The English Teacher

by R. K. Narayan

  ‘I took her out on two days just for a few minutes. When the child in the next house came home in the afternoon and went back to school, Leela also went with her one day,’ she said and added, ‘Poor thing, it was some way of engaging her mind and keeping her from longing for her mother!’

  The child came home half an hour later. Her teacher left her at the gate and went away. ‘Father,’ she screamed at the gate, ‘I’ve been to school like you.’ I went out and picked her up in my arms. The teacher had moved off a few yards.

  ‘Is that your teacher?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Call him,’ I said. At which she shouted: ‘Schoolmaster!’ and the teacher turned back. ‘Come back and speak to my father.’

  ‘You are the headmaster of the school?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is there any class to which this girl can be admitted?’

  ‘Oh, yes. She will be happy. We shall be very glad to admit her.’

  ‘Any long hours?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, no, she can come any time and go away when she likes. No restrictions. Please send her. She will be happy with us.’

  ‘May I know your name?’

  ‘Just Headmaster will do …’ he said.

  The child was dancing with joy. She was full of descriptions of her school. ‘Father, do you know I have made a clay brinjal? The teacher said it was nice.’ ‘All right, all right,’ I said, and sat by her side and made her take some tiffin which the old lady had prepared. She was too excited to relish anything. I coaxed her to eat. And then took her to the bathroom. Her face was streaked with the clay she had been handling. I soaked a towel in water and rubbed her cheeks till they glowed. And then I sent her in to the old lady and had her hair combed.

  I took her out on her usual walk. I took her through the busy thoroughfare of Market Road. She loved the bustle of Market Road and kept asking questions and I found her view of life enchanting. I bought her some sweets at the stores. She mainly talked about her school. ‘Father, at our school, I have a friend. You know her father gives her lots of sweets every day. Why do you always give me only one or two?’

  ‘Children must not eat more than two at a time,’ I replied.

  ‘She is a good girl, always plays with me at school,’ the child said. ‘Shall I also grow tall when I go to school?’

  ‘Yes, certainly.’

  ‘Why do you go to that far-off school, and not to our school, father?’ she said. She saw some villagers moving about with turbans on their heads. She asked: ‘Do they wear those things on their heads, even when they sleep?’ I don’t know what idea crossed her mind at such times. I took her to the river-bank. She ran about on the sand. She watched the other children playing. She whispered: ‘That girl is in our school.’

  ‘What is her name?’

  ‘Kamala,’ she said.

  ‘Is she your friend?’

  ‘She is a very good girl.’

  ‘Go and play with her if you like.’ The girl was playing with another group around a circle on the sand. At my suggestion Leela blinked and said with great seriousness: ‘She will be very angry if I ask to be taken also.’

  ‘Call her, let me see,’ I said.

  ‘Kamala, Kamala,’ she called faintly, and then added: ‘That is her school name, she doesn’t like to be called so when she is not in school.’ We passed on. She stood near other girls also and pointed them out to me as her school friends, but she would not go near anyone or call aloud. She seemed to identify her friends in a general way, whatever might be their names and their schools; as far as she was concerned they were all her friends and schoolmates. She was endowing each of them with any character she chose.

  Next morning there was great activity. She was to be put to school. I was as excited as if I myself were to be put to school. I did little work at my table that day. I ran about the house in great excitement. I opened her trunk and picked out a shirt and skirt, fresh ones, printed cotton. When she saw them my daughter put them back and insisted upon wearing something in lace and silk. ‘Baby, you must not go to school wearing laced clothes. Have you ever seen me going with any lace on?’

  ‘It’s because you have no lace skirts, that is all,’ she said. ‘No, father, I want that for school. Otherwise they will not allow me in.’ She threw her clothes about and picked up a deep green, with a resplendent lace three inches wide, and a red skirt studded with stars: the whole thing was too gorgeous for a school. Her mother had selected them for her on a birthday, at the Bombay Cloth Emporium. Two evenings before the birthday we had gone there, and after an hour’s search she picked up these bits for the child, who was delighted with the selection. I protested against it and was told, ‘Gaudy! There is nothing gaudy where children are concerned, particularly if they are girls. Whom are these for if they are not meant to be worn by children?’

  ‘Go on, go on,’ I said cynically. ‘Buy yourself two of the same pattern if you are so fond of it.’ But the cynicism was lost on her. She disarmed me by taking it literally and said: ‘No, no. I don’t think they weave saris of this pattern? Do they?’ she asked turning to the shopman.

  The child was excessively fond of this piece and on every occasion attempted to wear it. Today she was so adamant that I had to yield to her. She tried to wear them immediately, but I said: ‘After your hair is combed and you have bathed.…’ And now as I put her clothes back in the box she grew very impatient and demanded: ‘Bathe me, father, bathe me, father.’ I turned her over to the old lady’s care and arranged the box, carefully folded and kept away her clothes. She had over forty skirts and shirts. Her mother believed in stitching clothes for her whenever she had no other work to do, and all the child’s grandparents and uncles and aunts constantly sent her silk pieces and clothes ever since the day she was born. The result was she had accumulated an unmanageable quantity of costly clothes, and it was one of my important occupations in life to keep count of them.

  She was ready, dressed in a regalia, and stood before me, a miniature version of her mother. ‘Let us go,’ she said, and for a moment I was unaware whether the mother or the daughter was speaking – the turn of the head and lips!

  ‘I must carry books,’ she insisted.

  ‘No, no, not today.…’

  ‘My teacher will be angry if I don’t take my books,’ she said, and picked up her usual catalogue. She clasped it to her little bosom, and walked out with me, bubbling with anticipation and joy.

  The school was in the next street. A small compound and a few trees and a small brick-red building. The noise those children made reached me as I turned the street. The schoolmaster received us at the gate. As soon as we entered the gate, a few other children surrounded Leela and took her away. She left me without a thought. She behaved as if she had been in that school for years and years.

  The headmaster was in raptures over the new arrival. He said: ‘Won’t you come and have a look round?’

  He had partitioned the main hall into a number of rooms. The partition screens could all be seen, filled with glittering alphabets and pictures drawn by children – a look at it seemed to explain the created universe. You could find everything you wanted – men, trees, and animals, skies and rivers. ‘All these – work of our children …’ he explained proudly. ‘Wonderful creatures! It is wonderful how much they can see and do! I tell you, sir, live in their midst and you will want nothing else in life.’ He took me round. In that narrow space he had crammed every conceivable plaything for children, see-saws, swings, sand heaps and ladders. ‘These are the classrooms,’ he said. ‘Not for them. For us elders to learn. Just watch them for a while.’ They were digging into the sand, running up the ladder, swinging, sliding down slopes – all so happy. ‘This is the meaning of the word joy – in its purest sense. We can learn a great deal watching them and playing with them. When we are qualified we can enter their life …’ he said. The place was dotted with the c
oloured dresses of these children, bundles of joy and play. ‘When I watch them, I get a glimpse of some purpose in existence and creation.’ He struck me as an extraordinary man.

  ‘If they are always playing when do they study?’

  ‘Just as they play – I gather them together and talk to them and take them in and show them writing on boards. They learn more that way. Everybody speaks of the game-way in studies but nobody really practises it. It becomes more the subject of a paper in some pompous conference and brings a title or preferment to the educational administrator. Oh, don’t allow me to speak too much on this subject as you will find me a terrible bore.…’ He was a slight man, who looked scraggy; evidently he didn’t care for himself sufficiently. His hair fell on his nape, not because he wanted it to grow that way, but, I was sure, because he neglected to get it cut. His coat was frayed and unpressed. I liked him immensely. I was sure there were many things about him which would fascinate me. I was seized with a desire to know more of him. I asked him: ‘Please visit me some day.’

  ‘I will certainly drop in one day when I take a holiday. You see I hate holidays. It is ten or fifteen years since I began this work, and I have not felt the need for a holiday at all. Holidays bore me. And I spend even my Sundays here looking about. This is a nice place; there is a garden too, entirely made by children.’ He took me through a bamboo stile to a small plot with tiny lots. He was continually enthusiastic. ‘Does he ever sleep?’ I asked myself. ‘Come to my house on a Sunday instead of coming here,’ I said and he agreed. I had a feeling that I was about to make a profound contact in life.

  The next sitting was a complete disappointment to me. But perhaps my own frame of mind was somewhat to blame. After the first thrill of discovery subsided, I fell into a questioning mood and asked, the moment my friend was ready with the pencil: ‘Do you remember the last day we went out together?’

  ‘Yes, I remember.’

  ‘Can you say where we went and a few incidents of the day and so on?’ I asked.

  ‘I remember going out on the last day with you. I feel we visited a temple, bought something for the child, and also visited a painted house. We went out followed by the servant and did a little marketing on the way.’

  ‘Oh!’ I said. ‘What else do you remember?’ The pencil paused for a while and then scratched off: ‘We met a scorpion on the way and you nearly put your foot on it. We bought a brass lamp used for worship, and a toy engine.’

  ‘Do you remember what happened in the house we visited?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ she replied.

  ‘Absolutely nothing happened?’ I asked. In answer to it the Helper wrote: ‘The low roof of the kitchen knocked her head, and she is laughing because her husband slipped in the backyard.…’

  ‘To be frank this did not happen. I don’t know why she is saying these things,’ I said.

  ‘She promises to do better next time,’ the Helpers wrote. ‘There are some difficulties both in expressing and picking out of memory the exact items. We would advise you to stop now. The lady sends her love and prayers for her husband and child …’ And they were gone. The hand stopped. ‘Half an hour over I suppose,’ said my friend. I rose to go home very unhappily. Except one or two references, the rest was all too wild.… I grumbled and went home in a most unhappy state of mind. ‘To be in this state till next Wednesday.’

  But a week passed. I was back there on the following Wednesday. Meanwhile I had scrutinized the pages again and again, and came to the conclusion that after all they were not wild. Each detail was correct, temple, painted house, buying for the child and the lamps. Every time she went to her parents she purchased brass lamps and knick-knacks for someone or other; a toy engine was bought on the last day for the child. As for knocking her head against the kitchen roof, she was rather tall for her age and was very proud of the fact that most doorways were too short for her and that they knocked her on the head, and she always spoke about it. I could not recollect when I had slipped in the backyard, but otherwise each individual item seemed to be after all correct, though chronologically mixed up in utter confusion. I mentioned it to my friend when I met him next and his explanation seemed to be plausible: ‘I will ask you a question now at short notice. When did you buy the cloth for this shirt?’ I looked at my blue shirt helplessly. ‘Was it before or after you purchased the coat you are wearing over it? And on your way home from the shop that day what else did you buy and how much? You see how difficult it is to place these exactly, while you are still living in the midst of these experiences. I can’t say for instance what exactly I had for dinner this day last week.… While chronological order and precision in details are so difficult for us, they must be more so to other beings whose surroundings are timeless and entirely different. If my speculation is right their vision of things embraces an experience as a whole rather than events in an order. All memories merge and telescope when the time element between them is removed. I think this is the reason for the apparent confusion. Add to this the possibility of their memory being finer and more selective; there may be a natural law operating by which unpleasant memories and impressions are filtered and left behind with the physical body. If you take all this into consideration, you may view their inaccuracies more charitably.’

  At every sitting she urged me on to look for her sandalwood casket and the fourteen letters. I couldn’t search very thoroughly because I found it impossible to enter the room and open her trunks. On a holiday afternoon I steeled myself to it. I opened the door and felt a pang at heart when I cast a look around at her trunks, her clothes and possessions. ‘For all of us our possessions turn to mementoes. Is there anyone in the whole world who can say his lot is different?’ I reflected, as I sat down amidst her trunks. My daughter was thrilled to see me there, and cancelled an appointment she had with her friend and joined me in my search.

  I opened Susila’s yellow trunk, in which she kept all kinds of toilet sets she had acquired in her lifetime. Three or four different coloured vulcanite cases with mirrors and small bottles. She used to be very fond of these boxes and asked for one whenever she saw them in the shop – green, orange, red, of all colours. I took them out one by one. And then all kinds of cardboard boxes and fancy tin containers stuffed with embroidery thread and woollen bits. The small sweater in yellow – she had been reading about knitting and had become suddenly very enthusiastic. She behaved like a child in her enthusiasm. Every day as I left for college she gave me a commission for a purchase on my way back. It was rarely I was able to pick up the correct colour that she wanted, and I had the task of exchanging it for the correct shade next evening. Finally, exasperated, I arbitrarily forced her to begin work on the yellow sweater for me. She sat down on the veranda step and plied her needles by the evening light, refusing to go out on a walk or do anything else. Night and day she thought and spoke of nothing else. At the end of the day the two shining needles were stuck into the ball and kept on a shelf in the hall. I made all kinds of jokes about it, saying that the sweater seemed to be promised for my hundredth birthday and so on. The back of the sweater was nearly ready and she looked triumphant. The ball of wool was satisfactorily going down in bulk. She proclaimed that the complete sweater would be on my back in eight days; and then our child caught a cold, and she lost all peace of mind and could not knit; thereafter one thing and another intervened and she never took it up again at all. In that condition it was still lying in the box, with the yellow back ready, the needles stuck, as they were on the day, into the ball of wool. ‘What is this, father?’ the child asked picking it up. I shook my head and said: ‘Put it away, girl, you may hurt yourself with the needles.’ And then there were fancy borders meant to be stitched into some dress. I had always protested against the purchase of these things and she always waved my protest away with: ‘You just see how they look when they are stitched into my jackets and the baby’s frocks! You will yourself ransack all the shops for more of them.’ But they were still whe
re they had been put the day she bought them. This box contained a couple of fancy lacquer caskets of Burmese origin, which her sister from Rangoon had sent; they were filled with small bottles of scent, which I had given her during the first two years of our married life. I opened their corks one by one and smelt them. Their delicate perfume brought immediately around me other days. Evenings when we went out, and spoke of nothing in particular, first years of married life when I used to be very vehement about my plans for the future. These tiny phials had compressed in them the essence of her personality, the rustle of her dress, her footfalls, laughter, her voice, and the light in her eyes, the perfume of her presence. The bottles were empty now but the lingering scent in them covered for a brief moment the gulf between the present and the past. I shut my eyes and dwelt in that ecstasy: I reflected: ‘Of all the senses it is smell which is the subtlest; it takes you back to the core of your experience. Why have they not studied its laws and processes, while they have studied all the other senses? Do these scents mean anything to her in her present state?’

  ‘What are you smelling, father?’ asked the child and brought me back to the earth. ‘Why are you closing your eyes, father?’

  I drew down the lid. There was no trace of the fourteen letters and the sandalwood casket. I opened another trunk in which she had kept her clothes – dozens of saris and a hundred and one jackets of all colours and shades; and above all else that glittering gold-woven purple sari, in which she was presented to me as a bride on the all-important day. Many of these clothes had not been taken out more than once because she had a dread of spoiling their sheen.

  She picked up like a child every soap-box carton and empty container and preserved them in her cupboard and put into them coins and knick-knacks. In a cardboard box I found stuffed a few sheets of paper. I pulled them out. They were embroidery designs copied in pencil, and some recipe for a tooth powder. There was a sheet on which she had even begun a story with childlike simplicity of two brothers, woodcutters, one of whom was good and industrious and the other was lazy and bad. There were my corrections in between the lines. I remembered how on a certain day she sat for hours at my table stroking her lips with the pencil, lost in thought. I do not know what made her want to write a story at all … But she was filled with shame when I found her out, and was so nervous when I read through it and corrected the grammar; she never proceeded beyond the first page of the story, where the brothers differ and separate … This seemed to me a precious document now crumpled and stuffed into the box. I carefully smoothed it out, and took it with me to my own table.