Train to Pakistan (2 page)

As the midday express goes by, Mano Majra stops to rest. Men and children come home for dinner and the siesta hour. When they have eaten, the men gather in the shade of the peepul tree and sit on the wooden platforms and talk and doze. Boys ride their buffaloes into the pond, jump off their backs, and splash about in the muddy water. Girls play under the trees. Women rub clarified butter into each other’s hair, pick lice from their children’s heads, and discuss births, marriages and deaths.

When the evening passenger from Lahore comes in, everyone gets to work again. The cattle are rounded up and driven back home to be milked and locked in for the night. The women cook the evening meal. Then the families foregather on their rooftops where most of them sleep during the summer. Sitting on their charpais, they eat their supper of vegetables and chapattis and sip hot creamy milk out of large copper tumblers and idle away the time until the signal for sleep. When the goods train steams in, they say to each other, ‘There is the goods train.’ It is like saying goodnight. The mullah again calls the faithful to prayer by shouting at the top of his voice, ‘God is great.’ The faithful nod their amens from their rooftops. The
Sikh priest murmurs the evening prayer to a semicircle of drowsy old men and women. Crows caw softly from the keekar trees. Little bats go flitting about in the dusk and large ones soar with slow graceful sweeps. The goods train takes a long time at the station, with the engine running up and down the sidings exchanging wagons. By the time it leaves, the children are asleep. The older people wait for its rumble over the bridge to lull them to slumber. Then life in Mano Majra is stilled, save for the dogs barking at the trains that pass in the night.

It had always been so, until the summer of 1947.

One heavy night in August of that year, five men emerged from a keekar grove not far from Mano Majra, and moved silently towards the river. They were dacoits, or professional robbers, and all but one of them were armed. Two of the armed men carried spears. The others had carbines slung over their shoulders. The fifth man carried a chromium-plated electric torch. When they came to the embankment, he flicked the torch alight. Then he grunted and snapped it off.

‘We will wait here,’ he said.

He dropped down on the sand. The others crouched around him, leaning on their weapons. The man with the torch looked at one of the spearmen.

‘You have the bangles for Jugga?’

‘Yes. A dozen of red and blue glass. They would please any village wench.’

‘They will not please Jugga,’ one of the gunmen said.

The leader laughed. He tossed the torch in the air and caught it. He laughed again and raised the torch to his mouth and touched the switch. His cheeks glowed pink from the light inside.

‘Jugga could give the bangles to that weaver’s daughter of his,’ the other spearman said. ‘They would look well with those
large gazelle eyes and the little mango breasts. What is her name?’

The leader turned off the torch and took it from his mouth. ‘Nooran,’ he said.

‘Aho,’ the spearman said. ‘Nooran. Did you see her at the spring fair? Did you see that tight shirt showing off her breasts and the bells tinkling in her plaits and the swish-swish of silk? Hai!’

‘Hai!’ the spearman with the bangles cried. ‘Hai! Hai!’

‘She must give Jugga a good time,’ said the gunman who had not yet spoken. ‘During the day, she looks so innocent you would think she had not shed her milk teeth.’ He sighed. ‘But at night, she puts black antimony in her eyes.’

‘Antimony is good for the eyes,’ one of the others said. ‘It is cooling.’

‘It is good for other people’s eyes as well,’ the gunman said.

‘And cooling to their passions, too.’

‘Jugga?’ the leader said.

The others laughed. One of them suddenly sat erect.

‘Listen!’ he said. ‘There is the goods train.’

The others stopped laughing. They all listened in silence to the approaching train. It came to a halt with a rumble, and the wagons groaned and creaked. After a time, the engine could be heard moving up and down, releasing wagons. There were loud explosions as the released wagons collided with the ones on the sidings. The engine chuffed back to the train.

‘It is time to call on Ram Lal,’ the leader said, and got to his feet.

His companions rose and brushed the sand off their clothes. They formed a line with their hands joined in prayer. One of the gunmen stepped in front and began to mumble. When he stopped, they all went down on their knees and rubbed their foreheads on the ground. Then they stood up and drew the
loose ends of their turbans across their faces. Only their eyes were uncovered. The engine gave two long whistle blasts, and the train moved off towards the bridge.

‘Now,’ the leader said.

The others followed him up the embankment and across the fields. By the time the train had reached the bridge, the men had skirted the pond and were walking up a lane that led to the centre of the village. They came to the house of Lala Ram Lal. The leader nodded to one of the gunmen. He stepped forward and began to pound on the door with the butt of his gun.

‘Oi!’ he shouted. ‘Lala!’

There was no reply. Village dogs gathered round the visitors and began to bark. One of the men hit a dog with the flat side of his spear blade. Another fired his gun into the air. The dogs ran away whimpering and started to bark louder from a safer distance.

The men began to hammer at the door with their weapons. One struck it with his spear which went through to the other side.

‘Open, you son of fornication, or we will kill the lot of you,’ he shouted.

A woman’s voice answered. ‘Who is it who calls at this hour? Lalaji has gone to the city.’

‘Open and we will tell you who we are or we will smash the door,’ the leader said.

‘I tell you Lalaji is not in. He has taken the keys with him. We have nothing in the house.’

The men put their shoulders to the door, pressed, pulled back and butted into it like battering-rams. The wooden bolt on the other side cracked and the doors flew open. One of the men with a gun waited at the door; the other four went in. In one corner of the room two women sat crouching. A boy of
seven with large black eyes clung to the older of the two.

‘In the name of God, take what we have, all our jewellery, everything,’ implored the older woman. She held out a handful of gold and silver bracelets, anklets and earrings.

One of the men snatched them from her hands.

‘Where is the Lala?’

‘I swear by the Guru he is out. You have taken all we have. Lalaji has nothing more to give.’

In the courtyard four beds were laid out in a row.

The man with the carbine tore the little boy from his grandmother’s lap and held the muzzle of the gun to the child’s face. The women fell at his feet imploring.

‘Do not kill, brother. In the name of the Guru—don’t.’

The gunman kicked the women away.

‘Where is you father?’

The boy shook with fear and stuttered, ‘Upstairs.’

The gunman thrust the boy back into the woman’s lap, and the men went out into the courtyard and climbed the staircase. There was only one room on the roof. Without pausing they put their shoulders to the door and pushed it in, tearing it off its hinges. The room was cluttered with steel trunks piled one on top of the other. There were two charpais with several quilts rolled up on them. The white beam of the torch searched the room and caught the moneylender crouching under one of the charpais.

‘In the name of the Guru, the Lalaji is out,’ one of the men said, mimicking the woman’s voice. He dragged Ram Lal out by his legs.

The leader slapped the moneylender with the back of his hand. ‘Is this the way you treat your guests? We come and you hide under a charpai.’

Ram Lal covered his face with his arms and began to whimper.

‘Where are the keys of the safe?’ asked the leader, kicking him on the behind.

‘You can take all—jewellery, cash, account books. Don’t kill anyone,’ implored the moneylender, grasping the leader’s feet with both his hands.

‘Where are the keys of your safe?’ repeated the leader. He knocked the moneylender sprawling on the floor. Ram Lal sat up, shaking with fear.

He produced a wad of notes from his pocket. ‘Take these,’ he said, distributing the money to the five men. ‘It is all I have in the house. All is yours.’

‘Where are the keys of your safe?’

‘There is nothing left in the safe; only my account books. I have given you all I have. All I have is yours. In the name of the Guru, let me be.’ Ram Lal clasped the leader’s legs above the knees and began to sob. ‘In the name of the Guru! In the name of the Guru!’

One of the men tore the moneylender away from the leader and hit him full in the face with the butt of his gun.

‘Hai!’ yelled Ram Lal at the top of his voice, and spat out blood.

The women in the courtyard heard the cry and started shrieking,
‘Dakoo! Dakoo!’

The dogs barked all round. But not a villager stirred from his house.

On the roof of his house, the moneylender was beaten with butts of guns and spear handles and kicked and punched. He sat on his haunches, crying and spitting blood. Two of his teeth were smashed. But he would not hand over the keys of his safe. In sheer exasperation, one of the men lunged at the crouching figure with his spear. Ram Lal uttered a loud yell and collapsed on the floor with blood spurting from his belly. The men came out. One of them fired two shots in the air. Women stopped
wailing. Dogs stopped barking. The village was silenced.

The dacoits jumped off the roof to the lane below. They yelled defiance to the world as they went out towards the river.

‘Come!’ they yelled. ‘Come out, if you have the courage! Come out, if you want your mothers and sisters raped! Come out, brave men!’

No one answered them. There was not a sound in Mano Majra. The men continued along the lane, shouting and laughing, until they came to a small hut on the edge of the village. The leader halted and motioned to one of the spearmen.

‘This is the house of the great Jugga,’ he said. ‘Do not forget our gift. Give him his bangles.’

The spearman dug a package from his clothes and tossed it over the wall. There was a muffled sound of breaking glass in the courtyard.

‘O Juggia,’ he called in a falsetto voice, ‘Juggia!’ He winked at his companions. ‘Wear these bangles, Juggia. Wear these bangles and put henna on your palms.’

‘Or give them to the weaver’s daughter,’ one of the gunmen yelled.

‘Hai,’ the others shouted. They smacked their lips, making the sound of long, lecherous kisses. ‘Hai! Hai!’

They moved on down the lane, still laughing and blowing kisses, towards the river. Juggut Singh did not answer them. He didn’t hear them. He was not at home.

Juggut Singh had been gone from his home about an hour. He had only left when the sound of the night goods train told him that it would now be safe to go. For him, as for the dacoits, the arrival of the train that night was a signal. At the first distant rumble, he slipped quietly off his charpai and picked up his turban and wrapped it round his head. Then he tiptoed across the courtyard to the haystack and fished out a spear. He tiptoed
back to his bed, picked up his shoes, and crept towards the door.

‘Where are you going?’

Juggut Singh stopped. It was his mother.

‘To the fields,’ he said. ‘Last night wild pigs did a lot of damage.’

‘Pigs!’ his mother said. ‘Don’t try to be clever. Have you forgotten already that you are on probation—that it is forbidden for you to leave the village after sunset? And with a spear! Enemies will see you. They will report you. They will send you back to jail.’ Her voice rose to a wail. ‘Then who will look after the crops and the cattle?’

‘I will be back soon,’ Juggut Singh said. ‘There is nothing to worry about. Everyone in the village is asleep.’

‘No,’ his mother said. She wailed again.

‘Shut up,’ he said. ‘It is you who will wake the neighbours. Be quiet and there will be no trouble.’

‘Go! Go wherever you want to go. If you want to jump in a well, jump. If you want to hang like your father, go and hang. It is my lot to weep. My kismet,’ she added, slapping her forehead, ‘it is all written there.’

Juggut Singh opened the door and looked on both sides. There was no one about. He walked along the walls till he got to the end of the lane near the pond. He could see the grey forms of a couple of adjutant storks slowly pacing up and down in the mud looking for frogs. They paused in their search. Juggut Singh stood still against the wall till the storks were reassured, then went off the footpath across the fields towards the river. He crossed the dry sand bed till he got to the stream. He stuck his spear in the ground with the blade pointing upward, then stretched out on the sand. He lay on his back and gazed at the stars. A meteor shot across the Milky Way, trailing a silver path down the blue-black sky. Suddenly a hand was on his eyes.

‘Guess who?’

Juggut Singh stretched out his hands over his head and behind him, groping; the girl dodged them. Juggut Singh started with the hand on his eyes and felt his way up from the arm to the shoulder and then on to the face. He caressed her cheeks, eyes and nose that his hands knew so well. He tried to play with her lips to induce them to kiss his fingers. The girl opened her mouth and bit him fiercely. Juggut Singh jerked his hand away. With a quick movement he caught the girl’s head in both his hands and brought her face over to his. Then he slipped his arms under her waist and hoisted her into the air above him with her arms and legs kicking about like a crab. He turned her about till his arms ached. He brought her down flat upon him limb to limb.

The girl slapped him on the face.

‘You put your hands on the person of a strange woman. Have you no mother or sister in your home? Have you no shame? No wonder the police have got you on their register as a bad character. I will also tell the Inspector sahib that you are a badmash.’

‘I am only badmash with you, Nooro. We should both be locked up in the same cell.’