Читать книгу The Track of the Wind - Jamila Gavin - Страница 8

‘Aren’t you going to school today, Jaspal?’

Nazakhat glanced at his best friend who hacked at a piece of sugar-cane with his knife. The two boys lay side by side in the middle of a dense sugar-cane field – thick enough to hide a tiger. They often helped themselves when the farmer wasn’t looking.

‘Nah! School’s boring. I hate it. Besides, I can read and write already. What’s the point of more?’

‘Hey man! Your dad will beat you. Remember last time? I thought he’d kill you.’

‘I can take it,’ shrugged Jaspal.

‘Everyone said you were going to be big. Get an important job. Live in the city one of these days. Don’t you care? He wanted so much for you.’

‘He doesn’t know. He thinks I’m there now. Besides, why should I care what my father wants for me – all those diplomas and degrees and bits of paper from his time in England – fat lot of good his learning did for him.’

Nazakhat glanced sideways at him. Jaspal’s face had hardened and he became deeply silent. Jaspal was not an easy friend – not like the old days. His mood could change so fast. One minute he could be laughing and joking about like a clown and the next as darkly gloomy as a soldier back from the war.

A final hack severed the cane and Jaspal got to his feet to break it in half across his knee. He gave one half to Nazakhat then flopped down again into the warm earth and chewed on his bit. The fibres burst a flood of sweet sugar into his mouth and he sucked hard. After a while he said, ‘Besides, I can’t stand sitting with all those goondas – idiots – while this mumbling half-wit tries to teach us useless things which mean nothing. Why, I know more than he does.’

A silence fell between them once more, and Nazakhat could tell that Jaspal would not be the first to break it.

‘You know what,’ Nazakhat nudged Jaspal in the ribs. ‘I think that old devil, Bahadur Singh, has a secret woman somewhere.’ He elbowed him in the ribs and shaped a female form in the air with his hands.

‘What? Bahadur Singh? You must be crazy!’ Jaspal grunted with mild disbelief at the thought of that old fogey, the village schoolmaster, having a secret romance.

‘I live under his roof. Wouldn’t I know if something was going on?’

Jaspal didn’t respond for a while, but sucked on the sugarcane. At last he said, in a determinedly bored voice, ‘Does that mean his aunt knows?’

Nazakhat grinned to himself as he won at least a fraction of Jaspal’s attention. ‘Oh no! She’s deaf and blind to anything like that. She’s too busy praying and being holy. She probably doesn’t even know where babies come from! Aiee, aiee!’ Nazakhat burst out into infectious giggling and even Jaspal couldn’t prevent a smile.

‘But what makes you think Bahadur Singh has a woman?’ asked Jaspal, sceptical but curious.

‘I saw him in the bazaar.’ Nazakhat leaned forward confidentially. ‘He was looking at women’s things – you know, cloth pieces, sarees and jewellery.’

‘Is that all? ‘Jaspals face fell. ‘I thought perhaps you’d seen him with someone – you know – ’ He gave a wry smile.

Nazakhat, triumphant now at having thoroughly engaged Jaspal’s attention, slapped him on the back and rolled about laughing. ‘You know, you know!’ he mocked raucously.

‘Looking at sarees is hardly enough evidence,’ shrugged Jaspal.

‘Since when would the teacher, a confirmed bachelor, be looking at sarees?’ demanded Nazakhat. ‘Books – yes. Writing materials – yes. But sarees? I ask you! Wouldn’t you wonder who for, if not for a woman?’

‘For his aunt?’

‘His aunt!’ Nazakhats voice rose with hilarity. ‘She’s no woman!’ He was really enjoying himself now as Jaspal began to snigger too, despite himself. ‘She never wears sarees – only salwaar kameez – and only ever grey.’

‘Blue,’ corrected Jaspal.

‘Call that blue?’ cried Nazakhat. ‘It’s not the blue of the sky. It’s not the blue of peacock feathers or of kingfishers or even of your turban. Anyway, I should know. My father made that outfit for her before . . .’ before he was killed along with the rest of my family ‘. . . and he called it grey. He used to make all her outfits – and they were all grey or some colour so dull it might as well be grey. Anyway, Bahadur Singh was looking at really glittery sarees and cloth pieces: red and pink, and silks with embroidered borders and lots of gold and silver threads, so it wasn’t for his aunt – you can be sure of that.’

‘Perhaps she’s make believe.’ Jaspal began to forget his troubles. He sat up, fantasising. ‘You know – wishful thinking. He feels deprived. He wants to love. He has invented a beautiful woman all bumps and curves like that film star, Devaki Rani. He can’t have her for real – but he pretends – what do you think, eh, Nazakhat? He whispers her name into his pillow at night. “Oh, Devaki, Devaki! I can’t live without you . . .” ’

The boys rolled about shrieking with laughter as their jokes got more and more vivid. ‘Don’t you think I have a good theory?’ cried Jaspal. ‘Perhaps Bahadur Singh has a whole secret store of sarees and jewellery. He realises that he’s spent too much time with his books and that crabby old aunt. That the world and all its women are passing him by and he hasn’t yet lived!’

‘I’m serious, bhai!’ insisted Nazakhat, when their laughter died down. ‘He has been looking in jewellery shops – no kidding. I’ve seen him. I’m not making this up. There is someone, I know it.’

‘Well then, it is his aunt,’ said Jaspal with mock seriousness. ‘He loves her thin scraggy arms and her hatchet face and her beautiful body as shapely as an ancient camel. Or . . . or . . . !’ Jaspal got to his knees and looked deeply serious. ‘His aunt has been made an offer she can’t refuse and Bahadur Singh is providing her dowry!’ The boys’ hilarity rang out through the sugar-cane.

‘Shut up, shut up! The farmer will hear us!’ hissed Jaspal, and they clamped their syrupy mouths.

‘But I ask you, bhai, who would he give jewellery to?’ Nazakhat whispered through his fingers. ‘Have you ever seen his aunt wearing anything but the silver kara on her wrist and two gold studs in her ears?’

‘You have a point,’ Jaspal conceded. ‘But you live there. You see everything. Come on, think. If there is someone, you must know.’

‘Perhaps he got her from a newspaper ad,’ reflected Nazakhat. ‘I’ll find out one of these days.’

‘You re wrong. You must be. He wouldn’t marry.’ Jaspal finally hacked off another piece of cane and started to strip away the outside. ‘He’s not the marrying kind. Here.’ Jaspal handed Nazakhat the white fibrous stalk, dripping with sugar, and proceeded to hack one for himself.

A distant shriek of the train whistle made them sit up.

‘It’s the Amritsar train. ‘Jaspal leaped to his feet, his gloom fully vanished and his eyes now sparkling with enterprise. ‘Let’s catch it – eh, bhai?’

‘Are you going to school after all?’ Jaspal’s school was the intermediate college in Amritsar.

‘Nah! I feel like going to the pictures. Will you come?’

Nazakhat got to his feet. He was nervous about going into town. He loved films too, but, as a Muslim, he was afraid of going out of his neighbourhood. Memories of the past were still fresh. But Jaspal grabbed his arm warmly. ‘Come on, bhai. Say yes.’

‘Your school though, what about school? ‘Nazakhat asked weakly.

‘Oh, to hell with school! Come on!’

This was good old Jaspal. Nazakhat couldn’t resist. ‘Get a move on then,’ he yelled, pushing ahead.

They chucked away the sugar-cane and thrashed their way out of the field. They heard the whistle again. Nearer this time. They were running full pelt. They reached the edge of the long white road, dashed over and plunged down the dyke disappearing into the waves of barley. They re-emerged on the path dividing the saffron crop from the mustard seed.

‘Hey, wait for me Jaspal!’ yelled Nazakhat. He clutched his side as a stitch seared through his guts. Jaspal only slowed down sufficiently to glance over his shoulder and to give an encouraging yell. ‘Get on with it! We’ll miss it!’

A long streak of grey smoke in the sky straggled out like the hair of an old woman who shakes away the tangles of sleep. And again the siren; closer now, its pitch screaming out intervals as the train slowed down. Good old Hari Singh, the engine driver. He has relatives in this village. He does them a favour by slowing down here.

From out of nowhere, figures came leaping up the embankment along the track and others, like the boys, raced along the paths through the fields, as the great black, iron goddess approached with burning fiery belly and smoke belching out of her ears. She was many-headed and many-armed, flailing with limbs from the bodies which hung from her carriages and clung to the roof.

‘Make room, make room!’ shouted voices panting with exertion. They sprinted alongside with arms outstretched. It was each one for himself now. Jaspal noted a space the size of a hand on the vertical steel pole by one of the doors. He focused on it, running faster and faster. It was now or never as gradually the train began to pick up steam once more. He grabbed with one hand. It tugged his feet from beneath him, and only the friendly hands of others saved him from being dragged along, or dashed back on to the sharp chippings of the track.

He managed to find enough toe room on the wooden running board, and with both hands, he gripped the pole. His body arched from the train like a bow, the wind billowing his shirt. And so he stayed, hanging on for dear life, until Amritsar. But he laughed – an open-mouthed laugh, eating the air – and felt a pure, fierce joy.

He looked up and down the length of the train. Did Nazakhat make it?

He couldn’t see him beside the track, so he must have got on somewhere. They would meet up later.

‘Hey Jaspal! Are you going to the pictures?’ someone bellowed.

‘Yeah! It’s a Prithviraj Kapoor film today!’ Jaspal yelled back.

‘See you at the Rialto then.’

Jaspal loved going to the pictures. Often, he went alone, on afternoons when he should have been at school. He didn’t mind seeing the same film over and over again – even if each time it meant sneaking in without paying – especially the historical films about battles between rajahs and invading armies, and brave warriors of the past.

The outskirts of the city undulated into sight: walls and roofs and balconies hanging with washing; narrow alleys and streets teeming with people and animals. Black, long-haired pigs foraged in the rubbish tips, ambling alongside dogs and crows and other scavengers. Monkeys lined the walls, preening each other, slapping their little ones into line as they tumbled and played.

The train slowed down to give the tens of dozens of non-ticket holders a chance to drop from the train before it entered the station precincts. Jaspal lowered himself till his feet were running along the ground, then he loosened his grip and continued running to gain his balance.

Nazakhat caught up with him and the two left the track and headed across rough ground towards the city. Nazakhat always felt a little nervous about coming into the city. Although he had allowed his wispy boy’s moustache to grow, and his hair was thick and black and long to his shoulders, he was conspicuously not a Sikh like Jaspal. The vicious troubles of partition were still too fresh in people’s memories to enable him to feel comfortable. He would never have ventured there without Jaspal at his side.

The new Pakistan had wanted Amritsar too. ‘But what about our Golden Temple? ‘protested the enraged Sikhs. ‘Only over our dead bodies will our Golden Temple go into Pakistan with the Muslims.’ And there were many dead bodies before it was certain that Amritsar would stay part of India.

Nazakhat knew that any trips into the city meant he had to brave the taunts from gangs jeering, ‘What is that blood-drained, meat-eating, son of a pig-dog, hair-cutting Muslim doing, contaminating our holy city?’ But Jaspal had always been Nazakhat’s stout and loyal defender, and had got into many a brawl protecting him from mobs of youths out for trouble.

There were a few hours to kill before joining the queue which would start forming outside the Rialto. The boys headed into the bazaar. They liked to go to the metal area where they sold not only pots and pans, farming tools and kitchen utensils, but knives and daggers and swords of all descriptions. They fingered the sharp blades and counted their money. They knew they didn’t have enough, so after a lot of comparing and exchanging knowledge and expertise about the lethal nature of this weapon or that, and what kind of wound it could inflict, the shopkeeper realised they weren’t going to buy, and shooed them away. So they went to a tea stall and bought tea and samosas, and sat at a bare wooden table and grinned at each other and gripped each other’s hands – elbows on the table – to see who could force the other’s hand down first and prove the stronger.

‘Hey! Speak of the devil! Quick!’ Nazakhat grabbed Jaspal and thrust his head down under the table. ‘It’s Bahadur Singh, I tell you. I just saw him! Boy, would I be in trouble if he caught me here.’

‘Take it easy. What are you so scared of ?’ drawled Jaspal. ‘He never lays a finger on you.’

‘Yeah – but you should feel the hand of his aunt round your ear. She’s worse than any man. She hits so hard, all her bones rattle.’

‘Well, my father hits so hard you can’t hear anything for the blood pounding inside your head and the screams in your lungs you’re trying to stifle. But what do I care? I can take it,’ boasted Jaspal.

The two boys peered out of the tea stall.

‘There! Look! There. He’s heading into the cloth quarter. Hey! What do you think?’ Nazakhat clutched his friend’s arm. ‘Maybe he’s got a secret assignment with his lady friend.’

‘Come on, lets follow him. ‘Jaspal’s curiosity was up. ‘I’ve got to see this.’

‘For god’s sake be careful. It’s all right for you. You don’t care about anything. But me – if he sees me – he could throw me out.’ Nazakhat hung back warily.

‘So what! Look how you survived before. You don’t need him. Don’t be such a chicken. Anyway – you can see he’s got things on his mind. He won’t notice us. Come on, before we lose him.’ Jaspal dragged his friend out into the road.

A cluster of young women, chaperoned by a much older one, jostled their way down the narrow bazaar street in front of the schoolmaster. They stopped every two or three steps to peer into the sandal shop, or the cosmetic shop, or the woollens shop. Bahadur Singh could have pushed through them any time, but seemed instead to want to follow just on the edges, as if he were looking at what they looked at and listening to all their comments.

The boys followed more boldly. They watched the schoolmaster watching. They watched too – suddenly seeing the women’s world with men’s eyes – smelling their scent and hearing the tinkle of bangles as arms lifted to hold up glittering materials, which hung from hooks outside the shop; or bales of cloth arranged in towers from ceiling to floor, ready at a mere whim to be extricated and tossed full length across the carpeted shop floor. High voices and laughter rose above the hubbub of the bazaar.

Bahadur Singh turned abruptly. The boys ducked. When they next peered out, the schoolmaster had given up on the women and moved on to the jewellery quarter.

‘See? Didn’t I tell you? It’s what I saw him doing in our bazaar. This must be serious, I tell you. Why else would he come to Amritsar? He’s got money to spend.’

They spied on the schoolmaster moving from one jewellery shop to another, glancing at the displays, listening sometimes to the shopkeepers’ patter over an offered cup of tea, then moving on. The boys hardly bothered to hide now. The schoolmaster was too absorbed, poring over the trays of bangles and earrings and necklaces.

‘Watch out!’ Jaspal pulled Nazakhat down behind a wandering cow. The schoolmaster had stopped in front of a jeweller’s shop. He paused a long time to gaze at something, then suddenly looked round as if checking whether anyone was watching him.

‘That was a near thing!’ breathed Jaspal.

‘Did he see us?’

‘Nah! He wouldn’t have gone in if he had. You’re right, Nazakhat. He’s up to something, the old devil! Let’s get a little nearer.’

The two boys sidled up to the shop and flopped on the wooden steps in front, next to a dog and a resting holy man. A useful alleyway ran alongside, down which they could disappear when Bahadur Singh came out.

It was dark inside the shop. On a wooden counter gleamed a pair of brass scales. Bahadur Singh sat on the stool, his back to the door, facing the old jeweller, who scrutinised him from over his gold-rimmed spectacles.

‘Can I help you?’ the jeweller asked.

‘I am looking for a simple gift for my daughter,’ they heard the schoolmaster reply.

‘Didn’t you hear that? Daughter, my foot!’ exclaimed Jaspal.

‘Didn’t I tell you! Didn’t I tell you!’ chortled Nazakhat triumphantly.

‘Shut up, you idiot! You’ll give us away. Look. Now what’s he doing?’

‘Ah!’ The jeweller’s exclamation was dry but business-like, as if he already knew exactly what was suitable for the schoolmaster. He bent down, and from beneath the counter brought out three glass cases filled with rings, gold and silver chains, earrings, nose studs, necklaces and bracelets – of an infinite variety of precious stone. His eyes hovered over Bahadurs hands as they fingered the different items of jewellery in a tentative and inexperienced way. He noted that they were not the hands of a farmer or an artisan because they were too smooth, so he deduced that his client was a clerk or a teacher who wouldn’t want anything gaudy or too ostentatious.

The jeweller selected a simple gold bracelet. ‘Is this to your liking?’ he asked.

Bahadur held the bracelet in the palm of his hand. Jaspal stared at it too. Its cold metal burned in the dark, dusty air like the outer rim of the sun. Whose wrist did the schoolmaster see it encircling?

‘Yes, this is to my liking,’ said Bahadur Singh, getting out a wodge of rupee notes from an inside pocket.

‘What’s he buying?’ whispered Nazakhat.

‘A bracelet,’ murmured Jaspal. ‘A gold bracelet. I wonder who it’s for?’