26
There is no need for a telegram or a radio to deliver bad news. Once something has come out it gets into the wind and flies into everyone’s ears. At the morning mealtime three girls were talking at the waterfall spring.
“I hear Jhuma’s walked out, is it true?” Goma asked her younger sister.
“I don’t know. What do we know about other households’ affairs? I have heard it said she’s not there,” Ghartini replied.
“Well, I’ve suspected this for a while, you know. From the way she behaved, I thought she was going to take to her heels. That’s how it seemed to me.”
“We shouldn’t talk like this now. If she’s gone off somewhere, she could still come back this evening. She won’t stay away for long, will she?” said Ghartini.
“Oh, so she’s back already, is she? And she’s told you where she’s been, I suppose?”
Thuli had remained quiet till then. But when she heard what they were saying she said, “I’ll tell you something, but you mustn’t tell anyone else, all right?”
“What is it?” asked Goma, “Oh do tell us, do!”
“First you both must swear that you’ll never tell anyone, and then I’ll tell you,” said Thuli.
“Oh!” cried Ghartini. “How distrustful she is, this Thuli! Tell us what it is, won’t you? Have we ever gone around the village talking about you so that you think we’ll start gossiping now?”
“It’s not a thing you should tell anyone else about. I’m only telling you two,” said Thuli. “Keep it to yourselves. Anyway, Jhuma—well, she’s with child! It’s that soldier corpse’s child, they say.”
“Really?” exclaimed Goma. “Well, I had my suspicions! So has she gone off with him, then?”
“Do you think he’d stick around here?” said Thuli. “He went back to Mugalan in Phagun, they say. Where she’s gone today I don’t know. Yesterday her sister-in-law gave her a real telling-off, and now the poor thing’s walked out.”
“Eee, the poor thing! Where can she have gone in her condition?” said Ghartini. “That so-called Rikute serf really lied through his teeth, didn’t he!”
The three of them went on talking as they set off home with their water jars. Before they had even finished decanting the water back home, Goma and Kanchi Ghartini had already told one or two people, saying, “Don’t tell anyone, do you hear?” The people they told told several others, pledging them to silence, too. Thus talk of Jhuma traveled from the women’s society to the men’s. Soon the whole village was whispering.
Many of them said, “We must cut Dhané off from sharing our water; we don’t know who did this or what he was. How can we share water with his household when we don’t know how long this affair has been going on?” Others argued, “Oh, it’s not right to raise the matter of pollution by water anymore, the Legal Code has done away with that.” But some came out with a response to that: “When has it ever been right to ignore the customs that have come to us from our forefathers?”69
The villagers had many theories about Jhuma’s disappearance. Several thought she had gone somewhere far away and committed suicide. Others said, “She and the soldier had made plans beforehand, and she’s gone off with him.” The various reports went around and around the village.
Maina did not stop weeping all day. She sorely regretted abusing Jhuma the day before. But Dhané was burning deep inside. His mood was clear from the expression on his face. He spent the whole day sitting at home and did not go out at all.
27
God is everywhere. This is as true as the existence of the sun. The Lord sees everything a person does and everything that befalls him. When injustice and oppression go beyond extremes and those who suffer them need assistance, then in some shape or form, help always comes from the Lord. It was a coincidence, merely a coincidence. But who was involved in contriving such a coincidence? It was that unseen power, for sure.
On the night the disguised figure left its house and headed for the Ragé cliff, Moté Karki had by chance gone to turn water into a field near the edge. A gust of wind blew his torch out, and he squatted on the ridge of a terrace listening to the sound of the water in the irrigation ditch. His gaze fell on a white figure flowing past in the far distance. What a surprise! What was this out here in the night? Closer and closer, lau! It was coming toward him! Perhaps it was the Old Woman of the Ragé cliff! Karki was alarmed. To avoid the wrath of the Old Woman who was advancing toward him, he slowly climbed down two or three terraces and stood on a field ridge. He thought of running away, but then he felt braver, and curious, too. “I must get a close look at the Old Woman,” he thought. “What can happen to me, after all? I’ll only die if my days are over. And who do I have to weep for me?” He squatted down, and the figure came very close; then he began to have doubts. “But it looks like a real woman!” There were only three terraces between them, and what a surprise: it was Jhuma! What was she doing here in the middle of the night? Jhuma approached the Ragé cliff, and Karki had no time to wonder why. He followed her without her knowing what he was doing.
When some unknown force stopped her from behind just as she was about to throw her body from the Ragé cliff, Jhuma felt as if she had woken from a dream. The senses that had already died returned to her. She turned back from the midst of her doubt and fear and saw Karki smiling before her.
“Karki daju! What are you doing here at this hour?”
“I came to turn water into the field. But why have you come here in the night?”
“Me? Tell me, why did you catch me? You should have let me die! What kind of suffering is this, that I cannot even die?” As she spoke she felt giddy, and she fell to her knees.
Karki knelt down beside her and said, “How can you die, just by deciding to die though your days are not over? You have not finished your life, have you?”
“Enough, enough! My days are over! With what face can I live now?”
“They say we only get this body by acquiring great merit, so it’s wrong to throw it away like that. Kanchi Didi, take your time and tell me, what is afflicting you? What suffering makes you try to die? I will do whatever I can to help you.”
“It’s not worth telling, Karki! Do not listen to me, you will be touched by my sin. I am a sinner, a real sinner!”
“That is what you say, but it is not so. In my eyes you are like a goddess. Did the soldier desert you? I can easily recognize the signs.”
“Do not mention that corpse; you warned me about him yourself. At that time my eyes were blind, and your advice was like poison to me. What to do? You can’t get inside a person’s mind.”
“But what happened? Tell me a little more plainly.”
“Everything you might expect when I had put my trust in him. You have understood already, why do you pretend that you have not? Is it to make me ashamed?”
“He said he would take you away, then he left without you. That is what pains you, is it not? I heard he’d gone back just the other day.”
“If you knew, why didn’t you tell me?”
“What did I know? I thought you already knew. Did I think you would want to die just because he didn’t take you with him? And he’ll be back, you know!”
“Who’s going to look for him whether he comes or goes? He’s gone, and he’s left me here unable to show my face in front of anyone.”
“Why? What has happened?”
“Don’t you know? His sin is growing in my stomach. I am with child.”
“Ay, so that’s it, so it went that far.”
“So tell me now, with what face can I live on?” Jhuma covered her face with her hand and wept.
“Don’t cry, Kanchi Didi. I’ll take you to him, wherever he is.”
“No! I never want to see his face again! I’d rather throw myself down and die!”
“If that’s so, I have only one thing to say. Come with me.”
“Where? Back to our village?”
“No, far away. Somewhere where these villagers can’t find yo
u and taunt you.”
“Why should you go off and suffer with a sinner like me? I cannot throw off my sin!”
“You have no sin, Kanchi Didi! The child you bear shall be my child. You will live with me as my own.”
“Karki!” Jhuma lifted her head and looked at him. Pearls were glittering in his eyes. Then she was overcome, and she covered her face.
“No, it cannot be. Why should you be pulled down into a ditch for my sake? You have such a big house and land, fields, property … how can it be? I will not add this sin to the other.”
“What do these lands, fields, and property matter? I would not care even if my life were given away for you, Kanchi Didi! Only this heart of mine knows how much it is steeped in love for you. It was only because I had not won you over that I did not say anything before.”
Then Jhuma looked up once again. She saw the tears streaming from his eyes. Today she saw real love. Love was not the joyful fun of youth. Real love made sacrifices and wanted nothing in return. The effect of love was felt in the heart. So even if the thing that was loved was far away, the heart still fostered its love, and this was something that never ended. The love that emerged when one was engrossed in physical attraction was not love: it was an adolescent delight, it was desire. It lasted for two days, then it died. This she understood clearly today.
Today Jhuma saw Karki as he really was. That Karki, whom she had not considered especially important, whom she thought of as a passing breeze that bore no thunder or rain: how great he was! How unworthy she was of him! She remembered the soldier and compared him to Karki. One was the moon in the heavens who gave the world coolness and showed the way in the dark. The other was a blazing flame in the burning wind of Chait who inflamed tender hearts and then became a heap of ash. An ocean was rippling in Karki’s eyes, and Jhuma was wandering through a garden of imaginings. Her imagination found its way with its eyes, and it became a stream and mingled with the ocean. As she recalled how badly she had treated Karki in the past, Jhuma hung her head in shame, and after a long while she said, “But there’s no question of living in this village, is there! We might leave, but where can we go? By the morning everyone will know that we are missing. As soon as we reach the border checkpoint we will be caught.”70
Karki wiped his eyes. “Don’t worry about that. I am a man who is always alone. My house is always locked up. No one will accuse me; no one will suspect that we two have gone off together. Yesterday someone paid off his debt to me, so my hands are not empty at present. We’ll go now and get all the money I have, and this evening we will set out. We will be far away by the morning, and once we have crossed the border I will send a letter to your brother here. That will get them out of trouble; even the villagers will not be able to do anything to them once the thing has been settled.”
“But where will we go, what will we do?”
“Once the Lord has shown us the way, something will turn up. From now on you need not worry at all. Your husband will be with you.”
Jhuma took one look at Karki, and then she laid the whole load of her body at his feet. Karki lifted her up and hugged her to his breast. Then he pulled a box of sindur from his waistcoat pocket, wiped Jhuma’s eyes, and rubbed the sindur into the parting of her hair.71 With tears of joy, Jhuma again pressed her face against his chest. Then both of them set out for Karki’s house to prepare to take their leave of the village forever.
28
A person may be happy, a person may be sad, but time goes on passing. Even if the lives of hundreds of thousands are going to end during the next half hour, the clock will not stop. The months of Asar and Saun: sometimes showers of rain, sometimes the burning sun; sometimes there is maize flour to eat, sometimes millet mash, sometimes just nettle leaves and water. Thus the days passed, and the time came near for Dhané to pay back the money he owed.
Moté Karki had written him a letter and told him everything, and so in a way he did not fear for Jhuma anymore. Nonetheless, from time to time he was mocked in the village, and many pretended ostentatiously that they would not accept water in his house. But Dhané paid no attention to any of this and just went about his business, putting up with it.
The closer the date approached, the more anxious he became about the money. He asked many people for a loan and clasped his hands in front of the Sahus, but he met with no more success than a child who claps his hands to make a star fall from the sky. In the end he decided that he had no option but to give up his house and land.
Seven days before the deadline, the day when the Sahu would confiscate his land and throw all his belongings out of his house, Dhané went to Nandé. Nandé sat smoking on a bed on his verandah. He said, “What, have you come to pay the money today? There are still a few days left, you know!”
“Yes, I have come to pay you seven days early. Call the subba and the mukhiya and get them to reckon up the value of my land. You can take my land. If I am to get a few pennies myself, I will take them.”
“What, are you planning to move out?”
“Not because I am happy to do so. You people have wiped out my place to live.”
“No, we haven’t wiped it out, you serf! I bought you oxen and gave you some fields, and I told you to make use of them. But you went mad and killed my buffalo, and now what’s this you’re saying? If you sell your property, you’ll get a little for your travel costs. If you go into Madhes, you’ll get some work to feed you!72 Or will you head for Mugalan?”
“I don’t know where we’ll go when we leave. Wherever the Lord takes us.”
This was what Nandé wanted: that Dhané should move out so that he could acquire his property. He was in need of another property so that he could set up one of his nephews on it. He said, “If you want to sell your property, come tomorrow. I’ll call them all here. Then tomorrow we’ll make up the accounts, and you’ll get whatever’s outstanding. If you can’t come, I’ll register the transaction in your name at the office.”
The next morning, all the big men of the village gathered in Nandé’s yard to decide Dhané’s fate. Dhané was sitting in a corner looking disconsolate. He was anxious about one thing: how much would they value his property at? Once the Sahu had been paid off, would there be a little left over for the journey, or would that disappear as well? He could not stop worrying about this. A price was decided on for the house and yard, all the contents of the house, and the livestock. Papers were drawn up and signed. When the Sahu’s money had been subtracted, it turned out that Dhané would receive seventy-five rupees. But Nandé took pity on a person who was leaving all this forever, and he let him off two months’ interest and put eighty-five rupees into Dhané’s hand instead.
29
As Dhané walked up the path, the sun was touching the hills in the west. Tersé Lamichhane’s house was on this path, and because Dhané owed him five rupees, he stopped. Tersé was sitting outside on his verandah. Dhané pulled five rupees from his waistband and gave it to him, saying, “Here! Daju, I borrowed this the other day. Also, I haven’t paid you back for the meat we had last year. What to do? My house and land are lost. I’ll be leaving tomorrow or the day after, I expect.”
Tersé understood. “Do you have to take the whole family with you?” he asked.
“I’ll have to take them, how can I leave them behind? So much for living in this place, it seems! And I doubt we’ll ever meet again.” Dhané wiped a tear from his eye.
Tersé’s eyes moistened, too. He did not take the money from Dhané but said, “Feed those children on your journey. I don’t need it. We are in the same position. How long does it take to lose everything, after all? If I could have helped you out with a few hundred rupees, today you wouldn’t be leaving the place of your fathers. But what can be done?”
Although Dhané pressed him, Tersé would not take the money, so he put it back in his waistband and took his leave.
Dhané did not come home until the evening. Maina was standing in the yard looking out for him, but he went indoors
and sat beside the hearth. Maina sat down next to him, and Dhané explained everything to her.
“Get everything packed right now,” he said. “We must be off first thing in the morning. I have no wish to live in this sinful place anymore.”
“We have to leave the place where we have lived for ages? This house is still damp with the sweat of your fathers! Must we leave right away?” Maina covered her face with her hands.
Dhané stroked her hair. “What can be done? What’s the point of crying when fate has written this on our brow?” He consoled Maina, wiping away her tears with his hand. But who was there to wipe the tears that fell from his eyes onto her hair? Dhané was there to comfort Maina; as long as he remained, Maina did not have to take responsibility. But to whom could Dhané turn? There was only the Creator for him to place his hopes in. But at this time the Creator was sitting a little way off and mocking him.
30
With the cock’s first crow, three people come out of the main door. Dhané is in front, with some homespun cloth tied in a bundle on his back and some rugs bound around it. From his hand there hangs another small bundle. Behind him comes Maina, sobbing quietly, with their son on her back and a small bundle in one hand. Absentmindedly, Dhané wipes his eyes. The little boy is crying because his sleep has been interrupted.
The two of them came out into the yard and stared at the empty house. Maina’s gaze fell upon the tulsi at the edge of the yard.73 She set her bundle down on the wall, went back inside, and came out again carrying a small earthenware pot filled with water. As she poured water onto the tulsi, she muttered, “Soon you will probably wither and die. Who will come to give you water? And when will I ever be able to offer water to your tree again, Narayan?”
“Hey, that’s enough! Let’s go!” Dhané shouted.
Mountains Painted with Turmeric Page 8
