The Charmed Life/Chapter III

by Achmed Abdullah

A Fools Heart

Oft have I heard that no accident or chance
ever mars the march of events here below, and
that all moves in accordance with a plan. To
take shelter under a common bough or a drink
of the same river is alike ordained from ages
prior to our birth.
—From the letter of a Japanese Daimio to
his wife before committing hara-kari

RAPIDLY my eyes got used to the light. It came from a flickering, insincere oil-lamp held in the hands of an elderly Hindu, evidently the possessor of the soft and bulky body which I had struck when I had let myself drop.

He looked at me, and I looked at him, silently. I am quite sure we didn’t like each other. We didn’t have to say a single word to convince each other of the fact. He was an old man, but old without the slightest trace of dignity, he wore no turban, and that gave his shiny, shaven head a horribly naked look. On his forehead was a crimson caste mark—nasty-looking thing it was. His eyes were hopelessly bleared, his teeth were blackened with betel juice, his rough, gray beard was quite a stranger to comb or oil. He was a fat, ridiculous old man, with a ridiculous, squeaky little cough.

I burst out laughing, and I laughed louder when I saw the expression which crept into his red-rimmed eyes. Not that the expression was really funny. Rather this opposite. For it was one of beastly hatred, of savage joy, of sinister triumph. But, don’t you see, I wasn’t the Stephen Denton of half a year, why, of half an hour before. Right then I had forgotten all about America and Boston and regulation respectability. There seemed to be no home tradition to analyze and criticize and I belonged right there—to that flat rooftop, to the purple, choking night down below in Ibrahim Khan’s Gully, to India, to Calcutta. One blow of my fist, I said to myself, and that fat, ridiculous old savage would take an involuntary, headlong tumble from the balustrade to the blue, sticky mire of the gully. So I laughed.

But hold on. Don’t get the story wrong. I didn’t stand there, on that roof-top in the Colootallah, exactly thinking out all these impressions, detail for detail. They passed over me in a solid wave and in the fraction of a second, and, even as they swept through me, the lamp in the hands of the old man trembled a little and shot its haggard, dirty-white rays a little to the left, toward a short, squat, carved stone pillar quite close to the balustrade.

And there, breathing hard, clutching the pillar with two tiny, narrow hands, I saw a native woman—a young girl rather—doubtless she whom I had heard sing, then scream in pain. Red, cruel finger-marks were still visible on her delicate, pale-golden cheek.

Stephen Denton lit a cigar and blew out a series of rings, attempting to hang them on the chandelier, one by one.

You know (he said this with a certain, ringing, challenging seriousness) I fell in love right then and there. Sounds silly, of course. But it’s the truth. I looked at that Hindu girl, and I loved her. Such a—a—why, such a strange, inexpressible sensation came over me. It seemed suddenly that we were alone—she and I—on the roof-top in Calcutta—alone in all the world—

But never mind that I guess you know what love is.

She was hardly more than sixteen years old, and she dressed in the conventional dress of a Hindu dancer, in a sari—you know, the scarf which the Hindu woman drapes about her with a deft art not dreamed of by Fifth Avenue—of pale rose colored silk, shot with orange and violet and bordered with tiny seed-pearls. An edge of the sari hung over one round shoulder and the robe itself came just below the knee. Her face was small and round and exquisitely chiseled. Her hair was parted in the middle. It was of a glossy bluishblack, mingled with flowers and jewels and the braids came down to her ankles. A perfume, sweet, pungent, mysterious, so faint as to be little more than a suggestion, hovered about her.

Well—I stared at her. Then I remembered my manners and lifted my hand to raise my hat. It wasn’t there. I must have dropped it when I negotiated the wall and the girl, seeing my action, understanding it, forgot her pain and laughed. Such a jolly silvery, exquisite little laugh.

Ever think of the psychology of laughter? To me it has always seemed the final proof of sympathy, of humanity, even. And so that laugh, from the crimson lips of this Hindu girl, finally did the trick. I forgot all about the fat old party with the caste mark and the bleary eyes, I walked up to the girl and offend her my hand, American fashion.

“Glad to meet you,” I said in English. It was a foolish thing to say, absolutely ridiculous, but just then I couldn’t think of anything else. You see, at midnight, on the roof-top of some unknown native house in the heart of the Colootallah, together with people of an unknown race and faith, of alien tradition, alien emotions, even— what would you have said?

I struck to my native-born form of salutation, and held out my hand. She gave me hers—it felt just like some warm, downy little baby bird—and replied in English, with a certain faint nuance of mockery, “Glad to meet you, sir,” and I grinned and was about to open up a polite conversation.

You see, momentarily I had really forgotten all about that bleary-eyed old scoundrel. But he recalled himself to me almost immediately—with an exceedingly rude and, considering his age, muscular push which shoved me to one side and the girl to the other.

There he stood between us, like an exageratingly hideous Hindu idol of revenge and hatred and lust and half a dozen other assorted beastly qualities, the lamp trembling in his clawlike hand. He pointed at me, addressing the girl in a mad, jerky, helter-skelter flood of Hindustani—I didn’t understand it—which caused the girl to pale and to shake her head vigorously. It was evidence that he was accusing her of something or other, and that she was denying the accusation indignantly. And then he commenced abusing her in English, doubtless for my benefit.

I was stuffing his mouth at once with my fist, but the girl signaled to me, frantically, imploringly, “No, no”—I saw her lips shaping the words and so, temporarily I kept me peace while the old Hindu proceeded to prove that he could translate Hindu abuse into very fair English.

“Ho!” he shouted at her. “Ho! thou daughter of unthinkable begatting! Thou spawn of much filth. Thou especially illegitimate and shameless hyena! Thou this and that and once more this! By Shiva and Shiva—I shall wench thy wicked hide with the touchstone of pain and affliction! I shall—”

“Look here” I interrupted “you are getting entirely too fresh. Stow your line of talk, or—” and I made a significant gesture with my fist— would have hit him, too, if the girl had not signaled to me again—this time, and I don’t know what she wanted by it, pointing at her forehead and then back at the building which terraced toward the center of the block.

The Hindu man was too angry to notice the by-play. “O Calamity!” he went on. “O crimson shame! May Doorgha, the great goddess, cut out thy heart and feed it to a mangy pig! What shameless doing are these—O thou bazaar woman—to send word to thy lover—to have him come here, to this house, and at night? Didst thou think that I would be asleep? Thy lover—” he spat out, “and he a man of the accused foreign race, an infidel, an eater of unclean food, a cannibal of the holy cow, a swinish derider of the many gods! He—thy lover! Ah! by the Mother of the Elephant’s Trunk—thy portion shall be the pain which passeth understanding!” Suddenly he turned and addressed himself to me, “and as for thee—for thee—” He was so choked with fury that the words were gurgled and died in his throat. He positively did not know whom to insult or bully first, the girl or me. Like Balaam’s Ass, he stood there, undecided, and finally he made up his mind to attend first to the girl.

“Thou—” came an unmentionable epithet, unmentionable even among Hindus, and you know how extravagant their abuse is inclined to be, then he turned on her. His right hand still held the trembling lamp. He struck out with his left. She tried to evade him—slipped—I was too late to come to her rescue—only a glancing blow, but she fell, bumping her head smartly against the stone pillar.

She gave a pitiful little moan—and was unconscious.

Then I got mad.

I rushed up to him, lunged, and missed. You see, the old beggar danced away from me with a certain sharp, twisting agility which I wouldn’t have believed possibly in that aged, obese body of his. Also, I had to be careful—on that confounded roof-top. No use tumbling over the balustrade and breaking my neck. That wouldn’t have helped the girl any. The only chance I had was to get him against the wall on the side opposite the gully—a torn-down wall occasionally connecting the rooftop with the next layer on that maze of buildings.

Finally I managed to drive him toward the wall. I had him cornered. He stood there—the lamp still flickering in his right, its ray sharply silhouetting him against the spectral white stucco. I was quite fascinated for a moment, looking at him. The idea flushed into my brain that I was looking into the visage of something monstrous, impossible. The beastly bald skull, the caste mark, the fat, wide-humped shoulders, suggested that which was scarcely human and, struck by a sudden burst of horror, I stared into that dark, inscrutable countenance.

Then he opened his mouth—he said something, in a low voice of what was going to happen to me. It had something to do with one of his beastly, many-armed gods—I didn’t understand the allusion at the time. At all events, he pointed at the caste mark on his forehead and—

You see, I am a slow, careful sort of fighter. I hate to waste a blow. Furthermore, up to then we had all been comparatively quiet. I didn’t care to make too much noise. And I had him cornered. So, instead of rushing up like a noisy avalanche, I poised myself on my toes, squared my shoulders, drew back my right arm—and then I nearly lost the whole game.

For, quite suddenly, he brought his left hand to his mouth. He was about to shout—for help, I suppose. And then I hit him, right between the eyes, By ginger, it was a wallop.

You see, I was quite mad; and even in that fleeting moment, when I had really no time to register sensations, I could feel his skin break beneath my knuckles, the soft, pulped flesh—the blood squirting up—and, darn it, I liked the feeling!

Stephen Denton gave a strange smile.

Rather bestial, don’t you think? But then I told you I was a different man—there, on that roof-top, with purple India whispering about me—than I had been half an hour before.

Well, the old Hindu fell, unconscious, by the side of the girl. The lamp dropped from his hand. I tried to catch it, could not, and over the balustrade it went in a fantastic curve of yellow sparks, and down into the blue slime of Ibrahim Khan’s Gully where it gave a little protesting sshissh and guttered out.

So there I was, on that confounded roof-top, in utter silence, utter darkness—the moon had hidden behind a cloud-bank—and within a few feet of me was the unconscious form of the girl— the Hindu girl—with whom I had fallen in love— and I knew neither her name, nor her faith—nor anything at all about her. An adventure, don’t you think? An adventure—- to me. Fantastic, twisted, incredible! And, a few hours before, I had imagined that the greatest adventure that could ever happen to me would be to catch a fifty pound salmon, and to get away with the tale of it!

But, just then, I didn’t even consider the whole mad sequence of events in the light of adventure. It seemed all perfectly sane, perfectly possible—preordained, in a way—and I thought and acted with the utmost self-assurance and deliberation.

Was I afraid, you ask? I was not. Honestly! Sounds silly, bragging, doesn’t it? But it’s the truth. Of course I realized that my position was ugly. You see, there was that blotchy, purple darkness all about me, and a terrific, breathless silence—and what was I to do? Back across the wall? Into Ibrahim Khan’s Gully—and a run for the Hotel Semiramis? Sure, I could have jumped down. I had learned the trick in gym work, back at college—to land on my toes, slightly bending my back and my legs.

But I didn’t take that chance. I could not. For there was the girl, and I loved her. She was dear to me—very dear—dearer than my life, my salvation—dearer—what’s the old saying?—yes, dearer than the dwelling of kings! Carefully, slowly I crept across to her side, for I didn’t want to step on the old Hindu. I didn’t want to recall him from his trance before I was ready for him, before I had decided exactly what to do.

I stooped down and touched the girl’s soft little face. The touch went through me like an electric thrill. What was I to do? She was breathing, but quite unconscious. I had no way, no time to revive her.

Should I take her with me across the balustrade? Impossible. I couldn’t drag her into the gully like a bag of flour, nor was it feasible for me to go down first—wouldn’t be able to reach and lift her from below.

I was sure of only one thing. I wouldn’t leave without her—without her I wouldn’t leave that roof-top, the Colootallah, nor Calcutta, nor India.

I loved her. I wanted her. I would die for her. The source of that rash courage will ever be to me an inexplicable mystery. For, don’t you see, I had always lived a perfectly sheltered life back in Boston, with the antimacassars and the walnut furniture and the volumes of Emerson and Thoreau. But I had resolved to take that girl with me. No more, nor less!

So I squatted there, by the side of the girl, considering. It is strange how trivial things impinge on the consciousness in such moments with a shock of something important, immense. There was just a slight noise—a soft tckk-tckktckk— but, somehow, I knew what it was. It was the noise of a scorpion scuttling across the roof— to the left of me—towards the old Hindu.

I knew just exactly what would happen— tried my best, with a sharp hiss, to prevent it—but it did happen. The little scorpion, if, indeed, it was one—perhaps it was only a mouse—scurried across the old Hindu’s face—startled him into consciousness.

He sat up. He gave a shout for help—just one shout. I was one top of him the very next second—but I could not clutch that shout out of the air—it echoed and reverberated among the terraced walls, sharp, metallic. It tore through the gloom like the point of a knife.

I had him down on his back again in the twinkling of an eye, had him gagged securely with my handkerchief and the heavy leather gloves I carried in my pocket. Working feverishly, I tore the silk scarf from the girl’s shoulder, tore off my coat, my necktie—and had him tied before he knew what was happening to him.

Then I sat up and listened. With a little gray thrill of horror I realized that the cry for help had been heard, that the crisis was upon me. Far in the bowels of that crazy mass of terrace buildings I heard confused voices—footsteps.

Tap-tap-tap—naked feet stepping gingerly on cold stone slabs.

A dozen questions leaped to my brain. What could I do? How? The old man—myself—the girl—

Yes! The girl whom I loved. At that moment I longed for two things, two things of Western civilization: a revolver and a box of matches. But I had neither the one nor the other about me. All I had was a knife, a pretty good knife, too, very much like an old-fashion Bowie. I had bought it the day I left America, in a spirit of jest, rather than with the expectation of using it.

The footsteps came nearer and nearer from the direction of the wall which connected the rooftop with the next building. I looked about me, for a place to hide the girl, to hide myself.

And the old man! Over the wall with him, I decided brutally, and I dragged at his feet—he was heavy, very heavy—and then I desisted. For the footsteps came nearer, ever nearer; also excited voices in an unintelligible language.

For a moment the voices were drowned in a round, metallic burst of sound. Banng! came the bell from the Presbyterian Church in Old Court House Street, tolling the quarter after midnight. Then, when the tolling had trembled away, came once again the sounds—nearer, nearer—voices, footsteps. and also a faint crackling of steel, the swish of a scabbard scraping across stone flags.

And the darkness was about me like a heavy, woolen garment.

Stephen Denton smiled, quizzically, incongruously.

Don’t you see? He continued when he saw the expression of surprise on my face, the thing was really quite funny. The adventure itself seemed to me—oh, sort of inevitable, like a Greek drama: and as to the darkness—why, old man, that moon there behind the cloud-bank reminded me of some dear old chaperone at a ball at Magnolia. Prime her with a ball of knitting wool, a glass of near-soft punch, and pop her into a nice warm conservatory, and she’ll remain there until the band plays “Good Night, Ladies” and not bother the young idea. Get it? So is was with that moon. Kept away, left everything blotchy, dark side of by itself. Me and the girl, and the old man and the whole damned rooftop.

Yes, I thought of all that at the time. But I acted, even as I thought, as if I had two sets of nerve-controls, working separately from each other. I moved about in the darkness, feverishly, searching for some hiding-place big enough to hold one or all of us—the footsteps and the voices were coming nearer all the time—and finally I discovered that the balustrade, built out towards the roof-top, formed a sort of box for a length of about six feet. Did I put the girl inside? You bet your life I did not! I told you I wasn’t going to leave her ever again. I stuck the old man inside, handled him as I would a bundle of useless, dirty rags; and the next moment, with the strength and haste of desperation, I picked up the unconscious girl, and, holding her in my arms, I squeezed myself behind the carved stone pillar against which she had been leaning when I had burst upon the scene. The place was just large enough to hold us—me and her—pressed tight against me.

Of course, the whole thing took less time than it takes me to tell it.

So, there I was, holding that little Hindu girl in my arms—and—why, man, I loved her—unless the repetition of that detail bores you—my arms touched the soft curves of her young shoulders.

It was quite dark, as I told you. But there, resting on my left arm, was her little face, like an opening flower. Only a slip of a girl, her youthful incompleteness just a lovely sketch for something larger, finer, more splendid—just a mass of happy, seductive hints, with the high-lights yet missing.

That’s it! You guessed it first time! I kissed her—either my last kiss on this earth I said to myself; or if there was any truth in that charmed life hope, my first kiss—given, taken rather, in real love.

And, as I pressed her closer against me in the ecstasy of the moment—you see, I had forgotten all about the approaching footsteps, I am such a careless fellow—I felt as if something was giving way behind me. Quickly I squirmed, a few inches to the right—there wasn’t so very much room, and at the same moment a door opened up in the wall in back of the pillar, leading up from somewhere in that crazy maze of a building.

The swing of the door missed me by a fraction of an inch—I sucked in my breath—and two men came out on the roof-top carrying naked blades.

No! I didn’t see the blades, but both, one after the other, scraped against me, cutting through trousers and underwear like razors.

They wounded me slightly, but I made neither motion nor outcry. For there, in my arms was the girl who was dearest to me in all the world; and so, just for luck, I bent down and kissed her again.