Train to Pakistan (3 page)

‘You have learned to talk too much. I will have to look for another man.’

Juggut Singh crossed his arms behind the girl’s back and crushed her till she could not talk or breathe. Every time she started to speak he tightened his arms round her and her words got stuck in her throat. She gave up and put her exhausted face against his. He laid her beside him with her head nestling in the hollow of his left arm. With his right hand he stroked her hair and face.

The goods train engine whistled twice and with a lot of groaning and creaking began to puff its way towards the bridge.
The storks flew up from the pond with shrill cries of ‘kraak, kraak’ and came towards the river. From the river they flew back to the pond, calling alternately long after the train had gone over the bridge and its puff-puffs had died into silence.

Juggut Singh’s caresses became lustful. His hand strayed from the girl’s face to her breasts and her waist. She caught it and put it back on her face. His breathing became slow and sensuous. His hand wandered again and brushed against her breasts as if by mistake. The girl slapped it and put it away. Juggut Singh stretched his left arm that lay under the girl’s head and caught her reproving hand. Her other arm was already under him. She was defenceless.

‘No! No! No! Let go my hand! No! I will never speak to you again.’ She shook her head violently from side to side, trying to avoid his hungry mouth.

Juggut Singh slipped his hand inside her shirt and felt the contours of her unguarded breasts. They became taut. The nipples became hard and leathery. His rough hands gently moved up and down from her breasts to her navel. The skin on her belly came up in goose flesh.

The girl continued to wriggle and protest.

‘No! No! No! Please. May Allah’s curse fall on you. Let go my hand. I will never meet you again if you behave like this.’

Juggut Singh’s searching hand found one end of the cord of her trousers. He pulled it with a jerk.

‘No,’ cried the girl hoarsely.

A shot rang through the night. The storks flew up from the pond calling to each other. Crows started cawing in the keekar trees. Juggut Singh paused and looked up into the darkness towards the village. The girl quietly extricated herself from his hold and adjusted her dress. The crows settled back on the trees. The storks flew away across the river. Only the dogs barked.

‘It sounded like a gunshot,’ she said nervously, trying to keep Juggut Singh from renewing his love-making. ‘Wasn’t it from the village?’

‘I don’t know. Why are you trying to run away? It is all quiet now.’ Juggut Singh pulled her down beside him.

‘This is no time for jesting. There is murder in the village. My father will get up and want to know where I have gone. I must get back at once.’

‘No, you will not. I won’t let you. You can say you were with a girl friend.’

‘Don’t talk like a stupid peasant. How …’ Juggut Singh shut her mouth with his. He bore upon her with his enormous weight. Before she could free her arms he ripped open the cord of her trousers once again.

‘Let me go. Let me …’

She could not struggle against Juggut Singh’s brute force. She did not particularly want to. Her world was narrowed to the rhythmic sound of breathing and the warm smell of dusky skins raised to fever heat. His lips slubbered over her eyes and cheeks. His tongue sought the inside of her ears. In a state of frenzy she dug her nails into his thinly bearded cheeks and bit his nose. The stars above her went into a mad whirl and then came back to their places like a merry-go-round slowly coming to a stop. Life came back to its cooler, lower level. She felt the dead weight of the lifeless man; the sand gritting in her hair; the breeze trespassing on her naked limbs; the censorious stare of the myriads of stars. She pushed Juggut Singh away. He lay down beside her.

‘That is all you want. And you get it. You are just a peasant. Always wanting to sow your seed. Even if the world were going to hell you would want to do that. Even when guns are being fired in the village. Wouldn’t you?’ she nagged.

‘Nobody is firing any guns. Just your imagination,’ answered
Juggut Singh wearily, without looking at her.

Faint cries of wailing wafted across to the riverside. The couple sat up to listen. Two shots rang out in quick succession. The crows flew out of the keekars, cawing furiously.

The girl began to cry.

‘Something is happening in the village. My father will wake up and know I have gone out. He will kill me.’

Juggut Singh was not listening to her. He did not know what to do. If his absence from the village was discovered, he would be in trouble with the police. That did not bother him as much as the trouble the girl would be in. She might not come again. She was saying so: ‘I will never come to see you again. If Allah forgives me this time, I will never do it again.’

‘Will you shut up or do I have to smack your face?’

The girl began to sob. She found it hard to believe this was the same man who had been making love to her a moment ago.

‘Quiet! There is someone coming,’ whispered Juggut Singh, putting his heavy hand on her mouth.

The couple lay still, peering into the dark. The five men carrying guns and spears passed within a few yards of them. They had uncovered their faces and were talking.

‘Dakoo! Do you know them?’ the girl asked in a whisper.

‘Yes,’ Juggut said, ‘The one with the torch is Malli.’ His face went tight. ‘That incestuous lover of his sister! I’ve told him a thousand times this was no time for dacoities. And now he has brought his gang to my village! I will settle this with him.’

The dacoits went up to the river and then downstream towards the ford a couple of miles to the south. A pair of lapwings pierced the still night with startled cries: Teet-tittee-tittee-whoot, tee-tee-whoot, tee-tee-whoot, tit-tit-tee-whoot.

‘Will you report them to the police?’

Juggut Singh sniggered. ‘Let us get back before they miss
me in the village.’

The pair walked back towards Mano Majra, the man in front, the girl a few paces behind him. They could hear the sound of wailing and the barking of dogs. Women were shouting to each other across the roofs. The whole village seemed to be awake. Juggut Singh stopped near the pond and turned round to speak to the girl.

‘Nooro, will you come tomorrow?’ he asked, pleading.

‘You think of tomorrow and I am bothered about my life. You have your good time even if I am murdered.’

‘No one can harm you while I live. No one in Mano Majra can raise his eyebrows at you and get away from Jugga. I am not a badmash for nothing,’ he said haughtily. ‘You tell me tomorrow what happens or the day after tomorrow when all this—whatever it is—is over. After the goods train?’

‘No! No! No!’ answered the girl. ‘What will I say to my father now? This noise is bound to have woken him up.’

‘Just say you had gone out. Your stomach was upset or something like that. You heard the firing and were hiding till the dacoits had left. Will you come the day after tomorrow then?’

‘No,’ she repeated, this time a little less emphatically. The excuse might work. Just as well her father was almost blind. He would not see her silk shirt, nor the antimony in her eyes. Nooran walked away into the darkness, swearing she would never come again.

Juggut Singh went up the lane to his house. The door was open. Several villagers were in the courtyard talking to his mother. He turned around quietly and made his way back to the river.

In bureaucratic circles Mano Majra has some importance because of an officers’ rest house just north of the railway bridge. It is a
flat-roofed bungalow made of khaki bricks with a veranda in front facing the river. It stands in the middle of a squarish plot enclosed by a low wall. From the gate to the veranda runs a road with a row of bricks to deckle edge each side and mark it off from the garden. The garden is a pancake of plastered mud without a blade of grass to break its flat, even surface, but a few scraggy bushes of jasmine grow beside the columns of the veranda and near the row of servants’ quarters at the rear of the house. The rest house was originally built for the engineer in charge of the construction of the bridge. After the completion of the bridge, it became the common property of all senior officers. Its popularity is due to its proximity to the river. All about it are wild wastes of pampas grass and
dhak
, or flame of the forest, and here partridges call to their mates from sunrise to sundown. When the river has receded to its winter channel, bulrushes grow in the marshes and ponds left behind. Geese, mallard, widgeon, teal and many other kinds of waterfowl frequent these places, and the larger pools abound with rahu and malli and mahseer.

Throughout the winter months, officers arrange tours that involve a short halt at the Mano Majra rest house. They go for waterfowl at sunrise, for partridges during the day, fish in the afternoons, and once more for ducks when they come back in their evening flight. In spring the romantic come to ruminate—to sip their whisky and see the bright orange of the dhak shame the rich red hues of the sun setting over the river; to hear the soothing snore of frogs in the marshes and the rumble of trains that go by; to watch fireflies flitting among the reeds as the moon comes up from under the arches of the bridge. During the early months of summer, only those who are looking for solitude come to the Mano Majra rest house. But once the monsoon breaks, the visitors multiply, for the swollen waters of the Sutlej are a grand and terrifying sight.

On the morning before the dacoity in Mano Majra, the rest house had been done up to receive an important guest. The sweeper had washed the bathrooms, swept the rooms, and sprinkled water on the road. The bearer and his wife had dusted and rearranged the furniture. The sweeper’s boy had unwound the rope on the punkah which hung from the ceiling and put it through the hole in the wall so that he could pull it from the veranda. He had put on a new red loincloth and was sitting on the veranda tying and untying knots in the punkah rope. From the kitchen came the smell of currying chicken.

At eleven o’clock a subinspector of police and two constables turned up on bicycles to inspect the arrangements. Then two orderlies arrived. They wore white uniforms with red sashes round their waists and white turbans with broad bands in front. On the bands were pinned brass emblems of the government of the Punjab—the sun rising over five wavy lines representing the rivers of the province. With them were several villagers who carried the baggage and the glossy black official dispatch cases.

An hour later a large grey American car rolled in. An orderly stepped out of the front seat and opened the rear door for his master. The subinspector and the policemen came to attention and saluted. The villagers moved away to a respectful distance. The bearer opened the wire-gauze door leading to the main bed-sitting room. Mr Hukum Chand, magistrate and deputy commissioner of the district, heaved his corpulent frame out of the car. He had been travelling all morning and was somewhat tired and stiff. A cigarette perched on his lower lip sent a thin stream of smoke into his eyes. In his right hand he held a cigarette tin and a box of matches. He ambled up to the subinspector and gave him a friendly slap on the back while the other still stood at attention.

‘Come along, Inspector Sahib, come in,’ said Hukum Chand.
He took the inspector’s right hand and led him into the room. The bearer and the deputy commissioner’s personal servant followed. The constables helped the chauffeur to take the luggage out of the car.

Hukum Chand went straight into the bathroom and washed the dust off his face. He came back still wiping his face with a towel. The subinspector stood up again.

‘Sit down, sit down,’ he commanded.

He flung the towel on his bed and sank into an armchair. The punkah began to flap forward and backward to the grating sound of the rope moving in the hole in the wall. One of the orderlies undid the magistrate’s shoes and took off his socks and began to rub his feet. Hukum Chand opened the cigarette tin and held it out to the subinspector. The subinspector lit the magistrate’s cigarette and then his own. Hukum Chand’s style of smoking betrayed his lower-middle-class origin. He sucked noisily, his mouth glued to his clenched fist. He dropped cigarette ash by snapping his fingers with a flourish. The subinspector, who was a younger man, had a more sophisticated manner.

‘Well, Inspector Sahib, how are things?’

The subinspector joined his hands. ‘God is merciful. We only pray for your kindness.’

‘No communal trouble in this area?’

‘We have escaped it so far, sir. Convoys of Sikh and Hindu refugees from Pakistan have come through and some Muslims have gone out, but we have had no incidents.’

‘You haven’t had convoys of dead Sikhs this side of the frontier. They have been coming through at Amritsar. Not one person living! There has been killing over there.’ Hukum Chand held up both his hands and let them drop heavily on his thighs in a gesture of resignation. Sparks flew off his cigarette and fell
on his trousers. The subinspector slapped them to extinction with obsequious haste.

‘Do you know,’ continued the magistrate, ‘the Sikhs retaliated by attacking a Muslim refugee train and sending it across the border with over a thousand corpses? They wrote on the engine “Gift to Pakistan!”’

The subinspector looked down thoughtfully and answered: ‘They say that is the only way to stop killings on the other side. Man for man, woman for woman, child for child. But we Hindus are not like that. We cannot really play this stabbing game. When it comes to an open fight, we can be a match for any people. I believe our RSS boys beat up Muslim gangs in all the cities. The Sikhs are not doing their share. They have lost their manliness. They just talk big. Here we are on the border with Muslims living in Sikh villages as if nothing had happened. Every morning and evening the muezzin calls for prayer in the heart of a village like Mano Majra. You ask the Sikhs why they allow it and they answer that the Muslims are their brothers. I am sure they are getting money from them.’

Hukum Chand ran his fingers across his receding forehead into his hair.