He Knows:, a short story

He Knows:

He knows: his name is Chandra, is one of the things he knows. He has heard it spoken, and he knows it was meant for him. His name. Spoken by the one person he loved, remembers loving, remembers loving him, remembers leaving. To fetch food, she said, stay here. That was the last he ever heard her say. Chandra.

Other things he knows: he knows what you can eat, and what you can not, what tastes good, what does not, what will make you sick, what will not. He knows: the hunger that has grown to pain, dull, deep, that follows him everywhere; he knows his alley, the one that houses his shelter; he knows dust, he knows heat, he knows the suspicious eyes of strangers, he knows the satisfaction of water.

He knows: the sun rising is morning, is fresh hunger, he knows the sun sinking into dark is night, is sleep, is un-knowing, is freedom, where you can dream of food, no longer haunted by the painful shadow.

The sun, the monster sun, orange and gigantic beyond the rim of roof-tops and hot already, bakes the dream away and prompts him awake with unfriendly beams. He was eating: fish, fried fish, crisp and dripping with spicy oil, a mountain of rice in his hand and fried fish, always eating in his dream, and most of the time fried fish with rice, good to put in your mouth, to chew, to swallow fried fish.

His eyes open upon the many brown strands above him criss-crossing into the jute sack that is ceiling and roof both. To keep the sky out, to keep his sky in. To keep the sun out, but it’s no good against rain. He sits up, feels his hair matted against his skull, stiff from dust and dried sweat. He runs small, bony, dirty fingers through it, pulls it out and back over his shoulders. He rubs his eyes. He is thirsty. His nose comes awake too, and with it the many smells stirring around him in the new sun. They are of urine and disease and of many bodies but he knows no names for them, and is not bothered by them, used to them, alley smells, morning smells.

He stretches, arms then legs where he sits, lifts the jute flap that is door and peaks out at the yellow ground, then crawls out on hands and knees and stands up in the dusty dirt on bare feet on cracked soles. It has not rained for six weeks in Calcutta. The dust is everywhere, the heat too. He thinks of water, a greater pain even greater than hunger this morning is his thirst. He thinks of water and thinks of the river. Of the river water, brown and warm. It burns the stomach, and always comes back up with the burning. He knows: the burning, but also the sweet, brown liquid in his throat before the burning and almost sets out for the river. But the memory of pain is stronger, still. It holds him. He stands motionless in the dusty heat. The sun has cleared the rim now like a giant’s angry eye.

A foraging fly lands on his cheek. He either ignores it or does not notice until it climbs onto his eyelid when he drives it away with his hand. The fly leaves only long enough to avoid the brown fingers then lands again. He ignores it or does not notice, for now he thinks only of water, cool clear water, brown painful water, and turns and walks away from the river to not be tempted by it, yet.

He walks up the alley of dry, trodden mud, of dirt and hovels on both sides, hugging larger walls. It is stirring, stretching, peeking out from under jute-laps, thirsting, hungering much like him, but he thinks not of this, he things of long ago now, after the rains, when he saw women wash themselves in water, water. Women and their children splashing water on the ground, pouring water in their hair. Washing themselves, and not even drinking the water. No one is washing themselves now. Dirty bodies crawl out from their lean-tos and stand and stretch and eye him if not with suspicion at least with dislike for he is a motherless thief too quick to catch but as hungry as they are so they don’t hate him, just dislike, distrust, keep an eye on.

Others have yet to rise and he hears stirrings, sighs, coughs, moans and the soft cries of some babies too weak to cry properly. Some glances land on his feet as he passes their shelter, other eyes have yet to take an interest but still look up into their personal skies and see nothing else, ears ignoring his passing as he makes for the end of the ally and the street beyond.

Yet other eyes see nothing at all. Never will.

Some with no eyes.

Some hands he pass are folding cloth and searching the ground for dropped or missing things, some hands are combing dirt out of hair, hands preparing for the day as he wills himself up the alley and away from the river, the Hooghly, the brown, constant whisper behind him, the canvas on which the din of Brabourne Road ahead plays. He knows: Hooghly river water burns. But all he can think about is water, not brown, not Hooghly, but water, clear, cool water as he steps onto Brabourne Road.

He is not tall, five feet barely. He is twelve and thin. High, brown cheeks jut out from under eyes that wander in search of water. He weaves between taller things, legs, carts, bicycles. Shop keepers see him come and step out in front of their wares. They know him, dislike him, distrust him, have seen him steal their fruit, their bread, their trinkets, have seen him outrun them, have seen him vanish in the labyrinth of shacks and hovels his kind call home. They see him come and move to protect. He knows: they will not give him water. Then he remembers, turns, weaves closer to the wall and makes for the Howrah bridge. He remembers water. He knows: where he is going.

He steps onto the bridge. Already, cars honk, buses moan and strain under their loads, and fresh heat hangs above the bridge like a brown mist, like his jute sack roof. The bridge is long. He cannot see the other end through the haze. He looks down at the river below and from this high feels safe from it and the burning water. But he can still hear it whisper and mid bridge he stops to listen and to look.

The Hooghly moves slowly below him. He knows: swirls mean rocks below the surface. Or sunken boats. Or trunks of trees. Here and there the river gurgles, sighs, sparkles. He listens. He hears it well despite the traffic behind him and for a breath, maybe two, the river talks to him, invites him, and he forgets his thirst. He leans over the railing and lets his arms fall down, hangs like an empty sack on the metal railing, lets his arms grow heavy and wonder at how heavy they feel. His hair, too, falls forward and down and long strands surround his arms and he watches the brown river through the many tiny trunks of hair between eyes and water. Should he fall, would the river know?

He almost does. A fat woman brushes up against him and almost pushes him over. He stands up, startled at his almost fall and watches the monstrous rump waddle down the bridge away from him. He runs and gives the woman an hard shove. She topples over and he runs the other way. He does not turn to see the result, not until he is safely away but then there are too many people between him and the rump and he sees nothing. He slows down and walks, right hand on the metal railing. He can see the other end of the bridge now.

He knows: where he is going. Down to Howrah Station. With its many travelers and wash rooms. He will find water there, and perhaps food. Water, if he can get past the attendants, food if he can beg it or take it.

He knows: they hate him. The uniformed attendants, some not much older than he is in their polished shoes and white trousers, their painted smiles and hostile eyes. In their brown shirts and clean hair. In their after shave which smells like fat rumped women smell. With their quick glances, quick to spot him, quick to get in his way, quick to call the guards or the police if needed. They know him and hate him and they guard his water.

He crosses the street in front of the station and steps into the domed shadow. For a moment he stands still just inside while his eyes adjust to the lesser light, while his pupils grow to take it in. The noise of many trains are arriving. He knows: unfriendly travelers who have not traveled far and have no bags, just their purses or brief cases, and not as unfriendly as travelers who have traveled far and who have many bags and who stand on the platform and look up at the ceiling and who point and tell each other what they see with big eyes.

Those all come. Others go. He watches children with quick eyes and clean clothes as they run to keep up with parents. They carry little satchels and their parents lug on large bags. He has wondered where they go, what could lie down the two steel rails where the black engine sits, wheels for feet, snorting steam and impatient to get going. Today he does not wonder. Today he thinks only of water.

He can see the tracks snake away out of the shadowed dome and into the sun where they light up and go on for somewhere with water and food. The tracks look like two lines of silver in the sun, watery lines of silver. The heat make them wave before they all bend left and are gone. He knows: where they are going. Into the heat. Into somewhere warm where they have water, and many bags. He sees the washing room attendants, and sees that they see him. They mean to keep him away from his water.

A parent, a very large and loud one, buys a bottle of juice for his child. The child shifts impatiently and holds his hands up for the bottle. The vendor hands the bottle to the parent who in turn hands it to the child who in turn clutches it, not ten feet from where he stands. The parent looks for coins in his pocket to pay the vendor. He sees the large hand dive into the side of the trousers and rummage around. He hears the tinkle of metal, the parent scoops up a handful of coins and chooses some, hands them to the vendor. The child has not begun drinking yet, he does not understand why, then sees why. The child tries to open the cap and cannot. The child is waiting for the parent to open it for him, but the parent is not quite finished with the vendor yet, is waiting for some coins in return. Chandra steps up to the child, seizes the bottle with both of his hands, yanks hard and runs.

The child is too stunned to scream. The parent is too busy to notice. The vendor looks for the right coins for change. But the attendant closest to him has seen, and with excitement shining in his eyes points at him and screams, “Thief! Thief!”

He knows: The heat and the cold of the jail cell. The mice and sometimes rats that scurry around him in the darkness and sometimes across. The many insects that have made the jail their home and which sometimes cover the floor so you cannot help but step on them with a squish and your sole gets wet and you have to scrape it off, sometimes to eat it. He does not want to go there, but knows: he will if he is caught.

His legs know: where to go, where to run. He is already past those whose heads turn at the attendant’s cry. He is past the guards, he is past the portieres, he is past the two policemen outside and still he runs, the bottle, slippery and cold, but tucked firmly under his arm. He runs back toward the bridge, then down the bank to the river. Past many hovels, through a small copse of palm across sand and pebble and back upon dry grass to his right into the shadow of more trees before he stops. He turns to make sure no one follows. No one does.

He knows: the sweetness of juice. He has stolen before, often. Bottles, half drunk and sitting on the floor beside sweaty travelers, almost empty bottles in children’s hands, unopened bottles from the vendors’ counters. He knows: the sweetness of cold juice. He brings his treasure out from under his arm and holds the cold glass against his chin. He does not open the bottle right away. He wants to feel the chilled glass, he wants to dream a while before he brings the real liquid to his real throat.

He hears: feet crushing grass behind him, but dreams of cold, sweet juice too hard to hear them in time. A dirty, strong arm is around his throat squeezing the air away. Two more arms, both with hands seize the bottle and tears it away. “It is mine!” he screams, but no sound comes. No air, no breath, no sound. The arm lets up and he falls to the ground, tears in his eyes, from pain, from humiliation. He can only watch as the two boys share the cold juice between them, white teeth flashing in the sun, dark eyes casting glances at him, voices laughing at him.

They finish the bottle and tell him how good it tasted and how thirsty they were and how nice it was of him to bring it to them, then the taller of the two takes the empty bottle to the river’s edge where he fills it with brown water. This he gives to Chandra. The voices laugh again. Chandra knows: he would kill them both if he could.

The two boys walk off, talking loudly, look back at Chandra now and then, then climb the bank and vanish. Chandra is left with the bottle, warm now with brown river water. He knows: he must not drink.

But he drinks. He cannot deny his throat, so recently promised so much by the cold bottle against his chin. He drinks and for a wonderful moment he only feels liquid against his tongue, now falling back into his throat, heading down into his belly. Which revolts. Soon by burning. Then by ejection.

There is nothing but water to vomit and it hurts.

He coughs and heaves until he is all empty. His stomach still burns but there is nothing to scratch, noting to still the burning. He cries again, this time from the pain, hates himself for crying. Waits for it to stop. He looks at the grass by his feet. Looks hard, so hard he does not feel his stomach, so hard at each single yellow strand that each furrow, each crack in each blade stands out, so hard that the dead grass comes alive and he wonders if grass feels any pain from all the being stepped on.

He knows: what he must do. Return to the station. Slink past the attendants, drink some water, still the burning with cold, clear water. He climbs the bank and reaches once again the street and heads back for the station. Approaching, he looks around for travelers to melt in with to hide among but the rush hour is over and the sidewalk is now less peopled and he can be seen. He waits for a group of school children coming his way, hoping.

“There he is!”

He looks back in the direction of the cry and sees the washing room attendant pointing at him and yelling at the two policemen to his right. At first the policemen do nothing, just stare at the attendant and then at him. “Thief! Thief!” cries the attendant again and the policemen look at each other and decide to give chase. Chandra turns and runs.

These policemen are young and now that they have made up their mind to catch him they are very fast, and even though Chandra is quick, they gain on him. Chandra reaches the bridge again, and darts again down the slope toward the river. By the time he reaches the water he looks back and one of the policemen is already charging down the slope, spilling stones with each step. Little avalanches of rock heading for the river, little clouds of dust marking their path.

And now he only knows running. Empty, burning, hot, he runs. Longer legs, booted feet catching up from behind. The other policeman, the one still at the top of the bank, runs too. On even and paved ground much faster than Chandra does, to cut him off.

His feet slip in sand then he reaches rocks and small stones and they sting and hurt from the many sharp edges they seem to find but must ignore. He knows: he will not go back to jail.

The second policeman is half running half sliding down the bank ahead of him, the first is closer still behind and he is in a vice. There is only the river and he cannot swim.

He knows: he will not go back to jail.

Bleeding feet follow his command and they turn left carry him into the yellow water. Soft mud at first, a pleasure to his feed. Slippery. Suddenly deep here, no bottom for feet to find. He flails and sinks. Sees nothing but yellow. Must breathe and does. Fills his lungs with warm water. Fills them with burning and must cough. But there is no air for coughing and all he finds is more water.

An eddy finds and caries him to the surface and for a breath, for two, there is air which he coughs water into then gulps with hurting lungs before the eddy deserts him and he sinks again into a determined river and he feels himself carried away. He knows: he must not breathe, it will kill him now, and he refuses to breathe to die. He becomes the not breathing, hears his heart in his ears, pounding fast and loud, a panic in his chest. He must breathe but has become the non breathing. Then his lungs cease to comply, take over, and he breathes a chestful of water, warm, murky, and void of usable oxygen. He steps across a boundary and into darkness.

The river tires of him and brings him to the surface and up against the side of the boat. The man in the boat, a face glistening with sweat for he is too thickly dressed for this heat, for working a boat in this sun, first hears the surfacing body, thinks it’s a large fish or some driftwood, something, then hears it again, not wood, softer. The woman hears it too, sees it and points it out to her husband with a little yelp that is not quite her husband’s name. He looks and sees it too, reaches for it and finds long, black hair and pulls, and finds arms, and pulls and with some effort brings the little boy aboard. The wet body slipping into the bottom of the boat looks dead, but then begins to cough violently, coughing yellow water splashing the man’s clean shoes and trousers, splashing the bottom of his wife’s sari, white and shining in the sun, as she moves closer to look at him forgetting about her clothes. The boy opens his eyes.

He knows: he is alive.

He looks into the sun. He is all burning, stomach, lungs, feet, and eyes. He tries to move but cannot, cannot get a hold of his arms, his legs, his head, only eyelids comply. Blinks to shut the sun out. Can feel the hard boards of the boat against his back. Can smell the water all around. Opens his eyes again. The man moves between his eyes and the sun and becomes a towering darkness with a possibly a smile. Chandra sees him but does not understand.

The man says to his wife, “I think he sees me.”

He tries to but does not understand what he sees. Then he sees that the possibly a smile is a smile and knows: the blackness is a man and the hardness in his back is a boat. He hears the river in all directions, under him as well, barely a fingers width from his back, no more the canvas of sound on which the rest of the world is painted but has become the world itself. He knows: he is on the river, on top of it and moving. In a boat.

The man turns to his wife and out of the sun and Chandra has to shut his eyes again to shield his eyes. The burning returns and he begins to cough again. More water is coming from his lungs and from his stomach and he feels as if the water is being torn from him against its will, it is holding so fast to the inside of him, refusing to let go, leaving wounds as he forces it to.

The man whispers to his wife and she nods in agreement. The man rearranges Chandra and the boy moans when he is touched. He places him at the feet of his wife and again picks up old and whitened oars. He works hard to bring the boat around, then back up river all the way to his landing, their journey now abandoned. Brings the boy to his house. Carries him upstairs to a spare bedroom, places him on the bed, gently. Hears the boy moan.

The boy knows: he is dying. The burning will not leave his lungs nor his stomach. His hands have begun to swell and his arms and legs burn too. He cannot be touched. He sees the man and his wife, hears them talk to each other, but does not understand. He sees the servants and feels the cool of water dipped cloth against his skin, cool that almost instantly turns painful his skin is that tender, but does not understand. He sees the doctor, an old man in a long white frock with a long white beard but almost no hair that listens to his heart and measures his pulse and shakes his head, but does not understand. He moans and turns often as if he could turn away from his burning body. He falls away into blackness again, and surfaces later. Hours, perhaps days.

The room is small, simple. The linen is clean. The curtains are fine and white and they shiver in the soft wind. The shadow in the room is soft and cool. The bed too is soft, but it burns his skin. He shifts again to escape the pain, to fresh pain. The water is cool and sweet, but burns his throat. Sometimes the wife, sometimes a servant, sometimes the man dabs his forehead and lips with the cool water and sometimes they feed him soft mouthfuls with a spoon. Sometimes juice, sometimes tea, sometimes bread.

Later, days, perhaps weeks, the water stops hurting. It remains cool in his throat and he can swallow without pain. His hands are their normal size and his skin no longer burns, not even when he moves, and he sees that the man and the wife and the doctor no longer frown when they look at him but they smile, as do the servants, and he understands now. He knows: he will live.

She is a stranger in a clean sari. He is a stranger in a clean suit. The servants are strangers in their working clothes. The man and the woman speak to him. He does not answer. But they see that he sees now and are asking questions of him. What is his name? Where does he live? Does he have parents?

“Chandra,” he says finally.

“Chandra,” they repeat with smiles. “Chandra.”

He wakes up early to see the wife asleep in a chair by his bed. The city is still, it is barely light outside. A slight breeze moves the curtains in the open window and he moves silently out of the soft bed and onto the carpeted floor. He looks at the sleeping wife and steals out of the bedroom. He finds water in the kitchen and finds bread in the earthen pantry. He listens for but hears nobody. None of the servants are up yet. He folds the thin bread and looks around for something to carry it in. He sees a cloth purse on the table. He opens it and sees a small mirror, a comb, some napkins, a wallet with papers and money. He stuffs the bread into the purse and shoulders it. He looks around for what else can be easily carried. Nothing in the kitchen. He steals into the man’s and wife’s bedroom and sees the sleeping man. He sees his gold watch on the bedside table. He takes it and puts it in the purse. He feels the man’s trousers for money, finds and takes several bills. He takes a gold chain from the table on the other side of the bed. The man stirs but does not waken. He leaves the house and walks into the not yet awake city. He knows: he is rich.

He does not know: where he is.

There are none of his kind here, not yet anyway. He sees a street cleaner with a tired broom, he sees a baker working in his shop. He sees other vendors unlocking their screens, setting up tables. He hurries down the street. He sees none of his kind and does not know: which way to go.

Then he hears the river. He walks toward it, finds it and onto a smaller bridge. He crosses and sees Howrah bridge far down river. He knows: where to go.

As he follows the river bank the sun rises, huge and hot. He clutches the purse under his arm and knows: he can buy juice and food with the money. A soft hunger stirs in his belly. Not as pain, he has eaten recently, this hunger is almost pleasant, knowing too that he can easily still it. He looks for a vendor, fruit or bread or juice. Sees one.

He walks up to the stand where the vendor, who does not recognize him and who does not step in front of his wares to protect them, is placing fruit and bread onto a large white cloth for sale. He opens the purse and looks for money. There are no coins, only bills and he does not understand their worth. He finds a large blue and green note and hands it to the vendor. “Juice,” he says.

The old man, a large face of leathery wrinkles and slow, watery eyes stops his arranging and takes the note. He then looks at him and at the note he has been handed. “Where did you get this?” he asks, and shows it to Chandra.

“Juice,” says Chandra again.

The old man turns to walk into the store. Chandra sees he is about to walk away with his money and snatches the note back from the man’s hand. The old man looks back at him. “I’m not taking your money. I’m getting your juice,” he says. Chandra does not hand him the bill, but waits for the man to fetch his juice. He waits.

The man is slow in returning. Chandra thinks of cold juice and is thirsty now. He does not understand why the man is not back yet. The beaded door where the man entered his shop still sways from letting him through. Chandra waits. Clutches the note in his hand and waits.

“Here he is,” says the vendor who arrives from behind him, not from the beaded door, along with the policeman. Chandra is too surprised to escape. The policeman has a quick and strong hold on him and his purse. The grip hurts his shoulder. The old vendor looks very pleased, standing back, arms folded. Chandra looks up at the policeman and sees hostile eyes, dark. He knows: he is not going to jail, and he lunges with all his strength away from the hand, away from jail. The strap of the purse breaks and leaves the policeman holding all his money and his gold while he runs as fast as he can, again toward the river, toward the alleys of his kind where he can vanish.

He knows: he is too quick to catch.

Hi reaches Howrah bridge by noon and a little later his own alley. He finds his nook between two cardboard walls. It is still his, the sack is still his roof. They would not let someone else take his home, not his kind. He lies down on the cardboard that serves as mattress and looks up at the jute criss crossing and through it at the sky above. Someone is cooking food, not close, the smell is only faint. His hunger is not bad. His thirst is not bad. He falls asleep. His sleep is deep and dreamless.

He is woken by the quiet. He has slept later than usual by the sun, but the alley is quiet. All quiet. Too quiet. They have found him. They stand outside his shelter when he crawls out to see about the quiet. He sees many eyes hiding behind burlaps and boards. They will not let him escape. Two men lift him up and he knows: he can not escape.

The cell is small and very hot. There is only Chandra and the stone walls. Only Chandra and the high, barred opening which shows the ground. If he stands as tall as he can he can see feet move across the courtyard, yellow and dusty. Little clouds follow the shuffling feet. Two days and two nights. They give water and mouthfuls of dark bread. On the third day they bring him out of the cell and into a larger room. The vendor is there, who didn’t give him his juice. The man and his wife in the boat are there and they look at him and the man nods. The wife begins to cry. They bring him back to the cell and turn the lock. Iron echoes against iron.

The water he gets is warm and brown. The burning returns. He burns at night and cannot sleep. He burns during the day and sometimes cries from the pain. Every day just a mouthful or two of brown bread and brown water. He sees the river and the boat that saved him. But there is no river here, and no boat.

He is brought into a large, light room. There are two large brown fans in the high ceiling spinning slowly and stirring the air all the way down to his head. He looks up at the fans then up at a man with long white hair and a wooden hammer who sits behind a high bench. He burns too much to understand what is said or why he is there. He is brought back to the cell where two guards tie his hands and feet to the cell door and begin to beat him with their belts. They do not stop. After a while he does not feel the pain. And he does not feel them untie him, nor does he feel them carrying him out into the night and down to the river where they leave him to die.

The sun climbs over the buildings and light the many flies that feast on the small pile of sores by the rivers edge. He does not notice, nor does he stir although an attentive eye would detect shallow breathing.

The evening brings relief from the sun. He moves slightly but is told to stop by the pain. He knows: if he stays here he will die.

He sees the boat that saved him from the river and stands on bleeding legs. Eyes follow his effort and ears catch his moaning. No one helps him. Not when the police has put him there to die. They know better than to get involved. He sees the boat and looks around to find it. It is not there. He begins to walk. North. Each step is painful but he does not want to die. He sees the boat and sees the woman and he knows: kindness. He feels the cool water on his lips and sees the woman smiling and he takes another step in her direction. He sees the man in the boat smiling down at him against the sun and takes another step in his direction.

Evening people see him but shy from him. Some take him for a leper child, sores bleeding. Others want nothing to do with death. He staggers on.

It is nearly light when he sees the boat at last, it is there, tied to the little dock. He sees the path that leads up to their house, and he knows: where he is. He staggers up the path, tries to knock on the door but is too weak to make a sound. Instead he lies down, curls like a bony dog on the man’s and woman’s doorstep and knows: he will be found by her kindness.

Thoughts? I'd like to them.
Ulf Wolf

Home Stories Novels Craft Songs Poems Links Search Happiness