Greatest Short Stories (18 page)

19

The Liar
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Labhu, the Shikari of my village, was a born liar. Therefore he had won the reputation of being the best story-teller in our parts. And though a sweeper of low caste, he was honoured by all and sundry. He was tolerated even to the extent of being given a seat at the foot of the banyan tree. And my mother did not insist too harshly on the necessity of my taking a bath to purify myself every time I had been seen listening to one of his uncanny tales with the other village boys.

Labhu was a thin, little man, with the glint of a lance and the glide of an arrow. His wiry, weatherbeaten frame must have had immense reserve of energy, to judge by the way he could chase stags up the steep crags of the hills behind our village and run abreast of the bay mare of Subedar Deep Singh to whose household he was attached as a Shikari, except when some English official, a rich white merchant, or a guest of the Subedar, engaged him for a season. It was perhaps this wonderful physical agility of his that had persuaded him to adopt the profession of a Shikari.

Labhu had also a sensitive, dark face of which the lower lip trembled as it pronounced the first accents of a poignant verse or the last words of a gruesome hunting story. And it was the strange spell that his tragic verses and weird stories cast on me that made me his devoted follower through childhood. He taught me the way to track all the wild animals’ and he taught me how to concoct a cock-and-bull story to tell my father if I had to make an excuse for not being at home during the reign of the hot sun.

His teaching was, of course, by example, as I was rather a critical pupil.

‘Labhu,’ I would say, ‘I am sure it is impossible to tract any prey when you are half up the side of a hillock.

‘Acha’, he would say, ‘I will show you. Stand still and listen.’ I did so and we both heard a pebble drop. Up he darted on the stony ridge in the direction whence the sound had come, jumping from crag to crag, securing a precarious foothold on a small stone here and a sure one on a boulder there, till he was tearing through a flock of sheep, towards a little gully where a ram had taken shelter in a cave, secure in the belief that it would escape its pursuer.

‘All right,’ I would say. ‘You may have been able to track this ram, but I don’t believe that yarn of yours about the devil ram you saw when you were hunting with the Subedar.’

‘I swear by God Almighty ’, he said, ‘It is true.’ The Subedar will tell you that he saw this terrible apparition with me. It was a beast about the size of an elephant. With eyes as big as hen’s eggs and a beard as long as that of Maulvi Shan Din, the priest of the mosque, only not henna-dyed and red, but blue-black; it had huge ears as big as elephant’s which did not flap, however, but pricked up like the ears of the Subedar’s horse; it had a nose like that of the wife of the missionary Sahib, and it had square jaws which showed teeth almost as big as the chunks of marble which lie outside the temple, as it laughed at the Subedar. It appeared unexpectedly near the peak of Devi Parbat. The Subedar and I had ascended about twelve thousand feet up the mountain in search of game, when suddenly, out of the spirit world that always waits about us in the living air, there was the clattering of stones and boulders, the whistling of sharp winds, the gurgling of thunder and a huge crack on the side of the mountain. Then an enormous figure seemed to rise. From a distance it seemed to both of us like a dark patch, and we thought it was on oorial and began to stalk towards it. What was our surprise, however, when, as soon as we saw it stand there, facing us with its glistening, white eyes as a hen’s egg, it sneezed and ripped the mountain-side with a kick of its forefeet and disappeared. The mountain shook and the Subedar trembled, while I stood bravely where I was and laughed till I wept with joy at my good luck in having seen so marvellous a manifestation of the devil-god of the tribe of rams. I tell you, son, please God I shall show him to you one of these days.’

‘Labhu, you don’t mean to say so!’ I said, half incredulous, though I was fascinated by the chimaera.

‘Of course I mean to say so, silly boy ’s said Labhu. ‘This is nothing compared to the other vision that was vouchsafed to me, praise be to God, when I was on the journey to Ladakh, hunting with Jolly John Sahib.’ And he began to relate a fantastic story of a colossal snake, which was so improbable that even I did not believe it.

‘Oh, you are a fool, Labhu,’ I said. ‘And you are a liar. Everybody says so. And I don’t believe you at all. My, mother says I am silly to believe your tales.

‘All right, then, if you don’t believe my stories why do you come here to listen to them?’ he said, with wounded pride.

‘Go, I shall never teach you anything more, and I shall certainly not let you accompany me to the hunts.’

‘All right,’ I said, chagrined and stubborn. ‘I don’t want to speak to you either.’

And I ran home bursting with indignation at having forced a quarrel upon Labhu, when really he only told me his stories for my amusement.

Labhu went away for a while on a hunting tour with the Subedar. He didn’t come back to the village when this tour finished, because Subedar Deep Singh’s eldest son, Kuldeep Singh, who was lieutenant in the army, took him for a trip across the Himalayas to Nepal.

During this time, though I regretted Labhu’s absence, I lent my ear readily to the malicious misrepresentation of his character that the Subedar and his employers, and occasionally also my father, indulged in; because, though superior to Labhu by caste, they were not such good shots as he was.

‘He can only wait by a forest pool or a safe footpath to shoot at some unfortunate beast, this Labhu!’ said the Subedar. ‘And often he shoots in the dark with that inefficient powdergun of his. He is no good except for tracking.

‘Yes,’ said my father, ‘he is a vain boaster and a liar. The only beast be dared to shoot at while he was with me was a hare, and even that he hit in the leg.’

I waited eagerly for Labhu’s return to confirm from his very mouth these stories of his incompetence, because, though incredulous of this scandal, I had been driven to a frenzy of chagrin by his insulting dismissal of me. I thought I would ask him point-blank whether he was really as bad a hunter as the Subedar and my father made him out to be.

When Labhu came back, however, he limped about and seemed ill. It was very sad to see him broken and dispirited. And I forgot all the scandal I had heard about him in my bafflement at the sudden change that had come into his character, for he was now no longer the garrulous man who sat telling stories to old men and young boys, but a strangely reticent creature who lay in a stupor all day, moaning and murmuring to himself in a prolonged delirium, except that he occasionally hobbled out with a huge staff in his hand in the evenings.

I was afraid to go near him, because he always wore a forbidding, angry look. But the villagers didn’t seem to think there was anything the matter with Labhu, as I heard them say,

‘Now that we have no patience with him and his stories, he spends most of his time telling them to himself, the fool!’

I owed a loyalty to Labhu, for I had discovered a kinship in my make-up for all those extravagances for which the Shikari was so well known.

So I went up to him one day, as he lay on a broken string-bed near his mud hut, under the precarious shelter which a young pipal gave him.

‘You have returned then, Master Labhu,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I have been back some time, son. I looked for you, but you did not seem to be about. But you know, the man who is slain cannot walk even to his own house. This leg of mine pains me and I can’t get about as I used to.’

‘What happened to your leg, then?’ I asked, realizing that he had forgotten all about our past quarrels and was as kind and communicative to me as before. Did you fall down a cliff or something?’

‘No,’ he said in a tired voice. And he kept quite for a long while.

‘What happened then?’ I persisted.

‘You know, son,’ Labhu began, at first pale and hesitant, then smiling and lifting his eyebrows in the familiar manner of the old days, ‘I went away on a hunting tour in the pay of the Subedar’s eldest son, Kuldeep Singh, and some of his friends. Well, we went to Nepal through the Kulu valley. They had no experience of hunting in this or in any other part of the world, and I led them across such trails as I knew and such as the local shikaris told me about. That boy, Kuldeep, I don’t know what he does in the army, but he can’t shoot at any range, and the Sahibs with him were clumsy, purblind white men. I would point to a beast with my stock, and, though they could see the hide before their eyes, they bungled with their guns or were too noisy on their feet, and away crashed the bull which we had been tracking. I would grunt, shrug my shoulders and did not mind, because they were like children. They had finished hundreds of cartridges and had not shot anything, and daily begged me to help them to secure some game.

‘At first I told them that game doesn’t taste sweet unless it is shot by oneself. But at length I took pity on them and thought that I would secure them a good mixed bag. I shot twelve tigers with my gun and fifteen panthers in the course of seven days, and many stags.

‘On the eight day we saw a monster which had the body of a wild bear, the head of a reindeer, the feet of a goat, the tail of a wild bull and a glistening, fibrous tissue all round it like the white silken veil which the Rani of Boondi wore when she came to visit Subedar Deep Singh’s wife. Kuldeep Singh and the Sahibs were very frightened of this apparition and said it was the devil himself who had the shape of an earthly being and who would soon breathe a breath which would mix with the still air of the night and poison life.

‘They were all for killing it outright, while I was sure that I was only a princess of the royal house of Nepal who had been transformed by some magician into this fantastic shape and size. And I wanted to catch it alive and bring it home to be my bride.’

‘Labhu went on to relate how beautiful she was and how he resolved to restore her to her normal self by reading magical incantations.

‘I told her I loved her,’ he continued, ‘And she smiled shyly. But some fool, I think it was the Subedar’s son, fired a volley of shots, which frightened her so that she ran, became one with the air and began to ascend the snowy peaks of Kailash Parbat.

‘I was bent on rescuing my beloved, and I leapt from one mountain to another, calling after her to stop. But that idiot Kuldeep and the Sahibs kept on shooting and roused the magician who kept guard over her. And this evil sage threw a huge mountain of snow at me to kill me.

‘I just blew a hot breath and the mountain of snow cracked into a million pieces and hung about the sky like glittering stars.

‘ Then the magician struck the earth with his feet and opened up a grave to bury me alive.’ I leapt right across the fissure and found myself on a peak in the land of the lama who never dies.

By now, of course, the magician had hidden the beauty away in some cave. So, I gave up the chase, as there was the doom of death about this beauty, anyhow, and I made one leap across the Himalayas for home…’

‘And as you landed this side of the mountains you sprained your foot,’ I said.

Labhu lifted his eyebrows funnily in the manner of the old days and, laughing, said: ‘Have I told you this story before, then?

^*
From
The Barber's Trade Union and Other Stories
.

Part V

PROBING THE
MIND

20

The Tamarind Tree
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Ochre red was the colour of the ripe tamarind fruit, bursting out of the green brown shells on the branches of the shady tree in aunt Kesaro’s courtyard. And Roopa stared at the bud almost as she had contemplated her own juicy lips in the broken mirror before she became pregnant. She did not know why the saliva filled her mouth. But she felt an irresistible longing for the taste of the sharp, sweet fruit…

She withdrew from where she had sat scrubbing brass utensils with ashes in the open air kitchen of her mother-in-law, and went towards the alcove where her husband kept the mirror. The stolen glance from under the projection of her headcloth showed her the reflection of her pale lips, dried by sighs and the muffled breaths in which she uttered words in answer to others… Perhaps, she had wanted to put on the rich colour of the tamarind to put on the rich ripe colour of the tamarind fruit on her lips and cover the pallid hue. She knew that it was the turmoil in her belly that was creating the wild swirling waves of desire. And the flavour of the tamarind alone could appease her yearning.

Demurely, she covered her face against possible stares, though her mother-in-law was out washing clothes on the well. Perhaps, ‘they ’ would come home from the office and tease her. This husband of hers was clever, both with words and the way he could steal back home when father and mother were not there, and hug her or bite her lips.

The warm spring air swept the head apron aside with a strong whiff, like that of the first wave of a dust storm. And, again, she found her eyes uplifted to the ripe fruit of the tamarind tree.

The branches of the tree swayed a little. The young mother-to-be also moved on her haunches towards the earthen pitcher, as though the rhythm of work was the same as the swaying of the tree, with the uprush of energy in its waving branches.

The craving for the tamarind in her mouth was renewed.

‘But you have just eaten the midday meal, mad one!’ she told herself. ‘You are not hungry — it is true mother-in-law gives you just enough and no more, but you are not hungry…’

She felt that she was a child again, the way she was longing for the tamarind and talking to herself. Only she could not now venture out into the courtyard of aunt Kesaro, as she had broken all bounds as a girl, jumped, capered, run and climbed trees. Oh for the innocence of girlhood and its abandon! Oh for those afternoons filled with games! And, hai, those companions with whom one quarrelled, only to make up by linking finger to finger…

Oh if only she could now go and get the tamarind cloves which had already fallen on the ground.

As her eyes traced the curve of her longing, she saw aunt Kesaro sitting up from the cot where she had lain under the shade of the tamarind tree. The range of the old woman’s vision had been dimmed long ago. And she seemed to blink at the glare of the sun of the afternoon. But her wrinkled face was dry brown black with the anxiety to preserve the fruit of the precious tree against all poachers.

One day Roopa had ventured to pick up a clove of tamarind form the courtyard of Kesaro and the old woman had just let go a torrent of abuse. The sweat had bathed her body, even as he had run home to avoid being caught, and for fear her mother-in-law may have seen her poaching, because Kesaro and her husbands’s mother were of like mind about the way the young were going down the drain.

The young woman raised her eyes and contemplated the gnarled face of the hag. The old woman now seemed to be counting coins from her little string purse. No, that could not be, for Kesaro depended on her son and had no money. Perhaps, she was scratching her waist, because of the lice in the pleats of her skirt.

For a moment, Roopa had a terrible premonition which bedewed her nose with jewels of perspiration. She too would some day become old and wretched like this hag, with an obsession that all the young were stealing the fruit from her tree.

And would her strong young husband, with the clipped moustache, become like her father-in-law, a crochety old man, uttering foul words to make his wife generous to her, Roopa?

Just then there was a swirling movement in her belly.

Perhaps the little one was kicking to get out… Let us hope it will be a girl, because then she could dress her in satin, with its lovely sheen. But never mind if it is a boy, because he would bring home a beautiful moon-faced bride…

‘Give me a glass of water!” the gruff voice of her husband came.

Did her thoughts bring him home so suddenly? Why?… How?… But Oh why? …why?

She pulled the edge of her head apron quickly over her eyes.

‘Come, hurry, not so many blandishments!’ ‘they ’ were saying.

The sweat covered her face. And her heart drummed for fear. For a moment, she was shivering with the shock.

And then there were swirling movements in her tummy. And, somehow, the thought came to her of the moments of the night when he wanted her blandishments. She had become pregnant, when, on that hot night of end summer, half out of fear and half out of coquetishness, she had evaded him on the top terrace of the house and he had chased her, caught her in his arms and crumpled her on the bed. Oh that night! All the shame had disappeared from her face and she had looked at his strong face, with the hard jaw, relieved by the big black eyes. All the impulses of her youth had flared up into the fire which consumed her and filled her with the insouciance of dreams, before she knew she had gone off to sleep… Oh that night!

She quivered with trepidation in case ‘they ’ should ask her to come inside. And yet she felt the pang of remorse that

she had resisted him always. Why, even now she felt the gnawing desire to be with him…

‘I would like some tamarind from aunt Kesaro’s tree’, she breathed the only words which she could mention to evade the longing to be touched by him.

‘And I heard you singing with the girls the other day:

‘Where have you gone, oh gone away?’ he said to her, restraining his voice almost into a whisper.

‘I cannot reach the branches’, she said ignoring his meaning. ‘And, anyhow, the old woman is vigilantly guarding her tree’.

‘Come, come inside’, he coaxed her.

Only, at that moment, her father-in-law coughed a wheezy cough, ground the phlegm in his throat, and spat out the weight of age in the direction of the tree. And he called:

‘The wife of my son — what about my hookah?’ Roopa sighed.

Her husband wheeled on his feet, stamped the earth with the harsh resentment of defeat, twisted his mouth into unuttered speech and went towards his bicycle.

She sat open mouthed, holding the tumbler of water she was going to offer him. And in her upraised right hand there was also a resentment, a spite against the whole world that her inner impulses always remained where they were, incommunicable even to her man.

She felt she wanted to cry. And she covered her face so as not to be seen in her weakness.

She strangled the cry in her belly.

Then she got up and began to prepare the hubble bubble for her father-in-law.

As she blew at the smouldering coal covered by the ashes in the oven, the smoke drew tears from her eyes. And she was gratified that she could pass off her sorrow under cover of the smoke. And her pallid face glowed with the agitation of effort to go towards her father-in-law.

Quickly, she recovered her equanimity after she had placed the hookah before the old man and came back.

At that moment, however, she heard Kesaro shouting:

‘That is you? Daughter-in-law of Rakha?.. And what ails you, young woman — that you cannot even produce the child you have been carrying in your belly all these months?… And, in spite of all the tamarind you have stolen and eaten from my tree…’

Roopa wished she could run away — far far away from these cruel harsh words.

But these sentiments were reinforced by the voice of her mother-in-law, who had just then returned from the well.

‘Sister, these girls look at the mirror all day! Or they sit about longing for the husband to come back! They don’t want to bear the children…’

The young woman reeled as she stood by the kitchen. She felt she might faint. So she rushed towards the inner sanctum of the barn and lay down on the bridal bed that had come in her dowry.

The body with which she had borne the aggravated state of her pregnancy flowered into shooting stars of pain. Almost as though her belly was being churned up… And she tried to think of the softer things which she felt for the forthcoming offspring.

‘Moon-faced one-will it be? Or rough? Certainly, it was the creature of violent loving? But she had not eaten enough of the good things which made a child’s bones strong? The scanty money of her husband’s pay as a peon hardly provided bare bread and lentils… The terrible thought occurred to her: Will the lack of enough nourishment turn the boy into a robber? It may know somehow that it never had enough as a child; and it may wish to revenge itself on others. But, perhaps, if it was a robber it may be like Jagga, the bandit, who robbed the rich to feed the poor and sang in the loveliest words.

Roopa lay prostrate on her bed. The pains now gripped her.

And she tore the ceiling with her shrieks.

The mother-in-law came to her and held her hand, smoothened her straying hair and wiped the sweat form her face. And then she went and called Kesaro who had been midwife at the birth of Roopa’s husband.

The shrill cries of the little boy soon tore the quite of the courtyard.

Groups of neighboring women from beyond the tamarind tree came over to greet the newly born.

‘May he live long!’ old Kesaro said. ‘He will give me a tunic of velvet and a silk headcloth.’

‘May he not have to beg for food’, the mother-in-law of Roopa said to avert the evil eye.

‘May he survive.!’ a neighbour said grudgingly. ‘And may my own daughter-in-law become green!…’

Spring turned into early summer. And that year the tamarind tree bore more fruit then ever. Only Roopa never tasted a clove of this fruit which she had desired — the neighbouring children having looted everything in spite of old aunt Kesaro’s vigilance.

But the lips of the young bride were ripe and blood red as she put her mouth to her babe — even though her face was sallow like the leaves of the tamarind tree…

^*
From
Lajwanti and Other Stories
.