The Crow Eaters (7 page)

JERBANOO tossed on her charpoy. Noise disturbed her dreams. There was a far-away thunder. Now she knew what it was: A buffalo, black, long horned and mean, galloping, galloping, galloping unseen towards her. She knew it would find her. She ran in futile, fatalistic panic, with a familiar sinking pain in the pit of her stomach. Down a narrow lane, through a maze of rooms – but the thunder drew inexorably nearer. With a loud crash the buffalo broke through the door of the bare room in which she was hiding. Horrible blood-thirsty eyes glared at her. Rushing at her with smoking nostrils the enormous, demonic beast gored her, pinning her against the wall.

Jerbanoo half awoke, fighting her way to consciousness. Still in the throes of her nightmare, she opened frightened eyes. Her heart was pounding. She lay in a numb stupor. Slowly her natural world shaped itself around her. Noises intruded into her consciousness. What was the shouting and yelling going on in the streets? An accident? Some religious procession? A queer haze clouded her vision. The ceiling appeared to recede. Lying on her back she rubbed her eyes. The haze was still there. She became aware of a ringing in her ears; a hoarse crackling roar.

Again she sniffed and again, trying to make out the acrid stench. Smoke, she thought, the room was full of smoke! That idiotic servant boy had left something on the fire. She couldn’t make out why Putli tolerated the scoundrel.

Swinging her legs laboriously over the edge of the charpoy, she sat up. Her feet fumbled their way into a pair of slippers. A
thick, yellow wave of smoke floated up behind her. Jerbanoo turned her head. Smoke was pouring in, in an undulating series of waves from a crack at the base of the door. The door, separating her room from the
other room
, was bolted from either side and never used. A rickety clothes-stand stood before it. Their dinner for the night was burnt to cinders, she knew. The smoke definitely came from the direction of the kitchen.

Hastily shuffling through the children’s room and through the smoky hall, she opened the door to the dining room.

Smoke was pouring in black clouds through the open windows facing her, from the flaming landing to her left.

She stood rooted in the door, eyes smarting, mouth agape. There was a splintering report and the landing door burst open, scattering its burning fragments throughout the room; on chairs, sideboard, table-cloth and bookshelf. A blood-red, glaring, scorching fire roared like a gigantic blow-torch into the room. An angry swirl of smoke choked her.

Jerbanoo slammed the doors shut, drew the bolt and lifting her petticoat clear off her fleshy knees, ran through the rooms. The house vibrated in the wake of her heavy, flat-footed passage. Coughing, twisting and turning her way through the house, she ran into Putli’s and Freddy’s bedroom. Here there was only a thin film of smoke. Crashing through a door she burst out on to a semi-circular balcony overhanging the pavement twenty feet below.

She had never seen so many people. A swarming, crawling mob of humanity swayed beneath her gaze. Clenching the wrought-iron railing on the balcony, she screamed a piercing series of ghoulish shrieks.

In that eerie moment the stunned throng turned their faces to the balcony. Then a clamorous roar rose from the crowd that had supposed the house to be empty. Grubby street urchins turned up beaming faces. Their favourite gods, mischievous and flamboyant, were treating them to an engrossing spectacle of a fat lady beautifully screaming her head off on a balcony.

BICYCLE wobbling dangerously, the clerk pedalled up the long pitted drive. Serious and harried-looking at the best of times, at that moment his swarthy face was pitiful to behold. Almost falling off the bicycle, he came to an abrupt stop in front of the long bougainvillaea-covered verandah.

‘Junglewalla sahib, Junglewalla sahib, Junglewalla sahib!’ he shouted in sweating urgency.

Putli’s alert eyes sought Freddy’s across the card table.

‘Junglewalla sahib, Junglewalla sahib!’ called the voice.

‘Damn it! Can’t they let me alone even on a Sunday?’ Freddy swore mildly. Reverting his attention to the cards he told the servant who was pouring tea, ‘Tell the fellow to wait.’

‘It’s Harilal,’ said Putli, recognising the clerk’s voice. ‘I think you should find out what it is.’

‘Some mighty English gentleman must have run out of Scotch, what else! Why don’t they worry another fellow? No, they must come to me. Well, I won’t open the shop for anyone today.’

Just then the clerk, followed by the servant, burst into the room.

‘Sahib,’ he panted, his eyes distended, his limbs trembling, ‘The shop is on fire. You must come quickly.’

Consternation.

Freddy leapt from the table, knocking his chair over. He caught the undersized man by the shoulders and shook him like a bottle of medicine. ‘Speak up man. Speak up!’ he bellowed.

Putli tried to restrain her husband, murmuring, ‘Take it easy, please calm yourself, please calm yourself.’

At the card table the players hastily gathered in their chips while the harried clerk was trying to wriggle out of Freddy’s grip. ‘Leave me sahib, please. Come on, let’s get to the store. We must hurry. Oh Bhagwan, save us …’

Taking control of the situation, Mr Toddywalla ordered his servant, ‘Bring Junglewalla sahib’s tonga to the front. Quick, be quick.’

The servant pattered barefoot across the verandah and jumping off the edge, ran to the rear of the house. Freddy, clutching the pocket of his coat, so the loose change in it wouldn’t spill out, galloped after him. The clerk, Mr Toddywalla, Mr Gibbons, an Anglo-Indian Deputy Superintedent of Police, Mr Azim Khan, a Mohammedan professor, and the other Parsi gentlemen ran in single file behind Freddy.

The horse, patiently quivering his hide and swishing his tail at the flies, was quickly untethered. Servants pulled the light carriage forward and between them the men harnessed the horse. Freddy leapt into his seat and the men piled in, four up front and three at the back. Slackening the reins and lightly touching the horse’s flanks with his gold-threaded whip, Freddy drove around to the front of the house.

Putli ran down the verandah steps calling, ‘I’m coming with you. Wait for me!’

‘You’d better stay here!’ shouted Freddy.

‘I’m coming. Mother, my mother,’ she screamed, running down the drive after them.

Freddy tugged at the reins, bringing the tonga to a halt. Stepping high, inadvertently showing a shapely bit of leg, Putli lithely hauled herself into the front of the carriage and unthinkingly sat down on Mr Bottliwalla’s lap. There was no other place for her. Mr Bottliwalla, shy, pale, liquid-eyed, blushed and tried to keep his features matter-of-fact and bland. Freddy whipped the animal to a gallop and Mr Bottliwalla, placing his hands on either side of Putli’s slender waist, supported her gallantly.

Open frock-coat flying, Freddy raced through the streets. When he took a turn to the main street, traffic suddenly increased. Cycles, carts and carriages filled the road. But all eyes in the tonga were riveted to the huge black mushroom of smoke far up in front.

Freddy overtook a bell-clanging fire engine composed of three bullock-carts. The leading cart was jammed with smartly uniformed firemen and thick pipes fitted with gleaming brass nozzles. Behind it, two carts groaned beneath the weight of gargantuan water tanks.

Traffic grew dense. The men in the tonga sniffed anxiously at the smoky air. Tears rolled down Putli’s face. Delicately shifting his weight, Mr Bottliwalla dug into his pyjama pockets and handed Putli a handkerchief.

A slight curve in the road brought the tonga abreast of the commercial buildings. They were still on the main road, separated from the row of shops by the strip of municipal lawn. The fire was at the General Market end, two furlongs up. A monstrous red glow could be glimpsed through the trees.

People swarmed up the road. Ragged, barefoot men leaned against bicycles, stood upon stalled carts and idly drifted between stationary carriages.

Holding his foot pressed on the bell pedal, Freddy fought through as far as he could. Then abandoning the tonga, they forced a way through the crowd.

Freddy, followed by Mr Toddywalla, pushed diagonally through the dusty, trampled grass. The rest of their party was scattered by the multitude. Suddenly, looking up between a clearing in the trees, they had a clear view of the balcony: of Jerbanoo, crinkly-haired, petticoated, dishevelled, flanked by two confused and harassed-looking firemen. Propped up against the wall was a narrow, toy-like, steel ladder. As they watched, a jet of water from below drenched the three figures.

Almost simultaneously, out of the corner of his eye, Freddy spied a smooth-faced naked-torsoed Hindu
Bania
. ‘Please God,’ he prayed, ‘Please God, don’t let the man make a scene.’
His stomach rumbled and he had an uncontrollable urge to evacuate his bowels.

Freddy had borrowed most of the money to finance his plans, to stock up his shop, from the
Bania
. The fat money-lender, watching his investment go up in smoke, was sure to kick up a row. All credibility, so painstakingly built up by Freddy regarding his recent turn of fortune, would stand shattered. Once again, out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at the man. The money-lender was looking placidly at the fire. He didn’t appear to be at all perturbed. Freddy decided to keep as far from him as possible. This definitely was not the moment to provoke the issue.

Meanwhile, a tense little drama was taking place on the balcony. A fireman climbed up the steel ladder and reaching over the balustrade, placed a squat wooden stool on the balcony. He climbed down a few rungs and waited. Two firemen, holding Jerbanoo firmly beneath her short bodice sleeves, helped her climb on the stool. Gripping the ladder with one hand, Jerbanoo lifted a thick clumsy leg over the railing and placed it gingerly on the rung. The men gave her support. Jerbanoo lifted her other leg. For a brief breathless instant she stayed up, half suspended over the railing, but the next instant she was down again, both legs planted squarely on the stool!

Slashing out at restraining arms, shouting, ‘Let go! Get away!’ she jumped off. The men caught hold of her hands, trying to drag her back to the stool, but Jerbanoo strained back with all her weight. Touching her obdurate bottom to the steaming concrete, she glowered at them. Another merciful jet of water doused them and the men let go. Jerbanoo’s seat bumped to the floor. Folding her arms defiantly across her chest, she remained seated. The scorched, panting men stared at her, their hands hanging by their sides.

The fireman on the ladder climbed down.

THE space in front of the burning house had been cordoned off. Policemen held the crowd back with a fence of lathi-sticks. The edge of the clearing undulated with every pressure from the back. Tap tap, thump thump, went the policemen’s batons bouncing off the skulls and bodies of those nearest the rim.

Inside the clearing firemen rushed about with wet cloths wrapped round their faces. Two or three groups supported the hose that poured thin, sharp jets of water into the furnace. Helmeted men in the broker’s office and toy-shop hacked at wood-work and flung out inflammable debris.

The Fire Chief, a middle-aged, sweating, red-faced Irishman, directed the operation. As the fireman stepped off the ladder, the Irishman walked up to him.

‘What the hell’s going on up there?’

‘She refuses to climb down.’

‘What’s biting her? Doesn’t she know she’ll be bloody roasted in fifteen minutes? Lucky for her the wind is blowing the other way.’

‘She’s too scared to climb down. Besides, being a modest Indian lady, she doesn’t want anyone to get a look up her petticoat.’

‘Bloody woman! What’s to see up her petticoat anyway. A pair of cotton bloomers? We’re running out of time, throw her over your shoulders, spank her bottom, and carry her down.’

‘You try, sir,’ came the laconic reply. The dispirited, soot-
blackened fireman, who had just climbed down the ladder, walked away.

The sun hung red above the burning building. Freddy had lost Mr Toddywalla and was cutting a quick passage for himself with the magic cry, ‘It’s my house, let me through.’

At the cordon a baton bounced off his thick, dark brown hair. Freddy gaped in disbelief as the policeman raised his baton a second time. ‘I’m the owner, I’m the owner!’ he gasped, and the baton, swerving mid-course, landed on the awed head of the man holding his ground next to Freddy.

‘Let me through,’ commanded Freddy, breaking past the policeman and running straight into the blaze. Three firemen ran after him and hauled the struggling, grief-stricken man to their Chief. Freddy’s hair was slightly singed and a few black-rimmed holes speckled his white garments.

‘So, you’re the owner … you poor son-of-a-bitch,’ said the Irishman sympathetically.

A heartrending cry hushed the throng.

‘Oh, my mother! Oh, my mother!’ screamed Putli breaking through into the clearing.

The rapt crowd fell back a bit. Tears sprang into the eyes of women onlookers. They brushed their cheeks with crumpled sari ends.

The ground shook beneath their feet as Jerbanoo’s agonised bellow rent the air.

‘Oooh! Oooh, my child! Help me, my child!’

‘Oh, what am I to do? But don’t worry mother, don’t worry!’ cried Putli wringing her thin hard-worked hands.

Freddy felt obliged to claim a slice of the action.

‘Mother! Oh, our poor mother!’ he shouted. Tears of compassion (brought on by the smoke) streamed from his eyes.

Freddy’s neighbour, the broker, materialised from the crowd and putting his arms round his stricken friend, he murmured, ‘Junglewalla sahib, pull yourself together … the gods will not abandon us.’ He persuaded Freddy to leave the clearing.

A drove of women, following their husbands in hired tongas, had arrived from Mr Toddywalla’s house.

One of them tore Putli away from her engrossing, though monotonous, conversation with her mother. Holding her affectionately to their bosoms in turn, they crooned, ‘She’ll be all right – Oh you poor dear – they will get her down in no time – there, there now, don’t you worry.’

As soon as they spied Freddy they swarmed around him and depending on their ages, held him to their copious bosoms.

Seven shops and homes to the right of the fire had been evacuated. The fire was almost certain to engulf the broker’s office and the toy shop. The Fire Chief had ordered the evacuation, assuring the shopkeepers it was just a precaution. They had the situation well in hand, he said.

Women and children who had been evacuated from their homes, sat on the grass in voluble little bunches, guarding possessions, while their men made various arrangements. The drove of ladies from Mr Toddywalla’s house descended upon each stricken family in turn, avidly ferreting details and offering solace. When did they first know of the fire? What did they do? The children must have been terrified, poor little things. What a shame! Oh dear! Is that so! Oh my goodness! they exclaimed, as each new feature came to light. In turn, chattering excitedly, they related how Freddy and Putli had played cards all afternoon, like innocent babies. They had been in such good spirits, poor dears. The irony of it. And they would never forget the way Freddy reacted. How he rattled the clerk who brought the news.

Eyes sparkling, they commiserated with each other in shrill, cooing voices.

Escaping them, Freddy drifted among the spectators. He saw the tenement Fakir. The Mystic held a rusty iron tripod above his head. His long black hair fell about his fierce eyes, and deferentially touching his fingers to his forehead, Freddy approached him.

‘God be with you, my son!’ roared the Fakir, demoniacally probing Freddy’s face. At that moment, like Jerbanoo, Freddy
wished the earth would crack open and swallow him. He bowed his singed brow and closed his lids. The Fakir placed a grimy hand on the lowered head. Then turning with characteristic abruptness, cutting a passage for himself with the disconcerting jingle of bells strapped to his bare ankles, he marched away. The measured jingle of his progress could be heard long after he had disappeared.

The sun dipped beneath the pall of smoke, leaving it pink. Freddy marvelled at the unique colour with a tinge of creative pride. The orange glow shone with a purple halo from the lingering sunset.

Freddy became aware of someone staring at him. Reluctantly tearing his eyes from the sky, he focused them on a softly gleaming mass of brown flesh and came alert with a start. The black, rubber-like eyes of the money-lender bounced off his face.

‘Panditjee!’ squealed Freddy, squeezing the
Bania’s
hands in both his and touching them to his forehead. ‘How good of you to come.’

Then he waited, flinching, half-expectant, like a prisoner awaiting a dreaded sentence and wanting it over and done with. His stomach rumbled.

Panditjee released his hands and clasped Freddy to his plump bosom. He held him for a long, mutely sympathetic moment and stepped back.

‘What a tragedy my friend, what a tragedy,’ he sighed, his rubbery eyes inscrutable, his face full of the gentlest concern. ‘Oh dear, I see you’ve burnt yourself. Let me fetch some excellent salve from my house. My wife has prepared it herself.’

‘Please don’t trouble yourself, it’s nothing really,’ demurred Freddy, adding, ‘when they say you know your friends in times of adversity, how right they are! You cannot imagine the comfort your solicitude gives me, my friend. By sharing my grief, you have made it bearable – you struck it in half. Oh, but look at this … all these years of work. I’ve toiled night and day like a mule, built up a little to live by –
and all wiped away like that! Like that!’ Freddy snapped his fingers to illustrate the point.

‘What will become of us, I don’t know; of my little children, of my poor mother-in-law. We are ruined! Ruined!’ he cried, totally carried away by the spirit of his prose.

‘Courage my friend, courage. You are beloved of the gods; handsome, young and strong – you will easily make up for the loss. It won’t take you long to establish the business again.’

‘With your prayers, with God’s blessings, maybe,’ said Freddy. The explosive pressure on his bowels contorted his features and lent a pathetic catch to his voice. He sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

A look of genuine anxiety narrowed the money-lender’s shrewd eyes. ‘You are a man of sense and discernment. I hope you have some insurance cover?’ he inquired softly.

Freddy tried to conceal his astonishment.

‘A bit,’ he nodded, neatly averting his eyes.

‘Oh well,’ sighed the Pandit. ‘Even as a drowning man finds support on a bit of driftwood, the trifle will aid you. You may not believe it now – you are too overcome – but time, the great healer and the strength of your prayers, will get you back on your feet.’

He made a small kissing noise with his mouth, the kind mothers make, cajoling children. ‘Carry on my friend. I will not delay you. You must be anxious to see to your mother-in-law. May the gods preserve the noble lady.’

Lifting one end of the white dhoti that was tied up between his legs like an oversized diaper, the Pandit moved away. Freddy looked after him speculatively, a veiled, far-away look in the depths of his handsome eyes. Here was a man, supposedly ignorant and illiterate, a man who spoke no English beyond ‘yes’ and ‘no’ … It was amazing that the Pandit knew of insurance – that he had heard of it at all, let alone guessed that Freddy might have insured his store!