The Splendor of Silence

by Indu Sundaresan

  “My mother…,” Mila began and then grew quiet. What could she say about a mother she barely remembered? Pallavi knew more about Lakshmi than she did; Mila had been five years old when Lakshmi died. This much at least was true about her, though. Her mother had been traditional and conservative, and had she been alive, a vast number of Mila’s activities would have been confined. Papa might still have had his say in her education, but her mother would have influenced him in some way or the other. Mila’s memories of her mother were hazy now; she could remember the scent of sandalwood on her soft skin, the white of her teeth offset by a mouth stained red with paan, an arrangement of jasmine flowers threaded into a garland, bowing down the weight of her slender, fair neck. But when Mila had been sick with a fever, it was Pallavi she recalled as sleeping by her side, and it was Pallavi’s hand that had wakened her in the night, brushing softly against her brow as she checked periodically to see if the fever had risen. It was Pallavi who was here now, scolding her with a mother’s insistence, but without a mother’s authority.

  Mila began to yield and then hardened her resolve again. If she had lingered to ask herself why, and if she had been truthful about it, she would have told herself that it was because she wanted to spend some more time with Sam Hawthorne before Jai returned from Meerut. Now, all she felt was a stubbornness, an assertion of her pride and her right.

  “My mother did not speak English, Pallavi,” she said. “She was a different woman, and I am different now. Why is that so difficult for you to understand?”

  Pallavi shook her head. “We are never as different as we would like to be. The changes are little, subtle, but in the end it is all the same. I will say this once more,” she said, rising to leave, “you must ask your papa for his permission, talk with him, and tell him what I have said.” And so saying, she left the room.

  In her bedchamber, Mila put down the brush and plaited her hair. When the length had grown beyond her shoulder, she brought the plait forward and continued until the end. Then, without donning her nighttime sari, Mila climbed into the bed and reached over to switch off the lamp on the bedside table. She thought she saw a piece of paper on the mosaic floor, scrunched under the edge of the door, near the hinge, but that impression was fleeting before the room plummeted into darkness.

  It was not until the next morning as she rushed out of her room to the waiting jeeps that she saw the paper again. Mila picked it up and slid it into the pocket of her pants, and did not open it until they were well on their way. Raman had already left that morning, two hours before them, on his way to the village of Nodi for the day and the night. He said that he would return on the morning of the thirtieth of May. There was no mention of their trip to Chetak’s tomb; her heart filled with guilt, Mila realized that Raman had not read the note she had slipped under his door.

  In a strange series of coincidences, Raman too had missed Mila’s letter, but Sayyid had seen it as he went back into the room to bring out his master’s bags, and he had tucked it into his turban for Raman to read later that night.

  The desert had a music of its own; all sounds did not expire into its vastness. But to listen properly, one had to tarry in an absolute and complete silence, in a void where there were no human voices, no ants clicking and chewing, no flies buzzing, where even the wind was holding its breath. All had to be still as death.

  It was in one such instance, for a whole three minutes, that Sam found himself later that morning. They had driven out of Rudrakot in two jeeps on a slim, macadamized road that even that early, 6 A.M., had begun to throb and waver with a black heat. The road left Rudrakot and vanished into the horizon, heading away from Chetak’s tomb, which Sam could just discern on his left. At some point, he assumed, it would lead to the tomb or they would have to cut through the scrub and dirt of the Sukh to get to it. And so it had been. After heading south for two hours, the road had curved and swiveled east again, and now as they neared, the tomb began to grow in size and in Sam’s imagination. Each time he thought that they had come to the tomb, the heat haze shuddered and reformed itself and pushed the tomb farther away. At times, the tomb would be a blurred edifice of red sandstone, at times as clear as though he were viewing it through a magnifying glass and it was but a palm length away.

  Then, incongruously, they had come upon a stand of trees, a jungle, Mila had called it, a sumptuous patch of green. Trees grew here thickly, elbow to elbow, their undersides dense with a murkiness that did not allow even a tiny slice of the sun. A tower rose majestically in the center of this forest. It was a square building of red sandstone blocks, and the mortar that held the blocks together was seamless. It was capped by merlons much like the ones Sam had seen on Jai’s fort in Rudrakot. As they approached this forest, Sam thought that he was dreaming, for all the way here all he had seen were the rusts and umbers of the desert stretching endlessly around him, and they were but half a mile from the jungle before the light shifted and revealed the tower and the trees.

  They sat down for a break in the shade at the very edge of the forest. Looking inward, Sam saw that it was almost impossible to penetrate the undergrowth of tall grass, and the only way to the tower was by a path carved out of the foliage. A servant unpacked a tray and four glasses, filled the glasses with sugared nimbupani, limeade, spiced the drink with black salt and mint leaves, and offered it to them.

  When that first coolness from the nimbupani and the shade of the trees had come to bless them and loosen his tongue, Sam asked, “Is this a mirage of some kind? There’s a forest here, in the middle of the Sukh desert?” Just beyond where they sat, the desert stood vigilant guard—the trees ended, and the desert began in dust, dirt, and hard-packed ground where it was difficult to imagine that anything could ever grow.

  “This is Jai’s hunting forest,” Mila said. Her voice was low and strained, more so since she had opened and read a note that she had taken from her pocket. Her thin hands, with just that one little silver pearl ring, rested on her lap. Today, Mila was dressed much as she had been when Sam had first seen her, in pants, a brown snakeskin belt, a white shirt open at her neck, and tiny diamond earrings in the lobes of her ears. The pants were tight, fitted around her little waist and curved over her hips and thighs. She had pockets sewn down the length of her legs and a row of dull brass buttons climbing up the cuffs. The shirt was loose and woven from very thin cotton, so translucent that Sam could see the muted colors of her skin underneath. It was a simple outfit, even with its Russian hussar undertones, but it took Sam’s breath away. He wanted to touch the place where her hips arced out, place his hands on the edge of her waist…he looked away, fraught with yearning. The palms of his hands tingled as though he still held her hand in his.

  “Behind you,” Mila continued, “is a magnificent stock of partridges, deer, nilgai, which is a kind of blue bull, and lions.”

  “You are joking.” Sam turned hurriedly to look into the forest and was met with only a cool and thick dimness, and silence.

  “They are well fed, Captain Hawthorne. The keepers make sure they are not too hungry.”

  Something Mila had said stuck in Sam’s mind. “There are no lions in this part of India,” he said. “There haven’t been lions here for a few centuries at least.”

  Mila raised an eyebrow. “Who told you that?”

  “It’s an accepted notion.”

  “The villagers have seen plenty of lions in this jungle; Jai has killed a few, he has the skins hanging in his palace.”

  Sam shook his head. “But that can’t be. Lions do not exist here; perhaps the villagers have confused the lions with tigers?”

  Mila laughed. “And Jai did also? He shot an animal thinking it to be another animal? He’s not an idiot, Captain Hawthorne. I have seen one myself, only glimpsed his back and tail, but there was no mistaking the plume of golden mane around his head. Your authorities are wrong; before they make such statements, perhaps they should travel and live in India and see this for themselves.”

  It was
incredible, Sam thought, could an entire slew of scholars on this subject be wrong? He leaned back against the trunk of the tree behind him, drew out his tin of cigarettes, and lit one. The smoke traveled out of the shade to linger in the still, hot air and the heat bent in waves in the horizon. In the distance, Sam saw the lion Mila claimed roamed this jungle behind him, in a majestic slouch under the shade of a spiky ber tree. He swiped at the smoke hanging in front of him, and when it cleared, saw the figure of the lion dissolve into the background. Sam flicked ash from his cigarette and closed his eyes.

  The air was invigorating and newborn around them. They were all struck by the same lassitude, draining their nimbupanis, setting down their glasses, stilling their hands and legs. Even the servants, farther away from them in the shade of the trees, seemed to have fallen into indolence, and in this sudden quiet, Sam heard the desert’s music. It began as a low, keening wail, like a mourning dirge, and the sound then shifted and formed itself into a melody and came across the heated land, surrounding Sam, enveloping him, filling him with a happiness and peace he could not pause to even think about. He saw no one else there but Mila and himself, and though she sat at a little distance from him, he felt her lean into his chest, felt the sleekness of her waist when his hands went around it, inhaled the aroma of her skin. It was for a long time thus that he held Mila in his arms, with no fear of the future, no anticipation of troubles ahead. Somewhere, behind him, he heard a soft purring and a grunt, the sounds of contentment from a big cat. The lion, he thought, the lion that the naturalists around the world considered to have been extinct here for the last two hundred years. Mila’s voice finally brought him out of his dreaming and she spoke as though they had been in the middle of a conversation and the break had not happened.

  “Jai brings Colonel Pankhurst here on a shikar, a hunt, four times a year. Papa has been here, and so has Kiran, but Ashok,” she said, and turned with a smile to her brother, “is yet to hunt with Jai.”

  “Next year,” Ashok said, his eyes bright and feverish. “Jai has promised me that next year, just before the hot season, I can go on my first shikar with him. What do you think, Vimal?”

  Sam leaned out from next to Mila to look again at the young man seated next to Ashok. He remembered him, strangely enough, as the boy with the intense gaze whom they had passed on the way to the Victoria Club. Today, Vimal was dressed much as he had been yesterday, the same white kurta and the same loose pajamas. His curly hair was mussed and disorderly, but his skin shone like the inside of a delicate shell, smooth and iridescent, as though lit from within. A thick red thread encircled his leanly muscled wrist, and when Sam’s gaze fell upon it, Vimal said, in impeccable English, “From the Kali temple, Captain Hawthorne, I received it as a blessing from the Goddess over all of my future endeavors.” His voice slurred over Sam’s name, Haw-thorne. It was deliberately done, for Vimal Kumar knew something, and he wanted to let Sam know this.

  Mila tensed and scowled. She did not like Vimal, Sam thought. He did not like him very much either, but Ashok seemed to. When they had started out this morning, just before the break of dawn, Vimal had presented himself at the front door, crisp and clean in his clothes, his hair still damp from a bath. He seemed to have come by some prior arrangement with Ashok, for the comedy they had played out had fooled none of them. Mila had been taken aback by his presence, he had himself merely been curious, until Vimal had spoken to him on the way to the jeep. What he had said had astounded Sam.

  Pallavi had stood behind them, sniffling as Sam came downstairs. Was she crying, Sam had asked Mila, but Mila had not responded, her attention caught by Vimal.

  “Have you come to visit us, Vimal?” Ashok had cried, a little too joyfully, a little too theatrically.

  “If I may,” Vimal had said, shaking Ashok’s hand. “But…I see you are on your way somewhere.” He stepped back, spread out his arms in a gesture of ruefulness, and raised his voice so that it reached Sam and Mila, near the front door. “I would hate to intrude upon your entertainments. I know you cannot want me here.”

  “But no,” Ashok cried. “We are merely on our way to Chetak’s tomb. You must join us. Mustn’t he, Mila? We have plenty of place in the jeep, here,” he said, pointing to the backseat, “you can sit next to me. We are taking Captain Hawthorne there. Come, meet him, Vimal.”

  Sam watched Ashok orchestrate the whole invitation with ease, heaving aside Mila’s polite suggestions that perhaps Vimal did not have the time to spend the entire day with them, that perhaps he had other engagements. What could Vimal have to do, Ashok had demanded, and Vimal had gracefully shrugged to say that his time was theirs, with such friends as these, no demand on his time was too great. The place problem in the jeep Ashok had solved almost immediately, and the food would, of course, not present any difficulties at all—they always took more than they needed. And…at this Ashok smiled a little slyly; Papa would be glad to hear that they went in a larger party than originally planned.

  In the end, Mila had agreed, exhausted by Ashok’s enthusiasm. Sam had been bemused, wondering how Ashok had managed to send word about their picnic plans to Vimal that late at night.

  As they had waited for the bearers and servants to load and pack the jeep they were to travel by and the extra jeep that had been borrowed overnight from the Rudrakot Lancers regiment, Vimal had stopped by Sam and said casually, “It is indeed a great pleasure to meet you, Captain Ridley.” A flush, on cue, had darkened his face and neck and he had said, “You must excuse me, you are Captain Hawthorne, of course. Only…you have the look of someone I once knew.”

  April 1942, a Month Earlier

  Somewhere in Burma

  The rain dulls into a light misting around them; the drip-drip they hear is from its past thunder, as teak leaves slant downward, dropping beads of water toward the forest floor. The early afternoon light is wet with moisture, blurred as though seen through frosted glass panes. Where the tops of the trees break, Sam can see no sky, no blue, just the mutinous gray of clouds. Sam muddles through his tired brain in search of passages from the Burma booklet he had been assigned, but which he has long buried in the forest floor, for even the slim ten pages it contained, bound between thin leaves of cardboard, had become burdensome on his back. January to June are called the hot-dry season; it is April, the monsoons are already here to belie that phrase. They are officially in Burma’s hot-wet season. There is another season, with warm days, cooler nights, no rain—the simply lovely season. The trail winds to a hill, and they march up it in silence, their boots sinking into the mud.

  They crest the hill early in the afternoon and look down for a brief, surprised moment before flinging themselves down into the mud.

  “What is that?” Marianne asks.

  “A plantation owner’s bungalow,” Sam says in a whisper. “I’ll be damned if I knew it was here.”

  “Isn’t it on your map?”

  “It should be,” Sam says, “but I did not notice it.”

  “You missed an entire plantation on the map, Sam?” Ken lifts his head cautiously over the ridge of the hill. “Says something about your map-reading skills.”

  “I know.”

  They crouch behind a tree and peer out, hoping they are not visible from below. The rain has settled into a steady drizzle. At least it is a warm rain, Sam thinks, unlike Seattle rain. He waits for the next drop of water to fall on the sliver of skin on the top of his skull, where his hair parts. Inhaling deeply, his lungs draw in the damp air of the forest, the scent of days-old perspiration. The rain brings some relief from the heat of the relentless sun overhead; the forest provides cover too, but a dense, cloistered cover that gathers the heat and water within it and refuses to let go.

  The hillside is bare here, sparsely planted with teak, and there is little to give them cover. But they have to get nearer to be able to see anything. Sam’s binoculars was shattered when he stumbled in the mud two days ago, and he buried its remains in the ground. He keeps the pieces of glass
from the lens in the wrapping of a chocolate bar inside his haversack. Perhaps he might need the glass to create a fire if his matches run out.

  Below them is the plantation, or what is left of it anyway. A huge bungalow sprawls all over the ridge in sharp right angles. It seems as though room after room has been added on haphazardly over the years, creating courtyards and semienclosed gardens. How has he missed seeing this on the map? Sam wants desperately to reach into his pocket and pull out the map, if for no other reason than to satisfy his academic interest, but this is not the time.

  They wait. It is hushed here, quieter still near the bungalow, and the red tiles of its many roofs glisten in the rain. Parts of the bungalow are still smoking, there are gaps in the tiles where the roof has fallen in, and a deathly placidity lies over the whole.

  “Let’s go and explore,” says Ken, pleading in his voice. “I can’t stand being wet anymore. We can spend the night there.”

  He begins to move and Sam shoves him behind the tree again. “Wait. It’s too quiet—”

  “Because there’s no one there, Sam,” Marianne says. “I agree with Ken, let’s go in. The Japanese are done with the bungalow; they’ve moved on.”

  “And they won’t come back again?” Sam asks.

  “Why would they?”

  “For the same reason as us—shelter for the night.”