Nectar in a Sieve (8 page)

Nathan said not a word. There was a crushed look about him which spoke of the deep hurt he had suffered more than any words could have done. He had always wanted to own his own land, through the years there had been the hope, growing fainter with each year, each child, that one day he would be able to call a small portion of land his own. Now even his sons knew it would never be. Like his brother before him, Thambi had found the cruelest words of any.

Yet they were good sons, considerate of us, patient with others, always giving us a fair share of their earnings. With their money we began once again to live well. In the granary, unused for so long, I stored away half a bag of rice, two measures of dhal and nearly a pound of chillies. Hitherto, almost all we grew had been sold to pay the rent of the land; now we were enabled to keep some of our own produce. I was especially pleased that I had not been forced to sell all the chillies, for these are useful to us; when the tongue rebels against plain boiled rice, desiring ghee and salt and spices which one cannot afford, the sharp bite of a chillie renders even plain rice palatable. I was able at last to thatch our hut again, substantially, with two or three bindings of leaves. For the first time in years I bought clothes for the older children, a sari for myself, and although he protested I bought for my husband a dhoti which he badly needed, since the other was in rags and barely covered his loins. Both he and I had the garments we had worn at our daughter's marriage, but these we never thought of wearing: whatever hardships our day-to-day living might have, we were determined not to disgrace our sons on the day of their weddings.

CHAPTER X

DEEPAVALI, the Festival of Lights, approached. It is a festival mainly for the children, but of course everyone who can takes part. I twisted cotton into wicks, soaked them in oil and placed them in mud saucers ready to be lit at night. To the children I handed out two annas apiece, to be spent on fireworks. I had never been able to do so before -- in previous years we had contented ourselves with watching other people's fireworks, or with going down to the bonfire in the village, and even now I felt qualms about wasting money on such quickly spent pleasures; but their rapturous faces overcame my misgivings. It is only once, I thought, a memory.

As it grew dark we lit the tapers and wicks and encircled our dwelling with light. A feathery breeze was stirring, setting the flames leaping and dancing, their reflections in the black glistening oil cavorting too. In the town and in the houses nearby, hundreds of small beacons were beginning to flash; now and then a rocket would tear into the sky, break and pour out its riches like precious jewels into the darkness. As the night went on, the crackle and spit of exploding fire works increased. The children had bought boxes of coloured matches and strings of patt-has and a few pice worth of crackers, like small nuts, which split in two with a loud bang amid a shower of sparks when lit. The last were the most popular -- the boys pranced round shrieking with laughter and throwing the crackers about everywhere, yet they were nimble enough to skip out of harm's way. All except Selvam, the youngest. He stood a safe distance away, legs apart and obviously ready to run, holding a stick of sugar cane nearly as tall as himself, which he had bought instead of fireworks.

"Go and play," I said to him. "Deepavali comes but once a year and this is the first time we have bought fireworks. Do not lose the opportunity."

"I am afraid," he said frankly, his small face serious.

After we had eaten, and rather well, and there were no crackers left, and the oil in the saucers had run dry, we walked to the town. Selvam refused to come. He was a stubborn child; I knew it was useless to try to persuade him. Ira stayed behind too, saying she preferred to stay with him. I think she was glad of the excuse he provided, for since her return she had not cared to be seen about, and of course there would be a large crowd in the town. Villagers from all round, like us, were converging towards the bonfire to be lit there; already smoke wisps were curling towards the clouds, torches were beginning to flare. The smell of oil was everywhere, heavy and pungent, exciting the senses. Our steps quickened. Quicker and quicker, greedy, wanting to encompass everything, to miss not one iota of pleasure. Then as happens even in the brightest moment, I remembered Janaki. Last year she had come with us, she and her children. This year who knew – or cared? The black thought momentarily doused the glow within me; then, angered and indignant, I thrust the intruder away, chasing it, banishing it... tired of gloom, reaching desperately for perfection of delight, which can surely never be.

There was a great noise everywhere. Men, women and children from the tannery and the fields had come out, many of them in new clothes such as we too had donned, the girls and women with flowers in their hair and glass bangles at their wrists and silver rings on their toes; and those who could afford it wore silver golsu clasped round their ankles and studded belts around their waists.

In the centre of the town the bonfire was beginning to smoulder. For many weeks the children had been collecting firewood, rags, leaves and brushwood, and the result was a huge pile like an enormous ant hill, into which the flames ate fiercely, hissing and crackling and rearing up as they fed on the bits of camphor and oil-soaked rags that people threw in.

In the throng I lost Nathan and the boys, or perhaps they lost me -- at any rate we got separated -- I pushed my way through the crush, this way and that, nobody giving an inch, in my efforts to find them; and in the end I had to give up. Before long, in the heat and excitement, I forgot them. Drums had begun to beat, the fire was blazing fiercely, great long orange tongues consuming the fuel and thrusting upwards and sometimes outwards as if to engulf the watchers. As each searching flame licked round, the crowd leaned away from its grasp, straightening as the wind and the flames changed direction; so that there was a constant swaying movement like the waving of river grasses. The heat was intense -- faces gleamed ruddy in the firelight, one or two women had drawn their saris across their eyes.

Leaping, roaring to climax, then the strength taken from fury, a quietening. Slowly, one by one, the flames gave up their colour and dropped, until at last there were none left -- only a glowing heap, ashen-edged. The drumbeats died to a murmur. The scent of jasmine flowers mingled with the fumes of camphor and oil, and a new smell, that of toddy, which several of the men had been drinking -- many to excess, for they were lurching about loud-mouthed and more than ordinarily merry. I looked about for my family and at last saw my husband. He seemed to have gone mad. He had one son seated on his shoulders and one son at each hip, and was bounding about on the fringes of the crowd to the peril of my children and the amusement of the people. I fought my way to him. "Have you taken leave of your senses?" I cried out above the din.

"No; only of my cares," he shouted gaily, capering about with the children clinging delightedly to him. "Do you not feel joy in the air?"

He sounded so light of heart I could not help smiling.

"I feel nothing," I said, going up to him. "Perhaps it is the toddy that makes the feeling."

"Not a drop," he said, coming up to me. "Smell!"

"You are too tall -- I cannot," I replied.

"Lift her up," somebody yelled, and a dozen voices repeated the cry: "Lift her up, lift her up!"

My husband looked at me solemnly. "I will," he said, and dropping his sons he seized me and swung me high up, in front of all those people. Several of the women were laughing at him indulgently, the children were twittering with pleasure.

"Whatever will they say," I said, my face burning as he let me down again. "At our age too! You ought to be ashamed!"

"That I am not," he said, winking, to the vast delight of the onlookers. "I am happy because life is good and the children are good, and you are the best of all."

What more could I say after that?

Nathan sang loudly all the way back. He was in high spirits. The children, tired out, clumped along in silence, the youngest with frequent pleas to be carried; and when we took no notice he began snuffling.

It was a very hot night -- Selvam and Ira were sleeping out in the open, in the small square in front of our hut which I had swept and washed with dung that morning. The others stretched themselves out and were asleep almost as they lay down. Nathan had lost none of his good humour. He seemed very wide awake. I stretched myself out beside him, close to him in the darkness, and as we touched he turned abruptly to wards me. Words died away, the listening air was very still, the black night waited. In the straining darkness I felt his body moving with desire, his hands on me were trembling, and I felt my senses opening like a flower to his urgency. I closed my eyes and waited, waited in the darkness while my being filled with a wild, ecstatic fluttering, waited for him to come to me.

CHAPTER XI

ONE of my husband's male relatives had died and he had to attend the funeral. When he had gone I took the opportunity of going to see Kenny. I had not done so before because I was sure Nathan would not like his wife or his daughter going to a white man, a foreigner. My father had been different -- but Nathan, I felt, would not approve. And if he did not, the one chance Ira had would be lost, and this made it the more important that he should not know. I explained this to Ira cautiously, and she nodded listlessly and said yes, it was a necessary precaution, but she did not look at me and she showed no enthusiasm. I was getting more and more worried about her: she moped about, dull of hair and eye, as if the sweetness of life had departed -- as indeed it has for a woman who is abandoned by her husband.

Kenny was working in the small building they had put up near the tannery. I could see him whenever the door opened to let someone out. There was a long line of men waiting; I squatted some distance away. The day wore on. The sun had set, the glow of twilight was touched with darkness, before he came out. He looked grim and tired, his eyes were burning, there was an air of such impersonal cruelty about him that despite myself I shivered.

"No more tonight," he said briefly to the assembled men, and stepping down from the verandah he strode away. I waited till the crowd dispersed, then I followed. He was walking quickly with long strides, I had to run to catch up. He stopped at last when he heard my footsteps and waited for me to come up, frowning so that I began to feel afraid.

"I said no more tonight. Did you not hear me? Do you think I am made of iron?"

"I waited all day," I gasped. "I must see you. My husband will be back soon and then I cannot come."

His frown deepened. He said coldly, "You people will never learn. It is pitiful to see your foolishness."

"It is for my daughter I come," I said. "She cannot bear; she is as I was."

"You will be a mother even before she is," he replied with a glimmer of a smile, "for it seems you have no difficulty."

"It is so," I said. "I would it were otherwise and she in my condition, for she is much afflicted since her husband has no use for her."

"Why did she not come then," he said, "since it is her need? It would have been more sensible."

There was an edge to his voice, and his mouth twisted as if in exasperation.

"Forgive me," I whispered, quaking, "I was not sure --"

To my surprise, he put both hands on my shoulders, forcing me to look at him, and I saw he was laughing.

"I am sorry I frightened you," he said. "You should not act like a timid calf at your age. As for your daughter, I will do what I can -- but remember, no promises."

He turned and was gone. I sat down to think, and to collect my wits. When at last I rose to go, a full moon was shining, golden and enormous, very low in the sky. Bats went swooping silently by. I kept to the narrow footpath, clear and white in the moonlight, walking swiftly and absorbed in my thoughts.

I heard no footsteps, only a voice calling my name from the shadows. I stopped, my heart hitting out wildly at my breast, and then I saw it was Kunthi, standing where the path forked with the moonlight streaming full down on her.

"You startled me," I said, "I did not expect --"

"That I can see," she said coolly, coming towards me. "You keep late hours, Rukmani."

"No later than yours," I replied, not liking her tone. "I have my reasons."

"Of course," she said softly, derision in her voice. "We all have reasons."

"Mine are not the same as yours," I said with contempt, surveying her. She came very close, so close that I smelt the rose petals in her hair, saw the paint on her mouth.

"Meaning?"

"That we live differently. It is charitable to say no more. Let me pass."

She stood squarely in my path. "I would not have thought it," she said slowly, "had I not seen for myself."

"Thought what," I said. "Seen what?"