Fire On the Mountain (16 page)

Dumbly, Nanda Kaul shook her head. She held the arm of her chair very tightly in an effort to speak, to say ‘Come and stay with me, Ila,' and then clutched it tighter still to keep herself from saying what would ruin her existence here at Carignano. She simply shook her head.

‘
OH, I
DO
feel ashamed of myself,' shrieked Ila Das. ‘Ooh, I do, when I think how much better off I am than the poor,
poor people around me. Why, you wouldn't believe the things I see, Nanda. It isn't just that I have this little bit of security, this tiny bit of status –' she gave a shout of laughter at herself – ‘you know, as a welfare officer employed by the Government, while they simply starve if their cow dries up or the weevils destroy their potato crop – but the horrible, horrible degradation in which they live – ooh, Nanda,' her voice plunged down, down into the deepest gloom, ‘why then, I
do
see the worth of our kind of upbringing after all. At least one is saved
that
degradation.

‘You know, Nanda, I've been brought up a Christian, and to see these poor, ignorant people grovel in the dust before their wretched little oil-smeared, tinsel-decked idols, gives me a
turn
. Ooh, I'll say it does. And that oily, oily priest-man we have slinking about our village – I can tell he's up to no good. I
hate
him!' she suddenly spat out from between her dentures.

Raka, now ambling in the long grass under the apricot trees, stopped and stared at the sound of that fierce spitting.

‘Oh, how I
hate
him!
He
's responsible for that lovely Maya-devi's little son dying. Did I tell you, Nanda? The little boy was playing barefoot in the lane as these children do, and cut his foot on a rusty nail. I
told
Maya-devi to take him to the clinic straightaway for an anti-tetanus, but she wouldn't hear of it. Or, rather, the priest-man wouldn't hear of it. Nooo, he said, Nooo, injections were the work of the devil and Maya-devi was
not
to take the child to the clinic. Well,' she went on, ‘that little boy died, of course, and you know what it is to die of tetanus. Now Maya-devi knows.'

She was a dramatic raconteur: it took nerve to listen to her relate the hair-raising stories of her experiences as a welfare officer, and Nanda Kaul sat straighter and stiffer than ever, as if horror were slowly paralysing her.

‘And, Nanda, if you only
saw
the havoc played amongst
the children by conjunctivitis and trachoma, how many of them are doomed to blindness! But will they believe me when I tell them they need to go to the clinic for treatment? No. My dear, a handful of red chilli powder is considered treatment enough, or a pack of cowdung, or – or – oh, I shan't harrow you with details. I do believe the women would listen to me if it weren't for that
impossible
priest. It's so much harder to teach a man anything, Nanda – the women are willing, poor dears, to try and change their dreadful lives by an effort, but do you think their men will let them? Nooo, not one bit.

‘Now I've run into all this trouble over trying to stop child marriage. That is one of the laws of the land, isn't it, and aren't I there to enforce the law? Isn't that what I'm paid for by the Government? Well, so I go along my way, trying to do my duty, going from house to house and especially wherever I hear there's a child marriage in the offing, and
threaten
them and tell them how they can go to prison for committing a social offence. I do think the women would listen to me – if anyone knows what it is for a girl to be married and bear children at the age of twelve, it's them, isn't it? But wherever I go, the priest follows me, and undoes what I do. He
hates
me, Nanda – ooh, he
hates
me.'

‘Ila,' said Nanda Kaul, stirring uneasily, ‘Ila, do be careful.'

Ila Das cackled with laughter, swung her legs and thwacked her hands together. ‘Careful? You don't think he frightens me, do you? That old goat? No, nooo, not in the least. But he's wicked, wicked. He sets the young men in the village against me, too. And how can I get my work done if even the young men don't take my side and help? In the end, the women listen to
them
– if not to the priest, then definitely to their husbands.

‘Now I've just heard about a family living in my own village – they're planning to marry their little girl, who is
only just seven, to an old man in the next village because he owns a quarter of an acre of land and two goats. He's a widower and has six children but, for a bit of land and two goats, they're willing to sacrifice their little girl, Nanda, can you believe it? I've argued and argued with her mother, and I even tackled the father, Preet Singh, in the potato fields the other day. But he's a sullen lout, I could see I wasn't making any headway with him.

‘Ooh, dear, so it goes,' she wound up, silenced by despondency and by Ram Lal's appearance on the scene.

HE HAD BEEN
lighting the
hamam
to heat Raka's bath water and had not bothered to come earlier. Now he busied himself, taking off the fly-specked nets, piling the crockery on a wooden tray, shaking out the folds of the aged tablecloth that cracked with stiffness, while the two ladies discussed the weather in his presence, as they had been taught to do, wondering aloud when the hot spell would end and the monsoon come.

‘It's so dry, so dry, I hardly dare light a match for fear it will all go up in flames,' said Ila Das, getting up and looking for her bag. ‘A forest fire is more than even a Government welfare officer can tackle,' she laughed, and searched for her umbrella.

In the midst of this no one noticed Raka. Raka had scrambled up to the top of the knoll, grasping at weeds and slipping on the dry pine-needles, till she had drawn herself up to the rocks under the pine trees. For a while she sat there, chin on her knees, looking out on the hills that
flowed, wave on wave, to the horizon, and listened to the wind that blew up and crashed into the pines, then receded and went murmuring away like the sea. She narrowed her eyes and the greys and blues of the scene melted together, till waves and hills, sea and wind were all one. She was in a boat, rocking, alone.

Then there was a little movement in front of the house. There were Ila Das and Nanda Kaul coming down the steps from the veranda, from under the apricot trees, and strolling down the flagged path to the gate – Nanda Kaul rigidly straight, her movements silken and silver, while little Ila Das bobbed up and down beside her, swinging her cloth bag, waving her umbrella and making her top-knot dance.

Crouching under the pines, Raka watched them progress unevenly down to the gate. Then, sliding her legs out from under her, she glanced back at the veranda and saw that Ram Lal was still there, busily sweeping up crumbs, swatting flies and stacking plates. With a sudden spring, she rose and went flying down the knoll, the bright sparks at the ends of her dry hair flying like flames in the wind, dashed round the
hamam
and dived into the kitchen.

There she paused, letting her eyes get used to the thick, smoky darkness. When they could see, she put out her hand and snatched up the box of matches from the table and dropped it into her pocket.

She emerged casually, hands behind her back, a little stiff. She glanced again to see if Ram Lal were coming, then to see if the ladies had parted. No, they were still at the gate, flattering. One quick dart and, lizard-like, she was over the fence and had dropped down the lip of the ravine and vanished. She could only be heard leaping and sliding down amongst the rolling pebbles and gravel, but there was no one to hear.

‘SO, ILA,' SAID
Nanda Kaul, placing one hand on the gate and pressing gently, unobtrusively at it. ‘How nice of you to have spared time and come . . .'

‘Nanda, Nanda,' Ila interrupted with a cry and caught Nanda Kaul's hand and clung to it. ‘Spared you time? My dear, you can't imagine, you have no idea what it has meant to me to have you here at Carignano, to come and see you today. Why, it's been a little bit of the past come alive. As if the past still existed here and I could simply come and visit it and have a cup of tea with it when I was tired of the present!'

Nanda Kaul's fine lips made a faint grimace at this that Ila Das noticed but could not interpret. So she wrung her admired friend's hands, crunching two large rings together with a grinding sound as she did so, and went on ‘And to meet your great-grandchild – my, that was a pleasure!' Screwing up her little button eyes, she added ‘Funny little thing, isn't she? I couldn't make her out – she's as secretive as a little wild bird, or an insect that hides, isn't she?'

‘A little shy,' Nanda Kaul murmured. ‘But she's been ill – with typhoid – and now it is her mother who is ill.'

‘Dear, dear, I
am
sorry, I
am
sorry.' One more gigantic sigh exploded from Ila Das. ‘Isn't the world full of troubles wherever you look? In my village, out of my village – it's the same everywhere.' Dropping Nanda Kaul's hand, she fixed her cloth bag firmly to her shoulder, gave her umbrella a decisive little swing and said ‘Well, we must do the best we can about it. That's it, isn't it? We must simply shoulder our responsibilities and do what we can. Well,
Nanda. Well, my dear,' and raising herself on tiptoe, she pecked Nanda Kaul's cheek swiftly, then went down the hill, crying ‘Thank you, thank you, my dear, so much. Bye-bye, bye-bye,' she went on calling, like a late cuckoo, all the way down to the chestnut trees on the Mall.

Nanda Kaul leant with both hands on the gate, watching her clumsy, floundering descent. She stood there with a rigidity in her posture, an intensity, almost quivering with the horrors of that afternoon as she watched them retreat. Yes, Ila Das brought horror with her and horror it was that hovered about her as she went off, as jerky and crazy as an old puppet, with her ancient umbrella and tattered bag. There had never been anyone more doomed, more menaced than she, thought Nanda Kaul, and how she survived at all – just by the barest skin of her teeth, by the weakest thread – was beyond her understanding. Her rackety existence looked so precarious, she felt that one stone thrown, one stick tipped would be enough to end it.

So she leaned upon the gate and watched over her with a kind of fierceness. She, well and strong and upright, she ought to protect her. She ought to fight some of her battles. She looked slowly up and down the length of the Mall to see if the way were safe for Ila Das, and if one derisive urchin had appeared then, or if one alarming
langur
had let itself down from the trees and made for Ila Das then, Nanda Kaul would have swooped to attack and demolish him. She would have attacked any mocking urchin, any vicious
langur
, if it had meant tearing through the dust, tearing her sari or even making a fool of herself.

But the road was deserted. Except for a friendly red-haired dog with a graceful plume for a tail that ran sniffing along the side of the road, there was not a soul on the Mall just then. Ila Das was plodding along, past the club, her figure growing more and more absurdly tiny and
puppet-like by the minute, till she reached the giant deodar by the red letter-box and then vanished.

Nanda Kaul relaxed and her hands released the gate which whined complainingly into place. She felt danger pass for the third time that afternoon. There had been the moment when Ila Das babbled maniacally about mixed doubles at the Vice-Chancellor's badminton party – that had passed. Then there had been the moment when she felt she must invite Ila Das to stay – and that had passed. Now this final danger was over, too – a mere cloud sailing over the hills, followed by its little chill shadow, indigo on azure.

Raising her head, holding her hands behind her back, Nanda Kaul began to pace up and down in the garden. She wished Raka would appear, and knew she would not. But a day lily was in bloom and Nanda Kaul went slowly over to congratulate it on its well-formed, clear yellow flower that would be shrivelled by tomorrow.

As she stood gazing at it, fine green wires gripped the yellow petals, dipping them earthwards, and very cautiously a praying mantis lifted itself onto the flower, abandoning its perfect camouflage to display the brilliant green of its body, face, legs and eyes on the waxy yellow petals. Then, becoming aware of Nanda Kaul's still, opaline presence, it lifted itself up on its hind legs, as if in self-defence, and raised its tiny hands together under its chin, turning its solemn head from side to side as it studied her with exactly the same serene curiosity that marked her face.

She put out her ringed hand and gave the lily a little shake so that the creature tumbled off into the leaves. There it would be safe from the birds.

ILA DAS DID
not take the Garkhal road that led down the hillside to her village, no. Buoyed up by Nanda Kaul's friendliness, by the tea, she gave her umbrella a cheerful swing and decided to visit the bazaar. Perhaps she would find something cheap there. If the price of corn meal had come down, she might buy half a kilo – corn meal
roti
was good, satisfying. Or potatoes – what would they cost now? she wondered. Well, if she couldn't afford to buy any, she could at least take a look and see what was available that she might purchase the day she got her salary. That
glad
day!

The thought of it made her lift her little feet and plod through the summer dust and get past all the staring groups of summer visitors who could not restrain their surprise and sometimes their laughter at the sight of her odd, jerky figure. Thinking of Nanda Kaul, how beautiful she still was, how gracefully she poured the tea, how sympathetically she listened, Ila Das barely noticed them.

Then a boy rolling along an old bicycle wheel for a hoop, gave an angry shout and shoved her aside, almost into the ditch outside the Pasteur Institute gate. But Ila Das only looked up at the great factory-like edifice and wondered, wished a job could be found for her there. Should she apply to the director? Should she confront him in his office? Ah, but what qualifications could she present, what particular job could she possibly apply for, or even covet? She grimaced at her audacity, biting her lips with her shining dentures. A jeep roared uphill in first gear, covering her with dust from top to toe.