Her voice rose from the first shock of unpleasantness, through the faint hiss of anger to the mechanical volubility of her curses and mounted to a last note of real despair. Munoo felt the blood rushing to his face. His brain seemed to be submerged in darkness. He wished he could disappear from the world somehow. For the first time in his life he felt ashamed to be seen relieving himself in the open.
Of course, now, the whole house was awake.
At first Babu Nathoo Ram came, square-shouldered and bandy-legged, thinking, with his exaggerated sense of property, that a thief had attacked his house.
Then emerged the chota Babu, a handsome, well-built young man, easy-gaited and loose-mannered, saying: ‘What is the matter? What is all this row about?’
Last of all, the Babu’s elder daughter, Sheila, walked up, a slim child of ten, with brown hair, an ivory complexion and light brown eyes which seemed to laugh as they twinkled with mischievous gaiety at this ridiculous incident.
‘This shameless rustic!’ began Bibiji again, with all the vociferating intensity of which she was capable. ‘He has gone and relieved himself at the doorstep of my kitchen! Heavens! Just imagine! Eater of his masters! Hai! Hai! I . . .’
‘Why, ohe!’ squeaked Babu Nathoo Ram, lifting his thin, bony hand, both to quieten his wife and to threaten Munoo. ‘Why did you do that?’ Then, contorting his face so that his forehead was knotted into a curious twist, and dilating his lips to reveal the red gums over his badly spaced teeth, he reiterated: ‘Why did you do that?’
‘Because he didn’t want to do it in his loincloth,’ said the chota Babu, laughing and teasing. ‘Then Bibiji would have had to wash those for him. As it is, the sweeper will be here soon.’
Sheila giggled and clung to her uncle’s legs.
‘Go away, Sheila, you shouldn’t be here,’ said Nathoo Ram, swallowing his anger. ‘Couldn’t he have gone to the lavatory? Why didn’t you tell him where it was?’ he said, turning to his wife.
‘Ah, do you think I should let him use our lavatory!’ Bibiji replied. ‘Let this rustic use our lavatory! You spoil him. He will be another nuisance for me to look after. Someone had better go and call the sweeper to come and clean the mess he has made.’
‘All right, all right!’ said the chota Babu casually. ‘Don’t let us frighten him, or he will make more of a mess. Now what about tea? What about tea, then, Sheila? Is your mother too angry to give us tea?’
‘Can’t you wait, Prem,’ Bibiji exclaimed. ‘Let me see to this stupid boy first—’
‘Ah!’ she cried in disgust at the thought of the sight, and without feeling in the least like vomiting, ‘I am sick! I am sick!’
A rustling behind her, and she saw Munoo standing in the kitchen. She turned on him, shouting at the top of her voice:
‘Vay! Where did you go?’
‘I went to wash my buttocks at the pump,’ Munoo replied, with a complete lack of self-consciousness.
‘Go and have a bath before you come anywhere near my kitchen,’ she said, pushing him away with both her arms.
‘Begone, out of my sight!’ he heard her shout after him. ‘Brute!’
And she continued grumbling when he had long passed out of hearing distance:
‘I thought there was going to be some rest for me when this servant came. Instead I have to slave exactly as before. What is the use of an ignorant boy like this in the house? He is more of a trouble than a help. And such a stupid fool, too, and dirty! Ah! These village folk!’
‘Don’t say anything against village folk,’ mocked her brother-in-law. ‘You yourself come from a village.’
‘Oh please don’t tease,’ said Bibiji. ‘We must keep up our prestige. We must keep up appearances, at least before a stranger in the house.’
‘Sheila,’ said Prem Chand loudly, so that his sister-in-law should hear, ‘do you remember that poem about tea which you read on the posters of the Imperial Tea Company at the railway station?’
‘“Hot tea cools your heart in the heat of summer,” you mean, uncle?’ said Sheila.
‘Han, go and say that loudly to Bibi Uttam Kaur,’ he said, smiling mischievously, as he rolled about on his bed.
‘Hot tea cools . . .’ Sheila was going to sing.
‘Acha! Acha!’ shouted Bibiji shrilly. ‘Don’t eat my head! And don’t mention my name in vain. I am getting tea ready. And you, you little wretch, your uncle may have become a sahib by going to learn medicine at college. Where have you learnt to pose as a memsahib?’
Munoo was scrubbing the utensils with ashes as he sat by the slab which served both as sink and bathroom, being connected with a drain through a slimy hole in the wall where the insects buzzed and the worms crawled.
The boy felt the cool, odorous draught come in from the drain and dry the sweat on his face. He shifted from where he sat on his heels and turned his back to the hole. But now he faced a side door from which the smell of dung assailed his nostrils. ‘That must be the lavatory,’ he thought. ‘Strange!’
‘May I help him to scrub the utensils, mother?’ asked Sheila as she stood fidgeting in the kitchen.
‘Get out of the way!’ screamed her mother, ‘and let that good-for-nothing pig do some work for a change.’
The child went.
Bibiji took the saucepan of boiling water off the fireplace. Then she fetched the tea-set, which Munoo had seen standing precariously on the shelf, and made tea in the fat pot with the beak like a pig’s nose. She took care not to bring the china too near the ceremonial square which parted the sacred precincts of her cooking place from the rest of the room. She was an orthodox Hindu, and knew that her husband’s and brother-in-law’s Muhammadan friends had drunk tea out of the cups and saucers.
Munoo, who was interested in her every movement, observed the care she took not to taint her brass utensils by bringing them anywhere near the china. Out of the corner of his eye, however, he saw her bring the saucepan of boiling water near the teapot and touch it in her effort to drain the saucepan and fill the teapot to the brim.
She saw him looking at her. She felt she was caught being defiled. But she was not sure.
‘Do your work and don’t keep staring at me while I am making the tea,’ she bullied.
But, before he withdrew his gaze, he had seen what she particularly did not want him to see: that she had killed two birds with one stone—boiled eggs in the same water which she was pouring into the teapot. Even in the hills that was considered bad.
She was confused. Her face was livid.
To make matters worse, at that instant Lila, whom she had left asleep on her bed, awoke with a shriek.
‘Ni . . . Lila! you have awakened, have you! The bane of my life! Now you will not let me rest or do anything.’
She put two pieces of double-roti in the fireplace to toast and was cutting a third.
A moment had elapsed and the child was shrieking louder.
‘Oh be patient! You dead one! What has happened to you? May the witches come and devour you! What curse upon your head makes you howl all day? Even though I got you an amulet from the fakir! God! When will I get some rest? I slog, slog all day! I can’t even get time to dress. Or to sit down with the neighbours for a chat. Or go to the shops. Last night I went to bed at two o’clock, washing and cleaning up. And now . . . ni, Sheila, ni, dead one, go and look after your little sister for a while instead of running about the house and making noise. Go.’
Prem had picked up the child. He brought her and Sheila to the sitting-room, to amuse them by playing the gramophone.
Munoo, who had almost finished rubbing the utensils, heard the music issuing from the sitting-room and, on the pretext of going out to wash the utensils at the pump, left the kitchen.
Bibiji had burnt the toast, as she had neglected it while shouting. She muttered as she set about cutting another piece of bread to toast on her skewers before the fire.
The dolorous rhythm of a love song filled the house for a minute or two.
&n
bsp; She forgot everything in the contemplation of whether she would be able to go to the funeral of Babu Beli Ram’s mother that afternoon.
Munoo had hurriedly washed the utensils and rushed into the house, not through the kitchen door, but through the veranda into the sitting-room.
‘Ohe, son of an owl,’ said the chota Babu, ‘have you dried your feet before entering the room?’
‘Nahin, Babuji,’ replied Munoo, standing with wet feet on the carpet, the basket of utensils dripping under his arm.
‘Well then, for goodness’ sake, please do so, on that mattress,’ said the chota Babu ironically. ‘That’s what it is there for, if I may be privileged to tell you.’
Munoo felt encouraged. ‘The chota Babu did not forbid me to come in, anyway,’ he thought.
He felt emboldened. He wanted to hear the music, to see and touch the singing machine, the like of which had fascinated him in the bazaar yesterday. ‘How lucky I am,’ he thought, ‘that there is a wonder machine in the house where I have come to serve.’
He rushed back to the kitchen to dump the basket of utensils so as to have his hands free. Then he went out on the pretext of throwing the rubbish and used ashes on to the road.
Unfortunately, just then the music stopped.
‘What’s your name? You can throw the ashes on this heap here, if you like,’ said a tall boy who was filling brass pitchers at the pump, while two other younger boys sat watching.
Munoo threw the ashes on the heap which the big boy had indicated.
‘Are you also servant here, then?’ he asked directly.
‘I work in the house of Babu Gopal Das,’ said the tall boy. ‘He is bigger than your babu. And the babus of these two work in the court. We all come from Hoshiarpur.’
‘I come from near Kangra,’ said Munoo, and volunteered a whole lot of information about his uncle, about the most important men of his village, and about having been taken on a journey to Hoshiarpur by his parents when he was a little child. And, in a few seconds, they had exchanged all their confidences in the manner characteristic of the naïve, open-hearted north Indians.
A hilarious tune suddenly attracted Munoo back to the house. He ran in.
‘Your paws, you monkey!’ shouted the chota Babu.
Munoo fell on all fours over the mattress as if he was a real monkey and matched his good humour with his master’s.
After dusting his feet and his hands he advanced, still playing the fool, and began to dance like the monkey of the village juggler, whom he had seen perform every day on the cross-roads on his way back from school.
‘Look, Uncle! Look!’ laughed Sheila. ‘He is dancing like a monkey.’
‘Shabash! Shabash!’ said the chota Babu, joining in the sport in the role of the juggler.
Little Lila had begun to keep time by swaying her head and clapping her hands.
‘I will be the bear, Uncle!’ shouted Sheila.
Munoo was still rapt, dancing with awkward, silly movements, making faces, showing his teeth, rolling his eyes and shrieking like a real monkey.
‘What’s this noise? What’s this row going on? What right has he to be in the sitting-room?’ Bibiji’s voice came shrill and hard and chilled the atmosphere, so that everything became still in a moment. ‘What right has he to join the laughter of his superiors?’
Munoo hurried to the kitchen. But he was not crestfallen. He was beaming all over his face with the wild happiness of expressive movement native to him.
The smoke from the fireplace spread over the kitchen and hid his flushed cheeks and bright eyes from Bibiji, who still squatted on the straw mattress making toast. Otherwise there would have been a tirade of abuse about his smiles, a little less comfortable than the disquisition upon duty with which he was greeted:
‘Your place is here in the kitchen. You must not enter the sports of the chota Babu and the children. You must get on quickly with work in the house. There is no time to lose. Babuji has to go to the office at ten o’clock. Sheila has to go to school. We have employed you not to delay the work in the house, but to help to get it done. Since you are being paid a good wage, more money than you ever saw in your whole life in the village—more money, in fact, than your mother or father ever saw—it would be good for you to do a little work for it. And I warn you that you are never to relieve yourself outside my house. When the sweeper comes, ask him to show you the servants’ latrine at the foot of the hill. And don’t you ever touch my utensils without washing your hands. Your body is dirty and you keep touching it. Your clothes are filthy, too. I saw you wipe your hands on your shirt. And oh! I suppose you dried your body with your tunic after your bath. God! why didn’t you ask me for a towel? Brute! you ought to be ashamed of yourself! Sheila, Sheila, go, my child, get a towel out of the box and give it to this savage. Do you hear, you are not to touch anything in this house without washing your hands. Now, have you touched anything dirty since you had your bath?’
‘No, Bibiji,’ said Munoo, still dancing in his mind and listening, though not registering much of what Bibiji had said.
‘All right, but you scrubbed the utensils,’ she said.
‘I washed my hands afterwards, Bibiji,’ Munoo replied.
‘Didn’t you touch anything else?’
‘No,’ he answered.
‘No? Didn’t you? What about the rubbish?’
‘I washed my hands at the pump after I had thrown out the rubbish.’
‘Didn’t you touch anything else?’
‘No,’ Munoo lied, exasperated and seeking to end this controversy, though he knew he had brushed his hands on the mat while he was dancing the monkey dance, and the mattress, being used to dusty feet, was certainly unclean.
‘Acha, take the tea to the chota Babuji.’
Munoo did not know how to set about it, whether to carry the whole tray or the various things one by one. He had never handled anything like that at home. And he thought it was best to make sure.
‘How shall I carry them?’ he asked.
‘How shall I carry them!’ she burst out. ‘How shall you carry them! How long shall I have to go on explaining things to you? Hai! We didn’t know that Daya Ram was going to bring such a thick headed boy as this. We—’
Munoo had pondered over the array of ‘white chalk’ utensils on the tray for a while, and before Bibiji had finished her new tirade he asked impetuously:
‘What are these utensils made of, Bibiji?’
‘What impertinence! What cheek! To interrupt while I speak! You get on with your work. The tea is getting cold. They are made of china, of course! What else do you think they would be made of? Look, look, everyone, he has never even seen china utensils! And don’t you let the tray fall and break the crockery now, or I will break your bones up for you.’
Munoo lifted the tray lightly as soon as he heard his mistress answer his question and walked away with a wonderful agility while she abused and warned and threatened with a copious flow of her hard, even chatter.
‘Here we are, children!’ said Prem, clapping his hands. ‘Here is the tea! A bit late, but never mind.’
‘The tea! The tea!’ exclaimed Sheila, her blue eyes melting, her lips contracting.
‘Ooon, aaan! I want the tea, too!’ sobbed Lila from where she sat on a table swaying her head to the music in a ridiculously childish manner, which amused her elder sister, her uncle and her father, when that last worthy was not too embarrassed to come and play with his children.
‘Put it down here, hillman!’ said Prem, with mock anger in the wrong Hindustani which he sometimes affected, especially in the face of anything so European as a tea-tray or when dressed in an English suit, in imitation of the tone in which Englishmen talk to their native servants. ‘Put it down on this table, black man, you who relieve yourself on the ground!’
‘Babuji, come and have tea,’ Sheila was calling her father, who still lay getting an extra wink of sleep in the bedlam of his three-roomed house.
‘Why should h
e get up?’ nagged Bibiji. ‘Why should he get up? He wields an axe felling trees at the office all day!’
Babu Nathoo Ram stirred himself to alacrity. Pale, haggard and stooping, he walked into the sitting-room with a weak smile of fear on his face. He was a hen-pecked husband and wanted to avoid his wife first thing in the morning.
Munoo had placed the tray safely on a small table and retreated to the doorway. From there he stood watching the ritual which the chota Babu performed, rather self-consciously, pouring first milk from the long jug, then tea from the fat pot with the beak like a pig’s nose, adding sugar in the cups that lay before him.
‘Strange,’ he said to himself.
What was the idea of pouring milk from one jug and tea from another? For, at home, his aunt boiled milk, tea leaves, sugar and water, all in a big saucepan and poured it into brass tumblers, ready to drink. And then, what was the use of burning that funny fat bread before eating it? He had never seen English bread before in his life.
‘Where is the cream? Where is the cream, you little monkey?’ asked the chota Babu, eager and merry. ‘Go and get Bibiji to give you some butter or cream.’
This disturbed Munoo’s reverie.
‘Here is the cream and the butter,’ called Bibiji. ‘Give it to them, so that they may eat and fatten while I slave. You forgot to take it.’
Munoo conveyed the cream to the sitting-room in a flash. Then he stood again, looking around, as if attracted by the warmth that the chota Babu radiated. The burra Babu eyed him as, with a yawn and a stretching of his arms, he brought his lustreless skeleton to rest on the lotus seat like an emaciated beggar.
Classic Mulk Raj Anand Page 21