Page 80 - Train to Pakistan

The headlights of the car coming in, lit the room once more. The car stopped
outside the veranda. Hukum Chand heard voices of men and women, then the
jingle of bells. He sat up and looked through the wire-gauze door. It was the
party of musicians, the old woman and the girl prostitute. He had forgotten about

them.
‘Bairah.’

‘Huzoor.’
‘Tell the driver to take the musicians and the old woman back. And … let the
servants sleep in their quarters. If I need them, I will send for them.’
Hukum Chand felt a little stupid being caught like that. The servants would

certainly laugh about it. But he did not care. He poured himself another whisky.
The servants started moving out before the bearer came to speak to them. The

lamp in the next room was removed. The driver started the car again. He
switched on the headlights and switched them off again. The old woman would
not get in the car and began to argue with the bearer. Her voice rose higher and

higher till it passed the bounds of argument and addressed itself to the magistrate
inside the room.
‘May your government go on forever. May your pen inscribe figures of

thousands—nay, hundreds of thousands.’
Hukum Chand lost his temper. ‘Go!’ he shouted. ‘You have to pay my debt of
the other day. Go! Bearer, send her away!’

The woman’s voice came down. She was quickly hustled into the car. The car
went out, leaving only the flickering yellow light of the oil lamp beside Hukum
Chand’s bed. He rose, picked up the lamp and the table, and put them in the

corner by the door. The moth circled round the glass chimney, hitting the wall on
either side. The geckos crawled down from the ceiling to the wall near the lamp.
As the moth alighted on the wall, one of the geckos crept up stealthily behind it,

pounced, and caught it fluttering in its jaws. Hukum Chand watched the whole
thing with bland indifference.
The door opened and shut gently. A small dark figure slid into the room. The

silver sequins on the girl’s sari twinkled in the lamplight and sent a hundred
spots of light playing on the walls and the ceiling. Hukum Chand turned around.
The girl stood staring at him with her large black eyes. The diamond in her nose

glittered brightly. She looked thoroughly frightened.
‘Come,’ said the magistrate, making room for her beside him and holding out