by Amrit Chima
The doctor nodded, satisfied. “Good. Now drink some of this,” he said, passing Baba Singh the coconut juice and waiting until the boy had a few sips. “Better?” he asked.
Baba Singh nodded weakly.
“Well then,” the doctor beamed, removing a note from his pocket. “Forgiveness, especially of oneself, always brings great fortune. I was at the telegraph office this morning. The operator told me to give you this.”
Baba Singh unfolded the telegram. In Amritsar. Stop. Will be on the next train to Amarpur. Stop.
For nearly six weeks his brother had pounded the ground of India. There was no hole, no dark place in existence beyond his scope. Ranjit was a champion splash maker. He had never let them down. He flew.
He was coming.
~ ~ ~
The train hissed to a stop. The packed-in passengers stared through the windows at the Toor family, mildly curious about this small-town stop en route to bigger cities. One of the cars opened to release a handful of people, among them Ranjit, who stepped from the train and onto the platform like a stranger.
He was thinner than Baba Singh remembered, but healthy. He wore the same maroon turban, but it was tied sharply now, the material ironed smooth, creases edged like stacked knife blades with a high twist at the front, like a dancer’s flourishing hand. And his jet-black beard was tucked up neatly. His clothes were also different: a button-down shirt instead of his kurta, trousers instead of pajamas, laced oxfords instead of chappals.
Baba Singh smiled broadly, adjusting the burlap sack on his shoulder. Their good fortune was astonishing. After so much sorrow, Ranjit was here, finally standing before them with all the signs of a successful mission written on his rich clothing, the fierce glint of a warrior in his eye.
“Ranjit, you did it!” Khushwant said. “Where are they?”
His voice quiet, Ranjit replied, “I should have been more clear in my message.”
Grinning, Baba Singh peered behind his brother into the train car, wondering where the girls were hiding.
“But I could not write it.”
“Write what?” Baba Singh asked. He shot a quick look at Desa when his brother did not answer. She had paled, and he followed her eyes to see what she was seeing: Avani’s wooden elephant in Ranjit’s hand. His smile faded.
“It is such a big country,” Ranjit said sadly, “and they are such small girls. I am sorry.”
A short gust of wind blew gritty dust from the plains into their faces, stinging Baba Singh’s eyes, causing him to stumble backwards. Ranjit reached forward to steady him, but Baba Singh turned away and began to run, staggering down the platform stairs and onto Suraj Road. The echo of his family calling his name dimmed behind him. All sound faded entirely. His thoughts stumbled.
He had not quite made it to Dr. Bansal’s, hurrying past India Quality Cloth, when he saw the door to Mr. Grewal’s money-lending establishment propped open by a steel chair. He halted, skidding in the dirt at the entrance in the dark shade of the building. His throat constricted. Confused and scared, he kneaded his forehead as though molding mud or clay, quickly glancing up and down Suraj Road. Practically empty, he observed, feeling unnoticed and alone. Everyone has gone home for lunch, he thought with detachment, then grimaced and began to cry.
Collecting himself, wiping his eyes on his kurta, he entered to see the moneylender.
“Mr. Grewal,” he called out, glimpsing the shelf of debt ledgers behind the store counter. He had seen those ledgers before. He had been here once, with his father, just before they were forced out of Harpind.
Lal had been worried that day, anxiety all over his face as he hovered intently over one of the books. “But, Mr. Grewalji, these numbers are not right. There has been a mistake.”
“No mistake,” the moneylender replied, snapping the book shut and replacing it on his shelf. “The numbers do not lie.”
“But I do not have enough,” Lal said.
“No problem at all, ji,” Mr. Grewal had assured him. A lie until he could arrange to send some men over. “For you, my friend, of course we can work something out.”
So many lies.
Baba Singh firmed his grip on his sack of ladoos and circled around the front counter, searching for the ledger he thought might contain his father’s debts.
“Is someone there?” Mr. Grewal said, stepping out from behind a shelf at the back. For one so cruel, the moneylender was such a miniscule, unassuming man. Bald and bony. He secured his spectacles higher up on the bridge of his nose and peered around the shop.
Baba Singh pulled one of the ledgers down from the shelf and came out from behind the counter. “I do not know what you did, but the numbers were not right.”
Turning toward the voice, Mr. Grewal frowned. “What are you doing here? You do not belong back there.”
“These numbers are lies.”
“I am not sure I know what you mean, young man,” Mr. Grewal said placidly, taking a step forward, eyes narrowing behind his spectacles as though trying to place the boy standing in the middle of his shop. Then he lifted his head in a slight nod of recognition. Ahhh, he seemed to say with a hint of disdain. “You could not pay.”
“It wasn’t done fairly.”
“Those books will not help you,” Mr. Grewal shrugged. “Everything is recorded precisely.”
Baba Singh rubbed his eyes, but despite all his efforts, he could not stop himself from crying. The burlap sack of ladoos was a lead block in his hand. Moving forward, he let it fall to the floor.
Several packages came loose, skidding across the linoleum towards Mr. Grewal.
~ ~ ~
Running home, his lungs searing, Baba Singh was beset with flashes of something horrible. His hands. He could recall his hands, the sensation of his fingers closing around his sledgehammer, but as he ran he knew he had not been to Yashbir’s that day.
Clutching his chest, he pushed open the hotel door, sprinted down the hallway to his room past Lal’s opium smoke, and flung himself on his charpoy.
He closed his eyes, recalling a glint of light reflected in Mr. Grewal’s spectacles. He covered his face. In revulsion he tried to shut the image out. “Fix the numbers,” he was saying, holding the bald little man against the wall, shaking the ledger at him. “Make it right!”
The moneylender scowled at the packages scattered about his feet. “Pick those up,” he said with irritation, struggling to free himself. He began to cough and sputter, a sudden panic behind the glint of his spectacles, unable to break loose as fingers closed around his windpipe.
Pushing aside the image, Baba Singh rocked on his charpoy, his hands pressed against his face, his nose crushed under his palm.
Sounds of a commotion came from the hotel lobby, and Baba Singh quickly looked up.
“Baba?” Khushwant called as he, Desa, and Ranjit rushed into the room. “Where did you go? We came here looking for you, and when we didn’t find you, we—”
“Mr. Grewal was just murdered,” Ranjit said breathlessly. He stood in the doorway, gripping both sides of the frame.
Baba Singh froze.
“The town is gathered on Suraj Road now,” his brother said. “The police have arrested Dr. Bansal.”
Stunned, Baba Singh asked, “The doctor?”
Desa sat on the charpoy next to Baba Singh. “Has everyone gone crazy?” She licked a tear from her lip. “He didn’t have to do it. We all knew it upset him, that he had some personal attachment to you.”
“What do you mean?” Baba Singh asked, his eyes flashing about the room.
“Yashji says it was because Dr. Bansal blamed Mr. Grewal for ruining our lives,” Khushwant said sadly, sitting on his own charpoy and curling his feet under his legs.
“Yashji?”
“Baba, you don’t look well,” Ranjit said, stepping forward.
“Dr. Bansal would not have done something like that,” Baba Singh said, trembling. He started to stand. “We should go tell the police before they take him away.”
“No,” Desa said, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “Enough has happened today.”
“But I know he did not do it.”
“Yashji thinks so,” Ranjit said. “The doctor was very outspoken about his views on moneylenders.”
“The doctorji never spoke about moneylenders.”
“He often told Yashji it was the most evil of professions, and that he would like to put Mr. Grewal out of business.”
“We did not ask for this kind of help,” Desa said.
Baba Singh looked around beseechingly. “Everyone is leaving.”
“It’s okay, Baba,” Khushwant said, moving to kneel before his brother and taking his shaking hands. “Not all of us are gone. We are still here.”
~ ~ ~
Yashbir was not in his shop.
Baba Singh whirled around. He had not slept well and was groggy. He wondered if he was still sleeping. The metal objects blurred around him as though under water. His shoulder was sore. Khushwant had squeezed it, trying to wake him because he had thrashed about on his charpoy all night. His back was sticky with salty sweat.
Attempting to call out, he choked on his words. “Yashji?” he said only slightly louder than a whisper. “Yashji, I need to ask you something.”
He fumbled his way through the shop to Yashbir’s apartment, hesitating beneath the swords. There was a truth—a truth he could not decipher because of the nebulous shape of it. But the swords helped to steady his nerves because they held within their decorative hilts and polished blades the promise to protect him, to slice through his fear so that he could handle whatever it was he could not yet see.
“Yashji? Are you here?”
He leaned into the curtain, listening, but heard nothing. Pulling it aside, he saw that the room was nothing like he had imagined. No silk bedding, no hand-carved furniture, no ornate, engraved decorative metal plates. Only a simple charpoy on which was spread a thin mat and wool blanket. There was a wooden chair in the corner with no padding. And despite Yashbir’s liking for all things artistic, there was no display of artwork. It was an ascetic’s apartment, genuine and without pretence.
Not sure any longer why he had come in search of the blacksmith, Baba Singh released the curtain. On his way out, he paused in the middle of the room and lightly touched the handle of the sledgehammer that rested upside down against the anvil. It was like an object he had never touched before. It did not belong to him.
“Baba?” Yashbir said, entering the shop. He appeared harried, as though he had been running. Moisture ran down his temples from beneath his turban.
Baba Singh slowly moved his hand away from the sledgehammer. “What is it?”
Yashbir opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.
“Something has happened,” Baba Singh said, his tone flat. “I know.”
“Yes,” Yashbir replied, moving closer. “Something has.”
Baba Singh wanted to step away but did not dare move.
“It is the doctor,” said the blacksmith. “I thought you had gone there this morning. I was looking for you.”
“They already told me, what he did to the moneylender.”
Yashbir seemed relieved. “Yes, that is right.” He took another step closer, his eyes sympathetic. “I know the doctor was your friend.”
Baba Singh nodded, then shook his head. “No, he is my friend.”
“You have to forget it now,” Yashbir said.
“But he didn’t do it.”
“He did, Baba.”
“You know the doctor. He is your friend, too.”
The blacksmith moved yet closer. “I spoke with him before they took him. He told me everything.”
Eyes wide, Baba Singh shuddered. “He confessed?”
Yashbir knelt and regarded the boy. “What do you remember?”
“I don’t know. I remember waiting.” That was all. He felt like he was still waiting.
“The evidence they found was strong,” Yashbir said. “There is no doubt.”
“What evidence?”
The old man’s face took on a severe quality. “Packages to his mother. A number of them.”
Baba Singh looked at Yashbir, his heart like a slingshot in his chest. “But you know that I—”
The blacksmith shook his head and reached out his hand. “You are a good boy, Baba. You always did your job. The doctor made that very clear.”
Baba Singh slumped on the edge of the anvil. “Where did they take him?”
“To a prison post in Amritsar.”
“What will happen to him there?”
“I do not know, Baba,” Yashbir said sadly. “Perhaps it is best you do not think of it.”
“I want to see him.”
“He does not want that,” the blacksmith said, wiping some dirt from Baba Singh’s cheek with a firm thumb. “He is not a bad man, Baba. Mistakes were made, and now he only wants us all to move on. We should listen to him.”
~ ~ ~
Dr. Bansal’s shop was looted. Baba Singh himself had gone inside to check under the counter in the futile hope of finding one more final ladoo-packed apology intended for Mrs. Bansal. He shoved aside papers and journals, patient logs and empty vials, but he found nothing. Perhaps someone else had taken it, had eaten every single ladoo, munching on an apology that was powerless yet nonetheless spoke of unparalleled and unrequited love.
Eventually the shop was shuttered, and after a time, fueled by gossip, the building gained a reputation for being unlucky. By 1912 the doctor’s story had acquired a tinge of myth. He was the eccentric protagonist—the fallen hero—in a fascinating tale of intrigue that residents recounted while shopping in the open market or while eating lunch at the temple. Soon, however, the growing outrage at the British taxes and racial tensions between Indians and their white oppressors overshadowed the doctor’s misfortune. And then Dr. Bansal was forgotten entirely—by everyone except Baba Singh—as new waves of protest flooded the north.
More recruiters entered town in search of potential nationalists, of desolate and outraged men willing to do anything for their freedom. They brought with them a feeling of revolution. Ranjit had been expecting them. He had been quiet in the months since his empty return, and Baba Singh later understood this was because his brother did not wish to be a presence in their lives, that he had known all along once these men came, he would leave again, that he would go with them.
“You will not go,” Desa said flatly, snatching away the empty burlap bag Ranjit opened to pack his things.
He gently pried it from her fingers and put it on the lobby table. “I’m sorry, Desa,” he said, a fanatic patriotism making his eyes flash. He began to fill the bag with items he had organized on the table: a comb for his black beard and long hair, an extra kurta from the tailor, a pair of trousers, and Avani’s hand-painted wooden elephant.
“Stop it,” she said angrily, reaching for his things.
He brushed her hands aside. “When I was away, I met a man,” he told her. “I had not eaten for several days and my clothes were torn. I had not bathed in weeks. I told him what happened to Kiran and Avani. He gave me money and told me his plans against the British, against all the horrible things that are happening here and to Indians abroad. He said that even if I could not save them I could save others, that together we can stand up and do something.”
“Fighting is for cowards,” Baba Singh said.
“Come with me, Baba,” Ranjit said, stuffing Avani’s elephant into the top of the bag. “You will see it differently. You will see what I have seen.”
Desa stood protectively beside Baba Singh and Khushwant. “If you will be stupid, then be stupid alone. They are too young.”
Baba Singh pointed at the elephant. “That is not yours.”
Ranjit cinched the bag. “It is not yours either.”
“It is more mine than yours. You know that.”
“You gave it to her. It was hers.”
Baba Singh’s voice rose. “You a
re just running away. It is not brave.”
“Baba, there is something terrible happening out there.” Ranjit pointed at the hotel’s entrance. “They beat us. They call us names and take our land while we try to make a life in our own country. They send us away to other places, places very far from our families so that we can farm their land and clean their buildings. But when we showed them that we were hard workers and smart people, they got scared and beat us again. Sikhs suffer the most because of our turbans and our beards. They do not understand who we are, that we are a proud people. Guru Gobind Singh fought so we could have rights and freedom. He asked us to wear turbans, not to cut our beards so that we could be seen and respected. He said that we are warriors and that we should fight when attacked. We cannot ignore this.”
“Give me the elephant, Ranjit.”
A shadow passed across his brother’s face, dampening his zeal. He threw the bag over his shoulder. “I spoke to the tailor. My job is yours.”
And then the mighty champion splash maker was gone, gone on a two-hour train ride to Amritsar and then four days to Calcutta. Calcutta, where there were coconuts and coconut wallahs lopping open hard, green shells.
After that, Baba Singh did not know.
~ ~ ~
There was a two-year lull, a time when malevolent spirits slumbered. Most of it was a glow of color, of golds and reds, of grays and greens, hues of passing seasons. Though the nights were a heavy burden of recurring nightmares, Baba Singh could nonetheless recall a measure of contentment during the period from 1912 to 1914. As the monotonous days accumulated—a cyclical sequence of work with the tailor, then with Yashbir—it seemed an end of loss, no more pieces threatening to go missing.
Silence and smoke emanated from underneath Lal Singh’s door, becoming odd comforts to Baba Singh for their regularity, their seeming permanence. It was enough, after all that had happened, to have that much. And he had Yashbir, who was a great source of selfless and dutiful reassurance, ready with a soothing word whenever Baba Singh expressed doubt and confusion, whenever his nightmares—of being alone and in danger—leaked into the daylight hours.