Darshan (12 page)

Desa was incapacitated by grief. She had always been quiet in mourning, keeping the intensity of her loss private, born from the intensity of her love. She lay in her room in a near coma, a trance that was broken only when Sada Kaur began to brush her hair. Then she began to silently cry.

When Manmohan asked where his uncle was, Baba Singh gently took away Avani’s elephant and gave him Ranjit’s turban. He hoped it would make the boy understand that his uncle was not returning. Manmohan held it for a moment, then dropped the cloth to the floor and ran to his mother.

No body to cremate, Baba Singh found himself in his old room with only the folded yards of Ranjit’s turban and Avani’s wooden elephant. He opened the drawer of his bedside table and pulled out Dr. Bansal’s vial of mint extract. As he closed the drawer, he spotted the dark corner of something sticking out from behind the table and leaned forward to retrieve it. It was a leather book of some sort. He opened it and stared at the columns of numbers and names, of interest percentages scratched out and recalculated.

It was one of Mr. Grewal’s debt ledgers.

He slowly closed the book, remembering now that he had taken it, intending to erase at least this small portion of the region’s debts, to allow men to hold firmly to their land and to their families. He remembered the moment he had hidden it there, at some black point between running home and hearing that Dr. Bansal had been taken away for murder. He stared at the ledger, gripping it in his hand, confronted with the evidence about his own person, the sort who was not only physically able, but possessed the disposition to choke a man with his bare hands.

He took the ledger, the elephant, the turban, and Dr. Bansal’s vial to Lal’s room. Entering without knocking, Baba Singh found his father passed out on his charpoy, opium pipe on the bedside table, a line of spittle trickling from the corner of his mouth.

“Oi!” He shoved Lal with his foot, trying to nudge him awake. He kicked his father again, harder, but Lal was dreaming of something now, consumed by unconscious pleasures that reality no longer provided. Drool continued to trickle, oblivion apparent in his slack limbs. Lal had no clue of Ranjit’s death; in his dreams his son was still tall and handsome. Baba Singh opened his father’s storage chest and laid the items atop Harpreet’s sari, salwaar kameez, wooden comb, and ivory wedding bangle. He carefully arranged everything neatly before securing the chest shut, closing in the scent of death and a hint of still lingering gunpowder and metal bullets.

Colonial Police Batons & Pistols

1920–1922

Family Tree

The flyers posted in Amarpur’s open market were charcoal drawings of a turbaned Sikh constable astride a horse. He was dressed smartly in a police uniform—pressed khaki trousers and a knee-length, double-breasted overcoat with a thick leather belt at the waist—and his beard was neatly combed, the fierceness of a warrior in his narrowed eyes. In one hand he wielded a lathi, the iron-tipped bamboo baton brandished by policemen to maintain public order. In his holster was a pistol side arm, his other hand placed on it as if ready to draw. In Gurumukhi print, the flyers read,
Constables Needed
.

Baba Singh could not help but stare at the one tacked to the wooden post where he, his brother, and sister had positioned themselves to sell produce. He gritted his teeth, tearing his eyes away. Spreading a blanket on the market floor, Khushwant looked at the flyer and then at Baba Singh with unmistakable reproach. Their gazes fixed for one moment, then Baba Singh followed Desa to unload the tonga full of potatoes he had brought in from Barapind.

These particular flyers had been posted for several months now. Each time Baba Singh happened across them while on his way to visit Yashbir or the hotel, or to pick up supplies at the sundry shop, he found himself drawn to them. The severity of the constable’s gaze cast spells, eyes twisting in kaleidoscopic tunnels. In his rigid spine, in the way his leather-booted feet held the stirrups taut, poised for battle, in the scrawl of words across the bottom that stated the impressively high wage of sixteen rupees per month, there was a promise of escape, of freedom. But it meant uniting with the enemy, with the men who had killed Ranjit.

Tempted to the devil, Dr. Bansal had once said.

Baba Singh carried in and emptied a sack of potatoes onto their blanket. He knelt down to help Desa arrange them, wondering how he would tell his family what he intended to do. They would have arguments against him joining: the Amritsar massacre would be their strongest, but there was also Ishwar, who had gone home to Harpind after the war to find his family besieged by taxes, and Tejinder dead, and Ratan strapped to that tree.

They would not see the greater benefits, the money Ishwar and Tejinder had earned as members of the British armed services. Unlike Ratan, who had recently fled, abandoning his wife and son to poverty and shame, his cousins had avoided borrowing from the moneylender despite the taxes, a pressing threat that Baba Singh and Prem spoke of daily. Sixteen rupees a month was a sound solution to their many worries, was a means to protect Sada Kaur and Manmohan, to protect the new baby that was coming.

“Baba,” Khushwant said.

Baba Singh averted his eyes.

“How can you consider such a thing?” his brother asked as Desa began haggling with customers.

Baba Singh brushed a potato clean. “We should not have to worry all the time, to wonder when—not if—we will be ruined.”

“None of us are starving.”

“Not yet.”

Khushwant’s jaw tensed. “Ranjit would not be happy.”

“It is foreign patrol, police work, nothing dangerous. The war is over.”

“Many would disagree.”

Baba Singh lips tightened. He stood, ripped the flyer off the post. “Pride is not the answer. Pride is what killed Ranjit. This,” he pointed at the wage, “is the only important consideration.” He ran his finger down the list of requirements. “We have secondary school education. We are honorable, come from a race of warriors.”

“No, Baba.”

“What is the problem?” Desa asked.

Khushwant snatched the flyer from Baba Singh and gave it to her.

She took a moment to read it, then furiously crumpled it in her fist.

Baba Singh gently unclenched her fingers and removed it, careful not to let the paper tear. “I refuse to wait for another tax or drought. Or another war.” He looked at his sister. “You told me once that Ranjit was better than us because he did something.”

“I was wrong,” she said. “It is not enough to do just
anything
.”

“There are no other solutions,” he replied.

“What about your wife and children?” Khushwant asked. “And Yashji? How can you leave him now, after everything he has done for us?”

“I will talk to Sada,” Baba Singh said, his tone blunt. “And Yashji knows why I need to do this.”

But Yashbir had no patience for Baba Singh’s relentless guilt. He had grown older, had begun to stoop and shuffle. His once sinewy arms were now frail, his hands spotted with age. “I need you to stay, Baba,” he said firmly.

“I have a chance to make things right,” Baba Singh told him.

“What you cannot face here, you will not be able to face elsewhere.”

“That is not what this is about. I can prevent—”

“Life happens, Baba. You cannot prevent it. You might not come back.”

“You told me to think of my family.”

“I am also your family, Baba.”

“Yashji—”

“I do not have lifetimes to wait,” the old man said.

Baba Singh looked sadly at his friend. “I am sorry, Yashji. I have to protect them.”

“I think you will find that Sada also sees it very differently than you.”

Indeed, Sada Kaur felt much the same as the blacksmith. When Baba Singh showed her the flyer, she quickly skimmed it then folded it in half, ran her thumb and forefinger along the crease and said, “I do not understand. Singapore, China, South Africa, Fiji.” She glanced at Manmohan who was asleep on a mat in the corner of their room.

“We spoke about this once.”

“I do not recall speaking of this.”

“You know what happened to my father. I cannot allow that to happen to us.”

“But nothing has been lost.”

“It always feels as though we are about to lose everything.”

She straightened her arm toward him, the paper in her hand like a fluttering white flag. “We have been doing fine. It is not necessary.”

“It will be too late if we wait,” he said, attempting to reason with her. “I said I would do anything. I promised.” He stepped close, touched her stomach, then took the wrist of her outstretched arm and put it around his neck. “It is because of you that I did not go sooner.”

She looked at him with resignation, as if suddenly understanding that she had married a man who had always intended to leave, like it should not surprise her to be twenty-one and alone with two children. She leaned in and rested her forehead on his shoulder, tightening her arm around him, and he felt the hot breath of her sigh through the cloth of his kurta.

~   ~   ~

The British official made no pretense as his gaze moved slowly and critically from Baba Singh’s sandaled feet up to his veined forearms and broad shoulders. “You are short,” he finally said in Punjabi.

“Is being taller a requirement?”

The official tapped his cheek with his forefinger. “And pert,” he said with a cold grin, then picked up a pen and scribbled something on a scrap of paper. “Come on this day to this address. You will need to pass training.”

“Training?”

“War times were desperate,” the official replied blandly. “The tide has calmed. This is not simple soldiering. You need skills.”

As Baba Singh exited the government building, he folded the paper and tucked it into his pajama pants wishing Khushwant were with him, the both of them planning to go off into the greater world to save their loved ones together. There was a steady watchfulness, an acute loyalty about his brother’s manner that Baba Singh had always found reassuring, especially after Ranjit’s death.

Their relationship, however, had begun to change the moment Khushwant met Simran. His brother was getting married, and Baba Singh shamefully discovered as he headed home that he possessed a tiny sliver of jealously for the young woman who was to be his brother’s wife.

The young couple had developed a casual friendship over the last year, often running into each other at the open market, engaging in many drawn-out exchanges regarding the quality of the corn or potato crop. Always accompanied by her father, owner of the largest sundry shop on Suraj Road, the mood between the two had been painfully restrained.

The marriage was not arranged by the usual course. No formal introductions were made, although Yashbir inquired once on Khushwant’s behalf. Despite the blacksmith’s good standing and his well-known informal adoption of the Toor children, Simran’s father was not initially interested in pairing his daughter with Khushwant, hoping to attract suitors more socially appropriate.

“Tell that boy to stop flirting with her,” Simran’s father had told Yashbir with outrage. “She is refusing all others. She has locked herself in her room and threatened to run away.”

“Certainly, ji,” Yashbir replied mildly. “I will do my best, but it is difficult to control the young when they are in love.”

“Love?” Simran’s father sputtered. “That is ridiculous.”

“Of course, ji.”

It took some time, but Yashbir’s words apparently softened the man, who was, beneath his intimidating and callous countenance a rather impassioned romantic. Unlike so many Indian family patriarchs, Simran’s father had an abiding respect for the female sex and wished more for his daughter’s happiness than a suitable dowry. So, together the two men had made arrangements for the wedding, which, as Baba Singh noticed when he again looked at the scrap of paper the British official had given him, was to take place just before police recruitment training.

Preparations for the nuptials took several weeks, during which time Baba Singh tried his best to be enthusiastic, despite feeling like he had lost something important. The event brought together people he had not been in direct contact with since before the Great War. So many had become faded images of their former selves. Like Ishwar. Standing with Khushwant at the entrance to the gurdwara just before the beginning of the ceremony, Baba Singh saw his cousin approaching with what appeared to be his usual rolling gait, drunken-like, full of amusement and mischief. But as he came nearer, Baba Singh realized he was wrong. Ishwar was limping.

He was only twenty-four, just two years older than Baba Singh, but he had the wrinkles of a middle-aged man, of one who had spent too much time tensing the muscles of his face. His loose posture suggested wariness, his body not relaxed but alert, prepared to pivot, to whirl around, to dodge bullets. His turban was wrapped tightly and compactly, more military than village.

Khushwant took Ishwar’s shrapnel-scarred hand and smiled at his cousin. “It is good to see you again.”

“Look at you, Khushwant. Not so little anymore,” Ishwar replied, the lightness in his tone forced. “It has been a lifetime. Baba, I am sorry I have not come by to meet your wife and son. I hear another one is on the way.”

Baba Singh shook his head. “I am just sorry Tejinder is not here.”

“Yes,” Ishwar murmured. He smiled wryly. “It is terrible to admit it, but I was glad he was there with me, even though I know it is an awful thing to be grateful for.”

“It is not awful,” Khushwant said. “I know he felt the same way about you.”

Ishwar glanced inside the temple where the guests were waiting for the start of the ceremony, then smiled again, this time more brightly. “Big day.”

Khushwant grinned, and Ishwar grinned back.

“Shall we go in?” their cousin asked, and without waiting for a reply, he stepped inside the temple.

It was late when the festivities concluded. Many of the guests slept in the hotel, planning to return to Harpind the following day. Khushwant retired with Simran to the guest quarter he had once shared with Baba Singh. Manmohan stayed with Desa on her charpoy, and Baba Singh and Sada Kaur slept across from her, in the charpoy that used to belong to Kiran and Avani. Baba Singh could smell the faint scent of opium in the air.