But there cannot have been much flesh on that delicate fawn’s half-starved body. I told myself that the vet, who had tried to save her life, had carried Rani’s body to the kind of forest she had been born in, and left it there for it to return slowly to the earth again. I tried to make myself believe that this was what happened.
* * *
On the morning of Diwan’s Sahib’s yearly performance at our school, a gentle rain fell, dissolving into the foliage before it met the earth. It was a day or two after Rani’s death. Ever since his soaking on the way to the police station, Diwan Sahib had had a cold, and I wondered if he was strong enough to last through an hour of talking and mimicking animal calls when he was breaking into coughs and sneezes every few minutes. It had been decided that Mr Qureshi would drive us there in his car since Diwan Sahib would not be able to walk all the way to the school. Charu had been looking forward to this day, and the ride in a car, but after the death of Rani she had been avoiding us, almost as if we were to blame for not being able to save Puran and the deer, and that morning Ama said: “Charu is not well. She won’t go.”
At the school, the children, in order of class and height, sat on the floor of our Assembly Hall. The hall was blue and white and red with school uniforms and ties. The infants in the front three rows, no more than five or six years old, were my charges. They nudged each other and began to chatter when we entered the room. Two of the daring ones shot out of their places and ran to take my hand in a display of ownership that made Miss Wilson scowl. “Just you look. All this time they were sitting so Diss-iplined! You appear and immediately there is chaos.”
When the children had been calmed, the microphone tested, a bottle of water and glass procured and Diwan Sahib seated, all eyes turned towards him. The children had bet that he would begin this year with a tiger’s call. Some of them clutched each other’s hands in anticipation of getting a pleasurable fright.
There was silence. A teacher edged the microphone closer to Diwan Sahib. Someone spoke at the back of the room and Miss Wilson rapped out, “Quay-it! We are about to begin.” But Diwan Sahib still did not begin. I was worried he might have forgotten why he was there. The children started to fidget. I stepped up to him and whispered: “Start.” He had shrunk into himself since his encounter with the police constable, had barely spoken since then. His shoulders had acquired a hunch, as if he were curling into himself, and his gaze, when it did turn towards me, looked as if it were fixed on something far away. He had not once cracked a joke or even been sarcastic at my expense.
And then he began to speak, but now nobody could hear him. The audio boy came up and adjusted the microphone, which settled down after a minute’s whistling – ”Too loud, too loud,” Miss Wilson had shouted from the front row – and becoming inaudible. Diwan Sahib had carried on speaking, disregarding the microphone. His voice was low and at times he mumbled.
“I don’t know how many in this room live in the bazaar,” he was saying, “how many in villages further away, and how many in the cantonment. How many miles do you walk to come to school? You get up early every morning, at dawn. The older ones among you have to fill water from streams before you do anything else. Some of you have to light fires or help your mothers cook a meal before school. You have to climb up steep hillsides to reach here and you get wet every day of the monsoon during this walk. In the afternoon, you make traffic come to a stop in the bazaar when you come out of the school and stream onto the road, chattering like monkeys – ”
He tried to imitate a langur, but began to cough. He drank a long sip of water and resumed.
“I have looked at your faces when you come out of school – so bright and shining and full of promise – and I have thought each time: What kind of future will