by Shona Patel
Suddenly, I realized I was not alone. I heard the twang of the one-stringed ektara and a nasal voice singing a folk ditty. It was a baul. I saw the flash of his orange garb as it passed by my doorway. How I envied him! If only I was a baul. Only a baul could travel anywhere unharmed. No Hindu or Muslim would think of lifting a finger against him.
I felt an enormous sadness when I thought of little Jonaki. I wondered if I would ever see my little baby again. She was my little fallen star. I yearned to touch her honey skin and feel her tiny fingers curl tightly around my thumb like the tendrils of a fern. How thrilling it was to see that beautiful mouth open in a perfect heart-shaped yawn and see that dimpled smile as she chased her dreams. How I wished Manik could see his little daughter. Would Jonaki ever know the funny, handsome man who was her father? What if I never returned? She would grow up an orphan. I had chosen to undertake the most dangerous journey of my life and anything could happen. But one thing I was sure of—Jonaki was safe and would be well cared for. Who I worried about was Manik. Injuries serious, the cryptic telegram read. Would I reach Aynakhal to find him dead? Would I reach Aynakhal at all? I felt sick with worry. But now there was no turning back.
The train was slowing as it pulled into what looked like a major junction. I looked at my watch; it was midnight. Judging by the distance we had traveled, that would be the town of Lumding, halfway to Mariani. We passed several open trailers of an idling freight train. Then the brakes squealed and groaned before the train came to a shuddering stop. I heard the sound of running feet on the platform. Shouts. I peered through the gap in my window and my heart froze: there was a mob beating a man. The man howled like an animal, covering his face with his hands as the men rained down blows on his head and body with thick, stout sticks.
“Kill the Hindu dog!” one of them yelled.
The man went down and the hoodlums kicked his lifeless body, which was unresisting, soft and pulpy, his limbs flung at odd angles. Finally he just lay there in a broken heap, a dark pool forming around his head.
I felt the bile rush to my throat. The gang loped down the platform, whooping and catcalling to one another. They banged on the doors of the train and ran their sticks along the metallic walls of the compartments, making a staccato noise like a machine gun. The sound grew louder and louder and then stopped outside my compartment. A stick poked through the window as someone tried to pry the window open from the outside.
I could see the bottom half of a man’s face, his teeth stained red from chewing paan. “Motherfucker,” he muttered before giving up.
Somebody wolf-whistled from the front end of the train. The man banged the window angrily and then took off running down the platform. The train was beginning to pull forward slowly. The platform was empty. This meant one thing only. The men had boarded the train.
We must have been traveling for about half an hour when all of a sudden the wheels screeched, sparks flew on the tracks and I was thrown violently from my seat onto the floor. My compartment rattled and shook as the train came to a shuddering stop. Somebody had pulled the emergency chain. We were in the middle of nowhere. It was pitch-dark outside. Shouts broke out. A flashlight swung, lighting up a steep embankment, and dark shadows clambered down. I counted about twenty men. They carried sticks and I saw the flash of curved khurpi knives tucked into their waistbands. The men took off into the dark night, calling out to one another. I could tell they were running across a paddy field because their flashlights bounced up and down as they navigated the narrow dividers. One of them howled like a jackal and the others took up the chorus. Somewhere in the distance, dogs started barking, first one followed by the others. I saw the outline of palm trees and huts against the night sky—a village—the men were headed in that direction. I thought of the poor villagers peacefully asleep in their mud huts. Little children curled beside their sleeping mothers. What would they wake up to?
The engine panted like a sullen beast as it idled on the tracks. Suddenly a loud whistle shrilled followed by a shuddering intake of steam. The compartment squeaked and jerked, then haltingly moved forward as the train started down the tracks.
I sat back in my seat and closed my eyes. The tautness in my chest slowly subsided. At least the men had got off the train. I had not even taken a sip of water all this time, fearing I would need to use the bathroom. I took out my water flask and had a drink, stood up and stretched my legs for the first time in four hours. Then I decided to sneak a trip to the bathroom. I passed a long row of compartments. There were no other occupants in the carriage besides me. Most of the compartments were full of trash: rags, bundles, bottles and rotting garbage.
Back in my compartment, I figured I should have something to eat. In my cloth bag I found an apple and in the small zippered pocket a tiny pocketknife. I smiled, thinking of the day I got the pocketknife. It was a gift from Dadamoshai.
* * *
We were eight years old, Moon and I, when Dadamoshai returned from one of his trips to England. He had been invited to give a talk at a college in the small town of Sheffield and brought back two tiny gifts for us. Next morning we found them under our pillow: exquisite blue velvet boxes with some kind of kingly crest stamped in gold. They looked unbearably precious. We wondered what was inside.
“I think it’s crown jewels,” said Moon. “Maybe Dadamoshai stole them from the castle.”
The inside of the case was lined in velvet, and snugly nestled in the indent was a curious item the size of my little finger, covered in a shimmering mother-of-pearl. Mine was cream-colored and Moon’s slightly pinkish. We turned them over in our hands, completely bedazzled.
“What is this thing?” I asked.
Moon snapped awake and sat up in bed. There was a big pillow crease on her cheek. “It’s a crown jewel,” she said decisively. She put her gift carefully back in the case, shut the lid and fastened the tiny scalloped clasp. Then she closed her eyes and inhaled the box deeply. “It’s very expensive. Maximum expensive.”
“What is a crown jewel? What do you do with it?”
“You put it inside your crown,” said Moon, vaguely.
“Why?”
“Because it is very expensive and you can get robbed. So you keep it inside your crown. There is a bowl inside the crown to keep maximum expensive things. Rubies and diamonds and...and crown jewels.”
That somehow did not sound right. “I am going to ask Dadamoshai,” I said, clambering off the bed. Moon followed me, kissing her case. Dadamoshai was in the veranda reading the papers.
“Ah, so you found your gifts, I see. Here, let me show you,” he said. He opened my box and took out the object. The morning sun captured tiny gold glints in the mother-of-pearl, making it look even more bejeweled and precious. Dadamoshai pushed his glasses over his forehead, gripped a tiny notch on the side and pulled. A shiny blade opened with a lethal click. Moon and I gasped with disbelief. It was a miniature pocketknife!
Mima floated onto the veranda in a tent-shaped African caftan with fierce rhino prints.
“Ma, look what Dadamoshai gave us,” Moon cried, bouncing up and down on the sofa cushion. “A knife. A real knife.”
Mima’s eyes popped. “Good heavens, what is this? Dada, you should know better!” she cried in horror. “Why are you giving the children knives, of all things? They will hurt themselves.”
“Not if they are responsible human beings,” said Dadamoshai, giving us a sly look, “which I believe they are. Only sensible, mature people should rightfully own knives. Not hooligans.”
“I would not be so sure,” said Mima apprehensively. “But why give them knives?”
“What better way is there to teach them responsibility?” He looked at us. “The girls know if I ever see them use the knives to destroy things, to harm or intimidate anybody, I will not only take them away but I will be very, very disappointed. Now, somebody get me a potato from
the kitchen. I want you both to learn the proper way to open and close the knife. You should also know how sharp the blade is, and if you are not careful, you can very easily slice off your finger.”
Moon and I spent the rest of that day, and probably the better part of our summer, gazing at our pocketknives, taking them in and out of the cases and opening and closing the blades very carefully as Dadamoshai had taught us to. We whittled wood and cut tiny pieces of green mango and eventually got over our fear of the knife’s potential to do harm. Whatever nefarious activities we may have been up to that summer, we never once misused our pocketknives. Nobody got attacked or had a finger cut off. We were not willing to jeopardize Dadamoshai’s trust for anything in the world.
CHAPTER 34
I had barely sliced into my apple when I heard voices. My heart almost stopped. Men. There were several of them. They sounded as if they were near the toilet end of the carriage, about four compartments down. I quickly switched off my flashlight and squeezed myself into the corner of the seat, covering my head with my sari. I heard footsteps come down the passage, banging each compartment door. They stopped at the compartment before mine. I could see one of them lean against the window in the passage. He cracked a match and lit a bidi. The sharp flame illuminated his face momentarily. The man had a broad, pockmarked face, with narrow slitted eyes. He waved the match out, and the tip of his bidi pulsed in the dark.
“You are stoned, you fucker,” another man said. “You damn nearly fell off the train. Don’t grab me next time. I almost went down with you.”
“I am so fucking tired,” said another. “Don’t think I have slept in three days.”
“I have not fucked in three days. That last Hindu bitch was a good one. What was she—around twelve?”
“You animal, I could not do it. She reminded me of my kid sister.”
“You are an asshole, Salim. Who is looking at the face?”
The men stood there smoking silently.
“Here, give me a drag,” said the guy called Salim.
The cigarette passed hands, pulsed twice in the dark and got passed back.
My heart must have stopped. I sat there with the apple and pocketknife frozen in my hands.
A flashlight switched on and beamed down at the floor. Then it flashed inside the compartment next to mine.
“This one is a pigsty,” the man said.
He walked over to my compartment, stood in my doorway and swiftly skimmed the inside. The beam grazed over me. He did not see me huddled in the corner.
He leaned against the doorway and yelled, “This one looks okay.”
Other footsteps came down the corridor. The men entered my compartment. There were four of them. The beam swept the overhead bunks and around the compartment, passed over me, then jerked quickly back. The flashlight dropped with a loud clatter on the floor and rolled under the seat where it rocked from side to side, the long beam lighting up my feet. The man staggered, pushing back on the others.
“What the...? Fuck!” he yelled. “There’s someone in here!”
“What!” Another flashlight clicked on. The beams pointed directly at me as I sat there with my face covered.
“I don’t believe this,” one of them said softly. “It’s a woman.”
He reached out with his stick and lifted the end of the sari covering my head, shining the flashlight directly at my face. He whistled softly.
“By God, look at those eyes? Is she real?”
“She’s real, all right,” said the man with the flashlight. He spoke softly. He tilted my chin up with the end of his stick.
He glanced down and saw the apple and the pocketknife on my lap.
“I am going to enjoy this. Maybe she’ll share her delicious apple with me,” he purred, tapping the fruit softly with his stick.
What was happening to me was so grotesque and terrifying that I experienced what I can only describe as an out-of-body experience. Suddenly I was not in the train compartment anymore. I soared high above and watched almost dispassionately at the scene unfolding before my eyes. Every drop of blood in my body had congealed. Every nerve, every muscle, every fiber was pulled taut to the breaking point. I even wondered if my heart had stopped beating.
Things started happening almost in slow motion: it was like watching a scene underwater. I was a marionette; my movements were slow and very precise. Somebody was pulling the strings, making me do things I had no control over. I saw myself lift the hand holding the apple. Then the other hand holding the pocketknife also lifted as if pulled by an invisible string. All this while I never once took my eyes off the man’s face. I don’t think I even blinked. I made two angled incisions in the apple and pulled out a tiny and perfect slice with the very pointed tip of the pocketknife and put the piece slowly and deliberately in my mouth. I chewed slowly all the while pointing the blade of the pocketknife toward the men. Then I repeated my actions. I have no idea how long I continued to cut tiny pieces of apple and eat it. Time had ceased to exist.
I remember observing dispassionately the men had their mouths hanging open. What I saw on their faces that day is something I will never forget: it was pure and abject terror.
Then the man with the flashlight turned abruptly and ran out of the compartment.
“It’s a ghost!” he cried.
“Ghost! Ghost!” echoed the others.
Then one of them said, “You guys are assholes. She is just a woman trying to act tough. Did you see the size of that pocketknife? What the fuck can she do with that?”
“If you were so sure, why didn’t you jump her?”
“Just get Karim. He’ll fix her.”
“Guard that door. See that she doesn’t get away.”
“There’s something wrong with that woman, I swear,” said one of the guys stationed outside. “Why was she staring at us like that with those funny-colored eyes?”
Meanwhile, I had descended back into my body. Great spasms shook me violently. I could not stop my teeth from chattering. I looked down at the apple and noticed that I had cut a beautiful crisscross pattern into it. I had turned the apple into an exquisite work of art.
But my fear was now jagged and open. I was collapsed inside and filled with terror. Could I kill myself? I wondered. Jump from the running train? The men were blocking the door. I looked at the pocketknife. Suddenly the pip-squeak blade was laughable. I just had to await my fate. This was the end, I thought. The men would rape me and throw my body from the train. Nobody would ever find me. I would become just another nameless body decomposing in the rice fields. I thought of Manik lying wounded. I had tried my best to get to him, but failed. I was just grateful he was not there to see me die this way.
The voices got louder down the corridor. The men were shouting. I could hear another voice, deep and rumbling.
“The woman scared you assholes with a two-inch pocketknife?”
“And an apple. You should have seen the apple. I don’t know which was more frightening, the apple or the woman.”
“Her eyes. Her eyes are white, like a ghost.”
“You fellows are fucking jokers,” said the man in the gruff voice. “Move out of the way. Let me see this ghost.”
A big bulk framed the doorway. The man carrying a powerful flashlight walked up to me. I smelled stale rice liquor on his breath and the acrid sweat of an unwashed animal wafting off his skin. He stood there breathing heavily. Blinded by the light, I could not see his face, but could make out the big bulk of his body and the dark tattoos on his arms. A thin gold chain glinted around his neck. I was completely drained. I felt lifeless, as though something in me had just drifted away. Only the shell of my body remained. I did not look at the man. I stared right through him.
The man abruptly switched off the flashlight. He turned and shoved the others crowding the doorway
.
“Move!” he yelled. “Don’t any one of you motherfuckers touch this woman. Do you hear?” There was a surprised silence.
“So you want to enjoy her all to yourself, is it, Karim?” one of them leered softly. “Come on, brother, share the goods. Let us have a piece of the action.”
Karim turned around and slapped the man hard on the side of the head. He staggered under the blow.
“Did you not hear me, asshole?” he hissed viciously. “I will fucking kill any son of a bitch who touches this woman. You do not speak to her. Leave her alone, do you understand?”
The train rattled past a small station. The light from the platform fell on Karim’s face. I covered my mouth and choked back a cry. The man had a sickle-shaped scar on his cheek.
* * *
How I got to Aynakhal that day defies all probability. Small moments stand out in my memory. There was a lorry waiting for the men at Mariani station. I rode in the front seat of the cab, sandwiched between the driver and Jamina’s brother, Karim. I remember seeing a small idol of Ganesha, the Hindu elephant god, on the dashboard. How ironic, I thought. Ganesha, the lord of new beginnings and the powerful remover of obstacles, in a lorry piled with Muslim hoodlums out to kill Hindus. Later I heard it was a stolen lorry from the plywood factory in Mariani.
Mariani had been reduced to a pile of rubble. The streets were empty, most of the shops cindered. There were piles of rotting garbage everywhere. A mangy pariah bitch with sagging teats crossed the railway tracks, tripping over her newborn cubs.
It was 5:00 a.m. when we reached Aynakhal. There were disturbing signs everywhere. The boom gate was yawning open, the guardhouse unmanned. We drove past the factory. There was a sense of eerie quiet. A pile of broken tea chests blocked the factory gate. A tractor with a twisted trailer stood abandoned in the middle of the road. The doors to the office were locked, but the long veranda was littered with garbage. It looked as though people had been camping out there at night.