Originally published in the October 2014 (Dashain special) issue of the ECS Living Magazine, Nepal. Story Editor: Prawin Adhikari.
Sishir was curled on the dirt like a discarded fetus. Flies buzzed around the wounds on his swollen face and his mouth tasted foul, of blood rusted to a metallic bitterness. His eyelids were puffy from the grime of dirt and blood collected in his eyes. He couldn’t wipe his eyes because his hands were tied behind his back. He saw two blurry red blobs in the distance, pacing at the periphery of his consciousness. The river roared behind him, never letting him forget the mortal thirst that had been gnawing at his spirit for hours now. He whimpered into the dust, pleading for a drink. After a few minutes, one of the red blobs floated over to him. The boot to his groin didn’t surprise Sishir, but his whole body convulsed in pain.
At twilight the day before, Sishir had been lying flat on his belly on a stone platform some twenty-five feet above the waterfall. His broad face was closely shaven. He had among his monastic possession a straight razor, sharp enough for him to take pride in. But his dirty black hair spilled over his forehead and ears and carelessly and fell over his eyes. This was good disguise when he had to run from one camp to another, a ragged look that helped him evade detection. Thick eyelids hung heavily over the narrow slits of his eyes, beneath which a small upturned nose started abruptly and ended in plump, wide lips. He wore faded green fatigues and a pair of worn, grayish-black military boots pried off captured or killed prize: he didn't know.
A clump of thick brush camouflaged him and the platform well. A few feet away a twenty feet wide stream plunged a hundred feet down a cliff and into a deep pool at the bottom curtained by a pearlescent waterfall. A perennial mist hung over this pool. Turbulent rapids continued downhill with renewed vigour. Beside the pool, a quarter-mile stretch of narrow dirt-road curved around the waterfall, went over a hillock and led to the outskirts of the camp where his comrades lived, where his faith and conviction were fed and put to bed.
Sishir trained his binoculars down the road. The sun was setting; details would be lost soon. It would take a specially trained pair of eyes to pick out army fatigues from the disguise the surrounding brush made possible. A mist rose from the waterfall and snaked around the hill, enveloping the hill and obscuring the road on it. The platform provided the perfect bird’s-eye view to sniper the ambition out of RNA scouts on the road. This was the only path around the waterfall and upriver towards their camp.
He heard a birdcall from below, a familiar signal. He hung the binoculars on a short stump, threw the thick coil of knotted rope over the platform, slung his rifle over his shoulder and climbed down.
Madhav, a short, pudgy man, held the rope for Sishir to climb down quickly. Jwala, a disaffected Magar from Gorkha who fancied himself as good a sharpshooter as Sishir, looked up at the platform with impatience. Madhav was an older version of Sishir. He still had most of his grey hair. A few whiskers stuck out from beneath his short, upturned nose. As the head cook of the camp he had his perks. His singlet vest, stained yellow-brown with splatters of turmeric and blood of the occasional game from surrounding forests, was pulled taut over a protruding belly: a dimple at the navel stared ahead like a puzzle. He wore trousers that had faded to alternating shades of blue. Jwala quickly climbed up the rope, took the rifle and fiddled with the scope, pointed the weapon at the approach around the hill.
"I have great news," Madhav said, beaming at Sishir after letting go of the rope. Madhav told him the news, hesitating around the borders of his words. Sishir shook his head in dissatisfaction. Sishir wasn't sure if it was good news: if the Supremo was coming to the camp, Sishir had to be more vigilant. But the burden of peering past the crosshairs and waiting for the time impulse takes to race from reason to action, the itch to pull the trigger at a target that he'd recognize as an enemy, was too much. After a heated discussion, Sishir made a run for the camp. Madhav dawdled behind Sishir shaking his head almost as if he knew this is how his nephew would react.
After a minute of sprinting through the jungle, Sishir came to their camp in a clearing in the woods by the riverbank. He ran to the Commander’s tent pitched to the back of the clearing. He slowed down by the entrance and nodded to the sentry in front and walked inside. The Commander was at his small wooden desk, looking over some paperwork with his round reading glasses hanging low on his nose. The Commander looked up and Sishir called him to the empty chair on his left. Sishir sat down, observing the Commander while trying to catch his breath.
The Commander’s long face was covered in pockmarks, except for his bulbous nose, which was red, scribbled with purple veins, and shiny. Even at his old age, the Commander had a full head of black hair that curled in. The Commander blinked his eyes hard every time he shifted his finger down the column of the previous month's expenses for the camp – he didn't count very fast, but he always counted every paisa, and that was common knowledge. He clicked his tongue whenever he found an errant entry, and sat up in his chair to solemnly redress the error.
"War is expensive," said the Commander before closing the file. "Did you register movement?" he asked.
"Quiet as usual, Commander," replied Sishir.
"That’s good, but we must always be vigilant, especially now that the feudal state is promising to cooperate," said the Commander.
"Madhav told me we are going home. He said we have become victorious," said Sishir, watching the Commander’s reaction closely.
"You heard right. The war is over," said the Commander. But the slow, burdened manner in which he scratched his nose didn't signal enthusiasm or elation of victory.
A rooster crowed somewhere in the camp, mistaking dusk for dawn. Sishir grasped the edge of his chair’s arm tightly.
"But, comrade, how can it be over yet? The feudal army has us holed up in this godforsaken forest. We need more men, and RPGs to bring down their helicopters," Sishir said without patience.
"A message was radioed in this morning from the Supreme’s office. He has assured us that there will be no more helicopter attacks. The government has agreed to sit for a talk. This war has been long, Sishir – they are just as tired of it as we are, and probably more scared. We've lost everything worth losing, except our lives and our convictions. They sit atop piles of material wealth that they have stolen from others. They know that they cannot defeat us in the jungles. So, they want to cut us a deal now." He paused for a moment, then smiled disarmingly, "We’ve completed the first phase of the revolution. Our orders are to obey the cease fire and wait for further orders."
"If they cannot win, why should we fall back, comrade? It would be foolish to compromise now. Compromising now would make us traitors to the cause," Sishir said. He was not going to stand around mutely while his revolution was being sold off.
The Commander banged the table angrily with his fist. "Don’t make the foolishness of thinking this was my doing," he said impatiently. "I’m just have my orders, and you should do the same."
"The Supreme must have been tricked by those aristocratic bastards," Sishir kept his anger in check.
The Commander said patronizingly, "The People’s Party has grown powerful and resourceful. We have made it powerful through our revolution. The Supreme is confident that we can take over the state by playing at the game of the status-quoists, by entering elections. We will march into Singha Durbar without firing a shot."
The Commander smiled before speaking again. "We’ve fought our battles, Sishir. Now it’s our time to rule. The Supreme has promised me office in the next government. You and Madhav will be under my wing. This is a great opportunity for us."
Sishir didn't think the Commander was talking much sense. "This is treachery to the motherland. I can’t stand for this," he said, going red in the face.
"The Supreme will be here tomorrow morning. You can tell that to his face," said the Commander resignedly and returned to poring over his paperwork. Sishir knew the conversation was over. He picked up his rifle and stormed out of the tent.
After leaving the Commander’s tent, Sishir walked straight to the canteen at the mouth of the clearing, downriver from the Commander’s tent. Madhav was squatting next to a lone burning clay stove after finishing the cooking for the night. Sishir sat next to him. Madhav started blowing on the dying embers. But when he went to a corner to arrange freshly washed dishes in a plastic bucket, the milk in the small pot on the stove boiled over, falling into the fire with a hiss.
"I will not stand for this," said Sishir, intently watching the reawakened fire which now lapped up at the pot. "We have a war to fight. How can we go home now? If we turn back now, everything we stand for will be lost forever," he said.
Madhav added some tealeaves and sugar to the milk. They sat silently, watching the froth of milky tea settle down in the pot. Then Madhav spoke. "If you are born a man, you have to make difficult decisions, many times in a life. Only a lucky man has easy choices. For others – if you choose this, there is trouble; if you choose that, there is trouble. But, if you don't choose, someone else will come and snatch it away from your hands. Only time can judge whether a man chose rightly." He reached out in the dark to touch Sishir’s arm and said, "I’ve made my choice."
Tears streamed down Madhav’s face and ran down the furrows of his face. Sishir loved his uncle like his own father. He couldn’t bear to see him weak, vulnerable. Madhav had put all his faith in the revolution. The government and its army had taken everything else from him. And now the Supreme was trying to snatch away his last chance at redeeming his dignity, reclaiming personhood, which had been denied to him and his people.
"I’ve made my choice too, uncle. I would rather die than remain a part of this sham," said Sishir, and walked over to the tub of dishes. He picked out a kitchen knife. The blade was long and slender, the tip was sharply pointed, just how Madhav liked to slit and scrape a chili. The handle was long enough to provide a steady grip. He tucked the handle under his waistband and hid the blade under his shirt. He then picked up two steel cups and walked back to Madhav.
Sishir handed Madhav the cups and said, "How about some hot tea?"
The next morning, the Supreme arrived and was stationed at the Commander’s tent. A dozen of the Supreme’s bodyguards surrounded the tent. Each one of them wore neatly pressed khaki pants and shirts. Every other one of them carried an AK-47. They looked much more suave, well-fed and disciplined than the guerilla warriors. Two guards stationed at the tent’s entrance were frisking anyone who wished to enter the tent. Sishir leaned back against a tree and watched them closely. After inspecting them for five minutes, he started walking towards the entrance. The guard without a gun called him over. He thoroughly patted Sishir down, running his clammy, warm fingers along Sishir's waistband, searching for concealed weapons.
Sishir walked to the end of the tent where the Supreme was seated. The Supreme was a rotund middle-aged man. He had parted his dark hair on the left and pushed it towards the right to hide his balding head, and kept stroking his hair intermittently. His thick grayish-black moustache was trimmed perfectly. A bodyguard with an AK-47 was standing to the Supreme’s right and the Commander was seated to his left. As soon as the Commander saw Sishir, he waved him over. He was expecting Sishir. Sishir pushed through a throng of guerilla soldiers, who had come to talk to their Supreme, and stood beside the Commander. "Supreme, you remember Sishir?" asked the Commander. The Supreme looked up at Sishir, hesitating before giving Shishir a generic smile and nodding in acknowledgement before continuing to talk to the others. "He has a keen eye for spotting scouts on the road. In fact, if it weren’t for Sishir, we would have been attacked many times," said the Commander, trying to get the Supreme’s attention.
The Supreme was now looking at Sishir, leaning forward and squinting with interest. "So, what do you do after you catch the traitor?" the Supreme asked. Sishir strode to the table and leaned forward, obsequiously bringing his face close to the Supreme while running his fingers gently down the table’s bottom until his fingers brushed the cold metal of the knife. He pried the knife out surreptitiously.
"I usually like to take them captive and make them talk about how much money is enough to betray their motherland," said Sishir. The Supreme laughed at his witty remark. The Commander and the guerillas followed suit. Sishir was grinning stupidly.
"But this time, I am not going to allow that luxury," he said before leaping at the Supreme with a brutal battle cry. His knife was aimed right for the Supreme’s heart.
Madhav looked on from the canteen, watching Sishir heaped like a lump of dirt by the riverbank. The Supreme had sent two of his own guards to keep watch. Sishir’s face had been pulped into a bloody mash. The Supreme was making an example of him for sure. The others had told him what transpired in the Commander’s tent.
When Sishir had leaped to stab the Supreme, the Supreme’s bodyguard had thrown himself at Sishir. The knife had dug deep and stuck in the guard’s left shoulder. Without a weapon at his disposal, Sishir had then tried to strangle the Supreme. The guards surrounding the tent had all come running inside after hearing the commotion. While a few of them marshaled the confused guerillas out of the tent, the rest of them had pulled Sishir off the Supreme and then beaten him. The Commander was red in the face from anger and embarrassment. He had been quick to show he had nothing to do with this treachery and had promised to make an example of the renegade.
By mid-afternoon, an uncomfortable hush had fallen over the camp. Sishir’s execution was scheduled for the evening. No one in the camp approved the execution of one of their own, but they had been wise enough to stay out of sight. Madhav walked over to the two guards and handed each of them a plate heavy with rice and buffalo meat brought for the Supreme's visit. The guards had not eaten since the unfortunate incident and Madhav noticed one of them swallowing spit as he tried to mix the hot rice and chunks of meat.
The cook let them dig into their food before saying, "Brothers, this fool is destined to die." He said pointing to the lump by the river. "The punishment for his cowardly act can only be death, but even a dying man deserves a drink of water. Let me take him to the river and give him a drink." The guard, his mouth full and moving rapidly to avoid being burnt by the rice, looked at Madhav from head to toe. Madhav stood there, shifting from one foot to the next until the guard grunted and turned away to focus on his food.
Sishir could see a red blob walking over to him again but this time there was no boot to the groin. He was helped to his feet and walked into the river until the water was up to his knees. He smelled food, he smelled his uncle's approach, and with that he was transported through the years to his childhood when he loved to bury his face in his mother's sari, searching it for the smell of smoke and cooking and milk and sun-warmed grass. Sishir’s ears were ringing but he could make out his uncle's voice. "You might die in the river, but you are surely a dead man in the camp. Don’t be afraid. Let the river take you," said his uncle. Madhav untied the rope around Sishir’s wrist. He then heaved him into the middle of the river where the rapids. The river hurled Sishir towards the waterfall at lightning speed. By the time the two guards put their plates down and ran towards Madhav, Sishir had disappeared down the waterfall.
Sishir woke up to a nudging boot to his shoulder. The river had robbed him of his clothes. The ringing in his ears had disappeared and his vision was much clearer now. The river had washed away the bloody grime, but his face was still swollen beyond recognition.
"Hey! Get up!" the owner of the boot was saying loudly. He looked up to see two men dressed in a different shade of green fatigues.
"Where did you come from?" asked the owner of the boot. He was wearing a bulletproof vest. His face was covered in war paint, a camouflage pattern in shades of black and green. He carried an M16 and a half-dozen grenades hung from his belt.
The soldier pointed the rifle at him and repeated his question. Sishir obediently pointed a finger towards the hilly jungle.
"Are you a villager? Why did they beat you?" the soldier asked.
"My uncle. They have my uncle," he mumbled.
"Who’s got your uncle?" the soldier asked.
He whispered the Supreme’s name.
"What did you say?"
He pointed to the jungle and said the name clearly this time.
The owner of the boot spoke to another soldier behind him. The other soldier looked a lot like the first one, but he was taller and carried a large backpack on his back with a radio transmitter hooked to a battery pack.
"Radio the battalion that we have a big fish to land today. And bring the Medicine Kit. I think we might have found our scout."
Sishir was curled on the dirt like a discarded fetus. Flies buzzed around the wounds on his swollen face and his mouth tasted foul, of blood rusted to a metallic bitterness. His eyelids were puffy from the grime of dirt and blood collected in his eyes. He couldn’t wipe his eyes because his hands were tied behind his back. He saw two blurry red blobs in the distance, pacing at the periphery of his consciousness. The river roared behind him, never letting him forget the mortal thirst that had been gnawing at his spirit for hours now. He whimpered into the dust, pleading for a drink. After a few minutes, one of the red blobs floated over to him. The boot to his groin didn’t surprise Sishir, but his whole body convulsed in pain.
At twilight the day before, Sishir had been lying flat on his belly on a stone platform some twenty-five feet above the waterfall. His broad face was closely shaven. He had among his monastic possession a straight razor, sharp enough for him to take pride in. But his dirty black hair spilled over his forehead and ears and carelessly and fell over his eyes. This was good disguise when he had to run from one camp to another, a ragged look that helped him evade detection. Thick eyelids hung heavily over the narrow slits of his eyes, beneath which a small upturned nose started abruptly and ended in plump, wide lips. He wore faded green fatigues and a pair of worn, grayish-black military boots pried off captured or killed prize: he didn't know.
A clump of thick brush camouflaged him and the platform well. A few feet away a twenty feet wide stream plunged a hundred feet down a cliff and into a deep pool at the bottom curtained by a pearlescent waterfall. A perennial mist hung over this pool. Turbulent rapids continued downhill with renewed vigour. Beside the pool, a quarter-mile stretch of narrow dirt-road curved around the waterfall, went over a hillock and led to the outskirts of the camp where his comrades lived, where his faith and conviction were fed and put to bed.
Sishir trained his binoculars down the road. The sun was setting; details would be lost soon. It would take a specially trained pair of eyes to pick out army fatigues from the disguise the surrounding brush made possible. A mist rose from the waterfall and snaked around the hill, enveloping the hill and obscuring the road on it. The platform provided the perfect bird’s-eye view to sniper the ambition out of RNA scouts on the road. This was the only path around the waterfall and upriver towards their camp.
He heard a birdcall from below, a familiar signal. He hung the binoculars on a short stump, threw the thick coil of knotted rope over the platform, slung his rifle over his shoulder and climbed down.
Madhav, a short, pudgy man, held the rope for Sishir to climb down quickly. Jwala, a disaffected Magar from Gorkha who fancied himself as good a sharpshooter as Sishir, looked up at the platform with impatience. Madhav was an older version of Sishir. He still had most of his grey hair. A few whiskers stuck out from beneath his short, upturned nose. As the head cook of the camp he had his perks. His singlet vest, stained yellow-brown with splatters of turmeric and blood of the occasional game from surrounding forests, was pulled taut over a protruding belly: a dimple at the navel stared ahead like a puzzle. He wore trousers that had faded to alternating shades of blue. Jwala quickly climbed up the rope, took the rifle and fiddled with the scope, pointed the weapon at the approach around the hill.
"I have great news," Madhav said, beaming at Sishir after letting go of the rope. Madhav told him the news, hesitating around the borders of his words. Sishir shook his head in dissatisfaction. Sishir wasn't sure if it was good news: if the Supremo was coming to the camp, Sishir had to be more vigilant. But the burden of peering past the crosshairs and waiting for the time impulse takes to race from reason to action, the itch to pull the trigger at a target that he'd recognize as an enemy, was too much. After a heated discussion, Sishir made a run for the camp. Madhav dawdled behind Sishir shaking his head almost as if he knew this is how his nephew would react.
After a minute of sprinting through the jungle, Sishir came to their camp in a clearing in the woods by the riverbank. He ran to the Commander’s tent pitched to the back of the clearing. He slowed down by the entrance and nodded to the sentry in front and walked inside. The Commander was at his small wooden desk, looking over some paperwork with his round reading glasses hanging low on his nose. The Commander looked up and Sishir called him to the empty chair on his left. Sishir sat down, observing the Commander while trying to catch his breath.
The Commander’s long face was covered in pockmarks, except for his bulbous nose, which was red, scribbled with purple veins, and shiny. Even at his old age, the Commander had a full head of black hair that curled in. The Commander blinked his eyes hard every time he shifted his finger down the column of the previous month's expenses for the camp – he didn't count very fast, but he always counted every paisa, and that was common knowledge. He clicked his tongue whenever he found an errant entry, and sat up in his chair to solemnly redress the error.
"War is expensive," said the Commander before closing the file. "Did you register movement?" he asked.
"Quiet as usual, Commander," replied Sishir.
"That’s good, but we must always be vigilant, especially now that the feudal state is promising to cooperate," said the Commander.
"Madhav told me we are going home. He said we have become victorious," said Sishir, watching the Commander’s reaction closely.
"You heard right. The war is over," said the Commander. But the slow, burdened manner in which he scratched his nose didn't signal enthusiasm or elation of victory.
A rooster crowed somewhere in the camp, mistaking dusk for dawn. Sishir grasped the edge of his chair’s arm tightly.
"But, comrade, how can it be over yet? The feudal army has us holed up in this godforsaken forest. We need more men, and RPGs to bring down their helicopters," Sishir said without patience.
"A message was radioed in this morning from the Supreme’s office. He has assured us that there will be no more helicopter attacks. The government has agreed to sit for a talk. This war has been long, Sishir – they are just as tired of it as we are, and probably more scared. We've lost everything worth losing, except our lives and our convictions. They sit atop piles of material wealth that they have stolen from others. They know that they cannot defeat us in the jungles. So, they want to cut us a deal now." He paused for a moment, then smiled disarmingly, "We’ve completed the first phase of the revolution. Our orders are to obey the cease fire and wait for further orders."
"If they cannot win, why should we fall back, comrade? It would be foolish to compromise now. Compromising now would make us traitors to the cause," Sishir said. He was not going to stand around mutely while his revolution was being sold off.
The Commander banged the table angrily with his fist. "Don’t make the foolishness of thinking this was my doing," he said impatiently. "I’m just have my orders, and you should do the same."
"The Supreme must have been tricked by those aristocratic bastards," Sishir kept his anger in check.
The Commander said patronizingly, "The People’s Party has grown powerful and resourceful. We have made it powerful through our revolution. The Supreme is confident that we can take over the state by playing at the game of the status-quoists, by entering elections. We will march into Singha Durbar without firing a shot."
The Commander smiled before speaking again. "We’ve fought our battles, Sishir. Now it’s our time to rule. The Supreme has promised me office in the next government. You and Madhav will be under my wing. This is a great opportunity for us."
Sishir didn't think the Commander was talking much sense. "This is treachery to the motherland. I can’t stand for this," he said, going red in the face.
"The Supreme will be here tomorrow morning. You can tell that to his face," said the Commander resignedly and returned to poring over his paperwork. Sishir knew the conversation was over. He picked up his rifle and stormed out of the tent.
After leaving the Commander’s tent, Sishir walked straight to the canteen at the mouth of the clearing, downriver from the Commander’s tent. Madhav was squatting next to a lone burning clay stove after finishing the cooking for the night. Sishir sat next to him. Madhav started blowing on the dying embers. But when he went to a corner to arrange freshly washed dishes in a plastic bucket, the milk in the small pot on the stove boiled over, falling into the fire with a hiss.
"I will not stand for this," said Sishir, intently watching the reawakened fire which now lapped up at the pot. "We have a war to fight. How can we go home now? If we turn back now, everything we stand for will be lost forever," he said.
Madhav added some tealeaves and sugar to the milk. They sat silently, watching the froth of milky tea settle down in the pot. Then Madhav spoke. "If you are born a man, you have to make difficult decisions, many times in a life. Only a lucky man has easy choices. For others – if you choose this, there is trouble; if you choose that, there is trouble. But, if you don't choose, someone else will come and snatch it away from your hands. Only time can judge whether a man chose rightly." He reached out in the dark to touch Sishir’s arm and said, "I’ve made my choice."
Tears streamed down Madhav’s face and ran down the furrows of his face. Sishir loved his uncle like his own father. He couldn’t bear to see him weak, vulnerable. Madhav had put all his faith in the revolution. The government and its army had taken everything else from him. And now the Supreme was trying to snatch away his last chance at redeeming his dignity, reclaiming personhood, which had been denied to him and his people.
"I’ve made my choice too, uncle. I would rather die than remain a part of this sham," said Sishir, and walked over to the tub of dishes. He picked out a kitchen knife. The blade was long and slender, the tip was sharply pointed, just how Madhav liked to slit and scrape a chili. The handle was long enough to provide a steady grip. He tucked the handle under his waistband and hid the blade under his shirt. He then picked up two steel cups and walked back to Madhav.
Sishir handed Madhav the cups and said, "How about some hot tea?"
The next morning, the Supreme arrived and was stationed at the Commander’s tent. A dozen of the Supreme’s bodyguards surrounded the tent. Each one of them wore neatly pressed khaki pants and shirts. Every other one of them carried an AK-47. They looked much more suave, well-fed and disciplined than the guerilla warriors. Two guards stationed at the tent’s entrance were frisking anyone who wished to enter the tent. Sishir leaned back against a tree and watched them closely. After inspecting them for five minutes, he started walking towards the entrance. The guard without a gun called him over. He thoroughly patted Sishir down, running his clammy, warm fingers along Sishir's waistband, searching for concealed weapons.
Sishir walked to the end of the tent where the Supreme was seated. The Supreme was a rotund middle-aged man. He had parted his dark hair on the left and pushed it towards the right to hide his balding head, and kept stroking his hair intermittently. His thick grayish-black moustache was trimmed perfectly. A bodyguard with an AK-47 was standing to the Supreme’s right and the Commander was seated to his left. As soon as the Commander saw Sishir, he waved him over. He was expecting Sishir. Sishir pushed through a throng of guerilla soldiers, who had come to talk to their Supreme, and stood beside the Commander. "Supreme, you remember Sishir?" asked the Commander. The Supreme looked up at Sishir, hesitating before giving Shishir a generic smile and nodding in acknowledgement before continuing to talk to the others. "He has a keen eye for spotting scouts on the road. In fact, if it weren’t for Sishir, we would have been attacked many times," said the Commander, trying to get the Supreme’s attention.
The Supreme was now looking at Sishir, leaning forward and squinting with interest. "So, what do you do after you catch the traitor?" the Supreme asked. Sishir strode to the table and leaned forward, obsequiously bringing his face close to the Supreme while running his fingers gently down the table’s bottom until his fingers brushed the cold metal of the knife. He pried the knife out surreptitiously.
"I usually like to take them captive and make them talk about how much money is enough to betray their motherland," said Sishir. The Supreme laughed at his witty remark. The Commander and the guerillas followed suit. Sishir was grinning stupidly.
"But this time, I am not going to allow that luxury," he said before leaping at the Supreme with a brutal battle cry. His knife was aimed right for the Supreme’s heart.
Madhav looked on from the canteen, watching Sishir heaped like a lump of dirt by the riverbank. The Supreme had sent two of his own guards to keep watch. Sishir’s face had been pulped into a bloody mash. The Supreme was making an example of him for sure. The others had told him what transpired in the Commander’s tent.
When Sishir had leaped to stab the Supreme, the Supreme’s bodyguard had thrown himself at Sishir. The knife had dug deep and stuck in the guard’s left shoulder. Without a weapon at his disposal, Sishir had then tried to strangle the Supreme. The guards surrounding the tent had all come running inside after hearing the commotion. While a few of them marshaled the confused guerillas out of the tent, the rest of them had pulled Sishir off the Supreme and then beaten him. The Commander was red in the face from anger and embarrassment. He had been quick to show he had nothing to do with this treachery and had promised to make an example of the renegade.
By mid-afternoon, an uncomfortable hush had fallen over the camp. Sishir’s execution was scheduled for the evening. No one in the camp approved the execution of one of their own, but they had been wise enough to stay out of sight. Madhav walked over to the two guards and handed each of them a plate heavy with rice and buffalo meat brought for the Supreme's visit. The guards had not eaten since the unfortunate incident and Madhav noticed one of them swallowing spit as he tried to mix the hot rice and chunks of meat.
The cook let them dig into their food before saying, "Brothers, this fool is destined to die." He said pointing to the lump by the river. "The punishment for his cowardly act can only be death, but even a dying man deserves a drink of water. Let me take him to the river and give him a drink." The guard, his mouth full and moving rapidly to avoid being burnt by the rice, looked at Madhav from head to toe. Madhav stood there, shifting from one foot to the next until the guard grunted and turned away to focus on his food.
Sishir could see a red blob walking over to him again but this time there was no boot to the groin. He was helped to his feet and walked into the river until the water was up to his knees. He smelled food, he smelled his uncle's approach, and with that he was transported through the years to his childhood when he loved to bury his face in his mother's sari, searching it for the smell of smoke and cooking and milk and sun-warmed grass. Sishir’s ears were ringing but he could make out his uncle's voice. "You might die in the river, but you are surely a dead man in the camp. Don’t be afraid. Let the river take you," said his uncle. Madhav untied the rope around Sishir’s wrist. He then heaved him into the middle of the river where the rapids. The river hurled Sishir towards the waterfall at lightning speed. By the time the two guards put their plates down and ran towards Madhav, Sishir had disappeared down the waterfall.
Sishir woke up to a nudging boot to his shoulder. The river had robbed him of his clothes. The ringing in his ears had disappeared and his vision was much clearer now. The river had washed away the bloody grime, but his face was still swollen beyond recognition.
"Hey! Get up!" the owner of the boot was saying loudly. He looked up to see two men dressed in a different shade of green fatigues.
"Where did you come from?" asked the owner of the boot. He was wearing a bulletproof vest. His face was covered in war paint, a camouflage pattern in shades of black and green. He carried an M16 and a half-dozen grenades hung from his belt.
The soldier pointed the rifle at him and repeated his question. Sishir obediently pointed a finger towards the hilly jungle.
"Are you a villager? Why did they beat you?" the soldier asked.
"My uncle. They have my uncle," he mumbled.
"Who’s got your uncle?" the soldier asked.
He whispered the Supreme’s name.
"What did you say?"
He pointed to the jungle and said the name clearly this time.
The owner of the boot spoke to another soldier behind him. The other soldier looked a lot like the first one, but he was taller and carried a large backpack on his back with a radio transmitter hooked to a battery pack.
"Radio the battalion that we have a big fish to land today. And bring the Medicine Kit. I think we might have found our scout."
No comments:
Post a Comment