Nectar in a Sieve

by Kamala Markandaya

  "Come into money, have you?" he cried, chuckling and slapping his thigh with a loud report. "Well, you have come to the right man. I have a selection such as few have and, mark you, cheaper than anybody else! What will you have? Potato fritters, crisped in butter and melting inside, or these fried pancakes I have myself stuffed with onions? . . . Something sweet for the boy? . . . Sugar-whirls, or these exquisite curly-curlies?"

  What shall it be, what shall it be? I inspected all the delicacies, which I had never dared to do before, and I found it next to impossible to decide between them. Puli, hopping up and down beside me, was likewise veering from one dainty to another. "The pilau there, such a lovely smell, and it has roasted nuts in it -- or no, I think the fritters will last longer. . . ."

  In the end we bought the fried pancakes, one each, paying six annas for the three, and four annas for two rice cakes.

  "Well, if we are extravagant it is only once," I said, seeking to console my uneasy mind. "Ten annas is only a little over what we usually spend. The change will do us good."

  But the recklessness did not end there. As we walked on we passed a hawker, and he had a sensitive nose and sniffed that we had a little money and little control to go with it and he came after us pulling out and exhibiting his wares, and at last he took out a small wooden cart on wheels to which he attached a string and pulled it along behind him as he came following us.

  "A dum-dum cart," cried Puli, and he echoed after the man, "We need not buy, let us only stop and watch," and he tugged at my sari. So we stopped to look at the toy and indeed it was a pretty thing, lovingly made and exactly like a real cart, the wood skilfully carved, with painted spokes to the wheels and a yoke which moved on the necks of the painted oxen.

  "Pull it and hear the drum beat," said the wily man, holding out the string to Puli, and how could he resist it, who was only a child, when I myself was enchanted! So he jerked the string and as the cart came towards him the legs of the oxen moved and the carter's hands rose and fell and the drum-sticks he held in them came down upon the tiny drum in front of him -- a real drum, cunningly made with cords up the sides and skin stretched tightly over the top. Dum-dum-dumdum went the drum, the quicker you pulled the faster it beat.

  "Two annas only -- you will never be able to buy cheaper. It cost me all of that to make. . . . There is no profit to me in it, I only sell because I must. I have not sold one toy all day."

  I sneaked a glance at Puli and he was looking at me with eyes like lamps. He still held the string between the stumps of his fingers, and kept yanking at it as if the drumming was sweet to his ears.

  "Why do you not pay for it with your own money if you want it?" I said uneasily. "I see you begging every day. . . . You know I have spent more than I ought already."

  "Two annas more won't matter," he wheedled. "I promise I will never ask you for anything. . . ." "But you have money of your own," I repeated. "I have seen it myself."

  "I have spent it all," he said pitifully. "People gave at first but now they are used to me. . . . It is a hard world."

  Again I thought, He is a child after all, still tender, still eager. Whatever he may say or do he has lived only a short time, not easily. And even as I nodded he began fumbling at his pouch, unable in his haste to undo it, until at last I had to do it for him, taking from it the coins I needed, still warm from his body, and handing them to the hawker.

  Then extravagance grew frenzied, encouraged by this lapse, and I could not stop myself from taking out two more annas to buy another cart. For my little grandson, I thought, who has had so much to bear from his birth, and I pictured his white transparent cheeks flushing with excitement while Ira hovered nearby with her face like a flower and the rare smile that graced it.

  The hawker took the money from me and made off quickly -- no doubt fearing that I would come to my senses. We continued on our way, Puli dragging one cart behind him, I carrying the other together with the rice cakes, the pancakes and the two-anna piece which was all that was left of the day's earnings; while I thought again and again of what I would say to my husband.

  Now we were within the precincts of the temple and I caught sight of Nathan and ran towards him, bidding the boy pick up the cart with its infernal drum: but no, he was bewitched, the cart must come dum-dumming behind him.

  "I don't know what came over me," I blurted, penitent. "I shall work very hard tomorrow to make up. You will see."

  Nathan looked at me, his eyes were dull. He is exasperated, I thought. No wonder!

  "We have a surprise for you," I said with false cheerfulness. "Look, pancakes!"

  Nathan gave them a glance, then rose hurriedly to his feet. I saw him stagger to one side, away from the stone corridors. When the spasm of sickness was over, he came back to lean against a pillar. He was shivering.

  "It was the food," he gasped. "It turned my stomach."

  "You have worked too hard," I said. "It does not do to strain oneself."

  "The fever has been coming all day," he said. "Since this morning."

  I felt his body and it was burning hot, the skin dry and stretched. He had obviously been ill for several hours. Why did you have to do it? I wanted to say. Why? But I only said, "Lie and rest. You will feel better." And I took his head in my lap and set my hands to massaging the pain from his limbs.

  The rain which had been a fine drizzle had become by morning a heavy downpour. The air, as always at the beginning of the monsoon, lay like a blanket upon the earth, damp and suffocating, but when it blew the wind came through the rain wet and chill. Nathan was still shivering, but no longer violently. I broke up the two rice cakes and we ate in silence, depressed by the ceaseless rain. Nathan has eaten his share, I thought. He must be better; it is the cold which makes him shiver. Nevertheless I said to him anxiously: "Stay behind and rest -- it is not good for you to go out in this rain. Tomorrow will be enough."

  "Tomorrow and tomorrow it will rain," he replied. "It is the monsoon. I cannot sit here idling while the days slip past and we are still far from home."

  We went, the three of us, to the quarry, joining the bedraggled groups of workers toiling along the winding, muddy road. Those who were richer bought and donned palm-leaf hooded cloaks which fell stiffly from head to thigh, making them look like walking beetles; but these protectors were expensive, twelve annas apiece; most of the workers did without.

  Rain had softened the road, liquid mud came squelching up between my toes as I walked. Ahead and behind me were scores of footprints, many of them like small pools where water had seeped in. The cart-tracks were full of water too, long lines crisscrossing with mud flung up on either side of the trenches. Three or four empty bullock carts passed us on the way to collect the broken stones, the bullocks drawing them struggling to get through the morass, their hides slippery with rain. The cart wheels sank deep in the mud as they turned, mud spattered continuously from the creaking wheels.

  "The worst season of the year," a voice was grumbling. "Next year whatever happens I shall not work."

  "Pah, you say that every year."

  "No, really, this time I mean it . . . even if it means not eating."

  Plans, everyone had plans. They were all built on money. Save enough to keep dry, save enough to cast one's chains, save enough to go away.

  The clink of stones came to us sodden with the rain, indistinct, unmistakable. A few brave souls had risen with the dawn. Up the hillside to join them, scrambling over the sharp slopes. Once I caught at a bush to help me up it was a prickly pear, and I had to spend precious minutes pulling out the thorns. Nathan behind me was panting, the breath came and went so quickly that his chest resembled a bellows.

  "I will rest when we are home," he said to me impatiently. "There will be plenty of time then."

  And I listened to him. All day we sat there in the rain breaking stones, and for the whole of that week, and Nathan grew neither better nor worse. On the seventh day the ague came upon him again, but he did not stop work. A kind of f
renzy drove him on.

  Rain. Not heavy now but monotonous, dripping on to us, splashing on the stones. No shelter on that bare hillside. The wind came whistling round it and struck at the crouched wet bodies. Hammer on stone. Stone on stone. Clink-clank-drip. The rain had even defeated Puli the lion-hearted; he would not accompany us to the quarry.

  Dusk was approaching, early because of the sullen lowering clouds; when I took up the sack, not full today, the stones rattled loosely inside.

  "Don't wait for me," I said to my husband. "I will be with you soon."

  "Don't be long," he said.

  I went quickly from him with the sack on my back; running to get to the head of the waiting queue. Six annas, less than we have earned before; but we have nearly enough now, I thought, coming through the gloom. I must see about a carter. Maybe it will not be as much as we have reckoned, then we can leave at once. My mind wandered to my home; would it still be there? I saw before me my daughter and the shy whitefaced Sacrabani. And Puli . . . if only he would come, how happy we would be, my husband and I! Not Puli, though; he would certainly refuse. I shall miss him, I thought sadly. But he -- he won't even notice our going.

  Disjointed thoughts kept clattering through my brain -- or was the clatter only the rain? I stumbled down the hill-slopes, treacherous with mud and stones, sighing with relief as I reached the road.

  Half way along it, I saw a small knot of people gathered. Nothing can make me stop, I thought, hurrying along. Then one of the group called: "Ai! See to your man. He has fallen."

  I stopped and my senses poised themselves on the brink of insensibility, ready to swoop away at the merest nod from me. I shook off the blackness and went to him through the gathered people, who parted to let me through, then closed their ranks as I knelt beside him.

  He was lying by the side of the road where someone had carried him -- not in the gutter but away from the road, to avoid the mud-churning cart wheels. His body had made a trough of the wet mud, in it he lay jerking and twitching. Next to him the swollen gutter ran like a stream, noisily; above it I could hear his hoarse breathing. I touched him and his body was as chill as the wind. The pitiless rain came splashing down uncaring. I had no shield for him. At last I unwound part of my sari, meaning to tear it, but the material would not tear: where my hands were it gave, limp and perished. In despair I wound the rags about me again. Nobody gave anything, nobody had anything to give; the men in loincloths, the women in saris tattered and sodden like mine. It makes no difference, I thought to myself, and found the words being murmured by another.

  One man took him by the armpits, another his feet. I came walking behind; with me other women, whispering words of comfort that the rain washed away as soon as they were uttered. Sometimes there was a silence while they waited for my answer, waited while I groped for their words.

  "Has he been ill long?"

  "Yes; some time."

  "Have you no sons to help?

  "Yes -- no -- not here."

  I licked my wet lips. There was a taste on them of salt and of the fresh sweetness of rainwater. I did not know I had been crying.

  CHAPTER XXIX

  THE memories of that night are hard and bright within me like a diamond, and the fires that flash from it have strange powers. Some are blue and wrap me gently in their glow; or green and soothing like oxen eyes in the night; but there are others, yellow and red, that sear me with their intensity. When this happens I call to the mists and they come, like clouds that cover the sun. But the fires themselves are always there, they will never be extinguished until my life itself is done.

  What do I remember? Every word, every detail. I remember walking along the wet deserted street by the wall of the temple; I remember looking up for the flare that had ever burnt on the top of the temple, and it was quenched; and the black demons of fear came shrieking at my ear and would not be silenced, for all that I repeated like a madwoman, "Fire cannot burn in water." I saw the faces of men who were not there and of children from whom the life had been filched, and yet it was black night, blacker than black since the stars were hidden.

  They laid my husband on the paved floor and I sank down beside him. Somebody brought a light, a hurricane lantern that burned steady in the stormy wind; somebody else, water. His body was caked in mud, wet and dirty. I wiped him clean, took his head in my lap. The knot of people who had come so far with me melted away into the darkness, in ones and twos, when they saw how it was.

  Nathan's head kept twitching from side to side, he called to our sons and muttered words that I did not understand. The rays from the lantern fell on his wasted face, on the tight yellowed skin, on the lips split with fever, on his limbs which were like a child's. Sometimes his breath came between his chattering teeth in gusts, rising above the rain and the winds that swished down the corridors; at other times I had to bend to listen.

  Hour after hour his body suffered; his mind had fled from the tormented flesh. Midnight approached. The time of in-between when it is neither day nor night, when nature seems to pause, to sigh and turn and prepare for another day.

  Midnight, and, as always before, his paroxysms eased. The fits of shivering stopped, the stiff limbs fell limp and relaxed. In the calm stillness I saw him open his eyes, his hand came to my face, tender and searching, wiping away the unruly tears.

  "You must not cry, dearest. What has to be, has to be."

  "Hush," I said. "Rest and grow better."

  "I have only to stretch out my hand," he said, "to feel the coldness of death. Would you hold me when my time is come? I am at peace. Do not grieve."

  "If I grieve," I said, "it is not for you, but for myself, beloved, for how shall I endure to live without you, who are my love and my life?"

  "You are not alone," he said. "I live in my children," and was silent, and then I heard him murmur my name and bent down.

  "Have we not been happy together?"

  "Always, my dearest, always."

  "It is slipping away fast," he said. "Rest with me a little."

  And so I laid my face on his and for a while his breath fell soft and light as a rose petal on my cheek, then he sighed as if in weariness and turned his face to me, and so his gentle spirit withdrew and the light went out in his eyes.

  CHAPTER XXX

  THE days went by, Nathan no longer beside me; no more. Ashes and dust, scattered to the winds, moistened by the rain, unrecognisable. I picked up the fragments of my life and put them together, all but the missing piece; and out of my affliction I called to Puli. I do not know what words I used, when I think of what I may have said I shiver. Rich promise to lure a child, before I knew it could be kept. Priceless treasure of health, not mine to give. And he, compassionate creature, who drew from me the arrows of sorrow one by one, listened, and when I came home I was not alone.

  So good to be home at last, at last. The cart jolted to a standstill. I looked about me at the land and it was life to my starving spirit. I felt the earth beneath my feet and wept for happiness. The time of in-between, already a memory, coiled away like a snake within its hole.

  From the unfinished, scaffolded building a figure emerged, came running. Selvam, my son.

  "Thank God," he said. "Are you all right?" and he held me. My daughter joined us, her haste making her breathless. Puli alone not of the family, standing a little apart awkwardly, clutching in his arms the dum-dum cart. I called to him.

  "My son," I said. "We adopted him, your father and I."

  "You look tired and hungry," Ira said, taking his arm. "Come with me and rest, I will prepare the rice."

  They walked on ahead.

  "Do not worry," Selvam said. "We shall manage."

  There was a silence, I struggled to say what had to be said.

  "Do not talk of it," he said tenderly, "unless you must."

  "It was a gentle passing," I said. "I will tell you later."

  SOME INDIAN WORDS:

  Beedi • • cheroot

  Bulbul tara • • stri
nged musical instrument

  Chakkli • • cobbler

  Chowkidar • • watchman

  Dhal • • lentils

  Dhoti • • garment worn by men

  Ghee • • clarified butter

  Godown • • servants' quarters

  Golsu • • circlet, usually of silver, worn round

  ankles

  Jaggery • • kind of coarse sugar

  Jutka • • light horse-carriage

  Kohl or Khol • • eye black, similar to mascara

  Kum-kum • • red powder, used for caste marks, etc.

  Maidan • • open field

  Namaskar • • greeting, salutation