Nectar in a Sieve

by Kamala Markandaya

  "You must not blame him," I said. "He has taken another woman."

  She said not a word. I repeated what I had said, for she seemed not to understand, but she only looked at me with stony eyes.

  Thereafter her ways became even more strange. She spent long hours out in the country by herself, spoke little, withdrew completely into herself and went about her tasks with a chill hopelessness that daunted me. No one could see in her now the warm lovely creature she had been, except sometimes when Selvam came to her, perching on her lap and coaxing a smile from her, for she always had a special love for him. As my pregnancy advanced she turned completely away from me. Sometimes I saw her looking at me with brooding, resentful eyes, and despite myself I could not help wondering if hatred lay behind her glance.

  Then at last my child was born, a nicely formed boy, smaller than the others had been, but of course I was older now. We nicknamed him Kuti, which means tiny, and being a happy, untroublesome baby everybody took pleasure in his arrival. None more so than Ira: the transformation in her was astonishing as it was inexplicable. I had feared she might dislike the child, but now it was as if he were her own. She lost her dreary air, her face became animated, the bloom of youth came back to her.

  "Our daughter is herself again," said Nathan to me. "I have heard her carolling like a bird."

  "She is happy with the child," I replied, "but I do not know what is to become of her in the future."

  "Always worrying," he chided. "It is not a mercy that she is young again, should one not be grateful?"

  He was a man and did not understand. How could I stop worrying? We had no money to leave her. Who would look after her when we were gone and the boys were married with families of their own? With a dowry it was perhaps possible she might marry again; without it no man would look at her, no longer a virgin and reputedly barren.

  No one had been more upset about the outcome of Ira's marriage than Old Granny. It was she who had arranged the match, and though failing in health she thought it her duty to come to me. She had aged considerably since the last time I had seen her. She walked slowly, pausing before each step to gather strength for the next; her hands kept up a slight, shuddering movement like the nervous flutter of a bee on a flower.

  "No fault of yours, or the girl's or her husband's," I told her. "It is Fate. Nevertheless, I do not like to think of the future."

  "Why fear?" said the old lady. "Am I not alone, and do I not manage?"

  I thought of her sitting in the street all day long with the gunny sacking in front of her piled with a few annas' worth of nuts and vegetables; and I thought of Ira doing the same thing, and I was silent.

  "It is not unbearable," said she, watching me with her shrewd eyes. "One gets used to it."

  It is true, one gets used to anything. I had got used to the noise and the smell of the tannery; they no longer affected me. I had seen the slow, calm beauty of our village wilt in the blast from the town, and I grieved no more; so now I accepted the future and Ira's lot in it, and thrust it from me; only sometimes when I was weak, or in sleep while my will lay dormant, I found myself rebellious, protesting, rejecting, and no longer calm.

  CHAPTER XII

  ONE day in each week, when the tannery stopped work, Arjun and Thambi would help their father on the land, and this gave Nathan great pleasure. He liked to see his sons beside him, to teach them the ways of the earth: how to sow; to transplant; to reap; to know the wholesome from the rotten, the unwelcome reed from the paddy; and how to irrigate or drain the terraces. In all these matters he had no master, and I think it helped him to know he could impart knowledge to his sons, more skilled though they were in other things, and able to read and write better than any in the town.

  The rest of the week they worked at the tannery, going there soon after daybreak and not coming back until it was dark. By the time they had entered their late teens they were earning good wages: a rupee for each day's work, and without fail they would hand me their earnings, keeping nothing back for gaming or whoring as many of the lads did. Each morning I cooked rice for them, sometimes dhal or vegetables as well, which they took with them to eat at midday; and when they came home I gave them rice water and dried fish, sometimes a little buttermilk or perhaps even a few plantains I had kept from selling. But from what they gave me I had also to buy clothes for them, for they were expected to put on shirts over their loincloths, and red turbans on their heads, so that although we had full bellies and were well clothed, there was not much left over, and the hope I secretly cherished of putting by some money for Ira soon withered; and when it finally died I recovered my peace of mind and was happy enough.

  If there was nothing to be done in the fields Nathan would accompany me when I went to market. This happened so seldom that it was always an occasion, and to round it off we would go to the tannery to see our sons. They invariably came out at midday for their meal, and we would sit with them for a few minutes, talking while they ate their rice and enjoying the rest. Then one day -- a bright, soft morning with a whisper of rain in it -- we got there to find the gates closed and guards posted along the iron railings that encircled the compound.

  Midday, mid-afternoon, still no sign of any workers. At last I pluck up courage to enquire of the guards -- it needs courage, for they are in uniform, and have lathis strapped to their wrists.

  The first one is surly. "Begone! I have no time for idle women!"

  The next swings his lathi jauntily; he does not know anything, he will not say.

  So to the next. He is a big, hefty fellow, and he looks down at me and says there has been trouble -- the workers will not be out today -- no, not even to eat.

  My knees turn to water. "What trouble?" I stammer. "Are my sons in it?" He shakes his head, he does not know.

  My husband is behind me. He supports me a little with his arm and we go home. And wait. At last they come, long after dusk, with the faces of angered men, though neither is yet twenty.

  "What has happened?" we ask with trepidation. They are still our sons, but suddenly they have outgrown us.

  "Trouble," they say. "We asked for more money and they took from us our eating time."

  I bring out some dried fish and rice cakes. They are ravenous. "More money," I say, "What for? Do they not pay you well already?""What for?" one echoes. "Why, to eat our fill, and to marry, and for the sons we shall beget." And the other says, "No, it is not enough."

  I do not know what reply to make -- these men are strangers. Nathan says we do not understand, we must not interfere: he takes my hand and draws me away. To his sons he is gentle.

  Into the calm lake of our lives the first stone has been tossed.

  Looking back now, I wonder how it came to pass that not until that fateful day did we realise the trouble that had been brewing. No gossip, not a whisper, had come to us of the meetings the men had held at which my sons had been spokesmen; nor of the agitation that followed; nor of the threats by the owners -- there were now four -- of the tannery. All this we heard only later.

  Then one day they did not go to work.

  "We shall not go back until our demands are met," Thambi said. "All the workers have stopped. We do not ask for charity, but for that which is our due."

  "How can you force them?" I said. "Are they not the masters? For every one of you who is out, there are three waiting to step into your place."

  "We will see," he replied in a hard voice, and I dared say no more.

  When a whole week had passed thus, the tannery officials called a meeting to announce that those who did not return to work would be replaced. My sons came home from that meeting even more silent, if possible, than they had been in the past. This was the test, and it failed. The next morning the tannery had its full complement again, most of them workers who had gone back, the remainder men who were only too glad to obtain employment.

  For so long hope and the heat of battle had sustained Arjun and Thambi. Now there was only bitterness.

  "The peopl
e will never learn," Arjun said savagely. "They will rot before they do."

  People will never learn! Kenny had said it, and I had not understood, now here were my own sons saying the same thing, and still I did not understand. What was it we had to learn? To fight against tremendous odds? What was the use? One only lost the little one had. Of what use to fight when the conclusion is known? I asked myself, and got no answer. I went to my husband and he was perplexed twice over.

  Of course ours was not the only family involved. There were several others, among them Kali's, and she came to bemoan the result.

  "Two more mouths to feed," she complained. "Only one of my three sons had the sense to go back. I do not know what is to become of us, for the land cannot sustain us all. So much for reading and writing," she said, accusing me with eye and finger. "Did I not say no good would come of it? Now look into what mess your sons have led us!"

  "Ay, and out of it to better things," said Thambi, with flint in his voice, "but for spawn like yours who have sold themselves cheaper than dirt."

  "You will speak with respect," I cried, "or else --"

  Then Nathan interrupted, so violently that I started.

  "Enough!" he shouted. "More than enough has been said. Our children must act as they choose to, not for our benefit. Is it not enough that they suffer?"

  The veins on his forehead were bulging. I had never seen him so angry before. Kali went away. Then the men went too, father and sons, leaving me alone who had no understanding.

  Once more Nathan was sole provider for us, and we forgot the good living we had known. The reserves of grain I had put by began to dwindle despite my care. Fortunately, harvest time was near, and I consoled myself with the thought of it.

  Arjun and Thambi began to frequent the town more and more, coming and going at all hours with no word as to what they did, and I suffered it in silence, for I knew they had no money to lead them to harm, and I had no cure for the restlessness that afflicted them.

  One morning I was laying out some clothes to dry in the sun when Selvam came running in, his face hot and excited.

  "Tom-toms are beating," he announced breathlessly. "The town is full of drummers, they are calling for men."

  I stopped my work and gazed at him, and all at once my heart turned over. It was as if a scene long past were occurring again -- this was not Selvam but Arjun, and he was telling me not of drummers but of bullock carts bringing the tannery to us brick by brick. I passed my hand over my eyes, feeling slightly giddy.

  "Come and see, come quickly," the boy was saying, eager and unnoticing. The others crowded round and he repeated his story with relish. He had roused his brothers' interest and I was forgotten.

  When they had gone -- a triumphant Selvam in the van -- and the place was quiet, I did indeed hear the drums, muffled and distant, insistently calling. Well, I thought, if it concerns me I shall hear soon enough, and if not I shall have saved myself a walk. . . . So with ordinary things I sought to still my qualms.

  "They are calling for labourers," Arjun said, not looking up. "It would be a good opportunity for us."

  Only Arjun and Thambi, who had stayed in the town until nightfall, and my husband and I, were up. The others were long asleep.

  "They are paying well," Arjun resumed. "It would be good for us to work again. It is not fitting that men should corrupt themselves in hunger and idleness."

  "I have heard," said Nathan, "that labour is required of you not here, but in the island of Ceylon."

  "Yes. It is work in the tea plantations of Ceylon."

  "You may not have the knowledge for such work."

  "They will teach us -- they have said so."

  "Who will pay for the journey -- is it not one of many hundreds of miles?"

  "True. They will arrange everything, and everything will be paid for."

  So Nathan was silenced, for he saw they were men and had made their decisions, but how could I let them go, who were my own flesh and blood, without a fight?

  "Promises," I said. "Fair words. Who is to see if they are honoured? What is to happen if they are broken?"

  "They need labour," Arjun said drily. "Self-interest alone will keep these promises."

  "What is it that calls you?" I said. "Is it gold? Although we have none, remember that money is not everything."

  "It is an important part of living," he answered me patiently, "and work is another. There is nothing for us here, for we have neither the means to buy land nor to rent it. Would you have us wasting our youth chafing against things we cannot change?"

  "Indeed no," I said. "But Ceylon is a distant land, its people are not ours. How will you fare?"

  "No worse than here," they replied. "No worse than here."

  The wick was spluttering in the oil. There were only a few drops left in the coconut shell, but there was none to replenish it. We sat on in the darkness. Then at last I made one more effort.

  "If you go you will never come back," I cried. "The journey costs hundreds of rupees, you will never have so much."

  The tears came, hot and bitter, flowing and flowing as if the very springs of sorrow had been touched in my body. They spoke soothingly -- of how much they would earn, and how one day they would return -- as one does to a child; and I listened to them; and it was all a sham, a poor shabby pretence to mask our tortured feelings.

  They left at first daylight, each carrying a bundle with food in it, and each before he went kissed Nathan's feet, then mine, and we laid our hands on them in blessing. I knew we would never see them again.

  "They are growing up," Nathan said. "Would you have them forever at your breast?"

  "Ah, no," I said wearily. "They must go their way. Only it seems to me their way lies far from here. Two sons have gone, now the third is going -- and not to the land, which is in his blood, but to be a servant, which he has never been. What does he know of such work?"

  "He will learn," said Nathan. "He is quick and has an agile brain. Should you not be thankful that he goes no further than two days' journeying, and that it is a good house that takes him? Kenny himself has assured you of that -- you should be grateful that he has recommended our son."

  "I am indeed," I said, flat and dispirited. "He has done much for us."

  "You brood too much," Nathan said, "and think only of your trials, not of the joys that are still with us. Look at our land -- is it not beautiful? The fields are green and the grain is ripening. It will be a good harvest year, there will be plenty."

  He coaxed me out into the sunlight and we sat down together on the brown earth that was part of us, and we gazed at the paddy fields spreading rich and green before us, and they were indeed beautiful. The air was cool and still, yet the paddy caught what little movement there was, leaning slightly one way and the next with soft whispering. At one time there had been kingfishers here, flashing between the young shoots for our fish; and paddy birds; and sometimes, in the shallower reaches of the river, flamingoes, striding with ungainly precision among the water reeds, with plumage of a glory not of this earth. Now birds came no more, for the tannery lay close -- except crows and kites and such scavenging birds, eager for the town's offal, or sometimes a pal-pitta, skimming past with raucous cry but never stopping, perhaps dropping a blue-black feather in flight to delight the children.

  Nathan went and plucked a few green stems and brought them to me. "See how firm and strong they are -- no sign of disease at all. And look, the grain is already forming."

  I took the paddy from him and parted the grass and there within its protective husk lay the rice-grain, just big enough to see, white, perfect, and holding in itself our lives.

  "It promises a good harvest," he repeated eagerly. "We shall be able to pay the landlord, and eat, and perhaps even put by a little. We may even make enough to visit our son -- would not that be good?"

  Thus he sought to comfort me, and after a time I was with him, thinking pleasurably of harvesting, and of plucking the pumpkins swelling on the vine, and visi
ting our son -- and so we made our plans.

  Before long Kenny brought me news of my third son. He was doing well, he said. His employer was well pleased with his work, he would be well looked after and I had no cause for his anxiety. The boy would soon be writing to me himself.

  "It is very kind of you to tell me," I said. "You have done much for me and mine."

  "It is nothing," he said. "You ask little."

  I glanced at him, sitting there in our hut with long, haggard face and eyes like a kingfisher's wing, living among us who were not his people, in a country not his own, and of a sudden I was moved to ask him if he was indeed alone.

  "Alone?" he said. "I am never alone. Do you not see the crowds always at my door? Have you ever known me to lack a following?"

  "I did not mean that," I said, quietly waiting.