The Splendor Of Silence (4 page)

Mila touched this last photograph lightly, the glass cool under her fingertips. Jai had been away at the Imperial Cadet Corps for sixty-two days, and by her counting, it would be at least another month before he returned. He had written her eight letters so far, which she had read with a deep sense of happiness, for in them, he had been candid, open, passionate--attributes difficult to posses when they came face-to-face because o
f a
n inbuilt shyness in both. As Mila stood by Jai's photograph, she heard the first splash of the brass pot into the well. She went out into the balcony and leaned over the edge.

The sky above her lightened, skewered with skeins of tangerine, but the backyard, thick with the arms of the banyan tree, still held the ebony of the night. And there, amidst that gloom, Mila saw the gleam of the well's whitewashed wall and heard Raman's voice, soothing and mellow in praise of God.

Mila bent down until her chin rested on the concrete parapet. She would pray with Papa, she thought, but she could not concentrate. A m-molt of sound crept into her consciousness--the crows cawed, the koyal cooed maddeningly, water splashed from the well, the soft, morning voices of the servants rose behind the house. The racket never seemed to bother her father; his focus was complete in the midst of chaos. In the distance, she heard the short and sharp hoots of the night train to Rudrakot. Still balanced on just her toes and chin, her body bent at the waist, she watched the steam from the engine dissolve as a tiny slice of the sun brightened the horizon just beyond Chetak's tomb.

This train would bring Jai home to his kingdom of Rudrakot, though when, Mila did not know. Jai was never very specific with time; he did not have to be because, as in everything else, time adjusted itself around him. Jai would travel, of course, with the train, not on the train, his own bogie shunted to the back. He would merely use the engine to pull him to Rudrakot, but would endure none of the discomforts of travel. Jai's bogie had hushed custard apple carpets, Louis XV sofas and giltwood chairs, teak and brass appointments, a gold-plated sink in the mirrored bathroom. Even, at one end, his own kitchen and bar. His own palace-uniform-clad servants, in white turbans and coats with silver-braided sashes. Gaslight-shaped lamps that picked diamonds out of shimmering cut-glass decanters. Mila had traveled in Jai's bogie only once, with Papa and her brothers many years ago, and she had been astounded by how easily Jai fit into his surroundings, lounging casually on the French damask of the sofa, barely distressed as his wine sponged into that precious fabric when the train braked. The conductor and driver had come later to apologize for the train's shudders, with promises to never let that happen again.

Mila listened to the chug-chug of the train, and wondered who came to Rudrakot today, traveling in a much more common way. She lifted her elbows from the balcony's ledge and straightened her back. It did not matter. This night train to Rudrakot would bring them no visitors. Nothing would ruffle the calm of their lives, nothing would break the routine ... until Jai came back home.

Sam woke as the train pulled into Rudrakot at the first shine of dawn. Of the birth of the sun over the flat edge of the earth he saw nothing, for his window looked out toward the cavernous platform. He raised the shutter as the brakes squealed on the tracks. Both Mrs. Stanton and Mr. Abdullah were already awake. The Indian was seated cross-legged on his bunk, hunched against the curved roof of the compartment, his head dangerously close to the fans. She was dressed and finished in a white voile dress printed with lilacs, dog-skin gloves on her hands, her curls coaxed back into place on her skull, her bags packed, the nightgown stuffed in with her knitting.

There were little boys and old, wizened men along the edges of the platform, staring solemnly as the train trundled by. They all had their hands raised into the air, fingers splayed in the Churchillian V. Their stances were overcasual, free arms looped about each other's waists, weights depending upon one foot so their hips stuck out. It was an odd gesture, one Sam had witnessed at other train stations during this journey, but never up this close. He began to laugh, and the weight of the last few weeks lifted.

The men and boys had their palms facing inward, not outward, with two fingers, the middle and the index, up in the air. If one of them tucked his index finger out of sight, it would mean something else altogether. Surely, Sam thought, filled with delight, it was a mistake. Or was it? Would the vast, uneducated Indian masses, with their unwashed faces and their ragged clothes, show the finger to the first-class compartments normally occupied only by the British?

The platform crackled with a sudden life. Coolies lined up where the bogie doors were to stop, one after another, four or five deep, their turbans and short coats a brilliant red, white dhotis wrapped around their waists and tucked between their legs. Even in the gathering heat of the morning, steam blew from the cauldrons of chaff makers, wafting the aroma of cinnamon that made Sam think suddenly and yearningly of his mother'
s p
umpkin pie. Men and women who had slept through the night in neat rows along the platform, in anticipation of the train, sat up on their haunches to watch it unload its bellyful of passengers. Vendors shouted out their wares, hoping for a hungry passenger who could not wait until he reached his home in Rudrakot. There were crisp golden samosas and persimmon-colored jalebis wrapped in newspaper, and toted in wicker baskets aswarm with flies. Water bearers carried earthenware pots atop their heads--Hindu bearers for Hindu water, and Muslim bearers for Muslim water--covered with steel plates, long-handled cups hooked on the side. To the India-uninitiated, this raw, unboiled water was a silent invitation to cholera and dysentery.

Mrs. Stanton leaned out of her window and pointed at a coolie. "You! Andhar aao. Jaldi! Now!" and he obligingly fought his way into the carriage to their compartment and began to pile her luggage onto his head, his shoulders, slung on his arms, settled on his thighs, wherever he could find a place so he did not have to share his burden and thus his fee. She made him drop all the bags on the platform outside the bogie, around her feet.

Sam waited until Mr. Abdullah had also left, then pulled out his holdall and tried to hoist it onto his good shoulder. He almost collapsed with its weight, so he settled for dragging it behind him down onto the platform. Here and there, uniformed officers from the Rudrakot regiments, both Indian and British, turned to glance at him with a mild curiosity, but no one approached him. Mrs. Stanton still waited in front of the bogie, glancing at the watch on her wrist. There was clearly no one to meet her, and she had expected someone. Sam almost offered his services and then stopped himself. He would be damned if he would help this hellish woman. The crowds milled around her in a tightening circle; the coolie sat by, spitting out paan near her feet, a few bright red spots sprinkling on her lilac shoes; people fell against her as though by accident, knocked her bags about; and still no one came to receive Mrs. Stanton. She began to droop.

A bevy of little boys appeared from nowhere to surround Sam. "Sahib, baksheesh." "Please, Sahib, some baksheesh." "You like dance, I do dance." And then an incongruous flailing of arms and legs was followed by "Hip, hip, hurrah" in strident voices. They pawed at him; he fought them off as well as he could, then reached into his shirt pocket for a bunch of coins, which he gave them, one by one, placing each anna coin in an upturned, blackened little palm. They all looked the same to him, bright-eyed, sweet-faced creatures, with a great deal of cunning and slyness all at once. With the money tucked into their torn shorts and shirts, the boys melted away to go bother someone else. But one boy gave Sam a solemn look and shook his head when he proffered the coin.

"No, Sahib," he said, and then ran along the platform and behind a newsstand.

Sam instinctively followed him, hauling his bag. When he got there, the boy, not more than eight perhaps, was standing with his back against the wall, his hands looped behind. He smiled at Sam, looked down at the hand holding the arena coin, and said nothing.

"Take it," Sam said.

"You American, Sahib?"

"Yes. Take it. Go feed your family with it." He did not have the energy to care what they did with the money he gave out, but he still gave. It made him feel as if he was doing something; it appeased his conscience.

"Three arenas, Sahib," the boy said. There was a grown-up look on his face, despite his vagabond appearance. He had not bathed in many days, clumps of filth matted his hair, his face was patterned with dirt, and his teeth were yellow and rotting.

"Three arenas?" Sam grinned at the boy. He had some skill at negotiation despite having begged for the money. "Two," he said. "My final offer. Take it or leave it."

"I have sick sister, Sahib, please, Sahib."

Sam took out another coin and placed it next to the one in his hand. "Here."

"More for three arenas, Sahib. Whatever you want. I touch, two arenas. You touch, anywhere, three arenas."

Sam's stomach turned. Shit, he thought, oh, bloody shit. Why.

Just then, the birthing sun sent a shaft of sunshine ducking under the platform's roof and over Sam's shoulder to light up the child's face. The wall behind the boy was red-streaked with paan juice and tumultuous blossoms of urine that spat out a stench. Newspapers flapped on their racks, spilling out their surfeit of war news, so many killed, Burma fallen, deaths and destruction, a damnable party at some club in Calcutta, the music accompanied by the bawling of blackout sirens. The boy waited. Something, tiny, countless, moved in his dirty hair, lifting strands of it in the sunlight.

Sam recoiled and the boy's brown eyes flickered with fear, but he retained his smile. Long moments passed and Sam felt sweat pool within his palm, the coins clammy against his skin. Who in hell was he to stand in judgement on this boy? Men wanted this, they paid the boy well for it; he had it to offer he had little else to offer. Perhaps he really had a sick sister at home. Perhaps his mother and his father did not know, or did not care where he was now. Perhaps he had no mother or father. Oh, shit. Sam reached into his pocket and took out another coin. He set the three of them down on the ground in front of him, and then turned and walked away quickly. The boy whimpered, but Sam did not look back again.

Outside the platform, after having surrendered his ticket stub at the gate, Sam hired a rickshaw and dumped his holdall onto the seat. He was in a bazaar of some sort, foul, disorganized, with overflowing gutters on either side of the muddy tarred road, cows lounging in the center, whipping at flies with their long tails. Something nudged at his shoulder and Sam swung around rapidly, his left arm protecting his right. In front of him, at his very nose, was an enormous head with big, gentle eyes, long lashes, and a thick-lipped mouth that moved in gum-chewing fashion. The camel sniffed at Sam, blew its stinking breath into his face, and then righted itself to its full height. The camel driver, seated in the cart yoked to the beast's back, laughed. "He is curious, Sahib. He has not seen American sahib before, only British. Many British here."

So much for being invisible at Rudrakot, Sam thought with disgust. It was as though he was carrying a banner proclaiming that he was foreign, that he was American. How did everyone know even before he opened his mouth?

"The Victoria Club, Sahib?" the rickshaw puller asked.

"No, I'm not staying at the club."

An enormous and stately Daimler Double Six honked. Sam saw Mrs. Stanton, gracefully and joyously upright, in the backseat. A Union Jack fluttered on the bonnet. As the limousine went by, Mr. Abdullah raised his hand in salute to Sam from the front seat, next to the chauffeur. Sam stared at the squat backside of the brown car. The same car had come to pick them up? They knew each other, then. Why that performance on the train?

When he was climbing onto the rickshaw, a man came running out o
f t
he station, dragging the tearful boy behind him, the wet cutting twin rivers through the dirt on his face down to his chin.

"Sahib," the man shouted,paan-colored saliva staining one side of his mouth, as though he had been bloodied in a fight. "You don't like this one? He is stupid. Another one? Younger? Older? Or you want girl?" He cuffed the boy on the head; the boy ducked and cried out, trying to yank his thin arm away from the man's grip.

Sam whipped his head away and said to the rickshaw puller, "Take me to the political agent's house. jaldi."

Chapter
Two.

I had just returned from a ride and went into Father's study to greet him He had been talking to a wealthy landowner who was very old-fashioned and did not believe in freedom for women "Is it necessary," he asked, "to let an Indian girl behave in the uncouth manner of the English? Why is she being educated according to foreign standards and being given so much freedom? Do you intend to make her into a lawyer like yourself?" As I entered Father asked me if I would like to read law.

--Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, The Scope Of Happiness, 1979

*

The door to Mila's room swung open while she stood in the balcony and she knew who it was without turning--Pallavi, who had bee
n w
ith their household since her mother and father had married. These past ten minutes were usually the only fragments of time when Mila would find herself alone during the day, when her thoughts were her own.

"Are you awake?" Pallavi said softly, bringing with her the fragrance of a sweet morning chicory coffee. She peered around the Japanese screen at the doorway and proffered the tray she held. "Come in, my dear. Coffee, omelet with cheese and chilies, two slices of toast, three curls of butter. Come, eat, you are a growing child."