Red Earth and Pouring Rain

by Vikram Chandra

  ‘You might say then that I had the bare facts of it, as I soared over their terrified faces in their pigsty below I knew what I had to do to fly, that it was the uncovering that freed me from the stupidity of gravity, you may understand it as you will, but I knew that discovery liberates those who dare to attempt the quest, I had been doing it all along in surgical procedures and post-mortem assists but it took the shock to free the power, pure intellect does it for no reason other than to know. I was to go on a trip to Yorkshire the next day, and I went, and explored further on the downs, at night, amongst farms: I stalked by sheep-pens and pig-wallows, I waited, I waited, bulky figure coming in darkness, moving from side to side in the walk, I whistle down behind and swift and sure movement of the wrist and it is done, screechings and wailings as they turn to look at me, holding their bum, but I am away with a laugh debonair, you know, I chuckled and whispered to myself as I winged through the air, happy and sure.

  ‘So now you know, know it’s me and what I’m after, yes you do know, I’m not about to give it all to you, after all we feel a certain bond, you and I, and I know you must understand it, feel it as it were. It is lonely if nobody knows, you see, so I wrote those notes to amuse myself, it gives a hint you see, but it’s getting a bit light now, I must shove off. Look for me now. Look for me tomorrow, and tomorrow, and the day after, yes, you’ll figure out what I’m doing now, what I want. Isn’t it lovely to be young and alive? You’re still puzzling it out, I’ll give you a hint: logic is forever, it does not decay, it is universal, it is the same everywhere, it is infinite.’

  With a flap, Sarthey jumped and suddenly he wasn’t there, and to Sanjay it seemed as if the cloak had folded in over itself and vanished, collapsing itself into nothingness; he picked up the sword-stick, and he realized now that it had always been useless, but it was something, and he started back towards his hotel, going there because he had no other place to go. He was frightened because he had no idea what he was going to do next, how he was going to stop Sarthey, who was faster, and stronger and invulnerable; he knew also that he could not flee, that he had no choice but to stay and fight, he said it to himself aloud, the voice strange and foreign in the morning: all the world is one now, there is nowhere to run to.

  Sanjay’s body was tired, but he couldn’t sleep, and so he spent his time at the British Museum reading room, leafing page by page through each of Sarthey’s books; in the book of Indian travels, he read about: ‘Sanjay, a native I thought of some promise, chiefly in consequence of his smattering of education, which he had acquired willy-nilly; however I was to be predictably disappointed, since this man, in a characteristic turn of emotion, for no particular reason, conceived a hatred of me and attempted to steal my books and notes, in which project he was thwarted. He was apprehended by our native forces, but I thought better than to bring him before the courts, as he was so obviously unbalanced; once I had my all-important material back, I let him go.’ In the next sentence Sarthey turned back to a discussion of the Indian leopard, and so this was all the notice that Sanjay ever received from Sarthey in his writings, but yet, as he read it, in an immense room crossed by shafts of yellow light, Sanjay felt the unfamiliar shape of a smile form on his countenance, and he laughed quietly, raising the book in front of his face. The other books were more or less technical, on subjects as various as the treatment of prisoners in Her Majesty’s prisons, and rock formations in Wales; occasionally, there was an expression of pride, of belief in the future. Sarthey wrote of a bridge in New York City: ‘As I looked up at the exquisite geometry of the construction, the shape of it as beautiful as anything ever crafted by the sculptors of classical Greece, I was taken by a dream of a world rescued by the investigations of science, a world delivered from poverty, hunger, disease, war and superstition, by the rational decisions of a polity governed not by emotion, but by scientific principle; the task is before us, we must not quaver. It will be done. It is being done.’ Sanjay read till dusk, and then emerged into the streets, and walked into the darkness, craning his head backwards to search the roof-tops, the balconies, the dark sky beyond; Sanjay walked all night trying to think of what he was going to do when Sarthey appeared, because he had no faith anymore in bullets or blades, and he felt weak besides, but Sarthey did not come. Sanjay waited until he saw a vague pale greyness show at the tops of the walls, and then he went back to the library, where he carried on with his reading of Sarthey’s work; the later books were increasingly technical, and Sanjay grew lightheaded among abstractions that became ethereal even as they multiplied. That evening, as he walked towards the East End on a street called Bishops-gate, he saw the policeman Bolton; walking up behind him, Sanjay said, ‘Do you agree yet it’s Sarthey?’

  Bolton turned and peered at him. ‘What was that?’

  Sanjay repeated himself, wondering why Bolton was staring at him so, and then he realized that the last time he had spoken to Bolton he had been a foreigner without a voice, and now he was an Englishman with a clipped accent from between clenched teeth —the man had no idea who he was.

  ‘You’d better come with me,’ said Bolton. ‘You’re not the first one who has taken that name. I expect the inspector would want to hear your story.’

  The inspector was a burly man with huge mutton-chop whiskers and the dependable name of Abberline, and he seated Sanjay and launched unceremoniously into questioning: Who are you? How do you know this man Sarthey? What reasons have you for believing it is he? Sanjay told the truth about the details but lied easily about himself, pretending he was a writer, a man who had spent time in India, where he had come upon actual specimens of Sarthey’s writing, which he now recognized; he found that it was easy to invent an English name for himself (Jones) and an English life (service in the army, deceased parents), that all the novels and out-of-date newspapers he had read in a long-ago library now became a ready source for this necessary fiction. Finally, Abberline leaned back in his chair and said: ‘For our own reasons, we have visited the man’s house and seen him; he is old, but that is neither here nor there. We have observed his house, front and back, for several nights running, and nobody comes out, nobody goes in. Supposing he is the one, how do you suppose he does it?’

  Sanjay took a deep breath. ‘He flies.’

  Abberline and Bolton burst out laughing; the inspector sat forward, and his boots thumped on the floor. ‘He flies! Of course. Why didn’t we think of it?’

  Sanjay shrugged and rose to his feet, picked up the sword-stick. ‘You have no conception of what you are dealing with.’

  ‘No doubt, no doubt,’ said Abberline. ‘I don’t mind telling you that somebody else told us that not so long ago. A certain mystic, a medium I believe it is called, led us to his house, which he had seen in a trance. We saw Doctor Sarthey, the poor old fellow, he’s so feeble he can’t stand the light, and he lies in a dark room with the drapes pulled. When we left the house without making an arrest the mystic gentleman made the same observation. Are you also a vision-seer?’

  Sanjay was already on his way out, and through a window he saw the night sky black and without end, and without turning he said, ‘You will see. You’ll see one day.’ As he swung a door shut behind him, he heard Bolton’s voice trail off, I wonder why the good doctor attracts all the crazy ones, and then Sanjay was in the streets, hurrying, almost running towards the stinking lanes where Sarthey was to be found, and as he went he thought, silence is easier than speech, lies are more believable than the truth. He wandered back and forth through the streets, which he was starting to know, and he thought this again and again, it ran like a rhythm through him, now all that will remain is lies; he was thinking this when he felt a clamp over his left shoulder, and then the street receded below him, the rough texture of the stones shining in the light became a line far below, the lights shrank into points and became a pattern, and Sarthey spoke close to Sanjay’s head, whispering into his ear, ‘You’ll never catch me if you don’t think like me. What do I want?’ His breath was hea
vy and sweet, like incense, and Sanjay choked, and Sarthey laughed quietly as he struggled: ‘I’ve found that I can float up here for hours. If you achieve a kind of repose it is really quite beautiful, all that down there, from far away. But then coming down becomes harder and harder. The longer you stay up the harder it is to come down. Some nights I feel like an angel. The moonlight sings to me. I am transformed. Transmuted, really. Not that pathetic child who once was. Not like you. I wrote to Doctor Lusk, you know. One way or another I’ve told them all. I’ve even let them see. After one of the events I heard voices and I walked out into the street and there were two policemen, I stumbled artistically and one of them said, sir, are you all right? I said rather. He talked to me, it’s cold he said. And then I walked on. A minute later they found the work. But I was gone. A bit of a thrill it was but they’re so stupid, you lay it out for them but they can’t see it. I’ve told you most, because I feel you understand. Do you? Answer me. What do I want?’

  Sanjay gagged, and then vomited up some white liquid that fell soundlessly back to earth; Sarthey shook him violently, so that his limbs flew about like a puppet’s and his head snapped back and forth. ‘What do I want?’

  And Sanjay said in his beautiful and hollow British accent, ‘You want never to die.’

  Sarthey screamed, a wild bellow of satisfaction that rolled out over the city, ‘Life life life,’ and Sanjay felt the grip on his shoulder release and he was dropping, and Sarthey’s voice was in his head as the ground rotated underneath him: ‘I wish to report my conclusions: I noticed in myself an ability to fly, to cut myself away from the bonds of earth, but still, I grew old. I was free of gravity but not from the dreadful iniquity of entropy. Decay is not fair, it just ain’t. I wanted to be pure and incorruptible, the first thing, the cause itself, free like a blade of fire in the dark. I couldn’t reason it out, there was no answer. Every time I wielded my scalpel I grew stronger but I still aged slowly, wrinkled and dropped, stunk and pissed. The ageing was retarded, slowed, but it still happened. Damned unfair. But I applied myself, I gave it a try for the old school. Observe, observe. Think it through.’ Now the ground is rushing up and Sanjay watches buildings expand and lights are flashing up and he calls Sikander my brother and it is too late. ‘Apply logic. Go back to beginnings. Then I got the answer. Go back to the beginning, what everything starts with. That beginning is what I’ve been looking for. It’s filthy but it’s what I need. In the beginning is the heat. Tonight I’ll get what I want. Or tomorrow. But you can’t. You’re dead.’

  But Sanjay wasn’t dead, because he wasn’t yet ready to give up life, or life was not willing to give him up, he could no longer tell; he lay on a roof-top, not dead, but every time he tried to move he felt the broken bones all through his body grate against each other, and the sun moved in a grinding arc across the sky, and he saw his father and mother walking through a garden; a tiger painted by gold light on a green forest floor; a burning building and gears turning in circles; a cannon-ball bouncing in the air; a royal lady named Janvi throwing dice on a chaurasa board, laughing, and covering her mouth with her hand; an elephant dancing along a road lit by moonlight; a Calcutta road inhabited only by sweet-sellers and wine-merchants; a boat drifting down the Gomti and a voice singing, Jaane na jaane gul na jaane, baag to saara jaane hai; a regiment of cavalry speeding to a gallop and lance-points lowered; his uncle’s dragging walk and soft querulous body and his voice whispering, the world is endless and the road is long, sing, my friend, sing, everything that dies must be born. Sanjay was not dead but he knew he had broken, and the pain flew along his limbs, but he felt the fragments knitting together, the pieces pulling together, and though he wept from the ache and his hands twisted and grabbed at the brick underneath, he became alive and whole again; when he was able to push up to a sitting position it was night and he cursed at the fatigue in his bones, he felt old, shaky, and afraid.

  He came down to the street by dropping down the wall, skinning his palms as he clawed at the masonry; he had found the sword-stick on the roof, and now he used it as a walking-stick as he hurried towards the station. He knew now what Sarthey was looking for, and how he knew this he did not know, it had come to him when he lay on the roof, and once he knew, it was so obvious that it seemed like he had always known it, but he could do nothing without Bolton or Abberline. He knew what it was but they might know where to find it, and so he stumbled along, wondering whether it was too late, whether Sarthey had already completed his quest; at the station there was no sign of Bolton, and the sergeant on duty was openly suspicious of Sanjay’s attire, which by virtue of being covered with dust and ripped in several places was now far from gentlemanly. But when Sanjay asked after Abberline, insisting that he had the most urgent information to convey, the gravity of his tone was apparently persuasive, because he was ushered into Abberline’s office.

  ‘Jones, is it?’ said Abberline. ‘What the hell happened to you?’

  ‘Never mind,’ said Sanjay. ‘I know what he wants.’

  ‘Jones, if you don’t go home immediately I am going to arrest you on suspicion and I am going to sling you into the bloody gaol and I’m going to keep you there.’

  ‘I don’t care if you stand me against a wall and shoot me. But listen to me. Was there a murder last night? No? Then there will be one tonight. If you listen to me we can stop him.’ Abberline reached out towards the bell on his desk. ‘Did one of you constables not see a man a minute or two before a body was found? A youngish man, who looks to be about thirty? A very pale complexion? White tapering hands?’ Abberline paused with his hand on the bell. ‘His eyes. The most striking thing about him is his eyes. They glow in the dark, they are luminous and unnatural. They talked about the cold.’

  ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘I met the man and he told me.’ He motioned at himself, at his clothes. ‘He did this to me. You will not believe me, but will you believe me if you see it?’

  Abberline drew his hand back from the bell, and now there was a troubled look on his face. ‘See what?’

  Sanjay said: ‘Do you believe that I am speaking to you?’

  ‘Yes, of course you’re speaking to me.’

  ‘But look. I have no tongue.’ Sanjay opened his mouth wide and stepped up to Abberline, who laughed and then despite himself looked, and then threw himself back, knocking the chair over, and backed up to the wall. Sanjay edged closer to him, pointing at his mouth. ‘I have no tongue, and yet I speak. I tell you again, you have no idea what there is on your streets.’

  Abberline was silent for a long moment. ‘If what you say is true, why is he doing this?’

  ‘He is looking for something.’

  ‘What?’

  Sanjay leaned forward. ‘Is there a woman in these streets, of the streets, who is with child?’

  Abberline took Sanjay back on the streets, where they talked to patrolling policemen, to plain-clothes constables, and others, informers, whom the inspector knocked up out of their dark houses and to whom he posed the same question, but nobody had an answer; the night passed, and Sanjay felt fear, once he heard a quavering cry and he and the inspector started and bumped into each other, then stared trembling into the dark until Abberline said curtly, ‘Cat.’ Sanjay felt the weight of Abberline’s curiosity, he knew the other wanted to know about his connection to Sarthey, but this was no time for talk, and so they hurried from alley to alley, always with the same question, which the inspector hid among half a dozen others, have you seen anyone suspicious, have you heard any noises; Sanjay understood that the Englishman was doing this despite himself, that he could not believe and yet believed, and so he waited impatiently, shifting from one painful leg to another, until always the question: A woman with child?