The Blue Bedspread

by Jha, Raj Kamal

  Now I can see two pigeons flying, their wings half-covering the setting sun between brown hills. There’s a lake with a girl rowing in a boat, her pigtails so long they almost touch their reflections in the water. There’s a little red fish staring at the girl, its body speckled with tiny black stars.

  ‘You don’t have to say it this time,’ she says, tearing a page from her exercise book.

  It’s like the sketchbook in school, with neither squares nor lines. Blank and white, nothing to guide you as you write or draw. The paper isn’t exactly white, it’s rough, some expensive kind of parchment I have never seen before.

  ‘Write it down,’ she says and puts her arm around me, I can smell her perfume, like milk chocolate mixed with roses, the red of her sari against my eyes through which I can see Father restless on the sofa looking the other way.

  I write down what I see and she reads it, she tells me to fold the piece of paper and put it in my pocket and take it home.

  When we step out, the rain has stopped, the streets are flooded. Father rolls up his trousers, I remove my shoes and we walk, the city’s grime lapping against us, my wet shoes like two little black kittens I am holding by their necks.

  ‘Careful,’ says Father. ‘Give me the paper on which you wrote. I don’t want it to get wet.’

  I give it to him and he puts it in his shirt pocket, high up, more than five feet above the street. ‘Water can’t reach here,’ he says and he smiles. ‘Let’s go, we don’t have to come here again.’

  ‘Why?’ I ask.

  He doesn’t answer, just walks ahead, and I follow him, looking down, looking at the deep brown water mixed with gasoline cut itself in V-shaped wakes whenever a vehicle passes us by, Father’s calves are wet, the hair all neatly lined up.

  And perhaps it was on that rain-flooded afternoon, when I turned back to look at the white building on Russell Street for the last time that I understood what seems to be the most important lesson my Father taught me: when you find it difficult to say something, when the words get trapped in your chest, your lips quiver, as in winter, you can always write it down. That’s why, my child, I have nothing to worry about tonight, I am prepared.

  ONE RUPEE

  Bhabani, the maid, and I are standing outside the door which Father has locked from the inside and we can hear him beating my sister. Someone is on the bed, someone is on the floor. The person on the bed is running, I think it’s Sister because the creaks are gentle. The bed is very old, my sister says Mother got it from her father when she got married.

  My sister is four years elder to me, we go to the same school, she is in Class VIII A, I am in Class V B. Her teacher is Mr Peter D’Souza, mine is Miss Constance Lopez. Mr D’Souza wears a very nice cologne, Miss Lopez’s son died in a shipwreck near Australia. He had gone there on a vacation with his friends and the ship sank. I have read about Australia, the Great Barrier Reef, the Flying Doctor, I like Miss Lopez a lot.

  Why is Father beating my sister? To tell you the answer, I have to tell you about what happened in school today.

  I am a very good student, I come first in my class, the boy who comes second is very good in Mathematics and Science but I always beat him in Second Language. I do very well in Hindi and get at least eighty-five. He is not so good in Bengali, which is his Second Language, and gets at the most seventy. So that means I get fifteen marks extra there, he beats me in Mathematics by seven to eight marks and Science by two to three which doesn’t add up and this is how I come first.

  Once, he beat me in Science by twenty marks and he came first. Father got very angry. My sister is a good student too, she comes sixth or seventh in her class, she doesn’t like to study. She doesn’t need to study, she’s very intelligent, she remembers everything by heart.

  Every day, Father gives my sister two rupees. I am very young and that is why I am not allowed to keep any money with me. The bus ticket is forty paise. So every day, we spend forty into four, one rupee sixty paise. We save forty paise. Father doesn’t ask for this. After five days, we save two rupees and then my sister and I have a vanilla ice cream each.

  There are students in my class who don’t have to wait for five days, who eat ice cream every day, expensive ice creams, the kind which comes in biscuit cones or plastic cups. They are rich students but because I come first in my class and because my sister is very beautiful they all come to me for help before the exams. Maybe that’s why I don’t feel so bad.

  Today, while going to school, Father didn’t have change so he gave my sister a five-rupee note. It was already ten minutes to eight and it takes about twenty minutes to reach school. We have to be there by quarter past eight, in time for the Assembly when Sister Lucy, who is from Ireland and who is our principal, starts the prayers. God make me a channel of your peace, an instrument of your love.

  If we are late, we have to wait outside her office with our green diaries and at eight forty she comes back and is very angry. Her assistant, Miss Elisa Gomes, first stamps our diaries: Permission to attend classes LATE granted. And then with our diaries opened to that page we wait outside her office, all of us who have come late. Sister Lucy calls us in, without looking at us, one by one, and while she’s signing our diaries, she asks us why we are late. We always tell her that the bus was late. Or that there was a big jam on Amherst Street. She doesn’t know much about buses.

  I like to stand near the Ladies’ Seat because there are two girls who go to school, not my school, who are usually on the same bus. They have smart uniform: chocolate-coloured skirts and white shirts.

  One girl is very studious, she’s always reading a book which she keeps covered with brown paper. It’s not a textbook, it’s small, the size of a story book, and I don’t know what she reads. It must be a mystery book since she never once looks up, even if the bus brakes suddenly. I like her reading the book because she has short hair which falls across her face when she reads and it looks very nice.

  The other girl is not the studious type. She’s fashionable, she wears a shorter skirt and, at times, I have also seen her in a sleeveless shirt. She is not as beautiful as my sister but I like to watch her and I think I am in love with her. When I get married, I want my wife to be like her.

  One day, she was carrying a Laboratory notebook and I saw her name on the cover: Geeti.

  Maybe it was her friend’s notebook but I now always think of her as Geeti. Her arms have two tiny vaccination marks which we all have but which look extra good on her, her knees are also very smooth and they shine when light falls through the window. At times, when she turns to look out of the window, her legs turn and because her skirt is short, I can also see her thigh. Then I look the other way. I don’t want to make her self-conscious.

  When we boarded the bus today, Geeti was not there. The studious girl was standing, the bus was really crowded since these two girls always get seats.

  My sister gave the five-rupee note to the conductor who gave her two tickets and said he would give the change later. My sister then walked through the crowd in the bus to the centre.

  I don’t know why she does this but she always does this. She’s very bold, like a grown-up boy. I stand near the exit door so that when the school stop comes I can get down fast. On days if I get a seat which is far away from the door and the bus is crowded, I get up two stops in advance and start walking towards the door. But my sister is the exact opposite.

  Even when the bus is packed, she pushes her way through the people until she reaches the centre of the bus. And if she gets a seat, she will get up only at the last moment, just when the bus is about to stop near the school. One of these days, I think, she won’t be able to get down and the bus will take her all the way to Chowringhee.

  Today, she did the same thing. She walked to the centre and the bus was so crowded that after five minutes I couldn’t even see her. So I stood there, packed between several people, I could smell their sweat, they were so close, but I just stood there, fixed, always looking through the window becau
se I didn’t want to miss the school stop.

  The conductor calls the stops aloud but I want to be sure. Bank of India, Bowbazar. Bowbazar is our stop from where the bus turns. Just before reaching Bank of India, there’s a very big hospital, the Lady Dufferin College and Hospital, with a very, very long boundary wall, red in colour. If I am standing in the bus, I keep looking through the window and when that red wall comes into my view, I know it’s time to start walking towards the door.

  When I got down, the conductor gave me the change since my sister had gotten down from the door in front. The conductor gave me four one-rupee coins and twenty paise. We started running because the clock on top of the Bowbazar market showed eight fifteen already. Only five minutes to reach the classroom, dump the bag and run downstairs for the Assembly.

  Just as we entered the school, the first bell rang. We were both running, my sister and I, when I remembered that I had the change from the bus and I stopped, I wasn’t supposed to carry any money and so I gave her all the coins I had.

  During the lunch recess, I stood in the veranda, in front of my classroom, talking to my friend Chetan Shah, who has broken his arm and it has been two weeks but he still has a cast.

  He is a very rich boy because he comes in a car and always gets cheese for lunch, triangular cheese wrapped in shiny paper. His father has a toy shop on Park Street and he tells me all about the latest toys that have come. On my birthday this year, he gave me a Rubik’s cube. I am not very good with it.

  I was talking to Chetan and I don’t exactly know what happened but I had my hand in my pocket and I was about to take out my handkerchief when I felt it. It was a one-rupee coin. By God, I got frightened.

  Whose money was this? Where had the one-rupee coin come from? I didn’t know, I was scared. Father would be very angry if he saw me with money. I am not supposed to keep any money with me, money is bad. What do I do? All sorts of questions went round and round in my head. Chetan had gone downstairs to drink water and I was very frightened. So I took the coin, looked all around but no one was watching, and threw it as far as I could. Into the playground, I saw the coin land, fall in the grass, I saw a bit of it shining in the sun but only for a moment because when I looked away and turned to look at it for a second time, I couldn’t see it any more. It had vanished into the grass.

  Classes began, we had Geography, Art and English, the story about Uncle Podger hanging a picture, I forgot all about the coin until I reached home and in the evening when Father came back from work and checked our school diaries, he asked my sister for the change. She went to her bag and gave Father all the change she had. One rupee was missing.

  I promise, it didn’t strike me, that feeling in my pocket, Chetan going down to drink water, me throwing the coin into the playground, watching it land. I know it sounds as if I’m lying but at that time I forgot that the missing coin had been in my pocket and that I had thrown it away because I was afraid.

  ‘Where is the one rupee?’ Father said and my sister said she didn’t know. Father got angry, angrier.

  First, he slapped my sister, like he often does. A slap on her cheek, my sister is a very, very brave girl and she never cries when Father beats her. This makes Father more angry and he beats her harder but she just stands there, like a statue, until he gives up and says that his hands hurt.

  But this time Father got very angry, he kept on shouting and sister went to the next room. He followed her and locked the door from the inside, Bhabani heard and came running from the kitchen. A few minutes later, we heard the noises coming from that room, Father’s angry shouts and my sister running, dodging him as the slaps fell on her.

  She runs, she crashes against the dressing table and the powder box, the combs fall, we can hear the sound. Bhabani shouts that one rupee is not such a big thing and she tells Father to stop because everybody in the building can hear him. She says that if he doesn’t have any love, he should at least have some shame.

  It’s then that it all comes back, the crowd in the bus, I’m getting down, the conductor gives me the change, the time on the clock, I give the coins back to my sister, one coin remains in my pocket, the lunch, Chetan, I find the coin and throw it away. It is my fault and Sister doesn’t know.

  But Father is so angry and I am so scared that I can’t tell him all this now. Not once does Sister tell him that it was I who got the change from the conductor today. She remembers everything by heart, she doesn’t remember I could have made a mistake.

  My sister goes to sleep without eating dinner, she always does that when she’s angry and hurt. There are marks on her face where Father hit her. She will now have to stay home for a few days until the marks disappear. I also don’t eat dinner, I say my stomach hurts, that’s the least I can do.

  We are lying in bed, Bhabani has switched off the lights, from the drawing room, we can hear the clock ticking. And when she is alone with me, Sister begins to cry, her face turned towards the wall. Through her tears, she asks me, ‘What happened to the one-rupee coin?’

  I don’t know what to do, I don’t say anything.

  ‘Do you remember how much you gave me?’ she asks. I don’t say anything.

  The night closes in on me, I close my eyes tight, I lie awake as she cries to sleep, hurt and hungry. I keep looking at the wall on which I can see big, scary patterns from the headlights of the trucks outside.

  The next morning came and the next and the next, winter came, my sister never once talked about that evening, that one-rupee coin, the English team arrived, led by Tony Greig, who was so tall his bat didn’t touch the ground, our bowlers dropped several catches, it was the year they had begun showing the matches on TV.

  Geeti began wearing a bra, letting one strap peek from under her top across her shoulder.

  Milestones, landmarks, passed us by.

  Today, almost everything inside me has stopped growing except the guilt of that afternoon. Like a monster which gets its endless supply of food and water from some place we shall never know, it keeps growing and growing inside me every day and all I can do is to wait for it to swallow me whole.

  GARDEN CHILD

  At a different time, maybe at a different place, I would have told you other stories. Of the two Alsatian dogs in the neighbourhood who bit into our cricket balls until we poisoned them one night. Of the different ways in which our neighbourhood has changed, so many you can’t count them on your fingers: how the road, on either side of the tram tracks, has widened, a twenty-four-hour telephone booth, with glass cubicles, has sprouted at the street corner. How Bhar And Sons, the shop which once sold iron rods, is now the local cable centre, satellite dishes sit atop its asbestos roof, cable wires sag across its sky.

  Plus a lot more, I would have twisted fact, fleshed out fiction, but tonight, looking at the darkness looking at me through the window, there’s only one image that emerges, like a photograph half-processed, in the yellow light of the table lamp in my room.

  It’s the image of a child lying, on his stomach, in a tiny garden, his elbows making two hollows in the damp earth, his fingers pressed like sepals against his face. There’s no one beside him, just a parallelogram of light that falls on the grass from a large window.

  Who is this child, it’s not clear, all I know is that this story will have a happy ending.

  I close my eyes and concentrate; so hard they prise free from the sockets and I let them fly across the room. Dodging below the fan, in between the bookshelves, through the green window, past the red curtains, down into the street. In and out of the traffic, inside a tram, around the passengers, some sitting some standing.

  Across Esplanade, past the beauty salon on Park Street where two Chinese women in black jeans wait for customers; across the Maidan, carried on by the breeze, through the trees cold and quivering.

  I concentrate harder; let the eyes glide over the Hooghly, briskly skim its black surface, barely touching the buffaloes that wallow, their snouts above the water. Below the bridge, into the railway
station, over the crowd, the vendors running with their trolleys, into the train that’s pulling out of the platform. They flit from one coach to the next, up and down the berths, left and right of the aisle, watching and looking until the eyes see the child, one hand across his face, trying to sleep.

  His mother sleeps on the berth below, his father sits at her feet reading a newspaper. Maybe it’s the light in the coach, the two green lamps directly overhead that stare at him through their wire cages and keep him from falling asleep. The child turns over so that his back faces the lamps, his legs are curled up, his bare feet pressed against each other. The train gathers speed, rattles and whines, crosses the suburbs, the railway quarters rush by in streaks of red, yellow and blue light.

  A lone vendor totters down the aisle, hawking ballpoint pens, red, black and blue.

  My eyes cross over the child to that two-inch gap between him and the wall and there I can see a large window with the wind billowing the curtains.

  It’s late at night and the child is lying, on his stomach, in the tiny garden, his elbows making two hollows in the damp earth, his fingers pressed like sepals against his face. He is looking at the window and when the curtain rises, in that fleeting moment before it falls with the wind, he sees his mother standing in the centre of the room, father sitting in a black chair, his legs raised on the black table, reading a book.

  He cannot make out what his parents are saying, Father’s head is lowered, perhaps he is reading aloud. Mother interjects with a laugh but Father goes on. Words, weighed down by his heavy voice, float down, disjointed, from the window.

  Mother laughs again; the darkness around the child seems to melt and from far away he can faintly hear the No. 12 tram trundling towards the Galiff Street terminus. It must be around midnight. Two hours past his bedtime but there’s no sleep tonight as he keeps looking at the window, watching Father read to Mother, listening to the hiss of crickets, a distant car horn.