Red Earth and Pouring Rain

by Vikram Chandra

  The sea at Bombay Harbour was choppy, and Sanjay came to the quay in a launch; it was raining, and whole sheets of water seemed to be falling from the sky to explode against the buildings. Sanjay made his way out of the dock-yard as quickly as possible, leaving his luggage behind, and after making his way through the pack of shivering tanga-wallahs at the gate, he walked down the flooded streets. The shops were shuttered, and there was no one on the roads, so that when Sanjay took off his coat and dropped it into the swiftly-flowing gutter there was nobody to notice, not even when he took off his shoes, his pants, and everything else; finally he walked naked through the city. He walked all night, and the next morning he was in the country-side; the rain had washed away the last vestiges of black from his hair, and when the few villagers out at their fields saw him they assumed he was a sadhu, who else would be walking naked in a monsoon storm. Sanjay walked on, and the rain continued unabated, and then he became aware that somebody was walking beside him; it was a farmer in a white turban, a thin man with wiry muscles drawn like cord, skin blackened by a lifetime in the sun, a face grown patient from a thousand seasons of planting and cropping.

  ‘You again,’ Sanjay said. ‘Yama, I despise you still.’

  ‘I am your friend.’

  ‘You are nobody’s friend.’

  ‘I am yours.’

  ‘I don’t need you.’

  ‘But we meet again and again.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sanjay said. ‘I know I will be reborn, that there is no escape from you. I know my life well and I know that I have not found liberation. I will have to come back to you. But remember, when I die, I do not give up to you, I renounce this world. This world in which nothing is clear, where there is horror at every turn, I am sick of it. I know I will be reborn into it. Since you say you are my friend, I will ask you a question. Does it get better?’

  ‘The world is the world. It is you that makes the horror.’

  ‘A fine way of saying that it gets worse. All right, I ask you another question. If I must be reborn, I prefer not to be aware, to be always divided against myself, to be a monster; I have no doubt cursed myself through my actions, but have I done enough so that I will be reborn as an animal?’

  ‘Why do you think life as an animal is a curse? It is rather a privilege.’

  Sanjay stopped short. ‘I am to be a human again?’

  Yama shrugged, and a gust of moisture splashed across Sanjay’s face.

  ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘You have called me a friend of your own will, from your own mouth. By your tongue you owe me a favour. I ask that I be reborn not as a human. I demand that I be an animal. God, for the first time I ask you for something, and you cannot refuse.’

  ‘I cannot,’ Yama said. ‘You shall be what you choose.’

  They walked on, and now they were among mountains, among steep black cliffs of rock, and there was a river ahead, a stream that was swelled by the rains into a roaring current.

  ‘I leave you now,’ Yama said. ‘We will meet again.’

  ‘I have no doubt of it,’ Sanjay said. When he looked back all he could see were thick banks of mist, and so he walked on alone; he followed the sound of the river until he found a flat rock poised above the gorge, and there was a tree that grew over the rock, its branches hanging in space. Sanjay sat there, cross-legged, and the rain fell on him and the water fell on him from the leaves above, and as he took breath in and out the sound of the water grew so loud in his ears that it receded into a kind of silence, and in this pool of silence he gazed until he saw his childhood, his friends, his parents, and then he saw his youth, how he knew passion, and he saw all this and then he gave it, he let it go, and he felt it leave like a spark from the top of his head; and then he thought about his enemies, the ones he hated, and how he despised them, and he gave that too and it flew away from him; he remembered his crimes, the people he had murdered, and his offences clung to him but finally with a sigh he let it all go; and one by one all the things that tied him to life dissolved and vanished and he felt his soul floating unfettered and close to the white frontier of death but still there was something, it held him back like a thin chain; and suddenly he remembered the student’s face from London, the thin boy whose name he had asked, and he cried into the water, you children of the future, you young men and women who will set us free, may you be happy, may you be faultless, may you be as soft as a rose petal, and as hard as thunder, may you be fearless, may you be forgiving, may you be clever and may you have unmoved faith, may you be Hindustani and Indian and English and everything else at the same time, may you be neither this nor that, may you be better than us, I bless you, may you be happy; and then he felt the last cord break, the last spark of desire leaving him, it was the hardest but the bond of pride then vanished and he was free.

  The pale body under the tree leaned forward, and then it slipped to the side and toppled down the slope into the spray of the river, and the water took it speedily down the curving course, and it turned over once and then it was gone.

  Sandeep paused and looked around at the monks, at Shanker who sat listening with his chin on a knee. Then he continued:

  ‘In the forest my teacher told me this story. She looked into her cupped hands and told me this tale. When she finished she looked up at me, laughed, and threw the water over her face and shoulders.

  ‘“It is time to go,” she said.

  ‘“Where?”

  ‘“Home.”

  ‘“Into the world?”

  ‘“Yes,” she said. “Where there are more stories. Farewell. And thank you.”

  ‘“Thank you,” I called to her, but she had picked up her deer-skin and was gone, and I waited in the forest for a while but I never saw her again. I believe she went home. So I have come from the forest, and I have told you this story.’

  Shanker rose to his feet, and all the sadhus followed him, and they all bowed to Sandeep. He pressed his hands together in humility, and he said, ‘Thank you for listening to me. This was the story of Sikander and Sanjay, and those who listen to it attentively and with faith will be delivered from doubt, and after they have heard it they will be changed forever, they will be something else.’ He shook hands with Shanker. ‘I will go now.’

  ‘Where will you go?’ Shanker said.

  ‘I will go into the mountains,’ he said. ‘And I will meditate, and I will listen. This was after all only part of the story. Perhaps the rest will come to me.’

  So Sandeep walked away from Shanker’s ashram, into the green terai, and the sadhus watched until he was only a little dot of white against the mountain, and then evening came, and the fires were lit.

  HERE ENDS

  THE BOOK OF THE RETURN,

  THE LAST BOOK.

  THE STORY OF SIKANDER AND SANJAY IS OVER.

  now

  WHEN I FINISHED I leaned back from the keyboard and lay back on the bed and I was feeling tired, but calm and somehow clean, as if I had been absolved of something; Saira sat cross-legged next to me, a hand on my shoulder. It was strange, but I was not afraid anymore, and when Abhay started to speak the vehemence in his voice startled me.

  ‘What, that’s it? Get up. There’s more you have to tell us. Go on.’

  I shook my head, and held up a hand: no more.

  ‘Are you afraid? Have you given up?’ He came close and squatted next to me, his eyes angry. ‘Do you want that fool Yama to win after all? You’re a story-teller. Have you grown weak? Has your imagination run dry? The Book of the Return is not over. Get up and do your duty.’

  Hanuman looked on from a rafter, and then he swung down easily to land next to Ganesha, who sat in a corner cross-legged, swinging his trunk to and fro.

  ‘Very strange,’ said Hanuman.

  ‘Yes,’ Ganesha said. ‘It seems he loves you after all.’

  ‘He’s forgotten his fear of madness.’

  ‘Which was madness, and which is sane?’ And then they both laughed together, and Hanuman rolled over and over, and Ganesha
’s paunch shook mightily. But I couldn’t see Yama, and when I looked over to my left, his throne was gone, and he was nowhere to be seen. Then when I lay back, my head on a pillow, I saw that there was someone sitting behind me, behind the pillow: it was an old man with fine white hair and golden eyes, dressed in white with his right shoulder bare, and there was a smile on his lips as he gazed down at me.

  ‘Who are you?’ I said.

  ‘You still do not know your friends?’

  His eyes never blinked, they were as still as pools of water, and in them I saw reflected a thousand red and white pennants, the glint of lances, the sweating shoulders of horses and the proud riders, I saw the sun flash and a wind blew across the plains, and I saw myself, my monkey-face and the other one besides, translucent and mixed up, the scars of one appearing in another, and as I looked at myself there were a thousand others who seemed to float behind: de Boigne, George Thomas, Begum Sumroo, Ram Mohan, Arun, Shanti Devi, Janvi, Hercules Skinner, Sorkar, Markline, a host of others, even the mad Greek Alexander, they were all there.

  ‘Yes, I know who you are,’ I said. ‘At last I know you: you are Dharma, who is the friend of men and women. You are forever with us, even when we do not know you, you walk with us in our streets and finally we return to you. You are Yammam-Dharmam, and you are our father.’

  He smiled at me, and put his hand on my shoulder. His touch was cool. Then there was a sudden shouting outside, a flaring of angry voices. Ashok hurried out, and when he came back a few minutes later his face was full of worry and grief.

  ‘Three groups were fighting,’ he said. ‘The police stopped it.’ There was no more shouting now, on the maidan, only the buzz of thousands of voices.

  ‘About what?’ Mrinalini said.

  ‘Who knows?’ Ashok said. ‘But now it’s become politics.’

  ‘Hurry, Sanjay,’ Abhay said. ‘You must go on. Continue, and they’ll listen.’

  So I got up slowly, and went back to the machine, and then I typed all this, and then: ‘Abhay, the contract said that a story must be told. You have your part today left to tell, so you must tell it. There was an invitation to a cricket match, was there not? Tell the story. But I am done. Saira, and you, my friends, I thank you. Do not be afraid, there is nothing to fear. Do not grieve, because tragedy is an illusion. We are free, and we are happy, and together we are complete. Abhay, when I have finished, I shall lay my head in the lap of Yama and I shall listen to your story, and the story will never end, in its maya we will play, and we will find endless delight.’

  Now I speak no more. Saira is sitting beside me, quiet, holding my hand tightly between both of hers, and she is weeping.

  The Game of Cricket.

  I HAD NOT PLAYED CRICKET for so long that I had forgotten it. I mean not just how to play, but that I had forgotten the linseed smell of the bat, the smooth heft of the ball and the comfort of its seam, the good green of the grass, the hollow pok of a good drive that is the best sound in the world, and distant figures in white, and a glass of ale in the pavilion, the chattering clapping for a particularly elegant cut, fellowship and sportsmanship and well-being. I had borrowed whites from William James, and I had to roll up the bottoms of the trousers, the shirt fell loosely over my shoulders and bunched at my waist, I must have looked ridiculous but I was remembering cricket under a desert sun and so I didn’t care, I was remembering Lord Mayo and the mountain Madar overhead, fiercely-fought house-matches, buckling on pads, all of us staring open-mouthed as some schoolboy legend passed by, a school First Eleven cricketer with a double century in the last inter-school match, and school colors in six sports.

  I was remembering all this and I suppose the childhood must have shown in my face, because Amanda said, “Why d’you want to do this?” She was lounging in a deck chair, drinking a vodka and tonic, and she was already bored and unhappy.

  “Dear, as they say, it’s the only game in town.”

  “You sound funny.”

  “No doubt.”

  “I hate this place.” We were on the deck of the Regents clubhouse, which was a huge square black building with classical pillars and scrolled cornices. It looked more like a government ministry than a cricket pavilion to me, but then my notion of a sporting building had been formed by the delicate red sandstone fantasy of a pavilion at Mayo, and in any case there was the field in front with the players tossing the ball back and forth, and the pitch really was glorious, smooth and even and hard as a billiard table. So I paid no attention to Amanda, who had just been brought another drink by a dark-skinned waiter in a white coat.

  The glass door to the clubhouse opened, letting out a rush of cold air, and William James emerged, followed by a stream of other players. He was tall, and, I noticed, very broad-shouldered, and as he talked to me he slipped a ball from one hand to another, and the bulk of his forearms was really remarkable. He looked ruddy and strong, and clean.

  “You’ll play for the Coasters,” he said, meaning the other team. He was the captain of the Regents. He looked out at the field, and said, “It’s a friendly match.”

  He introduced me to the captain of the Coasters, a fiftyish Englishman named Ballard, and then they walked down to make the toss, which Ballard won. He chose to bat first, and so I sat on the steps and talked to the Coasters, who were a motley collection of Australians, Indians, and Pakistanis, and a couple of West Indians. The Regents team was mostly older men, six Americans, more than I had expected, an Irishman, two Australians, and, strangely, a Japanese. We clapped for the first two batsmen in, and then William James began to bowl. He was a pretty useful pace bowler, medium-fast most of the time but trying for the really whizzing ball, and when he tried to snap it he tended to lose control of the length, but every once in a while he’d get one right on the sweet spot and it would whistle by the batsman. In his third over he clean-bowled one of our openers, and the middle stump cartwheeled end over end for a good six feet and the wicket-keeper caught one of the bails.

  I looked around for Amanda and she had disappeared, so I got to my feet and told Ballard that I’d be right back, and went into the clubhouse. The air conditioning was so hard and complete it felt vicious, and I could feel the rivulets of sweat on my back vanishing instantly. Inside, the ceiling was high and everything seemed to be green, the carpets and the wall, and there were huge chandeliers overhead. I wandered around from room to room, and then I found the waiter who had served us.

  “Miss Amanda?” he said. “I don’t know. Maybe she’s on the roof.”

  “The roof?”

  “With her mother at the pool.”

  “There’s a pool on the roof?”

  “Yes,” he said, smiling. He was an old man with peppery hair, and now I could catch, faintly, the Jamaican in his speech. “Go to the left to the stairs there. Go take a look, young man. It is something to look at.”

  I didn’t think I’d find Amanda with her mother, but I wanted to see this rooftop pool, and so up I went, and emerged into sunlight so blinding that I stumbled for a few seconds, hand over my eyes, in a bright haze, and when I could finally focus I saw a brilliant sheet of perfect blue, blue water, so flawless that it didn’t look real. Next to it was Amanda’s mother, and when I saw her my heart dropped out of my body and whirled off somewhere into space. Candy, I whispered. She waved at me, and as I went closer I lost sense of myself, me and my body I mean, it was as if I was floating across the surface of the earth, and in the distance, the tops of trees. She was lying flat on her stomach in a gold bikini, a book in front of her, and her body was smooth and long and perfect, she had the string on the top untied, the length of her back burnished and shining, I could see the sides of her breasts as she leaned on her elbows. Something happened to me but it wasn’t arousal, you shouldn’t think that, it felt deep and hollow and empty, it was bad if it was anything. It made me crazy. It wasn’t arousal at all but it was attraction.

  I sat down cross-legged next to her and she turned her head (slowly, slowly) and the ha
ir was almost white in the sun, and in her dark glasses I could see myself, eyes wide and flicking.

  “How are you, Abhay?” she said.

  I shrugged. I couldn’t have spoken if I had wanted to, and I didn’t want to. I wanted to sit there and look forever, vaguely frightened and on the edge of some precipice. A young waiter came through the door, he looked like a nephew or son of the old man downstairs, and he had his face composed and stiff but as he looked at her I saw the same aching.

  “Jamie, take this away, will you?” she said. There was a plate of fruit by her side, barely touched, and she picked it up and held it to him. The cloth moved away from her as her arm stretched and then I saw, under her arm, almost invisible, almost not there but there, a scar. It was a little pucker of flesh, a tiny crease, it was nothing but I was so fixed on it she saw, and very casually, not hurrying, she gathered her bikini top back to her breast. I suddenly flashed on a scalpel cutting, a thin steel blade going into the soft flesh and I felt sick.

  “I do hate a mess, don’t you?” she said brightly.

  I nodded, and she smiled at me, and it occurred to me that this was a woman who went through life accustomed to silences, who had grown accustomed to one-sided conversations. I nodded again.

  “In honor of you, I went and got something,” she said. ““I’ve always been interested in your country. It’s just so, you know, mysterious.” I nodded. “So I thought I’d read something about you. About India I mean.” When she said India she stretched the word so that it sounded weird and wonderful, somehow, Eeen-dee-yaa. “So I went to the library.” With a friendly smile (I felt my dazzled senses reel even further) she held up the book: it was The Far Pavilions. I could hardly see past the golden descent of her chest, but there was another book on the left of her, Kim, and one on the right, A Passage to India.