Waiting for the Monsoon (52 page)

“Grandfather?”

He pulled the nipple out of his mouth and said, “Yes?”

“Did you shoot those animals?” She pointed to the heads of the animals on the wall behind him. She saw that he was searching deep in his memory, but in vain. Embarrassed, he shrugged his shoulders.

“Would you like me to read something aloud?”

“They've taken my glasses away.”

“Who?”

“They.” He gestured toward the wall opposite him.

Issy followed his forefinger but saw only a large nail in the wall.

“They, they, they . . .” Suddenly he was gripped by panic. He searched desperately for words. “They took . . . they . . . they . . .”

“What, Grandfather? What's the matter?”

He began to tremble violently and his head swung back and forth from left to right.

Issy put her hand gently on his shoulder. She jumped: his damp skin wasn't warm to the touch, but cold.

He was gasping for breath, and before she knew what was happening, she received a hard blow to her abdomen.

She jumped backwards and cried out in pain.

“It's you! You've got it!” His lower arms were waving in all directions. The bottle flew through the air and smashed into the large wardrobe. “You stole it. You're no better than the others. Filthy liar! A thief, that's what you are. A sneaky rat. Bowing and scraping, and giving me the old soft soap, but all the time conniving against me. I saw you. I'm not crazy. That would suit you, wouldn't it? You've robbed me of everything. I don't even have a pair of trousers to my name!” He looked around for something else he could throw at her, but everything was beyond his reach except for the steel pot. He grabbed it and threw it at the girl, spitting the words in her face: “Give it back! I want it back!” The empty pot landed on the floor with a crash. Issy was frightened out of her wits by his sudden fit of blind rage. She didn't know what to do.

“Witch, vixen, slut, whore, tramp!”

The door flew open and Charlotte stormed in. She was startled to see Issy standing there, looking as though she was about to burst into tears. She picked up the plastic bottle, automatically wiping the nipple clean as she walked over to the bed. “Hush now, Father, hush now. Everything's going to be all right.”

“She stole my watch!” He sobbed and pointed to Issy. “My watch.”

“No, she didn't, Father.”

“Then where . . .” He pointed to the nail on the wall where the watch usually hung. “It's gone.”

“No, Father, it's here.” Charlotte opened her hand, revealing the large gold watch. “It was in the bathroom.”

Issy looked from her aunt to the door of the bathroom and then back to the watch in her hand. She had no idea where the watch had suddenly come from, but she knew for sure it hadn't come from the bathroom.

The old man in the wheelchair began to cry, and Charlotte hung the watch back on its nail. “Look, now everything is all right.”

Tears ran down his cheeks as she put the nipple back into his mouth.

“Are you comfortable?”

Charlotte took a cloth and wiped the tears and sweat from his face. She patted his face dry, and then his forehead, shoulders, chest, and legs. Her hand went over the leather belt, checking to see that it wasn't too tight. She looked over her shoulder at Issy, who was watching in silence: her aunt, whom she had shortly before suspected of maltreatment, was down on her knees, lovingly drying her father's feet. “Sometimes he forgets that he can't walk,” Charlotte said in a low voice. She felt the eyes boring a hole in her back.

“I thought . . .” Issy searched for words.

Charlotte knew what her niece thought and had no desire to hear it spelled out. Issy hoped that her aunt would never find out that she had been about to call the police and ask them to free her grandfather.

“Why don't you go downstairs? I'll be right there,” Charlotte said softly.

Issy was glad to leave the dismal, gloomy room. On the landing, the dusty chandelier and the ticking of the clock brought her back to the present. She looked at the old clock and remembered one Christmas Eve when her father told her the story of her great-great-grandparents, who crossed the Himalayas in a snowstorm carrying the clock. For the first time, she believed the story, which according to her mother was just something her father had dreamt up.

Suddenly Charlotte heard that her father's breathing had changed. His cantankerous outburst had made way for a kind of wistful nostalgia. She looked into his face and saw that he was following her with a sad look in his eyes.

“May I ask you something?” she said.

The general nodded and pulled the nipple out of his mouth.

“Do you know who I am?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“You never believe me.”

“Sometimes it's difficult.”

“Did you have the watch?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because there's no more money.”

“What about our pensions?”

“They don't amount to anything now.”

“The savings account?”

“Empty.”

“The box in the secret drawer of my desk?”

“Gone.”

“Peter's lampshade?”

“Sold.”

“All the stones?”

“Yes.”

Father and daughter looked at each other. Charlotte had no idea how long the moment would last, but she knew that she would have to act quickly, while he had a lucid moment.

“All we have is this house, the clock, and your watch.”

“Then we'll have to sell the house. It's a rotten house anyway: much too hot and the electricity keeps conking out.”

Charlotte knew that at any moment he could slip back into that intangible world that she was not a part of, so she opened the desk drawer and took out a piece of paper.

“It stinks, and I'm pretty sure there's wood rot, too. At night I hear the beetles gnawing on the rafters, the paper is falling off the walls, the water pipes wheeze, and it's a miracle that I haven't fallen through the floor yet.”

She put a thick book on his lap and on top of it the piece of paper. While he went on running the house down, she put a pen in his hand. “Father, if you'll sign here, I can sell the house and see to it that you get a better room.”

The general looked from the paper to his daughter.

Charlotte felt the drops of sweat running down her back. She'd never got this far before. During her last attempt, he had gone into a fit of rage when she produced the power of attorney, accusing her of collaborating with the Japs, while the time before that he had broken out in sobs, claiming that she didn't love him anymore. Once he'd cursed her and broken the pen in two, and another time he had simply fallen asleep, and when he woke up, the strange fantasies and delusions had taken possession of him again.

Calmly, he began to read the paper. Charlotte knew that she must not hurry him. The slightest encroachment upon his concentration could lead him to some inaccessible byway in his grey matter. She stood beside him motionless. Sweat ran in rivulets down her entire body, trickled into her eyes, made her neck itch. She looked at her father, the piece of paper in his hand, his lifeless legs, the dented chamber pot at his feet, the colourless wardrobe, and the stuffed animal heads on the wall, which had been ravaged by moths.

He coughed and said softly, “You did a good job of writing it down. Where do you want me to sign?”

She pointed to the bottom of the page. He muttered, “Better to do it quickly, otherwise this hovel won't be worth anything.”

Mesmerized, she nodded and stared at the tip of the pen as he signed his name with a firm hand.

“Thank you.” She took the paper and the book from his knees and the pen from his hand.

“Give that back.”

“What?”

“That book.”

“Do you want to read it?”

“What else would I want with a book?”

She handed him the book. He opened it and ran his eyes across the page. She saw that he was holding it upside-down.

THE FIRST RAYS
of sun creep through the dense layer of foliage that forms the roof. The wavering light reveals that the soldiers are still sitting in a circle, facing each other. In the middle of the circle lies the swollen, rotting body of the young soldier. Major Victor Bridgwater looks at the captain directly opposite him. Yesterday the man spent the whole day tearing the fabric of the trousers taken from the dead soldier's body into strips, which he used to bind up the feet of his three subordinates. Their feet were torn and bloody, and he wiped them clean before bandaging them. The captain's eyes are closed, but Victor knows that he's not asleep. No one is asleep. The atmosphere in the camp is restless. The Japs walk back and forth, carrying crates and sticks. Victor has no idea what they're preparing for, but it's clear that today is going to be different from the previous days.

FOR HOURS THE
sun has poured down from high in the sky, torturing the men with its rays. Their thirst has remained unquenched. The pan of water that was shoved into the circle smells the same as the corpse lying in front of them — anyone who tried to drink it immediately puked it out again.

A whistle sounds. Japs come running from all directions. In the shadow of the trees, they line up in a straight row. Victor and the other prisoners remain where they are. There is another blast of the whistle and one of the Japs shouts something. They look at each other. Then the captain stands up. Like the others, he has been sitting on the ground for days, and getting to his feet is painful. One by one, the men stand up. The gate is opened and a small Jap with a stick walks over to the five British soldiers. He seems about to stop in front of Victor, but he keeps going until he's standing in front of the captain.

“
Name?
”

Peter hasn't used his voice in days. After the Japs caught on to their secret language, no one dared utter a word. They communicated by means of furtive glances. His tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth, and his jaws are paralyzed by thirst. With his last bit of strength, he forces out an almost inaudible “Harris.”

“You captain?” the man screeches.

Peter looks at the older British soldier opposite him, whose name and rank he doesn't know. The tattered remains of his uniform provide no clues to whether he is also a captain or perhaps even higher in rank. Peter remembers the day they arrived, when his first thought was that the man wasn't just a soldier. He held himself differently and radiated authority. But after Benjamin was shot dead and darkness fell, all of that was gone, and in the days that followed he remained huddled motionless, looking around nervously. “I cannot answer that question,” Peter replies.

He feels a sharp jab in his back and he is ordered to walk in front of the Jap toward one of the huts under the trees. Inside there is nothing but a chair. The Jap man seats himself.

Torture is something Peter has always refused to think about. During his medical studies he learned that the human body is a highly vulnerable mechanism, and that even with the aid of the most advanced techniques and medication, not every patient can be saved. In New Delhi, where he works alongside the country's best physicians, they have only one goal, and that is to cure the patient. Not to shatter, burn, or desiccate. Not to twist, strike, or kick. Not to pierce, flay, and humiliate. After five hours in the hut, he is thrown back into the enclosure, next to the decomposed body of the soldier. A hoard of flies descend on him and lick his blood. When one of his men gets to his feet to help him, there's a shot and he falls to the ground dead.

PETER HASN'T SLEPT
,
but he has failed to notice that night is over. He feels how the sun discovers his body. He wants something to drink, no matter if it's poisoned or polluted. His mouth is full of sand, there's dust in his nose, it hurts to breathe, and his feet are on fire. He is convinced that none of his organs are in their normal place, and every square inch of his skin is black and blue. He cannot move. He drifts back into the night.

A Jap screams, “Stand up!”

Peter feels a kick in his side. He is dragged to his feet and they hang a heavy backpack on his shoulders. The smell of death and destruction pervades the camp. The couple of soldiers who until now were inside the enclosure are standing side by side. He can just manage to see his men through his bruised and swollen eyelids. They are staring at him in shock. He realizes that they have not been bashed about in the same way that he has. Then he sees that behind each of the three British soldiers there is a Jap with a gun trained at the man in front of him. He is the only one who doesn't have a gun aimed at him.

“Hunger?” The little Jap with the stick is now standing in front of him.

For Peter, hunger is a forgotten sensation. A luxurious notion that no longer enters his mind.

“Hunger!”

The diminutive Jap slams the stick into Peter's knee pits and he falls on his face in the sand.

“Stand!” he shouts. “Or all dead.”

Peter manages to get to his feet, despite the heavy backpack.

“Eat!” the man shouts in Peter's ear.

Noise causes no pain either. Everything in him and on him is numb, anaesthetized. He doesn't understand how he is still able to stand. What does the man want from him? No one has eaten for days. Or had anything to drink.
If you're trying to starve me to death, you're too late
, he thinks.
I'm already dead
.

“You eat . . . everybody free.”

Peter doesn't understand what the man means. What is he supposed to eat? And why? He doesn't want to eat. He's not hungry.
Go ahead, aim your gun. Then it'll all be over
, he thinks to himself.

The Jap faces him and gestures to the three men. He points to each of their terrified faces. Peter sees his comrades. They are all that's left of the group that lost its way. They still have the lengths of fabric that he made for them. They are all looking at him, imploring him. His glance goes to the older British soldier, the man who's never exchanged glances with anyone. But now those eyes are screaming in fear. What should he do? What is expected of him?