Return of the Native 

Rainstorm raged in the forest. The pines whistled long and loud. The firs hissed. The conifers moaned. Frightened birds, running here and there for shelter, squeaked pathetically. An owl's hooting could be discerned when the storm changed its direction for ever so much as a moment. The wind lashed and beat everything before it. Even the immovable rocks and stray boulders seemed to groan under the terrific moment of the sudden, unusual storm. The brook was swollen in a trice, as it were. Its rising breast seethed with mad water, dashing down boulders and the sides of the banks. The forces of nature that were released so peremptorily shook the entire forest. The day had been clear. The nightfall, revealing the half moon, already high up in the sky much above the line of the bleak mountain-tops, had promised a quiet, cool summer night of the Kashmir forests. But that was not to be, at least for this night. The rainstorm howled on with accelerating fury, unmindful of man and beast, caught within its vortex.

Fati was alone in her Bahak (mountain hut) which shook against the side of the mountain. She, a tall, blonde mountain-bred woman of twenty-five, had never witnessed such a storm in her life. The worst of it was that she was alone in her Baiwk. Her husband, her man, had gone down a descent of about two thousand feet, to fetch eatables and things from the grocer's shop. He had left at noon and he should have returned much earlier than the evening. He had not come. She could not tell why. She was here, in her Bahak, all alone. In the hamlet there was only one more Bahak but that was empty this night. Its occupants had gone up to a pasture to graze their livestock. Fati was too alone, she thought with a pang. A few furlongs off, down towards the opposite mountainside, there was a hamlet where dwelled some families of Gujars. It was humanly impossible for her to go to that hamlet in this raging storm, especially when at this season the maize was ripening and the bear, the lover of maize, rambled during the night everywhere in search of maize and man.

Why had not her 'man', her 'native' returned so far? What could possibly have detained him? What had happened to the pony that he was to ride on this return? Had the money-lender, who had fleeced him for years, though he had already paid two times the principal, met him and had him taken before the Tehsildar-that wily, corrupt, fire-eating official? Or-oh! the pain of the thought-was he belated and did he meet a bear on his ascent back, perhaps near the confluence of the Nullas where there were several bear dens? No, no, that cannot be. But that may be-. Oh Allah! Have pity on me, she prayed. She had married him only these three years. She loved him, his body, his kindliness, his chivalrous nature. She need not fear, she assured herself. He carried the axe, the axe with which he had already felled the uncouth and ugly heads of two big, black bears and a third, on another occasion, when she accompanied him, had run away at mere sight of the flashing steel. Allah saves good men! She kneeled and prayed but she found herself shaking with fear and cold. The roof had started leaking at several vulnerable places. The fire in the hearth was reduced to cinders. Blasts of wind rudely beat against her face. Not a muscle twitched in her body as she tensely listened to the whining of some cattle outside the Bahak, sheltered under overhanging Kachloo trees.

The rain would do no harm to the cattle, she decided. But did a bear come to molest and kill them? At the hint of suspicion, she seized her axe and rushed outside. Terrific force of the wind disallowed her to walk straight. She wrapped her apron-doth around her and, slowly, with bent back, advanced towards the cattle. The cows, bulls and buffaloes were all standing close together almost in a circle. She moved about them and counted them.

Where was her favourite, spotted cow, who carried the tinkling bells? She was shocked and was like mad. Groping her way about the flock, she reached near the edge of the precipice where stood a solitary conifer. Under it, to her immense relief, she found her loved cow. Thank Allah! she was safe. Allah! now keep my husband also safe, she prayed, as a gust of the storm almost swayed her over the precipice. Her watch dog who was by her side, since she came out to look up her flock, caught the lappet of her chemise so that she succeeded in balancing herself. As a sign of gratitude, she took the head of the dog within her palms and patted his drenched, woolly body. To safeguard her favourite cow, she pushed her well within the flock so that, if the depredatory bear attacked the herd, he would not get at her, at any rate.

With her dog following her close, Fati laboured her way through the pebbly slush to her Bahak. She felt miserably cold. She raked up the live cinders and, adding a few faggots, made a good fire out of them in her usual skilful way. The flames leaped up, warming her cold limbs. But the wind, still unabated, lashed the flames to and fro, so that aflame actually caught a sheaf of hay stuck up in the parallel beams of the low ceiling of the Bahak. Seeing the hay catching fire, Fati gave a shriek but she did the most practical thing by first throwing a pot of water over the hearth and thus quite extinguishing the fire in it and then, drenching an old blanket with another pot of water, she threw it straight up at the burning hay and held it on against the ceiling till the flames went out. She said aloud, "Allah, it is too much for me! Where is my man? When will he return?" Now she felt more benumbed than ever in her life. She had forgotten to save a few cinders, which she would have kept in her -Kangri. Her flint was not to be found anywhere. Now how could she light a fire? She sat on the raised hearth so that she could look out over the stone wall. She saw the dark clouds breaking and the dim light of the half-moon could be discerned behind fleeting clouds. The wind was losing its force. The rain had slowed down to a regular drizzle. She felt exhausted, feeling very sleepy. Her strong resistance was failing her. The dark earth seemed to be swimming before her eyes. Despair overtook hope-hope for her man's return-deep within her. She shifted her position to go to a corner and lie down there. But she was already staggering. She did not make the bend, to which she was unconsciously accustomed, near the center of the low ceiling of the Bahak where the central beam projected down from the ceiling. She struck her head against it. Hardly conscious of the excruciating pain, thanks to the benumbing cold spread all over her body, she fell down with a thud on the wet, grass-covered floor of the Bahak. There she lay, flat and motionless, her dog moving restlessly about the room and whining, and her cow, licking her with her rough tongue.

Lower down on the mountainside, in one of the few Bahaks, lived Azia tall, lean youth, who loved Fati before she married Ramzan Khan. He still loved her. Before her marriage he had once attempted to seduce her but she had scared him away with her small hatchet which she carried whenever she tended her flock alone. Thus tantalised, Aziz Khan always had some evil designs about her, but his fear of the hefty, broad-shouldered Ramzana Khan, who could, single handed, kill three men with his axe, kept him back.

In the afternoon of this day, he heard from a lad that Ramzana Khan had gone down to the shop and that he was wearing his red, embroidered waistcoat. Would he take his chance with Fati in her man's absence? No, he dared not do so alone-for he still feared her. His party was not here, how he regretted that. Still, he posted two shepherd lads on the mountain path to let him know when Ramzana Khan would return. Late in the evening, when the storm appeared to be gathering, the lads informed Aziz Khan that Ramzana Khan had not yet returned. They then went home.

Aziz Khan became curious. He kept watch from his Bahak on the path to see when Ramzan Khan would return. Then the storm came. Trees crashed and torrents of water ran alongside Aziz Khan's Bahak. Of course, Ramzana Khan could make no further progress from the place where he might have been stopped, so reasoned Aziz Khan.

The furious and forceful wind fanned the flame of Aziz Khan's passion for Fati. Her well cut features, her almond eyes, her chiseled mouth and bows of eyebrows, and all the grace of her form, formed an exciting image before him even out of the overwhelming darkness. He must go up to her. But, curse the wind, it was developing into a rain-storm that promised no end. Stuck to his post, he waited for the least sound of Ramzana Khan's pony. None came. Wickedly enough, he thought, that a bear must have made a meal of Ramzana Khan. Voluptuous pictures of Fati danced before him as the wind after all appeared to die down. When it did stop, he trudged up towards the Bahak where Fati had just swooned.

The wet floor had further benumbed the prostrate body of Fati. Her hair fell to one side while she still lay in a swoon. Her slim outline and her white Salwar could be seen in the light of the half-moon. Aziz Khan was greeted by the dog who recognised him from a distance. With the dog at his heels, he rushed into the Bahak with his vicious thoughts heating him all over. He was shocked to find Fati lying motionless and seemingly lifeless on the floor. Oh! this was an opportunity which he could not let go for nothing! She was, fortunately, not armed. Should perhaps not object. Even while he bent low to impress a kiss upon her cheeks, he found her cheeks cold, dead cold, as it were. The freezing touch somehow electrified him. In a trice, his passion cooled off. Divine pity overtook fiendish lust in him. He must save her; that he must.

In a moment, Aziz Khan took out the flint from his pocket and lit some straw with the spark inside the fire-place where he got a fire burning. He put some water in it to be heated for the tea. He removed her, his old, dear Fati, to a dry corner of the Bahak where he made her recline on a straw cushion and covered her with several blankets. From the fire he fed a big Kangri and placed that within the folds of the blanket dose to her. He put Kashmiri tea in the kettle to feed her with.

Fati opened her eyes. She blurted out, faintly, yet hopefully, "Ramzan Khan, you, you have come. Where..." At this Aziz Khan, who up to now was standing before the hearth with his back to her, turned round. She stopped short, aghast and scandalised, and could not proceed with her words. She looked at him in utter amazement and tried to work out what had happened sometime back. Her stupefied look enthralled him and rendered him speechless.

They heard the sound of the heavy tread of a pony walking in the slush outside. Obviously Ramzana Khan had come. The leaping flames of the fire lit the room. Aziz Khan crossed over to conceal himself behind a rustic curtain on which were hung old clothes. Simultaneously, Ramzan Khan came in, shouting impatiently, "Fati, where are you? I have brought you a necklace:" He did not mind his dog who crouched about his feet, affectionately, wagging his big tail. Catching sight of Fati, lying down, Ramzana Khan impetuously crossed towards her, sat by her, kissed her, saying, "What has happened? What is this? But whose shadow crossed the room as I came in"

Fati said, "He..he was here.:" but before she had finished, Ramzan Khan, wielding his axe, searched about the Bahak and, discerning a movement behind the curtain, stepped towards it dashingly. Aziz Khan came out and stammered, "I...I'm here ..I'

Ramzana Khan looked at him with bloodshot eyes, "You here! You rogue! You came here because my wife was alone, unprotected. Now I shall fell your skull with this". Raising aloft his axe, he added, "You rogue, you don't know that I'm her husband."

"Forgive me, Ramzana Khan, I have not touched her." Aziz Khan replied, falling low.

"You say you have not touched her. How could you dare, you devil? Have this." He kicked him brutally and slapped him with his left hand, striking him against the stonewall. Aziz Khan was wounded in the face and his cheek bled, giving him a hideous look.

Fati had stood up by this time. She faced her husband dauntlessly, saying "You stop that, Ramzana Khan. He has really helped me. He made that fire. He put me in the bed and wrapped me with the blankets. He has saved me. I should have died of cold otherwise."

"Is it? 1s it?" escaped the dazed lips of Ram--- Khan.

Fati locked Ramzan Khan in a warm embrace for a while, saying, "So you've returned, my Native. Let me dress Aziz Khan's wound and then I shall serve you tea."