The Hope of Shridula (19 page)

"The landlord will take care of us," Zia said to her daughter. "He needs us. He will see that nothing bad happens to us."

"He talks about protecting his crops and he talks about protecting himself, but he never speaks of protecting us," Shridula said.

"Everyone has his position," Zia answered. "Our position is a quiet and submissive one. It is not a happy one, but it is our position. Those above us—the Brahmins and the landowners—their position is to protect us." She looked at her husband with pleading eyes, but he said nothing.

"No,
Amma,"
Shridula whispered. "We must take care of ourselves."

"The Mahatma," stated a stocky Brahmin who traveled with his small son. "The one called Gandhiji." He leaned in and poked at the fire. "He is a real Indian."

"What do you mean?" Brahmin Rama asked.

"Have you not heard? He was willing to fast to his death in order to bring down the opposition. That is the Hindu way. Gandiji is like a creditor sitting
dharma
at his debtor's door."

"I heard him give a speech in Delhi," said another in the group of Brahmins gathered around the fire, an old man with cinders rubbed into his hair. In the light of the fire, his hair sparkled, a muddy gray. "Gandhiji said, 'This city is not India. Go to the villages; that is India, for therein lives the soul of India.' "

"Indian people
like
that sort of talk," another said.

"I do not like it," Rama said. "If the Mahatma has his way, what will happen to our position as Brahmins?"

No one answered.

"The landlord in my village thinks he can be a good Christian and mix in enough Hinduism to satisfy everyone. He satisfies no one. Mohandas Gandhi thinks he can be a good Hindu and mix in enough Christianity to satisfy everyone. He will find himself at the same end. No one will be satisfied."

"Gandhiji will lead us to freedom!" the stocky Brahmin insisted.

Brahmin Rama shook his head. "If we do not stop him, he will lead us to destruction."

Late into the night, long after Shridula had returned to the landlord's house, Ashish lay awake staring up at the stars. Zia lay next to him, her breathing steady and deep. Ashish closed his eyes and sang softly into the dark:

Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me!
The Bible tells me so.

21

December 1946

T
errible harvest!

Ashish kicked his way through the paddy stubble. Even those stumps of grain stalks were wrong. They stood far too high. "Chop it low to the ground," he had said again and again. Yet the stubble reached almost to his knees. Time to prepare the fields for the winter crop, and all this extra work to do.

Actually, the winter planting should already have been done. They need not worry about rain, of course. Not in December. The days were still cool and comfortable, though they wouldn't stay that way for long. But hot or cool, wet or dry, the planting-growing-harvest cycle must go on.

Cursed land!

Ashish's stomach ached with hunger. The same pain plagued everyone in the settlement since the landlord cut their food ration in half. Punishment for a poor crop, he said. Visits from Shridula cheered her parents, of course, but not only them. For whenever Shridula came, her arms overflowed with vegetables from the landlord's lush garden. And when she finished handing those about, she pulled out treats from hidden folds of her
sari.
"From Landlord Lady Sheeba Esther," Shridula would say. "She told me I could bring these to you."

Selfish Master Landlord!

No help ever came from him. He didn't even give the laborers their harvest feast. That feast was their rightful due, yet the landlord gave them nothing but a small measure of rice to keep them alive and working. No extra grain, no spices, and no feast. "That fool Saji Stephen!" Ashish spat. "Spoiled brat of a landlord!"

Even so, the new crop must go in or everyone would soon be much hungrier.

The rice stubble rustled softly . . . paused . . . then rustled more violently. Ashish stopped to listen. "Rats!" he said.
Well, fine. Surely enough rice kernels littered the field to satisfy many rats.

But rats weren't the only creatures that rustled through field stubble. A sleek body popped out and skittered past Ashish. It paused, turned its beady eyes back on him, and sniffed the air with its pointed snout. A mongoose. Out for a meal of plump rats, no doubt.

Reaching his arms out wide, Ashish said with a grin, "For you,
Appa!"

Ashish's father had always had a special affection for every mongoose that skittered through a field. It wasn't that Virat had particularly liked the cunning little animals. It was that they had no fear of cobras, and cobras terrified Virat. A mongoose would tease . . . and nip . . . and dance . . . and force the agile cobra to strike. That's when the mongoose would shoot out its skinny head and snatch the cobra's head in its mouth to drag it off for dinner.

Clever, clever mongoose.

Several times, Virat had summoned young Ashish to watch a mongoose and a cobra engaged in their deadly dance. Every time the mongoose won.

"Be like a mongoose," Virat told his son. "Others will come after you with poison, but if you keep your wits, you can prevail."

"Do you think the laborers are helpless, Father?" Nihal Amos exclaimed in exasperation. "They are not! No, they most assuredly are not!"

"You are not the landlord in this house," Saji Stephen reminded his son. "I am the landlord, and I will deal with my laborers in my own way!"

"You cannot starve them," Nihal Amos insisted. "You withheld their harvest feast, even though it was their due. Now you have cut even their small food allotment in half. It is not right. It is not Christian."

"Do not dare to tell me what is Christian!" Saji Stephen ordered. "The workers have already gotten more than they deserve. The disastrous harvest was their fault."

"The Communists say—"

"I do not care what those subversives of yours say! I do not care what the Hindus say and I do not care what the Muslims say. I do not even care what the British say."

"It is only that—"

"And I certainly do not care what you say, Nihal Amos. Get out of my sight!"

"Hoe the stubble clear down to the ground!" Ashish ordered. "I want the field clean."

The workers stood together, raised their hoes, and chopped in unison.

Ashish gazed across the field and shook his head. He ran his hand through the gray stubble on his craggy face and groaned. The laborers worked, but it wasn't enough. The trenches should be open by now. They should already have flooded the field.

"Faster!" Ashish called. "Chop faster!"

Hoes swung high and landed hard. Up again, then down again. Up, then down. The line moved forward step by step.

A scrawny man with bowed legs swung his hoe . . . but not as high as the others. He chopped down . . . but not as hard. He stepped forward . . . but not as far.

"Binoy!" Ashish called. "Keep up!"

The scrawny man lurched forward and swung his hoe . . . but not straight. The man in line next to him ducked and yelled.

"Move!" Ashish ordered. "Go!"

Hoes swung high. Hoes landed hard. Up again, down again. Once more the line moved forward. Scrawny Binoy, with his bowed legs, panted and sweated as he struggled to keep up. He raised his hoe high . . . sort of. He chopped down hard . . . but not straight. The man next to him shoved him away. Binoy lurched and fell just as the man on the other side brought his hoe down.

Binoy shrieked, and the line stopped.

Ashish pulled the
chaddar
off his head, squeezed his eyes closed, and wiped his face. "You two," he called to the men on either side of Binoy. "Take him to the edge of the field. I will go to the landowner and get help."

Dinkar ran up behind him. "Forget that bent-up old man!" he ordered. "He will not be alive when you get back."

"I will run all the way," Ashish said.

"Forget him. He is not even a good worker."

"Find shade and lay him out," Ashish ordered the two men. "I will get help and be back as quickly as I can."

Dinkar glowered at all of them. "Get back to work!" he insisted. "You too, Ashish!"

Ashish's face hardened. "No! You men will carry Binoy back to his hut and I will go for help." He turned away and loped across the paddy. Ignoring Dinkar and his protests, the two men picked up Binoy and headed across the field toward the path that led to the settlement.

"I will show you the meaning of helpless," Saji Stephen said to Nihal Amos. He settled himself on his Persian carpet and called to his servant, "Udit, bring my book of accounts."

"You do not need to read me the names of your laborers," Nihal Amos said with a sigh.

"Oh, but I do. Someone must be landlord after me. It certainly cannot be one who bestows power on slave laborers."

"Rajeev is your firstborn. He is the one who wants the power."

"My brother Boban Joseph was the firstborn, yet here I sit."

Udit hurried out and laid the book of accounts in his master's hands. Saji Stephen opened the leather cover and turned to the first page. As he ran his finger along the ink markings, a smile crossed his face.

Ashish ran across the paddy and on to the path between the fields. His breath came in great gulping gasps, yet he refused to slow his pace. When he could run no more, he slowed to a fast walk, but as soon as he could pant evenly, he broke back into a run.

With the landlord's garden finally in sight, Ashish fell to his knees. He gulped several deep breaths and struggled back to his feet. He could no longer run. As he walked toward the garden, he heard Saji Stephen's crowing voice: ". . . whose name was Anup. We owned their family for three generations! Ha!"

Ashish slowed his pace. Anup was Zia's father. The landowner was talking about his wife's family.

"And look at this one: Virat, the
chamar.
He came to my father forty-eight years ago with a half-blind wife and a beaten son. The son is now my overseer, Ashish. When we were both little boys, my father gave him to me for a plaything. We got him and both his parents for a tiny loan. Look at what is written about them."

Ashish, just around the corner from the veranda, stopped still.

"Sixty percent interest. We added that amount every month. More charges for food and a place to sleep, of course. More for the English medical clinic, even though it cost my father nothing. More added for clean clothes. Look at this . . . my father added to the debt every time Ashish was summoned here to play, for the food he ate and for my old clothes he was forced to wear."

Nihal Amos murmured something under his breath. "What is the amount of their debt now?" he asked.

"Over two thousand rupees! Even better, Ashish is mine, his daughter is mine, and her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren will belong to my children and grandchildren."

Nihal Amos said something else, but too softly for Ashish to understand.

"Because the slave Ashish is helpless," Saji Stephen responded, "all the workers are helpless."

Ashish sank to his knees and buried his head in his hands.

"I should not have told you," Ashish said to Zia as they sat together in the dark of their hut.

"I already knew," Zia said. "It is why I never could blame my father and mother for getting away. Because they knew, too."