Two Short Novels (4 page)

He was swaying up and down, reading the Suras
aloud by the light of the cotton wick soaked in olive oil in the earthen saucer lamp in a corner of the mosque, the Koran laid on a bookrest before him, when he felt himself dozing from the fatigue of a long day. Suddenly from the darkness behind him there was a kick in his ribs and Maulvi Shahab-Din stood, caressing his beard and shouting: ‘Beware, son of a swine, and recite the Suras
or else your mean, dirty father will tell me that I don’t deserve any new clothes this year because I haven’t taught you to remember the Suras
. . . .
’ And coming home through the dark, dirty lane where bulls roamed and fakirs prowled, he slipped into the gutter and bruised his elbow and cried to his grandmother. His father was in the lavatory upstairs and terror seeped into the house. The Chaudhri came down suddenly and gave him two slaps for complaining and whining all the time, and he was sulking with the shame of his humiliation, not showing his face to anyone, refusing to eat his food and abusing grandma, and she was saying she would buy him some sweets at a shop which stock English peppermints.

Now the barren waste of a flat plain arose, rank with cactus and brown burnt grass smouldering in the heat of the day, beyond which loomed a fortress, dirtied by time to an ochre, brown cinnabar, except for the crimson cupolas and battlements overgrown with moss. He was wandering alone in it, making for the moat which was full of stones and splinters and knife-edged grass, and as he drifted across it, sulking and forlorn, he was whimpering in a broken, self-pitying voice: ‘Why doesn’t God give me death?’ The fortress became the formal red brick building of the Government High School and beyond were two mounds like pyramids in the desert of Kerbala; a caravan of camels, tied nose to tail, tail to nose, was travelling slowly in the torrid glare of a blue sky whitening with the hot sighs of the burnt earth and with his sobs, as he ran to and fro, looking for the shade of a palm tree, on bare feet blistering with the fire of the bright yellow sand
. . . .
He was weeping with broken, spluttering cries, the sweat was pouring down his body, and he was tired of his fruitless search for the oasis in the barren expanse of the sun-soaked land. Now he was on the outskirts of the Railway Station, and by a dump of iron girders, wooden beams, the cinders of burnt coal and rubbish, stood a grove of trees surrounding a tank. He stooped and put his mouth to the pool in the forest like an animal and drank off the liquid till his belly was bursting.

As he turned round to look at the jungle it was Gol Bagh where he had gone to play cricket with his friends during the school days
. . . .
He was alone and it was twilight and he was hurrying home, afraid that his father would beat him if he had happened to come home from the shop to relieve himself and found that Nur hadn’t returned. But not all the alacrity he put into his steps could shorten the long dusty distance to Lohgarh past the fuelwood stalls, past the dirty, greasy cookshops for travellers, compared to which his father’s shop was a luxury palace, past the peddlers who hawked cabbages, turnips, cucumbers and melons as they bent over their three-wheeled, square, box-structured wheelbarrows, to guard against the pilfering Hindu women who refused to move without getting something for nothing after they had made their purchases, past the panting Kashmiri coolies, loaded with sacks of flour on their back, their brows glistening with sweat and feet coated with mud, and past the stream of dead Hindus swathed in red cloth painted with golden stars borne hurriedly along for a late funeral by groups of men chanting, ‘The name of God is Truth
. . .
’ the slow chant seemed to become muffled, turning into the whisper of a breeze which was creeping into him with the premonition that one of the ghosts, which according to the Hindus strayed about the earth before rising to heaven, was following him and would pounce on him if he looked back
. . .

Though there were people about, though he had walked far away from the funeral ground enclosed by a high wall where the dead were burnt, he was possessed by the dread, so that he started running fast, heading straight for his father’s shop instead of going home under the lonely shadow of the city wall
. . . .
In the sullen eyes, staring out of the Chaudhri’s body was a cruel power. ‘Where have you been, rape mother?’ and Nur trembled to see the sweat pouring down his father’s hot, angry face in the light of the smoking kerosene lamp. ‘Where are your shoes, swine? Where have you lost them? Where have you been eating the dust?’ the Chaudhri burst out as he caught hold of a rope and came to hit him. ‘There is no talk, Chaudhri
ji
,
forgive him,’ a customer interceded, taking Nur under shelter. Whereupon the Chaudhri swung back to his seat scattering the flies off the foodstuff and cursing: ‘What is the use of having a son! He goes about loafing! As if I was a millionaire and he had nothing to do. It wouldn’t occur to him to come to help me for a few hours. And now he has lost his shoes! Where did you lose your shoes?’ Nur was dumb with terror and began to sob, feeling as if one of the evil ghosts had come and taken possession of his father and would probably follow him home and kill him in the dark of the lane. ‘Why don’t you speak?’ the Chaudhri said and leapt upon him dealing blows till the whole bazaar crowded round to save him from his father’s wrath. The customer who had been shielding him had lifted him and brought him home
. . . .
He was still weeping and didn’t want to face anyone, not even his benefactor nor his grandmother. He only wanted to sleep
. . . .
But there was broad daylight out of the windows and the air didn’t seem sinister
. . . .
What was that?
. . .

He opened his eyes with a start, so suddenly that the pupils under his heavy-eyelids smarted and there was a cracking ache at the back of his head. There stood Gama, a tall black boy who had been a class-fellow of Nur’s since the Infant form till he had been left behind in the fifth class through successive failures, and had given up schooling to become a tonga-driver for Fateh Ali, the contractor.

‘Still asleep, Nur, childling?’ Gama asked. ‘How are you now? I was passing this way. I thought I would look in and see you.’

‘Come, do sit down,’ Nur said in a slow voice. ‘I was just dozing, just thinking, half dreaming, curiously enough I was dreaming about our old school.’

‘And I opened the windows and let in the sunshine on that purgatory,’ Gama said with a mischievous light in his eyes. Then sitting down on an edge of the bed, he bent his head and continued: ‘What is there in education, brother? Waste of time.’ He was half chagrined as he had never been able to outlive the reproach of having failed in his education, and half-audacious because of a genuine contempt for learning that he had achieved since he had become a tonga-driver.

‘Education, education, brother,’ said Nur affecting a learned voice, ‘education means wisdom; wisdom means the correlation of the growth of body and mind: the correlation of the growth of body and mind is achieved through knowledge and knowledge is power: if you have enough recommendations, that is.’ After this he smiled a nervous, apologetic smile as if he were afraid that in spite of his faint mockery, Gama might think he was showing off his superior knowledge, for his friend, in spite of the fact that he was earning more than hundreds of M.A.s, had a feeling of inferiority engendered by the exaggerated respect for degrees that people had, specially as he was employed in a profession which was well known for its low hooliganism. Seeing, however, that Gama was smiling good humouredly, Nur added: ‘You are right, brother. You are right.’ And he heaved a deep breath and changed his side as if to shake off his lethargy. Gama’s visit had surprised him.

‘Do you remember Master Kanshi Ram?’ asked Gama, laughing. ‘When we were in the fifth primary class
. . .
’

Nur smiled in answer. He did remember for he had suffered from Kanshi, who had established a vendetta against him, because he refused to accept the privilege of taking private tuition from the Master, along with the sons of the rich merchants of the cloth market. Kanshi charged ten rupees a month from each of the boys and Nur didn’t know how he could ask his father for the money, especially as it was well known that the Master made immoral suggestions to the boys when they went to his house to be coached. One day when he had been left alone in the classroom filling his satchel at the end of the school session, Kanshi had even tried to kiss him and because he had refused to be kissed, the Master had beaten him on the knuckles with a ruler the next morning by making the flimsiest excuse about his pronunciation as he read aloud. Nur had told Gama, who had caught hold of Kanshi by the scruff of the neck that very afternoon and threatened to kill him if he didn’t behave, after which, indeed, Nur had been safe.

‘I often see him about,’ Gama said. ‘He has got grey hair now but he is incorrigible. He still goes about chasing boys. I regret that I didn’t beat him up, the old sod
. . . .
’ There was a slight bravado in his voice and he chuckled to think of his exploits of those days when he was a wild, free creature, respected for his courage, and not the slave harnessed to Sheikh Fateh Ali’s tonga, like a skinny horse. Then he bent his head again and seemed to retreat into himself.

‘What is the talk?’ Nur asked, feeling the slow burning of a fever in his flesh. He turned his side and saw a basket of fruit by his bed which apparently Gama had bought. ‘Why did you do that?’

‘There is no talk of that, brother,’ said Gama. ‘You will get well and we won’t care for the limp lord. After all, you used to let me copy the sums from your notebooks during the vacations — although do you remember the occasion on which my father almost broke my bones when he caught me copying your answers and I ran away to Calcutta
. . .
?’ And he laughed.

‘Yes, I remember,’ Nur said.

It was not so much the memory of Gama’s troubles that he recalled, however, as those of his own. But how far away seemed those endless days when he had trudged to and back from school from this house in Dhab Khatikan, through the narrow deep-rutted intricate bazars, full of puddles of rain water, where the carts got stuck against each other and held up the traffic for hours; days of utter loneliness only relieved by the few hours of play and an occasional fair to which he was taken by his grandmother; when he had been baulked by the terror of
jinns
and
bhuts
and
churels
and other denizens of the nether worlds over which, the Koran said presided His Satanic Majesty, the Devil, days when he had become conscious of the dearth of books and friends and of his father’s poverty which was responsible for them, dull, irrelevant days when he was obsessed by the desire to grow up as quickly as possible. He had wanted the dignity of age.

‘I have written, rather thought of, the first line of a poem this morning,’ Nur said.

‘Who is there? Who is that with you?’ came the voice of his grandmother from the top of the stairs. ‘It is not your father, is it?’

‘No, grandma
. . . ,
’ he called back.

‘It’s me, Gama, grandmother,’ the visitor shouted so that Nur might not strain himself by answering, and he turned to his sick friend to see if he had been disturbed by his shout.

Nur’s face was glowing with a pale light though there was a distant look in his eyes, as if he was excited by the visit of his friend, and yet beyond caring for company. So few of his old college friends ever came to see him, that he was thrilled by this contact.

‘Are you sure that I am not tiring you?’ said Gama. Nur moved his head in negation and smiled.

‘
Achha
then, what is this that you have written, my poet?’ asked Gama half-mockingly.

‘I offer the beginning,’ Nur said, affecting the elaborate manner of Urdu poets.

‘Why did you drag me into the dust by making me an M.A.
. . .
’

And then, half closing his eyes, he sought to control the muscles of his mouth which were weakening. But he was overcome by self-pity and he felt the tears come to his eyes. He tried to show a brave face by grinding his teeth as if he were swallowing some poisonous physic which was soon going to twist his body into an ugly horror.

Gama sat still for a moment, looking away, then he leant on the bed and laid a limp hand on Nur’s chest.

Across the barriers of pain that sundered him from everyone, Nur strained to touch his friend, but his regret for his failures held him back.

He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment.

In a flash he could see the cool mango-groves where he had gone with Gama. The boy had been kind to him, getting him baskets of fruits from the gardeners to bring home, but he used to beat other people viciously. From the time Gama had left school, why even before that, because he was the son of a vegetable stall-keeper in Chowk Farid, one of the most disreputable quarters of the town, the violence of his deeds had become legendary, and Nur had never really regarded his friend’s life as in any way consistent with inner goodness, and had always been afraid of his hooliganism. The hulking shape of the boy’s huge frame and the profession he had adopted after years of vagabondage were against him too, and Nur recalled how often, since going to college, he had cut him so as not to get a bad name. Now he felt his own superiority lie like a blot upon his heart.

‘Nur, little one, may I go and fetch the Doctor?’ Gama asked with a broken voice.

‘No, you sit here and talk to me a little — that is, if you are not losing fares all the time,’ Nur said. ‘The Doctor will soon come on his morning visit, and then you can go.’

‘Are you sure you don’t feel bad?’ Gama asked.

‘Yes, I am all right,’ Nur said, seeking to ease the strain he felt in accepting the gesture of his friend’s tenderness. ‘You know,’ he continued, to excuse his separateness, ‘the physical exhaustion leaves me so apathetic that I feel as if my back was broken.’

But even as he said so he knew that it was the hardening of his heart through his disillusionment and not the apathy that made him incapable of lifting his hand from under the sheet and putting it into Gama’s.

‘It is strange that you say:

‘Why did you drag me into the dust by making me an M.A.?’

Gama said to overcome the sudden gulf between them. ‘Didn’t you like going to college? I . . . .’ But he didn’t finish what he was going to say: that though he had made capital out of his failures at school and his consequent inability to go to college by developing a roughness of action and passion, he would have liked to have gone through a long educational course if only to evade the responsibility of having to earn a living for some more years, especially as one could indulge in any vice and never get a bad name if only one disguised oneself under the name of ‘student’.