The Day of the Scorpion (45 page)

‘Are they still in prison?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are their cases also being reviewed?’

‘That might depend a great deal on the result of the review of yours.’

‘No,’ Kumar said. ‘You can’t get rid of responsibility so easily. I think that is part of the situation too.’

The notion that Kumar could help five men who had never enjoyed Kumar’s advantages seemed to interest Gopal.

‘You are trying to cover everything with all this clever talk of a situation, but you are saying nothing about this situation. Time and again you leave an answer apparently complete but in fact it is only half-finished because of this so-called situation to which you relate it, and which you seem to want to mystify us with. What in fact was this situation?’

The rivulets were still visible. He did not seem to be aware of them and they now appeared to be motionless. She had an impression that they had ossified, that Rowan could have reached over and picked them away from Kumar’s cheeks with his finger-nails, a piece at a time, and that each piece would fall with the light gyrating motion of something fragile, like an insect’s wing.

‘It was a situation of enactment.’

Gopal was impatient. ‘Most situations are.’

‘According to Merrick most situations are the consequence of one set of actions and the prelude to the next but negative in themselves.’

‘These ideas of what you call the situation were DSP’s not you own?’

‘Yes. He wanted them to be clear to me. In fact from his point of view it was essential that they should be. Otherwise the enactment was incomplete.’

‘And he made them clear?’

‘Yes.’

‘Perhaps,’ Gopal suggested, ‘you would be good enough to make them clear also to this board.’

‘In a way that’s impossible. The ideas, without the enactment, lose their significance. He said that if people would enact a situation they would understand its significance. He said history was a sum of situations whose significance was never seen until long afterwards because people had been afraid to act them out. They couldn’t face up to their responsibility for them. They preferred to think of the situations they found themselves in as part of a general drift of events they had no control over, which meant that they never really understood those situations, and so in a curious way the situations did become part of a general drift of events. He didn’t think he could go so far as to say you could change the course of events by acting out situations you found yourself in, but that at least you’d understand better what that situation was and take what steps you could to stop things drifting in the wrong direction, or an unreal direction.’

‘An interesting theory,’ Rowan said. ‘But is it relevant to the events you’ve been alleging took place?’

‘You ask the question the wrong way round. You should ask how relevant the events were to the theory. The theory was exemplified in the enactment of the situation. The rape, the interrogation about the rape, were side issues. The real issue was the relationship between us.’

‘What exactly does that mean?’ Rowan asked.

‘He said that up until then our relationship had only been symbolic. It had to become real.’

‘What in fact did he mean by symbolic?’

‘It was how he described it. He said for the moment we were mere symbols. He said we’d never understand each other if we were going to be content with that. It wasn’t enough to say he was English and I was Indian, that he was a ruler and I was one of the ruled. We had to find out what that meant. He said people talked of an ideal relationship between his kind and my kind. They called it comradeship. But they never said anything about the contempt on his side and the fear on mine that was basic, and came before any comradely feeling. He said we had to find out about that too, we had to enact the situation as it really was, and in a way that would mean neither of us ever forgetting it or being tempted to pretend it didn’t exist, or was something else.’ A pause. ‘All this was part of what he talked about before he put me through what he called the second phase of my degradation. Before he had me strapped to the trestle. The first phase was being kept standing without any clothes on. The third phase was his offer of charity. He gave me water. He bathed the lacerations. I couldn’t refuse the water. I was grateful to him when he gave me the water. I remember thinking what a relief it was, having him treat me kindly, how nice it would be if I could earn his approval. It would have been nice to confess. I nearly did, because the confession he wanted was a confession of my dependence on him, my inferiority to him. He said the true corruption of the English is their pretence that they have no contempt for us, and our real degradation is our pretence of equality. He said if we could understand the truth there might be a chance for us. There might be some sense then in talking about his kind’s obligations to my kind. The last phase could show the possibilities. He said I could forget the girl. What had happened to her was unimportant. So long as I understood how responsible I was for it. “That’s what you’ve got to admit,” he kept saying, “your responsibility for that girl getting rammed. If you were a hundred miles away you’d still be responsible.” What happened in the Bibighar Gardens he saw as symbolic too, symptomatic of what he called the liberal corruption of both his kind and my kind. He accepted a share of responsibility for what happened, even though there was no common ground between himself and the kind of Englishman really responsible. The
kind really responsible was the one who sat at home and kidded himself there was such a thing as the brotherhood of man or came out here and went on pretending there was. The permutations of English corruption in India were endless – affection for servants, for peasants, for soldiers, pretence at understanding the Indian intellectual or at sympathizing with nationalist aspirations, but all this affection and understanding was a corruption of what he called the calm purity of their contempt. It was a striking phrase, wasn’t it? He accepted a share of responsibility for the rape in the Bibighar because even the English people who admitted to themselves that they had this contempt pretended among themselves that they didn’t. They would always find some little niche to fit themselves into to prove they were part of the great liberal Christian display, even if it was only by repeating
ad nauseam
to each other that there wasn’t a better fellow in the world than the blue-eyed Pathan, or the Punjabi farmer, or the fellow who blacks your boots. He called the English admiration for the martial and faithful servant class a mixture of perverted sexuality and feudal arrogance. What they were stirred or flattered by was an idea, an idea of bravery or loyalty exercised on their behalf. The man exercising bravery and loyalty was an inferior being and even when you congratulated him you had contempt for him. And at the other end of the scale when you thought about the kind of Englishmen who pretended to admire Indian intellectuals, pretended to sympathize with their national aspirations, if you were honest you had to admit that all they were admiring or sympathizing with was the black reflection of their own white ideals. Underneath the admiration and sympathy there was the contempt a people feel for a people who have learned things from them. The liberal intellectual Englishman was just as contemptuous of the Westernized educated Indian as the arrogant upper-class reactionary Englishman was of the fellow who blacks his boots and earns his praise.’

A pause.

‘He said he was personally in a good position to see through all this pretence because his origins were humble. If he hadn’t had brains he’d have ended up as a clerk in an office, working from nine to six. But he had brains. He’d got on. In
India he’d got on far better than he could have done at home. In India he automatically became a Sahib. He hobnobbed on equal terms with people who would snub him at home and knew they would snub him. When he considered all the things that made him one of them in India – colonial solidarity, equality of position, the wearing of a uniform, service to king and country – he knew that these were fake. They didn’t fool either him or the middle and upper class people he hobnobbed with. What they had in common was the contempt they all felt for the native race of the country they ruled. He could be in a room with a senior English official and a senior Indian official and he could catch the eye of the English official who at home would never give him a second thought, and between them there’d be a flash of compulsive understanding that the Indian was inferior to both of them, as a man. And then if the Indian left the room the understanding would subtly change. He was then the inferior man. He said you couldn’t buck this issue, that relationships between people were based on contempt, not love, and that contempt was the prime human emotion because no human being was ever going to believe all human beings were born equal. If there was an emotion almost as strong as contempt it was envy. He said a man’s personality existed at the point of equilibrium between the degree of his envy and the degree of his contempt. What would happen, he said, if he pretended that the situation was simply that of a just English police officer investigating a crime that had taken place and I pretended that I had no responsibility for it, and that there was such a thing as pure justice that would see me through, and if both of us recognized each other’s claims to equal rights as human beings? Nothing would happen. Neither of us would learn a thing about our true selves. He said that the very existence of laws proved the contempt people had for each other.’

A pause.

‘At one point he smeared his hand over my buttocks and showed me the blood on his palm. He said, “Look, it’s the same colour as mine. Don’t be fooled by that. People are. But prick an imbecile and he’ll bleed crimson. So will a dog.” Then he smeared his hand on my genitals. I was still on the
trestle. After he’d had me taken from the trestle I was put in a small cell next door. It had a charpoy with a straw mattress. I heard them caning one of the others. Afterwards he came in alone with a bowl of water and a towel. My wrists and ankles were manacled to the legs of the charpoy. This was the third phase. I was still naked. He bathed the lacerations. Then he poured some water in a tin cup, pulled my head up by the hair and let the water come near my mouth.’ A pause. ‘I drank.’ A pause. ‘After I drank he told me I must say thank you, because he knew that if I were honest I’d admit I was grateful for the water. He said he knew it would be difficult to swallow my pride, but it had to be done. He would give me another drink of water. He would give it to me on the understanding that I was grateful for it, and would admit it. He pulled my head back again and put the cup close to my lips. Even while I was telling myself I’d never drink it and never say thank you I felt the water in my mouth. I heard myself swallow. He put the cup down and used both hands to turn my head to face him. He put his own head very close. We stared at each other.’ A pause. ‘After a bit I heard myself say it.’

A pause.

‘That was one of the reasons why when they asked me if I had anything to complain about I said I hadn’t. It was a way of making up to myself for thanking him for the water. After I’d said thank you he let go of my head. He smoothed my hair and patted my back. He said we both knew where things stood now. I could sleep now. There’d be no more questions for the present. I didn’t have to confess tonight. The girl had incriminated me but it didn’t matter. Tomorrow there would be questions. Tomorrow I could confess. When I woke up I’d be anxious to confess. My confession would show the girl up for a liar. I would be punished, but not for rape, because surely I could prove she’d agreed to the meeting, wanted the meeting? He would help me if I would confess to the truth. When I woke up I’d realize he was my one hope. I’d be grateful. I’d already thanked him for the water. That was enough for tonight. Now I could go to sleep. He rinsed the towel out and put it over my buttocks. Then he covered me with a blanket. I don’t know how long I slept. I remember
waking in the dark. My wrists and ankles felt as if they were still manacled to the charpoy. It was a shock to find they weren’t. I had an impression of falling through space. I called out for help. The name I called was Merrick.’

A pause.

‘Nobody answered. That gave me time to reason. The most humiliating discovery I made was that I’d believed what he said about Miss Manners incriminating me. I say had believed, but I was still believing it for minutes at a time, and then for another few minutes believing he was lying, then that he wasn’t. Like that. Alternately. There can come a point, can’t there, when the only attractive course of action for a man completely surrounded by others bent on his destruction is to help them destroy him, or do the job for them before they’ve quite mustered force for the final blow. It’s attractive because it seems like the only way left to exercise his own free will. I made up my mind to confess to whatever he wanted. I thought, well anyway what’s going to be destroyed? Nothing. An illusion of a human being, a ridiculous amalgam of my father’s stupid ambition and my own equally stupid preferences and prejudices. A nonentity masquerading as a person of secret consequence, who thinks himself a bit too good for the world he’s got to live in. He might as well be got rid of or, better still, get rid of himself, and who would feel there was any loss in that, except perhaps Aunt Shalini?’

A pause. She leaned back, closed her eyes, so that her understanding should come to her through only the unidentifying voice.

‘But then, you see,’ the voice said, ‘the question arose – What did nonentity mean? And the answer was quite clear. It meant nothing because it was only a comparative – a way of comparing one person with another, and I wasn’t to be compared, I was myself, and no one had any rights in regard to me. I was the only one with rights. I wasn’t to be classified, compared, directed, dealt with. Nothing except people’s laws had any claim on me and I hadn’t broken any laws. If I had broken any it was the laws and not the people who operated them I had to answer to. There wasn’t a single other person except myself I was answerable to for anything I did or said or
thought. I wasn’t to be categorized or defined by type, colour, race, capacity, intellect, condition, beliefs, instincts, manner or behaviour. Whatever kind of poor job I was in my own eyes I was Hari Kumar – and the situation about Hari Kumar was that there was no one anywhere exactly like him. So who had the right to destroy me?
Who had the right as well as the means?
The answer was nobody. I wasn’t sure that they even had the means. I decided that Merrick had lied and that far from incriminating me she probably didn’t even know yet I’d been arrested. That’s the moment when I knew I was sick of lying passively there in the dark. I managed to crawl out of bed and grope round the wall until I found the light-switch. It was pitch black and it took me quite a long time just to stand upright. When I had the light on I noticed he’d left the tin mug near my bed. There was still some water in it. I put the towel round my middle and walked up and down so as not to stiffen up again. The water was warm, the room was probably stifling, there wasn’t a window, only a ventilator high up, but I was shivering. Even after I’d drunk the water I went on walking up and down, holding the tin mug. What I was doing reminded me of something but for a while I couldn’t think what. Then I got it. Like my grandfather, going off to acquire merit. The loin-cloth and the begging-bowl. It was funny. Aunt Shalini’s in-laws were always on at me about becoming a good Indian. This wasn’t what they meant but I thought, well, here I am, a good Indian at last. Up until then whenever I thought of that story my father told me about his father leaving home; shrugging off his responsibilities it hadn’t seemed possible that I was connected with a family where such a thing could happen. But walking up and down as I was, dressed in that towel, holding that cup, I understood the connection between his idea, and my idea that no one had any rights over me, that there wasn’t anyone I was answerable to except myself. And I saw something else, something Merrick had overlooked. That the situation only existed on Merrick’s terms if we both took part in it. The situation would cease to exist if I detached myself from it. He could ask his questions but there was no power on earth that said I had to answer them. He could try and probably succeed in making me answer them by using force, but it would be my
weakness and not his strength that made me speak. So I came to a decision to go on saying nothing. I wouldn’t answer his or anyone’s questions except as it pleased me. I would never thank him again for a cup of water. I’d rely on no one, no one, for help of any kind. I don’t know whether that made me a good Indian. But it seemed like a way of proving the existence of Hari Kumar, and standing by what he was.’