Red Earth and Pouring Rain (7 page)

Listen….

The years passed, and there were other victories for de Boigne; he amassed a fortune of three hundred thousand pounds and
made Madhoji Sindhia the most powerful man in India. De Boigne’s brigades were given the name of Chiria Fauj for their unmatched
speed, for their propensity to appear unexpectedly on the horizon like a flight of predatory birds, for the headlong velocity
of their marches. Armed with de Boigne’s brigades, Madhoji ruthlessly pursued his dream of founding an independent Maratha
dynasty; village cattle grazed on luxuriant blood-fed flowers; de Boigne, released from his phantasmic demons, discovered
the boredom and banality of everyday life; he rode at the head of a corps, and was famous and rich, but found no release from
the dreary everyday business of living, from the hot summer afternoons when the heat settles in the lungs and rises up the
spine and turns into a humming in the head. He found no comfort, not in the sweat that gathers in that little hollow between
deep breasts or in that heavy sleep that comes from opium. De Boigne prayed to the gods of his new home, but the stone idols
did not move, did not speak; longing, soon enough, for the colours that once burned their way out of the darkness at the centre
of his soul, he fell into a desultory affair with the daughter of one his Hindustani commanders, took her as a wife and fathered
a son and a daughter, but even love and marriage and fatherhood felt like distant fictions, smokey dreams.

One day, unexpectedly, Madhoji Sindhia caught a fever, tossed and burned through the night and died before morning. De Boigne
felt the touch of death hiss by him, for he understood now that there was no
longer a special purpose to his life that protected him from the bullets of the battle-field or the fevers of the hot summer
wind, that nothing but other men stood between him and charging horsemen. De Boigne thought of his three hundred thousand
pounds, and the drawing-rooms of Paris, and the water-mill, and childhood, and the fact that if he stayed he would fight other
battles not knowing why and when and how, not knowing anything for certain, not feeling anything but doubt, and then he decided
to go home, to play the part of the hero, the soldier returned from magical, unreal lands. So he went home, without his Hindustani
wife, who refused to leave her home and her relatives for what seemed a fantasy; de Boigne took his children and returned
to Chambéry (with the slightly-dazed eyes of one who has journeyed far to find a home and has returned in self-exile) and
played the part —he baptized his children and married a seventeen-year-old noblewoman who soon left him for the salons of
Paris. He stumbled for a while through the wilderness of drawing-rooms and huge shining dances and noticed the smirks and
the giggles that appeared when he did something provincial or unintentionally used a word of Urdu or Persian. So de Boigne
lived in seclusion, ignoring summons from Napoleon Bonaparte, who too, it seems, dreamt of the riches and splendours of a
faraway land called Hindustan; sometimes, especially when others who had served in Hindustan came to visit, de Boigne would
speak of his past, but would always speak of himself as if of another, and would always end with the words ‘My life has been
a dream.’ And the visitors would go away, unsatisfied and a little mystified, not knowing that de Boigne went to sleep every
night longing to dream, but saw nothing, that as the years went by he wished that the past would return to him, that calm
grey eyes would haunt his night hours, that something would reassure him that his life had been real, not just necessary,
but no images came, and de Boigne discovered the horror of living solely in the present and for the future, knew that the
present is not enough and the future can use and discard people, and one afternoon de Boigne called his lackeys and caused
himself to be transported to the water-mill of his youth. Going inside, he found again his seat, and looked for a long time
into the creaking gears and hoists. Finally, he said, in a choking voice, ‘There was the start, and then the middle, and this
must be my end.’ He ordered the workers out and called for a torch; stumbling around, he
caressed the old wood with the flame; finally, his attendants dragged him out.

He began then to walk round and around the fire, back and forth, and slowly the rage went out of his shoulders, and the despair
from his heart, and after three hours he began to say aloud the names of his childhood friends, and the names of his first
pets, and those of his nurses. It was something like a chant, this attempt to remember every man, woman and beast that he
had ever touched or seen or heard, and as he went on his memory grew complete and rich, so that in the two days left to him
he managed to work up only to the friends of his adolescence, with whom he had stolen apples from gardens and visited forbidden
houses. He told his servants that even so it was not complete, that too much was left out, that he had not the strength to
remember everyone and everything. He grew weak, but would not sleep, and from his bed he said to the attending priest, ‘I
have been enslaved by an idea, and this is my end, my climax. But I do not die.’

The priest, who was afraid of exotic blasphemies, crossed himself and said, ‘You go to eternal rest, and eternal life.’

De Boigne shook his head. ‘No, I die. But my life lives on, and I live, and live, and live.’

The priest said in a loud voice, ‘You must believe that you are redeemed, that you go to perfect, eternal happiness.’

De Boigne laughed, and said cheerfully, ‘We are not born to be happy.’ Near the hour of his death, his eyes grew very bright,
and he began to speak in languages that no one understood, and as he whispered in alien tongues, some thought he was asking
for forgiveness, and others that he was giving it.

now

I LET MYSELF RELAX
, pushing back from the typewriter and lying back.

‘You said it was going to be a children’s story,’ Abhay said. ‘What the hell was that?’

I was too tired to reply. I massaged my aching fingers and shook my head.

‘Watch out with that martial stuff,’ he continued, curiously concerned. ‘These kids belong to a different world, they’re a
different generation. Too much more of that and they’ll go back to cricket.’

A little irritated, I sat up. My muscles creaked. I tried to type on, but my fingers cramped.

‘Better do something about that, Hanuman,’ Yama said. ‘Your friend still has an hour to go.’

‘What?’ I said.

‘He’s right. Fifty-five minutes, to be exact.’ Hanuman dropped from above the door and came over to me. ‘You’ve got to go
on —and listen, be careful. You’ve got us hooked in here, but out there, they’re getting a little restless; they’re curious,
but it’s starting to wear off. Too much more in this mode and they’re going to start pulling on pig-tails and making rubber-band-bows,
and then what? You can rest for two more minutes, but then you’ve got to start up again.’

‘I can’t. Look at my fingers.’

‘Yes, I know they hurt, but you must.’

‘It’s not even my fingers; I just don’t have any more. Listen, do you think it’s easy, doing this, making it all up so fast?
Especially with that
great black lump sitting there in the corner, even at night when he’s gone.’

Hanuman looked at me, his red eyes shining.

‘Listen, Son of the Wind,’ I whispered. ‘Negotiate with him some more; tell him about the wonders to come; make him see that
the story will be grand and great. Tell my children out there not to abandon me, for there is much yet to come —Begum Sumroo,
the Witch of Sardhana, and her lover, Jahaj Jung, who was once a sailor, and then Sikander himself: Sikander the brave, who
led three thousand and was the friend of Parasher the poet, and the romance of their childhood and early manhood, their incredible
adventures in Calcutta and in the embraces of the divine courtesans of Lucknow; tell them all this and tell them to come back
tomorrow; please, I cannot go on. Look. Look at my fingers.’

‘The young fellow was right,’ Yama called from his corner. ‘You’re too old-fashioned; you haven’t adapted. Too much more of
this kind of heroic saga, distant and strangely impersonal, and I’ll have to take you off. Shape up, Sanjay; I must admit
I want to hear the rest of it, about Sikander particularly. But come on now; boredom must be reaching critical mass outside.’
He laughed. ‘Sometimes you outsmart yourself, Sanjay. Back to the typewriter.’

‘Hanuman…’ I began.

‘He won’t negotiate. The contract’s signed. But don’t worry, he’s too dull for words. Don’t let him scare you.’ Hanuman turned
to Yama. ‘Prince, King, the story takes a different turn now. Sanjay cannot possibly give us another hour —look at his fingers.
The cramp will not let up; however, the contract, as it stands…’

‘No,’ roared Yama, springing to his feet. ‘No more cheating. A story. Now.’

‘Exactly’ said Hanuman. ‘A story is what the contract calls for; read it carefully —it doesn’t say who is to do the telling.
Read. “A story will be told. The audience must be kept entertained, or Parasher is to pay the forfeit.” Somebody else could
do the story-telling.’

‘No. This is cheating.’

‘Think about it, great Death-lord. Another story, for the price of one, with Sanjay sweating at the side-lines.’

Yama started to say something, then paused. I detected a faint glimmer
of interest; I could sense his anger seeping away, blocked and dammed by a delicious new nuance in his revenge.

‘Who?’ I said, nudging Hanuman.

‘His future hanging on another’s words, Death-lord. And him with no choice.’

‘Whose words?’ I said.

‘And a tale of strange lands and foreign folk…’

‘Who, him, the boy?’ I said. ‘Look at him…’

‘Done,’ said Yama, ‘I will be magnanimous. He has ten minutes to prepare.’

‘Hanuman,’ I said, ‘great Hanuman, you can’t be serious, look at his face: he can’t tell a story; he hardly even knows where
he is or who he is.’

‘A contract’s a contract,’ said Hanuman. ‘Hurry up. You have ten minutes to talk him into it.’

I started to speak, then thought better of it. Beckoning Abhay to my side, I held my right wrist with my left hand and with
a trembling forefinger typed a summary of the conversation that had just taken place.

‘No,’ said Abhay. ‘I can’t do it.’

‘If you don’t, he’ll die,’ said Saira, very ready to be furious.

‘If you hadn’t shot him, he wouldn’t be in this situation,’ said Mrinalini.

‘You have a certain responsibility,’ Ashok said.

Abhay looked around, then put his face in his hands. I gripped my wrist again and typed; he looked up.

‘Please.’

‘It’ll all be your fault,’ Saira said, her lower lip jutting, now ready to cry.

‘I like her,’ Hanuman whispered. ‘I like her.’

‘All right, all right,’ Abhay said, his eyes sunken and shining. ‘I’ll do my best. But I need more time. Fifteen minutes at
least.’

I looked over at Yama. He was twirling his moustache, one knee settled comfortably over the other, a foot swinging gently
back and forth. He nodded, looking smug. I nodded at Abhay. He rose and began to pace around the room. The murmur outside
began to grow. Mrinalini opened the door and peered out.

‘They’re going to start leaving,’ she said.

Saira rose from the bed. ‘I’m going outside to tell them about you,’ she said. ‘It’s the only way you’ll keep them sitting.
I’ll tell them Yama’s in here, too, and that he doesn’t want any children inside, so they won’t come rushing in when I tell
them about a typing monkey; is that okay?’

Yama shrugged, smiling, and I nodded at Saira, bowing to a superior judge of the masses and leader of men; already, I seemed
to have forgotten the reasons for wanting to keep my appearance a secret. Some last pride, I suppose, some final need to belong,
to be thought of as part of the human whole, but already this vain hope had been crumpled and consigned to the rubbish heap;
at last, I am going to be what I had fought against becoming, a freak, a fool, an exile, that most pitiable (forgive my romanticizing
—I am conscious of it —but at this moment a pose is all I have left) and yet most generous of creatures: a monkey at a typewriter,
a poet.