Now at least I knew where Bablu was—in the front of my own house—and I did not have to imagine what his fate might be. He was alive and well!—and now that he ate good food and slept comfortably he was very well! I had never seen him so happy before. I have mentioned how rarely he smiled and looked glad, but now he did it all the time, showing his little pointed teeth and his gums stained red with betel. For the first time, he had a friend whom he loved. They were together all the time. They sat side by side on the low wall around our house, swinging their feet and holding hands, the way friends do. They both liked playing the radio and watching television. Once I saw them dancing together, holding each other the way English people dance. I had to smile then, because it was a strange sight and also nice for me to see Bablu enjoying himself. I began to think that my fears were foolish and that it was good for him to have Sachu as a friend. I can't say they were any trouble to us. My wife also had no complaints on that score. They were never disrespectful, and they behaved decently. They didn't mix very much with us but kept themselves apart in the front room. They even ate their meals there, brought to them by the servant boy we kept in the house.

Although he has nothing to do with what happened later, I must say something about this servant boy. Before he came to us he was working in a tea stall, serving customers and washing cups and plates in a bucket in the back. He also slept there at night. He had
no other home and no family; no one knew where he came from. He was about twelve or thirteen years old. He couldn't read or write, but he was a willing worker. When Sachu and Bablu came, this boy changed completely. Now all he wanted was to be near them. He would sit in the doorway of the front room, waiting for them to send him out for betel or cool drinks, or to take their clothes to the washerman. They had good clothes now and were very careful to have them always nicely washed and pressed. I have seen this boy arranging their clothes and touching the fine cloth as if he were touching a woman. When my wife called him he pretended not to hear; perhaps he really didn't hear her, because all his attention was focused on those two. He tried to comb his hair up in a wave like theirs, and he begged my wife to buy him bell-bottom pants instead of the khaki shorts she had given him. Later, after the two were no longer with us, this boy became worse and worse. He mixed with bad characters and hung around the bazaar and cinema with them. He stayed out all night and could never be found for work, until at last my wife dismissed him. He got a job as a servant in another house but soon disappeared from there with money and valuables. A report was lodged with the police, but he never was found. Probably he got on a train and went to some other town. There are millions like him, and no one can tell one from the other. They eat where they can, sleep where they can, and if they get into trouble in one place they move on to another. They may end up in jail on some case that never comes up for trial, they may die of some disease, or they may live a few years longer. No one cares where they are or what happens to them. There are too many of them.

That was Sachu's defense for his crime: no one cared for him, so he cared for no one. The time of the trial and afterward, after the sentence, was Sachu's great hour. He became a big man and gave interviews to journalists and made them listen to his philosophy. He boasted of all the crimes he committed before he came to our town. He had been in jail many times, he said, but he had never been convicted of any of the other murders to which he now admitted. He said he would kill anyone if he wanted something they had, even if it was only a ring that he liked. He said that human beings were not born to be poor, otherwise why should the earth be so full of riches, with mines full of gold and precious gems, and with pearls scattered in the ocean? His father had pulled a handcart for a living and had
had nine children. Probably those who had survived were all pulling handcarts now—all except him, Sachu. He had wanted something else, and if it had brought him death on the gallows, all right, he was ready. He had always been different from his family; he had run away from them at the age of ten, when he had overheard his father and elder brothers planning to break his leg in order to make him change his bad ways. Since that day he had been on his own.

My prayer to be relieved of their crime has been answered, so that it is no longer before my eyes day and night. Now it is as if it were locked away in a heavy steel trunk; this weight may be taken from me at my last hour, but until then I carry it inside myself, where only God and I know of its constant presence. After a while there is nothing more you can do or suffer. I have also prayed on behalf of the father of the victim—that the man's suffering may be made bearable for him, if such a thing were possible. Day after day I was with this man in the courtroom, but I can say nothing of his appearance, because not once in all that time did I dare to raise my eyes and look at him.

The famous Parsi lawyer I engaged for Bablu's defense believed that they never intended to kill the boy but meant to release him, after collecting the ransom money. Very likely this is true. It is certainly true that while they were living in my house they made their plan to kidnap him. At that time there was a popular film playing about a dacoit who kidnapped a high-born girl for money, but then he fell in love with her and she reformed his ways. It was one of those stupid Bombay films that people like, including my wife, who made me take her to see it because her favorite actor was in it. A mother with three children, but still she has a favorite actor! Sachu and Bablu went four or five times, and they knew all the songs and dialogue by heart. So the idea of kidnap must have gotten into their heads. There were enough rich people in our town—many of them like myself, who a few years ago were only humble shopkeepers and were caught up in the big boom in cotton cloth. Such people spent a lot of money on themselves and their children and lived like millionaires; some of them already
were
millionaires. However, it was not one of their children who was chosen.

P—is a cantonment town, and we have always had a regiment stationed here. The cantonment area is quite separate. It has wide roads and brick barracks, and the officers live in bungalows with gardens. Everything is very clean and very well kept up. The soldiers are healthy and sturdy and look quite different from the townspeople. The officers and their families are like higher beings; they are well-built, with light complexions, and they are educated gentry, speaking English with each other. Some of them even speak Hindi with an English accent, like foreigners—like sahibs. They also live like sahibs in their big bungalows, and drink whisky-and-soda, and their cooks prepare English-style food for them, with roast meat. The boy's father was the commanding officer—he had the rank of colonel—and his memsahib, the boy's mother, was from one of the princely families who have lost their title but still have houses and land. (She has since passed away.) The boy was their only child, and they had sent him to a boarding school in the hills to get a good education. The reason he was in the cantonment at that time was that there had been a measles epidemic in the school; all the unaffected children had been sent home as a precaution, to safeguard their health.