Classic Mulk Raj Anand

by Mulk Raj Anand

  He placed the pastries on the huge writing-table which had been converted for use as a dinner-table. He waited to look at the Sahib. A scowl on the Babu’s face sent him back to the kitchen to fetch the tea-tray.

  Meanwhile Babu Nathoo Ram had begun to offer food to the Sahib.

  The Babu took up two dishes in his hands and brought them up to Mr England’s nose.

  ‘Sir, this is our famous sweetmeat, gulabjaman by name,’ he said, ‘and this is called by the name of rasgula. Made from fresh cream, Sir. The aroma of the attar of roses has been cast over them. They were specially made to my order by the confectioner.’

  The perfume of the rasgulas and gulabjamans as well as the sight of them made Mr England positively sick. He recoiled from the attack of the syrupy stuff on his senses with a murmur of ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Oh yes, Sir, yes, Sir,’ urged Babu Nathoo Ram.

  If Mr England had been offered a plate and a fork, or a spoon, he might have taken one of the sweets. But he was supposed to pick them up with his hand. That was impossible to the Englishman, who had never picked up even a chicken-bone in his fingers to do full justice to it.

  ‘Some pakoras, then?’ said the Babu. ‘They are a specialty of my wife. Come, Daya Ram.’

  The peon brought up the dish of the maize-flour dumplings. The sharp smell of the oily dark-brown stuff was enough to turn Mr England’s liver. He looked at it as if it were poison and said, ‘No, no, thank you, really, I had a late lunch.’

  ‘Well, if you don’t care for Indian sweets, Sir,’ said Nathoo Ram in a hurt voice, ‘then please eat English-made pastry that I specially ordered from Stiffles. You must, Sir.’

  The pastries, too, were thickly coated with sugar and looked forbidding. ‘No, thanks, really. I can’t eat in this hot weather,’ said Mr England, trying to give a plausible excuse.

  Now Nathoo Ram was disappointed. If the Sahib did not eat and did not become indebted to him, how could he ever get the recommendation he needed?

  ‘Sir, Sir,’ he protested, thrusting the food again under Mr England’s nose. ‘Do please eat something—just a little bit of a thing.’

  ‘No, thank you very much, Nathoo Ram. Really,’ said Mr England, ‘I will take a cup of tea and then I must go. I am a very busy man, you know.’

  ‘Sir,’ said Nathoo Ram, his under-lip quivering with emotion, ‘I had hoped that you would partake of the simple hospitality that I, your humble servant, can extend to you. But you will have tea, tea. . . . Tea. Oh! Munoo, bring the tea!’

  Munoo was hurrying in with the tea-tray. When he heard his master’s call, he scurried. The tea-tray fell from his hands. All the china lay scattered on the kitchen floor.

  Mr England heard the crash and guessed that a disaster had taken place.

  Babu Nathoo Ram’s heart sank. He had spent ten rupees of his well-earned money on the tea-party. And it had all gone to waste.

  Dr Prem Chand walked deliberately out into the kitchen and cowed Bibiji into a forced restraint, poured the remains of tea and milk into a cup and brought it on a neat saucer, saying coolly, with a facetious smile:

  ‘Our servant, Munoo, Mr England, knows that a Japanese tea-set only costs one rupee twelve annas. So he does not care how many cups and saucers he breaks.’

  Mr England was sweating with the heat. He became pale with embarrassment and fury. His small mouth contracted. He took the cup of tea and sipped it. It was hot, it almost scalded his lips and tongue.

  ‘I must go now,’ he said, and rose from his eminent position on the throne-like chair.

  ‘We are disappointed, Sir,’ said Nathoo Ram, apologizing and humble. ‘But I and my wife hope you will come again.’ And he followed the Sahib sheepishly, as Mr England veered round suddenly and shuffled out on his awkward feet.

  ‘Look out! Your head!’ said Dr Prem Chand, warning the Sahib in time before he was again likely to hit the low doorway. ‘Good afternoon.’

  Mr England smiled, then assumed a stern expression and walked out silently, followed by Babu Nathoo Ram and Daya Ram, past groups of inquisitive men and children.

  The tea-party had been a fiasco.

  Dr Prem Chand went into the kitchen. He was going to enjoy the sweets. But his sister-in-law was shouting at Munoo.

  ‘Vay, may you die, may you be broken, may you fade away, blind one! Do you know what you have done? May the flesh of your dead body rot in hell! With what evil star did you come to this house, that you do everything wrong? That china cost us almost as much money as you earn in a month.’

  ‘That Englishman has no taste,’ said Prem Chand, coming in; ‘he did not eat a thing.’

  ‘It is all the fault of this eater of his masters,’ she cried, pointing to Munoo.

  ‘How is he responsible for that monkey-faced man’s bad taste?’ asked Prem Chand, ‘and how is he to blame for all this junk in your house which apparently annoyed the Sahib?’

  ‘Don’t you encourage this dead one, Prem!’ said Bibiji. ‘Our house used to be like the houses of the sahib-logs until this brute came from the hills and spoilt it all. That lovely set of china he has broken, the brute!’

  ‘Well now, you get a pair of sun-glasses gratis for every four annas’ worth of Japanese goods that you buy in the bazaar,’ mocked Prem, ‘so we will all have eye-glasses, even you, Bibiji!’

  Munoo did not know whether to laugh or to cry. A shock of apprehension had passed through him when he dropped the china, and seized his soul in a knot of fear. He stood dumb. The mockery of the chota Babu stirred the warmth on the surface of his blood. He awakened from his torpor and smiled.

  Bibiji sprang from her seat near the kitchen and gave him a sharp, clean slap on the cheek.

  ‘Spoiler of our salt!’ she raved. ‘You have brought bad luck to our house! Beast! And I have tried hard to correct you—’

  ‘Oh, leave him alone,’ said Prem. ‘It is not his fault.’ And he went towards the boy.

  ‘Don’t let me hear you wail, or I will kill you, you stupid fool!’ said Babu Nathoo Ram angrily as he came in with tear-filled eyes.

  It was not the first time that Munoo succumbed to sleep, stifling his sobs and his cries.

  For days he went about work as if he were in a dream. He casually performed his duties, but his heart was not in the job. He wanted to get away from it, and he looked forward to his afternoons off.

  On the afternoon of the day which happened to be his half-holiday that week, Bibiji saw him sulking about at work in the morning, and she determined not to let him go. She knew that he went to his uncle during his time off, and she did not want him to report to Daya Ram that he was being ill-treated.

  But to Munoo’s wish to escape from this atmosphere charged with sharp abuse, unending complaints and incessant bullying was added, that morning, a yearning for the home dishes, the lentils and rice, that his uncle cooked, and of which he gave Munoo a portion on the days on which the boy visited him.

  This made him refuse to eat the turnip curry which Bibiji offered him from the remainders of her husband’s plate. He announced that he was going to see his uncle.

  ‘Look! The world is darkening with shame!’ Bibiji cried to her husband. ‘Look! did you hear? he doesn’t like the food he gets here! Heavens! And he wants to go away without scrubbing the utensils or washing up, to eat with his uncle! Now, I will have to slave all day. Gracious! What is the use of such a servant?’

  ‘Why, ohe?’ said Babuji, twisting his face into an angry contortion. ‘Why don’t you eat what is given you? Are you the son of a nabob, that you turn your nose up at turnips? Go now, go and eat rice and dal with your uncle!’

  Munoo sneaked away at the barest mention of the word ‘go’.

  As he descended the hill, memories of the unpleasantnesses he had suffered in that house, the humiliations he had endured, assailed him.

  He made a brave effort to check his tears, but something inside his belly seemed to send up quivers of self-pity to his face, where they gather
ed into a cloud of heat which suddenly burst through his eyes.

  As he turned the corner of the Bank and entered into the passageway leading to his uncle’s room in the servants’ quarters, he wiped his face with the edge of his tunic and blew his nose by catching it between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.

  Daya Ram lay snoring on the neat bedstead in his small, dark room, bare except for an earthen oven, some brass utensils and a tin trunk.

  Munoo tiptoed in, bent over his uncle’s shins, and, catching hold of the big toe of his right foot, shook it to wake him.

  ‘Who is it? What do you want?’ snarled Daya Ram, opening his eyes.

  ‘Is there any food left, uncle?’ Munoo said.

  ‘What time is this to come to me for food?’ hissed Daya Ram like a snake, showing his pink tongue. ‘Don’t you get any food at the house of the Babu?’

  ‘Will you give me some money then, so that I can go and get some food at the cookshop in the bazaar?’

  He never had any money himself, because the Babu handed his pay of five rupees to his uncle every month.

  ‘Son of a bitch!’ Daya Ram sat up and shouted. ‘How can I get you the clothes you want, and shoes, if you spend all the pay money which I am keeping for you?’

  ‘But you haven’t got me any clothes,’ protested Munoo. ‘I am wearing the ragged tunic which Bibiji gave me, and you haven’t bought me any shoes.’

  ‘You impertinent little rogue!’ raved Daya Ram as he sprang up and collared Munoo. ‘So you dare to ask me for accounts, eh, son of a swine! This is the reward I get for keeping you so long, and for finding you a job! Money! Money, money you want all the time!’

  And he shook the boy roughly and struck him blow after blow in the ribs.

  ‘Oh, don’t beat me, please don’t beat me, uncle,’ cried Munoo. ‘I only want food.’

  ‘Where were you eating the dung at meal-time then?’ shouted Daya Ram. ‘Why didn’t you come here earlier if you wanted food? And don’t they give you any food there?’

  ‘Bibiji kept me working,’ the boy sobbed. ‘She wouldn’t have allowed me to come at all. You don’t know how she beats me. You wouldn’t beat me if you knew. They had turnips today, and I don’t like turnips. I like rice and dal!’

  ‘Liar! Complainer! Swine!’ shouted Daya Ram. ‘You complain all the time,’ fisting the boy against the wall.

  ‘Oh mother! Oh my mother!’ Munoo wailed.

  The pitiful cries did not seem to have any effect on Daya Ram, however. He had been hardened into cruelty by his love of money, by the fear of poverty and by the sense of inferiority that his job as a peon in the Bank gave him. His eyes were bloodshot, his face taut. He seemed prepared for murder as he gnashed his teeth. He looked hard at the boy. He bawled:

  ‘Tell me the truth; tell me where you have been vagabondising.’

  Munoo had not the heart to speak. He stood weeping.

  ‘Where were you? Answer me!’ shouted Daya Ram, coming nearer.

  ‘I was at home,’ Munoo sobbed.

  ‘You lie! Rogue!’ hissed Daya Ram. ‘Don’t I know you? Rather than do their work properly you laze about. I will kill you if I find you complaining about them again. You broke their china the other day and lowered their prestige before the Sahib.’

  Rushing at the boy, he kicked him again. Then he went on:

  ‘Mischievous and self-willed and obstinate, you imagine yourself hardworking. Brought a complaint from the Babu on my head! I was considered a good servant here in the Bank till you came. I’ve had to work hard for my living, and I’ve built up a reputation here by pleasing my masters. And here you come complaining about the treatment you get at the house of our noble Babuji. You go and stick it, if you value your life, or I will kill you! Leave off that reading habit of yours and lazing, swine! And now get back and ask Bibiji to give you some food. I have neither sympathy nor food for you!’

  And he picked up the boy and threw him out.

  Munoo turned quickly away from the Bank into the street, and then threaded his way aimlessly through the gullies, hiding his swollen, tear-washed face. He could not think for some time.

  ‘Hateful, hateful uncle!’ he muttered through his breath. ‘Son of a bitch! I hate you!’

  And he ground his teeth in fury, as if to put some power into the thoughts of revolt that possessed him.

  ‘I shall go away!’ he said to himself. ‘I shall just disappear from this place, away from that woman and Daya Ram! Then they will look for me, and have a drum beaten all over the town by the town crier to find me, and I shall not be found. That will serve them right. But I haven’t any money, I have nothing. How shall I get food if I go away? And they might catch me and bring me back here again. Then they will beat me more cruelly.’

  The sparrows in the gutter of the weavers’ lane twittered accusingly at him.

  His mind was a blank to all the noise of the gullies, the chatter of women gossiping at their doorsteps, the droning of their spinning-wheels, the shrieking of the children as they played blind-man’s-buff in the shade.

  He had a queer taste at the root of his tongue, a dissatisfaction, a sickness, a sense of betrayal and the ravenous pang of hunger, all at the same time. He made a wry face as if he were swallowing some unpleasant physic and sped homewards. He walked unconsciously, accepting everything about him.

  Bibiji was not at home. So he helped himself to some food and lay down to rest, trying to sleep off his misery. Thoughts raced through his head, wild thoughts, thoughts of revenge, soaring up to the pitch of cruelty that had been displayed by his uncle. ‘I will flay him alive,’ he said to himself, ‘I will tear him to bits while he is asleep. I will murder him.’ But the cool earth seemed to sponge his brain, and suck up his strength, till he fell asleep. Then he was like a corpse, incapable of anything, unruffled on the surface, even though his soul bubbled inside him.

  In a few days, however, he had recovered his old insouciance, his vigour, his zest for life, his fire—the fire that tingled in the cells of his body at all the sights and sounds about him.

  ‘How is your holiness?’ he mockingly addressed Varma, the Brahmin servant of the sub-judge, who monopolized the use of the communal pump because he was older than all the other servant boys in the neighbourhood.

  He was feeling in a great good humour that afternoon because he had not been abused much by Bibiji during the morning.

  ‘Don’t bark, dirty hillman,’ said Varma, with a frown on his coarse, bestial face, as he swaggered beneath the cloak of his saintliness and strength.

  ‘How does your mistress treat you now? Does she still abuse you, or does she favour you with the milk of human kindness?’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Munoo, blushing and suddenly indignant. ‘Are you not ashamed of yourself talking like that? I never say anything to you about your mistress!’ And he felt furious to think that he had cut a joke with Varma.

  ‘Why do you flare up so now?’ said Varma. ‘That shows she has given you her favours and endeared herself to you. I see! That is why she abuses you such a lot and you bear her abuse! What is she like under her dhoti? Like this?’ And he made a vulgar sign with his fingers.

  ‘Oh, shut up!’ cried Munoo. ‘And get away. I want to fill my pitcher with water. You have been usurping the pump for hours.’

  ‘Oh, look at this hillman,’ said Varma to Lehnu, another servant of the neighbourhood about as old as himself and a thin-lipped, sharp-nosed Brahmin, who had come down in life like his friend. ‘He objects to my praise of his mistress’s breasts and her —. And she ill-treats him all day. Don’t you think he is in love with her?’

  ‘Let me get my water,’ said Munoo, and came up to the pump.

  ‘Give him one, Varma,’ said Lehnu. ‘He seems to be very proud of his strength. I know where he gets his power. He steals money from his mistress’s allowances for shopping. I saw him eating sweets in the shop of Bhagu the other day.’

  ‘That is a lie,’ said Munoo, outraged by the as
persions that they were casting on him. ‘Let me get the water and go.’

  ‘And now you are in a hurry suddenly,’ said Lehnu. ‘After calling me a liar. Give him one, Varma.’

  Varma pushed Munoo aside as the latter was looking towards Lehnu, impotent with rage. The boy slipped on the green grease that had mixed with the moss on the sides of the enclosure in which the pump stood. He recovered himself, however, immediately and came and drew himself to his full height next to Varma’s naked, light-brown body. His eyes glistened with the fire of retaliation.

  ‘Strike me now when I am looking,’ he roared. ‘Sly dog of a Brahmin.’

  ‘Look at the airs he gives himself!’ said Varma, slinking away and guarding the pump.

  ‘Is this your father’s pump that you reserve it and don’t let anyone else use it for hours!’ Munoo shouted.

  ‘I will teach him the lesson of his life,’ said Lehnu, coming forward and wresting at Munoo’s arm to drag him away.

  Varma kicked him from behind.

  Munoo shook away from Lehnu’s grasp and sprang like a tiger upon Varma. He caught hold of his enemy’s body round the waist and would have flung it over the precipice into the ditch below, but at the crucial moment the spectre of the death he would be inflicting flashed across his mind, and he relaxed his hold.

  Varma slipped out of Munoo’s grasp and struck him a resounding slap on his face. Lehnu came and, placing his right leg across Munoo, flung him head downwards on the brick floor.

  Munoo rallied back to his feet. But now Varma held a log of wood with which he had been beating clothes clean. And Lehnu towered above him menacingly.

  With a ferocity to which the double danger in front of him seemed to add a wild fire, he fell upon Varma and, catching hold of him by the waist, lifted him over his shoulders. Then he carried him about twenty yards away from the pump and flung him guardedly on to the earth.

  Lehnu had disappeared when he returned.

  He applied the narrow mouth of his brass pitcher to the pump and heard the water fall gurgling into its drum-like belly. He had forgotten all about this furious activity, regarding it as a sort of wrestling match to which no ill-will was attached. But he stood unconscious, though shivering.