Red Earth and Pouring Rain (35 page)

Well, well. Good luck, friend.

Good luck to you too, or is that what one wishes people like you? Now I’m asking questions.

Why don’t you write this down, or at least the gist of it? Then this history will remember you as the originator of the world’s
only all-comprehensive theory of imperial conquest: the constipation hypothesis, or the shit-glory affinity.

No, thanks. Even if I hated my children, I would wish other curses on them, not ridicule.

You’d save the world from a lot of tight-assed murderers.

No. No.

You’ll see. All the truly great liberators will admit this theory into their ruminations and calculations.

No.

And so the world dies, from a surfeit of surly sphincters. It is, after all, so very simple.

And so, that’s how it went, and your father and I, we thought it one of our better efforts, but the Company man said that
Sikander would have asked more penetrating questions about philosophy and metaphysics, so we had to take it out, our metaphysic
of shit. And a very sorry day it was, when we had to do this, it seemed to take the centre out of our dramatic construction,
or should I say, all the horseshit out of our Sikander.’ Ram Mohan laughed, then shouted, ‘Oh, you are truly magnificent and
noble, sweet Gajnath,’ for at that moment the animal blared out a huge, resounding, richly-odoured, indisputably-elephantine
fart. Sanjay laughed in silent accompaniment to Ram Mohan’s
long cackle and the raucous guffaws of the servants and soldiers and attendants, but then he glanced ahead, and the angry
man’s face was very white under his wide black hat, and his mouth was drawn up tight like a purse with its strings pulled
taut, the pink lips puckered, and in the middle of all the laughing, all the new smells of the countryside, the bantering
of the soldiers and the maid-servants, Gajnath’s easy rolling grace, all the anticipation of the river and the road ahead,
amongst all of this a very cold fear took hold of Sanjay, and he comprehended completely and without doubt that something
very bad was about to happen.

But, as always, the sun came up, and the road now wound through fields and groves of trees, and behind Gajnath horses and
camels and people on foot trailed out for two and a half miles; horsemen rode up and down importantly, their turban-tails
floating behind them, metal clinking reassuringly, and Sanjay’s dread receded. Sikander and Chotta rode back with their officers
and tossed up half a dozen mangos, foraged from a grove of trees by the road; Sikander had the reins now, and he was turning
the horse confidently and sharply, causing his greybeard to laugh with delight.

‘Who knows where these came from, whose orchard?’ Ram Mohan said. ‘But on the other hand, it is the road, and in difficult
circumstances dharma permits the eating of unknown food. Eat, eat.’

They rolled the small green mangos between their palms, pulping them, then opened a small slit in one corner with their teeth;
the cool, unbelievably sweet golden juice spurted into their mouths, thickened by long delicious strands. Gajnath slowed and
extended his trunk above his head.

‘He wants one,’ his mahout said. ‘Gajnath requests a mango. He is partial to them.’

Sanjay handed one forward, and Gajnath took it from his mahout’s hand as delicately as a musician accepting a piece of paan
from an admirer; a moment later, he put his questing, sniffing instrument above his forehead again.

‘Gajnath wants more,’ Sanjay scribbled on a slate.

‘Gajnath the magnificent,’ his uncle said.

‘Gajnath always wants more,’ his mahout said, rubbing a hand over the cracked grey skin between the two flapping ears; as
if in gratitude, Gajnath quickened his pace, bringing them closer to the palanquins
again. The three firangis had wrapped strips of white cloth around their faces, and rode with their heads down; leaning on
the front of the howdah, Sanjay watched them slump further and lower in their saddles, and now as the heat mounted the shouting
and chatter subsided, so there was only the repetitious creak of leather, the shuffling of feet through mud and dust, the
officious blowing of horses and the wheezing of the elephants; the sky was a huge dome above, high, hard and totally blue.
Now Sanjay’s neck seemed to grow limp, and his head lolled; he felt his uncle pull him back, and he tried to utter a protest,
no, I want to watch the road, watch them, but the dark was good (Had Ram Mohan drawn the curtains on the howdah?), and Gajnath
rocked him, up, down and around, is this the sea, mother, will I dream, can I? The dream came, a ship, a black, viscous sea,
water lapping, endless days, eternal sky, and a feeling of resignation, the same quietness hour after hour, years passing;
Sanjay awoke abruptly, eagerly, glad to discover again Gajnath’s tireless stride, to find Ram Mohan’s familiar wheezing as
he slept with his head against the side of the howdah. Sanjay moved a sequined curtain aside, then squinted against the glare;
the horses were plodding, necks craning low, but far ahead there was a glint of red, lost now and then in the green. Sanjay
settled down to wait, impatient now, because he had seen the tents being folded and loaded onto camels, and had been told
that a party of servants would leave early, in the darkness of the early morning, and knew that hot food awaited, a chance
to stretch cramped limbs, and of course an opportunity to examine, at close hand, the behaviour and appurtenances of the firangis.
His earlier feeling returned now, undiminished, but now the apprehension was spiced with the anticipation of an encounter
with the unknown: he promised himself he would listen carefully to the language of the firangis, would note its inflections
and tones, and that he would badger Sikander and Chotta to teach him the meanings of the words that he remembered distinctly,
di-gra-did, si-vil-iz-a-shun, prau-gres, di-cay
. Happily, he knelt and poked his head out between the curtains, then shook his uncle awake, handing him a note. Ram Mohan
cleared his throat, then called, ‘Come on, Gajnath, faster, faster, Sanjay says they have mangos waiting for us at the tents,
and sherbet, and barfi.’

‘Careful, master,’ the mahout said nervously. ‘If you say all that you’re going to have to give him all that. He doesn’t like
it when people
promise and don’t give. It puts him in a bad mood, and he likes you, I can tell.’

‘I’ll give him, Sanjay says,’ Ram Mohan said, reading again. ‘Gajnath, don’t worry, we have all that and more. Come on, Gajnath.’

In the camp, Gajnath knelt ponderously. Ram Mohan clambered down, with an attendant at each side, and hobbled away towards
a tent. Sanjay mouthed at Gajnath, wait, wait (in the grey flesh, that old, knowing eye, with the tracks of tears underneath),
and hurried off to look for familiar faces. At the peripheries of the camp, amongst piles of baggage, he found a harried-looking
bawarchi shouting at his underlings. When he came back to the centre, he found Gajnath seated exactly as he had left him,
legs bent at the knee before the huge body, ears flapping forward and back, trunk moving from side to side.

‘He wouldn’t move,’ the mahout said, exasperated. ‘What did you tell him? Have you taught him how to read now? He’ll be even
more of an impossible fellow than he already is.’

Gajnath lifted the mangos from Sanjay’s hands, and the pink, soft tip of the trunk stroked his wrist for a moment, like a
finger; the bawarchi says we’ll have to wait for the barfi and the sherbet —Sanjay moved his lips —he says this is a camp
on the road, not a palace, but we’ll get some sooner or later. Gajnath swung up, looming, and Sanjay laughed in delight; watching
Gajnath walk away (the little mahout beside, scolding), Sanjay understood all the various allusions in Ram Mohan’s dictation
to beautiful women with elephant-walks: there was that unhurried, graceful placing of one foot, then the other, the body swaying
above, that delicacy. Sensing somebody behind him, Sanjay turned; the chief firangi stood a little distance away, his arms
behind his back, leaning forward a little, flanked by his younger compatriots, watching Sanjay.

‘Charles, if you please,’ the leader said, and one of the others pulled out a notebook handsomely bound in fawn-coloured leather.
‘The Indian, no, no, start again, the native of India is singular in his inability to make the natural and godly distinction
between man and the other creatures. They are apt to treat of the lesser species as if they were separate and equal nations,
instead of beasts lacking in the powers of comprehension that are gifted solely to Man by his just and good God. The natives
further display the capriciousness of children, which is to say that while they display a sentimental and sometimes blasphemously
religious attachment to the lower animals, such as the grimacing monkey, the chewing, placid cow, and the elephant, they are
capable of displaying the most callous cruelty towards these very same species.’ He paused. ‘What d’you think of that, Charles?’

‘Er, enlightening,’ said the young man. ‘To the readers, it will be, I mean, sir.’

‘Properly so,’ his elder replied. ‘Heavens, why does he look at us so? Is he trying to speak, d’you think?’

Sanjay was trying, silently, the taste of a new sound, ‘crool-ti’; it felt like ashes.

’This is the one that fell, the boy from the neighbouring house.’

‘Er, yes, sir. I see the scars.’

The older man bent, and squatted on his heels; close up, his pupils were pale blue, the eyes rimmed a distinct and startling
red from the dust; a white collar pressed up against the loose and raw-looking flesh of his neck.

‘Hallo,’ he said, smiling. Sanjay was examining the blackness of the stubble against the white skin, and was startled by the
smile. ‘I’m the Reverend Sarthey,’ the man said, smiling again, this time with rather conspicuous effort, and putting his
hand on his chest.

Sanjay pulled out his sheaf of paper, scribbled, and handed him a note, causing considerable surprise. ‘He writes! And not
scared of us, either. Charles, see if you can make something of this.’

‘I’m afraid not, sir, it’s rather a fluent sort of vernacular, I should imagine, and colloquial, too. I can just about tell
some of the letters from the others.’

‘Well, no matter. We will try to decipher your missive, young sir, and will return with an answer on the morrow. Meanwhile,
adieu.’ He extended a hand, palm held perpendicular to the ground, thumb up, and for a moment Sanjay tried to decipher the
significance of this strange sign (a one-handed namaste? did he want a mango?), then scrawled out another rapid note and inserted
it between two fingers. The men all smiled together, then strode off; Sanjay walked slowly through the camp, running over
the various nuances of the recent meeting —how much had they understood? What had they said? He wondered what they would do
with his two notes: the first one asked, ‘What is
si-vil-iz-a-shun?
’ and the second one queried, ‘What is the meaning of
di-cay?
’

Sikander’s mother owned a very large tent, a crimson shamiana that was surrounded by a red quanat screen and seemed to spread
endlessly in all eight directions, compartmented and partitioned so that there was always a new nook to be discovered; the
textile itself was lined with chintz embroidered and painted in abstract designs taken from the flowers and vines of some
imaginary, perfect garden and from the regular, hypnotic geometry of mathematics; there were yellow flags that flew from the
tent-posts at regular intervals, and striped curtains hung over the entrances and narrow windows; the floor was covered with
light dhurries, and folding furniture had been assembled and laid out with cushions. After walking through the arched main
entrance (painted and cut to look like stone), where two soldiers stood guard, Sanjay made his way through the maze of corridors
and rooms inside, all the way to the back; hearing Sikander’s voice, he looked around for the entrance to the large zenana
sitting-room, but there was only a blank white wall of cloth. He walked along parallel to it, running a hand over the smooth,
heavy material, listening to Sikander’s mother telling her boys that a whole day of riding was enough, especially in this
rotting heat, they were on no account to venture outside; finding a break in the wall, a place where two sections came together
and were secured to a bamboo pole, Sanjay worked on a couple of knots, pulling at them with his teeth, and then squeezed himself
through the resulting slit. He strained for a moment, his head turned around, shoulder and knee scraping uncomfortably on
the bamboo, and then he fell through, onto a providential pile of cushions, causing Sikander’s sisters to scream and jump;
he straightened up, rolling over, and sat cross-legged on the cushions, examining them unashamedly: they were a secretive,
inseparable pair who constantly confided in each other, whispering mouth-to-ear in their father’s language, interspersed with
a few words in Hindi or Urdu. Sikander and Chotta seemed to treat the both of them with the same formal cordiality that they
extended to their father, with that careful concern that one usually reserved for guests in one’s home; on their part, the
two girls —named Ai-mee-lee and Jain —seemed to prefer their father’s rooms and friends to the apartments and intimates of
their mother. Sanjay saw them infrequently, had never exchanged a word with either of them, but found them both utterly fascinating:
their clothes were cut to a foreign pattern, presumably native to their father’s country; they seemed to cultivate an
air of generalized distaste for everything around them; and when they used a language that he could understand they unfailingly
mispronounced vowels and misplaced accents in a manner that he found devastatingly charming. He smiled at them sheepishly,
sticking out his tongue between his teeth involuntarily, and they tossed their heads and resumed their murmured conversation.