The Weary Generations (8 page)

‘Stop eating,' she admonished him. ‘Your bottom will start running again.'

‘Who is he?' asked Naim.

‘The old woman's nephew,' Niaz Beg answered.

‘He is your uncle's son,' the woman gently told Naim. ‘The low woman my brother married put a spell on him.'

‘Don't tell lies,' Niaz Beg said to his wife. He turned to Naim. ‘Pay no attention. She was the best-looking woman for ten villages around. Why would she let herself die if she had magic in her hand? Lies. They both died in the cholera epidemic.'

The old woman quietly gathered up part of the rice left in the tray in a little heap in front of her husband, upended the melted butter cup and,
wiping the bottom of the vessel with her fingers, let the last drops of liquid fall over the rice. Niaz Beg began picking up great big dollops of rice to his mouth. Smoke from the slow-burning dung cakes was spreading in the still air, obscuring the little light that came from the single lantern. The dark circles around Niaz Beg's eyes touched his cheekbones, and below them the flesh on his jaws had dried up like parched earth. He ate with concentration, the bones of his face, from temple to neck, rising and falling prominently like a starving bullock's. It vaguely disturbed Naim to notice how much his own features resembled his father's. A baby began to cry next door. The younger woman stood up to go inside the other room.

‘She was weeping just for show,' the older woman said to her husband, ‘only to appear as if she was happy at my son's coming home.'

‘Hunh?' Niaz Beg grunted.

‘She will put a spell on us during the night.'

‘What spell, hunh? Hunh? You are taking out of the heels of your feet where your sense is.'

‘Who is she?' Naim asked diffidently.

‘The other woman,' answered his mother. ‘No need for you to have anything to do with her. She is a proper witch.'

‘Stop barking like a mad bitch,' Niaz Beg said, bent over the rice, as if admonishing not his wife but the food in front of him.

By the time Niaz Beg was finished not a lot was left in the tray. He pushed it towards the two women, who began to pick at it. Niaz Beg wiped his greasy fingers on his beard and the few hairs that were still left on his head, burping loudly.

‘When did you come back?' Naim asked him.

‘In the sixth month of the last year,' Niaz Beg replied in a matter-of-fact way.

Although it was a hot night and the air was teeming with mosquitoes grown fat on the waste matter and dung of cattle tethered in the same courtyard where they all slept, Naim slept as soundly as he had ever done. He was surprised at how quickly the night had gone when he was woken by a shrill noise close to where he slept. The two women were fighting. The sudden shock of the clamour made Naim leap out of bed, putting his foot straight into a small pat of warm dung freshly deposited by an untethered buffalo wandering about his cot. Pulling back his foot, he jumped to clear the greenish mass and landed in a puddle of cattle urine, which splashed all around his ankles. Swearing under his breath and blinking in the early morning sun, he went to the water pump and washed himself. The women were shouting at each other.

‘You lured him off to bed when it was I who cooked and fed him the day before yesterday, you dirty little bitch.'

‘And who cooked and fed him last week when I had to go and see my sick mother, leaving him for you? Did you not lie down with him after I had slaved over my hearth to fill his belly?'

‘So where would he go with all that food inside him? To lie with your mother? And hah, sick mother! Don't I know that you went to see your paramour who was dying for you back in your village, and you for him?'

‘Hold your vile tongue, you shameless witch. Only yesterday your six-foot son came home and you warmed your bed with the man the very same night. God forgive me, have you no shame?'

‘Hah, a fine one to talk of shame. He,' pointing to Niaz Beg, ‘had not even been home for full nine months before you dropped a kitten.'

‘I am not scared of your son. I only think of your white hair and stay my hand,' the younger woman said, shaking her head of black hair vigorously in the direction of Niaz Beg, who had come out of the older woman's room moments before and stood between the two women, looking nonplussed. Then he saw Naim across the courtyard and suddenly came to life.

‘Shut up, shut up, you silly women,' he shouted. ‘I will kick both of you out, I will beat you to the next world, bitches, barking like bitches, I will buy you two dogs to satisfy you. Will you be satisfied then?' His head trembled, his beard shook, and his arms were waving in the air like a vision of some wild village dance. His shouted threats had no effect on the women. Advancing on one another, they exchanged a series of fierce blows, pulling each other's hair, screaming obscenities. Giving up the struggle, Niaz Beg withdrew. He went up to Naim and, gently pushing him towards the door of the courtyard, said to him, ‘Pay no attention, these are women with no sense, only full of urine and jealousy. Turn yourself away from them. Go, while I kill them and bury them in the devil's ground.'

Outside, two pups wrestled, a fat buffalo wandered aimlessly, two sparrows jumped up and down on the buffalo's wide back, picking fleas from the black skin. A suckling bitch sat sleepily watchful on top of a heap of manure, feeding her young. The Sikh youth Naim had seen the previous night stood yawning as if he were just out of bed.

‘You are chaudri Niaz Beg's son?' he asked roughly.

‘Yes,' Naim replied.

The Sikh youth picked up one of the pups by the ear and flung it into the pond. The pup, yapping loudly, climbed on top of one of the buffaloes that were bathing themselves in the dirty water. Some small boys, staying afloat by holding on to the buffaloes' tails, started crying in imitation of the
pup and splashing water over it.

‘Old women are fighting again,' Sikh youth said, laughing. ‘They do it every other day.'

Controlling his anger, Naim asked, ‘Why?'

‘Chaudri often eats from one and sleeps with the other. Every time they fight, chaudri says he will kill them dead, but he has never raised his hand to them.'

Naim smiled wanly.

‘Mind you,' the youth continued with simple cheerfulness, ‘it only started after chaudri came back from gaol. All the time that he was away, the women lived in peace, like sisters, and never looked at another man's thigh.'

The Sikh boy started walking along the edge of the pond.

‘Where are you going?' Naim asked him.

‘To lift our wheat.'

Naim followed him. They turned left at the end of the pond and there at some distance before them were a couple of fields of ripe wheat, partly harvested. Most of the neighbouring fields had been cleared. The sun had crept up and covered the shorn fields with its hot white blanket. Wheat stalks were scattered in the harvested fields, and feathered creatures of every kind, from tiny sparrows to fat doves, pigeons and sleek crows, sat among them, picking out stray seeds of wheat along with insects that had lost their cover. Trees were only grown near and around the village, mostly sheesham and mango that provided dense shade, and under them the peasants tethered their cattle away from the heat of the sun while they rested on cots or sat and talked to while away the hours.

‘Why is your crop still standing?' Naim asked.

‘We sowed late.'

‘What's your name?'

‘Thakur Mahinder Singh.'

They walked on towards the standing crop.

‘Have you come from the city?' Mahinder Singh asked.

‘Yes.'

‘Which city?'

‘Delhi.'

‘Is that where you live?'

‘No. I live in Calcutta.'

‘Kalkuttaah,' the Sikh repeated slowly. ‘I know. My uncle went there.'

‘What did he do there?' asked Naim.

‘What business is it of yours?' Mahinder Singh said with no hint of malice in his voice.

Ruffians, thought Naim. Probably thieved in Calcutta, his uncle.

They were crossing the dry bed of a nullah whose sand had already become hot under the rising sun.

‘Don't you want to know my name?' Naim asked.

‘I know,' replied Mahinder Singh confidently. ‘You are chaudri Niaz Beg's son.'

Following him across the nullah, Naim laughed quietly. They were now approaching the wheat field. The wind was gusting through the crop, moving it in waves that shone gold-like in the bright sun. Naim idly broke off an ear of wheat, rubbed it between his fingers to separate the grains, put one in his mouth and threw away the rest.

‘You are a city boy,' said Mahinder Singh, who had been watching him. ‘You don't know the value of anaj.'

‘I do,' Naim said. ‘The other grains are for the birds.'

Mahinder Singh smiled good-naturedly. A girl was coming up from the side, a tall, slim girl carrying a cane tray on her head and an earthenware, narrow-necked pot in her hand. Mahinder Singh blocked her way. She tried to squeeze past. The boy wouldn't give way. A frown and a smile appeared together on her face.

‘Where have you been?' Mahinder Singh asked her.

‘Took food for my bhapa.'

‘I am hungry too,' Mahinder Singh said.

‘Is your mother dead?' the girl taunted.

‘Are you your bhapay's mother then?'

‘Don't show your shameless teeth. Let me go.'

Mahinder Singh plucked the pot from her hand. It was empty. He returned it by pushing it into the girl's hard, flat belly. She bent over under the blow and grabbed the pot. Mahinder Singh didn't let go of her. The girl pushed back and with all the force of her chest and one arm she moved the young man several steps back. Mahinder Singh bit his lip and shoved her further back than she had done him. Drops of sweat had appeared on their faces and their breath came hard and fast through their heaving chests. One side of the sheet loosely tied around the girl's waist was swept up by a combination of the struggle and the wind, revealing a brown-skinned thigh of rounded, healthy flesh, young sinews straining against the weight of the young man.

‘Come,' Mahinder Singh said to her, pointing with his head to the shoulder-high wheat crop.

‘No,' the girl sank her fingernails into the boy's neck, ‘swine, let me go.'

Mahinder Singh, now the stronger of the two, push-dragged her into
the standing crop, saying shamelessly, ‘Come lie with me, come …'

‘Your bhapa is sitting over there,' the girl threatened. ‘I am going to call out to him.'

‘What can he do?' Mahinder Singh said fearlessly.

‘He can break your bones.'

‘He has to find us first.'

‘You pig,' the girl cried. ‘You smell.'

Mahinder Singh forced the girl down to the ground and for a moment they both disappeared from view. Suddenly, a heavy, rough voice came up from the other side of the field, calling Mahinder's name. Mahinder Singh's head appeared above the crop, then the girl's. Mahinder Singh swore and came out of the field. The girl followed, adjusting the sheet around her waist. She picked up her roti tray and fixed the lassi pot in the crook of her arm.

‘I will see you here tomorrow,' Mahinder Singh said menacingly.

‘I am going to Jat Nagar tomorrow with my bhabi and not coming back until sowing starts,' the girl said, arching her brow and smiling challengingly, before she went down the nullah's slope on her way back to the village.

Mahinder Singh swore some more after her. The girl turned once she was on the other side of the nullah and lifted the flat of her hand towards the boy in a gesture of taunting victory. Mahinder Singh stood looking at her as she went, swinging her arms, her back, hips and legs making a single movement of boneless elasticity like a long thin eucalyptus twig swishing through the air. Mahinder Singh's long hair had come loose from underneath his turban; thick tufts of it hung around his eyes, curved and stiff, framing his brow which was aflame with naked desire.

‘Who was she?' Naim asked him.

‘A slut.'

‘Didn't look like one to me.'

‘So did she look like your mother?'

‘Shut up.'

‘What else did she look like?' the Sikh laughed.

‘Your mother, you swine.'

Mahinder Singh confronted him. ‘Don't you try to talk back to me.' He pulled out a thick wooden flute from the fold of the sheet tied around his hips and started twirling it slowly in his hand. ‘Don't you know me?'

‘No,' Naim said bravely. ‘I only see a stupid Sikh with a flute in his hand.'

Mahinder Singh extended his flute hand to Naim. ‘Here, you take it. I'll still break your head.'

Naim stood his ground. ‘Show me how you will do it.'

After a few moments of squaring up to one another, eyes screwed up and menace in their bodies, Mahinder Singh laughed.

‘You only came yesterday. Drink your old lady's milk for a few days before you come and fight me.'

‘Coward,' Naim said.

‘I will fight you yet, but not today. We allow twenty-four hours to guests.' Mahinder Singh put the flute to his lips and started to blow, producing, to Naim's surprise, a nice sound.

Without taking the flute from his lips, Mahinder Singh started walking ahead. Following him still, Naim saw that the Sikh's arms and shoulders were scorched black by the sun while the skin under his dirty printed vest was of a lighter shade.

‘Don't you ever wear a shirt?' asked Naim after a while.

Mahinder Singh turned to look at him without stopping and continued to blow on the flute. They turned to their right along the field and saw several men separating the wheat from the chaff with the help of huge wooden forks. Their black bodies shone with sweat in the glare of the sun. Mahinder Singh's father told him roughly to stop playing the flute and get down to work with the fork. Hesitantly, Mahinder Singh joined them.