The Hope of Shridula (11 page)

12

June 1946

S
aji Stephen, his hands and feet freshly washed and his hair damp from oil scented with sandalwood, strolled out to the veranda. Without pausing to acknowledge his elder son, he headed directly to the fragrantly shaded spot under the twisting vines of sweet jasmine and settled himself in the choice place his brother had always reserved for himself— on his father's valuable Persian carpet. No, on
his own—
Saji Stephen's—valuable Persian carpet.

"Imagine, Father. Now you are landlord," Rajeev Nathan said. "Everything belongs to you."

"Yes." Saji Stephen nodded, and a smile spread across his face. "Everything is mine."

"What will you do?"

"Do! Why, settle myself into the best rooms of the house, of course!"

"I mean about the rice that is not being planted. About the laborers who no longer go to the paddies to work."

Saji Stephen shrugged his shoulders and raised his palms to the sky. "The laborers are the overseer's responsibility. The rice planting is a job for workers. They all know this. Everyone knows this. Why should I worry myself over such things?"

Even so, Saji Stephen's smile faded. Always, it was Boban Joseph his father had called to sit beside him while he printed notes next to the names listed in his book of accounts. Always it was Boban Joseph he had invited to accompany him in his cart as he went about his business errands. Always it was Boban Joseph he had trusted to oversee the planting and the harvest. Never Saji Stephen. Never the baby.

Ah, but Boban Joseph was no more. Now everything belonged to Saji Stephen. He threw back his head and laughed out loud.

"I will take the best room in the house for myself, and I will have this Persian carpet spread out on my floor. The sitar in the great room now belongs to me, and so does every book on every shelf in this house. All of them are mine. Father's leather-bound book of accounts is mine, too. I shall call for it whenever I will, and I shall sit with it on my lap and make my marks in it in any way I wish."

Saji Stephen folded his arms across his chest and roared with laughter.

Rajeev Nathan didn't laugh. His jaw clenched and his eyes narrowed as he watched his father.

"Where is Udit? That lazy servant!" Saji Stephen bellowed, "Udit! Bring me food! Not only fruit and tea, but real food! Now!"

Saji Stephen relaxed, but only for a moment.

"My old friend, Ashish, the Untouchable! Bring him here immediately, Udit. I want him to see me sitting on this Persian carpet, eating my fill in the middle of the day. He must bow down before me. He must call me Master Landlord!"

Ashish was at work in the field when the servant came running, bellowing out his name. Because he had no choice, Ashish laid his hoe aside and followed the servant back to the landlord's house. He didn't hurry, though. Saji Stephen, who paced impatiently in front of the garden, was not at all pleased with the delay.

"Go to your place by the veranda!" Saji Stephen ordered.

Ashish stood obediently in the dirt and gazed impassively at the new landowner who pranced and crowed before him like a ridiculous peacock.

"Look around you, Ashish. Everything you see is mine— and much more than that besides. Every tree, every field, and every worker—all are mine. You, too! You belong to me. I can make you overseer if I wish, or I can send you to clean the latrine pit."

Ashish didn't move and the expression on his face never changed.

"I am not going to do things the way my brother did. I do not yet know all the changes I will make, but I will be a different landlord than he was," Saji Stephen said. "I will be a better one. Much better!"

Ashish stood so still he hardly seemed to breathe.

"You and all my other laborers must work especially hard, because I want my harvest to be the best one ever. I can put you in charge, but if I do, you must bring in the best harvest ever recorded on this land. If you succeed, I will reward you. But if you fail, I will have you sorely punished."

"I am an old man," Ashish said. "Overseer is a job for a young man."

Saji Stephen's eyes flashed. "It is a job for whichever man I choose!" But then, stepping closer, he lowered his voice and confided, "The truth is, you are smart for an Untouchable. Not smart like me, of course, but smart for your kind. I think most likely it is because of the time you spent with me when we were boys."

Ashish's face remained impassive.

Suddenly Saji Stephen's mood darkened. "That is it, then? Not a word of gratitude from you?"

Ashish would not look at Saji Stephen. He couldn't trust himself to hide the disgust he felt for the oppressor who dared call himself a friend. He half expected the landowner to stamp his feet and heave a rock at him. But instead Saji Stephen pointed his finger and declared, "You make certain the rice harvest is a good one. I will hold you personally responsible!"

The day was half gone, yet no laborers worked the paddies. They didn't exactly refuse, they simply discovered reasons to be elsewhere. And since they had neither seen nor heard anything from Saji Stephen, they didn't fear him. But Ashish knew. He shaded his eyes against the sunny glare and gazed above. Already traces of clouds had begun to show in the sky. The rains could well come early.

"We must get the laborers back to work," Ashish pleaded to Dinkar. "The plowing is not yet completed in even the first paddy, and in the next, the planting is hardly begun!"

"Yes," Dinkar said, "but not today. Today everyone is celebrating the cows' birthday."

Of course! According to Hindu legends, this was the birthday of Blaram, the older brother of Lord Krishna. How could Ashish have failed to notice?

"See? Already women and children file out to the animals' field with jars of water and baskets of flowers on their heads."

Yes, yes. The women would wash the cows and children would decorate the poor beasts with blossoms. Then the men would come along behind with special food for the cows.

With a disgusted sigh, Ashish headed back to his own hut.

"Look,
Appa!"
Shridula called out. She stepped back so he could see the picture of the cows on the front of their hut. She had painted it with blue rice paste.

"Birthday of the cows!" Ashish grunted. All the cows would be treated with great love and care, never mind the unplanted rice. Never mind the landlord's demands on him. Never mind what would happen tomorrow.

The cows' birthday celebration lasted only one day. Unfortunately, it wasn't the only problem. Without the imposing Master Landlord Boban Joseph's iron fist hovering over them, the laborers were of no mind to break their backs in the rice paddies. Why should they bend over in the hot sun hour after hour only to return at night to their own meagerly filled cooking pots? "At least we can tend our gardens and climb the trees in search of fruit," they said. No one spoke aloud of stealing rice from the fields.

"I do not want to be overseer," Ashish said to Dinkar.

"That is a good thing," Dinkar said, "because you are not. I am overseer."

"Yes. But if the rice harvest is not good, the new landlord will hold me responsible. All of us will suffer his wrath. The workers have to get back to work in the paddies."

"Why do you care? The sun still shines and the rice we helped ourselves to is not yet gone from our rice bags. Rest yourself under the trees with the other men and enjoy the gossip. Time to work will come soon enough, you can be certain of that. Enjoy your rest while you can."

Ever since he was a small boy, Saji Stephen had been intrigued by the silky smooth rosewood sitar that stood propped up in the corner of the great room. His sister Sunita Lois used to play it for him before she married and moved away. His mother played it, too. But Saji Stephen was never allowed to touch it. When their father died and everything in the house passed to Boban Joseph, Saji Stephen tried to get the sitar for himself. Although Boban Joseph never much cared for the instrument, and though he never once so much as plucked at the strings, he refused to allow his brother to try to play it. Well, now everyone else was gone and the sitar was his. He could pluck it or strum it or break it into firewood if he so desired. It belonged to him!

Seated on the veranda with his legs crossed, Saji Stephen clamped the bowl of the instrument between his feet and propped the long neck up against his shoulder. Closing his eyes, he imagined his fingers plucking the strings as mournfully beautiful music poured forth. Alas, it was not to be. All he produced from the sitar was a squawking racket so jarring it stunned the birds in the trees into shocked silence.

Fury overtook Saji Stephen. He clamped his teeth tight and jabbed at the strings with a vengeance. That only made the racket worse.

So intent was Saji Stephen on forcing a decent sound from the instrument that he failed to notice two policemen approaching the veranda. For some time they stood off to the side and waited patiently for the landowner to acknowledge their presence. The taller policeman wore his black hair greased back slick in a way that accentuated the droop of his lower lip. It gave him a decidedly menacing look. When he finally grew tired of waiting, the taller policeman puffed out his lip and uttered a loud "Ahem!"

Saji Stephen looked up with a start.

"We are from the next village over," the taller policeman informed him. "We received a complaint about your treatment of cows that have strayed from our village to yours."

"I know nothing of that," Saji Stephen said. He turned back to his struggle with the sitar strings.

"In that case, we must speak to the one who does."

Saji Stephen plucked out another dreadful screech.

"Sir! Must you torture us all day?" the policeman's darkskinned companion demanded. "We must see the landowner immediately. I insist!"

Anger flashed across Saji Stephen's face. He motioned for Udit to take the sitar from his lap. "I am the only landowner here," he said. "You would do well to remember that!"

The dark-skinned policeman pushed forward. "In that case, we must settle this dispute with you, sir." He waved out to the road where a crowd of twenty or so men stood clumped together, all murmuring angrily. Saji Stephen didn't recognize any of them.

"Come," Saji Stephen said to the policemen. "Sit with me."

As the two settled themselves on the veranda, a hefty man shouted from the crowd, "Three times you sent your men to my field to beat my son, Landlord!"

"I did no such thing!" Saji Stephen shouted back.

"And all my son ever did was search for our straying cows. Nothing more!"

Saji Stephen looked at the policemen but said in a voice loud enough for the men on the road to hear, "It would be a better world if everyone lived in his own house and minded his own business. Do you not agree?"

But the tall policeman with the droopy lip warned, "You, sir, would be most unwise to mock so angry a crowd."

"I know nothing about that man or his son," Saji Stephen insisted. "I only became landowner upon the recent death of my brother. What happened in my fields or his before that is not of my doing. Nor is it my affair."