The Crow Eaters (17 page)

Freddy leaned his head on his arms. After a while he raised a red-eyed, chastened face and whispered, ‘Thank you, Punditji.’

When Freddy reached home, Soli was in a coma and Putli was sitting cross-legged on the cold, bare floor of their room, weeping hopelessly.

Freddy lifted the unresisting, angular form of his wife and put her on the bed.

‘Soli will be better tomorrow,’ he comforted her; and bit by bit he told Putli about the
janam patri
.

Freddy and Putli did not leave the bedside for three days. Their lips moved in silent prayer continuously. On the third day Soli’s fever soared and by evening he was dead.

Freddy placed a trembling hand on his son’s forehead. At last it was cool. It was the fifth day of December.

The body was bathed and dressed in old garments of white cotton. Freddy wrapped the
kusti
around his son’s waist, reciting prayers. As there is no Tower of Silence in Lahore, the body was transported to the Fire Temple. A room in the living quarters of the priest had been hastily prepared to receive the body.

Soli was laid on two stone slabs and a corpse-bearer drew three circles round it with a sharp nail. Now none could enter the circle, except the corpse-bearers.

On a white sheet spread on the floor, leaning against the wall to one side of the corpse, sat the stricken women. It was bitterly cold and the doubled-up blankets beneath the sheets provided protection against the brick floor. They wore white saris, except Jerbanoo who sat next to Putli in her widow’s black. Katy was in her school uniform.

Their heads covered, the Parsi ladies embraced the bereaved women and after commiserating briefly, moved, weeping, to settle on sheets in front of the body. There was a hushed, grieved murmuring as they whispered amongst themselves.

Putli, her head almost hidden in her sari, wept soundlessly, hopelessly. From time to time Jerbanoo and Hutoxi leaned across to embrace and support her and to wipe her tears. Someone brought them cups of tea and Jerbanoo persuaded Putli to have a few sips. ‘Please, no more,’ pleaded Putli faintly. ‘I’ll be sick.’

Putli stared at the body as if she were willing it back to life. Catching her look, Jerbanoo sobbed aloud and blew her nose noisily into her sari. She gave a sudden start. She had not even watched to see if the corpse-bearer had drawn the circles round Soli properly. He must have, she thought, not really caring – and all at once the ritual she was wont to observe with hawk-eyes, appeared meaningless to her. After all, Soli was dead and little else mattered. The priest and pall-bearers glanced her way timidly, expecting her to call attention to some oversight with a significant hum; but none came. Not even when the oil lamp was placed momentarily in the wrong corner. Jerbanoo sat abstracted by her grief and the priest, noticing her inattention, took special pains to see that each detail of the ritual was correctly observed.

The priest’s dog, adopted by him because of the two eye-like spots above his eyes, was brought into the room. It is believed that his four eyes can ward off evil spirits and can detect the faintest hint of life; a precious faculty in pre-medical days when corpses were inclined to recover and sit up. Putli’s staring eyes willed the dog to go up to the body, but as it shied away she knew she was being absurd. Soli was dead.

Late in the evening the sympathisers departed. The Junglewalla family and their closest friends settled on the sheets for the night.

The fire-altar was brought into the room and placed on a white cloth on the floor. Sitting cross-legged before it, the priest began to recite from the Avestan scriptures. He chanted through the night and kept the fire alight and the room fragrant with sticks of sandalwood and frankincense.

At dawn the mourners started to come. All morning they came. Women crowded into the little room with the body. Men sat on benches on the verandah or stood outside the string of rooms that were occupied by the priest’s family.

The compound between the priest’s quarters and the stone building of the Fire Temple filled up with non-Parsis. Indian-Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus and a few British officials
waited patiently to see the body when it emerged from its mysterious rites. Freddy came into the compound from time to time, bowing his ravaged face. From a small distance they offered their sympathy. They sensed they were not to touch him.

Yazdi came straight from the station at two o’clock and stood at the threshold looking into the room. The women sobbed afresh to see his sad poetic eyes and gaunt frame immobile in the doorway.

Yazdi’s shocked and unbelieving eyes raked his brother’s corpse. The body was wrapped in a white sheet up to the neck and the small, white nostrils were stuffed with cotton. The flickering oil-lamp cast a macabre light on Soli’s face, distorting his features hideously. Yazdi gave a great inverted gasp that shuddered through his frame. Touching his arm, Freddy drew him away. Freddy held his son to him in a fierce embrace, and their bodies clung together, warming and comforting the flesh. Freddy kissed Yazdi all over his face, instinctively trying to protect him from the shock and pain the scene had given him.

At three o’clock the pall-bearers came into the room carrying an iron bier. They placed it beside the body and recited a short prayer: ‘We do this according to the dictates of Ahura Mazda …’ and sat down to one side. They were swathed in white garments. Even their hands were gloved in white cloth tied at the wrists. White scarves bandaged their foreheads and the sides of their faces. The loose end of the scarf was wrapped around their necks right up to the chin.

Putli looked at these frightening men with fearful eyes – until she recognised her two sons-in-law beneath their grotesque white cocoons. The other two men were Mr Chaiwalla’s son Cyrus, and Mr Bankwalla. Immediately she was touched and overwhelmed with gratitude. The number of Parsis was too small to warrant professional pall-bearers and these men had volunteered for the task.

The prayers for the welfare of the departed soul were over. Now the mourners passed, one by one, before the corpse to have a last look and bow before it.

The dog was brought into the room once again.

Putli wept uncontrollably when the pall-bearers draped a white sheet over the corpse, lifted the body on to the iron bier and hoisted the bier to their shoulders.

The women stayed behind. The bier, followed by the men, was carried out into the compound.

The mourners in the compound who had waited so patiently all these hours, were surprised to see the white sheet covering Soli’s face. There was a disappointed murmur.

Freddy saw the surge of faces through an unnatural vision. They floated up, one by one, out of the sea of his misery, to imprint themselves forever on his memory. These were the faces of friends; of people he had helped, of people who had aided him. There were neighbours and officials and merchants; there were princes and beggars. There was Mr Allen and Mr Gibbons and the Brahmin Gopal Krishan, and Harilal his clerk, and Alla Ditta the pimp, and the wizened face of the Irishman who had rescued Jerbanoo from the fire. There were college students and professors and the Brothers from St Anthony’s School. Caressing, loving hands touched him.

The bier was carried out of the gate and Freddy saw that the street was filled with people to the end where the hearse carriage and their tongas stood. They were familiar faces; all of them, at this moment, particularly dear.

On an impulse Freddy stopped the bier and with shaking hands removed the sheet from Soli’s face. He kissed his son’s cold, pallid cheek. Scandalised, the men of his community crowded round the bier. Once the sacred rites are performed over the body people of other faiths are not permitted to look upon it. Someone said, ‘Faredoon, this is sacrilegious! Pull yourself together!’ And Freddy, fighting desperately to keep his voice steady, said, ‘They had stood all this while to see my son: let them. What does it matter if they are no Parsis? They are my brothers; and if I can look upon my son’s face, so can they!’ The bier moved slowly through the hushed, bowed heads lining the street.

At the small graveyard Freddy saw his son quickly encased
within four marble slabs and buried. When the mound of earth was smoothed over, a pall-bearer clapped his hands thrice and men turned towards the setting sun to pray over their sacred threads.

The ceremony for the welfare of the departed soul went on for four days and nights. At the end of this Freddy made the customary proclamation of charity. His family would construct a school in Karachi.

The entire family visited the site of the grave on the fifth day, and Jerbanoo declared, between sobs, ‘I want the plot right next to Soli reserved for me. Putli, promise you will bury me here.’

Putli and Freddy looked at her dumbly. Coming from her the declaration was not only unexpected, it was an intrepid and wanton act of sacrifice.

And that is how the stars saw fit to deal with Soli.

WHAT Freddy had sensed in Yazdi, on the day of the funeral when he held him so close, was intuitive. Yazdi’s acutely heightened sensitivity was strained beyond bearing; something within the boy was irreparably wounded. There was so much of the world he couldn’t reconcile himself to; there was so much that was pointless, fiendish and unjust: like Rosy Watson’s sordid profession – his father’s unthinking brutality – and Soli’s death.

Yazdi once again withdrew into himself. His old symptoms returned. He was overly generous, overly kind. And when he once again returned from a morning’s outing in only his underpants, Freddy decided it was time he was packed off to Karachi.

The days were brisk and cool. There was excitement in the air and the bazaars of Lahore took on a festive look in preparation for Christmas. Confectioners, costumers, toy shops, and shoe shops were decorated with coloured paper and coloured bulbs. And, at the corner of the row of commercial buildings, the Civil and Military Store was decked out in an enticing array of little Union Jacks and fancy streamers. Business is business, and even if the household was be-numbed with sorrow, the store would not fail its custom. One did not forego a chance for profit merely because one was stricken.

It was too soon after the tragedy for Faredoon to cope With the shop. He secluded himself in his office, receiving only his close friends and devoting himself to the cause of those who were in need of his assistance. He was mellowed and enthused with altruism. He donated water troughs for tonga
horses, benches for a sea-front promenade in Karachi, and funds for the graveyard at Quetta. He became interested in mysticism and studied the translation of the Gathas, verses in the Holy Avesta attributed directly to the Prophet. He was awed by the wisdom of the verse. The easy, loving tone of discourse between God and Zarathustra inspired him to give a series of lectures on the link he saw between Zarathustra and Sufism. He became known as a scholar.

All the responsibilities that Soli had gradually absorbed, and the countless things that Freddy took care of, were suddenly thrust on Billy’s callow shoulders. He took to them like a duck to water. He was avidly interested and greedy to learn and picked up the trade as one born to it. Freddy accorded him a few desultory sessions of instruction and was taken by his grasp of things. He was quicker than Soli even. But it gave Freddy no more pleasure than if he had been instructing a uniquely gifted clerk. He had little pride in, and even less love for, this spindly, large-nosed gnome who had usurped Soli’s rights.

Billy was on two months’ study leave from his school prior to his final certificate examinations in February. He spent all day in the store; and evenings studying beneath a lamp-post out on the street to save on electricity – for he took his sudden responsibilities seriously – and his future commitment as men of the house. He lurked through the flat switching off lights, quarrelling with the wasteful servants, and criticising expenses in the management of the household.

He curtailed Jerbanoo’s tendency to forage in the larder for an in-between-meals snack.

‘For God’s sake! You are worse than your father!’ she protested irately.

Putli, who impressed on Billy his duties as future provider now that Soli was no longer with them, was indulgent. Of all in the house she loved Billy most and the vacuum left in her heart by Soli’s death was soon absorbed by Billy. She loved all members of her family with equal ardour.

Despite the festive trappings, the atmosphere in the store was gloomy, and not only because of Soli’s absence. Billy straightaway had introduced a series of stringent reforms. No one was allowed to be even five minutes late, or to loiter, or to pop out on brief personal errands. The small leakage of sweets and the occasional syphoning off of a bottle of spirits (attributed to breakages and ignored by Freddy and Soli) received Billy’s full censure. His beady, alert eyes were ever ready to pounce upon the shop assistants, and the fuss he made if the least bit of stock failed to tally made them feel persecuted.

The festooned store was like a broken-hearted clown still grinning.

Bit by bit Freddy recovered from his grief. At Yasmin’s wedding a year later his spirits, outwardly at least, were back to normal.

Jerbanoo had asserted herself against her new enemy, Billy, and had succeeded in cowing the sixteen year old to a point where he refrained from interfering.

With the departure of Yasmin to Karachi after her wedding, Katy was the sole recipient of Billy’s dubious attentions.

YASMIN was in her new home only a month when Freddy received the disturbing letter from her.

Yazdi, she wrote, confirming Freddy’s worst fears, had become a college drop-out. He squandered his allowance and fees on beggars. He drifted about the city and slept on park benches and pavements. He had not been seen for the past week and she suspected he had gone to help at a leper colony on the outskirts of Karachi. His guardian had not given the full details earlier for he did not wish to upset Freddy during the wedding, but he wanted to be relieved of his responsibility. He was very sorry. He had tried his level best.

Freddy heaved a deep sigh and stopped Yazdi’s allowance. He stopped mailing the college fees as well.

For three months they had no news. When Yazdi showed up one evening, his head shorn like a holy man’s and his lank frame in a tattered dhoti, Putli and Jerbanoo wept.

Yazdi wanted his entire share of the family money. He offered to compensate them with his permanent absence.

‘As long as you don’t see me you won’t fret about me, and I promise I won’t worry you again.’

‘And what will you do with the money?’ asked Freddy.

‘I’ll feed dying children. I’ll buy medicine for the sick left to decay like exposed excrement in those choked bazaar lanes. You prefer not to think about them. I’ve heard the tormented screams of children at midnight! Who are they? And the perverted monsters that torment them? You choose not to know. But I know nothing else – see every morning the mutilated corpses of prostitutes found in the gutters, and the agonising pain of millions of futile, wasted lives.’

‘You can’t expect to abandon your family and your home and be of use to anyone. Give yourself a chance, son, I will show you ways to be useful. Stay with us for a while and see how you feel. You’ll find out what it is to be rich – not vulgar rich, but rich in the proper tradition. You already know that wealth imposes an obligation – and for every rupee you spend on yourself you will be able to spend five on others!’

Yazdi fidgeted impatiently.

‘Look son, you are one of the few favoured individuals who are in a position to give. Tell me, are there many who have it in their power to give? No. The majority are condemned by their stars only to take! By disassociating yourself from the way of life you are born to, you are shirking your responsibility to those who are less fortunate!’

‘But I cannot wallow in the luxury of this palace!’ cried Yazdi, with a sweep of his hand accusing their modest flat. ‘I cannot eat a bellyful and sleep between silken sheets when my brothers have nowhere to stay!’

‘What silken sheets?’

‘Oh you know what I mean, Papa! Leave me to live as I want. I know you think me mad, but leave me alone!’

‘I don’t understand you, son,’ said Freddy quietly. His face belying the words, was luminous and sad with comprehension.

‘Then you must try!’ begged Yazdi. He explained how miserable he had been after Soli’s death. His thoughts had tormented him and at last, after all these months, he had come to terms with himself. He was at peace; he knew what he wanted. He had to live in harmony with the dictates of his relentless conscience. He could not survive in any other way. If this meant there was something wrong with him, he couldn’t help it.

Freddy listened patiently. The next day, calculating a large sum as Yazdi’s share, he put it in a Trust.

As long as Yazdi lived he would not be able to touch the money; except the monthly pittance the bank was instructed to forward wherever he wished.

Yazdi wanted to leave at once. His mother sobbed and reasoned with him. His grandmother and sisters pleaded, but they knew it was hopeless.

He bade them goodbye and disappeared. They heard from him occasionally, and learnt of his wanderings from the forwarding addresses he sent to the bank.

Freddy gave up all hope for the recovery of his son’s sanity – for it is insane to look beneath the surface of India: It is insane to look beyond the narrow confines of one’s destined sphere.