‘And, I suppose,’ said Mr Watkins, ‘in order to make the story a little more interesting you might add that Mao Tse Tung referred him to Stalin.’
‘And Stalin liquidated the Tibetan!’ added Popatlal J. Shah.
‘And the American press played it up as a big purge,’ I added.
His Highness laughed like a child at the story. Then he turned and said:
‘I have a feeling that the huge crowd in our villages will one day march on my palace and seize power! And yet I can do nothing about it, because the Sardar won’t understand that to destroy my dynasty would make Communism inevitable!’
‘There is such a thing as democratic rule,’ said Popatlal. ‘And the Sardar feels that those institutions must be created here which—’
‘I am not sure that democracy is suitable for this country,’ put in Mr Watkins.
‘Is that an American democrat talking?’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ he said, on the defensive. ‘The East has changed my mind about the parliamentary system.’
‘I would concede to no one my belief in the ultimate value of the democratic system,’ Mr Bell added with some emphasis.
‘Mr Watkins, you can’t object to a dictatorship of the Left if you think that democracy is unpractical!’ I said.
‘I would rather have a dictatorship of the Right!’ Mr Lane answered before Watkins could speak.
‘Then why did you fight Hitler?’ I asked.
‘I think we were fooled into doing so by Roosevelt!’ he answered.
‘Certainly,’ I said, ‘Hitler has left a rich heritage of potential Fascism everywhere.’
‘Would you rather have Communism?’ Mr Watkins asked me.
I kept quiet.
‘Silence means consent,’ said Mr Lane.
‘Doctor Shankar is rather a Red,’ said His Highness, half apologetically.
‘Anyhow, I feel,’ said Mr Watkins, ‘that this border kingdom ought to be prepared to meet all eventualities.’
I felt that His Highness must actually have given him to understand that he might let the Americans build some air bases here in lieu of support in his fight for independence, as against Sardar Vallabhbhai’s demand for accession.
But, from the tightening of their faces, Mr Watkins’s statement came as a thunderbolt to Srijut Popatlal J. Shah. I think he realized that all the preparations for the hunt and this house party had a significance beyond the mere pleasure principle which had seemed even to his deft ICS diplomat’s mind the main reason for the shikar.
‘Let us have a drink,’ said His Highness, unable to bear it all any more.
I felt he had been very tactless in having this talk in the open, and I was sure that sinister developments would follow from his laxity in this matter.
All the guests had come down to the ample veranda of the hunting lodge by the time we had terminated our discussion on politics. And they all seemed rested after the siesta they had enjoyed; the ladies looked fresh in their new change of clothes, and every trace of the day’s heat and emotional and political tension seemed to have evaporated. Bhagirath had arranged the drinks on the table and was busy mixing cocktails for the ladies, while the other bearers poured out whiskies-and-sodas for the gentlemen.
Kurt Landauer wound up the gramophone he had brought with him and led off safely by asking Mrs Bell to dance with him. Mr and Mrs Lane followed suit. And Mr Watkins asked Gangi, who was dressed in the most lovely sequins of a white silk sari, looking like the essence of purity itself in spite of her adventure with Kurt in the afternoon. His Highness was already flushed with drink. Srijut Popatlal J. Shah contemplated him disdainfully from the corners of his eyes as he sat talking furtively to Mr Bool Chand. Munshi Mithan Lal superintended the arrangements for drinks and provisions because Chottu Ram had collapsed from eating too many eggs in the lunch competition. Captain Partap Singh was manoeuvring to get more and more tumblerfuls of neat whisky into himself as the bearer went round. And I hugged my glass, while I listened to the staccato sentences in which His Highness jerkily delivered himself even as he sipped or swallowed his drink.
‘She is completely oblivious of me,’ he said. ‘As if I don’t exist.’
She was dancing badly and she seemed to be shrinking and afraid. Mr Watkins did not seem to be able to help her. Luckily, the record finished and he was able to negotiate her gracefully to her chair.
Kurt put on the reverse side of the record and quickly came towards Gangi with almost outstretched arms. She got up, looking the while in the direction of Victor with surreptitious glances.
A dark flush suddenly covered Victor’s face; his brows knitted and his eyes spat fire.
‘The bitch!’ he exclaimed under his breath. But as his eyes lowered, he seemed ashamed of himself, ashamed of his anger against her.
‘Why don’t you ask her to dance the next dance with you?’ I said.
‘I can’t bear it,’ he said, and writhed, breathing heavily the while, almost panting. ‘And I don’t know what Popatlal is up to. I am beginning to suspect Bool Chand.’
‘I think you shouldn’t have talked to the Americans in the presence of the Diwan,’ I said.
‘All right, all right, damn you, always preaching!’ he said gruffly, and moved away from me, making straight for Mrs Lane, who was sitting down for a breather. And, without so much as a ‘by your leave’, he lifted her and took the floor.
I could see Mr Lane’s face change immediately, an almost perceptible revulsion going across it in a spasm of red blood that suffused it.
Strange and amorphous were my feelings at the way Victor had insulted me, crushed his own pride in his crude approach to Mrs Lane, and aroused the white man’s prejudice. And a little way away from where Victor was dancing, with elegant steps only slightly affected by his inebriation, was Ganga Dasi close in Kurt’s arms, her feet pattering awkwardly, as her lover moved like a French apache with her in a small space, but her face transformed by a flush which mirrored a curious exaltation in her, a kind of revival of the old familiar exaltation when a new man tickled her vanity and made her believe that she was being loved perfectly, sublimely.
The cumulative effect of the whole noisy evening, with the opposing wills, was to produce in me a repeated sense of the doom that was imminent in it all: the cruel, ugly inevitability of the disruption that was in store for us, the main actors in this drama, both individually and collectively. For impinging on my consciousness was the pressure of the people of Sham Pur, who, though absent from this scene, were yet perhaps the most powerful actors in the drama, the invisible mass lying in wait to ambush the intriguing, agonized, decadent prince and his courtiers, and ready to wipe out the whole putrescent order with a ruthless determination to clean up the Augean stables of the feudalist oligarchy.
The gramophone record came to an end and the pairs broke off and reverted to their places in that vague lull which is so tense with conflicting desires.
Mr Lane was apparently cross with Mrs Lane, and she sat shrinking from him as though through the fear that he might rebuke her.
Victor saw Gangi’s face glistening and knew it was not for him, his mouth tight shut in order to control the storm of dissatisfaction that raged in him. It was almost as though he was grinding his heart in a desperate hatred for her.
Just at that moment came the shikari, Buta, running up the garden and shouting:
‘Maharaj, the panther has come and killed the goat. I think he is waiting in a bush near the machan and will return to his kill.’
‘Off we go!’ said Kurt, stopping the gramophone. ‘We will get him this time.’
‘Come,’ said Victor. ‘Let us go together in case he smells the young blood of Mr Landauer and gobbles him up after he has finished with the goat.’
Everyone noticed that there was a strain of rancour in Victor’s voice. And yet there came the faintest blur of ecstasy on his face, the feeling of release from the tension about Gangi. For now Kurt would be occupied by the sport and perhaps he
r fantasy would evaporate in his absence at the machan.
Gangi sat motionless, in the gloom of her passion and fear, absorbed in herself.
‘The ladies had better stay here,’ said Victor.
There was a silent consent to this proposal.
‘I won’t go either, darling,’ said Mr Lane to his wife.
Apparently, Homer was full of a nameless dread of his own weakness in the face not of the panther, but of the tigress, his wife, who he felt was drifting away from him towards the Maharaja. And he knew that by being with her he could arrest the cravings in her, the reaching out of her dark, unsatisfied physical urges towards Victor. He exuded a chilly antagonism towards her, as though he was incensed at her, and yet he looked towards her from the corners of his eyes, waiting to appeal to her to pity him for his physical deformity and his weakness.
‘Come on, Doctor Shankar,’ shouted Victor. ‘We might need medical attention in case one of the sahibs faints on seeing the panther!’ The reference to Kurt was obvious in the maliciously humorous tone of his voice.
I followed the hunters towards the machan.
We waited nearly till nightfall for the panther to appear. But the beast was not on his best behaviour and did not oblige. So Captain Partap Singh had to be sent down to ask the beaters to do something to expedite the panther’s return to the scene of his kill; and Munshi Mithan Lal was ordered to go and get some refreshments for the famished guests.
Soon the tomtom of drums began to be heard and the rattle, which peasants use to scare away the birds, punctuated the darkness of the jungle, and we were all bathed in the sweat of expectancy, panic and hope. The five of us, Victor, Kurt, Mr Watkins, Mr Bell and myself, each had a gun poised ready to shoot. And, as we had been sitting in one position for at least three to four hours at a stretch, we felt cramped and ill at ease, waiting, watching, with dilated eyes and breath held back, till the blood seemed to mount to our heads and make us half-mad automatons, idiots, with nothing in us except our instinct to kill.
The jungle before us loomed like an inscrutable god from whose jaws seemed to issue the sound of the drumbeats, from where the panther would emerge at any moment.
I could not bear the oppressive weight of the atmosphere and asked His Highness in a whisper:
‘Is there any certainty that the panther will emerge with the drumbeats? Won’t it be frightened off?’
‘It may roam around for miles before it comes back to its kill or it may emerge immediately if it is hungry,’ Victor said.
‘But won’t the drums make it suspicious of the danger that lurks for it?’
‘What danger,’ said Victor mockingly. ‘You have probably never hit a rabbit in your life!’
I was relieved at his good humour and answered:
‘No, but I have dissected not only rabbits but human beings.’
‘And there is Mr Landauer,’ continued Victor banteringly. ‘Look at the number of cartridges he has dumped next to him, though I doubt if he will get even one shot before Mr Watkins fells the panther.’ He was obviously flattering the first secretary at the expense of Kurt.
‘Oh, Highness!’ exclaimed Mr Watkins. ‘I don’t know much about this kind of hunt. It will be your shot that will get it, I am sure.’
I wanted to say that it was most likely that it would fall to a shot of Buta’s, but desisted from deflating the pride of the exalted by so cruelly realistic a comment.
And thus we sat longing for the panther to come and be slain by us heroes, the great unerring shots.
‘Night after night I have sat up waiting for a tiger or panther to come,’ Victor lied to impress the Americans.
‘The machan is swarming with mosquitoes now,’ said Mr Bell after his prolonged, patient and melancholy silence. ‘I am off.’ And he slipped away on tiptoe.
After Mr Bell was out of hearing, Victor began to fill the blankness of time with tentative probings about the American intentions to help him in his struggle to retain his independence.
‘Mr Watkins,’ he said, ‘the English always knew the value of this state as a hunter’s paradise. They also knew that it is a good buffer state. Mr Bell and his like are suffering from sour-grapes, now that they have had to go. But as the Americans alone are concerned to stop the Red menace from the north, we could discuss some arrangement. . . .’
‘If you look at the history of the last two thousand years,’ I put in hyperbolically, ‘the Russians have never attacked India. It was the Huns, the Mongols, the Turks, the Tartars, the Portuguese, the Dutch, the French or the British, but never the Russians. Are we sure that we need to protect ourselves against them?’
‘You may be a good doctor,’ said Mr Watkins impatiently, ‘but you are a very bad politician.’
‘Some kind of collaboration between my American friends and myself is necessary,’ said His Highness, ignoring Mr Watkins’s and my comments. ‘I am glad you came to Sham Pur, because you will understand the situation in my state. I hear that some millions of rupees are going to be spent on constructing air fields in India under the guidance of experts from your country. Before you go away I would like to show you one or two sites in Sham Pur which may be suitable.’
‘We want the good will of all sections in this country,’ said Mr Watkins evasively. ‘We are not interested in anything but to help the war-shattered and backward countries of the world to get on their feet.’
I was itching to stop this fairy tale with a cynical gibe about China, Turkey, Greece, Germany, Korea and Japan, but was restrained from so doing for fear Victor would blame me for the breakdown of his negotiations with the Americans if, as was certain, nothing was done by them to help him keep the independence of Sham Pur.
‘I say, I think we had better give up this long wait,’ said Kurt. ‘We will come back later.’
‘That’s an idea,’ said Mr Watkins.
Just as they were going to get up, however, Captain Partap Singh returned and said that the panther had been heard to move from its hideout and was probably advancing towards its prey. He said Buta was almost sure it would come and would we become alert, ready to shoot.
So the Americans settled down. But the whole thing happened before they had ever got into the position to shoot. For, from the uncanny silence, broken only by the whine of the beetles, there was a faint rustle in the bushes beyond the pole to which the goat had been tied. And there the panther was stealthily digging its claws into the flesh of the goat.
‘Shoot!’ the Maharaja whispered.
But before either Victor, or Watkins, or Kurt, or I, had taken aim and pressed a trigger, a shot rang through, apparently from Buta’s gun.
‘Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!’ Victor shouted, as he wanted the Americans to do the killing.
Mr Watkins and Mr Landauer opened up, but both were wide of the mark.
The panther had received Buta’s bullet in its head and was reeling as it groaned.
Victor fired and sent a shot into its belly. And he shouted excitedly again:
‘Shoot, Mr Watkins, shoot!’
Mr Watkins took aim and sent a bullet into the panther’s body.
Mr Landauer missed again.
I too was wide of the mark as I pressed my trigger.
There was an awful suspense as the panther remained on its feet.
Another shot rang through from Buta’s gun.
And with this, the panther collapsed in its death agony, half its body lying athwart its own prey.
At dawn the next day we were awakened from our sleep by Captain Partap Singh, who said that Buta had come to inform us that the mother of the panther, killed last night, had come and sat mourning for its son, and would we come and bag it.
Victor felt that Mr Watkins must be given a chance of doing a kill on his own, as there was no doubt left last night that the young panther had fallen to a bullet of Buta, rather than to a shot of Watkins or Landauer. So the Americans were roused.
They were very eager and turned out in their striped pyjamas and
dressing-gowns.
Buta, who was waiting downstairs, saw the gaiety of our guests’ attire and told us that though we were all unerring shots, to be sure, we had better take the precaution of not mounting the glorious heights of the machan, but take the more hazardous course of stealing up to the prey through the bush. And he led the way.
Our eyes were dilated wide in search of the beast as we followed Buta up a track on the hillside. We were nearly on tiptoe, and felt guilty every time a twig snapped under our feet or the bushes rustled. I think we were all rather afraid of the danger of this adventure, because the mother panther might make a frontal assault and, without the protection of the height on top of the machan, we would not stand an earthly chance of survival.
At last we got to a position behind some thick scrub, where Buta asked us to wait and look.
Our eyes strained to pierce the undergrowth before us, but we could not see the mother panther mourning over its son.
Buta then discovered an aperture in the foliage through which it was possible to see the beast.
Our faces paled visibly and I, for one, found my legs shaking involuntarily.
‘Now then, take aim, Sahibs, and shoot,’ said Buta.
Both Mr Watkins and Mr Landauer adjusted their guns and fired.
They missed their mark.
‘Rape-mothers! Brothers-in-law!’ cursed Buta, indignant and bad-tempered but fortunately speaking in the hillman’s speech, which the sahibs did not understand. ‘It is moving. . . .’
And, forthwith, even without taking aim, he took a blind shot at it.
The mother panther gave a heart-rending yell and rolled over and fell without a struggle. Apparently, it had decided that life was not worth living after the death of its son.
‘It is not yet finished,’ said Victor. ‘And it may attack us. So please have a pot-shot at it!’
Mr Watkins found his target this time, though Mr Landauer seemed to be a purblind hunter, and failed to hit the panther.
‘If he is the same in everything else,’ said Victor to me in Hindustani, ‘all enthusiasm and no go, then I have not much to fear from him.’
Classic Mulk Raj Anand Page 71