SHORT STORY
Satya Nand shut the door and walked into the heat. He moved across the ground crushing little pebbles as he walked. The sound was nice and comfortable, it made him feel very strong and he liked his boots that could make such a noise. They came up to his knees and were of black leather but Satya Nand never cleaned them as everyone would laugh if he did; no one wore shiny calf-skin boots in this land of goat manure and dust - Ho was very conscious of moving, the sound of broken stones, the strong bobts with their thick and hard soles, the coarse cloth of his trousers rubbing against his skin, and the heat burning his hair and shoulders.
He looked around, but he had seen this all before and saw it every day, and would see it every other day - for ever and ever - for nothing to happen. Ground, trees, and sky, nothing but these three brothers together. The dusty ground with its rocks and choked grass, the ground that was hard and jarred your legs as you walked. Walked where? Where could you walk?
to the trees? to the sky? over ground and trees and to the sky. Then where? to those mountains smeared at the limit of your vision? look up to the sky, pale and hard with nothing in between. Hardness. A quartz, stone blue ceiling of un- dying, unyielding strength. Unforgiving. Bitter. Eternal.
No, this would not do, there must be something in this land,
Satya Nand moved away from the hut and over to the tap. It was bent, just a pipe that has grown out of the ground and died in the attempt to stay alive. Moti Tal had kicked it one night breaking three of his toes yet he had only bent the pipe. He had sworn so hard and loud and long that Tara Singh had run into the trees and prayed: prayed to God? For a new tap? For forgiveness? Her shawl and dress had flapped in the wind that she made as she had run into the night. Satya had never seen the old woman pray before, but he had heard that night. Her voice softly intoning from behind the trees mingled with the sound of her fist beating her breast. How could a woman beat her breast? Tara Singh could she was very old. Moti Tal had been drunk and the tap on the end of the pipe had been their proudest possession. The army had built it, leading the pipe all the way from town, a gift from the government. The mayor, in his dirty pyjama top and baggy trousers had come.
Satya Nand burnt his hand on the tap. The brown metal, the little stones at the base of the pipe, the flecked metal and the rust. He tapped the handle to draw off some of the heat
then wrapped his fist around the bulbous shape. It was warm and Satya Nand smiled. The warmth gave some comfort. How stupid, how very stupid, here in the land of burning metal and dried trees a warm tap made him smile. He chuckled softly but regretted it, Satya had only smiled and the laugh had been forced. Laughing should flow from you, a waterfall, tumbling over rocks and breaking the silence of green trees and scented flowers, falling, flowing, unending and very natural - like water rolling over the stones.
He turned on the tap but no water came out. He turned the handle till it squeaked and turned idly. The pipe shuddered and then forced out some air. A rushing noise came echoing inside the pipe, gasping. More shuddering and then a gurgle.
Out tricked the water - a thin, bent old man spewing forth his remains and spluttering his protestation. To no avail, Satya Nand caught all the liquid in a bucket.
With the bucket full he walked into the shade, his legs moving and the weight tugging at his arm. He placed the water in the shade to cool then walked into the hut.
"Have you got the water, Satya?"
"Yes." Why had she asked that question, hadn't she heard the tap, had he not gone out to get the water?
"You were a long time."
"What is time", Satya mumbled lowering himself on the bed until the ropes creaked.
"It should be just before noon".
Satya breathed out with the consciousness of his actions that came from idleness.
He hadn't been able to see Tara Singh as he came into the room, it had been like walking into a cave, his eyes after the heat had been swallowed by darkness. She was in the corner with her back to Satya Nand so that he could only see her movements.
"What are you doing, Tara?" he asked.
"Fixing some potatoes . . . we are having chaki for tea", Tara Singh answered in her quiet voice, but the room seemed very still when she spoke, perhaps it was because you had to strain to hear the voice that seemed to come from so far away.
She was just an old woman sitting by the fire-place, surrounded by the walls of bark, old wood, and scraps of iron. The hut creaked and groaned catching every little movement of the air and Tara Singh gently swayed. Strings of garlic, and dried vegetables hung in baskets from the roof and softly stirred with the rhythm of motion - very slow. Satya Nand strained
at his knees and rocked his bed back and forth, the ropes stretched and strained rubbing against the wooden frame until the room echoed with the grunting he had set in motion. Grad- ually, Satya Nänd ceased to tug at the muscles of his legs, he had grown tired of the action and harsh noise, then he swayed with the last rhythm of the bed and the pleasantness of Tara Singh's moving.
He sat in silence hearing only the leaves of the tamarind tree.
Tara Singh had made Moti Tal cut down what trees were grow- ing within a stone's throw of the walls. Many, many, years ago a tree had fallen on a house killing her father and two chickens.
"Can you hear something Tara?"
"Yes, I think it is a horse coming."
In the distance coming between the few trees was a cloud of dust and a black spec that seemed to grow then shrink back into a little ball, bouncing in the heat.Moving forward, growing in his vision then falling back, coming forward gaining size and shape until Satya could see a man hunched over the neck of a horse.
The man galloped out from the dust and with a drumming of hooves drew his horse to a stop, leaving the dust to swirl before their eyes.
Ram Chandra was breathing hard, The soldiers are coming, 1 have seen them coming down from the hills, the yellow devils have come! Where is Tara Singh? And Moti Tal?" He was sweating and his cheeks shone as his mouth tried to gulp for air.
Moti Tal came running.
"I have my rifle and some bullets. We must wait along the road for them to come"
"What about a rifle for me? What am I going to do?Y
"You can have Tara Singh's, it belonged to Shankar", Satya Nand came out with a rifle, "And what about bullets?"
"I don't think it has any."
"Well what am I going to do, I must have something to shoot?"
"You can borrow some of mine," said Moti Tal.
"But they don't fit!"
"Well, you will have to use your own!"
"I don't have any!"
Moti Tal hitched the gun over his shoulder and the canvas strap dragged down the collar of his shirt.
"I'll say goodbye to Tara."
"Ask her for some sweet-meats, we might get hungry."
The two men walked down the road, their rifles making odd angles at the sky and their trouser legs hanging over the tops of their boots. From down the road Satya Nand looked back but could see nothing of Tara Singh or the hut, for the sun was in his eyes and he had to look quickly away.
As they walked their feet kicked up little puffs of dust that hung in the air then thinned into a faint colour, mingling with the trees and, stunted bushes growing between the untidy tufts of dust covered grass. They passed down the road of powder ed earth bordered by the stones and little rocks that seemed to lie all over the ground with that hotch-potch and blotchiness one could see in the leaves of the trees. The scattered leaves of many shades and lumps, the branches bent and standing any way they wanted. And so they moved and shifted along the ground, passing the trees, walking behind their shadows.
"What can you remember, Moti Tal?" he asked, poking the fire with a stick; and there was a long pause before Moti Tal spoke.
"I can remember the calm before the storm, and the country after the rain with' the little yellow flowers."
"What else can you remember?" said Satya Nand looking into the fire and seeing the red-hot coals that were alive with heat, and the flames dancing, flickering, covering, burning from within the wood. A pure colour and shape, something that you could reach out and touch, a flame that held your gaze by an intense movement. Where did the flames begin? Could you see their very roots? And what shape were they when they leapt and sparkled before your eyes? How could you paint and capture such a wild and beautiful motion? Yet he had seen some paintings that looked so real the very canvas seemed to burn.
"I remember cutting the young lambs, putting my face between his legs and biting out his strength." Moti Tal too was look- ing in the fire, the flame making his eye shine, and the shad- ows blackening the lines of his face. "I remember the chick- ens and scattering the grain. The feel of wood and the wind hitting my face, making me very cold. I remember the town and Chailarapurdn - the feast of the New Year's harvest. The colours, the streamers and the freshly painted stalls selling spice. Even now I can smell the powders, leaves, and figs, cloves, nuts . . . and I remember the women. . ."
"What else?. . ."
Moti Tal laughed, "I remember my wife, Nuilini, how we used to be together. I was very happy with her."
Satya Nand leant his chin and hands on one knee. "I remember Chailarapurdn too. On the second night I walked around town, walked around all the streets in their darkness seeing only the houses where people lived and the shops where they bought what they wanted. I could see lights inside some of the homes, up on the second story, and sometimes I could see someone walking about inside. A man, a woman - I could see their faces in the golden light but they couldn't see me.
"I followed the streets passing some people in the doorways until I came to a yard, a little yard between two houses. From it I could smell horses, the smell of their sweat, the hay, and their dung. When my eyes looked carefully and had become used to the darkness I could see a horse. I called softly such as one calls softly to a favourite horse. He came and it was a beautiful horse, one so tall that his ears moved among the stars. His head was large yet he did not have the fat cheeks one sees of the horses at the cheap races. His coat shone, a gleaming brown that rippled as he moved in the shad- ows. A magnificent horse, a beautiful horse with barrel chest and muscles taught straining against their sinews that stood and moulded his skin. A neck that arched, that seemed so thick and proud it soared into the sky holding his head and flaring nostrils. The shining eyes and the power of his build.
His back was straight, no fat man weighed him down, and his legs twitche1 yearning to fly across the ground. Oh, how I longed to ride him, to grip him with my knees and lean into his speed losing my face amongst the shipping mane, knowing the world was tumbing by . . ."
"But you cannot ritie, Satya Nand."
"No, but how I *ouId have loved to hear the wind roaring my brain, how I would have loved to grip him with my knees it was something to remember."