The Glass Palace (81 page)

In the beginning some of Arjun's fellow-officers had been sceptical about the abilities and endurance of the new recruits. The army that had trained them, the British Indian army, had not recruited Tamils: they were counted as one of the many Indian groups that were racially unfit for soldiering. Being professional soldiers, Arjun's fellow-officers were steeped in the racial mythologies of the old mercenary army. Even though they knew those theories to be without foundation, they found it hard to rid themselves entirely of the old imperial notions about the kinds of men who made good soldiers and those who didn't. It was only under fire that they'd come to recognise how false those myths were: experience had demonstrated the plantation recruits to be, if anything, much hardier and more
dedicated than the professionals. In his own unit, Arjun found that there was a clear pattern to desertions: the men who'd melted away were almost all professionals; not a single plantation recruit had left. He'd been puzzled by this until Kishan Singh explained the reasons behind it. The professionals knew the men on the other side; the men they were fighting against were their relatives and neighbours; they knew that if they went over, they wouldn't be badly treated.

Arjun could tell that the plantation workers understood this too. They knew who the professional soldiers were and what class they came from; they knew exactly how their minds worked and why they deserted. Every time a few more ‘professionals' went missing, Arjun would see a deepening contempt in their eyes; he knew that in private the plantation men laughed about the pampered lives the soldiers had been used to, about the way they'd been fed and fattened by their colonial masters. They—the plantation recruits—seemed to have recognised that in the end, theirs wasn't the same struggle as that of the professionals; in a way, they weren't even fighting the same war.

Not all the plantation recruits spoke Hindustani: Arjun often had difficulty in communicating with them. There was only one man with whom Arjun could converse fluently: his name was Rajan. He was a lean, wiry man, all muscle and bone, with red-flecked eyes and a thick moustache. Arjun had recruited him himself, at Sungei Pattani. He'd wondered at the time whether Rajan was suitable material. But after his recruitment, Rajan had become another person altogether: training had transformed him. He seemed to have developed an aptitude for soldiering and had emerged as the most forceful personality among the plantation recruits.

Once, going over a ridge, Rajan had asked Arjun to point in the direction of India. Arjun had shown him: it was to the west. Rajan stood a long time staring into the distance; so did many of the other men.

‘Have you ever been to India?' Arjun asked. ‘No, sir.' Rajan shook his head.

‘What do you think you'll find there?'

Rajan shrugged: he didn't know and in a way, he didn't seem to care. It was enough that it was India.

Arjun discovered later that Rajan had been born in Malaya; his knowledge of India came solely from stories told by his parents. The same was true of all the plantation recruits: they were fighting for a country they had never seen; a country that had extruded their parents and cut them off. This made their fervour all the more remarkable. Why? What were their motivations? There was so much about their lives that he, Arjun, didn't know and could not fathom—the way they talked about ‘slavery' for instance, always using the English word. At first Arjun had thought that they were using the term loosely, as a kind of metaphor—for after all, it wasn't true technically that they were slaves; Rajan knew that as well as Arjun did. What did he mean then? What was it to be a slave? When Arjun asked this question Rajan would always answer indirectly. He would begin to talk about the kind of work they'd done, on the plantation—every action constantly policed, watched, supervised; exactly so many ounces of fertiliser, pushed exactly so, in holes that were exactly so many inches wide. It wasn't that you were made into an animal, Rajan said—no, for even animals had the autonomy of their instincts. It was being made into a machine: having your mind taken away and replaced by a clockwork mechanism. Anything was better than that.

And India—what was India to them? This land whose freedom they were fighting for, this land they'd never seen, but for which they were willing to die? Did they know of the poverty, of the hunger their parents and grandparents had left behind? Did they know about the customs that would prevent them from drinking at high-caste wells? None of that was real to them; they had never experienced it and could not imagine it. India was the shining mountain beyond the horizon, a sacrament of redemption—a metaphor for freedom in the same way that slavery was a metaphor for the plantation. What would they find, Arjun wondered, when they crossed the horizon?
And it was in the act of posing this question that Arjun began to see himself through their eyes—a professional, a mercenary, who would never be able to slough off the taint of his past and the cynicism that came with it, the nihilism. He saw why they might think of him with contempt—as an enemy even—for it was true in the end, that he was not fighting their war; that he did not believe as they believed; that he did not dream their dreams.

It was Rajan who brought Kishan Singh back, with his hands tied, stumbling through the undergrowth. Kishan Singh's condition was such that he hadn't been able to get very far. Rajan had found him holed up under an overhang, hiding, shivering, praying.

Rajan gave Kishan Singh a push, and he fell on his knees.

‘Get up,' Arjun said. He couldn't stand to look at Kishan Singh like this. ‘
Utho—
get up, Kishan Singh.'

Rajan took hold of Kishan Singh's collar and pulled him to his feet. Kishan Singh's frame was so wasted that he was like a stick-figure, a broken puppet.

Rajan had only contempt for Kishan Singh. He spoke to Arjun directly, looking him in the eyes: ‘And what will you do with him now?'

There was no ‘sir', no ‘sahib', and the question wasn't ‘what has to be done?' but, ‘what will
you
do?' Arjun could see the challenge in Rajan's eyes; he knew what was in Rajan's mind— that the professionals would stick together, that he would find a way of letting Kishan Singh off. Time. He had to make time.

‘We have to hold a court-martial,' Arjun said.

‘Here?'

Arjun nodded. ‘Yes. There's a procedure. We have to try and keep to it.'

‘Procedures? Here?' The sarcasm was audible in Rajan's voice.

Arjun could tell that Rajan was trying to show him up in
front of the other men. Using the advantage of his height, he went up to him and stared into his eyes,

‘Yes,' said Arjun. ‘Procedures. And we have to respect them. That's how armies are run—that's what make them different from street gangs.'

Rajan shrugged and ran his tongue over his lips. ‘But where?' he said. ‘Where are you going to find a place for a court-martial?'

‘We'll go back to that teak camp,' Arjun said. ‘It'll be easier there.'

‘The camp? But what if we were followed?'

‘Not yet. We'll go.' The camp was an hour away: it would buy a little time.

‘Fall in.' Arjun took the lead. He didn't want to watch Kishan Singh being pushed along, with his hands tied behind his back.

It began to rain and they were drenched by the time they got to the camp. Arjun led the way across the clearing, to the tai. The area under the stilts was dry, sheltered from the rain by the structure above. Rajan let Kishan Singh go and he sank to the ground, squatting on his haunches, shivering.

‘Here,' said Arjun. ‘We'll hold the hearings here.'

Rajan fetched a chair from the tai and placed it in front of Arjun. ‘For you, sir,' he said, with a mocking excess of politeness. ‘Since you are the judge.'

Arjun ignored him. ‘Let's begin.'

Arjun tried to prolong the ritual, asking questions, going over the details. But the facts were clear: there was no disputing them. When he asked Kishan Singh to speak in his own defence, all he could do was beg, clasping his hands together. ‘Sah'b— my wife, my family . . .'

Rajan was watching Arjun, smiling. ‘Any other procedures? Sir?'

‘No.' Arjun saw that Rajan and the other men had formed a circle: he and Kishan Singh were at its centre. Arjun stood up. ‘I've made my decision.' He turned to Rajan. ‘I'm putting you in charge of the firing squad,' he said. ‘Ask for volunteers. Do it quickly.'

Rajan looked straight back at him, shaking his head. ‘No,' he said. ‘None of us will volunteer. He's one of yours—one of your men. You will have to deal with him yourself.'

Arjun looked at the circle of men around him. They were all watching him; their faces were expressionless, their eyes unblinking. Arjun turned away; shreds of memory floated through his mind . . . this is how mutiny looks from the other end; you're alone, and the only thing you can fall back on is the authority of a distant chain of command; on threats of the army's justice, of eventual retribution once victory is won. But what do you do when you know that there will be no victory, when defeat is certain? How do you claim the validation of the future, knowing that it will not be yours?

‘Come, Kishan Singh.' Arjun helped his former batman to his feet. His body was very light, almost weightless. Arjun could feel his hands growing gentle, as he took hold of Kishan Singh's arm.

It was strange to be touching him in this way, knowing what lay ahead.

‘Come. Kishan Singh.'

‘Sah'b.'

Kishan Singh stood up and Arjun took hold of his arm, pushing him forward, past the others, out of the tai's shelter, into the rain. They waded into the tall grass and Kishan Singh stumbled. Arjun put his arm round him and held him up. Kishan Singh was so weak that he could barely walk; he rested his head on Arjun's shoulder.

‘Keep going, Kishan Singh.' His voice was soft, as though he were whispering to a lover. ‘
Sabar karo,
Kishan Singh—it'll be over soon.'

‘Sah'b.'

When they came to the edge of the clearing, Arjun let him go. Kishan Singh dropped to his knees, holding himself upright by clinging to Arjun's leg.

‘Sah'b.'

‘Why did you do it, Kishan Singh?' ‘Sah'b, I was afraid . . .'

Arjun unbuttoned his leather holster with one hand and took out his sidearm—the Webley that Kishan Singh had always polished and oiled for him.

‘Why did you do it, Kishan Singh?'

‘Sah'b—I couldn't go on . . .'

He looked down at the welts and jungle sores on Kishan Singh's head. He thought of another time when Kishan Singh had knelt between his feet, asking for his protection; he thought of his guilelessness and trust and innocence, of how he had been moved by the histories that lay behind them—the goodness and strength he had seen in him; all the qualities that he himself had lost and betrayed—qualities that had never been his to start with, he who had sprung from the potter's wheel, fully made, deformed. He knew he could not allow Kishan Singh to betray himself, to become something other than he was—to become a creature like himself, grotesque, misshapen. It was this thought that gave him the strength to put his gun to Kishan Singh's head.

At the touch of the cold metal, Kishan Singh raised his eyes, looking up at him. ‘Sah'b—remember my mother, my home, my child . . .'

Arjun took hold of Kishan Singh's head, curling his fingers through his matted hair. ‘It's because I remember that I must do this, Kishan Singh. So that you cannot forget all that you are—to protect you from betraying yourself.'

He heard the shot and then he staggered away, towards a clump of trees. He reached for a branch to steady himself, and he saw, suspended in the branches, a dripping shred of flesh and bone. He could not tear his eyes from it: it was a part of Kishan Singh, of the head he'd just held in his hands. He took another step and fell to his knees. When he looked up Rajan and the other men were standing around him, watching. In their eyes there was a kind of pity.