She tried to eat with a spoon. She held it loosely and tipped the thing into her mouth from a distance. I suggested, ‘Put it away if you can’t manage with it.’ She made a wry face at the smell of onion: ‘I can’t stand it –’ she said. ‘I know. I know,’ I replied. ‘What a pity.’ It was careless of me. I knew that she hated onions but had taken no care to see that they were not given to her. I reproached myself: I called for the boy vociferously and commanded: ‘Have that removed, bring something without onion.’ I behaved as if I were an elaborate, ceremonial host. I wanted to please her. Her helplessness, innocence, and her simplicity moved me very deeply. ‘I will give you something nice to eat.’ I gave elaborate instructions to the boy. She mentioned her preference, a sweet, coloured drink – like a child’s taste once again, I thought. I fussed about her till she said, ‘Oh, leave me alone,’ with that peculiar light dancing in her eyes. She said, ‘Shall we take something for the child?’ I didn’t like to spoil a good morning with contradictions, but I did not approve of giving hotel stuff to the baby. So I said with considerable diplomacy: ‘We will buy her some nice biscuits. She likes them very much.’
Nearly an hour later we came out of the hotel. I proposed that we should engage a jutka for going to Lawley Extension, but she preferred to walk. She said that she’d be happy to walk along the river. ‘My dear girl,’ I said, ‘Lawley Extension is south and this river north of the town. We are going to the Extension on business.’
‘Please, please,’ she pleaded recklessly. ‘I must wash my feet in the river today.’ I was in the mood to yield completely to her wishes. So I agreed though it meant walking a couple of miles in the opposite direction.
It was a most exhilarating walk down the river. She splashed her feet in the water, rested under the banyan, heaped up sand and kept muttering, ‘How the little girl would love it if only she could be brought here! I think she will simply roll in the sand. But we must take care not to let her go near the water.’
I watched her once again … ‘Do you know how I used to spend all my morning here when I was in the hostel … I used to get up at dawn …’
‘You could continue it even now … I hope you will not say I’m responsible for your giving up the good habit,’ she said. I laughed. ‘It doesn’t look very important now, that is all; I did it for some time then; no compulsion to repeat the same thing for ever, even if it is good.’
When we were ready to go back I suggested, ‘We must go on an all-India tour sometime. I will take you with me.’
‘Promise?’ she asked.
‘Absolutely,’ I said. ‘I will take you also to England and Europe if I make a lot of money out of the books I am going to write.’
‘What about the child?’
‘She will be grown up by then,’ I replied. ‘We can leave her with her grandparents. You must see everything.’ I imagined, even as I spoke, how she would touch the marble of Taj, stand astounded before the snow-covered Himalayas, and before the crowd and magnitude of European cities.
* * *
We left the river and went to Lawley Extension in a jutka. When we got down there, she looked a little tired. Her face had a slight flush. ‘We have to walk a little here,’ I warned her. ‘Do you think I can’t?’ she asked, and went forward.
Lawley Extension formed the southernmost portion of the town, and consisted of well-laid-out residential buildings, lining the neat roads and crossroads. It was the very end of the town, beyond which passed the Trichy trunk road, shaded with trees. At one time, only those with very high incomes could have residences there, but about five years ago, under a new scheme, the extension developed farther south; even beyond the trunk road the town was extending. There was a general scramble for these sites and houses, which received an uninterrupted southern breeze blowing across the fields, a most satisfactory outlook aesthetically, the corn fields, which were receding in the face of the buildings, waving in sunlight. ‘I shall have to cycle up to the college, but it doesn’t matter. We shall have a most enchanting view before us, we won’t know that we are in a town.’ I became very enthusiastic. A friend of mine, Sastri of the logic section, had promised me his help in choosing a house. He was the moving spirit of this new extension, secretary of the Building and Acquisition Society, and a most energetic ‘extender’. No one could have believed that he had so much business capacity – his main occupation being logic. He was a marvellous man – a strange combination of things, at one end ‘undistributed middle’, ‘definition of knowledge’, ‘syllogisms’, and at the other he had the spirit of a pioneer. His was the first building in the New Extension, and then he got together a few persons and formed his company, which was chiefly responsible for the growth of this New Extension.
We reached Sastri’s house, a small bungalow in a vast compound overgrown with trees. Sastri – a thin grey-haired man – was sitting under a tree digging its roots.
‘Hullo, Sastri!’ I cried. ‘I am sorry I’m so late. This lady is responsible for it,’ I said pointing to my wife. Sastri came up, picking the mud off his hands.
‘So glad you have brought your wife, I hear lots of complaints that you don’t bring her out,’ said Sastri.
‘Oh, there is a small child to be looked after,’ I replied.
‘You could bring her out too.’
‘Oh, it is not so easy.’ I began to visualize all the difficulties in an instant: the protection, ceaseless attention and all the rest of it. ‘Father take me up, I can’t walk.’ ‘Father, put me down, I don’t like to be carried.’ ‘I’m hungry,’ and ‘I won’t eat anything.’
‘It is not so easy,’ I said.
‘Why, why?’ asked the logician.
‘You see,’ I began, but realized how utterly hopeless it would be to explain it all to him – this childless man would not understand the complications. I changed the subject: ‘I hope you will take us to see some houses.’
‘Come up, come up, we will discuss it.’ He took me in and seated me in the veranda, on a discoloured rattan chair, which pricked my back. Sastri said: ‘Still interested in houses? Why don’t you buy a site and build a good house? I have a beautiful site for you up there.’
‘Oh, I can’t wait for all the bricks and mortar to take shape. I don’t know anything of house building, too much bother.’
‘Leave it all to me,’ Sastri said. ‘I will do it.’ He had taken upon himself this task for scores of people, and some uncharitable ones remarked that he made a better living out of it than as a logic lecturer.
‘I’ve no patience to wait, my dear fellow,’ I pleaded. ‘I can’t stand all the nuisance. I want a house at the moment I think of it.’
‘Very well, I’ll show you some. See how you like them. If you don’t like any of them, you may just accept my other suggestion.’ He sent his servant to fetch the building contractor: a dark man, with a moustache, and a red vermilion hand. ‘Sit down, Swamy, can those houses be seen today?’ Sastri asked.
‘Yes, yes, I will send the boy to keep them open.’ He despatched a boy.
Sastri’s wife had given us lemon squash to drink, and refreshed, Susila started out once again with us.
Sastri said: ‘We will have to do a little walking. I hope the lady won’t feel too fatigued.’
‘No, no, not at all. I can walk miles,’ Susila replied.
I was walking on between Sastri and the contractor, who were full of house-building talk. A little later I turned and noticed that Susila had fallen back, unable to keep pace with us. I stopped and joined her. Standing beside her I felt like calling her ‘Jasmine’ once again. I whispered: ‘We are going to see some very nice houses, are you pleased?’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘You must tell me which of them you like best …’
‘Yes,’ she replied. I whispered: ‘Don’t worry about the child, she will be quite happy.’
‘If she starts crying for some reason or other, no
one can stop her. The old lady will not be able to manage,’ she said.
‘Oh, don’t imagine all those things,’ I pleaded. I lowered my voice still further and said, ‘Jasmine …’ She suppressed a smile that came on her lips, her eyes flashed a mild reproof.
We came before a row of very small houses – each with a very narrow suffocating veranda, and a front garden, half a dozen monotonously alike.
‘Do you like this pattern?’ Sastri asked me. I looked at my wife. She said: ‘The child will lose her way not knowing which is her house – they are all alike. Why are these so alike?’ She shook her head. Sastri added: ‘The second house is for sale.’ I said: ‘Can’t we see some other pattern? This is too small.’ A young boy held the door open. Sastri said: ‘Come in and see the house. No harm in seeing the house.’ He was a connoisseur in houses and expected others to be the same. The contractor added: ‘Yes, yes, you must see different types before deciding.’ ‘What an amount of banality surrounds the purchase of a house! How much we have to bear before we are through with it,’ I reflected. The contractor commanded the boy: ‘Are all the houses open?’
‘Yes, master.’
‘Don’t say “yes”! Keep them open,’ he said.
‘Yes, master,’ he said.
‘You are a careless fool,’ he added. ‘I will pluck off your ear if you aren’t careful!’ ‘Why does this man bully the young fellow unnecessarily?’ I reflected. ‘Some people are made that way. Perhaps, if a census on this subject were taken, ten thousand persons would be found to be bullying ten thousand others every minute all over the world …’ I wanted the boy to be saved further persecution and so asked the contractor: ‘What is the width of this veranda?’
‘Forty-four inches …’
Sastri asked: ‘What do you think of it?’
‘I don’t like it. It is no use having such a small house,’ I replied.
‘But the price!’ Sastri said with a knowing smile. ‘The best at twelve hundred!’
‘Oh, Sastri, how did this house-salesmanship get into your blood, instead of logic?’ I reflected.
At last we came to a house which seemed attractive. It had a wide compound, broad windows, and a general appearance of spaciousness and taste. All the doors and the walls looked fresh with paint. As we turned the street, Susila saw the contractor’s boy standing at the gate, and asked with a great thrill: ‘Is that also ours?’ It was very attractive with two jasmine creepers trained over an arch on the gateway. It was full of flowers. The gates moved on silent hinges. As we were about to go under the arch I lightly touched her arm and pointed at the jasmine creeper. I told the contractor: ‘I would love to call this the Jasmine Home, its perfume greets us even as we enter.’ The contractor was pleased. ‘I hope you will like it inside too,’ he said.
A few steps led up to the veranda – a fairly deep and cool veranda, with a short parapet. Susila sat on the parapet. I sat beside her and said: ‘Someone with taste has planned it.’ Sastri looked greatly pleased that a house of his selection had received such approval. The main door was opened, and we inspected the house room by room. A hall, four rooms, in addition to the kitchen, a pleasing light blue paint on all the walls inside the house. Susila and I were thrilled. We went away by ourselves, lingered in every room, and visualized ourselves as its future occupants.
‘What’s the price?’ she asked.
‘Must be within our figure otherwise they would not have brought us here.’
‘Plenty of space for the child to play. She can simply run about just as she likes. Those parapets on the veranda are a good idea to prevent her from falling off.’
‘There is plenty of space for guests too. The grandparents may also come and stay with us quite comfortably. The small room in the front veranda will be my study. I shall write immense quantities of poetry when I settle here, I think.’
‘Sometime my mother must come and stay with us,’ she said. ‘She has always blamed us for living in a rented house. She will be very happy, I am sure.’
‘You must also have the room next to mine as all your own – if you like I will have coloured marble tiles fitted along the walls.’
‘So that you may call it the bathroom, I suppose,’ she remarked.
We joined the other two sitting on the veranda, and discussed the price and other details: ‘It was occupied only for three months after it was built and changed hands.’
‘Why?’ I asked, trying to appear as a man of great business wisdom. Sastri replied, looking serious, ‘I’ve not enquired. Have you any idea?’ The contractor said: ‘I built the house for the gentleman, and the family went way and settled in Madras. Rich people don’t usually mind these things.’
‘I hope it has a clear reputation,’ Sastri said.
‘Of course, without doubt,’ replied the contractor. ‘This is at the end of the town, that is the chief reason …’ It was a fact. It was really the very last house, in the last crossroad of the New Extension. Fields of corn stretched away in front of the house, and far beyond it, a cluster of huts of the next village, and beyond it all stood up the blue outlines of Mempi Mountains. It was a lovely prospect. I stood looking at it and said: ‘A magnificent view, only a buffalo could be insensible to it.
‘Is this a mosquito-ridden place?’ I asked.
‘Some parts of the year … The best thing to do is to sleep under a net.’
‘I feel suffocated under a mosquito net. I prefer a mosquito bite,’ Sastri said.
The contractor said: ‘I am sixty-five years old and I have never been under a mosquito net! I’ve never had malaria even once.’
‘Really?’ Sastri asked, greatly impressed.
‘A fact. You ask my old mother if you like,’ replied the contractor. ‘I think all this stuff about mosquitoes is nonsense. As if there were no mosquitoes in the days of our grandfathers.’ Susila found the talk boring: ‘I’ll go and have a look round the compound,’ she said. I got up. Susila replied: ‘No, you needn’t come. I’ll just see the compound and backyard, and return.’ She started out. I followed her a few paces. ‘Why do you want to go?’ I asked. ‘Shall I follow you?’
‘Oh, won’t you let me alone even for a few minutes?’ she whispered. ‘Nobody will carry me off. I can look after myself!’ She went away. I returned to my friends, and continued our talk. I promised to write to my father, and complete the transaction at an early date. They fixed the coming Wednesday as a date for further discussions. I took Sastri aside and requested him to settle the price favourably. ‘Leave it to me. I will cut down at least five hundred,’ Sastri assured me. My mind was in a whirl – I was already tremendously excited. ‘We must move in within a month, if possible,’ I reflected.
Half an hour passed. ‘What is Susila doing with herself so long?’ I thought. I jumped down, saying: ‘Wait a minute, please,’ and ran round to the backyard.
I noticed as I went along what a lot of space there was for making a small manageable garden. The fertility of the surrounding fields had affected this place too and there was a growth of pleasant green grass and one or two uncared-for bushes of leucas – which put forth small, whitish flowers. ‘This poor plant is the first to be removed whenever a garden is made, because it grows naturally – but I shall make a point of preserving it.’ I stopped and plucked a flower. I wondered what ideas Susila had for the garden, and decided that the bulk of it should be left to her care and management. ‘I am sure she is thinking of a very grand kitchen garden in the backyard …’ I told myself. I went on to the backyard, where a few young coconut trees threw a sparse shade around. Susila was not to be seen. I looked for her and called, ‘Susila! Susila!’ She answered from somewhere. I called again, and she cried: ‘Push the door open! I can’t open it from this side.’ I found that her voice came from the other side of a green-painted lavatory door. I gave it a kick and it flew open. Out she came – red and trembling. I looked at her and felt disturbed.
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br /> ‘What – what were you doing here?’ I asked. She was panting with excitement. She was still shivering. I seated her on a stone slab nearby. ‘What is the matter? What is the matter?’
‘I went in there. The door was so bright and I thought it’d be clean inside … but oh!’ She screwed up her face and I shuddered, unable to bear the disgust that came with recollection. I felt agitated. ‘Why did you go there?’ I cried. She didn’t answer. It was a sad anti-climax to a very pleasing morning. I looked at her feet. ‘You went in barefoot?’ She nodded.
‘Where are your sandals?’
‘I forgot them at home.’ I shook my head in despair. ‘I have told you a hundred times not to come out barefoot. And yet …’ She merely looked at me without replying. Her face was beaded with perspiration. Her cheeks were flushed. She was still trembling. I melted at the sight of it: ‘Oh, darling, why did you go there?’
‘The door was so bright …’ she replied softly. ‘I thought it’d be clean inside too … but I couldn’t come out after I went in – the door shut by itself with a bang. I thought something terrible had happened … Ah, the flies and other things there!’ She was convulsed with disgust. ‘Oh, oh … A fly came and sat on my lip …’ She wouldn’t bring her lips together. She kept rubbing them with her fingers in an effort to eradicate the touch of the fly … I said: ‘There is the water tap. Rinse your mouth, and wash your feet, you will be all right. Don’t think of it any more.’ She jumped up on the stone slab, turned the tap on and washed her hands and feet and mouth, again and again. She rubbed her feet on the stone till they were red and till they smarted. It looked as though she would not stop this operation. I said: ‘You’ll hurt yourself, or you may catch a cold. Come away. Don’t bother about it any more. You are all right.’
We came back to the veranda. Sastri and the contractor were waiting for us. I seated Susila in a clean corner of the veranda and advised her to lean on the wall, and rest. The others observed her flushed face and asked what the matter was. ‘She visited that lavatory and found it rather unclean,’ I said. ‘Oh,’ the contractor said: ‘I wish the lady had told us, I’d have asked her not to go there. This is one of the curses of the place. It is so far out and so near the field and village that all kinds of people passing this way stop here for shelter, and they foul a lavatory beyond description … This is not the first time such a complaint has come to us.’
The English Teacher Page 7