Shining Hero (27 page)

He began to go to the village and chat with the boys there, drink tea and smoke beedis with the men, linger at the misti wallah’s stall and talk about films. The people of Hatipur enjoyed Karna’s company because he knew almost every film story and could sing most of the songs too. He would sit by the dobar and laugh with the girls over some comedy as they did their washing or swagger with the other young village men, copying a heroic actor and pretending to pull out guns or throw punches. As time went by Karna began to spend more and more time in the village and less and less in the Hatibari till he was hardly home at all and Parvathi would come back from the village with shopping and tell Gadhari, ‘They say that that Karna was getting drunk with the misti wallah last night,’ or ‘I saw that Karna peeing in the open like a village boy.’

‘Our family is being disgraced by the behaviour of this bustee child,’ complained Gadhari. ‘Here am I with my health gone, and what have I done to deserve this karma, that I am being asked to care for Koonty’s bastard and that his presence is being a humiliation to myself and my family?’

DR Uncle tried to soothe. ‘The boy is only here till term time. He will go to school with the others and after a term at Doon he will have learnt how to behave like a sahib.’

But Gadhari was not totally displeased and wished that Kuru Dadoo had been alive when Koonty’s downfall became known. For everyone knew about Koonty and the Sun God now. Shivarani had thought it best to come out with the truth in a way that would let people understand that her sister’s disgrace had not been her fault, for otherwise how would Karna’s presence be explained? If Kuru
Dadoo had known about Koonty, thought Gadhari, he would have appreciated Gadhari’s virtue and not have been taken in by a pretty baby face.

Parvathi had given up begging Shivarani. She began to feel despair. She was seventeen and would soon be too old for anyone. Basu was starting to say, ‘If we get married,’ instead of ‘When we get married.’

‘When I am rich,’ began Arjuna, ‘I will get a dowry for you, Parvathi, so that you can marry Basu.’ He too had tried to persuade Shivarani to give Parvathi a dowry.

‘I can’t do it,’ said Shivarani. ‘Please don’t discuss the matter any more.’

‘Just give her some money as a present, then. Don’t call it a dowry.’

‘I may not call it a dowry, but the opposition will. All my credibility will be lost.’

There came a day when Karna thought he could not bear living at the Hatibari any longer, and determined to return to Calcutta no matter what Shivarani said.

‘Just hang on a little longer,’ she urged. She was having a terrible struggle getting the required money together and had even approached her parents in Canada for it. DR Uncle had done what he could but the murder of a policeman was an expensive matter and even he was having trouble in getting together such a sum without Gadhari finding out. ‘You know how vengeful the police can be but in a few months I hope to get the last of the money to them,’ Shivarani told Karna.

Parvathi listened with interest. ‘Has he done a crime?’ she asked eagerly.

‘No, of course not,’ snapped Shivarani.

‘Why are they vengeful then?’ Parvathi persisted. ‘What were you paying them for?’

‘Go inside this minute,’ stormed Shivarani. ‘What are you doing here? You are supposed to be helping with the cooking. How dare you hide there, listening to my conversation.’ She seemed unreasonably angry, thought Parvathi, as she scuttled off.

That evening Parvathi found Karna setting off for the village.

‘Mem must value you a lot to pay so much to the police,’ she said. ‘Why did you do it?’

‘You shut up,’ snapped Karna. ‘All this is nothing to do with you. I didn’t do it, anyway.’

‘Why do they all say you did?’ persisted Parvathi.

‘I didn’t even have a gun,’ said Karna. ‘So I couldn’t have done it.’

Parvathi was starting to feel the excitement of a wild dog that has been on the trail of a sambhar deer for ages and has nearly caught up with it.

‘Poor Karna. It is so bad of them to accuse you, for I know you would never do a thing like that.’

‘Raki killed the policeman and though they say I was an accomplice, it was not true,’ said Karna.

Parvathi gasped. She suspected that Karna had been involved in a bit of pick-pocketing or shoplifting. But murder of a policeman. No wonder Karna dare not go to Cal. In her wildest imaginings Parvathi had not thought of this.

‘If I had had the chance I would have killed the policeman very slowly so that he hurt for hours,’ said Karna. ‘And then I would have killed Sadas and Pashi. And Raki. I wish it had been me who killed Raki.’ When he said ‘Raki’ his voice had a choke in it as though someone had gripped him round the throat.

Shivarani stood before a full-length mirror and Parvathi knelt before her, arranging the hem of her sari folds. The maid, who was helping Shivarani to get ready to go to Calcutta for a press conference, said, without looking up, ‘Have you thought any more about giving me a dowry so that I may marry Basu?’

‘Stop that, I don’t want to hear any more of the matter, Parvathi,’ Shivarani snapped.

‘That was a lot of money you gave the police for Karna,’ said Parvathi, giving a small tweak to a fold of silk till it came in line with the rest.

‘Keep out of this, Parvathi.’

‘But considering he murdered a policeman, it is lucky that you did not have to give them more.’ She rose and started to pin the silver Shiva brooch onto Shivarani’s palu.

‘Who told you that?’ demanded Shivarani, really angry now.

‘Karna.’

‘He was lying. Why should he tell you such a thing?’

‘Because it is true, Ma?’

‘How dare you, Parvathi. This is outrageous,’ said Shivarani to Parvathi’s mirror reflection. Parvathi saw that her hands were trembling.

‘But all the same,’ said Parvathi, clicking the pin shut. She stood behind Shivarani, her legs apart, her chin up. Shivarani turned her head and glared at the maid for a long, long time and Parvathi glared back. Then Shivarani looked back into the mirror again and said to Parvathi’s reflection, her voice shaking a little, ‘You have been a faithful servant, so perhaps on this one occasion I will drop my principles and pay some money towards your marriage. Though we will not call this a dowry, but simply a sum to help set you and your husband up in life.’

‘Thank you, Memsahib,’ said Parvathi, and she did not feel she needed to sound grateful.

The press conference took place in the Grand Hotel. Shivarani was late because the traffic was extra bad and the candidates for the other parties were already seated. Later the journalists told each other, ‘That must have been why Shrimati Shivarani was not quite her usual self.’ When one journalist asked her, ‘What are you doing to put a stop to the dowry system?’ her answer had been so quiet that the man had had to ask the question a second time.

‘Everything I can,’ she repeated, in a tone that was almost mumbling.

And later, when the question of police corruption came up and she was asked, ‘What steps will your party be taking to put an end to the bribing of our police force, Shivarani?’ instead of booming out condemnation as they had expected, she looked flustered and there was a long pause before she answered, ‘Many.’ The journalists stared, amazed, for this was the question that always brought forth her most dynamic and most emphatic speech. Her great manly voice would usually boom and roar for ages when this was asked of her. After an even longer silence, Shivarani said, ‘It will take time to put an end to it, though.’ Her face had gone red and her tone was sad. She seemed to be hiding something.

Arjuna was outraged when he heard that Karna was coming to school with him. ‘Everyone will laugh at me for having such a brother.’ And when he heard that Karna’s fees were to come out of the estate he became even more furious. ‘Hatibari is mine. I inherited it from my father. I won’t let my money go to pay for Karna’s school.’

‘Your uncle has power of attorney till you are twenty-one,’ said Shivarani firmly.

Karna did not care what Arjuna felt, however. He was filled with happiness because after all these years he was about to fulfil his promise to his mother and get a proper education. He was going to go to the best school in India. In spite of everything that had happened to him, he was getting the chance to make something of his life at last.

Shivarani and Karna travelled alone on the train together because Arjuna and the Kaurava boys were required to get to the school a few days earlier

Shivarani had even brought a picnic meal for them and handed him sandwiches and a drink of coffee from a flask as though she was a mother. Or an aunt. He felt tongue-tied and was unable to respond when she tried to engage him in conversation. The journey seemed to go on for ever. During that night, as they lay on their bunks,
Karna could not sleep out of embarrassment, because he could hear the small movements of Shivarani’s breath and body. He wondered what it would be like if the train was attacked by dacoits. Would he spring to Shivarani’s rescue as he had done for his mother when he was seven? Would she be impressed with him like his mother was? Would she love him when she saw that he was unafraid of the dacoits and ready to die to protect her? But no dacoits invaded the train and Shivarani only saw the worst side of him, seated at her side – gauche, ugly, and shy.

Shivarani felt hurt, at first, at Karna’s sullenness and ingratitude and shot hinting glances at the boy but he only sat hunched in his seat, answering her attempts at conversation with inarticulate grunts and accepting the food she had so kindly brought for him with barely a ‘thank you’ and certainly not a smile. She tried to imagine her sister, Koonty, holding this child when he had first been born and wondered how Koonty would be with him now. The boy looked so small and lonely and she wanted to hold him, to caress him but everything about him warned her off for Karna’s heart was somewhere else. His love had already been given away. There was nothing left for the people of the Hatibari. She was filled with a pity that had no outlet and faced with a problem to which she had no answer.

He became aware of her scrutiny and flinched away.

‘Karna, would you like some more gugni?’ That was the only comfort she could find to offer though she knew that Koonty, Boodi Ayah, or even Gadhari would have found something more.

When Karna vanished at last into the school, Shivarani sat for a while trying to feel inside herself, and see what she felt. But she only had a sense of relief that the boy was now someone else’s responsibility.

‘This the helmet-wearing Arjun, sprung from Kuru’s mighty race
.
Pandu’s son and born of Pritha, prince of worth and war-like grace
.
Long armed chief, declare thy lineage, and the race thou dost adorn,
Name thy mother and thy father, and the house where thou wast born
.
By the rules of war Prince Arjun claims his rival chief to know
.
Princes may not draw their weapon ’gainst a base and nameless foe.’
Karna, silent, heard this mandate, rank nor lineage could he claim
.
Like a raindrop-pelted lotus, hung his humble head in shame
.

Shivarani got a letter from the women in the hills. It was written round the edges of a piece of newspaper and was so smudged and ill-spelt that it took her ages to decipher it. ‘They are trying to cut our trees down and if the trees go, then the earth that we need for our food crops will start running down the hillsides like we have seen happen in other places. The rain will stop falling here if our trees go and also we will have no firewood. Help us please, Shivarani Ma.’

When the women of the cool mountain village saw Shivarani’s car arriving, they came running out, crying to each other, ‘Shivarani Mem has come to save us.’

‘We must put our arms round the trees when the woodcutters come,’ Shivarani told the women. ‘And then they will have to cut through us, if they cut the trees.’

Shivarani stayed in the village for six weeks, spending most of the day with her arms round the trunks of trees, till every part of her inner arm knew the rough cool sensation of bark. Her hands and elbows ached for days after. Men came with chainsaws
and threatened the women, but they held on. They tried to drag the women away, but there were too many and pulling women’s bodies did not seem right to the men. The incident came to the attention of the media and there was such an outcry that the timber company was forced to withdraw.

By the time Shivarani got back to the Hatibari she found that Karna had been sent home.

He had been given a letter for his parents before being taken to the station.

‘I don’t have any parents,’ he had said.

‘If you were staying on you would have received a red card for that cheeky answer,’ the head had responded. ‘Give it to your guardian then.’

‘Why do I have to go?’

The headmaster glared at the child. ‘It is all explained in the letter. Your father … your guardian will read it to you.’

He was put on the train alone, with a message to his family that someone meet him at the station. After he sat down in his compartment he stayed quite still for a long time. His mouth was dry and his heart trembled. Then he took out the letter and stared at it, as though something about the sealed envelope would make sense of the catastrophe. If his mother had been with him, she could have opened the letter and read it to him. Quickly he had to suppress this thought, which woke wild and desperate memories of the train journey to the Hatibari with Dolly. His craving became so intense that his grief almost spilled over. Already other people in the compartment were looking at him with a mixture of curiosity and compassion.

He would not go back to the Hatibari, he decided. He could not go back. The shame would be too great. He could imagine how Arjuna and the Kaurava boys would enjoy his humiliation. But then he thought, ‘Where should I go?’ He would be arrested if he went back to Calcutta. He knew that. And he had promised his mother to stay with these people until he had been given a proper education.

When he arrived at the Hatibari, he stepped out grandly so that no one would guess at his shame …

‘But why are you back? What happened?’ his uncle kept asking, while Gadhari glared in the background.

‘I did not like it there,’ he said.

‘Come on, Karna. Tell me the truth.’

‘It is in this letter,’ said Karna. ‘But I have to give it to my guardian so I will wait till Shivarani Aunty gets back.’ He dreaded his aunt’s return.

‘It seems that he is almost illiterate. We tried to give him special lessons for a while but in the end we decided it was not fair on the boy or on the school, and that it is too late for him to try to catch up now,’ Shivarani read, two days later.

Karna stood before her, tense and shivering.

‘I will think of something,’ she told him gently and reflected that she had a better understanding of how to cope with a whole timber company than one little boy. Later she said to her brother-in-law, ‘I should have been here. I should have been looking after him.’ She was filled with remorse.

‘It’s not your fault. You just can’t take a fish out of the water and expect it to thrive on land. I think you should let the boy go back to where he came from. He was very aggressive at school, apparently. Forever picking fights, particularly with Arjuna. And when he is around here, he and Arjuna fight so much that our heads are reeling with it. I think all this anger from these two boys might be at the bottom of much of my wife’s illness,’ DR Uncle said.

At half term Arjuna came back. ‘The whole school is laughing because you have been expelled,’ he told Karna. ‘And they’re all pleased, because nobody liked you. They all hated you, in fact.’

‘I’ll kill you, you salah,’ said Karna through gritted teeth and went for his half-brother, grabbing him by the throat. Arjuna, who had been taught wrestling at school, siezed Karna by the legs and yanked him off his feet. Karna jerked Arjuna down as well. The pair lay on the ground, struggling, locked together hopelessly, each cracking
in pain, grunts bursting unwanted from their throats. Arjuna’s legs crushed Karna’s spine. Karna would not loosen his grip. Sometimes Karna would manage to get a little advantage – a fist in the throat, an elbow in the jugular. Sometimes Arjuna would manage to grind a knee into Karna’s groin or crush his free fist into his opponent’s neck. To an onlooker they would have seemed like lovers. They might have lain there for days, till one or the other became weak from thirst and the battle was won without honour, if Shivarani had not come upon them and forced them apart.

‘It is your fault for sending me to that school,’ shouted Karna, turning on her. ‘You should have known and paid for me to have some lessons before going there.’ His face was red, his fists were clenched. Shivarani gazed down at him and wondered what to do.

‘Karna,’ she tried to talk gently. ‘Perhaps we should think of another kind of education for you. Something more practical. Something that will help you find a career in later life.’

‘Like a New Market porter,’ he sneered bitterly.

‘Oh, darling, don’t talk like that. It’s not what I meant.’ She would have liked to hug him as she hugged trees, but trees don’t wince away. ‘Isn’t there anything you really want to be?’

‘A film star,’ Karna said.

‘Would you like to be a film star?’ For a moment she felt hope, because here was something to work on, but then her heart sank again. What chance in the whole world had this hideous little boy of getting even the meanest film part? All the same she decided to make use of Karna’s little flash of ambition.

‘Then what about learning something that will be helpful for an actor?’

‘Yes. Yes,’ he said. He sounded eager.

‘So where shall we start?’ This was the most positive conversation she had ever had with Karna.

‘I want a horse of my own,’ he said. ‘Arjuna has a horse and I want one too. All the movie stars ride horses in battles.’

Shivarani flinched. ‘It takes a long time to learn how to ride well enough for that.’

‘I can already ride a bit,’ said Karna. His tone was almost pleading. For a moment Shivarani saw sweetness in his expression. ‘Piara used to let me ride on his ponies when I was in Calcutta.’

Shivarani felt troubled. Arjuna, as heir to the Hatibari estate, had a substantial allowance. She was giving Karna pocket money from her own funds and because she refused to take bribes, was finding it difficult enough already to pay for everything.

‘I just don’t know what I should do,’ she confided in DR Uncle.

‘My dear Shivarani,’ he said, ‘If giving the boy a pony will put an end to all this fighting and quarrelling you go and find one and I will pay for it. Then perhaps we’ll all have some peace.’

Karna gave a little shout of joy when Shivarani told him. He suppressed the sound instantly but it was too late. Shivarani had heard it. She smiled and thought, I have made him happy. Perhaps everything is going to be all right now. But a moment later her optimism was shattered by Karna saying, ‘Because I am older than Arjuna, my horse must be bigger.’

On the way to the Tollygunge riding stables Karna peered out of the car window as though, by willpower, he could make the journey go faster. His knuckles were clenched so tightly with the intensity of his desire that they went white.

Shivarani, looking at him, thought, ‘The police will not recognise him today, because they will never have seen him looking happy before.’ But all the same she warned Karna, as they got out at the riding stables, ‘Don’t say anything that might let anyone guess who you are.’

Karna walked slowly past the lines of stalls, examining each pony’s face until he reached a white mare, over whose stall was written, ‘Devi’. Like a man who has suddenly been blown away by love, he stopped and stared silently.

Shivarani and the riding-school grooms waited.

‘This one,’ said Karna.

‘We will buy Devi,’ said Shivarani and to Karna, as the mare was
loaded into the horse box, ‘Now that the pony is yours, I hope there will be no more fights with Arjuna.’

Ignoring this, Karna said, ‘I am going to call her ‘Poopay’. All the way back to the Hatibari he insisted on sitting in the back of the horse box with his new beloved. Shivarani, in front beside Basu, kept looking back to see the boy gently caressing the pony’s face, his lips moving as though he was murmuring love.

‘Come on. Let’s see you ride it,’ cried Arjuna next day. Then stood watching, hands on hips, while Karna tried to get on. He had not ridden for many years and it took him several inept hops and scramblings before he managed it, during which he counted up the number of times Arjuna laughed, vowing to take revenge for each one later.

‘Don’t scoff,’ chided Shivarani. ‘Karna will get the knack of it soon. You weren’t so good when you were first learning, either, I remember.’

Arjuna was furious when he heard the name of Karna’s pony. ‘It is an insult to the most pure and beautiful woman in the world, to call a horse after her,’ he raged. ‘You must tell the salah to give the horse another name or I will punch him in the mouth.’

‘I can call my pony what I like,’ said Karna. ‘Why should he interfere? Was I allowed to choose the name for his pony?’

Every day for a week Karna trotted round and round the lawns, bumping up and down while Arjuna flowed gracefully and scornfully over the horizon on his golden Janci. And when, at last, Karna became able to ride round the estate on his own, if his path crossed Arjuna’s, the boys would glare and try to slash at each other with their riding whips.

‘I am definitely a better rider than Karna,’ boasted Arjuna. ‘Today I saw the sky between his bum and the saddle when he was cantering.’

‘I can pick up a handkerchief from the ground at a gallop,’ said Karna. ‘I bet Arjuna can’t do that.’

Piara Singh drew white targets on the trees and told the boys, ‘See who can get a dart in the most targets at a gallop.’ For an hour the woods were filled with the sound of galloping and the whack of darts in wood. Karna got forty-five and Arjuna thirty.

‘Thought you were such a good rider?’ jeered Karna.

‘He’s ruined my trees by jabbing the spikes in so hard,’ complained Arjuna.

Piara had the blacksmith put metal blades in the end of long bamboo poles, hammered white-painted pegs in the lawn then taught the boys to pick them up on the blade of the lance. ‘It is not a matter of beating each other,’ he told the boys. ‘Tent-pegging is a skill and the rider must learn the grace, balance and rhythm of a dancer as well as concern for the animal he is riding.’ But even Piara was a little shocked at the ferocious way the two competed, teeth bared, expressions creased with furious determination. ‘All the same this is better than beating each other up,’ he told Shivarani. ‘They are both good riders now. Why not let them come to Calcutta and race against each other on my horses?’

Shivarani agreed reluctantly and made another visit to the Calcutta police station, explaining the situation, and donating another substantial cheque to the police fund.

On the morning of the race Karna woke, shaking with excitement and apprehension and all the way to Calcutta he was very tense, telling himself over and over, ‘I’ve got to beat Arjuna. I’ve got to beat Arjuna.’

A milky mist lay at knee level when they arrived at the racecourse. Hoopoes bounced along the rails. Piara Singh stood waiting with a couple of excited thoroughbreds.

A crowd of several hundred people was gathered at the side of the course, mostly disabled beggars and ragged little boys. There came small cheers and cries of welcome at the sight of Karna. A girl with a terribly scarred face pushed forward and hugging him, said, ‘May Durga make you the winner, Karna.’

‘Thank you, Laika,’ he said. The boy that Karna had saved from rabies began shouting, ‘Come on Karna, come on Karna,’ even before Karna had mounted. Other people took up the cry. ‘Come on, Karna.’