The Unrealist

I

THE Deputy Collector, Reggie Tring, sat in his shirt sleeves writing in his office in his bungalow in Iruporei. It was midday and a Sunday in June, and the doors and windows, which had warped and shrunk in the heat, were shut to keep out the hot, dusty wind. Little heaps of gritty dust crept through the crevices and collected on the sills. It was blown by a wind which brought no coolness and which only tried the temper. The punkah of Japanese matting swayed and flapped overhead in a hopeless fashion. The pulley over which the rope passed through the wall to the coolie squatting outside made a little squeaking at each stroke.

Tring picked up and read what he had just written. ‘Hindu and Mohammedan, Pariah and Brahmin, are united firmly by a common bond — that forged by their aspiration to political freedom. Then let India gird her loins and, by wielding the powerful weapon of the vote, press on to the full realization of Democracy.’

He liked it. It was the peroration of an essay which he had decided to call ‘A Mess of Pottage.’ He read it again and liked it more. He arranged the sheets which he had written, squared them with meticulous care, tied them with a piece of pink office tape, and slipped them into a drawer, to repose there, one of a heap of similar manuscripts.

It was a harmless hobby, this of Tring’s. Some day he wondered whether he might not have them published as a book to appeal to the few. In the meanwhile he sent them occasionally to a magazine of advanced thought and limited circulation called the Modern World. So far they had always been returned.

He leaned back in his chair, and as he did so a sheet of paper stuck to his forearm, detached itself, and fluttered to the floor. He did not bother to pick it up. The effort was too great, and someone would come along eventually and do it for him. In any case it was not important; it was only the rough outline of a judgment which he had finished writing that morning in a case which he had heard the day before. It was a rather involved and complicated case of land inheritance and Hindu family law in which the witnesses had lied more exasperatingly and unoriginally than usual.

He looked wearily at the sheet of paper. It lifted a corner and skittered across the matting at each puff of the punkah. It halted under the lee of the desk, and when it was obviously going no farther Tring turned his attention to his finger nails. They were sore and the quicks were lifting in the intense dry heat. He was accustomed to their doing that as one of the minor discomforts of the hot season. When the sun blazed down pitilessly and the only clouds were the yellow clouds of gritty dust gathered up over mile after mile of heat-baked plain, with the apparent intention of getting into his hair and eyes, of filtering in gray heaps under the sills of his doors and windows, of getting into his tobacco and making his pipe stem gritty to his teeth, he, Reggie Tring, lonely and isolated in Iruporei, seemed to be the uncomfortable object of it all.

He got up and walked to the window. The wind was still raging outside and the dust pattered on the panes like raindrops. The trees, bare and stripped of leaves, waved dry bones of branches; the leaves, burned hard and brown, swirled in spirals where the dust devils danced. Under the meagre shadow of his compound walls lay three or four panting goats. They always chose that place, and nothing would keep them out. The earth was trampled by their sharp little feet to make more dust fuel for the bitter wind, and over them hung the sour smell of their droppings.

Tring wondered idly whether he would be able to take leave. He thought with longing of the green hills of Ootacamund and the rain whipping in over the rolling turf of the downs, where rhododendrons grew in the sheltered folds. He longed for the refreshing chill of the Nilgiris, — the Blue Hills, — only a matter of hours away, for wood fires and the quiet companionship of his own race and kind. He had applied for leave, and within ten days, if it was granted, he would be breathing the rare, unspoiled air of the hills.

In the bare branches of a neem tree, the koel, the brain-fever bird, ground out its harsh two-note song, repeated and repeated until the brain reeled and cried for respite.

Times were troubled, and Tring found himself the only Englishman in Iruporei. There were whisperings in the bazaars of which the deafest could not be unaware. They were not the stirring of incipient nationalism, but the outcome of jealousy of religion for religion. The great Mohammedan festival of Bakr’Id was at hand, and a chance word, a fancied slight, might serve to set the city aflame and to throw the two great classes of inhabitants — Hindu and Mohammedan — into rioting and bloodshed. Bakr’Id was always an anxious time in Iruporei, for then the Mohammedan had full license to slaughter cows and goats, a practice which the Hindu viewed with religious horror.

Tring was tired. For the past six months he had seen this coming and he wondered how far it was going to go. It had started with plans for rebuilding the walls of the mosque and the extension of its bounds. By an odd coincidence the tomb of a Hindu saint was discovered on the ground over which the mosque trustees intended to build. For months Tring had tried to find a solution of the problem, and now had come deadlock, tempers short, minds inflamed, and both parties ready to strike at a word. He had used all his tact, and now he could do no more than wait for the storm to break if it would.

Tring left his window and went wearily back to his desk. There seemed to be no way out, and he made up his mind that trouble was bound to come. How or where it would break out, neither he nor anyone else could say. It would run like fire in dry grass through the bazaars, and it would bring the ruffianly element out of the slums and lanes of the city in the hope of loot. Tring stabbed viciously at a piece of blotting paper with his pencil. The point broke. Things snapped off short if you tried them too far. The Hindu-Mohammedan troubles in the city had got beyond his control. Only by luck could he scrape through. It was all futile anyhow.

‘Divide et impera.’ Tring laughed a little bitterly. It was the taunt which the half-baked lawyers would throw at him and his kind when trouble eventually came.

‘Divide and rule.’ Ha, ha, ha! The joke was on him and almost too rich not to share. Set race and race at each other’s throats to make the ruling more easy. The last six months rose up to mock him — the whole infantile dispute with neither side disposed to move an inch to help.

He picked up his pencil again to go over his emergency riot scheme. The wooden point slid blankly over the paper. He looked at it in disgust.

‘ Divide et impera cum pencil fracto’— and why the devil did he put in a preposition where an ablative absolute should do the trick? What the hell was the good of a classical education when dealing with fractious Iruporei? ‘Mother, is your child fractious? Is the little tongue coated? Give it California syrup of figs. . . He would get a bottle — a magnum of syrup of figs — and, properly iced, he would dose them all with a spoon.

Tring pulled himself up short. He wondered where his mind was wandering and he fought for supremacy over the figures which he knew only too well — of police on leave and police sick. The forces were ridiculously inadequate. With Mr. Khan Mahomed he had been over every inch of the ground.

Mr. Khan Mahomed was the Superintendent of Police and a Mohammedan. His courage was unquestioned, but could he be trusted? In most ways, yes; but this was Mohammedan against Hindu — Mr. Khan Mahomed against the hated idolater. Of course afterward they would say that Mr. Khan Mahomed had been biased.

Tring pulled the file out of his drawer. He had been over it until he knew it by heart. So many police at the Temple thana — so many at the police post at the Secunderabad Gate. The figures danced and jerked before his eyes, California syrup of figs was the best remedy, anyhow. Tring passed his hand over his forehead. The skin was dry and hot to touch. He shivered with cold.

‘Damn,’ said Tring.

He took quinine and aspirin from his drawer and dosed himself— fifteen grains of quinine and ten of aspirin. He pushed a thermometer into his mouth and lay down in a long Bombay chair with his feet on the sleeves.

So many police at the thana at the Temple, so many at the police post at the Secunderabad Gate, — that made so many, — deduct sick and on leave — He pulled his thermometer out and tried to read the silver ribbon of mercury wobbling before his blurred eyes. His hand was shaking and his teeth chattered. A hundred and one and five tenths. The ecstasy of fever gripped him: so many police at the thana — so many on leave and sick —

The room grew and the punkah waved uncertainly far, far up in the dim heights above him. The room tipped a little. Suddenly the walls contracted, the ceiling rushed toward him. He was burning up and he wanted air. He put his arm over his eyes to keep out the nauseating sight of the rocking, pumping walls.

Mr. Khan Mahomed was a Mohammedan, but California syrup of figs was a nice peaceful remedy guaranteed to cure all ills.

Outside the wind blew and the brainfever bird in the dry bones of the neem tree ground out his one-word song. The dust pattered on the windowpanes and Tring shut his eyes and tried to sleep as the quinine, buzzing in his ears, began to do its work.

II

Malaria was no new thing to Tring, and on the third day he got up — a little thinner, rather shaky, and very tired. The fever had gone, and he walked uncertainly across his bedroom to shave. His limbs felt like lead and every movement required a distinct effort. He took a fresh blade for his razor and lathered at the stubble on his chin. He examined his face in the mirror spotted with damp. His heavy lids drooped over his yellowed eyes and he wanted no more than to sleep somewhere in the cool.

He strove to overcome his lassitude. Down in his office they were waiting for Reginald Tring, Esq., B.A., of the Indian Civil Service, to administer the District of Iruporei. Somehow he must get Reginald Tring, Esq., to the office. He wondered how he was going to do it. Reginald Tring had to have his face smooth-shaved before he could sit in court. He finished his lathering and looked distastefully at his razor, wondering how he could lift it and scrape and slice to achieve that immaculate surface which convention and the traditions of his service demanded. It was too much. He dropped into a long chair, his hands hanging loosely over the arms. To sit down was good.

It was all he wanted. Just to rest and watch the lifeless burnt-up fields stretching away to the line of low hills with tops of ragged yellow rock. His eye took the line of the horizon. There was no sound in the house, and outside only a murmur of voices from the servants’ quarters. His mind became blank and his thoughts ceased to function. He was in a stupor, his eyes focused on nothing. The lather dried on his face and fell off in tiny flakes as light as snow.

He sat there a minute — half an hour — ten minutes. Tring came to with a start. To-day was Bakr’Id, and Mr. Tring, the Deputy Collector, had to be in the office. Somehow he had to get him there. He dug weakly with his razor at the dry soap on his face until, realizing the futility of it, he dipped his brush in the water and lathered again.

He left his bedroom and went down stairs strange and unfamiliar after three days in bed. He was almost surprised to find his study unchanged — and his papers as he had left them on his desk. In three days of fever upstairs he had somehow hoped and even expected that something might have happened. The absolute unchangedness came as a vague disappointment to him.

He looked at the clock — it had stopped for want of winding. He set it by his watch, glad that at least something had occurred to break the monotony. In ten minutes his car would be around to take him to his office in the Kucherry, where also were the court, the treasury with its net bags of fat clinking silver rupees, the guard of police, and the administrative offices of the Deputy Collector. All were shaded by trees under which the professional petition writers sat in a row, each squatting on his heels before his boxlike desk ready to turn the countryman’s halting flow of Tamil or Mahrathi into elaborate flowery English. Here, too, the lawyers’ touts and the professional witnesses hung round — ready to swear to anything for pay.

Tring, waiting for his car, pulled open his drawer of essays and turned them over—‘A Mess of Pottage,’ ‘Democracy Wins,’ ‘Representation.’ He wondered idly if they would ever be seen by a world which was urgently in need of them.

His telephone bell rang. Disturbed, he took the receiver off the hook. It was Mr. Khan Mahomed. His careful, clipped sentences came over the wire — his voice thin and excited. Things were quiet — so far, but there were rumors in the city.

‘Yes — that’s good,’ Tring replied. ‘I’ll be down in a minute.’ A thought struck him. ‘I think I ’ll drive through the city. Meet me in ten minutes’ time at the police thana at the Secunderabad Gate.’ He hung up, and as he did so he heard his car stop in front of the house. Wearily he put on his sun helmet. He was vaguely excited. He sat back on the warm leather cushions and felt his lassitude coming over him again. Nothing mattered very much — after all, he was hardly to blame if two lots of people decided to knock each other about.

He braced himself. He had no right to think along those lines. His was the responsibility first and last. If Mr. Khan Mahomed fired a shot in selfdefense, if Mohammedans battered Hindus, his and his alone was the responsibility. The correct and impartial administration of the district of Iruporei rested on the shoulders of Reginald Tring, Esq., of the Indian Civil Service.

He was driven down the shady road under the arching branches of the banyan trees. The sunlight striking through the leaves dappled the dust of the road. A bullock cart laden with straw creaked on its way to the city. Gypsies herded little undersized donkeys in a drove to help in some kind of road construction. It was just like any other day. These ordinary folk outside the city did n’t care — why should they?

At the thana, police, off duty, lounged as usual. Mr. Khan Mahomed was waiting for him. He was in uniform, and this was unusual. He wore a revolver in its holster strapped to his belt. Tring looked at it with distaste, but said nothing. He hated firearms, but it was part of the uniform and presumably could not be helped. A police orderly climbed in front and they drove slowly through the crowded streets of the city.

In the bazaars, the air was stifling. The sun blazed down and they drove slowly through crowds which parted reluctantly to let them pass. The sellers of betel and pan leaves squatted with their trays in what shade they could find. A man with a barrow of over-sweet highly colored drinks tinkled a little bell. Over all there was an air of expectancy, of waiting for something to happen.

The sweat dripped into Tring’s eyes and he wiped his forehead. He watched the little beads collecting on the back of his hand resting on the side of the car.

Outwardly the city pursued its everyday life. The usual smells rose in the still air — the smells of onion and garlic, of cardamons and turmeric, of ghi melting in the heat, and of heavy fat-fried foods. Underneath the surface there was something tense —the crowds moved faster and more warily. Shops were shuttered and closed which should be doing business. In the cloth bazaar hardly a stall was open.

Tring looked covertly at Mr. Khan Mahomed. His face was impassive, but Tring happened to look down and saw that his fingers twitched a little. It annoyed him. Why should Khan Mahomed’s hand twitch? If anyone’s twitched, it should be his.

Far off in the distance they heard the sound of music — the clash of cymbals, the screech of pipes, and the deep braying of a conch. The police orderly stirred. The car stopped and the driver looked round for orders.

The crowds in the streets were listening, too. On a Mohammedan festival like Bakr ’Id, a Hindu band — the sign of some kind of religious function — might start anything. Mohammedans don’t play music and don’t approve of it, and a Hindu band playing music would mean a disturbance of the faithful at prayer and an insult of the most deliberate kind, to be answered only with blows. In any case the playing of music in the city on Bakr ’Id had been strictly forbidden.

Mr. Khan Mahomed looked at Tring for orders. The crowds in the bazaar were on the run.

‘Go on,’ said Tring, affecting a calm he did not feel. The car started with a jerk and turned down a side street.

‘Hurry,’ said Tring.

III

So it had come. At least it was what they had all expected. The crowd was moving with them with unanimous determination. At the street sides shutters were going up and men tied their loin cloths between their thighs.

Tring looked round him in curiosity, watching to see how Iruporei accepted the challenge. Nearer the band blared its discordant notes. The cymbals, beating a quick rhythm, were stirring the mob to action.

They left the car in a narrow lane and on foot came out on to a broad thoroughfare. Down the centre of it marched the band with banners waving bravely. In the middle of it swayed a flower-garlanded litter borne shoulderhigh in which was the black waxen figure of Kali, the ‘Dark Mother.’ Four-armed, her eyes and palms were red, her tongue, face, and breasts bloodstained.

At the top end of the street was the mosque, and from it were pouring the worshipers, enraged at the disturbance of their prayers. In between, the street was empty, and the higher buildings on either side presented nothing but blank shuttered windows.

The three of them — Tring, Khan Mahomed, and the police orderly — found themselves alone in the empty middle of the street. Before them the waving banners and the crowd swaying round the litter steadily advanced. The crash of the cymbals, the hoarse bray of the conches, and the squeaking of the pipes almost drowned the deep angry murmur of the crowd behind.

Tring took in the situation. He had expected trouble, but nothing so deliberately planned as this. He turned to the Police Superintendent.

‘Send your orderly to the Temple thana for police. Keep them in the side streets until we want them.’

The orderly ran off, his feet paddling in the deep white dust. He stripped off his shoes as he passed the car that he might run the faster.

Tring advanced toward the band. The crowd halted uncertainly. The band stopped short in its playing, a cymbal in the zealous hands of a rearrank player clanging brassily for several clashy beats after the rest. The deepthroated ‘Aah’ of the angry crowd behind him swelled crescendo. It sent a shiver down Tring’s spine. Mass anger was something new to him — it seemed inhuman, it was so uncontrolled.

The empty space in the street was smaller. ‘Divide et impera,’ said Tring under his breath as he walked forward alone through the air stifling and still in the hot sunshine.

‘We take our Mother Kali to see the shrine behind the mosque,’ they said in answer to his question.

‘Forward, brothers!’ shouted a solitary voice near the litter. ‘They are only two — we are many. Forward!’ The mob moved uncertainly.

‘Go back!’ shouted Tring. ‘There is to be no going forward to-day, and no playing of music. Are you children to do this to-day? Go back! It is an order.’

‘Forward, brothers!’ The same voice at the back cried monotonously. ‘Forward, or our Mother Kali will be angry with us!’

Behind him, Tring heard a slight creak of leather. Khan Mahomed’s hand was easing the butt of his revolver in its holster.

‘They are in ugly moods, sir,’ he whispered rapidly, his thin lips drawn back from his teeth as he spoke. ‘We can do nothing. We are but two. Shall I fire?’

Tring shivered. The responsibility was his. A doubt came into his mind. Was Khan Mahomed really impartial? Or would he like to see his brethren from the mosque fling themselves in religious fury on their enemies in front?

‘Leave your revolver where it is,’ said Tring. ‘There is to be no shooting.’

Behind them the roar of the surging mob in front of the mosque swelled to a shout. The mullah, in the green turban of one who had made the pilgrimage to Mecca, was haranguing them from the steps of the building.

The empty space narrowed between the swaying mobs. They only awaited a false gesture to be at each other’s throats. Anything might start it. There would be days of bloodshed and murder — of Iruporei out of hand — of looting and knifing in the dark at street corners — of the settlement of private wrongs. A trickle of sweat crept into Tring’s eyes, blinding him for a moment.

‘Silence!’ he shouted. ‘Silence!’

He strove to make himself heard. Behind him Khan Mahomed echoed him with the bellow, ‘Silence, you! Silence! The Sahib is going to speak.’

Behind him the roar of the angry Mohammedan crowd died away to a mutter; before him the Hindus pushed and shuffled uncertainly. The same voice near the litter of the goddess reiterated monotonously, ‘Forward, brothers, forward! ’

‘Silence!’ Tring repeated. At last he felt that he was making himself heard. Once he could do that, the game was his. He could drive his wedge of police between them. He only wanted time. ‘Silence!’ he shouted again.

Without warning a stone buzzed past his ear, and the clamor broke out again. From behind came more stones and then a bottle. Tring heard Khan Mahomed grunt. A brick had taken him in the small of the back. He was on his knees and bent double, retching. His vomit made a muddy puddle at his feet. He was tugging at the revolver in his holster.

Tring ran to him. Overhead the bricks and stones were flying. The roar of both crowds swelled again. To Tring it seemed that the thing had got beyond control.

A bottle broke at his feet and the broken glass reflected the burning sun. A stone sang through the air and struck Tring on the cheek below the eye. He staggered and put his hand to the place, which was curiously numb. There was blood, sticky and warm, on his fingers. The thing had got beyond him. They could do no more. The two mobs were brandishing axes and sticks which had appeared like magic.

Tring looked round. So this was what it felt like at the end — at the end of six months’ work trying to make people see sense. And now? And now was the end. They could do no more. Let the thing start — and clean up as best they could later. His world was crashing round his ears. It was unreal, though just what he had expected for months. He had better get out; a sense of his own danger came over him and put him into sudden panic.

He bent to put an arm round Khan Mahomed and a trickle of blood ran into the corner of his mouth. He savored it on his tongue. It was warm and salty to his taste and curiously refreshing.

With the taste came anger, sudden and gusty. He dragged Khan Mahomed’s revolver from its holster and faced the crowds again, and as he did so the battle closed.

Tring stood with Khan Mahomed, still retching, between his feet and hit out with his fist at anyone who came near. The sticks were rising and falling like flails. A man naked but for a loin cloth struck at the Police Superintendent with an axe, and Tring fired at him blindly. The man dropped, choking — blood coming from between his clenched teeth.

The litter bearing the goddess swayed and plunged uncertainly, and round it the battle was heaviest. Tring fought all in sight with a cold berserk rage and cleared a space round him. As he beat about him the Police Superintendent got to his feet and joined him in keeping their circle clear.

As they struck out they saw red turbans of their police appear at the side street through which they themselves had come. Tring fought toward them. At their head was the chubby little Hindu subinspector.

‘Divide and rule!’ shouted Tring into his ear.

‘What?’ said the subinspector, puzzled. ‘I think, sir, maybe we will make splits of the factions and send them down side streets helter-skelters.’

The police drove into the milling mob in the confined street. Tring joined them; he wanted nothing better than to make some settlement for his last six months’ work.

‘Divide and rule!’ he yelled as isolated bunches were detached and driven into the lanes and alleys — where, away from the battle, they halted for breath.

At last it was done. The street was clear, and for the moment things were quiet. The roadway was littered with stones, broken bottles, and torn clothing. The police were picking up the wounded. Tring, standing on the steps of a house, felt very tired. He sat down. His head was aching. He looked at his watch. Barely an hour before, he had left his house.

Tring picked himself up and called his car. His head buzzed and ached. He wondered what the casualties had been. Gingerly he fingered the cut below his eye. It was becoming painful, and the drying blood on his cheek cracked and flaked when he spoke. He drove home.

On the table in his study was his mail. He picked up one envelope after another and sorted them. The most interesting he took first. His application for a week’s leave had been refused. Everything, then, was as usual.

Tring ripped the cover of the next letter. It was from the Modern World. They accepted gladly his article ‘Vox Populi Vox Dei.’ Unnoticed from the envelope fell a check. It skittered across the floor at each puff of the punkah. At last it would come to rest under the lee of the desk.