Child of Spring (2 page)

T
he station tower clock struck seven times. One by one, the residents of my
busti
ducked out of their huts. Bangles jangled on the women’s wrists. The men puffed on their cheroots and coiled long strips of turban cloth around their heads.

The line at the water pump was already getting long and Rukmani was at the front of it, filling her pretty clay pots. I ducked my head and walked by quietly. I didn’t want to be peppered with questions about life at the Big House: “How many fluffy pillows on Little Bibi’s bed,
hanh
? How many ribbons for Little Bibi’s hair? How many eggs on Little Bibi’s breakfast plate? Come, tell me,
nai
?”

But before I could slip away, Rukmani stretched her long swan neck in my direction. “
Arri,
Basanta,” she called. “Why are you sneaking away? And why such a long face,
hanh
?”

I dodged the chickens and broke into a fast trot, my bare feet slapping hard against the earth.

“Did the old crow fly away with your tongue?” she called after me.

That Rukmani!
Her
tongue was like a cobra’s.
Pfft!
Her words lashed out and left prickly stings on my back.

I wound around the mango tree and skipped over a goat’s tether. Then I turned the corner and made for Lali’s hut, hoping she’d be awake by now. When I saw dust billowing at her door, I called out, “Lali, oh Lali!” She stopped sweeping, straightened up, and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “What?”

“Throw down your broom. I have something to tell, and I am in the mood for a quick game of Seven Tiles too.”

“Seven Tiles at this hour? Have you gone mad?” Lali twirled her finger beside her head. “I have a pile of work to finish before the little ones wake up. Besides, didn’t your mother just call for you?” She flicked the tip of her broom to loosen a chicken feather.

“Yeah, yeah!” I sat on my haunches. “Did Vimla Mausi leave already?”

Lali nodded. Her mother, whom I called
mausi,
even though she wasn’t really my auntie, was already at work sweeping the streets and Lali was in charge of her family for the day.

“I wouldn’t mind a day off,” I sighed. “It’s very hard work at the Big House.”

Lali arched one eyebrow.

“Oh, I know what you’re thinking,” I said. “And you can stop thinking it!”

Yes, Lali knew all about the Big House, because she had heard me go on and on about it. But she only remembered
the good parts—the crystal chandelier far lovelier than a night sky, and the China rug more beautiful than a rose garden. She knew about the bougainvillea vines that spilled bloodred flowers and the fish that swam round and round in a quiet pond. What a perfect fairyland the Big House was! How hard could it be to work in it? This is what she was thinking! She was not thinking about the stacks of dirty dishes and the piles of rumpled sheets!

“A big house makes very big work, Lali. I’ve told you one hundred times. My work is much harder than this.” I swept my hand to indicate the hut and the patch of dirt outside, all nice and tidy as a result of my friend’s diligent broom.

“Go, go!” Lali said. “I wouldn’t mind fluffing up soft pillows so very much. And I wouldn’t mind serving food at a table so shiny you could see your face smiling right back at you.”

“You’d mind it if your mistress screamed at you and called you by a very bad name, though, wouldn’t you?” I asked.

“What did she say exactly? Did she use a swear word?”

“She may as well have. She thinks I stole her ring and she practically called me a thief!”

“Oo
Maa!”
Lali clamped a hand to her mouth. “She called you
that?
How dare she?”

“I didn’t take it. I wouldn’t!”

“I know! I know!” Lali traced an arc in the dust with her left foot—the bad one that made her limp when she
walked. For the longest time she didn’t say anything.

“What are you thinking?” I prodded.

“I am thinking … that if you had found it, you would have returned it. Because if you hadn’t your Little Bibi would surely pack you off to the police
thaana, nai
?”

“Daiyya re daiyya!”
I exclaimed. “Prisons are for thieves which I surely am not. I told you I didn’t know anything about it!”

“I am also thinking,” Lali continued, “that maybe the ring
will
be found and Little Bibi will be so very happy.
Oo Maa!
Thinking about this is making me think of other happy things.”

“What other happy things?”

“That we should arrange another wedding between Dear Boy and Tikki sooner rather than later.”

I clapped my hands. I was glad to change the subject. A wedding celebration would be just the thing to take my mind off Little Bibi. We’d invite Lali’s siblings, Nandi, Pummi, Dev, and Hari. Lali would want Ganga the Milk Boy there too. Why, we could even invite Bala!

“I’ll put it in Amma’s ear,” I said. “She’ll be difficult at first but she’ll give in by and by.”

Lali nodded. “Don’t worry. Your mother will be as sweet as a sugar crystal and let us have some sticky lentil balls for the wedding feast. Just you wait and see!”

We sat down side by side, leaned against the mud wall, and stretched out our legs. A breeze carried the scent of flowers to my nose yet again.

“My father says that the roses are preparing to bloom in the Public Gardens,” I said. He sometimes brought home a handful of yellow and white flowers for Amma’s prayer altar.

Lali’s hand went to her ear and I noticed the little yellow flower tucked behind it.

“Hello? What’s this?” I asked.

“It’s nothing.” She dropped her hand quickly into her lap, her face turning a deeper color.

“It’s not
nothing
,” I retorted. “Where did you get it? Tell me!”

Lali suddenly got all squirmy. “From a bush that grows by the riverbank.”

“You went to the riverbank without me?”

“Kites are going to fly soon, I bet!” She pointed skyward, trying to distract me.

The wily thing had changed the subject deftly, but she was right about the kites. Flowers meant spring, and spring was the time for paper kites to skitter and soar like rainbow-colored insects.

Spring was also a proper time for a birthday party, but such celebrations skipped my hut year after year. Birthdays were for Big Houses. I only got a kiss on the brow.

I gazed skyward. Thinking about the kites reminded me of the luscious colors in Little Bibi’s birthday cakes. But when I thought of the kites dipping, rising, and twirling through the sky, it moved my mind to other things.

“I’m placing my bets on Bala again. He had better not
let me down this time,” I said. I had lost a pile of tamarind seeds when Paki had won the championship last year, beating Bala by a very narrow margin.

“Oo Maa!”
Lali poked me in the shoulder in a teasing way.

“Don’t be an idiot!” I said. “He’s just a crazy boy of the street, who happens to be a master kite flyer. He got a tiny bit unlucky because Paki cheated.”

“And who just also happens to think you’re a spitfire
Divali
firecracker!”

“That’s not true!” I snapped.

“And who runs about saying your teeth are as shiny as pearls!”

I shoved Lali roughly away, but she swayed right back. “I swear it on my mother!” she said with a big grin.

“Bala is a pest!” I retorted. “And if you’re going to be an idiot, I have no time for you either!” I got up and started to walk away.

“The boy is absolutely gaga for you!” Lali bubbled. “God promise!”

I turned around and stuck my tongue out at her, then flicked a thumb against my chin for good measure.

I
raised the jute flap on our door and let my eyes readjust to the dimness of the close quarters. How small my hut was! Ten strides, and I could travel from this end to the far one. Why, Little Bibi’s eating table seemed bigger than our home!

Smoke rose from the hearth. It mingled with the first rays of sunlight that streamed through a small opening high up in the wall. Smoke in the daytime, smoke at night
—Arrey daiyya!
But without the smoking hearth, there would be no fire, and without a fire there would be no milky tea in the morning nor steaming rice at night. Without a smoky fire to cook them, the lentils would stay in the bag to be nibbled up by mice, and the spices and tamarind would be of no use at all.

I had a suspicion the cockroach was secretly stirring his antennae behind the kindling pile. Closer to the hearth, brass pots were stacked on shelves, the coconut shell ladle lay in the water pot, and the palm frond mat was smooth underfoot. The Big Box was well hidden under my father’s cot. “Talk to no one about it,” Amma had warned me
time and again. Inside it were all of our nice things, safely tucked away.

Amma had promised that she would prepare a respectable trousseau for me, one pretty piece at a time, and it would all go into the Big Box to wait until I had my own wedding. “What will it be?” I’d asked her, fingering a small piece of wood in one corner of the box. If you pulled hard enough on the chip, it lifted to reveal a hollow, the size of a quail egg, in the wooden base.

“Something nice to put around your dainty ankles,” Amma told me.

My father’s chai tea smelled of cinnamon and cloves. I walked over for my usual sip. “I want to stay home today, Bapu,” I whispered in his ear. “May I?”

“
Na
, little one.” Bapu shook his head, then tipped tea from his cup into his saucer for me.

In the little mirror that hung on the wall, I could see Amma’s reflection. She stared at me while she placed the customary
bindi,
a big vermilion dot, in the middle of her forehead with her middle finger. My mother was ready now. Her hair was coiled in a tight bun, the red dot glistened on her forehead like a third eye, and her sari was hitched up around her ankles. “Let’s go!” she commanded, swooping Durga up in her arms. “Hurry! Hurry!”

I scrambled out after her.

A large field sprawled between the huts and the long road that led to the Big House. In the summertime, the ground was as dry as a chicken bone and as dusty as ground spice, but during the rainy season, it became lush green and spongy underfoot.

Amma’s toe rings rang sharply against the pebbles, and dust rose around her feet.
“Juldi! Juldi!”
she urged. “Walk faster!”

In a few minutes we reached the far end of the field, where it met the road and the jamun tree rained down fat berries that splattered the ground with purple. More often than not, Paki and Raju, the washerwoman’s sons, perched in it overhead, spitting seeds at passersby. I peered up into the tree, but today it was empty.

Amma noticed this too. “I wonder what mischief those naughty fellows are wreaking.”

Everyone had learned to look out for Paki and Raju. They always had our
busti
in an uproar: breaking a pot here, untying the goat’s tether there, pouring mud in the cobbler’s shoes, chucking mango seeds at chickens.

“Why can’t they be more like Ganga?” Amma grumbled. “Now there’s a lad who makes his father proud!”

Ganga the Milk Boy might well be good and friendly, but Paki and Raju were far more interesting. “Ganga is a wet rag,” I said. “He’s nothing more than a stuttering simpleton.”

My mother looked at me so hard that I had to lower
my eyes. I didn’t look up until we reached the end of the beaten path through the field.

It was still too early in the day for the road to roar like a lion, but it had begun to purr like a house cat. Bicycles, rickshaws, and bullock carts weaved in and out of each other’s paths. Pushcarts filled with colorful fruits and vegetables rattled along. The peanut man passed us, a basket balanced atop his head and a cane stand tucked in his armpit. The knife grinder was out and about with his stone, ready for business.

The asphalt surface felt different underfoot, harder and grainier than packed earth and more scalding in the summer. Just ahead, a mica wafer glinted in the road, too large to ignore.

I snatched it and held it up to the sunlight. “Look how this one shines!” It was a beautiful specimen, the best and biggest one I had found so far, the color of weakest tea, and without an imperfection anywhere. It was so translucent that I could see the lines in my hand through it. “I am putting it in my treasure box as soon as we get home.”

But Amma only shifted Durga’s weight from one hip to the other and hurried me on. “Walk faster! We have no time for trinkets in the road.”

“What’s the hurry?” I muttered. “Lalla-ji’s grain store hasn’t even opened for business yet. I seriously doubt that we are going to be late.” I put the mica away in my pocket.

We continued walking at a good clip, passing dilapidated shacks and ramshackle storefronts. Metal doors rolled up with loud rattles and shopkeepers shouted morning greetings. And then I spied Bala shooting marbles on the other side of the road.

“
Tcha
! Rolling marbles again!” Amma grumbled. “I’ve told that boy one hundred times to find an honorable job for a decent wage.”

“I don’t know why you worry about him so much,” I said. “You’re not even his mother!”

My mother had a special liking for Bala. “What brilliant eyes the boy has in his head!” she had remarked. “And look at the shape and size of his forehead!” According to her, these things were signs of great intelligence. She had even pleaded his case to Memsaab, hoping she could find him a position, but the mistress already had her cook and gardener and chauffeur, and her other
memsaab
friends weren’t hiring either. Still, Amma didn’t let up.

Bala saw us coming. He whistled so loud, I practically jumped out of my skin.

“What?” I asked.

“Watch this!” he yelled.

I stopped to look. I couldn’t help it. Bala
was
clever!

He squinted and aimed and, true to form, the marble struck its target. Then it ricocheted sharply, missing a drain hole by a hair. If the marble had curved even the slightest bit more to the right, Bala’s marble would have slid down,
down, down with all the rainwater, all the way to
Inglistan.
Little Bibi said
Inglistan
was on the other side of the world, where the queen lived with the Kohinoor diamond fixed in the middle of her crown.

“Arrey wah!”
Bala’s victory yell rang out on the morning air.

“Just a fluke! Just a fluke!” I shouted back.

Bala scooped up his marbles and deftly dodged motorcars and bullock carts to get to our side of the road. “Hold up!” he panted. He sounded like Kalu the mangy dog that hangs around looking for food. “Tell me, oh do—did you miss me between yesterday and today?”

“Go! Go!” I waved him back.

What a stupid owl he was! How dare he think such a ridiculous thing? Was I even the tiniest bit like Rukmani, batting my eyes at boys?
Na!
I had better things to do with my time than waste it thinking about him.

“No need to get all riled up,” Amma said. “The boy is only playing with you.”

“Lali said your precious boy got a thrashing for stealing peanuts yesterday,” I told her. “Did you know that,
hanh
?”

“Lali’s a liar!” Bala shouted.

Amma ruffled his hair. “Tell me what happened then.”

Bala shrugged. “There was no beating, Yella Mausi. How could there be? I ran away like the wind.”

“
Aiyyo.
Why did you dip your hand in the man’s basket?”

Bala hung his head. “I…I was hungry,” he mumbled.

Amma’s voice softened and the furrows in her forehead flattened out. “There are better ways, dear boy.”

“I urgently wanted something to eat,” Bala said. “I toss and turn on my mat when I am hungry.” He rattled the marbles in his fist and turned away from her.

“Tch-tch
.
Aiyyo!”

I stiffened. How could my mother be one way with me and another with Bala? She was all
“Tch-tch”
and
“Aiyyo”
for Bala, but for me it was “Hurry up!” or “Stop daydreaming!” She understood the stolen peanuts but she didn’t understand Little Bibi’s accusing voice. It was not fair!

Amma placed a hand on Bala’s shoulder. “This won’t happen again, hmm?”

“It’s not a whole lot of fun when hungry mice race around in a person’s empty stomach!” Bala said.

Amma clucked her tongue again. “The Festival of Lights is just around the corner, dear boy,” she said. “You will come to our place for the special
Divali
sweets,
nai
?”

Bala’s eyes lit up. “Will there be
laddu
?”

“I can promise that we will save the tastiest piece for you, and Basanta will let you have a
Divali
sparkler too.”

Let him have one of my sparklers? I didn’t want to share my
laddu
and I didn’t want to give him a sparkler either!

But before I could protest, Amma untied the knot in her
pullo
and unpeeled two paper notes from a tightly folded wad. “Take this, dear boy,” she said. “Buy yourself a meal.”

She pulled me roughly by the arm. “Come!” she commanded.

Behind me, marbles rattled noisily, forcing me to look over my shoulder. Again Bala aimed his striker and
crack!
a shiny marble flew like a bullet.
“Arrey wah!”
he boasted.

I wanted to say something not particularly nice to him, but Amma told me to keep my eyes on the road.

I took a few steps, then glanced back. Bala was now trailing after a man, his voice suddenly whiny, one hand outstretched and the other rubbing his belly. “Sahib, one penny, if you please,” he cried. “I have not eaten in two days!”

But the man in the suit yelled
“Hutt!”
at him and shooed him away like a fly from milk.

We left Bala where the road curved past the cobbler’s shop and the bakery.

“Amma, why did you make promises about my sparklers before asking me first?” I demanded.

“Because everyone deserves a bit of happiness on
Divali
,” she replied. “And what’s wrong with a little kindness to a motherless boy, hmm?”

“Kindness for
him?
”

My mother tugged on her
pullo
and adjusted its drape over her head, ignoring my remark. “Take Gopal the Milk Man, for instance!” she went on. “He is kind and is rewarded for his generosity, don’t you know! And his dear boy, Ganga, is just as honorable too! You give one and you get back sevenfold, that’s what I say.”

It was true. Gopal was a good and kind man. And his buffalo had multiplied sevenfold as news of his charity spread in the
busti.

“Ganga’s firecrackers were the loudest of all last
Divali
,” I admitted. “They were so loud, Kalu hid behind the huts!”

“The point is,” my mother inserted, “it’s nice to be nice.
Bas!
That is enough. This conversation is not about fireworks.”

But the conversation
was
about fireworks. Amma had told Bala that I would share
my
sparklers with him. Be nice to Bala? Why should I?

“It’s not fair!” I stormed, but my mother’s toe rings on the asphalt drowned my voice completely.