Shining Hero (30 page)

But there was Laika.

Karna began to crave being clasped in Laika’s great thighs. He wanted to be lost in her woman-perfumed dark. He wanted to wake in the morning with her smell of sex on him. He wanted her to love him in the Hatibari. He wanted to go down to the Hatibari breakfast knowing that he had been embraced by someone who felt he mattered. Even the servants in this house, thought Karna, mock at me behind my back and to my face do not respect me. Parvathi, the maid, had giggled when Karna, trying to be like Arjuna, had ordered her to bring a glass of water. He wanted Laika because she was rough, because her harsh voice stung his eardrums, because she would leave her blazing lipstick smeared over his face, because after he had had sex with her he would smell of her, fishy and cheap perfume. He wanted Laika because she reminded Karna of his childhood. And because he loved her more than any of the Hatibari people.

She had no phone so he tried a letter and wrote for days, but could not do it. Car number plates and the names of film stars are not enough when you want to send a message. He thought of asking Parvathi to help him, but could not bear the thought of her contempt. In the end he tackled Arjuna. ‘It’s a writing exercise I have to do.’ He was taking lessons in the village.

‘Funny sort of school work, Karna,’ said Arjuna, with his pen poised. ‘Is this what they are teaching kids these days? It looks more like an invitation to a whore.’

‘Your mother is a whore, you salah,’ shouted Karna, ripping away the paper. ‘And more than that, she threw away her baby.’

But he managed it at last and met Laika at the station. She hugged him, keeping him pressed against her bosom for a long warm moment and as he leant against her, he felt comfort filling up his heart. He brought her in the rickshaw while the family were at dinner.

‘Hush, Laika, don’t make a noise,’ he whispered. She was as wide and perfumed as a full-blown rose and he feared that they’d be sure to
smell her. He could hear voices through the closed dining room door as he slipped up the stairs behind her swaying bottom. The people of the Hatibari never talked so happily when he was there, he thought. When Karna was at the table the family became tense and seemed to be always watching him and finding fault but now their laughter and cheery conversation sounded carefree and uninhibited.

After Laika started coming to visit him, Karna began to feel at peace and lost some of his need to fight. Sometimes he had the feeling that Arjuna was hanging around outside the room, presumably hoping to challenge him, and warned Laika, ‘Be quieter or they will find out.’ But Laika was a noisy lovemaker, letting out high-pitched squealing laughs as though she was being tickled at peak moments. Arjuna heard her in spite of warnings. ‘I know about that girl,’ he told Karna fiercely.

‘What girl? You are a liar. No one will believe you,’ hissed Karna, looking anxiously up and down the passage in case anyone was listening.

‘When Shivarani Aunty finds out she’ll send you back to Calcutta, to live on the pavement again.’

‘You bastard. Don’t you dare tell her,’ said Karna. ‘I’ll kill you if you tell her.’ He could not bear the thought of Laika being humiliated.

‘Try,’ laughed Arjuna. ‘I’m an inch taller than you so just try.’

A silence fell while Karna tried to glare at Arjuna with self-righteous indignation but his mind was reeling. Arjuna might be right. He wasn’t a helpless little boy anymore. Shivarani might send him back to Calcutta if she discovered he had brought a prostitute to his room and just when he had got his Bangladesh business going so nicely. At last Karna said, forcing his lips into the semblance of a smile, forcing his tone into friendliness. ‘Look, why don’t you come inside my room. We can talk about it there.’ And when Arjuna hesitated, ‘It’s not a trick. I won’t do anything, I swear. You can leave the door open.’

As he led Arjuna into his room he felt his heart begin to quake, because for the first time someone was going to know his secret.
He wished he hadn’t been so stupid and would have liked to hustle Arjuna out of the room but already it was too late. Arjuna had seen.

Karna sighed and bowed his head, waiting for the mockery. But Arjuna was silent, and merely gazed round at the hundreds of dolls. They were every size and colour. Dolls in dresses, naked dolls, Barbies and Cindies, Cabbage Patch dolls and Cheerful Tearful. Some of the dolls were as large as a nine-month-old child and others the size of a man’s finger. Then, to Karna’s surprise, instead of laughing, Arjuna turned to Karna, questions in his eyes.

Karna shrugged, then said, as though pulling himself together, ‘Hey, look at this.’

He took up two hideous little plastic dolls with thick orange limbs and dresses hacked from transparent shredded muslin. He held them out, one in either hand. ‘I call this one Arjuna and this one Karna,’ he said. ‘Watch.’ He went over the room and switched on his tape recorder. Then he put the little dolls on the floor, standing them upright. There was no reason at all why they should remain standing but they did. The pair wobbled for a moment on their lumpy feet, seemed to get their balance, then in time to the music began to fight each other.

Karna glanced at Arjuna. His brother was entranced, peering from side to side trying to discover the secret, watching Karna’s hands. The two little dolls thumped each other, hugged each other, swayed from side to side, while Karna, like a sports commentator, kept up a monologue, ‘Now here comes Karna with a strong left hook. Oh, Oh, Arjuna is over … no, no, he has managed to retain his balance. Now here comes Arjuna’s straight left, a deadly punch. Will Karna be able to survive?’ Suddenly, as though something angered Karna, he leapt up. The two little dolls collapsed to the floor and lay there looking exactly what they were, a pair of lifeless ugly toys. Karna put out his foot and began to crush them.

‘Don’t, don’t.’ Arjuna reached out, as though trying to prevent a murder. A moment later orange plastic splinters burst from under Karna’s toes. He looked up and said to Arjuna, ‘The girl’s name
was Laika. She is my friend and sometimes we make love, but if Shivarani Aunty finds this out and sends me away, all my hope of being a film star will have gone.’

He waited expecting Arjuna to say, ‘You dirty pig, bringing such a girl into my house,’ but instead, and perhaps because of the little broken dolls lying on the floor, Arjuna just nodded.

Rain god Indra over Arjun watched with father’s partial love,
Sun god Surya over Karna shed his light from far above
.
Arjun stood in darkening shadow by the inky clouds concealed
.
Bold and bright in open sunshine radiant Karna stood revealed
.

Karna bought himself a car. While the Bangladeshi dealer waited impatiently, Karna got into the driving seat and pretended to be driving. Dazed with joy and wonder, as though he was still a little boy on the Calcutta pavement, Karna imagined taking his mother, Dolly, round the countryside in it. Or Poopay Patalya, he thought suddenly. He closed his eyes and pretended the beautiful film star was seated at his side. ‘What a wonderful driver you are, Karna,’ she would say. ‘And what an excellent car this is.’

‘How do you work it?’ he had asked the dealer when he came out of his dream.

‘I don’t understand,’ said the man.

‘How do you make it go?’

The man looked disbelieving for a moment. ‘You are saying you don’t know how to drive but all the same you have bought it? How will you take it away?’

‘You just show me,’ said Karna impatiently. He could not wait to get going.

The man frowned. ‘You can’t just learn in ten minutes.’

‘Oh, come on,’ shouted Karna, burning with excitement.

That same afternoon, when Karna drove to the Hatibari, instead of Poopay Patalya at his side, he had a skinny Calcutta artist.

He arrived at the front steps in a judder of gears and a lot of unnecessary revving.

Almost the whole household, hearing the roaring of the ancient and incompetently driven engine came running out to look, imagining that an invasion was taking place, or some disaster had overcome the countryside. There came looks of astonishment mixed with mirth at the sight of Karna behind the steering wheel.

‘There’s a few bits missing,’ said Parvathi. ‘Where are the lights? And it hasn’t got any door handles.’

‘My Cal contacts are procuring parts for me,’ Karna said grandly. A new generation of little kigalis were reaping them for him in Chowringee and Park Street at that very moment.

‘Why do you need a car? Basu will drive you around if you want it,’ said DR Uncle.

‘I need it for my new business. I will have to be going back and forth over the border frequently from now on and the motor-cycle was too slow. Also I was not able to carry enough merchandise.’

‘You don’t even know how to drive it properly,’ said Arjuna.

‘This is Rishi,’ Karna said, ignoring Arjuna and indicating the young man who was emerging, clutching paints and easel. ‘He has come from Calcutta to paint my portrait.’

Rishi, a member of Karna’s kigali group, specialised in painting pictures of tourists. They had to be done fast because tourists can’t stay more than a minute or two standing on a Calcutta street.

That was long ago and Rishi had progressed since then and though sometimes he had sitters who complained that their portraits did not look like them and refused to pay, on the whole he managed to make a living from it. But all the time he felt dissatisfied and craved to be a real artist. He wanted to work with oil paints on huge bits of canvas, to swipe great swathes of colour with a hog-hair brush, to paint snowclad Himalayan peaks in the setting sun. He wanted to hold exhibitions and get reviewed in the Calcutta papers. But he could not even afford
to buy a second pencil, let alone the material required for such a career.

When Karna commissioned his portrait, Rishi embraced Karna’s feet with gratitude. ‘This amount of money you are offering will make all happiness possible for me and in exchange I will make you look like the most handsome man in the world. I will take away every blemish from your face and make you look as chubby as a famous film star.’

‘Come, Rishi, follow me. I will show you how I want my portrait done,’ said Karna striding past the group of grinning people. He led his friend into the great hall where a full-length portrait of Pandu hung among the snarling boars’ heads. It had been taken from a photo after the zamindar died and in it Pandu wears a starched white kurta, narrow jodhpur trousers, embroidered curly-toed slippers and a silken waistcoat. At Pandu’s side is an antique sitar and he smokes a hookah.

‘You must copy everything except the face,’ Karna told Rishi. ‘That, of course, must be mine. I wish to be seen wearing the clothes of the zamindar and also smoking the hookah. The only other change, apart from the face being my own and not zamindar Pandu, is that I would like my CD player by my side and not that old music thing that he has.’

When Arjuna learnt that Ravi was coming back to Hatipur to get married he became filled with excitement. Ever since Koonty had told Arjuna who had murdered his father, Arjuna had waited for his moment of revenge. He would have liked to kill the man, but he had made that promise to his mother. ‘You must not spoil your life because of him. You must try to humiliate him but not kill him,’ she had said.

When he heard about Ravi’s wedding he saw his chance. It was
going to be a very big occasion for Ravi was important these days. Daily Arjuna watched the magnificent preparations being made for his father’s murderer’s wedding and waited. Banana-tree arches, wrapped in fringed foil, were set up. Hooting lorries kept coming slowly in, heavily laden with food and equipment from Calcutta. Rickshaws jingled, weighed down with arriving guests and street tailors’ treadle sewing machines whirred as sparkling wedding clothes flowed out of their needles. As the days went by the air became filled with spiced food frying, sharp with chilli and thick with the smell of raw onions and simmering mustard oil. Flour rose in pale flurries as chupatti dough was kneaded. A thousand people had been invited to the wedding of the misti wallah’s son who once had worn ragged clothes and had no shoes, but today sported a big moustache, owned an imported Mercedes car and sat in the Lok Sabha. Ravi’s bride had already been given so much gold jewellery by people hoping for political benefits, that if she wore them all at once she would not be able to stand up. The greatest people in the land were coming to this wedding. It was rumoured that even the Prime Minister would be there, though the zamindar of the Hatibari had refused the invitation.

As the guests were arriving, Arjuna went down to the river and, wearing only his pants, dived in. Daaks, balancing like yogis on their long red feet, ran away from him over the water surface. Buffaloes shuffled uneasily as Arjuna throbbed by. Women washing clothes straightened as he passed them and started clapping as though Arjuna was competing in a race. Once or twice village youths leapt in and swam competitively alongside but in moments they were soon forced to fall back, gasping. Local people recognised Arjuna. A young man watched the young zamindar with envy. ‘Perhaps Arjuna is searching for a woman to love like the Sun God did,’ sighed a girl. ‘Keep your eyes away,’ her mother snapped.

On the road that ran alongside the river, wedding guests passed in large imported cars. There were ministers from Delhi, big shots
in business from all over the country, foreign importers, Indian exporters, the owners of airlines and railway companies, for Ravi was a person of great influence and high status these days.

Arjuna reached the other bank as the voice of Zeenat Aman crooned from the loudspeakers, ‘Baat Ban Jaaye,’ ‘The never-ending language of love.’ Half-naked and slimed with weed, he scrambled out of the water and stood dripping on the lawn. Women wearing glittering saris and weighted with jewels gazed, impressed and aghast. Men hurried towards Arjuna, preparing to do something but at the last moment thought better of it. After all, perhaps it was one of the local wedding customs to have a man wearing only underpants appear among them and anyway the fellow looked determined.

Arjuna strode towards the tent where the bridegroom sat and, sensing that something interesting was about to happen, guests began to follow him and stood crowding in the entrance of the sharmayana.

The bridal couple sat on a high dias at the far end and facing them were ranged hundreds of wedding guests on chairs. The bride’s face and body were covered with so many layers of fringed silk and brocade that you had to guess there was a woman under there. The only part of her that was visible were her hands which lay on her lap like a pair of tiny rosy mice. They were meshed with golden chains and had been intricately decorated with scarlet henna.

Ravi wore the traditional helmet of banana pith wound round and draped with jasmine garlands that the village girls had toiled over yesterday. He was sweating heavily under his rich, embroidered silken kurta and heavier shawl. Round his neck he wore many garlands of marigolds and roses. His forehead was decorated with sandal paste and his face, or what could be seen of it through jasmine dangles, was red and sweating.

Ravi’s parents, the misti wallah and his wife, sat in the front row and when they saw Arjuna coming, they got to their feet and looked around for help. ‘It’s Pandu’s son,’ the misti wallah shouted.

At his father’s words Ravi tried to rise too and defend himself, but
the clobber of clothes, jewels, garlands and the close proximity of his parcelled-up bride all hampered him.

Guests sat mutely. The entrances were entirely blocked with watching guests.

Ravi let out an inarticulate shout. The muffled bride stirred under her coverings and her fingers curled in anticipation of some unseen disaster.

Arjuna reached Ravi on his throne, then struck a ferocious blow right into the centre of the bridegroom’s face and heard a crunch of nose gristle giving way. Ravi collapsed with a shriek.

The bride began to struggle wildly to escape from her coverings and see what was happening.

Arjuna turned and walked back through the rows of guests and out into the garden again.

Inside the sharmayana there followed a long and puzzled pause during which Ravi, fallen behind his writhing bride, let out small moans.

‘I’m glad we don’t have that custom in our weddings,’ some of the male guests whispered. ‘That punch looked as though it really hurt.’

When Ravi managed to struggle upright his nose was crooked and there was blood all down the front of his silken shirt.

As Arjuna went back to the river he caressed his fist and felt good because his parents had been in some way avenged. At the water’s edge he crouched and wiped his bloodstained knuckles against the ground, not wanting to defile the holy water with Ravi’s treacherous blood. When all trace of his father’s killer was gone from his skin he dived back into the water and began to swim back, the remembered feel of his fist on Ravi’s nose delighting him. He swam gently this time, feeling the water against his skin as he had not done on the way to the wedding. The wedding music had fallen silent so that he could hear the sound of water lapping at the banks and boats, the cries of water birds, the sound of banana leaves rattling in the breeze.

Arjuna began to feel happy. Perhaps he would stay in this artery
of water for ever, moving up it like the needle in a vein, making his way, upstream, steadily, till one day he would reach the heart of the world. The place where Shiva lived. The place that was so cold and holy that you could see your prana stand before your face in a cloud of white. The place where silence was infinite and filled with bliss.

He became reminded of swimming his fingers through the hair of Parvathi when he had been little and she had come to kiss him goodnight after his mother died. His fingers had moved around her head like fishes and found cool strands there. She had shivered when he touched her ears.

By the time he had gone fifty yards, people were running to the riverbank. He swam on, their angry voices ringing satisfyingly in his ears. Behind him he heard one or two splashes. Some unfortunate servants had clearly been ordered to chase after him.

When Arjuna reached the Hatibari bank he looked back. Far down the water, two men were struggling to catch up with him. Arjuna laughed and swung round when his laughter was joined by others. Laxshmi’s daughters stood there, watching him with admiration.

Other people were now appearing and began to cram round the dripping, panting Arjuna. The daughters of Laxshmi instantly gathered closer and leaned against him as though claiming him as theirs. He stood there, clothed in women, savouring the feel of them. They smelled spicy, smoky, fragrant. They smelled buttery, as though they had leant against cows. One held a small brass pot of pale thick milk.

Far away on the other side, there still came the shouts of anger from the wedding people of the palace. The two durwans in the water gave in and began to turn back.

One of the girls picked up Arjuna’s thrown clothes, carefully folded them, and said, ‘Follow me.’

‘Come with us,’ said another of the girls, taking Arjuna by the arm.

The girls began leading Arjuna towards Laxshmi’s small hut. The milk that one daughter carried on her head sounded sloppingly in its brass pot. The procession moved very slowly because of staring people getting in the way.

The girls held him as though he was their cow. Followed by the heavy breathing crowd, they tugged Arjuna gently along a path through the trees and towards their home, a small thatched hut. Outside was tethered a couple of kid goats. A small cow had her nose tucked into a basket of boiled bran and sugar feed. Hens clucked and scratched. There was a little round haystack built on a pole to be out of reach of grazing animals. A TV aerial was fixed to the thatched roof.