But could they feel as they did here? Hanging over the mountain, hearts half empty – half full, longing for beauty, for innocence that now knows. With passion for the beloved or for the wide world or for worlds beyond this one…
Sai thought of how it had been unclear to her what exactly she longed for in the early days at Cho Oyu, that only the longing itself found its echo in her aching soul. The longing was gone now, she thought, and the ache seemed to have found its substance.
Her mind returned to the day of the gun robbery at Cho Oyu – the start of everything going wrong.
Thirty-five
How foolishly those rifles had been left mounted on the wall, retired artifacts relegated to history, seen too often to notice or think about. Gyan was the last one to take them down and examine them – boys liked things like that. Even the Dalai Lama, Sai had read, had a collection of war games and toy soldiers. It hadn’t occurred to her that they might be resurrected into use. Would there be crimes committed that would, when dot was linked to dot, be traced to their doorstep?
"My grandfather used to go hunting," Sai had told Gyan, trying to impress him, but why had she been proud? Of something that should be shaming?
The cook had told her the stories:
"A great shikari he was, Saibaby. He was very handsome, and he looked very brave and stylish on his horse. The villagers would call him if there was ever a man-eater around."
"Was there often one?" Goose pimples.
"Oh, all the time. Rrrr-rrrr, you would hear them, and the sound was of wood being sawed. I can remember waking up and listening. In the morning you could see pug marks by the river, sometimes even around the tents."
The cook couldn’t help but enjoy himself, and the more he repeated his stories, the more they became truer than the truth.
The police had come to investigate the crime and, in the cook’s quarter, sent Biju’s letters flying…
"They had to do it," said the cook. "This is a serious matter."
The seriousness was proved when, one morning not long after Father Booty heard the news of his exile, the subdivisional officer arrived at Cho Oyu. The judge and Sai were on the lawn and he had to search to locate them within the camouflage of their own shadows and the shadows of leaves.
"The perpetrators are still absconding," said the SDO surrounded by three policemen with guns and lathis, "but please don’t worry, sir. We will nip this in the bud. Crack down on antisocial elements.
"You know, my father was also a great shikari," he continued over tea. "If only he had been less adept, I told him, you would have left something for us as well! Isn’t it so? Ha ha," he laughed, but his laugh would have registered bright pink on the litmus test. "Justice Sahib, you shikaris were too good, lions and leopards… Now if you go into the forest and if you see a chicken that has escaped from somewhere, you are lucky, no?"
Silence. Had he gone too far?
"But no need to worry, we will catch the criminals. They are using the problems of Bhutan, Assam as an excuse to make trouble here. This country of ours is always being torn apart and it’s sad for people like us, brought up with national feeling, and worst for you, sir, who struggled for our freedom… These antinationals have no respect for anything or anyone, not even for themselves… The whole economy is under threat."
"Do you know," he turned to Sai, "what are the three 7s of the Dar-jeeling district? Can you tell me?" She shook her head. Disappointed in her, triumphant in himself, he intoned:
"Tea!
"Timber! "lounsm!
As he left, he stopped at a flowering creeper. "Beautiful blossom, Justice Sahib. If you see such a sight, you will know there is a God." The passionflower was a glorious bizarre thing, each bloom lasting just a day, purple and white striped tentacles, half sea anemone, half flower – all by itself, it proffered enough reason for faith.
"I have become a keen gardener," said the SDO, "since I arrived in Kalimpong. I look after my plants exactly as if they were babies. Well, let me know if you have any more trouble. I think you won’t, but no doubt this is a very touchy situation." He did up his shawl like a nationalist – Flap! Wrap! Things to do! No time to waste! Nation calls! And he got back into his jeep. The driver backed out of the gate, roared away.
"Let’s see what he does," said the cook.
"They never find anyone," said the judge.
Sai didn’t speak because she couldn’t stop returning to the thought of Gyan avoiding her.
Some days later the police picked up a miserable drunk for the crime. The drunk was a customary sight lying oblivious to the world in a ditch by the side of the market road. Some passerby or the other would haul him up, smack his cheeks, and send him lurching home, crisscrossed with patterns of grasses, stars in his eyes.
Now, instead, the drunk was transported to the police station, where he sat on the floor, his hands and feet trussed. The policemen stood about looking bored. All of a sudden, though, triggered by something unappar-ent, they recovered from their malaise, jumped up, and began beating the man.
The more he screamed the harder they beat him; they reduced him to a pulp, bashed his head until blood streamed down his face, knocked out his teeth, kicked him until his ribs broke -
You could hear him up and down the hillside begging and screaming. The police watched with disgust. He was claiming his innocence: "I didn’t steal guns from anybody, I didn’t go to anyone’s house, nothing, nothing, some mistake…"
His were the first screams and they heralded the end of normal life on the hillside.
"I didn’t do anything, but I am sorry." For hours they continued, the desperate shrieks tearing up the air, "I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry…"
But the police were just practising their torture techniques, getting ready for what was coming. When the man crawled out on his knees, his eyes had been extinguished. They would heal into horizonless, flat blanks that would forever cause others to recoil in fear and disgust.
The only grace was that he wouldn’t see them recoiling and would disappear entirely inside the alcohol that had always given him solace.
Thirty-six
It was Mr. Iype the newsagent who said offhandedly, waving a copy of India Abroad: "You’re from Darjeeling side, no? Lot of trouble over there…"
"Why?"
"Nepalis making trouble… very troublesome people…"
"Strikes?"
"Much worse, bhai, not only strikes, the whole hillside is shut down." "It is?"
"For many months this has been going on. Haven’t you heard?"
"No. I haven’t had any letters for a long time."
"Why do you think?"
Biju had blamed usual disruptions – bad weather, incompetance – for the break in his father’s correspondence.
"They should kick the bastards back to Nepal," continued Mr. Iype. "Bangladeshis to Bangladesh, Afghans to Afghanistan, all Muslims to Pakistan, Tibetans, Bhutanese, why are they sitting in our country?"
"Why are we sitting here?"
"This country is different," he said without shame. "Without us what would they do?"
Biju went back to work.
Through the day, with gradually building momentum, he became convinced his father was dead. The judge wouldn’t know how to find him if he would try to find him at all. His unease began to tighten.