Waiting for the Monsoon Page 26

  He is just about to raise his hand, signalling that there’s something wrong here, when a bullet whizzes through the air. The young man next to him, a second lieutenant from Gloucester and a newcomer to India, is struck and falls down dead. Without a flinch, without a sigh. Between his eyes there is a small hole, and a trickle of blood as Vera holds the last note and the piano completes its last run. Out of the corner of his eye he sees the other man, a private first class, raise his hands. The needle gets stuck in the last groove, like a sluggish metronome.

  Where are they? Why don’t they show themselves? The fear that has constantly plagued him re-emerges. He wants to raise his hands. He wants to cut their throats, he wants to take revenge on them for what they’ve done. Why don’t they come out of the woods? Who pulled the trigger? Perhaps it wasn’t the Japs but some desperate Brit who’s suffering from hallucinations and has taken them for the enemy. The needle continues to tick in its groove. He knows that the Japs consider surrender a sign of cowardice, and that cowards are often summarily shot, but he decides to risk it. Slowly he raises his arms . . . until he remembers what they did to that major in the fifth battalion. Then his mind begins to spin in a wild panic. He remembers that his uniform jacket and his helmet are still lying under the tree. In his stained khaki undershirt and trousers, he looks exactly like the soldier next to him. There is nothing to distinguish him from the cannon fodder, except perhaps his age. But his face is just as dirty and unshaven, his hair just as long and grimy: even at close quarters, a Jap wouldn’t see the difference. He raises his hands still higher.

  Two Japs emerge from the trees and bushes, guns at the ready. Their uniforms are just as ragged as his, their cheeks just as hollow, and even the hatred in their eyes is the same. Until they stop next to the gramophone and one of them lifts the needle lovingly, removes the record, and replaces it carefully in the sleeve. Victor wonders how many others have fallen for this trick, devised by the yellow vermin, who probably don’t appreciate anything but the twang of an untuned lute.

  Now that the ticking has ceased, the sounds of the jungle are doubly prominent. One Jap places the record in a box, together with the gramophone and the horn, while the other keeps his gun trained on Victor and the young soldier, who are standing next to each other. One of the Japs disappears into the undergrowth. Victor prays that he doesn’t find his jacket: he wants to go into captivity anonymously.

  “Major,” the young soldier whispers.

  “Shut up,” Victor hisses.

  “But, Major . . . ,” the frightened boy begins again.

  “Do you want to get me killed?” he growls in a voice that only the boy can hear.

  The boy is silent. Their enemy returns with three rifles. He says something to the other Jap, and the entire group sets off. They walk into the jungle, leaving the uncovered body of the second lieutenant from Gloucester behind. It could be five kilometres or ten or two. Victor and the boy walk slowly with their arms above their heads. It’s no use trying to escape: the jungle is more dangerous than the enemy, and it might just be possible to talk to them.

  They walk into a camp just as the sun starts to set. There are a few shabby huts, and in front of one of them stands a chair. During the march, Victor has considered all the possible scenarios, and in each case he came to the same conclusion: the best thing is to just wait and see. They are led to a fenced-off area, where they collapse onto the ground. The Japs shout something in the direction of the huts, but there is no answer. The enemy is just as exhausted as they are, especially the man who led the group, carrying the gramophone and the rifles on his back. Again they call out, exchanging worried looks. Victor senses that a chance for escape may present itself sooner than he expected. One of the men enters a hut and quickly reappears. He calls to his mate, who suddenly readies his rifle and aims it at the prisoners. Victor withstands it all in silence, happy for a chance to drop his arms. He sees the other man go into the tent, and feels the first mosquitoes of the evening launch their attack on his bare arms and neck.

  “Major . . . ,” the young solder whispers.

  “Don’t call me that, for Christ’s sake,” snaps Victor.

  “What am I supposed to call you, Major?”

  “Anything except that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Call me Jack, for all I care.”

  The Jap aims his weapon at them and shouts something, presumably that they’re not allowed to talk. They fall silent and look straight ahead.

  Victor slaps a mosquito just as it’s about to stick its dart into his arm. Suddenly he is reminded of his daughter. His children mean little more than their faraway addresses to which he sends a letter at Christmastime. He didn’t see them grow up. Would he even recognize them? Will he ever see them again? It’s been a long time since he felt like a father. He’s a soldier. He’s been a commandant for many years, but now that he’s pretending to be an ordinary soldier, something inside him has changed. He feels a maudlin sensation coming over him, something he had always loathed and detested when he saw it in his young recruits. He does his best to shake it off.

  Suddenly the camp is swarming with Japs. Victor has no idea where they came from. The enclosure that holds Victor and the soldier is opened and a small group of British and Indian soldiers are brought in. They appear more dead than alive. The private first class jumps to his feet to welcome the men. The Japs don’t even allow him to finish his sentence: a bullet bores its way into his forehead, and he falls down dead. No one dares utter a word.

  By the light of the half moon, the men gaze at the dead body lying in their midst. No one has touched it, after an attempt to cover it was swiftly punished. No one sleeps, not because of the mosquitoes, but because they are all convinced that closing their eyes could mean the end of their lives.

  THE MOSQUITOES HAVE been replaced by flies: at first light they found the body of the young soldier. It has also been discovered by ants, which are now visiting it in huge numbers. A representation of the order Hymenoptera marches past Victor’s foot in the direction of the dead man. He has no idea what these scavengers find on the body. It appears to be intact, with the exception of the face. The bullet fired at dusk was less accurate than the one that struck the second lieutenant from Gloucester in the forehead, and the eye is missing.

  The sun rises and the guards are changed. Now Victor can distinguish the faces of the new prisoners. The four new men are even more dishevelled than his men were. They have long beards and none of them are wearing boots. Their feet are covered with wounds and there is little left of their uniforms.

  A crow hops into the enclosure as if it’s perfectly at home there. When one of the men adjusts his position, the bird flutters up and then lands next to the body of the young soldier. It pecks a few ants from the long column heading toward the body and then hops onto the face, where it pokes its beak into the coagulated blood next to the eye socket. The soldiers watch in silence as the jet-black bird proceeds to make a meal out of the boy.

  AS THE SUN rises, decomposition sets in. The crows have descended on the body, which is slowly turning green. The slightly sweet cadaverous smell mingles with the heavy odour of decomposition emanating from the tropical jungle surrounding them. Victor cannot think about anything except food: the heavily laden tables at the club, a wild boar grilled over an open fire, clear chicken broth, plum pudding with currants and raisins, fresh trout, rack of lamb with mint jelly and a generous shot of Tabasco, pork stew with apples, salmon with cucumber sauce, Lancaster hotpot, sausages with onion gravy, garlic soup, country pie, pears with whipped cream, poached eggs, Christmas pudding, brandy butter, beef Wellington, turkey casserole with beer . . .

  A crow pulls the last piece of the eyeball out of its socket. The muscle doesn’t give easily, and the bird has to tug sharply. The longer Victor stares at the body, the less he sees of it: millions of insects are crawling over
the boy’s remains. All he knows about the soldier is his rank and surname.

  It is Victor’s own fault that he is here. Nineteen days ago he called a meeting of his seconds-in-command in a large tent not far from the Indian border. Unrolling the map, he explained his plan. All the men nodded their assent, except for a dour Scot who called it madness. Victor put the man in his place with a brusque remark, but in the end he was proved right. On the way back to the command post, things went wrong, and that’s why he is here, thinking about butterscotch truffles instead of eating them.

  It’s not the odour of the body itself that drives the men up the wall, but the lack of shade and the fact that they are constantly besieged by dung flies. The sole exception is a young captain who, unlike the others, remains calm and goes about what he sees as his task: dressing the wounds of his fellow prisoners. The first day that the soldier’s body lay there, no one dared to move a muscle until the sun went down. By the last bit of daylight, the captain went over to the body and carefully untied the man’s boots. Everyone looked on in silence, and when this did not elicit a rifle shot or a volley of curses from the Japanese, he also removed the man’s trousers. He then adjusted the position of the body, placed the arms along the sides, and even succeeded in folding the hands over the chest, before crawling back to his own spot with the trousers and the boots. Victor is mildly surprised that none of the men protested when the captain took the boots. But he is the highest-ranking soldier, and Victor himself had often enough taken advantage of his rank.

  AT SUNRISE IT becomes clear that there is a lot going on inside as well as outside the body. Small white worms come crawling out of the mouth and nose and are devoured with relish by the crows. And there still is no food or water for the prisoners. The men shelter under their shirts, except for the captain, who spends the whole day tearing open the seams of the trousers with the aid of a small stone. To Victor’s surprise, it is his neighbour who now wears the boots. At the end of the day, the captain has a small pile of cloth squares and the dead soldier has turned into a balloon. Everyone hopes fervently that he will not explode.

  It is late in the afternoon on the third day — during which time not a word has been spoken — when one of the Japs shoves a battered iron pan full of dingy water under the fence. The men make a mad dash for the pan. A fight almost breaks out over who gets to drink first, but the captain shouts that they’ll all get their chance. Victor Bridgwater is happy that no one knows he’s a major. He waits his turn in line and drinks.

  1995 Rampur ~~~

  SHE FAIRLY DANCED down the stairs. There was enough fabric for thirty gowns! She would ask him to make her a new blouse and a skirt. And somewhere she had a piece of lace and red buttons. Or would he find them a bit old-fashioned? She would ask him to make the back of the gown a little longer than the front. She’d always wanted an evening dress with a small train. Or were they no longer in fashion? She’d borrow a few of the fashion magazines from the club’s library, and they could look at them together. He would know what suited her best. And now she had a choice of material. She would ask him . . . She started. Madan was standing at the bottom of the stairs. How long had he been standing there? What was he doing there? Why wasn’t he at work?

  “Are you checking up on me?” The question sounded brusque.

  No. I heard you coming.

  “That’s still no reason to leave the music room.”

  That’s not why I came out.

  “Oh, no? Then why did you?”

  Because you asked me to.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  Then I apologize. I must have been mistaken. Madan turned around and walked back to the music room.

  Don’t leave, Charlotte begged silently.

  Madan stopped short. Do you want me to stay?

  She looked at the back of the man who had thrown her into confusion from the very first time she laid eyes upon him. Yes, stay. No, go away.

  He didn’t move. What do you want?

  “Nothing,” her voice said, while her thoughts cried, You.

  Very quietly Madan walked back to the music room and carefully shut the door.

  Charlotte wanted to run after him. Hadn’t he heard her? Hadn’t she thought the word “you”? He could hear her thoughts, couldn’t he? By this time, he must know that she feels something for him. She walked away from the closed door. She had gone too far. She had thought the one thing she had told herself she must never think, and he had not replied. He had simply closed the door.

  She hadn’t heard him because he had managed to close the door just in time. I understood you! he had thought. I heard everything. I know how you feel. He hunched down at the table, as far as possible away from the door. He was afraid that his thoughts were too strong, and that she might have heard them because the heavy wooden door didn’t provide enough resistance. He pulled the lengths of cloth from the table and began to wind them around his head wildly. She mustn’t hear his thoughts! With one hand, he reached for the finished gown that was hanging from the table, shook it from the hanger, and pulled that over his head as well. Then he curled up and threw his arms around the fabrics.

  DISAPPOINTED, SHE WENT back upstairs. His rejection had upset her more than she wanted to admit. She undressed and turned on the shower. As she stepped into the bathtub, she looked into the flaking mirror on the back of the door, where she saw a scrawny old woman getting into the bath. A failed woman. An unhappy woman. She picked up the porcelain water jug. It was a family heirloom. It had belonged to her mother, who had used it during her much-too-short life. It was the jug Sita had used to wash them, the one in which she had arranged flowers when she was feeling sad, the one no junk dealer was interested in. Then she threw it at the mirror as hard as she could. It was as if her mirror image veered to one side in order to avoid the projectile. The pitcher smashed to pieces against the wall. She didn’t look at the fragments but stood with her back to the mirror and let the water stream over her body. Why had she destroyed something that meant so much to her? Why couldn’t she get a grip on herself, as she usually did? She was the one who never lost control, never shocked people, always did what was expected of her, played according to the rules no matter how unfair they were, had never rebelled. . . . What in the name of God had got into her? She was angrily working the shampoo into her hair when the water stopped running. She turned the faucet. But no matter how far she opened it, no water came out. There was only a rumbling sound that seemed to come through kilometres of empty pipes. The soap made her eyes smart. How could she have forgotten? Hema had told her when she sent another meal back to the kitchen untouched. The wife of Alok Nath the goldsmith had reminded her when she called to inquire whether the new fabrics had arrived. Even the man from the bank had mentioned it that morning when he brought her a letter, which she had placed in the drawer along with all the others. The reservoir in the hill was empty and she had failed to take the necessary precautions.

  1944 Burma ~~~

  THERE ARE SOUNDS of shouting, and suddenly the sleeping men are surrounded by a group of angry Japanese soldiers with guns, dressed in ragged uniforms. Their eyes are hollow and their expressions grim. Peter Harris is more surprised than shocked. He was convinced that they were nowhere near the front lines. He even thought they were getting close to civilization, after weeks of wandering through the jungle.

  They’re told to kneel down with their hands behind their heads. Could this be the end? Were they about to die? Would he get a bullet in the back of the head? Would he feel it, or would it be too quick for that? The last few days he’d begun to think they’d made it, that they wouldn’t all die. Although they found nothing edible except for some roots and berries, they laughed a lot, and every evening one of them would tell a story. Sometimes it felt a bit like a summer camp for boys, where a small group was sent on a night orientation march that turned out to be too long and too arduous. But their
long beards, the growing hunger, and the accompanying lethargy destroyed that illusion.

  THE SHOUTING HAS stopped. His knees hurt and he’d give anything to drop his arms. But the sight of enemy soldiers watching them from a distance with their weapons at the ready discourages such thoughts, and they all keep their hands in the air. He hopes that Felix, the deputy battalion commander who told him all about his unhappy childhood, also makes it. Every evening, while they exchange stories, Peter dresses the wound on Felix’s knee. What began as a small cut became infected, turned into a throbbing abscess and later an open wound. Peter knows that the knee and everything below it doesn’t stand a chance if he isn’t able to give Felix real medication. The officer, who has great respect for Peter’s medical skills, moans softly. An order is shouted. Peter feels a hard blow to his back and he falls forward onto the ground.

  “We’re supposed to stand up,” he hears Felix say. “Hurry up!”

  He scrambles to his feet. He can tell by looking at the sky that it will be dark within an hour or so. One of the Japs, a small man wearing slippers, points to Felix’s boots and growls. It is clear that he’s expected to remove the boots. Felix unties the long laces. Now the man points to Peter, who, as a doctor, was promoted to captain soon after he was sent to the front. Peter also begins to take off his boots. Then the man screams at the three other men. They all untie their laces. It’s been weeks since they’ve taken off their boots. Peter puts his on the ground in front of him. The Jap gestures that he wants Peter to throw them to him. The penetrating odour of sweat doesn’t overcomes him; rather, he is overwhelmed by a sense of vulnerability, standing there in his stocking feet. His characteristic optimism disappeared after he took off his boots. The others also throw their boots in the direction of the little Jap, who is still gesturing wildly. At his feet is a growing pile of boots. He sits down on the ground and starts trying on the boots. All the men know that none of them will fit him.