Martens should be chased away, Charu told him, they raided birds’ nests and hen-coops. Foxes could be ignored, but you had to protect your goats from jackals.
He listened faithfully to her lectures, but when it came to a thorn deep in Bijli’s paw, it was he who pulled it out with no fear of the dog’s low growls, and Charu thought she had never known anyone so brave. And once at dusk they saw a leopard slink through the trees into the gorge below. They clutched each other’s hands for reassurance and did not let go long after the leopard had vanished. Charu thought it a kind of magic how neatly her hand fitted within his and how, when she was with him, her shyness left her and she became a chatterbox – as if all the words inside her had been readying and ripening for him.
One day, about a month later, when he was not at the stream, she waited and waited, growing annoyed, then anxious. She was so angry she told herself she would never see him again. The next minute, she was clawed by the worry that his city feet had slipped on the way down and he had fallen somewhere, bones broken, not able to cry loud enough for help. She clambered up the hill, leaving her goats unwatched. Where the slope met the flat lawn of Aspen Lodge, she hid in the bushes and peeped through the scrub at the edges of the lawn. She saw that the place was full of people: men and women in fine clothes, holding glasses, laughing and talking. White tables and chairs were set out under umbrellas bigger than she had ever seen. Two bearers with trays went from one knot of people to the next, waiting to be noticed and for something from their trays to be picked out and eaten. One of the bearers was the boy: hers.
Later she giggled and said, “When we are married, you will do the cooking and look pretty, and serve me food when I come home. I’ll go out and earn the money.”
He did not smile back. He turned away without a word. He went to where the stream disappeared into trees as if he had seen something there. He bent down and picked up a stone which he flung into the water. She called his name: “Kundan,” she said, “O Kundan Singh!” and broke into more giggles. But after a few more minutes when he looked away still unsmiling and pretended she was not there, she ran up to him and tugged at his clothes and pleaded, “Don’t you know when I’m joking?”
8
The principal of my school, Miss Wilson, had realised soon enough that I was not much good as a teacher. She thought my classes undisciplined and chaotic; I thought of it as a happy noise and could not bring myself to silence the children and impose the order that was required. Miss Wilson stormed in from time to time and imposed order with one bellowed “Quay-It!” and a stinging rap of her cane on the desk, after which the class and I stood in meek disgrace waiting for the angry speech that usually followed. Charu was not my only failure, there were others who had gone through my classes for two years or more, playing truant and then failing examinations. At staff meetings, looking pointedly in my direction, Miss Wilson said, “Some people think teaching is a job anyone can do. No, Madam, no, it needs dedication, discipline, love of Jesus Christ Our Lord.” She addressed me as “Madam” whenever she wanted take me down a peg or two.
Miss Wilson was a Catholic from Kerala. Somehow, any sari she wore became an untidy roll of cloth around her, making her an animated bundle. Her austerity was renowned: she ate only two brisk, salt-free meals every day and for jewellery wore just a silver crucifix. Her thick, black-framed glasses slid down her bump of a nose every few minutes and she was always pushing them back up with a stubby forefinger. During her First Communion and First Confession, she had “heard the voice of Jesus, as clearly as yours or mine”, she liked to say. In her teens, she joined a convent wanting nothing but to be a nun. She was sent for a year to teach in a church school, attend Mass, recite novenas. During the time there, she, along with other girls, was under observation: were they