12

It was a day in Baishakh, the sun nearly at its zenith.

As Sarbajaya was grinding spices, she reached for a flower basket kept near her right hand (it had seen no flowers for a very long time, having been repurposed as a container for spices) and, searching inside, called out, “Where have you run off with that little bundle of cumin and pepper again? You’re such a torment, Apu—won’t you let me cook? And then in a little while you’ll come whining, ‘Ma, I’m hungry!’”

There was no sign of Apu.

“Give it back, my darling, my little treasure—why must you be such a nuisance, tell me? Can’t you see how late it’s getting?”

From inside the kitchen, Apu peeked out from beside the doorway; the moment his mother’s eyes met his, his bright, rosy face, full of mischievous laughter, vanished behind the door again, like a snail retreating into its shell. Sarbajaya said, “Just look at him! Why must you pester me at this hour, son? Now give it here!”

Apu peeked out again, a smile on his face.

“There, I see you! No need to hide anymore, now give it back!”

With a gleeful ‘Hee-hee-hee!’, he hid his face behind the door once more.

Sarbajaya knew her son well. When Apu was just a little toddler of a year and a half, he had been even fairer and rosier-cheeked than he was now. Sarbajaya remembered how she would carefully line his large eyes with kajal and place a tip on the middle of his forehead; how she would put a cheap, blue, woollen cap with a little bell on it on his head, hold him in her arms, and, standing on the outer porch before dusk, sing in a drawn-out voice to lull him to sleep—

Come, O long-tailed bi-i-ird, And lift my little bo-o-oy into the tree…

The baby, his cheeks puffy and chubby, would gaze up at his mother’s face with his mouth agape. Then, as if struck by a sudden thought, he would bare his completely toothless gums, beside himself with glee, and, clinging to her with his impossibly tiny, anklet-clad feet, hide his face against her back. Sarbajaya would say with a smile, “Oh my, where has my little one hidden himself now? Goodness, I can’t see him at all! O Khoka…” Then, as she turned her head towards her back, the baby would laugh and swing his face forward again, burying it in her shoulder with a silly, innocent laugh. The more Sarbajaya said—“Oh my, where is my baby, where has he gone now, let me see?”—the longer the child’s game would continue. Even when Sarbajaya’s neck began to ache from turning back and forth, the baby’s game would not end. He was brand new then, fresh to the world. Having discovered one tiny particle from the world’s inexhaustible treasure-trove of joy, his innocent mind, like a greedy man, could not get its fill, tasting it again and again—what power did his mother have to stop him then? After a while, the store of energy in his tiny body would run out—he would suddenly seem to grow distracted and begin to yawn. Sarbajaya would snap her fingers before his little open mouth and say, “Shat, shat… Look at that, after all his naughtiness my little one is finally getting sleepy.” Then, gazing with enchanted eyes at her infant son’s tender face with its tip and kajal, she would say, “How many tricks my Shanku knows—and he’s only a year and a half, the scamp!” Suddenly she would cover his rosy cheeks in a flurry of kisses. But, showing complete indifference to his mother’s deep affection, the child’s sleepy eyelids would begin to droop. Sarbajaya would gently rest his head on her own shoulder and say, “Oh my, look, he’s fallen asleep in the evening! And here I was thinking I’d give him some milk after dusk and then put him to sleep. Just look at that!…”

Sarbajaya knew that even at eight years old, her son had not yet outgrown his babyish desire to play hide-and-seek with his mother.

He would hide in places where even a blind man could find him; but Sarbajaya, though she saw him, would pretend not to. Sitting in one spot, she would look this way and that, saying, “My goodness! Where did he go? I can’t see him at all!…” Apu would think—how cleverly I can fool Ma! It was fun, playing this game with his mother. Sarbajaya knew that if she pretended to play along, this could go on all day, so she said sternly, “In that case, the cooking can just wait. You just keep on with your games, Apu. You’ll see what happens when you ask for food!”

Laughing, Apu emerged from his hiding place and set the bundle of spices down in front of his mother.

His mother said, “Go on, go play outside for a bit. And go see where your sister is! Stand under the gab tree and give a shout for her. It’s her bathing day for the ritual—is there any hope of catching that wretched girl? Go on now, be a good boy—”

But here he showed no intention of obeying his mother’s command and being a good son. He went behind his mother, who was busy grinding spices, and began to do something.

“Hoo-ooo-oo-oom.”

Sarbajaya turned to see that Apu had taken an old jute sack—one kept in the eaves for drying boris—draped it over himself, and was now crawling on the floor.

“Look, just look at the child’s antics! You little rascal, that thing is full of the dust of seven kingdoms. Throw it off! Throw it off! There could be snakes or spiders in it—who knows how long it’s been stored away!”

“Hoo-ooo-oo-oom,” he growled, in a deeper tone than before.

“Honestly, as if he ever listens! My darling, my precious, throw that thing away—my hands are covered in spice paste—don’t be naughty, for shame!”

The sack-shrouded figure crawled two steps closer. Sarbajaya cried, “You’re going to touch me! Don’t you touch me, my jewel! Oh, I’m frozen stiff with fright—I’m so terribly scared!”

With a “hee-hee,” Apu laughed, threw the sack aside, and stood up. His hair, face, eyebrows, and ears were covered in dust. He made a sheepish face and ground his tiny front teeth together.

“Oh, what am I to do! You wretched boy, have you covered yourself in dust and turned into a ghost? Ugh—the dust from that old sack! You’re absolutely mad!” Sarbajaya’s heart filled with pity and tenderness for her dust-covered, witless son; but because Apu was in his unwashed clothes from the day before and she, having bathed, could not touch him, she said, “Take that gamchha there and dust yourself off first. What a boy!”

A little later, leaving her son to stand guard over the kitchen, she was heading out to fetch water when she saw Durga entering through the doorway. Her face was flushed from the sun, her hair dishevelled, and yet her dusty feet were decorated with alta. Finding herself right in front of her mother, she showed her the mangoes tied in the end of her sari, swallowed hard, and said, “I went to the Rajis’ house to get some chickpea saplings for the Punyipukur rite. They were picking mangoes and sharing them out, so Raji’s paternal aunt gave me these.”

“Just look at the state of this girl! Her feet are white with dust, and the sight of her hair is enough to give you a fever. You’re so worried about your Punyipukur that you can’t even sleep at night, I suppose!” Then, glancing at her daughter’s feet, she said, “Have you been taking the alta from Lakshmi’s basket again?”

Durga wiped her face with her anchal and pushed the dishevelled hair from her forehead. “As if it’s from Lakshmi’s basket! Didn’t I have Father buy me a paisa’s worth of alta from the market the other day? And don’t you think I had two leaves of it left in my doll-box?”

Harihar came onto the kitchen veranda, kalké in hand, to get a light for his tobacco.

Sarbajaya said, “Where am I supposed to get fire for your tobacco every hour? It’s not as if you’ve arranged a supply of sundari-wood, have you! How long does a fire from bamboo slivers last, that I can be supplying you with embers for your tobacco every five minutes?” Then, taking up some embers in a broken brass ladle kept for the purpose, she held it out to him with an annoyed look. Softening her tone, she asked, “What happened?”

“Everything was more or less settled, but there’s a bit of a problem. There’s some trouble over property at Mahesh Biswas’s in-laws’ place, and Biswas-moshai has had to go there—he’s the real owner, you see. So it’s been postponed again; and on top of that, it looks like we’re heading for a lean season from Asharh.”

“And what about their offer of a place to live, of settling us there?”

“Well, that’s where the difficulty lies! If the initiation is postponed, how can I possibly bring up the other matter?”

Sarbajaya had been full of hope; hearing this news, she was crestfallen. “If it doesn’t work out there, why don’t you look somewhere else?” she said. “You get respect away from home—does anyone here even acknowledge us? Look at this—it’s the season for mangoes and jackfruit, and there isn’t a single one in the house. The girl brought home two half-rotten mangoes today from goodness-knows-whose house.” Then she turned her face towards the west side of the house, as if addressing someone there, and said, “They carry away basketfuls of mangoes from right outside our door, and my children just stand and watch—do you think that’s a small pain?”

At the mention of the garden, Harihar said, “Ugh, he’s a cunning devil, that one! The lease would have easily gone for twenty-five rupees a year, and he got it in writing for just five! I went and pleaded with him. ‘Kaka,’ I said, ‘I have a son and a daughter… they’re growing up scrounging for mangoes and jamuns in that grove. I have nothing else anywhere. And besides, it’s our family grove—by the grace of God you have no wants, you have those two other huge orchards, with mangoes, jamuns, coconuts, areca nuts—what do you lack? Go on, please, give the grove up!’ But do you know what he said? He said that my older brother Nilmoni, when he was alive, had apparently borrowed three hundred rupees from him, and he was taking this as repayment. Just listen to that! As if my brother Nilmoni was in such dire straits that he’d go begging to Bhuban Mukhopadhyay for three hundred rupees! He just took advantage of Boudi’s good nature and tricked her, that’s all!”

“Good-natured indeed! She apparently said so herself—that if the grove were in the hands of a hostile kinsman, we wouldn’t get anything at all from it, so it was better to lease it for a smaller sum and at least get the rent.”

Harihar said, “And would I not have paid the rent? Were they going to lease out the grove? Did they even let me know? He won Boudi over by plying her with luchis and mohanbhog, and got her to sign it all away in secret!…”