Sacred Waters

by Meira Chand

  It was no longer possible to hide in the old tree; it could not protect her from herself. A frisson of panic ran through her. The future was unknowable, and already pressed upon her, and she did not know where it would take her. It seemed she had lived her life meeting the expectations of others, powerless even when she thought she had power, always seeking that power in the wrong places.

  In her mind she saw the ultrasound screen again, the dark grotto of black water and at its centre the manikin growing within her, drawing its strength from her flesh and blood, female like herself, waiting to come alive. It was biding its time within her just as once she had waited, for what she did not know, within the hollow core of this ancient tree. She knew now that she wanted this child, and saw that she had unconsciously sought out a man to father it, and would keep it. She would not go ahead with the termination she had so resolutely planned just an hour earlier. While she pursued her external life, that other self which she was coming to realise lived deep within her with a will of its own, had arranged an alternative life for her, and she could do little to stop it. Across the lake she saw the child in the pink dress sheltering with her mother beneath a flimsy gazebo, and imagined how her life might one day bring her such a moment. Even as she thought these thoughts, a surge of joy ran through her.

  24

  BURMA, 1945

  The train had only three carriages, and they boarded it for the journey to Bangkok as darkness fell. Netaji had developed bad blisters on his feet and had been persuaded to go ahead by car to Moulmein with some Japanese commanders, and from there to continue on to Bangkok. The railway carriages were dimly lit by a few low watt light bulbs that flickered unreliably. They were packed in so tightly that the girls were sitting in the aisles between seats. As always, for safety, they travelled by darkness. Valli sat with Sita and Muni, backpacks and guns between their feet. As Muni began to cough again, the lights went off and the train began to move, darkness blanketing the carriages. Sita stared through the open barred window, but nothing could be seen, the terrain outside was buried in the night, and at last she leaned back and fell asleep.

  She was woken suddenly as the train lurched to a stop, and found they had been travelling for only an hour. Prema made her way hurriedly through the carriage to open the door, climbing down to determine what was happening. Sita pressed her face to the bars of the window, and the cool dank odour of vegetation filled her nostrils.

  ‘The track has been bombed, we’ll have to walk, but it’s only a few miles to the next station. Get your things together,’ Prema said when she returned to the carriage.

  Eventually, by morning light they marched into the next station, a sizable place with a roofed platform that provided protection from sun and rain. The day was already upon them and the usual drone of enemy aircraft had begun, like predatory insects in the sky above. The station was occupied by a platoon of Japanese soldiers, who were leaving for Bangkok that night. The place appeared to be a depot, with a grid of lines fanning out beyond the platforms. Carriages and goods wagons were scattered haphazardly about over the rails, and a makeshift bamboo shelter had been erected at one end. Prema stood, hands on hips, surveying the strange arrangement.

  ‘They’ve disengaged carriages from their engines, and pushed them about at odd angles. From the air it will look like the trains have been bombed and the blast has scattered the wagons. See, that engine under the bamboo hideout. It’s a clever trick. They’ll bring the engine out tonight for us and the Japanese troops.’ She went off to speak to a Japanese officer about the onward arrangements to Bangkok.

  An elderly Indian stationmaster with cheeks of unshaven white stubble hurried up to advise the women on where best to camp in the station.

  ‘Beside tracks cool, and no Japanese here,’ he smiled, revealing nicotine-stained teeth, gesturing towards the soldiers camped in village shacks some distance beyond the station.

  Many of the girls took the old man’s advice, depositing their kitbags on the platform, settling down as comfortably as they could. Soon, a Japanese soldier appeared to check on them, walking the length of the platform, silently assessing the supine girls in unnecessary detail before returning to his squad. Bands of curious Burmese urchins from the nearby village also gathered to stare at the uniformed women. One small girl of five or six with filthy matted hair attached herself to Sita, Muni and Valli. Her bony shoulders protruded above a dirty green sarong tied under her armpits, and her cheeks were painted with pale yellow patches of cooling thanakha.

  ‘We are also starving; go away,’ Muni told her, beginning to cough again.

  Sita beckoned to the child and from the depths of her backpack produced a millet biscuit, part of the precious rations they carried, and broke off a piece for the child.

  A slight but welcome breeze moved between the platforms but, worried about Muni’s cough, Sita led her and Valli over the rails to one of the uncoupled carriages. The wooden seats inside made a comfortable bed, and they stretched out in relief. Others followed them and soon the carriage was full, rifles and kit bags stacked everywhere. Sita turned, to find the child in the green sarong had followed them and was fingering the barrel of her rifle.

  ‘No!’ she snatched up the weapon, laying it beneath the seat. The child backed away and wandered about, staring curiously at the women.

  At the back of the carriage Valli peeled a shrunken orange, and prepared to share it with those around her. Shivani, who had picked some branches of wild longan near the station, beckoned to the child and soon had her running up and down the carriage distributing the fruit to everyone. The child’s eyes glowed with excitement in her dirty face. They were all hungry and set about peeling the thin shells from the fruit, relishing the white fleshy globes within. The child had taken a particular liking to Sita, who fed her an extra longan. She opened her lips to take the fruit into her mouth, the moist warmth of her tongue curling about Sita’s fingers.

  Later, Prema brought them a few bananas the stationmaster had produced, and these, with the longans and millet biscuits were a good breakfast. The day wore on, and one by one they fell asleep, the hot sun spearing the metal carriage, the heat blanketing everything. The child curled up on the bench, her body pressed against Sita, but in the silent carriage the sound of Muni’s rasping cough was constant.

  Sita seemed to have hardly fallen asleep before she woke abruptly to see the girl running up and down the carriage, shouting incomprehensibly while pointing out of the window. Still struggling to surface from sleep, and sticky with sweat, Sita reached out, taking hold of the child as she ran past.

  ‘What is it?’ she demanded.

  The child continued her high-pitched yelling, pointing all the while at the windows. Sita peered out, but could see nothing untoward around the station. At last, pulling free of Sita’s grasp, the girl jumped down from the carriage and ran off across the tracks, still shouting.

  ‘Something is wrong.’ Valli got up and pushed her way between the seats to the door.

  ‘It’s probably nothing. Let her go,’ Sita advised, but Valli was already climbing out of the carriage.

  From the window, Sita watched Valli sprinting over the tracks after the child, soon catching up with her and pulling her to a halt. As Sita watched, a shot rang out, and then another, and Valli crumpled to the ground, the child falling with her. Sita started up from her seat, and reached for her rifle. More shots were heard, nearer now, and there was the ring of metal as bullets bounced off the carriage. Muni, who had slept through the earlier commotion, awoke and began coughing again. Everyone in the carriage was now crouched down, grasping their rifles. Sita pulled Muni to the floor with her.

  From where she knelt, Sita craned her neck to stare through the window at the unmoving forms of Valli and the child. A couple of men holding rifles could now be seen running into the woodland behind the station. Japanese soldiers quickly appeared and began firing into the screen of vegetation. Weapons at the ready, they checked the station for further snip
ers. On the tracks where they had fallen, Valli and the child did not move.

  At last it seemed safe to leave the carriage. Sita ran across the railway lines to where Valli lay, sprawled on her back, an arm flung out, eyes open, and staring up at the sky. Blood pooled about her in a dark stain, as if she lay upon her own shadow. Beside her the child began to whimper.

  ‘Valli,’ Sita dropped to her knees.

  ‘Guerrillas, Chin snipers,’ Prema said, crouching down beside Sita, feeling Valli’s neck for a pulse.

  ‘It is too late,’ she said quietly, withdrawing her hand and standing up.

  Sita stared at Valli in disbelief. Sweat still moistened her neck and cheeks from the exertion of running after the child. Between her lips the edge of her wide front teeth could be seen. Sita was sure Valli would suddenly stir, and struggle to her feet. The faint smell of the orange she had peeled earlier drifted from her fingers. The child now scrambled up, and her whimpering became a terrified howl as she stared at the lifeless Valli stretched out on the ground.

  Sita put an arm around the hysterical child, trying to draw her close, but the girl pulled away, screaming louder. At Prema’s order, Sita gripped the child firmly by the shoulders, holding her still while Prema examined her, and found her to be without a scratch. Then the girl twisted free of Sita and ran off towards the village. Within a moment the stationmaster hurried up, four Japanese soldiers behind him.

  He stared down at Valli’s body, annoyance at the inconvenience of her death clear in his face. The Japanese soldiers glowered in equal impatience, muttering amongst themselves.

  ‘Get all your kit off that carriage, and wait on the platform,’ Prema instructed, trying to distract the girls, who were now crowding in acute distress around Valli’s body.

  Reluctantly, they trailed off towards the carriage but Sita found it impossible to turn away, and remained with Muni, who knelt beside Valli, sobbing and coughing.

  What would they do with her body? How could they leave her in this place? Sita did not like to voice the thoughts that came to her now, and by her silence, she knew the same thoughts pressed upon Prema

  ‘Guerrillas come back soon,’ one of the soldiers said in broken English, staring down at the dead body.

  ‘Snipers from the village have been watching this station; the villagers secretly harbour them,’ the stationmaster commented, still gazing in frustration at Valli’s body.

  ‘Must bury quickly. Rain coming soon,’ the English speaking Japanese advised, squinting up at the sky and the threatening clouds.

  Muni gave another sob, and Sita placed a hand on her shoulder, as much to steady her own emotions as to calm Muni. Even Prema, now that a decision about Valli must be faced, was clearly troubled by the thought of leaving her in an unknown place.

  ‘We must take her with us. Can you find a cloth to carry her in? We will cremate her in Bangkok. We must cremate her,’ Prema told the stationmaster.

  ‘Cannot cremate. We cannot make sufficient fire. All the wood is wet and also, no one nowadays is having so much oil. Nowadays everyone is being buried.’ The stationmaster shook his head sorrowfully. As a Hindu himself, he understood the reluctance for burial, but continued to explain the problems.

  ‘Sister, this is war. We cannot know if the next train to Bangkok may also be bombed and if it is, you must again walk a long distance. Then what will you do, how will you transport a body? You must bury her here, now.’

  Above them the brooding sky was darkening with the coming rain and approaching dusk. A distant crack of thunder sounded, and then a scream was heard. They saw the girls who had returned to the carriage for their kit running back towards them again.

  ‘Shivani is also gone.’ The words floated to them across the track.

  In the carriage Shivani sat upright on her seat, head against the window frame, eyes closed as if asleep. On the bench beside her lay a remaining branch of longan, a few globes of fruit clinging to it still. Sita remembered the second burst of gunfire, and the metallic ring of bullets bouncing off the carriage.

  Blood trickled from Shivani’s temple, and ran in a thin line down her cheek and over her jaw, to be absorbed by the collar of her uniform. Even as they had sat around her, death had come and no one had noticed. They stood silently, muffling sobs of disbelief. Although they were trained for battle, nothing had readied them for death.

  The stationmaster and soldiers climbed into the carriage, their voices filling the wagon. One of the Japanese lifted Shivani off the seat, throwing her lightly over his shoulder as if she were without weight. He climbed down from the carriage and Sita followed, keeping as close to the man as she could. One of Shivani’s arms swung free of her body, and her head bobbed about against the man’s back.

  Already, on the orders of the Japanese soldiers, men from the village were digging a grave behind the platform. The stationmaster supervised the work, anxious that at such close proximity to his station, the job should be properly done.

  ‘Both must go into one grave. No time for digging two graves before nightfall. More rain coming soon and then everything turning again to mud. If you are not digging deep enough, animals get to the bodies or the bodies are rising up to the surface in the soft mud. I have seen all this before.’ He stared down at Valli and Shivani, who were both now laid out on the ground beside the half-dug grave.

  The gravediggers had brought two old sarongs with them from the village to use as shrouds, and twine to secure the cloth about the bodies.

  ‘You must hurry. They are making ready your train. Soon you must leave.’ The stationmaster pointed to the camouflaged bamboo tunnel.

  A large engine was already being pulled slowly out of the makeshift hideout by a crowd of village men, and pushed towards several carriages that were waiting to be coupled to it.

  Together Prema and Sita lifted Valli, who seemed heavier in death than in life, onto a worn and faded purple sarong patterned with a scattering of yellow flowers. They could neither wash her clean nor take the bloodied clothes off her, but must roll her up in the hasty manner Sita had rolled up the sleeping mats each morning in the room off Norris Road. Beside them Vasanthi and Ambika were folding a green checked sarong about Shivani. Her face was calm, her long flat eyelids peacefully closed.

  ‘Wrap it tightly, and take off their boots’ Prema instructed, finding it difficult to wrap the shroud neatly around the heavy shoes.

  Sita bent to untie the laces, pulling off Valli’s boots. Her small foot lay in Sita’s hand, the flesh still warm and soft, broad toenails in need of trimming. Sita remembered the ache Valli had endured with her flat feet. Inside her boot lay the moulded leather support the Bras Basah camp doctor had made for her, stained dark now with Valli’s sweat. Even as she placed the boots side by side, the stationmaster was bending to snatch them up, tying the laces together to carry them over his arm.

  ‘These things they will like in the village,’ he remarked. He would sell them for a good price, Sita thought, although as far as she could see, the villagers all went barefoot.

  Prema took the end of the purple sarong, and lowered it over Valli’s face, securing the shroud with twine. The villagers had finished digging the grave and now leaned on their spades, looking at the women with interest.

  ‘Wait,’ Sita cried out.

  The thought of Valli and Shivani being lowered into the wet earth and a weight of sodden mud shovelled upon them was more than she could bear. Reaching for her backpack, she pulled out the miniature of the devi she always carried. If she shut her eyes the devi was immediately before her, at a thought she could summon up her radiant face and the tiger with its burning eyes; Valli and Shivani had need of her now. Lifting the shroud, she pushed the picture into Valli’s folded hands.

  A distance away Muni sat sick and exhausted, leaning against a tree, and glancing at her flushed and pinched face, Sita was filled with fear for her. Dusk was already upon them, and the men were impatient. Two of them stood down in the grave while the other
two lowered the bodies into the narrow trench, stacking one girl upon the other. Sita looked down into the pit with growing horror. The thin shrouds were no protection against the water that already seeped into the grave, but there was nothing she could do. The men clambered out and began impatiently shovelling damp earth back into the grave, packing it heavily down upon the corpses, anxious to be done with the task before night fell. All the while, the heavy clunk of metal could be heard from the station as the train was prepared for its journey, and the carriages were coupled together. At last, the gravediggers finished their job and quickly levelled off the earth, stamping it flat beneath their feet, before walking back to the village, shovels over their shoulders.

  Around Sita the women moved forward to stand about the newly dug grave. It was difficult to know what to do.

  ‘Kadam kadam badhaye ja! Khushi ke geet gaye ja.’

  Sita began to sing their favourite marching song. As the words left her mouth, she heard again the sound of Valli’s deep voice rising above the rhythmic tread of their boots. The others joined in and continued the verse. Muni also began to sing.

  ‘It’s a long long way to Tipperary…’ She broke off coughing, and nobody took up the refrain or had the heart to continue.

  ‘Jai Hind! Jai Hind!’

  One by one, watched by the stationmaster, they gave a last salute at the grave, then turned to board the waiting train. Sita climbed into the carriage and sat silently with Muni on a hard wooden seat, her mind full of the image of the shrouded bodies, trapped for eternity in their waterlogged grave. She should have been more forceful, should have taken Valli’s arm and dissuaded her from running after the child. If she had acted, Valli might still be alive.

  The journey did not go smoothly. As they neared Bangkok they found the railway track bombed once again and were forced to march down the line to the next station. Muni was running a high fever, and they carried her in a hammock-like stretcher made from a sarong they begged from a village they passed through. By the time they eventually reached Bangkok they had been journeying for over a week.