Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya
CHAPTER XXVI
THE Collector's house on Chamundi Hill was simple enough to find: the hill itself could be seen for miles around, and everyone had heard of the Collector and knew where he lived. It was as the doctor had said a very fine house, taller than the young casuarina trees that grew near it and so brilliantly white that it looked as if the painters had only just finished their work. Around the house and grounds, which stretched away on either side of the hill, ran a low compound wall. A number of peons were standing about, turbaned and belted, much more imposing than the tannery chowkidars had been.
When he saw us approaching, one of the peons came up to us.
"No beggars are allowed here."
"We are not beggars. We have come for our son Murugan, who works here."
The man's manner changed. He looked at us almost sympathetically and was about to say something but changed his mind, instead swinging the heavy gate open for us and indicating that we should follow him.
"I will take you to his wife. The servants' godowns are at the back of the house."
My son's wife, the girl we had never seen. My son, who had been gone so long. A queer excitement took hold of me, I felt myself trembling. Nathan beside me quickened his step: his excitement was a part of me too.
"This is Ammu's godown," the man said, pointing. "Make yourselves known to her . . . I cannot wait. . . ."
He was gone. The godown he had pointed to was much the same as the one we had left, a small square room set in a row, only here the row was much longer, there were some ten or twelve godowns. The door stood open, from within came the sound of a baby's fretful crying.
"Come," Nathan said in a cracked voice. "Let us go in."
But we could not, although the door stood open, for sudden shyness had set a stranglehold upon us and the sense of intrusion was strong . . . and in the end we stood by the open doorway and called.
A thin girl with untidy hair came out: the baby we had heard crying at her hip, a small boy clinging to her sari; stood staring at us with a slight frown.
"Who is it? What do you want?"
No smile, no welcome. Perhaps she thinks we are beggars, I thought. No wonder since we look it, and once more the humiliation of having nothing, not even a cooking pot, smote at me.
"We are Murugan's parents," Nathan said gently. "You must be his wife."
The girl nodded, then recollecting herself she drew aside so that we could enter, came after us and stood biting her lip as if uncertain what to say.
"These must be our grandchildren," I said, trying not to notice her attitude. "I have long wanted to see them."
"No doubt . . ." the girl said, her lips twisting a little. "No doubt you want to see your son, too. He is not here."
"Not here," Nathan repeated. "I was told he was here! When is he coming back?"
"I wish I knew," she replied. "I do not think he will ever come back."
"What do you mean? Are you not his wife? What makes you say he will never return?"
"He left me," she replied bitterly. "He has been gone nearly two years."
We had come a long way to meet bad news and now it seemed there was neither going back nor going forward. What we had saved had been taken from us, there was nothing more . . . nothing left to sell; neither youth nor strength left to barter.
I looked about the room in which my son's wife lived, and I knew that at any rate we could not stay here. Such resources as she had were not enough even for herself, they would certainly not stretch to cover our needs. Except for a small bowlful of rice there seemed to be no other food in the place. The little boy was thin and hollow-cheeked, his mother looked worn and haggard and was obviously hardly able to feed the baby who kept whimpering fitfully: the cry of hunger which is different from the other cries of infants.
"Is there no way of finding out where he has gone?" Nathan said at last. "Perhaps if we tried . . ."
"I have tried," Ammu said brusquely. "Do you think I haven't? He has left the city: nobody knows where he has gone."
There was about her a faint air of hostility, as if in some way she held us responsible for his defection. As indeed we are, I thought sadly. We gave him life, we should have taught him better. Yet looking back it was difficult to see how or where the mistake had been made.
We had been there about an hour, perhaps less, when Ammu rose. "I must go to my work . . . it is late already. I shall be back at midday to feed the children, stay till then."
"Do you go far?"
"No . . . only to the house. I sweep and clean."
"It must be hard work," I said. "You do not look very strong and the house is a large one."
She shrugged. "I am not the only one . . . besides one must live. It is not everywhere one can earn fifteen rupees a month and have a godown to live in free."
The baby was still astride her hip, now she arranged a few rags in a corner of the room and laid him down. Instantly he began to wail. "Let me take him," I said. "He may quieten down."
"As you wish," she said indifferently, picking him up and handing him to me. "Of course you realise he has nothing to do with you. . . . I mean he is not your grandchild."
"Of course."
"One must live," she repeated, defiant, challenging, sensing reproach where none could be; for it is very true, one must live.
At midday, as she had said, she came back. She had told us to wait, yet now her attitude said very clearly: You should not have taken me at my word, what I said was said in duty and for no other reason. In a sullen silence she began preparing the meal, lighting the fire, fetching the water, boiling the rice, the baby astride her hip as before and whimpering unheeded. She did not speak until we had eaten. Then she looked up.
"Where will you go? Can you return to your village?" And when? said her hostile questioning eyes. I cannot keep you here indefinitely, the sooner you go the better.
"We must return to our village," Nathan agreed. "There is nothing for us here. We came only because of our son, you understand."
She nodded. "Yes; he has let us all down."
"Maybe there were reasons," I said. Whatever claim this woman had on him, still he was my son; I could not let her heap all the blame on him. Her face darkened, anger bloated her lips and lit fires behind her black brooding eyes.
"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 wel
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 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?"