DUST ON MOUNTAIN: COLLECTED STORIES (19 page)

‘There are parrots in the tree,’ said Kamla, noticing three or four green parrots conducting a noisy meeting in the topmost branches. They reminded her a bit of a pop group she had seen and heard at home.

‘They spoil most of the mangoes,’ said Romi.

He flung a stone at them, missed, but they took off with squawks of protest, flashes of green and gold wheeling in the sunshine.

‘Where do you swim?’ asked Kamla. ‘Down in the well?’

‘Of course not. I’m not a frog. There is a canal not far from here. Come, I will show you!’

As they crossed the fields, a pair of blue jays flew out of a bush, rockets of bright blue that dipped and swerved, rising and falling as they chased each other.

Remembering a story that Grandmother had told her, Kamla said, ‘They are sacred birds, aren’t they? Because of their blue throats.’ She told him the story of the God Shiva having a blue throat because he had swallowed a poison that would have destroyed the world; he had kept the poison in his throat and would not let it go further. ‘And so his throat is blue, like the blue jay’s.’

Romi liked this story. His respect for Kamla greatly increased. But he was not to be outdone, and when a small grey squirrel dashed across the path he told her that squirrels, too, were sacred. Krishna, the god who had been born into a farmer’s family like Romi’s, had been fond of squirrels and would take them in his arms and stroke them. ‘That is why squirrels have four dark lines down their backs,’ said Romi. ‘Krishna was very dark, as dark as I am, and the stripes are the marks of his fingers.’

‘Can you catch a squirrel?’ asked Kamla.

‘No, they are too quick. But I caught a snake once. I caught it by its tail and dropped it in the old well. That well is full of snakes. Whenever we catch one, instead of killing it, we drop it in the well! They can’t get out.’

Kamla shuddered at the thought of all those snakes swimming and wriggling about at the bottom of the deep well. She wasn’t sure that she wanted to return to the well with him. But she forgot about the snakes when they reached the canal.

It was a small canal, about ten metres wide, and only waist-deep in the middle, but it was very muddy at the bottom. She had never seen such a muddy stream in her life.

‘Would you like to get in?’ asked Romi.

‘No,’ said Kamla. ‘You get in.’

Romi was only too ready to show off his tricks in the water. His toes took a firm hold on the grassy bank, the muscles of his calves tensed, and he dived into the water with a loud splash, landing rather awkwardly on his belly. It was a poor dive, but Kamla was impressed.

Romi swam across to the opposite bank and then back again. When he climbed out of the water, he was covered with mud. It made him look quite fierce. ‘Come on in,’ he invited. ‘It’s not deep.’

‘It’s dirty,’ said Kamla, but felt tempted all the same.

‘It’s only mud,’ said Romi. ‘There’s nothing wrong with mud. Camels like mud. Buffaloes love mud.’

‘I’m not a camel—or a buffalo.’

‘All right. You don’t have to go right in, just walk along the sides of the channel.’

After a moment’s hesitation, Kamla slipped her feet out of her slippers, and crept cautiously down the slope till her feet were in the water. She went no further, but even so, some of the muddy water splashed on to her clean white skirt. What would she tell Grandmother? Her feet sank into the soft mud and she gave a little squeal as the water reached her knees. It was with some difficulty that she got each foot out of the sticky mud.

Romi took her by the hand, and they went stumbling along the side of the channel while little fish swam in and out of their legs, and a heron, one foot raised, waited until they had passed before snapping a fish out of the water. The little fish glistened in the sun before it disappeared down the heron’s throat.

Romi gave a sudden exclamation and came to a stop. Kamla held on to him for support.

‘What is it?’ she asked, a little nervously.

‘It’s a tortoise,’ said Romi. ‘Can you see it?’

He pointed to the bank of the canal, and there, lying quite still, was a small tortoise. Romi scrambled up the bank and, before Kamla could stop him, had picked up the tortoise. As soon as he touched it, the animal’s head and legs disappeared into its shell. Romi turned it over, but from behind the breastplate only the head and a spiky tail were visible.

‘Look!’ exclaimed Kamla, pointing to the ground where the tortoise had been lying. ‘What’s in that hole?’

They peered into the hole. It was about half a metre deep, and at the bottom were five or six white eggs, a little smaller than a hen’s eggs.

‘Put it back,’ said Kamla. ‘It was sitting on its eggs.’

Romi shrugged and dropped the tortoise back on its hole. It peeped out from behind its shell, saw the children were still present, and retreated into its shell again.

‘I must go,’ said Kamla. ‘It’s getting late. Granny will wonder where I have gone.’

They walked back to the mango tree, and washed their hands and feet in the cool clear water from the well; but only after Romi had assured Kamla that there weren’t any snakes in the well—he had been talking about an old disused well on the far side of the village. Kamla told Romi she would take him to her house one day, but it would have to be next year, or perhaps the year after, when she came to India again.

‘Is it very far, where you are going?’ asked Romi.

‘Yes, England is across the seas. I have to go back to my parents. And my school is there, too. But I will take the plane from Delhi. Have you ever been to Delhi?’

‘I have not been further than Jaipur,’ said Romi. ‘What is England like? Are there canals to swim in?’

‘You can swim in the sea. Lots of people go swimming in the sea. But it’s too cold most of the year. Where I live, there are shops and cinemas and places where you can eat anything you like. And people from all over the world come to live there. You can see red faces, brown faces, black faces, white faces!’

‘I saw a red face once,’ said Romi. ‘He came to the village to take pictures. He took one of me sitting on the camel. He said he would send me the picture, but it never came.’

Kamla noticed the flute lying on the grass. ‘Is it your flute?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ said Romi. ‘It is an old flute. But the old ones are best. I found it lying in a field last year. Perhaps it was the God Krishna’s! He was always playing the flute.’

‘And who taught you to play it?’

‘Nobody. I learnt by myself. Shall I play it for you?’

Kamla nodded, and they sat down on the grass, leaning against the trunk of the mango tree, and Romi put the flute to his lips and began to play.

It was a slow, sweet tune, a little sad, a little happy, and the notes were taken up by the breeze and carried across the fields. There was no one to hear the music except the birds and the camel and Kamla. Whether the camel liked it or not, we shall never know; it just kept going round and round the well, drawing up water for the fields. And whether the birds liked it or not, we cannot say, although it is true that they were all suddenly silent when Romi began to play. But Kamla was charmed by the music, and she watched Romi while he played, and the boy smiled at her with his eyes and ran his fingers along the flute. When he stopped playing, everything was still, everything silent, except for the soft wind sighing in the wheat and the gurgle of water coming up from the well.

Kamla stood up to leave.

‘When will you come again?’ asked Romi.

‘I will try to come next year,’ said Kamla.

‘That is a long time. By then you will be quite old. You may not want to come.’

‘I will come,’ said Kamla.

‘Promise?’

‘Promise.’

Romi put the flute in her hands and said, ‘You keep it. I can get another one.’

‘But I don’t know how to play it,’ said Kamla.

‘It will play by itself,’ said Romi.

She took the flute and put it to her lips and blew on it, producing a squeaky little note that startled a lone parrot out of the mango tree. Romi laughed, and while he was laughing, Kamla turned and ran down the path through the fields. And when she had gone some distance, she turned and waved to Romi with the flute. He stood near the well and waved back at her.

Cupping his hands to his mouth, he shouted across the fields, ‘Don’t forget to come next year!’

And Kamla called back, ‘I won’t forget.’ But her voice was faint, and the breeze blew the words away and Romi did not hear them.

Was England home? wondered Kamla. Or was this Indian city home? Or was her true home in that other India, across the busy Trunk Road? Perhaps she would find out one day.

Romi watched her until she was just a speck in the distance, and then he turned and shouted at the camel, telling it to move faster. But the camel did not even glance at him; it just carried on as before, as India has carried on for thousands of years, round and round and round the well, while the water gurgled and splashed over the smooth stones.

C
hachi died at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, 5 April, and came to life again exactly twenty minutes later. This is how it happened.

Chachi was, as a rule, a fairly tolerant, easy going person, who waddled about the house without paying much attention to the swarms of small sons, daughters, nephews and nieces who poured in and out of the rooms. But she had taken a particular aversion to her ten-year-old nephew, Sunil. She was a simple woman and could not understand Sunil. He was a little brighter than her own sons, more sensitive, and inclined to resent a scolding or a cuff across the head. He was better looking than her own children. All this, in addition to the fact that she resented having to cook for the boy while both his parents went out to office jobs, led her to grumble at him a little more than was really necessary.

Sunil sensed his aunt’s jealousy and fanned its flames. He was a mischievous boy, and did little things to annoy her, like bursting paperbags behind her while she dozed, or commenting on the width of her pyjamas when they were hung out to dry. On the evening of 5 April, he had been in particularly high spirits and, feeling hungry, entered the kitchen with the intention of helping himself to some honey. But the honey was on the top shelf, and Sunil wasn’t quite tall enough to grasp the bottle. He got his fingers to it but as he tilted it towards him, it fell to the ground with a crash.

Chachi reached the scene of the accident before Sunil could slip away. Removing her slipper, she dealt him three or four furious blows across the head and shoulders. This done, she sat down on the floor and burst into tears.

Had the beating come from someone else, Sunil might have cried; but his pride was hurt and, instead of weeping, he muttered something under his breath and stormed out of the room.

Climbing the steps to the roof, he went to his secret hiding place, a small hole in the wall of the unused barsati, where he kept his marbles, kite string, tops and a clasp knife. Opening the knife, he plunged it thrice into the soft wood of the window frame.

‘I’ll kill her!’ he whispered fiercely. ‘I’ll kill her, I’ll kill her!’

‘Who are you going to kill, Sunil?’

It was his cousin Madhu, a dark, slim girl of twelve, who aided and abetted him in most of his exploits. Sunil’s chachi was her mami. It was a very big family.

‘Chachi,’ said Sunil. ‘She hates me, I know. Well, I hate her too. This time I’ll kill her.’

‘How are you going to do it?’

‘I’ll stab her with this.’ He showed her the knife. ‘Three times, in the heart.’

‘But you’ll be caught. The CID is very clever. Do you want to go to jail?’

‘Won’t they hang me?’

‘They don’t hang small boys. They send them to boarding schools.’

‘I don’t want to go to a boarding school.’

‘Then better not kill your chachi. At least not this way. I’ll show you how.’

Madhu produced pencil and paper, went down on her hands and knees, and screwing up her face in sharp concentration, made a rough drawing of Chachi. Then, with a red crayon, she sketched in a big heart in the region of Chachi’s stomach.

‘Now,’ she said, ‘stab her to death!’

Sunil’s eyes shone with excitement. Here was a great new game. You could always depend on Madhu for something original. He held the drawing against the woodwork, and plunged his knife three times into Chachi’s pastel breast.

‘You have killed her,’ said Madhu.

‘Is that all?’

‘Well, if you like, we can cremate her.’

‘All right.’

She took the torn paper, crumpled it up, produced a box of matches from Sunil’s hiding place, lit a match and set fire to the paper. In a few minutes all that remained of Chachi was a few ashes.

‘Poor Chachi,’ said Madhu.

‘Perhaps we shouldn’t have done it,’ said Sunil, beginning to feel sorry.

‘I know, we’ll put her ashes in the river!’

‘What river?’

‘Oh, the drain will do.’

Madhu gathered the ashes together and leant over the balcony of the roof. She threw out her arms, and the ashes drifted downwards. Some of them settled on the pomegranate tree, a few reached the drain and were carried away by a sudden rush of kitchen water. She turned to face Sunil.

Big tears were rolling down Sunil’s cheeks.

‘What are you crying for?’ asked Madhu.

‘Chachi, I didn’t hate her so much.’

‘Then why did you want to kill her?’

‘Oh, that was different.’

‘Come on, then, let’s go down. I have to do my homework.’

As they came down the steps from the roof, Chachi emerged from the kitchen.

‘Oh, Chachi!’ shouted Sunil. He rushed to her and tried to get his arms around her ample waist.

‘Now what’s up?’ grumbled Chachi. ‘What is it this time?’

‘Nothing, Chachi. I love you so much. Please don’t leave us.’

A look of suspicion crossed Chachi’s face. She frowned down at the boy. But she was reassured by the look of genuine affection that she saw in his eyes.

‘Perhaps he
does
care for me, after all,’ she thought and patted him gently on the head. She took him by the hand and led him back to the kitchen.