A Puzzle and a Few Men

Shanker Raina

There is a window by my pillow. Both latticed panes of the window are shut by nails drawn in them. It lets in no light at all. Some times I feel choked . ... I wish it were opened! I do not want to take a single breath here. If only I were able to move a pace or two! ... I would like to leave for my home ... just once.. my home, where all the windows are ajar. The whole atmosphere of this ward stinks of pain. The ventilators above the window are so laden with dust that it is dark inside even though there is dazzling sunlight without it is as if sunlight has forgotten to reach here, very likely it does not muster courage to do so. Who after all summons it up? The young kid of a girl, Nasima, used to bring me rice during daytime, but ever since she witnessed the writhing pain of the patient of bed No. 8, she too could not bring herself to do it .. It is over a month now since she came over here. During this very month I forgot that there is a world outside other than the hospital. I have even lost count of days.

Oh! would that window could get opened! I would remain there at the open window till late, to see how the world outside looks, so that I could again breathe freely! I would like to see that monkey of Nasima again, but she is stricken of awe here. Even I myself am afraid of Bed No. 8. Would that his bed were not there in that corner ... ! He is always there right in front of my eyes. He himself closed the lattices of the window. Who knows why he loathes light! He has, it seems, shut the windows of his existence. He goes on moving about the Puzzle-toy in his hand even during night as if it were day... Bed No 4 told me that he had been playing with the toy for the last ten months, with his eye-brows raised and a frown on his forehead. It is a plaything for children: a plastic box with meandering paths inside and a bead inside rolling in it, the box is to be moved in a manner that the bead reaches the place marked for it For the whole day he tries at it frantically, but I never, even for once, saw in his face a gleam of success so that the ice in his eyes could thaw.

Some times I take pity on him that I would make a short shrift of these zigzags and byways and lead the bead straight to the mark. But I restrain myself for some reason. May be it is not so easy as I take it. And then to distract my attention, I look at the stone balustrade blackened by smoke .... I think if Bed No.8 opens the window, the walls would get washed with sunlight. But will he do so? Impossible.

Playing the puzzle; day in and day out, the Bed No.8 himself seems to me a puzzle; tangled and twisted as a riddle. I do not understand a word from him . ……….He neither gets well, nor rids the hospital of his presence; he takes medicine neither. I saw him at times without number spilling medicine down the window. One day when he opened the window to spill the medicine down I gathered up all the strength in me and told him, "Please keep the window open, it would let in some light... see how dark it is here!"

But he retorted, "It is all the same to me let it all be confounded! I am disillusioned. I am not to get well". So saying, he slammed the window shut and took himself to the puzzle. No. 4 has said that ever since his ailment worsened, he had been talking to everybody in this tone. It is revealed from his appearance that many times over got the better of death as if he is holding on to the thread of life tenaciously as if he were waiting for somebody. As for myself, I have never seen anybody coming to him.

All the patients are scared of Bed No.8. He is queer fish, not one of our species ... Only the day before, a hefty young man passed away right before his eyes. He simply saw it with a grimace of smile and tucked over himself to sleep. Bed No. 4 is to undergo a heart surgery and is writhing in pain, but No. 8 is quite dead to it. Bed No.4 feels as he is uproariously laughing at his plight Everybody has nothing but contempt for him. He is simply known by his Bed No.8, and if Bed No.8 were to shift elsewhere, he would be forgotten. His sole existence is as Bed No.8.

I do not know why I am reminded to that willow that I hacked and stripped one autumn.

Would that window be opened! I would bask myself in the sun. It seems to me that the ice and the concrete of this ware are frozen in my bones. I crave to sit there at the open window till late as of old ... looking out there at the other side of the hospital. Tulips have blossomed out to the full in that yonder park. The tulips, it seems, have stretched themselves out after a long slumber………Every thing seems to be bathing in sunlight. People have left their home for work, and children are going to the convent; they are gaily moving in their red and green uniforms. At first I only surmised, but later I recognised my Nasima too was there with a group of children walling, nay dancing. I was relieved that she did not look this way, otherwise she would have been frightened of this barred window of the hospital …….There passes a motor car, festooned with garlands" there might be a bride and bridegroom in the car. How is it that dreams of bachelor days rise again before my eyes!

Bed No.7 asked me aloud, what have you been seeing for so long? Is there a street broil going on? I told him, "No". "There has an accident taken place there?" he asked piteously, looking at his broken leg, which an accident had rendered disabled. "No, God forbid!" "Then, what are you staring at?" he asked me. "Look, how warm and bright the sunlight is!"

As I turned back, he had already turned over and slept. Bed No.4 was fumbling for something in the tin cupboard. I perceived rightly that today also his milk has been licked empty by the cat, and he was so worked up for this. If he could, he would have ripped the cat by his nails. Above, there in the ventilator stood the cat feigning sleep and looking innocent. "As if we had not enough trouble already that it was set after us", he said to Bed No.s. I myself abhor the cat, it is a different matter I play with it times, but not this farcical way. Bed No.8 has spoiled it within these fifteen days it has been in the ward. There has not been a single day when he has not kicked one row or another. The troublemaker!

I remember it full well, it was snowing ceaselessly. Bed No. 8 had been struck down by pain. He had quarreled with the nurse for not taking medicine and had run away ... All of us here had felt for him that he might die of cold in the open. Tears had even gushed up in No.4's eyes and I had stealthily got up and opened his closed

window. But he returned before it was evening and was carrying the benumbed cat in his arms. And the cat has been the root of trouble since then. I was feeling much pain then and was lying supine. All the night the cat did not let me have a wink as it kept wailing and Bed. No.8 lulled and rocked it in his lap. He had that day even forgotten to shut the window and No.4 had come to tell me, "Do you see the kind he takes a liking for. It is as if his life is in the cat". I had stood dumb. On the third day, the cat stood alive and Bed No.8 got a few jingling bells and tied them round its neck. Holding it close to his bosom , he said to me, "See how maidenly coy and shy she is! She is shy before me". I said nothing to him, and turned my face.

One day while playing with the puzzle, he got up with a start and came to me. The marble in the puzzle had reached the mark and the ice in his eyes had thawed. I thought how was it possible for a lone marble to reach the mark. That day he kept playing with the cat till late. It did not look like a normal cat, but it was a jackal like tall and bulky, its grey skin was mottled with blond patches, as if iodine had been sprinkled at these patches. No.4 disliked its turning and rolling there.

His chest was to be operated upon the next day and he was restless in his bed. The whole of the ward was gloomily serious and silence ruled there. Everyone there was wary even of taking his breath, but the cat was vivacious and sprightly, now stretching itself clung to his bed and then rolled itself like a cotton ball, it seemed laughing. No.4 said to No.8 defiantly, "Why are you disturbing our peace? Are you not alive to the situation here?"

Bed No.8 said, sarcastically smiling, "What bad turn have I done to you that you get nettled thus? The cat kept frisking about, and No.4 bit his lips. In the evening, No.4 got up like a mad man as if he was on the prowl, caught the cat by its tail, whapped it on the breast and swung it round to fling it at No.8's face "This will teach

him a lesson"! The cat did not mew even, snuggled close to No.8, but its eyes bulged as if it did not expect it of him. No. 8 also could not utter a word, he looked benumbed and began to caress the cat

Everybody in the ward was frightened of death. It was midnight and I felt a pull at my wrapping and I got awakened. Seeing the cat by my pillow, I got a start; its eyes glowed like sparks. I apprehended a bite from it The pitch dark night outside looked a black monster through-the lattices. No.8 was gasping for breath. It was in the morning that he regained his breath. I continued gazing at him. The first thing he did was to search for the cat, which sat curled up as if on the prowl for him. No.8 took it in his lap and began to feel for its wounds.

I thought that but for the cat, he might have perished. From that day on, No.8 got all the more emaciated. He appeared awestruck. If anybody in the ward died, he would not put it with even for a moment; he would by himself roll it up in a sheet of cloth and carry it outside the ward on a trolley. Having done all this he would return to his bed and begin fondling the cat so affectionately as if he would never see it again.

Today also the window there by the pillow is closed as it always was.

I was told that it had rained outside and a rainbow had arched the horizon. Down below in the market, there is a bally hoo, somebody somewhere is selling fried beans, calling it "partridge meat". But I cannot see anything ... Would that the window were not closed so that I could take a breath of rain-washed air! One breath only! I feel tempted that all of us here together should break the window open, but no one among us is so strong; everyone here is enfeebled and pallid.

One day, as the cat came in. No.8 told me with much concern that it was time for her to deliver. I got surprised. "Who?" I asked "Don't you notice"? he pointed to the cat. "See, what a change and difference in her mien! What an affectionate, look she wears in her eyes!"

The tummy of the cat was, no doubt, grown big. I was surprised at not having noticed it till that day. No. 8 looked completely engrossed in it, and he well nigh doted on her, but I was preoccupied with No.4 whose life was becoming unbearable to him due to pain.

That day there was a turmoil again in the ward. I got awakened. I started up as I felt a movement under my pillow. It was No.8 fumbling for something under my pillow and the cat was wailing at the ventilator. No.8 spoke out laughing, "Oh, it is nothing, it is only that the cat has given her delivery, and one of the kittens fell down. Look, how warm it is!"

I do not know why that dry willow again rose in my mind, but I felt that fresh buds had sprouted on it and they appeared as earbobs hanging. No. 8 went up to the ventilator with a pail of mills and began to fumble there. "It has kittened three young ones ... it augurs well". He said. The cat was wailing loudly and the whole ward was aroused from sleep. Everybody got a fright, and looking round, counted the patients. Then as they understood that the clamour was raised by the cat, they abhorred No.8 all the more who had brought the nuisance over here.

Nobody had even a wink the whole nigh; the cat kept wailing its moans now and then and No.4 got up again and again, "Now see, as if we had not suffered enough! The wailing of the cat is of evil portent. God alone knows what is to come yet!" he said.

As soon as No.8 left, all the patients, forgetting their pain, began to murmur as to how to get rid of the cat. No.4 despite his pain, climbed up to the ventilator, but soon came down empty handed. "I cannot bring myself to do it How they stir about and slip out of fingers!" He said as he was trembling all over. Everyone laughed at him. He, bracing himself up again, climbed and brought down all the three kittens and showed them down the window with his eyes shut

No. 7 muttered to himself, "Good riddance, may be!"

The cat returned before it was evening. Finding the ventilator empty, she espied on all sides. She got frantically anxious and wailed out piercingly. She went to every bed, pulled the bedcovers, sniffed the dust bin and scratched the wall with her paws.

No.8, biting his lips, went out in the chill and began a thorough search in the garden, but was back empty handed, tired and worn out. All the night the cat kept wailing. I felt as if the lugubrious wails of the cat and the pain in our bodies mingled to poison the whole atmosphere.

Would that the window were not closed! No.8 had closed the window and was restively moving his puzzle. Exhausted and worn out as he was, he tucked himself up under the blanket

In the small hours, No.4 went to No.8 with much trepidation, but he looked sullenly in a huff. He began to rouse him up. Then he lifted the wrapping from his face, the puzzle fell down and was broken to pieces. The marble could not be seen where it rolled away. No.4. gave him a shake, but there was no response from No.8.

There at the far end of the ward, the cat dolefully wailed till late. Everyone there wept silently, but I thought if he had any heir or successor.