Long Night of Storm

by Indra Bahadur Rai

  She pulled out the long khukuri and swung it with both hands. She felt it cut into something, and the stack of firewood also fell. ‘Did you come to do this to me?’ Rudraman shouted.

  ‘Aren’t you yet dead!’ Thuli swung hard again. She hit wood instead.

  A ruckus had gone up. A bull bellowed nearby. Servants and gardener came running from the house, carrying lit lamps. From all around came shouts of ‘Who is it? Who goes?’ and ‘Thuli! Thuli!’ When she saw Rudraman in the flicker of the lamps, standing a few paces away with a gash on the left side of his back, she hurled the khukuri at him. ‘Did you find no other woman?’ she bellowed.

  When he raised the lamp high Harshajit saw blood dripping from the gash on Rudraman’s left shoulder. Thuli was trembling.

  ‘Who is it? Lieutenant!’ Harshajit asked with disbelief. ‘What are you doing here, Lieutenant?’

  Clutching his injured side, Rudraman looked at everyone.

  ‘Why are you here, Lieutenant?’ Harshajit asked again.

  ‘I came to steal Thuli—to steal your wife.’

  Harshajit’s face swelled with rage.

  ‘You?’

  ‘Yes! I!’

  Now Harshajit’s face shrank with shame.

  Thuli was crying. Her sister-in-law pulled her into the house.

  ‘You have insulted me gravely,’ Harshajit told Rudraman. ‘Lieutenant—I’ll have satisfaction!’

  Harshajit’s servants held Rudraman, surrounded him and led him away.

  After everybody had gone, Harshajit paced in the darkness, and didn’t step into the house. After a long while he faced the upstairs window and shouted from the yard:

  ‘Didi, send her back to her home!’

  And, without a moment’s pause, he repeated his demand.

  By the time a clerk had finished reading aloud Harshajit’s written testimony, any trace of shame had disappeared from Thuli’s face. Instead, there was disgust, anger and dejection. When the testimony reached its end, an elder who had earned the white turban of esteem looked at the Subba and other officials, then turned to address Rudraman:

  ‘Here are assembled the four castes and the sixteen castes of both kinds of Gurungs, all seven castes of Magars, all eighteen castes of the twelve Tamang clans, and others—bearers of the sacred thread together with the drinkers of spirits. Tell us, Rudraman, are you not guilty of knowingly dishonouring Harshajit Rana? Hold your Guru in your heart and speak the truth. Here sit the Yakthumbas with Mojingna Khiwangna on their minds; Tamangs meditate here upon Maheshwor; and with Paruhang in our hearts, we are here assembled, the sons of the land…’

  And, as he spoke these words, the Kiranti elder with the milk-white turban joined his palms and looked towards the Himalaya with veneration.

  After a moment, after his heart and mind had descended from loftier heights to the mortal world, the elder asked again:

  ‘Speak, Rudraman! Do you know yourself guilty? Had you indeed looked upon Thuli with false intentions?’

  Rudraman stood with slumped head, as if trying to form an acquaintance with the padlocked wooden stock around his ankle. The injury on his side was bandaged but bloodstains spotted the shirt. Thuli stood at the other end, periodically glancing in his direction.

  ‘Not only that,’ Harshajit shouted, ‘Thuli is a daughter of his sworn family—she is his sworn sister by relation. He has committed incest—he is a sinner! His caste must be taken away first!’

  Many voices clamoured in agreement.

  ‘Rudraman! Why do you delay in speaking? Do you know yourself guilty, or are you innocent?’ The elder asked the question for the third time.

  And Rudraman looked towards Thuli.

  ‘I am guilty.’ He said no more.

  Voices clamoured again in insult and anger. A spray of spit fell on his face. ‘I’ll bash in this sinner’s head with a stone,’ a Magar woman leapt. The outcry lasted long.

  ‘You are a lieutenant with a platoon like the Kali Bahadur, but if this is how you behave, we’ll inflict all manners of pain on you.’ The old man spoke with an anger that welled from his depths. ‘Firstly, you no longer belong to the clan into which you were born. None in our community will hereafter acknowledge Shivaman Ghaley Gurung’s son Rudraman Ghaley Gurung!’

  A Gurung stepped up, snatched and broke the rupa caste thread with its nine-knots; with his short knife he cut it into many pieces and trampled them into the dirt.

  As this was happening, one wit from the crowd asked Thuli:

  ‘Please enlighten the ignorant among us—which of your husbands gave you the bead necklace on your fair neck?’

  Those who heard and understood the barb it burst into laughter.

  ‘If you can stoop to such insults, these necklaces you gave me…’ Enraged, Thuli broke the necklaces in one snatch and threw it at Harshajit’s face.

  ‘Return the earrings and anklets,’ the women clamoured. ‘Break her bangles! Wipe off the tart’s vermilion mark!’

  ‘Yes, that is right. Thuli! You have no claim to any of it,’ the old man said.

  Soon, Thuli lost all of her ornaments. Even the shawl on her head was snatched away.

  Neither Harshajit, nor Rudraman or any other man dared look at Thuli anymore.

  ‘Now, Harshajit, we ask you,’ the Rai chief asked, ‘Rudraman here has confessed to dishonouring you. What will you have done to him?’

  In response came a wordless quiet from all directions. As everybody awaited the answer, a cold fear entered their hearts.

  ‘I don’t have to answer this,’ Harshajit looked at Rudraman as he spoke. ‘The Gorkha king’s decree still stands.’

  The knowing felt dread and fear.

  ‘Do you then insist upon cutting down the man who has sullied your honour?’ the Rai chief sought clarification.

  It appeared as if the crowd held and released its breath as a singular creature. Many in the crowd sought to extricate themselves, repulsed by the prospect of an imminent beheading.

  ‘If he is no coward let him offer his neck in repentance of his crime,’ Harshajit addressed the four directions. ‘If his courage lies only in transgressing, if his cowardice begs for life, it will be as decreed by Gorkha—let the coward crawl through under my legs. I will spit on him a mouthful of spittle and release him.’

  Everybody agreed—‘It is appropriate conduct.’

  Thuli didn’t believe that Rudraman would submit to the insult reserved for the coward.

  ‘You have heard all, Rudraman!’ the old man said. ‘You have one night to think it through. Crawl under his legs to whom you have done trespass. If you say that is unacceptable to you, then it will be as will be here, tomorrow, at this very time. You have aggrieved his honour—you will be given a lead of ten paces to run. Harshajit will run you down and cut you down. If you run and earn your escape to another land—that is your good fortune. As the offender you may not strike him back. You must outrun death to live.’

  Rurdaman was returned to the cell with the padlocked wooden stock still around his ankle.

  It was a cold day, with a low fog hugging the ground. However hard the wind tried to sweep it away the thick swirl spun around and wallowed on the same spot.

  In the cell Rudraman thought about nothing—no thoughts came. He sat and clutched his legs because his ankles hurt.

  In a while, the door opened and Thuli appeared before him. When he saw the state Thuli was in, he felt remorse—I have become guilty now, he thought. But Rudraman couldn’t say anything.

  ‘Don’t die. I will save you,’ Thuli came to his side and spoke.

  ‘Don’t you dare do anything like that,’ Rudraman growled at Thuli, mortified.

  ‘I will confess to them,’ Thuli continued speaking nonetheless, ‘I will say—I have been with many more men before this. I will tell them…’

  A lightning slap hit Thuli’s face.

  ‘I can’t be with a woman who will confess to false sins. I can’t accept her as mine.’

&n
bsp; ‘Then I will go now,’ Thuli turned away, her cheek red. But she turned again at the door and suddenly asked:

  ‘Has the wound healed?’

  ‘See it for yourself,’ Rudraman said, twisting his lips with a hint of a smile.

  Thuli untied the bandages and looked at the wound.

  It was a deep, slanted cut, scabbed black with blood.

  ‘Why did you cut me like this?’ Rudraman whispered into Thuli’s ear.

  ‘Your sin deserved it,’ Thuli said.

  They fell silent.

  ‘Mother has sent word telling me to never return home. Father has disowned me from everything. Where are you staying?’

  ‘With my parents, but in the cattle shed,’ Thuli said. ‘They have given me rice. Nobody speaks to me.’

  Rudraman ruminated.

  ‘At dawn, the day after tomorrow, I will wait for you at the bridge over the Rubu. Get my khukuri from my home and walk through the night to meet me there. Can you do that?’ Rudraman asked.

  ‘I can.’

  After Thuli left, thoughts teemed in his head. He was finding a new affection for life. His parents, the army, his childhood—he remembered everything. As a young boy Rudraman’s uncle had removed him away from his parents, fearing that the son’s birth-chart was unfavourable towards the father’s, and consequently he had grown up in Ghandrung, above the valley of Pokhara. Now he recalled the sights along the Yamdi village as they had walked away from Pokhara, along the flat stretch through the fields of Subi Khet, Naudanda and the Lumle village where they had reached in the evening. Early in the next morning they would reach the Thakali market and the village of Birethanti, and after descending to cross the suspension bridge over the Madi river, after another uphill climb around noon, they would find the Sarki village. It seemed as if only a moment had passed since that day when he had watched the villagers pick barley. He and his uncle had reached the dense Gurung settlement of Ghandruk well before dusk fell. If one climbed higher still and descended after the walnut-tree chautara platform, one could see the Gyamrung river, the village of Daule, and some distance from it, the village of Chhyamrung. Under it flows the Sebung river, and, it is said, the river begins under the Ganesh Himal. In his mind he climbed higher and crossed many large passes and meadows and the jungle of Khuldi. If you continued walking the deserted paths through bamboo cane thickets you reached the cave at Hinku; and if you persisted, with a slingshot in hand and sun-baked clay pellets in a string pouch, you reached Khiledhunga. In the jungles of Khuldi he laid traps for munal pheasants with Gurung boys. Shepherds would have put away stores of firewood in the cave at Hinku; the boys burned the firewood to cook rice, boil gruel. When the snows around Khiledhunga melted, the pheasants climbed uphill. Pairs of doves flitted about. Garlic greens that had been ravaged by hailstones would repair their wounds and grow again in verdant waves.

  I will perhaps never again see any of that, Rudraman thought.

  ‘I am not the man to crawl under anybody’s legs,’ Rudraman declared the next day, his gaze fixed on Harshajit. An even larger crowd had gathered. ‘Free my feet. Let him kill me if he can.’

  Rudraman’s legs were freed. He began massaging them. Harshajit held his khukuri.

  They began staring each other down.

  Rudraman looked around him. Nobody from his home had come. Thuli stood in a distance, carrying his khukuri and its sheath.

  ‘I will chase after you for seven days. And you will run night and day, with never a moment’s rest,’ Harshajit flashed his khukuri at Rudraman in warning.

  ‘And you bring the fear for your life as you chase after me.’

  ‘I will chase you alone. I will not bring assistance,’ Harshajit replied immediately.

  After measuring ten paces from where Harshajit stood, the officiating Subba took Rudraman to the spot and said, ‘Stand here.’

  The crowd had already parted to create a long, unobstructed exit.

  The Subba instructed Harshajit: ‘When I say—Cut him!, you run forward and cut him down.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Harshajit.

  The Subba looked at the Rai chieftain, who nodded back.

  ‘Beware now,’ shouted the Subba—‘By order of the laws and justice of Gorkha—Cut him!’

  Harshajit rushed. His naked khukuri gleamed in the sun.

  Thuli fainted in a heap.

  ‘He escaped! He has escaped!’ People had begun shouting. They stampeded away.

  When Thuli came to on her own, there was nobody around her.

  Thuli hurried away, carrying Rudraman’s sword, a small bundle of clothes and a pouch of the flour of roasted corns.

  In the indistinct light of early dawn Thuli rendezvoused with Rudraman at the bridge over the Rubu river. They ran away together.

  Harshajit was not far behind—both of them knew this.

  When they looked uphill after running some distance they saw that Harshajit had arrived at the bridge.

  They lost count of how many rivers they crossed, how many steep mountain-faces they traversed through the day.

  At times Rudraman ran a few paces ahead and at other times Thuli overtook him, and they ran right through the night.

  Early in the morning, after crossing yet another river, they ate some of the flour with a pinch of salt, and drank a couple of handfuls of water, and continued forward.

  Their escape lay across many mountains. Each time they reached the top of a mountain they had to run all the way down the other side, where a river waited between two mountains.

  Sometime after midnight a waning moon arose. In the light of that moon Rudraman saw Harshajit walking ahead of him. Perhaps fifty or sixty paces separated them, but Harshajit was intently hurrying ahead. Thuli was farther ahead of them both.

  Thuli was sitting down to rest by the wayside when Harshajit came across her. Thuli and Harshajit were both startled to recognize each other. But Harshajit did not do anything; he continued ahead.

  And thus, when the fourth day had also passed and the pale evening sun was scattered through the jungle near Aulako, Rudraman and Thuli together took the lead and entered a dense underwood. Through the thicket was the mark of a narrow track, and grass taller than a man screened the sides. Further down the gentle slope of the track was a circular meadow awash in sunlight, and below it, in some distance, a small mountain river was gushing down from Chiseni Hill. In the pale evening light, in this open meadow, stood a beast, marked with orange and black stripes on a field of gold, blocking Rudraman’s path.

  They both saw the tiger.

  Rudraman drew his khukuri and ran to the centre of the meadow.

  ‘Buchey, any other day I would have given you the road and waited,’ Rudraman, still heaving for breath, challenged the flat-snouted tiger. ‘But no, I am in a rush today. You will have to give me the way. Would you attack a woman? Buchey!’

  The tiger, striding towards Thuli, now turned towards Rudraman.

  ‘Instead of dying at the hands of a man because you make me wait, I’d rather die in your jaws. It’ll spare me from rotting in the jungle. Come on now, Buchey, don’t keep me waiting!’ He scolded the tiger like he would scold any man.

  The tiger’s roar shook the jungle and the evening in it. And it suddenly charged at Rudraman.

  The tiger had leapt too high—it flew over Rudraman.

  ‘That was the first pass,’ Rudraman told the beast.

  Immediately, the tiger jumped to pounce for a second time.

  Rudraman aimed at the tiger’s chest, but he missed. The tiger clawed through Rudraman’s clothes and took his flesh.

  ‘On the third pass, Buchey—either you die, or I!’

  On the other side, the tiger was clawing the earth to clean the flesh off his paws.

  The tiger chose a new spot on the meadow, and from there it bounded in.

  Rudraman lay flat on his back and swung his khukuri with all his strength. The tiger’s belly opened wide; when it fell, the tiger tried to leap to its feet, but i
t lay there with its guts strewn over the ground and, after a feeble growl or two, it died.

  Leaning on Thuli, who had rushed forward to lend him a shoulder, Rudraman dragged himself forward.

  They hadn’t walked more than three paces when they turned because they heard a sound, and they saw Harshajit approaching them with a naked khukuri in one hand and a tuft of green dubo grass in the other.

  Rudraman hung his head and stood there.

  Thuli let Rudraman’s arm fall from her shoulder and took his khukuri in her hand and stood, shielding Rudraman behind her.

  Harshajit had been approaching them, but now he turned away and hurled his khukuri at a tree at the edge of the meadow. The tip of the khukuri, spinning with force, struck the trunk, chipped away a portion of the bark and slowly dropped to the foot of the tree.

  Rudraman and Thuli didn’t understand any of it.

  ‘For her sake you threw yourself at a tiger—you are truly a man,’ Harshajit told Rudraman. ‘If your love for her is greater than the love I had for her, I am not angry at you anymore.’

  Rudraman and Thuli both stared at Harshajit’s face. And he continued: ‘There is no rice or vermilion to consecrate the ritual with—so, with this dubo grass I make you husband and wife.’

  By the end of the ceremony, in which he consecrated their bond with the dubo grass, the Rana’s eyes were moist, but he wasn’t yet crying.

  ‘You are as a younger brother to me. I will take you both back now,’ he said.

  Rudraman and Thuli stood transfixed and lost for words.

  Eventually, Rudraman spoke: ‘The doors to our homes have been barred to us. The path to our land is closed. We can’t live in our land without our caste and clan. Dai, I believe that just now I saw our path somewhere here. Over there—that is our path now…’

  Where the river had swept away its banks, a tree had fallen across and created a bridge. A pair of men and a pair of women carrying loads on their backs crossed the log bridge and headed towards the land of the Mughals. Close at their heels an army recruiter for the Company shepherded a line of running young recruits.