Fever

by Samaresh Basu

  The interrogation and confessions had continued. He had seen this man once during that time. He hadn’t been wearing his uniform then, he was in what they called plain dress. Ruhiton had expected the man to interrogate him, to torture him again. He had been beaten up mercilessly only a short while ago. But the man had said with a smile, ‘What’s the use of holding back? Why don’t you just tell us everything you know? We will get to know everything anyway, tomorrow if not today. We have smashed your fort already.’ But he hadn’t said, ‘ We have captured every one of your leaders.’ Instead, he had held a cigarette near Ruhiton’s head, which had been forced down on a rickety table, asking, ‘Cigarette?’

  Without raising his head, Ruhiton had looked at him suspiciously. His body was wracked by unbearable pain. Especially in his rectum. A sizeable part of a thick truncheon had been pushed into it and then pressed down like a lever. It was bleeding. He had always been addicted to smoking. Maybe a cigarette would help him forget his pain. But what if the man tried to extract information from him again after giving him a cigarette? Still, he had raised his head and stretched his hand out for the cigarette. The man had offered him a light at once. Ruhiton had put the cigarette between his lips and lit it. ‘I’m done here, I’m leaving now,’ the man had said, leaving him astonished. He had left immediately.

  Then, three days ago, they had met again, late in the night at the jail office. Ruhiton recognized him even though they were meeting after seven years. He had no reason to be happy about the meeting. One look at the man made it clear he was no longer a mere sub-inspector at the Kharibari Police Station. His demeanour, as well as the behaviour of the jail staff, made it obvious that he had been promoted, that he was an officer. Ruhiton could understand these things easily now.

  But had the officer not propped him up with a hand against his back, Ruhiton would have fallen to the floor. Besides, why had he smiled that way? Ruhiton felt uncomfortable when a police officer smiled at him in that manner, he felt suspicious.

  The officer had not been alone. He had been accompanied by the superintendent of the jail, the jailer, and several others. ‘How are you, Ruhiton Kurmi?’ the officer said quite casually. ‘We’re meeting after a long time, aren’t we? You and I seem to have something between us, don’t we? After all these years, after all my stints here, there, and everywhere, I’m here again as your escort.’

  He wasn’t lying. But Ruhiton had had no reason to smile like the officer. He had not been amused. Theirs was not a relationship that involved the sharing of jokes. Still, Ruhiton had been forced to acknowledge that this officer spoke and behaved a little differently. He wasn’t like the rest of them.

  Back in the jail, there was nothing he had had to say in reply. He had risen from the bench. ‘There’s still five or ten minutes to go, you don’t have to get up just yet,’ the jailer had said.

  ‘Yes, if you need a piss or a shit get it over with now, Ruhiton. We’ll be reaching at first light, there won’t be time to stop anywhere on the way.’

  He hadn’t known the night before last what their destination was, he didn’t know it now either. ‘I have cigarettes and matches in my trunk, I need them,’ he had told one of the warders. ‘And I need to go to the toilet.’

  Ruhiton’s tin trunk was lying under a bare table in the same room. Either the warder or one of the other employees had hoisted the trunk on to the table and opened the lid to hand Ruhiton his cigarettes and matches. Cheap cigarettes. But then, when had Ruhiton ever smoked expensive cigarettes? He had permission to smoke now, however. The jail supplied the cigarettes. Sitting on his bench, Ruhiton had lowered his head and lit his cigarette though he was still in chains. In the meantime the armed guards had received their instructions. Two of them had accompanied him when Ruhiton had followed the warder to the toilet.

  Then he had walked towards the gates of the jail, accompanied by all of them. The officer, his companion, the guards, the jail superintendent, even the jailer. As though they were seeing him off at the gate. The rules had been followed without exception. The jailer himself had handed the release documents to the sentry at the gate. Only a narrow door on one side of the gate, wide enough for just a single person, had been opened. Emerging through the gate with the officer in front and the guards behind him, he had seen the jeep. The guards had helped him climb into the back.

  Two nights before this present ride in the jeep, too, they had sat in the same arrangement, with Ruhiton in the same position, the officer in the front seat and the armed guards at the back. Before the jeep had left, he had heard some people moving about busily outside, heard snatches of their low-voiced conversation. Someone else had spoken a little louder. The engine of the jeep roared.

  Ruhiton hadn’t been listening to any of this. With his hands and feet chained, it hadn’t been much use listening either. There had been a strange smell. He hadn’t been able to make out if it was the fragrance of a flower, or the scent of a leaf, or the odour of the sap from a tree. It was a smell he associated with moving about outdoors at night.

  Ruhiton had not expected to experience this smell ever again. In the moving car, he had been unable to identify it. But other images, faces, and familiar smells returned to him now.

  Chapter Three

  IT HAD BARELY been light the next morning when the jeep had halted at the gates of another jail. Ruhiton had heard another vehicle come to a stop behind them. The car behind them had still had its headlights on.

  He had not been informed where they were, or which jail this was. It had looked a little different. It had appeared to be smaller. Here too, he had been kept in seclusion in a remote cell. Ruhiton had realized that the arrangements had been made well in advance. Everything had been prepared. His cell had been well lit, while darkness had hung heavily outside.

  ‘Goodbye, Ruhiton, we’ll meet again later,’ this same officer had said.

  Ruhiton hadn’t known where they would meet again. He had assumed this was the jail to which he was being transferred permanently. But he had not made out why he was still in chains.

  There were many things about these people he couldn’t understand. Although now—at dawn after three nights—it was all looking quite simple.

  Ruhiton had been put into the cell early in the morning two days ago. He had spent the entire day there, his meals and the calls of nature had all been attended to inside the cell. His hands had been freed from the chains on his legs. In the evening his hands and legs had again been clamped in chains, after which he had been taken into the office. The office had been crowded with officers and other policemen. All of them had stared at Ruhiton as though he were a mad elephant running amok, now captured and chained. Their eyes had held a hint of fear.

  The officer had appeared behind him. ‘Are you done with your piss and shit, Ruhiton? We’re leaving right away and we won’t be able to stop for the next five or six hours.’

  ‘All right,’ Ruhiton had responded disinterestedly.

  But it hadn’t been all right.

  ‘Would you like a cigarette, Ruhiton? Here you are,’ the officer had said as soon they had got into the jeep. From the front seat, he had offered the cigarette he was smoking to Ruhiton.

  Ruhiton had felt uneasy. All this couldn’t be normal behaviour. He had remembered that this same police officer had given him a cigarette seven years ago at a police camp and left. But his suspicions wouldn’t be quelled. ‘I have my own cigarettes and matches,’ he had told him.

  ‘I know you do,’ the officer had replied. ‘But your trunk will have to be opened to get them. Besides, how will you light your cigarette with your hands chained?’

  None of this was untrue. Yet he couldn’t let go of his suspicions. It wasn’t possible to lift his hand to accept the cigarette. The officer seemed to have realized as much, for he had surprised Ruhiton by wedging the cigarette between his lips. He had lit the cigarette with his own lighter. In the glow Ruhiton had noticed the four armed guards staring at him with stony eyes. His unease
had not been dispelled.

  ‘What harm can it do you or me if you were to smoke one of my cigarettes?’ the officer had said after lighting his own cigarette. ‘Of course, different people’s lives never turn out the same way. You have one kind of life, I have another. After all, I could have died at your hands seven years ago.’ The officer had laughed as he had spoken. The laughter had not been mocking, as one might have expected. ‘But one way or another, everyone has to die one day,’ he had continued. ‘All of us. What harm can smoking a cigarette do to anyone? Right, Mr Nag?’

  The officer was probably addressing the other officer sitting by his side. ‘Right you are, sir,’ was the response.

  Ruhiton hadn’t been able to accept this. His ideas about people and the world were different. Everyone would have to die one day, of course. But all deaths weren’t the same. Nor were all existences.

  ‘Nobody knows who I am,’ the officer had continued. ‘But the world knows who Ruhiton Kurmi is. You’re world famous now, you know, Ruhiton. It’s my privilege that you smoked a cigarette of mine. Right, Mr Nag?’

  ‘Right you are, sir.’ It had probably been the officer by his side who had answered.

  Ruhiton hadn’t glanced backwards—that is to say, at the front of the car. The world knew who he was. Whether this was true or not, it made no difference to him. He had neither been pleased, nor felt any regret. The only reality for him at that moment were the chains around his hands and legs. And the seven armed people surrounding him in the moving vehicle.

  He still didn’t know—just as he hadn’t last night—where he was being taken. Or what his future held. He had no idea whether he was indeed being taken to a jail, or to the slaughtering ground. He was prepared for anything. Still, he kept wondering about the road along which he was being driven that night. Did it run through forests and fields and villages? Or were they travelling through a town? The road seemed quite isolated. Sometimes he could hear the sound of passing cars. Even if they were in a town, it was impossible to tell in the darkness. Maybe some of Ruhiton’s friends had noticed this jeep. People from his party were to be found everywhere, after all. But they would never know that Ruhiton Kurmi was being whisked away under their very noses.

  Now, at dawn on the third day, Ruhiton had more or less grasped what was going on. Why the morning warder had informed him seven days ago that he was to be taken to another jail the same day. Why no one had told him anything for the next two days, and why he had been taken to the jail office on the evening of the third day and then kept in seclusion in the same jail for the next two days. Since then he had been shifted between different jails at different hours on three successive nights. On the first night the jeep had left with him around midnight or even later. On the second night the jeep had picked him up and left soon after evening had fallen. And last night again the journey had begun around midnight. All of the previous day and part of the night, he had been kept in seclusion in another jail. There was probably only one reason for all this—caution. The plan had been to observe the reaction to the information given to Ruhiton, and then to transfer him safely to the final destination.

  North or south, east or west, Ruhiton had no idea in which direction the jeep was moving. But all the activity over the past two days suggested that he would soon be lodged in some jail or the other. They didn’t want to move around with him in broad daylight. Everything had to be completed before daybreak. But now, at this moment, he was uneasy about what the officer was saying. The officer was talking of smoking again.

  Once upon a time, however, this indeed used to be the time for a routine smoke. Before he had been imprisoned, he used to wake with the birds. He would light up a bidi and go out to the fields. As soon as he returned home after clearing his bowels and splashing water on his face, he would smell wood smoke.

  His entire household was under a single roof. The family lived, cooked, ate, and slept in the same room—as did two cows. It would still be dark. But they wouldn’t light a lamp. The flames of a fire lit with scraps of wood and twigs in the covered porch would provide the illumination. Mangala would wake up on her own, without his having to rouse her. Using wood and twigs to light a stove of baked clay, she would put the water to boil in an old covered aluminium pan. Ruhiton’s mother was a tea drinker. His father, too, when he was alive. Along with his aged mother, her grandchildren would also clamour for tea. But after putting the water to boil, Mangala would disappear to feed the cows.

  ‘Here you are.’ He heard the officer speak from the front seat. He felt the touch of what was likely to be a cigarette near his ear. The officer’s elbow was probably near Ruhiton’s chest as the cigarette came into contact with his lips.

  Still, Ruhiton did not open his eyes. But despite his reluctance and unease, he clamped his lips on the cigarette. There was a relationship between smoking and this breeze at dawn that drove away the darkness. All that was missing were the smells of burning wood and cow dung. And many other smells alongside those. Of familiar people, familiar trees, and…

  Ruhiton opened his eyes as soon as he heard the click of the lighter. As he lit his cigarette on the flame, Ruhiton took a quick look at the burning eyes of his four armed guards. Did they never close their eyes? They almost never spoke. Their faces were always stern, expressionless. Why did their eyes burn this way? Almost like creatures whose eyes glowed in the dark. And yet they looked sort of harmless, as though they were leashed with chains around their necks.

  Ruhiton closed his eyes again. The red flame of the lighter continued to glow before his closed eyes. Not exactly red, but reddish. Like bloodless, stale meat. Not exactly red. Reddish—reddish brown. Was this the real colour of a lighter flame? The burning cigarette between his lips had grown a little damp with his saliva. He enjoyed the warmth of the burning tip. It rose to the edge of his nose, spreading to his face. He was feeling comfortable.

  The wind was quite cold. It pricked him like needles on the back of his neck. He would have liked the blanket wrapped around him. The feeling wasn’t like the aching limbs and fever from catching a chill after being soaked in the rain. Yet it did feel like a fever. Ruhiton could sense it. But why should he suddenly get a fever? There was no reason for it. It wasn’t as though he had lost his appetite. Everything was as it used to be. Yet he felt as though he had a fever every now and then. He didn’t feel like a bath at such times and would skip it. ‘Got a cold,’ he would say if any of the prisoners asked. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  A little chill or a slight temperature was nothing to write home about. But he disliked this reddish haze much more. Ruhiton could see the colour whenever he closed his eyes now. Sometimes he caught a hint of it even with his eyes open. In particular, the colour swam before his eyes whenever he felt a chill and a fever. And he could see red stars or circles against the background of that reddish brown shade. What was it the colour of? Like stale meat with the blood drained out.

  He had seen a snake of this colour a long time ago, when he used to hunt in the jungles of Tukariajhar. He had never seen such a snake before, or ever again. The snake had not appeared particularly vicious. It hadn’t been very long although it had been quite thick in girth. But even after spotting Ruhiton, it had seemed in no hurry to escape. Nor did it try to bite him. He had gagged when he first saw it. It had had round red spots, like sores, on its body.

  Barka, the son of the Nepalese landowner Mohan Chhetri, had been with him. Barka had been carrying a gun. He was an expert marksman. He was also an excellent, though reckless, hunter. He had raised his gun and aimed it at the snake. Still the snake had shown no signs of moving—as though it knew nothing about people or guns or bows and arrows. Its forked tongue flickered now and then. Ruhiton thought the snake’s forked tongue had been red too. It slithered slowly along the moist ground, exactly like a caterpillar.

  Ruhiton had raised his arm to push Barka’s gun away. ‘Who needs a gun to kill this thing.’ he had said. ‘Let it go.’

  ‘What is it? Isn’t it
a snake?’ Barka asked.

  ‘No idea,’ Ruhiton had replied. ‘I hate the sight of it, the thought of killing it makes me want to vomit.’

  Barka had put his gun aside. Picking up a dry branch, he had jabbed at the snake with it. The snake had turned upside down under the assault. It had neither attempted to escape, nor tried to bite. The hideous creature had seemed unable to move. ‘This isn’t a snake, it’s something else,’ Barka had laughed. He had struck at it several times with the branch. Still the snake had shown no urgency. Ruhiton and Barka had laughed loudly. Barka had flung the branch at the snake. They had left after that.

  Ruhiton had forgotten about this snake (assuming it had been a snake, for he had had his doubts). He had only remembered it now when this horrible symptom had appeared. Whenever he felt a fever coming on, the red glow would appear before his closed eyes. The colour of stale, raw, bloodless meat, and with it, an image of the snake. That same snake, of the same colour, with the red blotches on its skin. He understood now that the snake may have been alive all right, but its skin must have lacked sensation.

  Why? Why did this filthy, repulsive creature suddenly appear before his eyes? What connection did it have with his life? None at all. Where had this creature which he had last seen all those years ago, when he was fifteen or sixteen, suddenly sprung from? He was Ruhiton Kurmi—his entire life had more or less turned upside down. Life had flown along a particular course till the time of his father Poshpat Kurmi. The course of Ruhiton Kurmi’s life was completely different. He had discarded everything from his old life. He was twenty-two years older now. Had this hideous creature been lurking inside him all this time? How had he never known?

  Whenever he thought back on this, he concluded that it might have been better to have killed that freakish snake. It was probably right to get rid of anything that was evil, ugly, and nauseating. There should be no trace of it. He never remembered Barka, did he? Afterwards, he had considered him evil, hideous, and filthy too. He had made no mistake in Barka’s case. Was that why Barka’s face never swam up before his eyes when he closed them?