Red Earth and Pouring Rain (70 page)

Sikander’s hands slipped to his sides, and then Chotta sat again, tucking his legs in.

‘It is interesting that I could not kill the children. I was going to but I could not.’ He held up his hand. ‘Give me the
gun.’

‘No,’ said Sikander. ‘I will not allow it.’

‘Do you still believe in your strength?’ said Chotta, laughing. ‘Poor brother. You are a child still. But there are things
your strength cannot fight. Disappointment is stronger than a thousand of you. Look. They say that virtue and penance give
a man power over his own death. But I tell you that disappointment is stronger than anything. In the name of disappointment
I call upon death to take me.’ He looked at Sanjay. ‘Take revenge. Don’t disappoint me.’ He shut his eyes, and took a deep
breath. His body seemed to turn an intense red, and all over there were myriad tiny spots that blazed like coals. Then a burning
passed over his skin, a searing fire that was hard to look at, and he toppled slowly back onto the roof. Now the spots faded
slowly until his skin was white again. Sikander reached out a hand to him.

‘He is dead.’

The blood dripped off the roof and made a shapeless puddle below.

* * *

At the funeral, Sanjay handed Sikander a note: ‘Come with me.’ As Sikander read it, Sanjay wrote another: ‘Bring your men;
we will finish all this.’

‘I can’t,’ Sikander said. ‘I’ve eaten their salt.’

‘That’s an old excuse even you don’t believe any more.’

‘I am bound.’

‘Even after this?’

‘I cannot see any other way out.’

‘Will you oppose us?’

‘I suppose I will have to.’

‘I will kill you this time.’

Sikander said nothing, and Sanjay turned back to the pyre, which had settled into a red glow. He reached in, feeling the heat
not as pain but as a foreign element pressed against the skin, and came up with a handful of black ash. As he walked away,
Sikander called to him.

‘What happened to you?’

Sanjay pointed at him, meaning: exactly what happened to you.

That evening, as the sun set, Sanjay watched as Sunil cooked eight batches of chappatis, each sprinkled with black ash. The
smell of the flour was sharp with memories, but Sanjay pressed them away and gave his instructions: each packet of chappatis
was to be sent to one of the cardinal directions. At the first village or town the chappatis were to be delivered to those
most filled with anger. They were to eat the chappatis, saving only a tiny piece that was to be crumbled and powdered over
the chappatis they prepared themselves, and sent on to their neighbours in the next settlement. So the bitter taste of war
would spread, multiplying at every eating, until it was rampant and uncontrollable and the hour was right. Sanjay wrote: ‘It
cannot be stopped.’

Sandeep said: ‘So Sanjay prepared a fire for the English. He moved from town to town, travelling without cease by foot and
often exhausting Sunil into collapse. His food appeared in every village from Bengal to Punjab, and since it was dusty, small
and common no English ever noticed it, at least not until it was too late. There was always the usual, the petty intrigues
of small kings, the obsequiousness of the servants towards their masters, the loyalty of the soldiers to their salt, the
constant churning of the ocean of trade, and there was no Englishman who understood that everything had changed, that Sanjay
walked the streets of Hindustan, which was India now. Sanjay was pale, he gleamed with a hard lustre like machine steel, his
hair was white, he was silent, and he spoke to men and women about their humiliation and their rancour, he told them to think
about what they loved. He showed them loss. The country grew quiet and the English thought it was peace.’

Sanjay came back to Delhi because there was one man who knew what he was and what he wanted: Sikander. Sikander knew and fought
him at every turn, Sikander gathered intelligence and sent out spies and reported to the English, who never believed him.
In Agra, Sanjay set up a cabal of Muslim horse traders, but three months after they began their secret work they were arrested
for treason by Sikander and executed; Sanjay asked, who is his best friend? An Englishman’s name was the answer, and Sanjay
said (with bitterness), kill him. This was done, and in return Sikander caused the arrest of a man who was innocent of the
Englishman’s death, but who was essential to Sanjay’s schemes in Delhi, and this agent, a nobleman, was tried for the murder
and vulgarly hanged. At this insult Sanjay could bear it no longer, and he sent a message to Sikander asking for a meeting.
It was agreed that they would meet on black Amavas night in Hansi.

They met on the barren field where Jahaj Jung had fought his last battle. Sanjay stood, his hands folded across his chest,
watching as a slight breeze kicked up dust against his thighs. Some distance away there was a doorway, an empty arch left
from some long-disappeared building, and against this Sunil huddled with his men. Three of them were farmers, there was a
small land-owner’s younger son from Avadh, and two grain merchants, and the other dozen ex-soldiers of all ages. They were
cold, but not frightened, even of the Yellow Boys whom they were meeting, because they had seen Sanjay break a man’s neck
with one shrug, and they knew his coolness and his delicacy. Sanjay felt their eagerness, and the winter’s cold against his
bare chest made him keenly alive. He was only afraid that Sikander would not come, that he had in his dotage learnt care and
the fear of darkness. Sanjay wanted him to come, and it
was not the ruin, the door, that struck him as poignant, but the thought that whatever he and Sikander did would be the finish
of a lifetime. This was sadly refreshing. The winter earth was new and wet and full of promise.

Finally Sanjay saw a skirmish line of torches curl up out of the horizon. They came slowly, maintaining a sort of patient
discipline, an even distance from each other that Sanjay had never been able to get from his men, despite his appearance and
their fear of him. It was a skill he found himself envying even now, this effortless military grace, so that when Sikander
reined up his horse Sanjay was already angry.

‘Halloa,’ Sikander said. ‘What a hellish long way for a meeting.’

He strode forward, through the wary lines of their guards, and hugged Sanjay, thumping him on the back twice. Sanjay pulled
back, and he could see that he was smiling, that he was sincere in his gladness. But Sanjay had no interest in conversation,
and he wrote a note and handed it to him: ‘Why do you fight us?’ Sikander took the note, but was moving his head from side
to side, peering at him through the darkness. Sanjay pointed at the note.

‘Can you see in the dark?’ Sikander said, with an expression more of horror than amazement. Sanjay snatched a torch and held
it above Sikander’s head, lighting grey hair, dark skin that looked porous in the red light, a jowled face. Slowly, Sikander
lowered his gaze to the piece of paper in his hand. Sanjay saw a bald spot on top of the head before him, and was filled with
sudden pity.

They walked a little away, into the field, and they sat next to each other on the earth, and Sanjay held Sikander’s arm and
traced message after message onto it, all asking the same thing: ‘Come with us. Why will you not come with us?’ Sikander shrugged.
‘Do you understand I will have to kill you?’ Sikander nodded. ‘Why, why will you die for them?’ Sanjay told him about the
English, what they were, what they had done already and what they wanted to do. ‘It is not only that they steal from us. It
is not only that our grandchildren’s children will starve because they will bleed us into poverty and weakness. It is not
only this. Do you remember a voice I used to hear, the voice of Alexander? They are mad, they want more than land, they want
to change the world. They will not stop, not ever, when the English are gone it will be somebody else, they
will kill everything in their search for beauty. They are mad. Everything else will cease to exist but their madness. Do you
understand? We must fight them now or lose forever. Your brother is dead, and he was my brother. Do you remember your mother?
We are all lost.’

Sikander was silent, and so Sanjay thought, no, not this, a change of tactics is necessary. He wrote again.

‘What is it? Is it what they have given you? You think they’ve given you honour and wealth? They’ve made you into a national
monument, Sikander. You’ve become one of the sights of Delhi. They get here, with their children and their nannies and ayahs
and dogs and picnic-baskets, and first they do the Red Fort, ladies and gentlemen, mothers and fathers, babies and babas,
here please first be seeing the place where Shah Jahan used to hold court; then they go to the Qutab Minar, aunties and uncles,
now we are having here the tallest tower in the world, the wonder of the continent; and then they come here, English lords
and ladies, now please look at this man, this black man, this nigger man —here, in human shape and form, a mausoleum! His
skin has turned into stone, his bones are timbers, he houses the death of hopes and ambitions, but he makes a serviceable
shelter for the great ones of Britain. Once it was thought that an emperor lived here, a ruler who would lead his peoples,
but as you can see, that was merely illusion, and what lives here now is a doddering old madman (a lunatic inhabits every
tomb in this country), a few rot-odoured vultures. But don’t be scared, little ones, the old man won’t harm you, come on in,
sit at his knee, he’ll tell you a story, a fine story of adventure and conquest, he has plenty of those, he’s served you well,
he’s dispatched men all over this land for your fathers. Now he sits waiting eagerly for visitors, hungry for an audience,
so he can smile and wag his head and entertain them; see how clownishly he acts out the episode, see how he hops and jumps,
like this he rode the horse, like this he swung the sword, oh, be kind, children, ladies, reward him with a smile. And then
they leave, saying, so, young Robert, did you like the shrine, wasn’t it quite amusing in a quaint provincial Indian way?
Little Esther, leave that alone, no, it’s part of the mausoleum, no, you can’t take a couple of bricks with you. Roger, don’t
let Rover go in those nice rose bushes, he can do it over there, against the side of the building. Now, now, Edward, don’t
play in the road, watch where you’re going, don’t use
that sort of language, and especially not concerning those wagons, they’re taking cotton to Manchester, and iron ore to Leeds,
and gold to the Bank of England. No, Edward, all that doesn’t belong to this manor —it’s not a manor, but a memorial —it belongs
to us, because this monument commemorates surrender, fatigue, cowardice. Look at this plaque —what is this shape, Edward?
You know this shape. Can you read the writing? —it says, in large carved letters, that dharma is dead, the king has abdicated.
That means, Edward, that they have lost, and we have won. Come on, children, hurry now, we’re going to the zoo next, to look
at the animals, won’t that be nice? Grinning monkeys, and miming apes? They’ve made you into an animal, Sikander, and somehow
you don’t even feel the insult.’

Finally, Sikander said: ‘Everything you say is true. But I am what I am, and I cannot change that. Even you are what you want
to deny: you are already changed. I cannot betray them because I have remained what I always was, my mother’s son. And you
must fight them because you have become what you are, what you had to become. This is also true.’ He paused. ’You say I betrayed
you, but I am a Rajput, and I have given of my body. I have never been afraid of death, none of us have. We have laughed at
it. But you, you were supposed to be a poet. You were supposed to tell us what we should become, what we were. I would have
been a king, I would have been anything if you had shown me how. It is you who have betrayed us. You betrayed yourself because
you became something else.’

Sanjay slapped him, and Sikander took the blow without a word, without even flinching.

They fought in a ring of torches, a circle of light surrounded by a huge darkness. An unseasonal rain had begun to fall, an
irregular flurrying of moisture that released a deep clayey smell from the ground. Sanjay stood naked in the circle and waited
as Sikander stripped off his jacket, shivering. Sikander wiped his face with both his hands and then, without formalities,
they began. It was over very quickly. In the first moment Sanjay knew Sikander’s enormous skill, his years of science that
moved him so artfully that he was impossible to catch but gave no impression of speed. Sikander hit Sanjay a dozen times in
the first few seconds, smashed him about the shoulders and head, probed under his
ribs with a horned thumb, found a nerve on the inner thigh, but all of it made no difference. Sanjay was hard and tireless.
The blows made no difference to him and he was content to wait. Finally he caught Sikander in a hug, his arms around the chest,
and he held him as Sikander looked at him with a puzzled look on his face. Sanjay twisted, turned and they both fell to the
ground. Sanjay held him down, pressed him close to the earth, down, and he felt Sikander strain against him, enormous bursts
of strength that drummed against the ground like thunder, once, twice, thrice, and then Sikander’s body broke. Sanjay saw
his grey eyes widen once and then relax. Sikander was dead.

As Sanjay walked away, not looking back, Sikander’s soldiers held up torches to his face. He understood that they were memorizing
his face, that he had made them enemies, and he met their stares with an expression of pride. This confidence stayed with
him as he rode away, and then as he plunged himself into his work. He moved so fast that Sunil had to organize two teams,
one to guard and work while the other slept, because Sanjay was always awake. There was no village too small, no regiment
too obscure for him to visit with his chappatis and his midnight conferences. He was tireless, and when Sunil told him, they
have buried Sikander in Hansi, he shrugged and went on with what he was doing, which was a meeting with the head-men of fourteen
villages near Agra. He told these men, be prepared; make weapons and bury them below the floors of your houses; gather your
fellows, discipline them, train them, and wait. The time is coming.