I'll own up: there was no last, elusive1 quarry2, driving us south south south. To all my readers, I should like to make this naked-breasted admission: while Ayooba Shaheed Farooq were unable to distinguish between chasing-after and running-from, the buddha3 knew what he was doing. Although I'm well aware that I am providing any future commentators4 or venom5-quilled critics (to whom I say: twice before, I've been subjected to snake-poison; on both occasions, I proved stronger than venenes) with yet more ammunition6 - through admission-of-guilt7, revelation-of-moral-turpitude, proof-of-coward-ice - I'm- bound to say that he, the buddha, finally incapable8 of continuing in the submissive performance of his duty, took to his heels and fled. Infected by the soul-chewing maggots of pessimism9 futility10 shame, he deserted11, into the historyless anonymity12 of rain-forests, dragging three children in his wake. What I hope to immortalize in pickles13 as well as words: that condition of the spirit in which the consequences of acceptance could not be denied, in which an overdose of reality gave birth to a miasmic14 longing15 for flight into the safety of dreams ... But the jungle, like all refuges, was entirely16 other -was both less and more - than he had expected.
'I am glad,' my Padma says, 'I am happy you ran away.' But I insist: not I. He.
He, the buddha. Who, until the snake, would remain not-Saleem; who, in spite of running-from, was still separated from his past; although he clutched, in his limpet fist, a certain silver spittoon.
The jungle closed behind them like a tomb, and after hours of increasingly weary but also frenzied17 rowing through incomprehensibly labyrinthine18 salt-water channels overtowered by the cathedral-arching trees, Ayooba Shaheed Farooq were hopelessly lost; they turned time and again to the buddha, who pointed19, 'That way', and then, 'Down there', but although they rowed feverishly20, ignoring fatigue21, it seems as if the possibility of ever leaving this place receded22 before them like the lantern of a ghost; until at length they rounded on their supposedly infallible tracker, and perhaps saw some small light of shame or relief glowing in his habitually23 milky24-blue eyes; and now Farooq whispered in the sepulchral25 greenness of the forest: 'You don't know. You're just saying anything.' The buddha remained silent, but in his silence they read their fate, and now that he was convinced that the jungle had swallowed them the way a toad26 gulps27 down a mosquito, now that he was sure he would never see the sun again, Ayooba Baloch, Ayooba-the-tank himself, broke down utterly28 and wept like a monsoon29. The incongruous spectacle of this huge figure with a crew-cut blubbering like a baby served to detach Farooq and Shaheed from their senses; so that Farooq almost upset the boat by attacking the buddha, who mildly bore all the fist-blows which rained down on his chest shoulders arms, until Shaheed pulled Farooq down for the sake of safety. Ayooba Baloch cried without stopping for three entire hours or days or weeks, until the rain began and made his tears unnecessary; and Shaheed Dar heard himself saying, 'Now look what you started, man, with your crying,' proving that they were already beginning to succumb30 to the logic31 of the jungle, and that was only the start of it, because as the mystery of evening compounded the unreality of the trees, the Sundarbans began to grow in the rain.
At first they were so busy baling out their boat that they did not notice; also, the water-level was rising, which may have confused them; but in the last light there could be no doubt that the jungle was gaining in size, power and ferocity; the huge stilt-roots of vast ancient mangrove32 trees could be seen snaking about thirstily in the dusk, sucking in the rain and becoming thicker than elephants'
trunks, while the mangroves themselves were getting so tall that, as Shaheed Dar said afterwards, the birds at the top must have been able to sing to God. The leaves in the heights of the great nipa palms began to spread like immense green cupped hands, swelling33 in the nocturnal downpour until the entire forest seemed to be thatched; and then the nipa-fruits began to fall, they were larger than any coconuts34 on earth and gathered speed alarmingly as they fell from dizzying heights to explode like bombs in the water. Rainwater was filling their boat; they had only their soft green caps and an old ghee tin to bale with; and as night fell and the nipa-fruits bombed them from the air, Shaheed Dar said, 'Nothing else to do - we must land,' although his thoughts were full of his pomegranate-dream and it crossed his mind that this might be where it came true, even if the fruits were different here.
While Ayooba sat in a red-eyed funk and Farooq seemed destroyed by his hero's disintegration35; while the buddha remained silent and bowed his head, Shaheed alone remained capable of thought, because although he was drenched36 and worn out and the night-jungle screeched37 around him, his head became partly clear whenever he thought about the pomegranate of his death; so it was Shaheed who ordered us, them, to row our, their, sinking boat to shore.
A nipa-fruit missed the boat by an inch and a half, creating such turbulence38 in the water that they capsized; they struggled ashore39 in the dark holding guns oilskins ghee-tin above their heads, pulled the boat up after themselves, and past caring about bombarding nipa palms and snaking mangroves, fell into their sodden40 craft and slept. When they awoke, soaking-shivering in spite of the heat, the rain had become a heavy drizzle41. They found their bodies covered in three-inch-long leeches42 which were almost entirely colourless owing to the absence of direct sunlight, but which had now turned bright red because they were full of blood, and which, one by one, exploded on the bodies of the four human beings, being too greedy to stop sucking when they were full. Blood trickled43 down legs and on to the forest floor; the jungle sucked it in, and knew what they were like.
When the falling nipa-fruits smashed on the jungle floor, they, too, exuded45 a liquid the colour of blood, a red milk which was immediately covered in a million insects, including giant flies as transparent46 as the leeches. The flies, too, reddened as they filled up with the milk of the fruit... all through the night, it seemed, the Sundarbans had continued to grow. Tallest of all were the sundri trees which had given their name to the jungle; trees high enough to block out even the faintest hope of sun. The four of us, them, climbed out of the boat; and only when they set foot on a hard bare soil crawling with pale pink scorpions48 and a seething49 mass of dun-coloured earthworms did they remember their hunger and thirst. Rainwater poured off leaves all around them, and they turned their mouths up to the roof of the jungle and drank; but perhaps because the water came to them by way of sundri leaves and mangrove branches and nipa fronds50, it acquired on its journey something of the insanity51 of the jungle, so that as they drank they fell deeper and deeper into the thraldom52 of that livid green world where the birds had voices like creaking wood and all the snakes were blind. In the turbid53, miasmic state of mind which the jungle induced, they prepared their first meal, a combination of nipa-fruits and mashed44 earthworms, which inflicted54 on them all a diarrhoea so violent that they forced themselves to examine the excrement55 in case their intestines56 had fallen out in the mess.
Farooq said, 'We're going to die.' But Shaheed was possessed58 by a powerful lust59 for survival; because, having recovered from the doubts of the night, he had become convinced that this was not how he was supposed to go.
Lost in the rain-forest, and aware that the lessening60 of the monsoon was only a temporary respite61, Shaheed decided62 that there was little point in attempting to find a way out when, at any moment, the returning monsoon might sink their inadequate63 craft; under his instructions, a shelter was constructed from oilskins and palm fronds; Shaheed said, 'As long as we stick to fruit, we can survive.' They bad all long ago forgotten the purpose of their journey; the chase, which had begun far away in the real world, acquired in the altered light of the Sundarbans a quality of absurd fantasy which enabled them to dismiss it once and for all.
So it was that Ayooba Shaheed Farooq and the buddha surrendered themselves to the terrible phantasms of the dream-forest. The days passed, dissolving into each other under the force of the returning rain, and despite chills fevers diarrhoea they stayed alive, improving their shelter by pulling down the lower branches of sundris and mangroves, drinking the red milk of nipa-fruits, acquiring the skills of survival, such as the power of strangling snakes and throwing sharpened sticks so accurately64 that they speared multicoloured birds through their gizzards. But one night Ayooba awoke in the dark to find the translucent65 figure of a peasant with a bullet-hole in his heart and a scythe66 in his hand staring mournfully down at him, and as he struggled to get out of the boat (which they had pulled in, under the cover of their primitive67 shelter) the peasant leaked a colourless fluid which flowed out of the hole in his heart and on to Ayooba's gun arm. The next morning Ayooba's right arm refused to move; it hung rigidly68 by his side as if it had been set in plaster. Although Farooq Rashid offered help and sympathy, it was no use; the arm was held immovably in the invisible fluid of the ghost.
After this first apparition70, they fell into a state of mind in which they would have believed the forest capable of anything; each night it sent them new punishments, the accusing eyes of the wives of men they had tracked down and seized, the screaming and monkey-gibbering of children left fatherless by their work ... and in this first time, the time of punishment, even the impassive buddha with his citified voice was obliged to confess that he, too, had taken to waking up at night to find the forest closing in upon him like a vice71, so that he felt unable to breathe.
When it had punished them enough - when they were all trembling shadows of the people they had once been - the jungle permitted them the double-edged luxury of nostalgia72. One night Ayooba, who was regressing towards infancy73 faster than any of them, and had begun to suck his one moveable thumb, saw his mother looking down at him, offering him the delicate rice-based sweets of her love; but at the same moment as he reached out for the laddoos, she scurried74 away, and he saw her climb a giant sundri-tree to sit swinging from a high branch by her tail: a white wraithlike75 monkey with the face of his mother visited Ayooba night after night, so that after a time he was obliged to remember more about her than her sweets: how she had liked to sit among the boxes of her dowry, as though she, too, were simply some sort of thing, simply one of the gifts her father gave to her husband; in the heart of the Sundarbans, Ayooba Baloch understood his mother for the first time, and stopped sucking his thumb. Farooq Rashid, too, was given a vision. At dusk one day he thought he saw his brother running wildly through the forest, and became convinced that his father had died. He remembered a forgotten day when his peasant father had told him and his fleet-footed brother that the local landlord, who lent money at 300 per cent, had agreed to buy his soul in return for the latest loan. 'When I die,' old Rashid told Farooq's brother, 'you must open your mouth and my spirit will fly inside it; then run run run, because the zamindar will be after you!' Farooq, who had also started regressing alarmingly, found in the knowledge of his father's death and the flight of his brother the strength to give up the childish habits which the jungle had at first re-created in him; he stopped crying when he was hungry and asking Why. Shaheed Dar, too, was visited by a monkey with the face of an ancestor; but all he saw was a father who had instructed him to earn his name.
This, however, also helped to restore in him the sense of responsibility which the just-following-orders requirements of war had sapped; so it seemed that the magical jungle, having tormented77 them with their misdeeds, was leading them by the hand towards a new adulthood78. And flitting through the night-forest went the wraiths79 of their hopes; these, however, they were unable to see clearly, or to grasp.
The buddha, however, was not granted nostalgia at first. He had taken to sitting cross-legged under a sundri-tree; his eyes and mind seemed empty, and at night, he no longer awoke. But finally the forest found a way through to him; one afternoon, when rain pounded down on the trees and boiled off them as steam, Ayooba Shaheed Farooq saw the buddha sitting under his tree while a blind, translucent serpent bit, and poured venom into, his heel. Shaheed Dar crushed the serpent's head with a stick; the buddha, who was head-to-foot numb80, seemed not to have noticed. His eyes were closed. After this, the boy soldiers waited for the man-dog to die; but I was stronger than the snake-poison. For two days he became as rigid69 as a tree, and his eyes crossed, so that he saw the world in mirror-image, with the right side on the left; at last he relaxed, and the look of milky abstraction was no longer in his eyes. I was rejoined to the past, jolted81 into unity82 by snake-poison, and it began to pour out through the buddha's lips. As his eyes returned to normal, his words flowed so freely that they seemed to be an aspect of the monsoon. The child-soldiers listened, spellbound, to the stories issuing from his mouth, beginning with a birth at midnight, and continuing unstoppably, because he was reclaiming84 everything, all of it, all lost histories, all the myriad85 complex processes that go to make a man.
Open-mouthed, unable to tear themselves away, the child-soldiers drank his life like leaf-tainted water, as he spoke86 of bed-wetting cousins, revolutionary pepperpots, the perfect voice of a sister ... Ayooba Shaheed Farooq would have (once upon a time) given anything to know that those rumours87 had been true; but in the Sundarbans, they didn't even cry out.
And rushing on: to late-flowering love, and Jamila in a bedroom in a shaft88 of light. Now Shaheed did murmur89, 'So that's why, when he confessed, after that she couldn't stand to be near ...' But the buddha continues, and it becomes apparent that he is struggling to recall something particular, something which refuses to return, which obstinately90 eludes91 him, so that he gets to the end without finding it, and remains92 frowning and unsatisfied even after he has recounted a holy war, and revealed what fell from the sky.
There was a silence; and then Farooq Rashid said, 'So much, yaar, inside one person; so many bad things, no wonder he kept his mouth shut!'
You see, Padma: I have told this story before. But what refused to return? What, despite the liberating93 venene of a colourless serpent, failed to emerge from my lips? Padma: the buddha had forgotten his name. (To be precise: his first name.)
And still it went on raining. The water-level was rising daily, until it became clear that they would have to move deeper into the jungle, in search of higher ground. The rain was too heavy for the boat to be of use; so, still following Shaheed's instructions, Ayooba Farooq and the buddha pulled it far away from the encroaching bank, tied mooring-rope around sundri-trunk, and covered their craft with leaves; after which, having no option, they moved ever further into the dense94 uncertainty95 of the jungle.
Now, once again, the Sundarbans changed its nature; once again Ayooba Shaheed Farooq found their ears filled with the lamentations of families from whose bosom96 they had torn what once, centuries ago, they had termed 'undesirable97 elements'; they rushed wildly forward into the jungle to escape from the accusing, pain-filled voices of their victims; and at night the ghostly monkeys gathered in the trees and sang the words of 'Our Golden Bengal": '... O Mother, I am poor, but what little I have, I lay at thy feet. And it maddens my heart with delight.' Unable to escape from the unbearable98 torture of the unceasing voices, incapable of bearing for a moment longer the burden of shame, which was now greatly increased by their jungle-learned sense of responsibility, the three boy-soldiers were moved, at last, to take desperate measures. Shaheed Dar stooped down and pkked up two handfuls of rain-heavy jungle mud; in the throes of that awful hallucination, he thrust the treacherous99 mud of the rain-forest into his ears. And after him, Ayooba Baloch and Farooq Rashid stopped their ears also with mud. Only the buddha left his ears (one good, one already bad)
unstopped; as though he alone were willing to bear the retribution of the jungle, as though he were bowing his head before the inevitability100 of his guilt ... The mud of the dream-forest, which no doubt also contained the concealed101 translucency102 of jungle-insects and the devilry of bright orange bird-droppings, infected the ears of the three boy-soldiers and made them all as deaf as posts; so that although they were spared the singsong accusations103 of the jungle, they were now obliged to converse104 in a rudimentary form of sign-language. They seemed, however, to prefer their diseased deafness to the unpalatable secrets which the sundri-leaves had whispered in their ears.
At last, the voices stopped, though by now only the buddha (with his one good ear) could hear them; at last, when the four wanderers were near the point of panic, the jungle brought them through a curtain of tree-beards and showed them a sight so lovely that it brought lumps to their throats. Even the buddha seemed to tighten105 his grip on his spittoon. With one good ear between the four of them, they advanced into a glade106 filled with the gentle melodies of songbirds, in whose centre stood a monumental Hindu temple, carved in forgotten centuries out of a single immense crag of rock; its walls danced with friezes107 of men and women, who were depicted108 coupling in postures109 of unsurpassable athleticism110 and sometimes, of highly comic absurdity111. The quartet moved towards this miracle with disbelieving steps. Inside, they found, at long last, some respite from the endless monsoon, and also the towering statue of a black dancing goddess, whom the boy-soldiers from Pakistan could not name; but the buddha knew she was Kali, fecund112 and awful, with the remnants of gold paint on her teeth. The four travellers lay down at her feet and fell into a rain-free sleep which ended at what could have been midnight, when they awoke simultaneously113 to find themselves being smiled upon by four young girls of a beauty which was beyond speech.
Shaheed, who recalled the four houris awaiting him in the camphor garden, thought at first that he had died in the night; but the houris looked real enough, and their saris, under which they wore nothing at all, were torn and stained by the jungle. Now as eight eyes stared into eight, saris were unwound and placed, neatly114 folded, on the ground; after which the naked and identical daughters of the forest came to them, eight arms were twined with eight, eight legs were linked with eight legs more; below the statue of multi-limbed Kali, the travellers abandoned themselves to caresses115 which felt real enough, to kisses and love-bites which were soft and painful, to scratches which left marks, and they realized that this this this was what they had needed, what they had longed for without knowing it, that having passed through the childish regressions and childlike sorrows of their earliest jungle-days, having survived the onset116 of memory and responsibility and the greater pains of renewed accusations, they were leaving infancy behind for ever, and then forgetting reasons and implications and deafness, forgetting everything, they gave themselves to the four identical beauties without a single thought in their heads.
After that night, they were unable to tear themselves away from the temple, except to forage117 for food, and every night the soft women of their most contented118 dreams returned in silence, never speaking, always neat and tidy with their saris, and invariably bringing the lost quartet to an incredible united peak of delight. None of them knew how long this period lasted, because in the Sundarbans time followed unknown laws, but at last the day came when they looked at each other and realized they were becoming transparent, that it was possible to see through their bodies, not clearly as yet, but cloudily, like staring through mango-juice. In their alarm they understood that this was the last and worst of the jungle's tricks, that by giving them their heart's desire it was fooling them into using up their dreams, so that as their dream-life seeped119 out of them they became as hollow and translucent as glass. The buddha saw now that the colourlessness of insects and leeches and snakes might have more to do with the depredations120 worked on their insectly, leechy, snakish imaginations than with the absence of sunlight... awakened121 as if for the first time by the shock of translucency, they looked at the temple with new eyes, seeing the great gaping122 cracks in the solid rock, realizing that vast segments could come detached and crash down upon them at any moment; and then, in a murky123 corner of the abandoned shrine124, they saw the remnants of what might have been four small fires -ancient ashes, scorch-marks on stone - or perhaps four funeral pyres; and in the centre of each of the four, a small, blackened, fire-eaten heap of uncrushed bones.
How the buddha left the Sundarbans: the forest of illusions unleashed125 upon them, as they fled from temple towards boat, its last and most terrifying trick; they had barely reached the boat when it came towards them, at first a rumble126 in the far distance, then a roar which could penetrate127 even mud-deafened ears, they had untied128 the boat and leapt wildly into it when the wave came, and now they were at the mercy of the waters, which could have crushed them effortlessly against sundri or mangrove or nipa, but instead the tidal wave bore them down turbulent brown channels as the forest of their torment76 blurred129 past them like a great green wall, it seemed as if the jungle, having tired of its playthings, were ejecting them unceremoniously from its territory; waterborne, impelled130 forwards and still forwards by the unimaginable power of the wave, they bobbed pitifully amongst fallen branches and the sloughed-off skins of water-snakes, until finally they were hurled131 from the boat as the ebbing132 wave broke it against a tree-stump, they were left sitting in a drowned rice-paddy as the wave receded, in water up to their waists, but alive, borne out of the heart of the jungle of dreams, into which I had fled in the hope of peace and found both less and more, and back once more in the world of armies and dates.
When they emerged from the jungle, it was October 1971. And I am bound to admit (but, in my opinion, the fact only reinforces my wonder at the time-shifting sorcery of the forest) that there was no tidal wave recorded that month, although, over a year previously133, floods had indeed devastated134 the region.
In the aftermath of the Sundarbans, my old life was waiting to reclaim83 me. I should have known: no escape from past acquaintance. What you were is forever who you are.
For seven months during the course of the year 1971, three soldiers and their tracker vanished off the face of the war. In October, however, when the rains ended and the guerrilla units of the Mukti Bahini began terrorizing Pakistani military outposts; when Mukti Bahini snipers picked off soldiers and petty officials alike, our quartet emerged from invisibility and, having little option, attempted to rejoin the main body of the occupying West Wing forces.
Later, when questioned, the buddha would always explain his disappearance135 with the help of a garbled136 story about being lost in a jungle amid trees whose roots grabbed at you like snakes. It was perhaps fortunate for him that he was never formally interrogated137 by officers in the army of which he was a member. Ayooba Baloch, Farooq Rashid and Shaheed Dar were not subjected to such interrogations, either; but in their case this was because they failed to stay alive long enough for any questions to be asked.
... In an entirely deserted village of thatched huts with dung-plastered mud walls - in an abandoned community from which even the chickens had fled - Ayooba Shaheed Farooq bemoaned138 their fate. Rendered deaf by the poisonous mud of the rain-forest, a disability which had begun to upset them a good deal now that the taunting139 voices of the jungle were no longer hanging in the air, they wailed140 their several wails141, all talking at once, none hearing the other; the buddha, however, was obliged to listen to them all: to Ayooba, who stood facing a corner inside a naked room, his hair enmeshed in a spider's web, crying 'My ears my ears, like bees buzzing inside,' to Farooq who, petulantly142, shouted, 'Whose fault, anyway? - Who, with his nose that could sniff143 out any bloody144 thing? - Who said That way, and that way? - And who, who will believe? - About jungles and temples and transparent serpents? - What a story, Allah, buddha, we should shoot you here-and-now!' While Shaheed, softly, 'I'm hungry.' Out once more in the real world, they were forgetting the lessons of the jungle, and Ayooba, 'My arm! Allah, man, my withered145 arm! The ghost, leaking fluid ...!' And Shaheed, 'Deserters, they'll say - empty-handed, no prisoner, after so-many months! - Allah, a court-martial, maybe, what do you think, buddha?' And Farooq, 'You bastard146, see what you made us do! O God, too much, our uniforms! See, our uniforms, buddha - rags-and-tatters like a beggar-boy's! Think of what the Brigadier - and that Najmuddin - on my mother's head I swear I didn't - I'm not a coward! Not!' And Shaheed, who is killing147 ants and licking them off his palm, 'How to rejoin, anyway? Who knows where they are or if? And haven't we seen and heard how Mukti Bahini - thai! thai! they shoot from their hiding-holes, and you're dead! Dead, like an ant!' But Farooq is also talking, 'And not just the uniforms, man, the hair! Is this military hair-cut? This, so-long, falling over ears like worms? This woman's hair? Allah, they'll kill us dead - up against the wall and thai! thai! - you see if they don't!' But now Ayooba-the-tank is calming down; Ayooba holding his face in his hand; Ayooba saying softly to himself, 'O man, O man. I came to fight those damn vegetarian148 Hindus, man. And here is something too different, man. Something too bad.'
It is somewhere in November; they have been making their way slowly, north north north, past fluttering newspapers in curious curlicued script, through empty fields and abandoned settlements, occasionally passing a crone with a bundle on a stick over her shoulder, or a group of eight-year-olds with shifty starvation in their eyes and the threat of knives in their pockets, hearing how the Mukti Bahini are moving invisibly through the smoking land, how bullets come buzzing like bees-from-nowhere ... and now a breaking-point has been reached, and Farooq, 'If it wasn't for you, buddha - Allah, you freak with your blue eyes of a foreigner, O God, yaar, how you stink149!'
We all stink: Shaheed, who is crushing (with tatter-booted heel) a scorpion47 on the dirty floor of the abandoned hut; Farooq, searching absurdly for a knife with which to cut his hair; Ayooba, leaning his head against a corner of the hut while a spider walks along the crown; and the buddha, too: the buddha, who stinks150 to heaven, clutches in his right hand a tarnished151 silver spittoon, and is trying to recall his name. And can summon up only nicknames: Snotnose, Stainface, Baidy, Sniffer, Piece-of-the-Moon.
... He sat cross-legged amid the wailing152 storm of his companions' fear, forcing himself to remember; but no, it would not come. And at last the buddha, hurling153 spittoon against earthen floor, exclaimed to stone-deaf ears: 'It's not - NOT - FAIR!'
In the midst of the rubble154 of war, I discovered fair-and-unfair. Unfairness smelled like onions; the sharpness of its perfume brought tears to my eyes.
Seized by the bitter aroma155 of injustice156, I remembered how Jamila Singer had leaned over a hospital bed - whose? What name?- how military gongs-and-pips were also present - how my sister - no, not my sister! how she - how she had said, 'Brother, I have to go away, to sing in service of the country; the Army will look after you now - for me, they will look after you so, so well.' She was veiled; behind white-and-gold brocade I smelled her traitress's smile; through soft veiling fabric157 she planted on my brow the kiss of her revenge; and then she, who always wrought158 a dreadful revenge upon those who loved her best, left me to the tender mercies of pips-and-gongs ... and after Jamila's treachery I remembered the long-ago ostracism159 I suffered at the hands of Evie Burns; and exiles, and picnic-tricks; and all the vast mountain of unreasonable160 occurrences plaguing my life; and now, I lamented161 cucumber-nose, stain-face, bandy legs, horn-temples, monk's tonsure162, finger-loss, one-bad-ear, and the numbing163, braining spittoon; I wept copiously164 now, but still my name eluded165 me, and I repeated - 'Not fair; not fair, NOT FAIR!' And, surprisingly, Ayooba-the-tank moved away from his corner; Ayooba, perhaps recalling his own breakdown166 in the Sundarbans, squatted167 down in front of me and wrapped his one good arm around my neck. I accepted his comfortings; I cried into his shirt; but then there was a bee, buzzing towards us; while he squatted, with his back to the glassless window of the hut, something came whining168 through the overheated air; while he said, 'Hey, buddha - come on, buddha - hey, hey!' and while other bees, the bees of deafness, buzzed in his ears, something stung him in the neck. He made a popping noise deep in his throat and fell forwards on top of me. The sniper's bullet which killed Ayooba Baloch would, but for his presence, have speared me through the head. In dying, he saved my life.
Forgetting past humiliations; putting aside fair-and-unfair, and what-can't-be-cured-must-be-endured, I crawled out from under the corpse169 of Ayooba-the-tank, while Farooq, 'O God O God O!' and Shaheed, 'Allah, I don't even know if my gun will -' And Farooq, again, 'O God O! O God, who knows where the bastard is - !' But Shaheed, like soldiers in films, is flat against the wall beside the window. In these positions: I on the floor, Farooq crouched170 in a corner, Shaheed pressed against dung-plaster: we waited, helplessly, to see what would transpire171.
There was no second shot; perhaps the sniper, not knowing the size of the force hidden inside the mud-walled hut, had simply shot and run. The three of us remained inside the hut for a night and a day, until the body of Ayooba Baloch began to demand attention. Before we left, we found pickaxes, and buried him ...
And afterwards, when the Indian Army did come, there was no Ayooba Baloch to greet them with his theories of the superiority of meat over vegetables; no Ayooba went into action, yelling, 'Ka-dang! Ka-blam! Ka-pow!!'
Perhaps it was just as well.
... And sometime in December the three of us, riding on stolen bicycles, arrived at a field from which the city of Dacca could be seen against the horizon; a field in which grew crops so strange, with so-nauseous an aroma, that we found ourselves incapable of remaining on our bicycles. Dismounting before we fell off, we entered the terrible field.
There was a scavenging peasant moving about, whistling as he worked, with an outsize gunny sack on his back. The whitened knuckles172 of the hand which gripped the sack revealed his determined173 frame of mind; the whistling, which was piercing but tuneful, showed that he was keeping his spirits up. The whistle echoed around the field, bouncing off fallen helmets, resounding174 hollowly from the barrels of mud-blocked rifles, sinking without trace into the fallen boots of the strange, strange crops, whose smell, like the smell of unfairness, was capable of bringing tears to the buddha's eyes. The crops were dead, having been hit by some unknown blight175... and most of them, but not all, wore the uniforms of the West Pakistani Army. Apart from the whistling, the only noises to be heard were the sounds of objects dropping into the peasant's treasure-sack: leather belts, watches, gold tooth-fillings, spectacle frames, tiffin-carriers, water flasks176, boots. The peasant saw them and came running towards them, smiling ingratiatingly, talking rapidly in a wheedling177 voice that only the buddha was obliged to hear. Farooq and Shaheed stared glassily at the field while the peasant began his explanations.
'Plenty shooting! Thaii! Ttiaiii!' He made a pistol with his right hand. He was speaking bad, stilted178 Hindi. 'Ho sirs! India has come, my sirs! Ho yes! Ho yes.'
- And all over the field, the crops were leaking nourishing bone-marrow into the soil while he, 'No shoot I, my sirs. Ho no. I have news - ho, such news! India comes! Jessore is fall, my sirs; in one-four days, Dacca, also, yes-no?' The buddha listened; the buddha's eyes looked beyond the peasant to the field. 'Such a things, my sir! India! They have one mighty179 soldier fellow, he can kill six persons at one time, break necks khrikk-khrikk between his knees, my sirs? Knees - is right words?' He tapped his own. 'I see, my sirs. With these eyes, ho yes! He fights with not guns, not swords. With knees, and six necks go khrikk-khrikk.
Ho God.' Shaheed was vomiting180 in the field. Farooq Rashid had wandered to the far edge and stood staring into a copse of mango trees. 'In one-two weeks is over the war, my sirs! Everybody come back. Just now all gone, but I not, my sirs. Soldiers came looking for Bahini and killed many many, also my son. Ho yes, sirs, ho yes indeed.' The buddha's eyes had become clouded and dull. In the distance he could hear the crump of heavy artillery181. Columns of smoke trailed up into the colourless December sky. The strange crops lay still, unruffled by the breeze ... 'I stay, my sirs. Here I know names of birds and plants. Ho yes. I am Deshmukh by name; vendor182 of notions by trade. I sell many so-fine thing. You want? Medicine for constipation, damn good, ho yes. I have. Watch you want, glowing in the dark? I also have. And book ho yes, and joke trick, truly. I was famous in Dacca before. Ho yes, most truly. No shoot.'
The vendor of notions chattered183 on, offering for sale item after item, such as a magical belt which would enable the wearer to speak Hindi - 'I am wearing now, my sir, speak damn good, yes no? Many India soldier are buy, they talk so-many different tongues, the belt is godsend from God!' - and then he noticed what the buddha held in his hand. 'Ho sir! Absolute master thing! Is silver? Is precious stone? You give; I give radio, camera, almost working order, my sir! Is a damn good deals, my friend. For one spittoon only, is damn fine. Ho yes. Ho yes, my sir, life must go on; trade must go on, my sir, not true?'
'Tell me more,' the buddha said, 'about the soldier with the knees.'
But now, once again, a bee buzzes; in the distance, at the far end of the field, somebody drops to his knees; somebody's forehead touches the ground as if in prayer; and in the field, one of the crops, which had been alive enough to shoot, also becomes very still. Shaheed Dar is shouting a name: 'Farooq! Farooq, man!'
But Farooq refuses to reply.
Afterwards, when the buddha reminisced about the war to his uncle Mustapha, he recounted how he had stumbled across the field of leaking bonemarrow towards his fallen companion; and how, long before he reached Farooq's praying corpse, he was brought up short by the field's greatest secret.
There was a small pyramid in the middle of the field. Ants were crawling over it, but it was not an anthill. The pyramid had six feet and three heads and, in between, a jumbled184 area composed of bits of torso, scraps185 of uniforms, lengths of intestine57 and glimpses of shattered bones. The pyramid was still alive. One of its three heads had a blind left eye, the legacy186 of a childhood argument.
Another had hair that was thickly plastered down with hair oil. The third head was the oddest: it had deep hollows where the temples should have been, hollows that could have been made by a gynaecologist's forceps which had held it too tightly at birth ... it was this third head which spoke to the buddha: 'Hullo, man,' it said, 'What the hell are you here for?'
Shaheed Dar saw the pyramid of enemy soldiers apparently187 conversing188 with the buddha; Shaheed, suddenly seized by an irrational189 energy, flung himself upon me and pushed me to the ground, with, 'Who are you? - Spy? Traitor190? What? - Why do they know who you - ?' While Deshmukh, the vendor of notions, flapped pitifully around us, 'Ho sirs! Enough fighting has been already. Be normal now, my sirs. I beg. Ho God.'
Even if Shaheed had been able to hear me, I could not then have told him what I later became convinced was the truth: that the purpose of that entire war had been to re-unite me with an old life, to bring me back together with my old friends. Sam Manekshaw was marching on Dacca, to meet his old friend the Tiger; and the modes of connection lingered on, because on the field of leaking bone-marrow I heard about the exploits of knees, and was greeted by a dying pyramid of heads: and in Dacca I was to meet Parvati-the-witch.
When Shaheed calmed down and got off me, the pyramid was no longer capable of speech. Later that afternoon, we resumed our journey towards the capital.
Deshmukh, the vendor of notions, called cheerfully after us: 'Ho sirs! Ho my poor sirs! Who knows when a man will die? Who, my sirs, knows why?'
收听单词发音 |
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elusive
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| adj.难以表达(捉摸)的；令人困惑的；逃避的 | |
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quarry
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| n.采石场；v.采石；费力地找 | |
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Buddha
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| n.佛；佛像；佛陀 | |
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commentators
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| n.评论员( commentator的名词复数 )；时事评论员；注释者；实况广播员 | |
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venom
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| n.毒液，恶毒，痛恨 | |
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ammunition
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| n.军火，弹药 | |
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guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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pessimism
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| n.悲观者，悲观主义者，厌世者 | |
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futility
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| n.无用 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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anonymity
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| n.the condition of being anonymous | |
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pickles
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| n.腌菜( pickle的名词复数 )；处于困境；遇到麻烦；菜酱 | |
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miasmic
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| adj.瘴气的；有害的 | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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frenzied
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| a.激怒的；疯狂的 | |
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labyrinthine
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| adj.如迷宫的；复杂的 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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feverishly
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| adv. 兴奋地 | |
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fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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receded
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的过去式和过去分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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milky
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| adj.牛奶的，多奶的；乳白色的 | |
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sepulchral
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| adj.坟墓的，阴深的 | |
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toad
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| n.蟾蜍，癞蛤蟆 | |
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gulps
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| n.一大口（尤指液体）( gulp的名词复数 )v.狼吞虎咽地吃，吞咽( gulp的第三人称单数 )；大口地吸（气）；哽住 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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monsoon
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| n.季雨，季风，大雨 | |
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succumb
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| v.屈服，屈从；死 | |
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logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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mangrove
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| n.(植物)红树，红树林 | |
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swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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coconuts
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| n.椰子( coconut的名词复数 )；椰肉，椰果 | |
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disintegration
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| n.分散，解体 | |
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drenched
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| adj.湿透的；充满的v.使湿透( drench的过去式和过去分词 )；在某人（某物）上大量使用（某液体） | |
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screeched
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| v.发出尖叫声( screech的过去式和过去分词 )；发出粗而刺耳的声音；高叫 | |
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turbulence
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| n.喧嚣，狂暴，骚乱，湍流 | |
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ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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sodden
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| adj.浑身湿透的；v.使浸透；使呆头呆脑 | |
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drizzle
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| v.下毛毛雨；n.毛毛雨，蒙蒙细雨 | |
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leeches
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| n.水蛭( leech的名词复数 )；蚂蟥；榨取他人脂膏者；医生 | |
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trickled
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| v.滴( trickle的过去式和过去分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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mashed
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| a.捣烂的 | |
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exuded
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| v.缓慢流出，渗出，分泌出( exude的过去式和过去分词 )；流露出对（某物）的神态或感情 | |
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transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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scorpion
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| n.蝎子，心黑的人，蝎子鞭 | |
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scorpions
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| n.蝎子( scorpion的名词复数 ) | |
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49
seething
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| 沸腾的，火热的 | |
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fronds
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| n.蕨类或棕榈类植物的叶子( frond的名词复数 ) | |
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insanity
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| n.疯狂，精神错乱；极端的愚蠢，荒唐 | |
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52
thraldom
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| n.奴隶的身份，奴役，束缚 | |
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turbid
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| adj.混浊的，泥水的，浓的 | |
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54
inflicted
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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excrement
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| n.排泄物，粪便 | |
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56
intestines
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| n.肠( intestine的名词复数 ) | |
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57
intestine
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| adj.内部的；国内的；n.肠 | |
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58
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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59
lust
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| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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lessening
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| 减轻，减少，变小 | |
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61
respite
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| n.休息，中止，暂缓 | |
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62
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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accurately
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| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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translucent
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| adj.半透明的；透明的 | |
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66
scythe
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| n. 长柄的大镰刀，战车镰； v. 以大镰刀割 | |
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67
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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rigidly
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| adv.刻板地，僵化地 | |
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69
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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apparition
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| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
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71
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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72
nostalgia
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| n.怀乡病，留恋过去，怀旧 | |
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73
infancy
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| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
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74
scurried
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| v.急匆匆地走( scurry的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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wraithlike
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torment
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| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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tormented
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| 饱受折磨的 | |
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adulthood
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| n.成年，成人期 | |
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wraiths
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| n.幽灵( wraith的名词复数 )；（传说中人在将死或死后不久的）显形阴魂 | |
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80
numb
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| adj.麻木的，失去感觉的；v.使麻木 | |
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jolted
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| （使）摇动， （使）震惊( jolt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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83
reclaim
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| v.要求归还，收回；开垦 | |
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84
reclaiming
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| v.开拓( reclaim的现在分词 )；要求收回；从废料中回收（有用的材料）；挽救 | |
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85
myriad
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| adj.无数的；n.无数，极大数量 | |
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86
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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rumours
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| n.传闻( rumour的名词复数 )；风闻；谣言；谣传 | |
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88
shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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obstinately
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| ad.固执地，顽固地 | |
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eludes
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| v.（尤指机敏地）避开( elude的第三人称单数 )；逃避；躲避；使达不到 | |
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92
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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liberating
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| 解放，释放( liberate的现在分词 ) | |
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dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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96
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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97
undesirable
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| adj.不受欢迎的，不良的，不合意的，讨厌的；n.不受欢迎的人，不良分子 | |
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98
unbearable
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| adj.不能容忍的；忍受不住的 | |
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99
treacherous
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| adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的 | |
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100
inevitability
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| n.必然性 | |
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101
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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102
translucency
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| 半透明，半透明物； 半透澈度 | |
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103
accusations
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| n.指责( accusation的名词复数 )；指控；控告；（被告发、控告的）罪名 | |
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104
converse
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| vi.谈话，谈天，闲聊；adv.相反的，相反 | |
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105
tighten
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| v.(使)变紧；(使)绷紧 | |
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106
glade
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| n.林间空地，一片表面有草的沼泽低地 | |
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107
friezes
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| n.（柱顶过梁和挑檐间的）雕带，（墙顶的）饰带( frieze的名词复数 ) | |
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108
depicted
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| 描绘，描画( depict的过去式和过去分词 )； 描述 | |
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109
postures
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| 姿势( posture的名词复数 )； 看法； 态度； 立场 | |
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110
athleticism
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| n.运动竞赛，崇尚运动，竞技热 | |
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111
absurdity
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| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
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112
fecund
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| adj.多产的，丰饶的，肥沃的 | |
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113
simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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114
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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115
caresses
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| 爱抚，抚摸( caress的名词复数 ) | |
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116
onset
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| n.进攻，袭击，开始，突然开始 | |
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117
forage
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| n.(牛马的)饲料，粮草；v.搜寻，翻寻 | |
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118
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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119
seeped
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| v.（液体）渗( seep的过去式和过去分词 )；渗透；渗出；漏出 | |
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120
depredations
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| n.劫掠，毁坏( depredation的名词复数 ) | |
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121
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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122
gaping
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| adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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123
murky
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| adj.黑暗的，朦胧的；adv.阴暗地，混浊地；n.阴暗；昏暗 | |
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124
shrine
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| n.圣地，神龛，庙；v.将...置于神龛内，把...奉为神圣 | |
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125
unleashed
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| v.把（感情、力量等）释放出来，发泄( unleash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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126
rumble
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| n.隆隆声；吵嚷；v.隆隆响；低沉地说 | |
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127
penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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128
untied
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| 松开，解开( untie的过去式和过去分词 )； 解除，使自由； 解决 | |
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129
blurred
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| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
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130
impelled
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| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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131
hurled
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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132
ebbing
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| （指潮水）退( ebb的现在分词 )； 落； 减少； 衰落 | |
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133
previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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134
devastated
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| v.彻底破坏( devastate的过去式和过去分词)；摧毁；毁灭；在感情上（精神上、财务上等）压垮adj.毁坏的；极为震惊的 | |
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135
disappearance
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| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
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136
garbled
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| adj.（指信息）混乱的，引起误解的v.对（事实）歪曲，对（文章等）断章取义，窜改( garble的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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137
interrogated
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| v.询问( interrogate的过去式和过去分词 )；审问；（在计算机或其他机器上）查询 | |
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138
bemoaned
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| v.为（某人或某事）抱怨( bemoan的过去式和过去分词 )；悲悼；为…恸哭；哀叹 | |
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139
taunting
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| 嘲讽( taunt的现在分词 )； 嘲弄； 辱骂； 奚落 | |
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140
wailed
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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141
wails
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| 痛哭，哭声( wail的名词复数 ) | |
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142
petulantly
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143
sniff
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| vi.嗅…味道；抽鼻涕；对嗤之以鼻，蔑视 | |
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144
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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145
withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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146
bastard
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| n.坏蛋，混蛋；私生子 | |
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147
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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148
vegetarian
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| n.素食者；adj.素食的 | |
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149
stink
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| vi.发出恶臭；糟透，招人厌恶；n.恶臭 | |
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150
stinks
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| v.散发出恶臭( stink的第三人称单数 )；发臭味；名声臭；糟透 | |
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151
tarnished
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| （通常指金属）（使）失去光泽，（使）变灰暗( tarnish的过去式和过去分词 )； 玷污，败坏 | |
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152
wailing
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的现在分词 )；沱 | |
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153
hurling
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| n.爱尔兰式曲棍球v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的现在分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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154
rubble
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| n.（一堆）碎石，瓦砾 | |
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155
aroma
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| n.香气，芬芳，芳香 | |
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156
injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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157
fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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158
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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159
ostracism
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| n.放逐；排斥 | |
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160
unreasonable
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| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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161
lamented
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| adj.被哀悼的，令人遗憾的v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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162
tonsure
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| n.削发；v.剃 | |
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163
numbing
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| adj.使麻木的，使失去感觉的v.使麻木，使麻痹( numb的现在分词 ) | |
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164
copiously
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| adv.丰富地，充裕地 | |
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165
eluded
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| v.（尤指机敏地）避开( elude的过去式和过去分词 )；逃避；躲避；使达不到 | |
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166
breakdown
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| n.垮，衰竭；损坏，故障，倒塌 | |
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167
squatted
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的过去式和过去分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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168
whining
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| n. 抱怨，牢骚 v. 哭诉，发牢骚 | |
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169
corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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170
crouched
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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171
transpire
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| v.(使)蒸发，(使)排出 ；泄露，公开 | |
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172
knuckles
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| n.（指人）指关节( knuckle的名词复数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝v.（指人）指关节( knuckle的第三人称单数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝 | |
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173
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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174
resounding
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| adj. 响亮的 | |
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175
blight
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| n.枯萎病；造成破坏的因素；vt.破坏，摧残 | |
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176
flasks
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| n.瓶，长颈瓶， 烧瓶( flask的名词复数 ) | |
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177
wheedling
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| v.骗取（某物），哄骗（某人干某事）( wheedle的现在分词 ) | |
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178
stilted
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| adj.虚饰的；夸张的 | |
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179
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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180
vomiting
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| 吐 | |
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181
artillery
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| n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队) | |
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182
vendor
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| n.卖主；小贩 | |
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183
chattered
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| （人）喋喋不休( chatter的过去式 )； 唠叨； （牙齿）打战； （机器）震颤 | |
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184
jumbled
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| adj.混乱的；杂乱的 | |
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185
scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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186
legacy
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| n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西 | |
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187
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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188
conversing
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的现在分词 ) | |
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189
irrational
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| adj.无理性的，失去理性的 | |
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190
traitor
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| n.叛徒，卖国贼 | |
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