by Sharon Maas
That’s why they never caught him; that’s why when Rani Abishta, his grandmother, Daadi, sent them for him he was able to wriggle loose and run, and that’s why Daadi tried all the more to bind him to herself. But bondage, for Kamal, had the effect of a whiplash, urging him to escape, stimulating his ingenuity so that, short of winding him in thick chains, Daadi remained the loser. He smiled to himself, thinking of Daadi’s rage, and then her panic, when he turned up missing.
He had placed a cloth over himself so that if someone did happen to open the hamper, they wouldn’t notice he was there; they’d be deceived into thinking the hamper had been sent back with its contents intact, rejected by the caretaker. At first he squeezed his eyelids together as if, by shutting out the world, the world would also shut him out – at least the little world of Moti Khodayal which he knew so well, every tiny corner and crevice so that he could find his way blindfolded through the labyrinthine passages and staircases; led on by the pungent smells, the sounds, the shape of the cobbles, the smoothness of the stones beneath his bare feet, the texture of tapestries and curtains, the senses of touch and hearing and smelling refined to such perfection he could almost abstain from the sense of sight.
With the passing of each second his excitement grew, but also his anxiety. The more time it took to load the cart and coax the bullocks into movement, the more dangerous it would become for him; he had to make sure everything outside was normal. Cautiously he opened his eyes to a slit. It was dark inside the hamper but not fully dark: slabs of daylight glinted between the strands of wicker. Curiosity won over caution: carefully he adjusted his position, pushing his face right up to the hamper’s side, aligning his right eye with one of those daylight cracks, and peered out.
Everything seemed normal. In the greyness of the first morning light there was the usual courtyard bustle. Punraj, wearing only his loincloth and a turban, trotted across Kamal’s limited line of vision, bent slightly forward under the weight of the rice sack he carried on his back. Punraj’s body, black as ebony, glistened with sweat although the sun was not yet out; it was a long way to the storeroom at the back of the complex and this was certainly not his first sack. Kamal smiled to himself. He wished he could call out to Punraj, and share his secret; Punraj wouldn’t mind and Punraj wouldn’t talk. Punraj was a friend, a forbidden friend, one of the many forbidden friends Kamal had made among the palace subordinates.
He couldn’t see much through the slit, and after Punraj there were a few seconds when all he could see was the red-brick building at the back of the courtyard. But he could hear the familiar morning noises and knew therefore that he had not yet been missed, that everything was as it should be.
A goat ran across the fine strip of courtyard revealed to Kamal, the white nanny goat that Kamal had named Wendy. Wendy was being chased by six-year-old Bibi, Punraj’s daughter, another of Kamal’s forbidden friends. Bibi wore a long red skirt and she raced zigzagging behind Wendy, thrusting out grasping arms that the little goat neatly evaded, before she, too, disappeared from sight.
Kamal smelt the smoke from fires lit in the kitchen at his back, and his mouth watered as he heard the sizzling of ghee as the cooks began to fry the breakfast puris. He heard the clang of buckets being let into the well to his side, the creaking of the pulley, the gush of water poured into clay vessels. The chatter of a hundred servants; the strident calling of a peacock on a faraway roof.
He felt another prick of impatience; it was time to get going. Else they would… there! The bell for breakfast rang out and Kamal bit his lip in nervousness: he should be long gone because if he didn’t come for breakfast it would certainly be noticed. And they would start the search for him while he was still within the palace and would certainly find him. He felt his spirits sink – had everything been in vain? Every day for the past week he had watched and waited and every day the bullock cart had left well before breakfast began.
The empty hampers were loaded in the blackness of pre-dawn, which was why it had been easy to slink through the empty corridors, mount the cart and climb into one of them, covering himself carefully before reaching out, groping for the propped-up lid and closing it over himself. Once hidden all he had to do was wait. Today, though, driver-wallah was taking his time. Kamal knew that on every other day he had sat on the freshly swept earth outside the kitchen drinking tea and sharing gossip with some of the male servants who breakfasted at this time, before the day’s work began. They sat in a circle around a small brazier, wrapped in layers of cloth for warmth since the mornings were chilly at this time of year, murmuring to each other, pouring their tea from curved-lip cup to cup to cool it, raising their chins and opening their mouths to receive the milky brew. On previous days Kamal had watched, hidden, and on every day well before now the men had stood up and shaken out their clothes and dusted themselves off before separating to go about their various tasks.
Driver-wallah would return to the cart, settle himself on the wooden perch between the rumps of the two bullocks, call out hey-hey, prod the slothful animals several times on their backsides, and the cart would rumble off long before the bell for breakfast began its rigorous, joyous pealing. The bullocks would pause at the huge grid of gates let into the palace walls. Watchmen swathed in heavy wraps would draw back the many bolts and turn the many keys and unwind the many chains before heaving the heavy gates slowly inward, letting the bullocks and the cart pass through. The gates would close again, be bolted, chained and locked. The bullocks, the cart, the hampers were Outside.
Kamal, in all of his nine years, had never once been Outside.
He had a cramp in his right foot, bent awkwardly into the curve of the hamper. He adjusted his position slightly, wriggled his toes, and tried to move his foot but couldn’t; it seemed stuck into position. Everything was aching by now. And he was cold, and hungry. And worried about being found. Everything was going wrong. Driver-wallah had disappeared from the face of the earth. Today of all days, the day of his escape. That was the worst of it.
Kamal knew that things only worked out if they were supposed to. You could plan and plot and arrange circumstances as much as you liked but if your plan was not simultaneously destiny’s plan it would definitely go wrong: for, as Teacher always said, man proposes but God disposes. So if today of all days driver-wallah’s schedule had changed, then destiny was saying a loud clear unmistakable no. And now there was an unfamiliar commotion somewhere up in the West Wing, and Kamal couldn’t see but he knew that Lakshmi who was Rani Abishta’s right hand was up on the balcony outside the servants’ room shouting down to somebody in the courtyard. He could hear every word clearly, and he knew his time was almost up; if driver-wallah did not turn up in the next few minutes they’d start a serious search for him.
‘Ramanath, have you seen Kamal?’
‘Kamal? No, he’s not here, why?’
‘Well, he’s missing, he didn’t go to breakfast and the Mistress is frightfully angry, in fact she’s furious. He’s not in his room either.’
‘He’s probably in the stables, have you looked there? That dog must have had her pups, you know he watches for them every day. I’m sure he’s there.’
‘That’s a good idea. I’ll go and check.’
And then Kamal breathed out in gratitude, for the cart swayed to one side with the weight of driver-wallah’s ascent, and the bullocks shifted, the cart creaked, and he heard the familiar cry of hey-hey, and they were off. He heard the grating of gates opening, and then they were Outside.
Chapter 4
Kamal
Near the chowk, the marketplace, the cart came to a halt and Kamal climbed out unseen. He jumped to the ground and, following his senses, drawn by the noise and smells and whirls of colour, made his way to the bazaar. What a world! A world teeming with fruit and vegetables, some of which Kamal had never seen, much less tasted. His nostrils absorbed a thousand different aromas at once, some so sweet he stopped simply to look, and because he was hungry and had had no breakfast his
mouth began to water as he stared at a man cutting open a big round fruit and pulling it apart into soft, slippery, translucent sections, bright yellow and luscious.
‘What’s that?’ he asked the vendor, who laughed out loud.
‘You don’t know what a jackfruit is? Where are you living, little boy?’
‘In the palace,’ said Kamal truthfully and immediately clapped his hand to his mouth and gazed at the man with petrified eyes; then he ran down the row of fruit stalls till he came to the flower vendors. Here the fragrance was intoxicating. Kamal looked right and left and all he saw were flowers, piles of garlands and baskets of roses; a girl his age sitting on the ground before a basket of tuberose blossoms threading them expertly with quick, nimble fingers; vendors coming with full baskets and going with empty ones, for it was still early, the stalls were still being replenished, and Kamal alone had nothing to do but stare.
Having seen all there was to see in the bazaar, he wandered up and down the surrounding lanes, the hunger in his stomach gnawing more and more insistently. He found himself in a narrow alley where the road’s tarmac crumbled and the shops on either side all seemed to sell nothing but rusty nails. Another lane was unbearable because here every building was a tea-shop and outside every shop pans of oil sizzled on open fires and golden puris swelled up into crisp balloons, emitting the aroma of breakfast that invaded his nostrils and sank into his belly and screamed there for succour.
Kamal’s pockets were empty. He had not thought to bring money; even had he thought of it, he would not have known where to get it. He had never handled money; he’d had no need to. And now, though his clothes were of silk and the chain around his neck and the ring on his finger were of pure gold, he was as poor as the poorest beggar – those he had seen everywhere – because he could not eat silk or gold. At this thought something clicked in his mind and boldly he approached the boy – not much older than himself – frying puris outside the next shop. He eased the ring from his finger and held it out.
‘Would you accept this ring as payment for breakfast?’ he asked hesitantly.
The boy stared at the ring and then at Kamal and called to someone in the black interior of the shop. A man came out, wiping his hands on a grubby cloth, and, looking Kamal up and down, said, ‘Where did you get that ring, boy? Did you steal it?’
‘No, of course not,’ said Kamal angrily, and then remembered that no one knew who he was and so added in a milder tone, ‘My grandmother gave it to me. It is mine. I would like to eat but I have no money. Would you accept this ring as payment?’
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said the man then and showed Kamal a bench at a long table where three other men were sitting eating. Kamal slid in and waited to be served.
One of the men, dressed in white pyjamas and a white cap, looked keenly at him and said, ‘Are you a fool, or what?’
‘Why should I be a fool?’
‘To pay for your breakfast with that valuable ring. Look, don’t do it. Come with me afterwards and I will show you where you can sell it for a good price. I will pay for your breakfast. You can pay me back when you have sold the ring.’
‘Very well,’ said Kamal gratefully and ate with more appetite than he had ever done in the palace, for the simple food tasted more delicious than the most sumptuous feast Rani Abishta had had prepared for him alone.
The shopkeeper was not happy with this new arrangement. When Kamal and the man got up to go he spoke some sharp words, but the man simply left the money on the table and strode off, Kamal running behind him, thanking him profusely.
‘It was only my duty,’ said the man, brushing off Kamal’s gratitude. ‘A boy like you must be careful in this town: there are wicked people just waiting to rob you. Look at your fine clothes, your jewellery! Why do you walk around looking like a prince in his palace? Where do you come from? What are you doing on the streets at this time; shouldn’t you be at school?’
Kamal felt he could trust this man and told him his name and his story. The man laughed and wished him luck. ‘I hope you enjoy your day,’ he said. ‘Goodbye. It was interesting meeting you.’
‘But aren’t you going to show me the jeweller’s shop? I have to sell my ring and give you back the money!’
‘Don’t worry about the money,’ said the man. ‘It was my pleasure to buy you breakfast. Just be careful!’
Kamal found the jeweller’s shop anyway. It was on a street with several such shops. He sold his ring for thirty rupees and felt delirious with joy at possessing so much money of his own. When it was time for lunch he paid for his own meal in a dark restaurant where boys younger than himself ran around with pails of water, collecting the dirty plates and wiping the tables after the customers left. He ate with joy and he paid with pride.
After lunch he wandered up and down more streets at random. He found himself in a part of town where the colours were reduced to black and grey, the streets teeming with human and animal life. There were beggars sitting at the roadside, their clothes black and caked with grime. There were children, infants, with limbs bent backwards and eyes oozing pus and swarming with flies. There was a dog with half its head missing, walking around with its brain hanging out. Pigs in the gutters, eating human waste. A stench of offal pervaded these lanes; Kamal felt on the verge of vomiting yet still he walked on, observing, wondering, asking himself questions that could not be answered.
He had never in his life seen sights such as these; he had not imagined such misery could exist in the same world as the palace of Moti Khodayal where he had grown up.
It was mid-afternoon when he found himself in a potholed street, wider than the others, lined by ramshackle buildings. The strange thing about this street was that there were so many women on it. The women sat or stood outside the open doorways; they sat in the dust or on mats or on charpais, or they leaned against the doorframes, laughing, chatting with each other. They combed and plaited each other’s hair; they gathered around an open tap and walked home carrying full buckets in their hands or on their heads. Some of them held plates of food in their hands and ate; others nursed babies; a few crouched on the ground cooking over an open fire, or washed pots and infants over stinking gutters. They glanced at him as he walked past but quickly went back to whatever they were doing. There were one or two girls among them, some not much older than he himself. There were several small children. But there were no men.
He was mistaken: there was one man. He stormed out of one of the doorways, chasing a screaming girl with long dishevelled hair, a girl about the size and age of Nirmala, Punraj’s other daughter, Bibi’s big sister, who had married last year when she was fourteen.
Just before she reached the street the man caught hold of the girl’s arm and pulled her towards him, shouting words Kamal did not understand. A few of the women nearby looked up for a moment but quickly returned to their tasks. The man turned back to the house and shouted one sharp word; an older woman emerged with what looked like a piece of broomstick, which she handed to him. To Kamal’s utmost horror the man began to rain blows on the girl’s back. The girl screamed pitifully, begging for mercy, but still he beat on, shouting all the time, his face almost black with rage.
For two seconds Kamal stood petrified with outrage; then he ran up to the man and began pulling at the beating hand. ‘Stop it! Stop it! You’re hurting her! Leave her alone!’
For one frozen moment the man stopped, his hand raised. Kamal grabbed the girl and tried to pull her away. The girl looked up at Kamal.
Those eyes! He would never forget them, not in all his life. The look in them! Such terror, such agony, such abject despair! The wretchedness in those eyes wrenched at Kamal’s heart, for he had never seen such inner pain nor even a shadow of it; he had not known such anguish could exist on earth, for earth for him was a happy place where people smiled, and even if they felt pain, they hid it behind that smile, unless they were babies and could not yet tuck away their hurt. This girl’s pain lay naked in her eyes, in the mouth pulled
down at the corners. Her wretchedness was in the wet smudged cheeks, the lacklustre hair; it was in the body twitching away from Kamal’s grasp, the shrill scream she now let out as the moment unfroze and the man’s hand whisked down. The stick met her arching, writhing back with a dull thud.
Fury grabbed Kamal. He pummelled the man’s forearm, sank his teeth into it, but the man was tall and strong and Kamal slight, and with only a flick of annoyance the man flung him away. Kamal landed on hands and knees in the middle of the street, like a cat, and scrambled to his feet again. He was about to hurl himself once more at the man but he felt strong hands on his arms pulling him back. He looked up; a woman, obviously a neighbour, was holding him back and speaking.
‘Don’t interfere, boy, that’s her uncle and she’s been a bad girl. She has to be punished.’
‘But he’s hurting her!’
‘He’s only hurting her so she’ll obey him next time. We all have to learn to obey; that’s life. You have to obey your mother too, don’t you? And your father? So she has to obey her uncle.’ She cackled with foul laughter.
Another woman approached them. ‘What are you doing here? You’re only a child; go away. You have no business on this street.’
‘I only want to—’
‘Go away. Don’t come back here. You must be mad, to mix yourself up in what does not concern you.’
‘But that girl…’ Kamal turned back to the man and the girl but they were gone.