Waiting for the Monsoon Read online

  They sit perfectly still. Outside, an owl hoots. It’s calling them. She blows the cigarette smoke toward the open window: a cloud that is free to rise up to heaven. The tobacco is hot on her tongue. Soon the last candle will go out. She listens to the sounds of the night. He takes her hand . . . or perhaps she takes his.

  NOT A WORD is spoken. She doesn’t know his name, but she can still taste him on her lips and smell his skin. The sky was turning pink when he slipped out of her. They got up, put on their clothes, and walked outside. They went in separate directions. The owl hooted one last time as she turned onto the road leading home.

  ~~~

  Dear Donald,

  There’s a lot I have to tell you and I don’t know where to begin. If you were here, it would be so much easier. I called the telephone number you gave me, but there was no answer. I do hope that nothing’s happened, and that this letter will reach you. Father has had a very bad accident. For four days he was at death’s door, but last night he opened his eyes and looked at me. At first I thought he was angry with me, but later I realized that he was in a great deal of pain. It’s hard to describe what happened. A load of heavy iron pipes fell on him. The worst part is that it was his fault. He’ll probably never walk again, but he doesn’t know that yet. He also doesn’t know that they had to cut his boots to pieces. I sometimes think that’s going to be the worst blow of all. I’m not looking forward to telling him all this. That’s why I wish you were here now, so that we could do it together. He’s in a plaster harness from his toes to his neck. The doctors said that it was ridiculous to put a cast on his shattered legs, but I’m positive that Father wouldn’t have survived if his legs had been amputated. If he still has his legs — even if he can’t walk — he will probably find the courage to fight for his life. No one can say how long he’ll have to stay in hospital, but it’s certain to be a matter of months. Will you call me as soon as you get this letter? I’d really like to talk to you. I’ll send this by special delivery, so it’ll get to you quickly.

  Regards from your sister Charlotte

  1955 Bombay ~~~

  MADAN UNPICKS THE material very carefully, without breaking the thread. He’s amazed that a thread can be so long: as if it’ll never end. He’s sitting on the ladder leading up to the scent attic, as he calls it, and working on the red and white cloth. Subhash, the oiler, asked Mr. Chandran if it would be all right for Madan to work upstairs, and he gave his permission with a curt nod.

  Madan is still very angry with Mister Patel. Now he won’t be able to filch an apple if he wakes up in the middle of the night. He feels his stomach rumbling, and he has no idea whether he’ll be given some scraps at the end of the day, like when he was working for Ram Khan, or maybe nothing at all. He can’t ask Subhash, who’s just crawled into one of the machines clutching his can of lubricating oil, and the weavers are all just as busy. He continues to pull on the thread — but this time he pulls too hard, and it breaks. Subhash told him he was supposed to unpick the entire length of cloth without breaking the thread, so he ties the two ends together, which is pretty tricky because it’s so fine.

  “DID YOU LEAVE him behind with Chandan Chandran?” Mister Patel’s nephew asks, with a hint of concern in his voice.

  “You were the one who said he might find work there.”

  “I never thought he’d say yes.”

  “Well, he didn’t.” Mister Patel has decided to go straight back to Hyderabad, and he’s only stopped by his nephew’s shop to pick up the kit bag containing what remains of his possessions.

  “But you left him behind there?”

  “I came back half an hour later and he was already gone.”

  “Oh, that’s all right then,” says the nephew in relief.

  “What do you mean, all right! I do my best to find something for the boy and he just walks away.”

  “Chandan Chandran . . . ,” a customer mutters, but loud enough for the others to hear. “I’d have my doubts.”

  “Doubts about what?” Mister Patel asks, looking in surprise at the man with the three bananas in his hand.

  “Oh, nothing, really,” says his nephew.

  “What do you mean, nothing?” Mister Patel asks. “You’re the one who said I should send the boy to him.”

  “Did you really say that?” the customer asks the nephew in alarm.

  The nephew raises both arms in a gesture intended to absolve himself of all blame. “It was one of the possibilities.”

  “What’s wrong with this Chandran?”

  Mister Patel wishes he hadn’t come back to pick up his kit bag. There’s nothing of value in it, since Ibrahim the murderer took everything he was attached to and the rest is in the police commissioner’s pocket.

  “They say he’s rather . . .” The customer searches for the right words. “Rather peculiar.”

  “He wanted the boy to unpick a length of cotton!” confirmed Mister Patel, who also found the weaver a bit strange.

  “Is that what he wanted him to do?” said the customer with relish. “And what else did he want him to do?”

  “Nothing. He just wanted the boy to unpick the piece of cotton.”

  “Did he say anything else?”

  Mister Patel is not planning to tell the customer that he was reluctant to ask the man at the loom if he had work for the boy because he sensed that Madan didn’t want to stay there. Just as he had been able to do in prison, he could always tell when the boy was afraid. That’s why he rambled on about the dissertation he’s been working on for ten years and the fact that he’ll probably never be able to finish it because all his books are gone. He does recall that the weaver suddenly asked, “Is it that kid?” Now, how did the man know that that was his question?

  The nephew sighs and weighs the bananas. “What’s all the fuss about, anyway? The kid is smart enough, and there are more important things in life. Did you hear we’re playing Pakistan again?”

  “When?” asks the customer.

  Mister Patel picks up his kit bag, takes an apple from the crate without his nephew noticing, and drops it into his kit bag. “I’ve got to be going, otherwise I’ll miss my train.”

  MADAN UNDERSTANDS HOW the threads criss-cross each other: a lot of short ones and one long one. Every time the colour changes, a new thread is used, tied to the one before, just as he has done. He’s figured out that the easiest way to pull out the long thread is to lay the cloth with the short threads flat on the floor, so they don’t get tangled. He’s kneeling on the floor. He’s forgotten about his rumbling stomach, and he’s no longer angry with Mister Patel. He’s fascinated by the thread, which is getting longer and longer. Things become more difficult the closer he gets to the end: the long thread keeps getting tangled up with the short ones.

  He’s rolled up the entire thread and holds the spool proudly in his hand. It’s only then that he smells the lubricant again and becomes aware of the machines. He sees the man with the ponytail coming toward him. The man holds up his hand, and Madan places the spool in his palm. Chandan Chandran beckons him to follow.

  They walk back to the stairs and go up to the next floor. On the flat roof there’s a kind of lean-to made of wood and long grass, with several grass mats and a chair.

  “Are you deaf, too?” asks Chandan Chandran.

  Madan shakes his head.

  “If you want a job, you can sleep here and you’ll get breakfast and your evening meal.” He gives Madan a penetrating look.

  I’m hungry. Madan nods and points to his mouth.

  The man with the long hair goes down the stairs and Madan follows him past the mechanical looms to a small room in the corner. Subhash and the weavers are sitting on the floor eating.

  Madan fills up a plate with rice and dal, and sits down on the floor next to them. He is nine years old, but he feels like an adult.

/>   1995 Rampur ~~~

  CHARLOTTE TIED THE bib around her father’s neck. It was a large bib, made at her request by Sanat, the previous darzi. She remembered the first time she had to feed her father, and how awful it was. She couldn’t get a spoonful of lukewarm cereal into his mouth without showering everyone and everything in the vicinity. Nowadays she had no trouble, and the bib wasn’t even necessary. But the closer she kept to the daily routine, the calmer he was. She stirred the yogurt and gave him a spoonful. Her father smacked his lips contentedly. She’d ask Hema to change his diaper: it attracted flies, and that would interfere with his afternoon nap.

  “Does it taste good?” she asked.

  “Delicious.”

  Charlotte was surprised that he had actually answered her question. It had been some time since she’d been able to carry on a normal conversation with him. He did have some lucid moments, but they were becoming more and more rare. “Is there enough sugar in it?”

  “I already told you it was delicious.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  She put a heaping spoonful into his mouth and he slurped it up with evident relish.

  “Are you going to the party?” he asked as he licked the yogurt from his lips.

  “What party?”

  “The party at the club, of course. It’s coming up to the two hundredth anniversary.”

  “Yes, I’m planning to go.” She had no idea how he had found out about the party. She hadn’t mentioned it to him, Hema never concerned himself with such events, and none of the ladies who had visited her the last few days had gone upstairs. She couldn’t imagine that the thought had simply come to him out of the blue.

  “I want to wear my uniform.”

  “You mean you want to go to the party?”

  “Of course. I’m the oldest member. I was a member long before the Indians were allowed to join.” He pointed to a plaque on the wall that he’d won at a tournament held at the club, long before his accident. “Get my uniform out of the wardrobe.”

  “First one more spoonful,” she replied, holding the full spoon to his mouth. He kept his lips tightly closed.

  “Come now, Father. We’re almost there.”

  “I don’t want any more. I want my uniform,” he peeped through his tightly closed lips.

  “Just two more bites.”

  The general began to cry softly. The spoon was suspended in front of his mouth. “Come now. The bowl is almost empty.”

  “I don’t want any more.”

  “You can have your uniform when the bowl is empty.”

  With one stroke he knocked the spoon out of her hand. “I want my uniform!” The globs of yogurt hit the wall.

  “Now why did you do that?” she asked as she picked up the spoon. “You were almost finished. You know it’s important to eat well.”

  “Finish it yourself. You’re thin as a rail.”

  It was true that Charlotte had got into the habit of economizing on her own food, in order to buy biscuits and sugar to serve with tea when she had guests. A few days before, Hema had suggested, in his typically vague and discreet manner, that she ought to eat more. She told him that the extreme heat took away her appetite, so that no one would know that for days she’d gone to bed with her stomach rumbling with hunger.

  “I WANT MY UN-I-FORM!” her father screamed, now in tears.

  The only way to put an end to his whinging was to give in. Otherwise it would end in a flood of abuse. As a rule, Charlotte stood her ground — many of his requests were simply so ridiculous that it would be impossible to give him his way. But this plea gave her an opportunity to look in the big old wardrobe. She put down the spoon and bowl, and before he could renew his tirade, she opened the huge doors. There hung the uniform in all its glory, enclosed in a transparent plastic garment bag. As Charlotte took the garment out of the wardrobe she saw the enormous piles of fabric. They were enclosed in yellowed plastic, so that it was impossible to distinguish the colour of the fabrics inside.

  “Father?” She unzipped the garment bag and took out the uniform. “Would it be all right if I used one of these fabrics to make a dress for the party?”

  The general didn’t hear his daughter’s question, but he brightened at the sight of the shiny medals and insignia. Charlotte laid the uniform in his lap. The odour of a recent bowel movement was noticeable. With the tip of his forefinger, the old man — known to all as “the general” though it was now clear that the highest rank he ever attained was that of lieutenant colonel — stroked the embroidered cords, insignia, and medals, and then the Order of Distinguished Service, his highest military decoration, awarded for heroism while he was stationed in Burma.

  Charlotte took a cloth and wiped the remains of the yogurt from the wall. She wondered what was going through her father’s head. Did he think he was back in Burma, at the Officer’s Club, perhaps, or had his fantasy already transported him to the party at the club? He was so obsessed with the threadbare uniform that he didn’t see Charlotte transferring the piles of cloth, all neatly wrapped in plastic, from the wardrobe to the landing. The shelf, which had been overfull, now looked almost empty. She closed the door quickly, forgot to take the bowl and spoon with her, locked the door, and heaved a sigh.

  1944 Burma ~~~

  USING A SPOON with a bent handle and a bowl worn thin from years of scraping out the contents of his mess kit, he manages to swallow the sticky substance concocted from some kind of bitter fruit. It’s the first food he’s tasted in days. The odour is revolting and the first spoonful makes his stomach churn, but he continues to chew, trying not to think about what it had been in its former life. They finally have something to eat, and that’s what matters.

  Victor and two other men are lost. The day after he gave his seconds-in-command orders to spread his men along the front line, he has lost contact with them. His liaison officer stepped on a land mine and took the sole radio to his grave. His batman, who carried the maps, was suddenly felled by some rare form of malaria and died that same night. The maps have been reduced to pulp by the rain and can’t even be used to start a fire. He has suppressed the memory of how the other men had come to their end. No use dwelling on the past. They have to go on.

  Victor’s brain is beginning to function again now that he has something in his stomach, even though it’s an effort to keep it down. Their hunger is so great that the soldier across from him is eating his own vomit.

  The major looks at what remains of his men. Two young soldiers. No danger of anyone deserting — where would they escape to? Each step they take in the impenetrable jungle is dangerous, and it is a miracle that they haven’t fallen into an enemy trap. Are the Japs in front, behind, to the left, or to the right of them? There’s no way of knowing.

  Now that he is able to think more clearly, the fear returns. He has despised cowardice his entire life, but it has dogged his footsteps ever since they lost their way. Here, in this green hell, he doesn’t fear the bloodsuckers, the snakes, or the black scorpions. They’re a necessary evil, like the tigers. But he is terrified of the enemy, ever since he saw and smelled what they did with the men of the fourth battalion. No one talks about it: he has declared the subject taboo since the day it happened. When they’re not sleeping or resting, they crawl as close as possible to the ground, invisible. The sun has reached its zenith and now it penetrates the canopy and hits the foot of the trees. Amid its flickering rays, the men scrape their mess kits clean.

  Victor is hot. He lost his tie and shirt a long time ago, and he has nothing but his tunic. Their uniforms are made of indestructible canvas that is useless in this heat. If he gets out alive, he resolves to write to the general staff in London, to those idiots who never stopped to think before they sent them into the jungle. They sweat themselves silly, and after that the rough fabric scrapes their clammy skin until it bleeds. He see
s the two soldiers nodding off. He has to tell them that it’s important to remain alert. But a full stomach produces a longing for sleep, real sleep, such as they’ve not enjoyed for weeks. He takes off his tunic and rolls it up. Then he places it behind his head and leans back against the tree he’s sitting under. He doesn’t know when his eyes fall shut, but suddenly he hears the ringing voice of Vera Lynn.

  The voice is very close. For an instant he thinks that the singing is part of a dream within his forbidden sleep, but then he realizes that it really is the voice of the “Sweetheart of the Forces” that echoes through the jungle. The two other men also jump to their feet. That voice can mean only one thing: there’s another British unit nearby. Briefly it occurs to him how odd it is that the silence of weeks should be broken so suddenly, but the joyful prospect of finding fellow countrymen here in the jungle prevails over all doubts. They stumble as fast as they can in the direction of the voice, which is calling to them like a temptress.

  They run into a clearing. Emerging from the shade of ancient trees, they are almost blinded by the sun. In the middle of the field stands a wind-up gramophone.

  There is no one in sight, just the lone gramophone. They look at each other. Their doubt and astonishment, which lasts only a few seconds, seems endless. Victor watches the black vinyl revolve, sees the shine of the grooves, the reflection of the sun, the oscillating needle swaying to the rhythm of the 78 r.p.m. gramophone record. Vera Lynn’s familiar voice crackles through the jungle. He recalls watching the woman in the white suit up on the stage, so far away that she was only a tiny dot. Everyone sang along with her. And here, not ten metres away, her voice reaches him from the horn. Where are the others? Sleeping under the trees? Where there’s music, there must be tents, food, ammunition, medicine, a map . . .