She was not Alone!

SHE WAS NOT ALONE!
(A Short Story)

(Rendered by the Author from Marathi)

“I wish I was dead–not he,” I thought as I looked at my own reflection in the mirror. “Yes, things would have been a lot better ifI had been killed instead of my brother Dileep.”

Standing before the mirror, fully dressed, with the crimson beret in my hand, I became acutely aware that we two–myself and my brother–had always looked strikingly alike, and yet our lives had taken different directions. And I wished I was dead–not he. I wished I had at least not learnt the definite news of his death and had remained in ignorance a little longer.

Because I had prepared to leave this Jullunder camp by tomorrow’s plane, I was looking forward cheerfully to going home, meeting Kanan, my brother’s wife, taking sunshine and laughter into her dreary life, making her talk and laugh, and telling her that God wasn’t blind, her love must be rewarded, and Dileep must return. And today morning, when I was full of these rose-coloured dreams, I had learnt from a Sikh officer who had newly come to Jullunder that my brother had died five years ago, there wasn’t a shadow of doubt about it. This Sikh officer too had been in the Rani of Jhansi Regiment along with my brother. They had both been wounded when Rangoon had fallen into the hands of the British on the 4th May 1945. They had both been removed to the hospital where he had seen with his own eyes my brother’s dead body taken away….

A plane would take me to Delhi and from there to Bombay...And now I had learnt that my brother belonged to the dead...I hadn’t been myself since then. I had almost cancelled my leave and decided not to go home. I hadn’t the heart to be the bearer of this tragic news to Kanan. But other thoughts had curbed my desperation. It wasn’t necessary to break the news, I thought. I could keep it to myself. Kanan would be happy to meet me. She loved me so. Yes, that would be for the best, I decided...Yet I cursed the perversity of chance that had brought me convincing proof of my brother’s death. It was going to be hell for me to keep my secret, to pretend to know nothing, and to talk gaily with Kanan as though I shared her hope... I was filled with these thoughts as I dressed, picked up my beret, drew my locks with the left hand, and stood before the mirror. And then, as I looked at myself in the mirror I wished I was dead instead of my brother...

“Ready Major ?” I heard a voice from outside. “Yes, ready,” I answered, and, moving away from the dressing table, rushed out. “Come on,” I said, joining my friend. We had to attend a farewell dinner given in honour of Brigadier Hussein who had been transferred from Jullunder.

The ‘sound’ of our steps broke the stillness of the night. Spring must be in full bloom, I knew, away in Srinagar beyond the mountain pass; spreading its riotof fruit, flower and fragrance; but here too there was evidence of its glory. As though Spring had traversed this land on its way across the snowcapped peaks, and left its footprints behind. The evening breeze softly rustled as it fanned the sun-scorched earth. The silver of the moon touched the massive Chinars and the tall slender Safetas. There were islands of willows and thickets of Piyach grass in the distance on both sides of our road. The air smelt of the Panjeena and Khatai blooms, and, when a whiff of Yosman scent floated past, one wondered if this were some rare perfume from Behashta with which Night had dressed her tresses...

My companion started to whistle for joy. My steps were as light as his. I also saw the bright lights in the building towards which we were going. But there was darkness in my heart; and my mind, tugging wards with heavy steps, and digging out the ruins of the past...as though to ask, “Do you remember this? This? And this?...”

Yes, I remembered everything...

I first met Kanan at a party given by the Principal of our college in honour of the cricket team of which we brothers were both members. As we sat in the drawing-room, before dinner, mixing with the other guests and talking chiefly cricket, the Principal brought an elderly gentleman towards me. “Meet my friend Mr. Premnath, Executive Engineer,” he said to me, “He was keen on meeting you.” I bowed and shook hands. “Very pleased,” I murmured, and then, wanting to compliment him on his fine health, I said, “You must have played quite a lot of cricket in your young days, Sir.” He grinned. “Youbet I did,” he said. But I wasn’t looking at hin. Another face had caught my eye–the face of a young girl behind him. “Come, up,” I heard the Principal saying to her, “What’s keeping yon ?” And then turning to me he said, “she was even more keen than her father on meeting you.” She stepped forward. I should have folded my hands and said “Namaste”. But an impulse made me decide against this respectful aloofness. “How do You do?” I said, and offered my hand. Was she surprised? Perhaps. But then a sweet smile flickered round her lips, and the next instant I felt the softness of her fingers...

I let a week pass, and went to her house. She seemed Surprised on seeing me. “You’ve come alone?” she murmured. Her voice puzzled me. I couldn’t decide whether she was disappointed not to find my brother with me, or thought it improper of me to go alone to a girl. I had never before run after any girl. We brothers were known–or rather notorious–for our lack of romance and had been nicknamed ‘The Frigidaire Brothers’. My desire to visit Kanan had surprised me, and I had fought with it for a whole week. I hadn’t even disclosed to Dileep that I was paying her a visit, fearing he would make fun of me...And now she asked me, “You’ve come alone?” I thought of running away. But she had closed the door behind me. “I’m glad You’ve come,” she was saying. She moved towards a window, dragging her ‘Chappals’ on the carpet. I followed her. Her little white feet looked very pretty under the dark border of her red ‘Sari’.’ There was grace in her movement. Her stem-like neck which matched her height was partly covered by the loose knot of her dark shining hair. When she opened the window the breeze came in and lifted the locks near her ears, and against the light her arms made a beautiful silhouette, I forgot my chagrin. She’s lovely, and it’s grand to look at her, I thought. Why should I care a hang if she thought my visit....

She picked up a book from the table and came towards me. “Will you help me with this?” she said as she sat opposite me, “I was reading this poem. I couldn’t quite understand these four line and was wondering whom to ask when you came.”

Ah! So that was whyshe had said, “I’m glad...’ I nodded and smiled, and looked at the page which she held open before me.

It was all Greek and Latin to me. I was studying Physics and Chemistry at the college, and poetry had no charms for me. Dileep had a fairly good liking for literature, but I had none. But   it was a case of a damsel in distress, and I was prepared to do anything to help Kanan, including a battle with a verse. So I said, “It’s very easy, you see.” “Yes?” she smiled, and that smile was enough to turn any one into a Professor of Literature. “A...hm,” I cleared my throat, and hit out all round the wicket of poetry, explaining the hidden meaning of the lines that had baffled her.

I couldn’t guess whether she thought my interpretation sensible. But she listened with deep interest and seemed to enjoy my talk. When I finally took leave she gave me a rare smile. “It’s good to know you are so hugely interested in poetry,” she said. “We’ll have lots to talk about when you come again.” The veiled invitation made me happy. But I could also see in it the threat that I would have to discuss poetry every time I called on her. This made me nervous. She would soon discover my utter ignorance of literature, I thought, and I should be clean bowled. I had better stop going to her, and preserve my self-respect–unless there was some way out of this queer situation...And there was a way–as I soon found out.

Dileep was amazed to see me develop a sudden enthusiasm for literature. He was, however, glad to encourage and nurse my interest. I got from him endless tit-bits and latest news concerning writers and poets and their books. My stock with Kanan soared up. I became a frequent and welcome visitor. It wasn’t possible to keep Dileep out of the picture for long. So I began taking him along with me occasionally. Kanan’s face beamed with a special delight whenever Dileep came. “You must come oftener,” she said to him, and there was eagerness in her voice. But Dileep avoided accompanying me. “I’m sorry, but I’ve some work to do in the laboratory,” he used to tell me, “You go alone.” Perhaps he had guessed that I was wooing Kanan...

We took our B. Sc. degree with distinction, and began doing post-graduate research work in the college. But hardly had the first term ended when the second world-war broke out. Men like us were needed, and military service held a lure for both of us. We decided to enlist in the army. Kanan didn’t like this. She hated to think that we would be far away from her-and away in a place where our lives would be in constant danger. But she could see that we had made up our minds, and so she gave us a cheerful send-off...

Active service separated me from Dileep. We both saw Kanan whenever we went home, but each one of us met her separately, since our leave never coincided. I grew more fond of Kanan, and to live without her became more difficult for me. The war dragged on. I learnt that we would be soon sent out to fight in France. I thanked God for the short leave we got before leaving India. I went home and met Kanan. I didn’t wish to precipitate our wedding, but I wanted w know for certain that she loved me. I would face death bravely, I thought, if I knew that she cared and would wait for me.

Our talk wasn’t easy. “You’ll miss me?” I kept asking her. And she kept nodding, and smiling blankly, and murmuring “Yes, I’ll miss you...But you must take care of yourself...” I got tired of this beating about the bush. “Kanan–” I whispered, and touched her hand.

She gave me a look of surprise and withdrew her hand.

“Kanan,” I said, “Don’t you see I love you?”

She remained silent. As though my words had struck her.

“It’ll help me a lot to know that you care for me,” I mumbled, “To know that you’ll be mine when I come ...”

She averted her eyes. I noticed her tears.

“Why don’t you say “something?” I asked, “Does some other man love you?”

She began to cry.

“Do you love someone else?”

She nodded.

“Who is it? I wouldn’t mind. Tell me. Who?”

“Your brother Dileep,” she lifted her head and told me. Her lips trembled as she spoke. “He doesn’t know. I never told him. I don’t even know if he loves me. But I love him. Very much...”

So, that was that. I had loved her, but failed. Dileep had avoided her, knowing that I cared for her, but she had fallen in love with him. What a queer business this love was!

I went away–to take my plunge in the business of fighting, and to forget things. But there came a day when I thought I must come to terms with myself. I wrote to Dileep. “Kanan loves you,” I told him, “Remember this when you go home on your next leave, and make her happy. I have forgotten that I once loved her. She will be dear to my heart as your wife...”

I had meant every word of this. And so I was happy when I learnt after six months that Dileep had married Kanan. When I went home after a long time I found her beaming with happiness, and I was so glad. I spent most of my time with her, and I couldn’t believe my leave was over. When I took leave of her, she said, “I’m impatient for the day when we three will come together, and talk and laugh as in the old days.” Her heart’s ache was in her voice. “That’s going, to happen,” I said, pressing her hand, and then added “soon”.

But I knew that I was holding out a false hope. There was no sign of the end of the war. On the contrary the news which we heard soon after my return to the front indicated that if the war ended soon it would end in a defeat for the Allies. The Japanese smashed Pearl Harbour on the 7th December in 1942. And Guam, Wake Island, Hongkong, Manila, Penang, Singapore fell in rapid succession before the whirlwind onslaught of the Japanese forces. The news of the fall of Rangoon made me very uneasy. Because I knew that my brother was stationed there. The British, we learnt, fled from Rangoon, leaving the Indian soldiers to their fate. These soldiers fought valiantly, but couldn’t succeed in defending Rangoon. They fell in Japanese hands as prisoners of war.

This was sickening news, and I felt terribly worried. I received cable after cable from Kanan, asking me to give news of Dileep. But what could I tell her when I was myself in total darkness? Months dragged on, and my efforts to get news of Dileep amounted to nothing. But at last news began to trickle in. We heard that the Indian soldiers who had fallen in Japanese hands had been recognised as a free army. That thousands of new recruits from Java, Sumatra, Borneo had joined the newly-formed Azad Hind Fouj. That Subhas Chandra Bose had gone from Germany to Tokyo and entered into a pact of friendship with the Japanese Government. And that at last he had gone to Singapore and officially assumed the leadership of the Indian Army. Of course we didn’t read these things in the papers. But rumours have a way of filtering into the barracks and the mess-rooms.

When, however, I came home on leave in November 1943, Kanan showed me two letters which she had received from Dileep. He had managed to smuggle them with a Burmese refugee coming to India. It appeared from these letters that my brother was now a Brigadier in the Azad Hind Fouj. He had described in these letters the boundless enthusiasm of his army, and the phenomenal popularity of Subhas Bose. Hundreds of men came every day, he wrote, to flock under Bose’s banner, and thousands of rupees were poured at his feet. Addressing a monster meeting in Malaya Subhas had said, “I want ten crores of rupees from you.” And people had given him ten crores. The Islands of Andamans and Nicobar had been handed Over by Japan to Netaji Bose. They were now called Shahid and Surad, and the flag of Free India waved over them. “...I know how impatient you must be to meet me,” he wrote, “I too am eager to come, believe me. But hold your patience a little, dearest. We shall soon set our flag on the Red Fortof Delhi. Then we’ll meet. I will come to you wearing not the British uniform–the symbol of serfdom, but the…”

I was so moved that tears filled my eyes, and I couldn’t read the rest of the letter.

I returned to my front with a heart heavy with a sense of humiliation. My brother was a soldier in the Azad Hind Fouj fighting forour country’s freedom. And here I was, a slave driven by a foreign master. How utterly I loathed myself! But there was hope for me too, I thought. My country will be free soon. And then I shall be her proud soldier.

But this secret hope was crushed by the subsequent happenings. The Japanese began to retreat with the same lightning speed which had marked their advance. The Allies pushed on from place to place. General MacArthur moved with amazing swiftness. The Japanese fled from Rangoon leaving the Indian Army in the lurch. Netaji Bose’s Fouj fought bravely. But Rangoon fell. Brigadiar Louder looted the Azad Hind Bank. He first made a promise that the Indian soldiers would be free to return to India, but later changed his mind. All the men of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment became war prisoners in British hands.

Thus crashed a grand dream of Netaji Bose. And with it our private dream of my brother’s triumphant return. It became impossible to get news of the unfortunate men in the Azad Hind Fouj. Many of them, it was rumoured, went underground. After a few months the Government decided to hold a trial of the, leading men of the Fouj. My brother’s name wasn’t on the list. We couldn’t trace his whereabouts. At last Netaji died in a plane crash, and the curtain came down finally on a stirring drama which had begun years ago with his daring escape from his home in Calcutta. Soon afterwards India became free, and the public forgot everything about the brave soldiers of Netaji’s army.

But we couldn’t forget Dileep. We kept trying frantically to get news of him. His death wasn’t known, and we refused to believe that he had died. Didn’t people say Netaji wasn’t dead? That he was in Russia? And that he would soon come to India? So we hoped that Dileep too was living and hiding somewhere, and that he must return some day soon. Kanan clung to this hope. We nursed her hope and helped her live...

And now I had learnt from the Sikh officer that there wasn’t any hope left for us. Dileep had been killed five years ago in the battle of Rangoon. And I was going home tomorrow. I was going to pretend that I knew nothing, to talk with Kanan and laugh, to feed her hope that Dileep would come , and to give her strength to fight her battle with death on a sick-bed.

I swayed like a man walking in a dream towards the dining-hall.

And I was in a stupor like this throughout my journey by plane. I reached home, went to Kanan’s house, stood in the drawing-room talking with her parents, asked “How’s she?”, saw them shake their heads as they murmured some words, turned towards the staircase–but I had the feeling that I wasn’t awake, that I was doing all these things in my sleep...It was nearly two years since I last saw Kanan. Even then I had suspected despair in her talk, as though the springs of hope in her heart had dried up. And even then consumption had overtaken the loveliness of her body. She had looked at me so pathetically when I had taken leave. I received a few brief letters from her, but then she stopped writing to me. She had lost all her enthusiasm, I could see that. And although I wrote long letters, filling them with cheer and hope, I wasn’t sure she read them. Her father’s letters had followed a set pattern. “We are doing our best...” Sometimes he wrote: “The doctors are hopeful. But we have lost all heart. You had better lose no time in coming...” It was terrible to read this–to look at the picture of Kanan which it brought before my eyes–Kanan waiting and waiting for her husband, and clinging to life just to have a last look at him.....

And now I was going up the stairs to her room. I was going to see her after two years. I couldn’t give her the news for which she waited eagerly. On the contrary I must keep the horrid truth in my heart and wear a smile on my face. I was anxious to meet her. There was a flutter of impatience in my heart. But my steps were slow, as though my feet were heavily fettered and I moved in my sleep.

I pushed the door softly, and stepped into the room. It was dusk outside, and the curtains were drawn, and I had to strain my eyes to look around. I could see a white sheet and a slate-colour shawl on the bed in the corner away from where I stood. Where is she, I thought. But the next instant I noticed her dark hair on the white pillow. Her long illness had reduced her to the size of a small child...I suddenly remembered the first time I had met her when I had experienced the venturesomeness of young love and sought the touch of her hand...Was this the same Kanan, I wondered, with an ache in my heart. And was I the same young man? And where was Dileep now?..My feet made a shuffling movement. I had to clear my throat.

“Dileep...” I heard her faint voice. But she didn’t turn her head. She must have heard the sound of my footsteps. And she asked “Dileep?...”

I felt a stab in the heart, touched by the pathos of her voice. I closed my eyes and stood. Then I moved near her–softly. Her eyes were closed. But there was a smile on her dry, fever-scorched lips. I stood looking at her. I wondered if she was aware of me. As I bent down, wanting to caress her forehead, she opened her eyes and looked. The effort seemed to be too much for her, and her gaze seemed to reach beyond me. “Kanan, I have come,”–these words were forming on my lips when she suddenly lifted both her arms and put them around me...

“Dileep!” she murmured. “At last!...I couldn’t die until you came...O, dearest!...”

Her fingers pressed as if to draw me. She also lifted her head a little. But the next instant her hands lost their pressure, and her head fell limp on the pillow...Her eyelids trembled, and there came a faint voice from her throat, “We met at last”–and then even more faintly, “I am happy!...”

Her arms slipped. Her eyes closed. There was a slight tremor of her lips, but that too faded quickly into stillness. As though the last wave of life which had surged up in her body had suddenly ebbed out...I bent down, and stood, watching the extinguished flame...

Time stood still for me. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was too painful to accept the fact of Kanan’s death. And yet the grief seemed to touch me only superficially, like the passing scratch of a dagger. Deeper and more definite than it was a strange subtle satisfaction...She had mistaken me for my brother and in her last moments she was not alone. She had believed that she had met her beloved husband for whose return she had waited and fought with death. She had died in his arms, not mine...I had failed to make her life happy in the way I had wanted to. But I had made her death happy...