Nectar in a Sieve (23 page)

"They were the usual ones: women and gambling," she said harshly.

We looked at each other, trembling on the brink of a quarrel, bitterness parting the threads of forbearance one by one, but while a few still held, suddenly, the outward semblance fell away. I saw only that she was a very young girl, frail beyond most, deserted by her husband and doing her best to feed herself and her children.

"I am sorry," I said jerkily. "I must have been out of my senses."

She nodded very slightly, accepting my explanation, the blaze dying out behind her face.

"It is better that we should go now," said Nathan, rising, "while it is still light. We are not yet used to this city . . . darkness does not help."

"Where will you go?" Ammu repeated her question. Her voice had taken on anxiety; behind the relief which she could not hide, I sensed her troubled uneasy mind moving from doubt to doubt. No words, the meaning clearer than if there had been. These people are old . . . they are mine through my husband . . . I have a duty to them, but what of myself and my children? Are we not poor enough, ragged enough, without two more coming to share our resources? Yet what of them, they have nothing. The shadows of her thought, dull and heavy, moved across her pale thin face.

"We will return to our son and daughter," Nathan said, not replying directly. "But what of you, my child? It is we rather than you who should ask. We have had our day, you are still young . . . the mother of children who cannot help you for many years yet."

She stared at him as if unused to consideration, hardly credulous, almost suspicious. "I can look after myself and my children," she said, slightly emphasising the "myself" and "my children" so that we might understand, "but not my in-laws as well." "I have managed for a long time now."

There is no touching this girl, I thought. Misfortune has hardened her, which is just as well, she will take many a knock yet. There seemed nothing more to say, nothing left to keep us. Ammu had begun to fidget, moving restlessly where she sat, pulling nervously at her fingers until the joints cracked. I nudged Nathan, who was sunk in thought.

"We must go."

"Yes yes," he said, starting. "It is getting late."

We looked again at our grandchild who was part of ourselves, and at the poor little waif who lay quietly now on the rag-heap, and we said farewell. Ammu came to the doorway with us. Now that we were actually leaving, her manner became more cordial, the stiff unfriendliness she had displayed had gone with the fear that we might have come to stay.

"Take care of yourselves," she called. "Godspeed and may you get home safely." Her lips were smiling, she brought the boy to the door to wave to us.

Though we had known them so short a while there was melancholy in the parting. Maybe we shall never see them again, I thought sadly, and I heard Nathan beside me heave a sigh. Both of us absorbed in our thoughts, we did not understand the shouting we vaguely heard until one of the peons came running after us puffing and angry.

"Are you deaf?" he bawled. "I have told you three times that servants are not allowed to use this gate, yet you continue as if you had not heard!

"We are not servants."

"Servants or not, it is all one! You must use the back gate. Come on, if you are seen here I will lose my job."

We followed him. Some distance from the main gate was a smaller one, and to this he pointed. "There! And remember to use it next time as well."

"There will not be a next time," said Nathan gently, "but we shall remember."

CHAPTER XXVII

ONE or two of the regulars in the temple recognised us.

"What, you back again! Trouble with your daughter-in-law no doubt?"

"No, no trouble. All is well."

Some sniggered knowingly, others were sympathetic. "Ah well, things often turn out unexpectedly. Perhaps your luck will change soon."

A few were antagonistic and openly so; like Ammu they saw their share of the food shrinking with each additional mouth.

"Outsiders should not be allowed, they grumbled. "Are there not enough destitute in this city without the whole of India flocking in?"

We looked at them resentfully: were we not as hungry as they? Soon we were looking at newcomers with a fearful eye, wondering with each fresh arrival how much less there would be.

Each night was a struggle, more fierce now that we were daily engaged in it. I saw, night after night, what I had not observed before: the lame with their crutches knocked away from them so that they fell and were unable to rise; the feeble separated from their supporters so that their numbers were halved. Many a time my husband stood aside unable to face the fray: if I had not reproached him his distaste of the whole procedure would have led him to starvation. As it was, more often than not one meal sufficed for two.

And when the crowd had dispersed, to sleep, to beg, to scavenge, in the cool of the night and early dawn we sat in the quiet courtyards, or leaned our backs against the pillars in the paved corridors, making our plans and thinking, always thinking. With each passing day the longing for the land grew; our plans were forged against a background of brown earth and green fields and the ripe rustling paddy, not, curiously, as they were, but as we had first known them . . . fresh, open and unspoilt, with their delicate scents and sounds untainted, with the skies clear above them and the birds finding sanctuary amid the grasses. And at the same time, keeping pace with these longings, our distaste for the city grew and grew and became a sweeping, pervading hatred.

"Better to starve where we were bred than live here," Nathan said passionately. "Whatever happens, whatever awaits us, we must return."

But how? We have no money. My husband can till and sow and reap with skill, but here there is no land. I can weave and spin, or plait matting, but there is no money for spindle, cotton or fibre. For where shall a man turn who has no money? Where can he go? Wide, wide world, but as narrow as the coins in your hand. Like a tethered goat, so far and no farther. Only money can make the rope stretch, only money.

Then one day I thought I would set myself up as a reader of letters such as there are in most villages, and surely also in cities?

"Whoever heard of a woman reader?" said Nathan. "No one will come to you."

"If I ask little, and less than the others, custom there will surely be," said I. "In any case one must try. Even a few annas would help."

"Do you think you could?" Nathan was half-despondent, half-eager, and somehow the eagerness alone communicated itself to me.

"Yes, I am sure. If I write letters as well as read them, I shall earn even more."

"How can you write without paper or ink?"

"Who asks must provide," I said confidently. "Leave it to me."

We looked at each other and hope stirred, albeit cautiously, making us cheerful.

"We shall need about ten rupees," Nathan said. "For our food on the way, and to pay the carter . . . say two rupees more in case we are three days travelling."

"Eight letters a day at an anna each," I said. "Say half that for rice each day . . ."

We made our calculations, crushing optimism whenever it arose so that we might be certain, absolutely certain. And at last we said to each other . . ."Soon we shall be back."

All that day and many following, I sat by the side of the road leading to the bazaar calling to those who passed, adding to the general clamour. Men hurrying by stopped to stare inquisitively before moving on, idlers stood or sat around lazily indulging their curiosity. Youths sauntered by insolent of eye and manner, speaking loudly and with exaggerated clearness to each other that I might hear.

"Says she can read! These village folk are certainly getting above themselves!"

"She is a writer as well! What do you suppose she writes with?"

"Probably uses her . . .!" Whispers, laughs.

"Oh, come away! she is past all that. . . ."

"She must be mad to imagine . . ."

Grimly I took no notice and went on with my cries. By the end of the day my voice was hoarse: my mouth tasted of the dust that each passing pair of feet raised, my hair was full of it. I had earned two annas, and I spent it on a rice cake for us to eat in the morning.

One year ended, a new one began. Worshippers at the temple brought garlands of jasmine instead of chrysanthemums, and roses had disappeared from the feet of the Gods. Still we stayed on in the city. And whether from its fumes or from the blighting of our hopes, my husband began to suffer again from rheumatism, and at the same time the old bouts of fever began. Over and over again I told myself, we must go from here; especially at night, when my husband lay beside me twisting and straining in his sleep, it seemed to be the one hope for him, and I would look at the yellow flare burning from the top of the temple and at the carven Gods vigilant about us, and only one prayer did I utter.

I was returning to the temple one evening, hurrying so that I should be in good time for the meal, when I heard someone running after me, shouting something I could not understand. I stopped at last and looked round, peering at the boy who had come up panting, but it was dusk and I did not recognise him.

"Do not pretend you do not know me," he said accusingly. "I am Puli; I have come for my payment."

"Payment? What payment? I owe no one anything."

I walked on quickly, and the lad came after me.

"I took you to the doctor's house . . . not so long ago either . . . and you promised to pay."

I remembered now. It was the boy with the impudent face who had guided us.

"If you do not," he continued threateningly, "it will be the worse for you. I am not used to being bilked."

I could not help smiling, this child spoke like a man using the words of a ruffian.

"I would pay you if I could," I said placatingly, "but I have nothing. Come and see for yourself if you do not believe me."

"I do not," he said frankly. "I will see for myself."

I hurried on and he came after, dogging my footsteps in a suspicious silence. Nathan came running to meet me.

"Where on earth have you been? The food has all gone. Luckily today I was able to get near, otherwise we should have starved."

"Blame this lad," I said. "He would stop and argue."

Nathan peered at Puli. "Who is he? What does he want of you?"

Before I could reply the boy advanced. "I want payment; that's what I want," he said truculently. "I shall see that I get it."

"Payment? What for?" asked Nathan, bewildered. He too had forgotten.

"He guided us to the doctor's house," I explained, "when we first came."

There was a pause. Nathan began sharing out the rice and dhal, carefully tearing the plantain leaf he carried into three pieces on which to put each portion. I had with the day's earnings bought as usual one rice cake which I now broke to hand round. The boy stared at it: "You must have money! Otherwise how could you buy rice cakes?"

I sighed. "I earn two annas a day by writing letters -- sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. I buy food with it."

"Which is not unreasonable," Nathan said impatiently, "seeing how one portion has sometimes to be stretched to three!"

At last Puli seemed satisfied. He began to eat, and once more I saw that he had no fingers, only stumps. He himself did not appear to find any difficulty in managing without, except that once or twice he had to use both hands, and there was a certain awkwardness in his handling of the food. Despite myself I could not keep my eyes off his hands; the harder I tried to keep my gaze fixed elsewhere, the more it fastened itself to those stumps. Puli, seemingly unaware, continued eating stolidly. He is used to it, I thought. He knows and accepts the shameful probing curiosities of human beings.

When we had eaten, and fed the leaves to the goats, and washed, Puli to my surprise lay down beside us.

"You had better go home," I said, nudging him. "What will your poor mother think if you stay here all night?"

"I have no mother, poor or otherwise," he said. "There is no one to worry about me and none to worry me either, which is a good thing," and turning on his side he fell instantly asleep.

I might have felt apprehensive for him, but that I knew him to be eminently capable of looking after himself; or sorry, save that he so patently did not desire it; but I could not help feeling a vague responsibility which certainly I knew I was in no position to fulfil.