The English Teacher

by R. K. Narayan

  ‘When the house is occupied?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh no, no trouble then, only when it is vacant. It’s so difficult to engage a caretaker for every little place, though there is a peon going round to see these things at least once a day.’

  After resting for about half an hour Susila got up and said: ‘I feel all right.’

  Sastri and the contractor went ahead. I kept my wife company, watching her every movement anxiously. When we approached Sastri’s house, he suggested: ‘Won’t you come in for a moment? The lady can have a little coffee. She looks tired.’ Susila declined this with a smile.

  ‘Oh no, thanks, we will be going, it is late,’ I said. ‘We will meet on Wednesday.’

  We walked down the crossroad. When the presence of the other two was withdrawn, I grew elaborately fussy – I asked her for the hundredth time if she was feeling all right. As we were passing into the main road, we saw a small, newly-built temple. ‘They have built a beautiful temple for this place, so near our house. So thoughtful of them …’ I said. ‘We will go in,’ she said, ‘and see the god.’

  ‘Most certainly.’

  There was an old woman sitting on a gunny-sack at the temple gate, selling offerings. ‘Buy something for the god,’ she entreated.

  ‘What temple is this?’ Susila asked.

  ‘Srinivasa – the greatest god; you need not visit Thirupathi Hills to see him, if you visit him here – he grants all your boons and blesses all your efforts …’ She held up a coconut, a packet of camphor, plantain, and betel leaves.

  ‘You are both so young and bright. He will bless you with numerous children and may they all be sons …’ said the old lady.

  ‘Hush,’ Susila replied: ‘We have one and we are satisfied with on …’ she laughed and entered the temple. I was tremendously relieved to see her laugh. We entered the temple hall – a stone pillared hall, smelling of camphor and flowers, cool and shady. There were two bronze lamps burning in the inner sanctuary, illuminating a tall stone image of Srinivasa. A priest, wrapped in a shawl, sitting at the foot of the image, rose on seeing us and held up a plate. We placed the offerings on it.

  ‘What a lovely image!’ Susila remarked. She brought together her palms and closed her eyes in prayer. I stood watching her. The priest broke the coconut, and placed it and the other things at the feet of the image. He lit the camphor, sounded a bell, and circled the flame around the image. In this flickering light the image acquired strange shadows and seemed to stir, and make a movement to bless – I watched my wife. She opened her eyes for a moment. They caught the light of the camphor flame, and shone with an unearthly brilliance. Her cheeks glowed, the rest of her person was lost in the shadows of the temple hall. Her lips were moving in prayer. I felt transported at the sight of it. I shut my eyes and prayed: ‘God bless this child and protect her.’ She received the holy water from the priest and touched her lips and eyes, put a vermilion dot on her forehead, and tucked the flower offered to the god in her hair. We stepped out. As we descended the temple steps she muttered: ‘Only now do I feel quite well again. We must make it a point to visit this temple as often as we can.’

  ‘You can visit it every evening when we have taken the new house,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, yes.’ I was greatly relieved to see her happy and fit once again. We hailed a passing jutka, climbed into it, and sat snugly close. The jutka wheels rattled over the cobbles and it lulled us into a mild drowse. We ceased to pass any remarks or comment and settled in a tranquil silence. I studied her face without her knowledge. A great peace had descended on her. ‘It is God’s infinite grace that has given me this girl.’ The jutka was filled with the scent of the jasmine in her hair and the glare of the indigo-coloured sari.

  As we passed the Market Road, she reminded me, ‘You have promised to buy biscuits and a doll for the child.’ We stopped the carriage before Novelty House. I dashed in and came out bearing a biscuit packet, a doll and a toy engine.

  When we reached home we found the child playing very happily with the cook and a child from the next house. We heard her voice, over and above the rattle of the carriage wheels, when we were still two houses away. As soon as the carriage stopped, Leela came out running. Her mother took her up in her arms immediately, and gave her the doll, train and the biscuits. Leela’s friend from the next house was also there. Leela said to her: ‘You can go home now, my mother is come.’ The friend said: ‘All right …’ and hesitated, casting a look on the game they had been playing … They had raised a building with wooden blocks, and various small utensils filled with water and grains and flowers and leaves were strewn about the small hall – they had been playing ‘Home Keeping’ and calling on each other.

  ‘Yes, she was a very fine child today. When mother is at home, she gives such a lot of trouble over food! She was my sweet child today,’ said the old cook.

  ‘Did she ask where we were?’

  ‘Ah, didn’t she? Every few minutes asking and asking why her mother had gone out without telling her. She is a smart child.’

  ‘Why did you go away mother, at night?’ the little one asked. ‘When I opened my eyes, I didn’t see you but her.’ The cook shook with laughter: ‘What a lot of speech she has learnt! She is going to defeat all the others in your family in speech, madam.’

  ‘Why did you go away, mother?’ the little girl asked. Her mother threw herself on the floor, even without changing her dress. ‘Too tired for anything now. I won’t get up, whatever happens, without resting for another half an hour …’

  ‘You must eat your food first,’ the old cook began.

  ‘No, get up, get up, Susila,’ I said. But she begged to be allowed to rest for half an hour.

  ‘Where did you go, mother, without telling me?’

  ‘To buy a house for you.’

  ‘What is it made of?’

  ‘Stone and lime.’

  ‘Is it so high?’ She indicated with her hand a yard in height and said: ‘I want one which is small and can be put in the trunk.’

  ‘I mean a real big house like this,’ said the mother.

  ‘This is our house?’ the child asked.

  ‘Another one, more beautiful – Oh! You can play all day with plants.’

  ‘Can I play in mud?’

  ‘Oh, yes, it’s very clean and nice …’

  ‘My friend must also come with me.’ She carried on this conversation sitting on her mother, clutching the doll and the train, and eating a biscuit.

  I busied myself for half an hour in my room, and came out. I still found my wife lying on the floor: ‘Oh, why have you flung yourself down in this manner? Go and change. We will eat …’

  ‘Leave me alone for a little, please,’ she pleaded.

  I felt her temples with my fingers: ‘If this small excursion exhausts you so much, I don’t know what I can do with you when we go on our North Indian travel.’

  ‘I will be all right then.’

  ‘You will be better if you eat a hearty meal at once.’

  She begged, ‘Please, don’t compel me. The thought of food upsets me. Go and finish your food first, and don’t wait for me.’ I protested at the idea and went away to my room. ‘I can also take it later with you. I’m not particularly hungry. I think the hotel stuff has not agreed with you.’

  The child snuggled close to her mother and clung to her neck. I said: ‘Don’t trouble your mother.’

  ‘I’m not troubling her. I’m making her headache go,’ replied the child.

  I went away to my study and stood for a moment gazing at my table. My wife had given up all attempts at tidying up my room, and it had lapsed into the natural state of my hostel days. Once again all Milton and Shakespeare and Bradley jostled each other in a struggle for existence. There were four library books on my table which had been overdue, accumulating fines and bringing me fierce reminders from the librarian, but which I had not opened even once. Th
ere were the latest books on Plato, Swinburne, modern poetry, and others which the librarian had forced on me in one of his hospitable moods. I realized that I used to read better when I was in the hostel and had not become the head of a family. Nor were my hours spent in chatting with my wife or watching the child play or in running about on shopping errands. My conscience troubled me whenever I thought of it. ‘I will not waste half an hour, but will get through this stuff on Plato.’ I picked up the book and lounged in my canvas chair. ‘Plato’s idealism …’ I read. ‘Sickening fellows. Why won’t they leave Plato alone? For the thousandth time someone restating Plato – I don’t like this book. I shall return it.’ I put it away. The other book too I found unreadable.

  I found that I had spent half an hour in these attempted studies. I put away the books. I leaned back in my chair, hoping I should be called. There was no sound in the house. I got up and went to the hall. I saw the mother and the child fast asleep where they lay. My first impulse was to waken Susila. I watched her for a moment. ‘Too tired, let her sleep for a while,’ I reflected. ‘I will dine first, she may wake up and join me.’ I went to the dining-room, and sat down before the leaf. The old cook served me. ‘Where is …’ she began in her croaking voice. ‘Hush, not so loudly. She’s asleep,’ I said. ‘She will wake up presently.’ I went through my meal, and tiptoed out to the bathroom, washed my hands, and while I dried them, stood near her and watched. Her lips were slightly parted. ‘Is she still reluctant to bring her lips together?’ I asked myself. I sat by her side, and gently touched her eyelids with the tip of my finger. She opened her eyes, at once saw the child asleep by her side, clutching her toys, and disengaged herself gently and sat up. I said: ‘I’ve had my food; I felt hungry. Won’t you come and eat?’

  I led her to the bathroom, and gently splashed a little cold water on her face. I took her to the kitchen, seated her before her leaf, and sat by her side. She obeyed implicitly without saying a word. The old lady muttered, ‘You should never delay your food so long. An empty stomach makes poison.’ She served some vegetables and dhal. Susila murmured, ‘None of these. Only a little rice and buttermilk for me.’ After due protests she was allowed to have her choice. She sat gazing at her leaf. After a considerable amount of coaxing, she picked up a tiny quantity of rice between her fingers, put it in her mouth, and retched. ‘Biliousness,’ I remarked. ‘Bring those lime pickles. Now be a good girl and finish off that rice with the help of the pickles. Go on – you can do it.’ She sat staring at the leaf. She took another mouthful after a good deal of persuasion and sickened. It was impossible. She rose to her feet declaring, ‘I can’t. I won’t eat any food now. I’ll eat at night.’ She washed her hands, and went back to the hall, and lay down. I sat beside her worrying myself. She confessed: ‘Don’t worry, it is nothing, I’ll be all right.’

  ‘What is wrong?’

  ‘Shall I say?’ she whispered. ‘Don’t be angry with me. That closet, and those, oh, oh,’ she shuddered, ‘flies and other things come before me and I can’t eat. And that fly which sat here,’ she pointed at her lip and finished the rest of the sentence with a shiver.

  Three days, four, five, and six days passed and still she did not leave her bed. It was difficult for her to swallow any food or medicine, although she was doing everything in her power to forget the picture of that closet. Luckily for me, the college was closed and I could spend much of my time with the child, who looked forlorn ever since her mother took to bed. Susila lay on her bed, spread on the floor in her room. The grey, vine-patterned bed-spread, green shawl, and that girl lying with her face to the wall, hardly awake for two hours in a day – it shattered my peace.

  The old cook was very unhappy. ‘Please call a doctor,’ she suggested. It hadn’t seemed to me necessary; moreover my wife was definitely against showing herself to a doctor. I told the cook, ‘She won’t allow any doctor to see her.’ The cook made a gesture of despair: ‘Oh, you young man! Is this the time to consult her wishes!’ Her question stirred vague fears in me. So I asked haughtily: ‘What is wrong with the time? It is quite a good time, take it from me …’ She ignored my petulance and said: ‘She has been in bed for five or six days, what have you done?’

  ‘I have given her medicine.’

  ‘That’s not enough, you must ask a doctor to see her.’

  ‘I know my duty,’ I replied and went away. I sat by my wife and watched her. It was morning, and she looked fairly well.

  ‘Can you take any solid food today?’ I asked solicitously.

  ‘No, no, some milk and gruel will do for me …’

  ‘I will call a doctor to see you,’ I said.

  ‘No, no, please. I don’t like doctors,’ she pleaded. ‘They press the stomach, and here and there, and it hurts. The press given by the doctor before Leela was born still pains.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd. You talk like a baby.’ She merely looked at me. Her lips were dry. ‘Where is the child?’ she asked. She was playing in the next house. ‘Bring her down. I will comb her hair and change her dress.’

  ‘Don’t exert yourself.’

  ‘No, no, I can do it. If I don’t, who will do it?’ she asked. I went over to the next house. Leela was heaping wet sand on their front step and sticking twigs and flowers on its top. ‘This is our temple,’ she said. The god was a piece of stone embedded in the mud. She reverently prostrated herself before it. ‘She is the temple man,’ she pointed to her friend. ‘She does the pooja.’ Her friend came up with a piece of coconut (a castor seed) and flowers (grass tufts) and offered them to me. I said to Leela: ‘Your mother wants you.’ She brightened: ‘Has her fever gone?’ she asked, and clutched my hand and ran down with me, leaving the temple and the priest behind.

  Her mother sat up. Her hair was dishevelled, and seemed to be all in a knotted mass. Her lips were dry. She still wore the sari she had put on the day she came out with me. All the same I felt joyous. She was able to sit up – after all these days. ‘Try and change your dress today,’ I said. She sent out the child to fetch the coconut oil bottle and the comb from the cupboard in the dining-hall. The child returned hugging the bottle, put it down, and ran out a second time to bring the comb; and sat down before her mother. Susila remarked: ‘The poor child looks an orphan without proper attention.’ She uncoiled her hair, oiled and combed it, and plaited it, and then said, ‘Bring that blue silk frock and shirt.’

  ‘Mother, mother, I hate that blue silk …’

  ‘You mustn’t keep it in the box and outgrow it. It is nice, wear it out.’

  ‘Mother, mother.’

  ‘Which is it?’ I asked.

  ‘The one your brother sent from Hyderabad last Deepavali,’ Susila replied. All my affection for my brother returned immediately. Good fellow – I remembered the bullying he practised on me in that cart whenever we went out together, the wild claims he would make in the afternoon that he had trained a frog (living under a stone near the well) to come out at his call and follow him: remember him helplessly pacing up and down the house when his wife and mother had heated arguments over trifles, and now auditing, henpecked, and with twelve children – a life of worry – so good of him to have thought of me in all this stress … All this flashed before my mind and I ordered: ‘Little one, you must learn to obey your mother in all these matters, without a word …’ The child threw a pained look at me, and went away. I heard her opening the box in the next room – the wicker trunk in which her clothes were kept. My wife said: ‘Don’t be so harsh with her, poor girl!’ The child returned with the blue frock and shirt. I took it in my hand and said: ‘How lovely!’ The child replied swiftly: ‘It is not lovely,’ and submitted herself to her mother’s handling. Halfway through it her mother said: ‘Go and get a little water in a vessel – don’t drop it on your toes. I will wash your face …’

  ‘Here!’ I cried. ‘You mustn’t touch cold water. You may catch a cold.’ My wife said: ‘I won’t catch a cold. Her face
is covered with mud.’ The child hesitated, and then ran over to the bathroom and fetched a vessel of water and a towel. Her mother rubbed off the mud patches with a wet towel, put a vermilion dot on her forehead, powdered her cheeks, and dressed her in new clothes. Leela looked resplendent. ‘Am I all right father?’ she asked. I took her in my arms. ‘You are beautiful,’ I cried.

  My wife changed her dress, combed her hair, and ate a little food, though she said it tasted bitter. She looked refreshed. She remade her bed. I was elated. The gloom which had hung on me for these four days lifted, and I hummed a little tune to myself as I went to my room. These exertions, however, tired her, and she lay down and slept. She woke up at five in the evening, and complained of headache. I felt her pulse, and found that she had a temperature. I said, ‘Just wait. I will fetch the doctor.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Do something and stop this headache.’ ‘I will give you some Horlicks and go,’ I said. I called for boiling water. Horlicks, and a spoon and tumbler, were on a small table in the hall. I made the Horlicks and took it in to her. I found her crying. This was the first day I saw her broken and crying. ‘Oh you are hungry!’ I cried. I tried to make her drink the Horlicks, but it was at boiling point and wouldn’t cool down easily. She lay with her face towards the wall and tears made a wet track all over her face. I lost my head. The cook stood by and advised: ‘Give her food first, she is hungry that is all, that is all.’

  ‘But this damned thing is scalding, you can’t bring a thing at bearable temperature. I’ve half a mind to fling away this rubbish.’ The child had meanwhile come in and was quietly leaning against the wall and watching us. The cook was averse to seeing her there, and kept muttering: ‘Come away, baby,’ till I, trying to cool the milk with one hand, and comforting my wife with the other, shouted at her to leave the child alone. Meanwhile my wife’s sobbing increased. ‘Control yourself, child,’ I said. ‘Take this, you will be all right.’ After all the drink cooled, and she drank it, and smiled at me, I felt relieved. I sat down and caressed her forehead and asked: ‘Do you feel all right now? I will fetch the doctor.’