Khushwant Singh Best Indian Short Stories Volume 2

by Khushwant Singh

  Trilochan’s flat was opposite hers, with only a very narrow corridor in between. As Trilochan reached his door, Mozelle came out of her room. She wore wooden sandals, and their clatter on the floor made him stop. She looked at him with her big eyes from behind the veil of her wild hair and giggled. This made Trilochan somewhat nervous and, pulling out his door key, he tried to hurry inside. Just then Mozelle’s sandals slipped on the smooth floor of the corridor and she came at him flying.

  When Trilochan recovered from the initial shock, Mozelle was lying on top of him. In the scuffle her robe had bunched up, and her bare legs – big and fleshy – were on either side of him. When Trilochan tried to get out from under her, he became entangled with all of Mozelle as if he were liquid soap slithering over her naked body. He was panting as he tried to apologize, but Mozelle adjusted her robe with a smile, and merely said, ‘These wooden sandals are no good.’And hooking her toes round the pegs of the sandals, she walked off down the corridor.

  At first Trilochan had thought it might be difficult to get to know her, but soon they became extremely friendly. There was one problem though. She was too wilful; she never let him get his way. She’d dine with him, drink with him, go to the movies with him, spend whole days at Juhu swimming in the sea with him; but whenever he tried to get beyond arms and lips, she’d snap at him so fiercely that his passion would get lost in the tangle of his whiskers.

  Trilochan had never been in love before. Not even in his wildest dreams had he thought that on reaching Bombay he’d fall madly in love with a flirtatious Jewish girl. Mozelle treated him with a strange neglect. If invited, she’d immediately get ready to go to the movies with him; but as soon as they were seated in the hall, she’d start looking around, and if she saw someone she knew, she’d wave at him and go over to sit with him without even so much as a ‘by your leave’. Or, sometimes, they would be sitting in some restaurant; he would have ordered all sorts of fancy dishes for her, and then she would notice some old friend and immediately leave Trilochan for him.

  Trilochan often got quite mad at her for this sort of behaviour, because on many occasions she’d discard him completely for old friends. She’d go off with them and not turn up for many days. Then for an excuse, she’d tell him about a headache, or a pain in the stomach; though Trilochan knew that her stomach was as tough as steel, and that nothing could upset it.

  When they’d meet again, she would say, ‘You’re a Sikh. You can’t understand these delicate matters.’

  This would really burn him up. ‘What delicate matters? You mean those faggoty lovers of yours?’

  Then Mozelle would plant her fleshy legs apart and, placing her hands over her broad hips, say, ‘What the hell are you so sarcastic about? Yes, they’re my lovers. I like them. If you are jealous, so what?’ Trilochan would then try a graver tone of voice. ‘But we can’t go on like this.’

  And Mozelle would burst out laughing: ‘You really are a Sikh…. Idiot! Has anyone even suggested that you spend your life with me? If you’re looking for that sort of thing why don’t you go back home and find yourself a Sikh wife? With me, this is all you can expect.’

  At that stage, Trilochan always gave up; for in fact Mozelle had become his greatest weakness. He was eager to be near her under any condition. No doubt, because of her, he often had to suffer indignities, sometimes in front of even the most ordinary Anglo-Indian boys. But, helpless in his love, he had decided to bear with everything.

  Usually, insult and contempt cause a vengeful reaction, but not in Trilochan. He had closed his heart and mind against such things. He liked Mozelle too much – and further, as he explained to his friends, he was, so to speak, half-way ‘sunk’ in her love. Now there was nothing to do but to let the remaining half sink to the bottom, to attain the final goal in his supreme love.

  Two long years, he silently suffered such insults, but remained steadfast. Finally, one day, when Mozelle was in a sweet mood he gathered her in his arms and asked, ‘Mozelle…don’t you love me?’

  Mozelle pushed herself out of his arms and moved over to a chair where she sat for a while staring at the hem of her skirt. Then raising her big Jewish eyes and fluttering those thick eyelashes, she said, ‘I can’t love a Sikh.’

  Trilochan felt as if someone had poured live coals over his long hair under the gay turban – from head to toe he was afire with anger. ‘Mozelle! You’re always making fun of me. But…but…it isn’t me you mock, it’s my love…my love…’

  Giving her short brown hair a defiant toss, Mozelle got up from the chair and said, ‘You know…I bet you anything if you shaved off your beard and let your long hair down you might catch boys making passes at you… You’re quite handsome, you know.’

  Mozelle kept making blowing sounds, ‘Phuu… phuu…’ and pushed herself out of his grasp. ‘I’ve already brushed my teeth once this morning. Don’t strain yourself.’

  ‘Mozelle!’ Trilochan shouted in rage.

  But Mozelle took out her compact and peered at her lips; their thick coat of paint had suffered several scratches. ‘My God! Why don’t you make proper use of your whiskers? These bristles are good enough to clean my navy blue skirt…we would only have to use a little bit of alcohol…’

  Trilochan‘s anger had now reached the point where it began simply to cool off. Moving over to a sofa, he settled down comfortably.

  Mozelle snuggled close to him and began loosening his beard from its folds – pulling out the pins and holding them between her teeth.

  Trilochan indeed was a very handsome person. When he was just a little boy, beardless and curly-haired, people often mistook him for a pretty girl. But once his beard started, the delicate features disappeared under the bushy growth. He was aware of the loss, but he was also a devout Sikh and an obedient son; his regard for his religion was strong, and he couldn’t separate the external aspects of his religion from the rest of his being.

  When Mozelle had loosened his beard entirely and it lay spread over his chest, he could no longer hold back his curiosity.

  He asked, ‘Mozelle, what are you doing?’

  Still holding the pins between her teeth she smiled and said, ‘Your whiskers are very soft. I was wrong in thinking of them as bristles to clean my navy blue skirt. Trilochan darling, why don’t you make me a present of this hair; I can get a very fine purse knitted from it.’

  Now a new fire lit in his beard. Turning to Mozelle he tried to put some gravity in his words. ‘I have never made fun of your religion. Why do you make fun of mine? It’s not nice to say such things about other people’s religions… I’d never have tolerated such things if I hadn’t been so madly in love with you. Don’t you see that?’

  Mozelle stopped playing with his beard. ‘Yesss…I’m quite aware of that.’

  ‘Well, then?’

  Trilochan neatly rolled his beard back around his chin, and taking the pins from Mozelle’s mouth, started to put them back in place.

  ‘You know very well that I’m not insincere in my love. I want to marry you.’

  Trilochan jumped off the sofa. ‘Really?’

  Mozelle’s crimson lips spread in a fat smile; her white teeth shone for a brief second. ‘Yes.’

  Trilochan forgot all about his half-loose beard and grabbed her in a tight embrace. ‘When? Tell me, when?’

  Mozelle moved away. ‘When you get rid of all this hair.’

  In his present mood Trilochan would have agreed to anything. He didn’t give it a second thought, and said, ‘I’ll get rid of it tomorrow.’

  Mozelle began to tap-dance around the room. ‘You’re talking rubbish, Trilochan, and you know it. You don’t have that kind of courage.’

  That certainly killed any fear that might have bothered Trilochan’s religious conscience. He shouted, ‘You’ll see tomorrow.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Then quickly stepping forward she kissed his moustache and ran out of the room.

  What Trilochan thought about the rest of that night …what miseries
he suffered…it is useless to mention them here. The next day, however, he went to Fort and got a haircut and a shave. While the barber snipped away, Trilochan kept his eyes shut; he opened them only when it was all over and then kept gazing for some minutes at his face in the mirror. His new looks would have caused even the prettiest girl in Bombay to turn around and take a second look at him.

  Coming out of the barber shop, he felt a sudden chill run through his body; now he felt that same chill again as he stood on the terrace. He began pacing back and forth between the water tanks. He didn’t want to remember the rest of the incident but it kept relentlessly coming back.

  After the trip to the barber shop he didn’t step out of his flat for one whole day. The next day he sent a note to Mozelle through his servant asking her to stop by for a moment as he wasn’t feeling well. She came and when she saw Trilochan without his load of hair she let out a cry: ‘My darling Triloch!’ and flinging her arms around his neck she crimsoned his face with kisses. Then she ran her fingers over his smooth cheeks, through his short, well-cut hair, all the while shouting away in Hebrew, until her nose began to run. As a drop fell over her lips, she pulled up her skirt and wiped her nose with its hem. Trilochan was embarrassed; he pulled down the skirt from her hands and, in a reprimanding tone said, ‘You should at least put something on under that skirt.’

  But Mozelle wasn’t the least perturbed by his remark. She spread her badly painted lips in a smile and said, That always makes me uncomfortable. This way it’s fine.’ That brought back to Trilochan’s mind the incident of their first meeting in the corridor. How they had gotten entangled with each other in that stupid position on the floor. He couldn’t help smiling. Pulling Mozelle into his arms, he said, ‘We ought to get married tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, we ought to.’ And she ran the back of her hand over his smooth skin.

  They agreed to be married in Poona. As it was to be a civil affair, the law required them to wait for a fortnight after the banns. Poona wasn’t too far, and Trilochan had a few friends there. They arranged to leave for Poona the next day.

  At that time Mozelle was working as a salesgirl in Fort. Near the store was a taxi stand, and Mozelle asked Trilochan to meet her there. He arrived at the appointed time and waited for her for almost two hours, but she never showed up. Next day, Trilochan found out that she had taken off for Deolali with one of her numerous boyfriends. This boyfriend had just bought a new car, and Mozelle decided to stay on in Deolali indefinitely.

  What miserable days Trilochan had to face then… that’s a long story. Eventually he managed to somewhat erase her memory. Also, it was about this time that he met Kalwant Kaur and immediately fell in love with her. In a few days he was quite convinced that Mozelle was a worthless girl – that her heart was tied to rocks – that she flitted like a sparrow from one place to another – and he felt great satisfaction in the fact that he hadn’t committed the folly of marrying her.

  But, in spite of all the very satisfying thoughts, memories of her often came back to him, to tease him as she used to, and to run away from him again as she had. She was still very dear to Trilochan, though she had acted so shamelessly and had been so indifferent and callous. Yes, he often thought of her: was she still in Deolali with that man with the brand new car? Or had she moved on to someone else? The mere thought of her living with some other man was painful to him, despite his awareness of her fickle character.

  Trilochan had spent a lot of money on her – not just a few hundred but some thousands – but he spent that money of his own free will, for Mozelle did not have expensive tastes. She always liked cheap, ordinary things. Once, Trilochan chose a pair of gold earrings for her, but Mozelle insisted on buying some rather junky brass ones which she found in that shop. He could never quite figure her out. She was aiming to get into bed with him, or to let him kiss her, and his saliva would cover her body like liquid soap, but she never allowed him an inch beyond that, not an inch. She would stop him by teasing ‘You’re a Sikh and I hate you…’

  Trilochan well knew that she didn’t really hate him. If she had, she would never have come so close to him, for she couldn’t tolerate hypocrisy of any kind…and certainly wouldn’t have spent those two years with him. She would have discarded him immediately. She hated underclothes, they bothered her too much. Several times Trilochan tried to impress upon her their utter necessity, told her about modesty, but he was never able to make her wear any. Whenever in their conversations Trilochan brought up the matter of modesty, she would flare up. ‘Modesty! What the hell do you mean? Tell me, is there any dress under which a man is not naked? Or through which you can’t undress him with your eyes? Don’t give me that crap about modesty…. You’re a Sikh. Under those trousers of yours you wear that silly piece like a pair of shorts. Isn’t that also a part of your religion, like your long beard, and your hair which you never cut? You… you ought to be ashamed of yourself; a grown-up man, and still you think your religion is tied to your underwear!’

  The first few times such remarks made Trilochan quite angry, but later as he gave more thought to the matter he began to have doubts about his own attitude. Maybe Mozelle’s views were not entirely wrong. The day he got rid of his beard and long hair, he did feel relieved of a burden which he had carried around so long for no reason, it seemed.

  Trilochan paused by the water tank and swore loudly to put Mozelle out of his thoughts. He thought of Kalwant Kaur. Ah, Kalwant Kaur…pure and innocent whom he loved, and who was at the moment in mortal danger surrounded by fanatic Moslems. There had already been some incidents, and a curfew had been imposed for fortyeight hours. But who was stopped by the curfew? The Moslems of that building alone, if they felt like it, could easily finish off Kalwant Kaur and her parents without anyone being the wiser.

  Engrossed in such thoughts, Trilochan sat down on a large pipe. The hair on his head was again fairly long; he was certain within a year it would grow into the regular, long kesha. His beard, too, had grown fast: but he wasn’t so keen about letting it grow wild. He had found a barber in Fort who would trim it for him so well that no one could notice any difference. He pushed his fingers through his soft hair and sighed.

  He was thinking of getting up and leaving when he heard the harsh noise of wooden sandals. Who could that be? he thought. There were many Jewish women in the building and all of them wore wooden sandals around the house. The sound came closer and closer. The next moment he saw Mozelle near the other water tank. She was dressed in that long loose gown of some peculiar Jewish cut, and when she stretched her arms with a yawn…in a wild curve…Trilochan was afraid for a moment that the air around him might shatter like crystal.

  He got up from the pipe…now greatly perturbed. Where the hell had she dropped down from? And what had brought her out on the terrace at that time?

  Mozelle stretched her arms again, and this time Trilochan could feel even his own bones cracking. Under the loose gown her firm breasts rippled, and for a moment Trilochan seemed to have a vision of that fine criss-cross mesh of blue veins which covered them. He coughed loudly. Mozelle turned around and looked at him but she seemed very indifferent, very calm. Dragging her sandals, she came closer and peered at his neat beard. ‘Ha! You have become a Sikh again, Triloch.’

  The hair of his beard began to prick him. Mozelle came still closer and rubbed the back of her hand against his chin. Smiling, she said, ‘You know, now this brush is perfect for cleaning my navy blue skirt…but unfortunately it got left behind in Deolali.’

  Trilochan remained silent.

  Mozelle pinched his arm. ‘Why don’t you say something, Sardar Sahib?’

  But Trilochan didn’t want to repeat his past mistakes. In the half light of dawn he scrutinized her face carefully. Not much had changed there; she appeared only a bit thinner, that’s all.

  ‘Were you sick?’ Trilochan asked her.

  ‘No,’ Mozelle said with a toss of her hair.

  ‘You look somewhat thinner now.’r />
  ‘I’m dieting.’ Mozelle sat down beside him on the waterpipe and kept tapping her sandal on the floor.

  ‘So are you…in a way. Are you trying to become a Sikh again?’

  Trilochan replied through clenched teeth. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, congratulations.’ Mozelle took off one of her sandals and began to tap with it on the pipe. ‘Have you, by now, fallen in love with some other girl?’

  Trilochan could only whisper, ‘Yes.’

  ‘More congratulations. Someone in this building?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s bad.’ Mozelle put on her sandal again and got up. ‘One must always think first of one’s neighbours.’

  Trilochan kept silent. Mozelle reached forward and tickled his beard with all her fingers.

  ‘And was it that girl’s suggestion that you should grow your hair?’

  ‘No.’

  By that time he was somewhat upset; as if pretending to comb his beard she had actually messed it up. His tone was sharp when he said no.

  Mozelle’s lips were the colour of stale meat. When she opened them, it seemed to Trilochan as if the butcher in his village had sliced open a cut from the rump. Mozelle began to laugh. ‘Ha, ha, ha…listen, if you shave your beard I give you my promise to marry you immediately.’

  It came in Trilochan’s mind to tell her in plain words that now he was in love with a nice, chaste, pure-hearted girl; that he wanted to marry no one but that girl; that compared with her, Mozelle was nothing but a whore – ugly, unfaithful, and heartless. But as he was not that kind of a person, he merely said, ‘Look, Mozelle, I’ve decided about my marriage. She is a simple sort of girl, from my own village…. She is very religious, and so for her sake I’ve decided to grow my hair again.’

  Not usually given to serious thought, Mozelle now pondered over his reply for a while. Then, turning in a half circle on her sandals, she said, ‘If she is so religious, how is she going to accept you? Doesn’t she know that you once had your hair cut?’