Great clouds dissolved over Chetali. The monsoon swept over Khasak. In the pouring rain the School Inspector’s peon came to the seedling house. The front door was locked. Appu-Kili sat cross-legged in the veranda, watching the rain water run down the eaves.
‘Hey, you there—’ the peon called out.
Appu-Kili neither saw nor heard, so deep was his absorption in the running water.
‘What rudeness is this?’ said the peon. He climbed on to the veranda and tapped the cretin with the tip of his umbrella. Appu-Kili leapt up, startled.
‘Etto,’ he lisped, ‘aaa yoo a pootham?’
‘Where is the Maeshtar?’
At the mention of the Master, Appu-Kili smiled soulfully and said, ‘He gon catchin daagon fies.’
The peon turned away in a towering rage, and came to the square looking for the tailor.
‘You insult me—’ the peon said.
Insult the peon? Madhavan Nair was taken aback.
‘I don’t understand—’ he said.
‘I didn’t mean you in particular. I meant the whole lot of you, the Maeshtar, and the strange caretaker who made faces at me and called me a pootham.’
Madhavan Nair reconstructed the scene and in a moment fear of catastrophe cleared from his mind.
‘O Peon,’ he said laughing, ‘that must have been our cretin Appu-Kili.’
‘I don’t care who it was.’
‘We shall make amends.’
‘But tell me, O Tailor, where is the Maeshtar?’
‘What is the matter?’
‘First you tell me—where is the Maeshtar?’
Madhavan Nair stepped out of his shop, and said, ‘Come, Peon-Saar. Let us go some place where we can sit and talk in comfort.’
In Aliyar’s teashop, seated close to the hot samovar, he said, ‘Tell me, O Peon, is something the matter?’
‘Of course.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Where is the Maeshtar?’
‘He is away for a few days.’
‘Then let him find out for himself when he returns.’
‘Aliyar,’ Madhavan Nair said, ‘aappams for our respected peon. And what do you have there? Steamed bananas—’
The peon ate and drank with relish. He softened.
‘These youngsters,’ he said, ‘how they invite needless punishment.’
‘Certainly you can tell us what the crime is,’ Madhavan Nair said, ‘whatever be the punishment. After all we live in neighbouring villages.’
The peon leaned forward and said in a hushed voice, ‘There is a report lying with the Inspaetar Yajaman ...’
An anonymous letter, but one containing grave charges: Ravi spends his time telling stories instead of teaching, his morals are unsound, he keeps a false admission register, he is fanning religious hatred, he spreads it with the help of a black magician named Nizam Ali.
One more steamed banana, and the peon became still more communicative. The charges, if they weren’t disproved soon, could cost Ravi his job, and might result in the school’s closure.
A new inspector had taken over, a young and impetuous officer, one picked up after his tenth class as an inspector-trainee. Beneath his severe exterior he was kind and helpful, and appreciative of good food and the good life.
‘What kind of good food?’ the tailor asked hiding his disgust.
‘Chicken—’
‘Would he like quail and partridge? The Pandarams will massacre a whole flight of wild birds, if we just give them the signal.’
The peon made obscene noises, chewing the birds in anticipation.
‘And about the good life,’ Madhavan Nair said, ‘I suppose we have to explore ...’
‘Ask your Maeshtar to go and fall at his feet. I shall take care of the rest.’
The Khazi who came in for a cup of tea was told of the anonymous petition.
‘Foul lies!’ the Khazi said, ‘Treachery!’
‘We will meet higher officers if need be,’ said the gentle Aliyar flaring up, ‘we will give affidavits.’
‘An anonymous petition!’ the Khazi said. ‘Verily, Sayed Mian Sheikh will not permit this.’
‘But the Inspaetar permits this,’ the peon said unthinkingly, and was seized with terror the very next moment. He stole a fleeting glance at the mountain—it wore an ominous hood of clouds, and seemed more formidable than all the clerks of the Inspectorate put together. He left, sorely disturbed at this new intrusion by a spirit. On his walk home he chanted the ten names of Arjuna for protection against lightning, he looked over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t haunted ... The little crowd at Aliyar’s stayed on. The Khazi’s anger had not cooled; he muttered to himself, ‘Which dog has done this?’
‘Let it be anybody,’ the tailor said, ‘And Aliyar, I go on credit. Two aappams, two steamed bananas—’
Aliyar smiled. ‘Let it be on Aliyar. Mollakka would have called it Allah’s credit.’
Ravi returned. He had been away ten days, a solid third of a month of unexplained absence. It was a pause in the rain, and Appu-Kili was wandering along the fringes of the village. He caught sight of Ravi and came prancing to the seedling house.
‘Etto!’ he cried in the joy of reunion, ‘whe ha yu been?’
‘To Kashi, my pet,’ Ravi said.
As he mopped the rain water from Appu’s hair, Ravi choked for a moment. The touch of the cretin’s hair brought back vivid memories—the Aryans and the reborn children, the karmic lice lost in grief.
‘Did anyone tease you when I was away?’
‘Pootham. He beat wid umb’ella.’
‘Don’t worry. We will drive him away. Now, here is something for my Parrot.’
Appu-Kili grabbed the packet of chocolates from Ravi with grunts of thanksgiving.
‘Etto,’ he said, ‘catch you goo big daagon fie.’
‘Where have you been, Maash?’
Madhavan Nair was settled comfortably on a bench, while Ravi unpacked his bag.
‘Where have you been?’ the tailor asked again.
‘To Kashi,’ Ravi jested.
‘All the manes doing well?’
Then, with great circumspection, lest he upset his friend, Madhavan Nair told Ravi all about the latest plot against the school.
‘Don’t be upset, Maash. The whole village is united—’
‘But, Madhavan Nair, I’m not upset.’
‘If the Board closes down the school, we have worked out alternatives.’
Ravi was not listening, his mind was on the cockroaches which had come meekly by their inheritance; he had returned again to violate their mildewed spaces. I am sorry, my little brethren, said Ravi. Children burdened themselves with reading and reckoning here, and I sought a sarai, a place of rest on a long, long journey. A black hairy spider which had returned to the seedling house during the absence of its human resident raced on the wall in circles, dismayed. I intruded on this sarai, said Ravi, for too long, desecrating its primeval nights with lamps and incense, while Time, untamed and awesome, cried beyond the timepieces, cried out as dark blue winds. Roach and spider lay in wait in these winds.
‘I was wondering, Maash ...’ said Madhavan Nair, ‘A visit to the Inspector’s office, an apology, a settlement.’
Ravi said gently, ‘No.’
Madhavan Nair struggled to find words, ‘But ... Khasak has taken decisions ...’
They would raise the money needed for a school of their own, and the communists of Kozhanasseri would teach them how to organize a committee.
The day after, the comrades came to the seedling house.
Ravi was telling Appu-Kili a story.
‘We are from Kozhanasseri—’
‘Welcome, comrades.’
One of them was thin as a leaf, and the other dark and stocky as a mountain troll.
‘I work with peasants’ unions,’ the thin one said.
‘Sankaran is the name.’
‘Kanni Moothan,’ the troll said. ‘Secretary of Kozhanasseri’s Peace Council.’
‘Happy meeting you, comrades. And to know there is a peace council close by. What does the council do anyway?’
‘Oh, nothing in particular. Occasionally we outlaw nuclear war. Right now our concern is the school—’
‘It is a conspiracy,’ the thin comrade put in. ‘We shall deal with it.’
Appu-Kili did not like the story being interrupted.
‘Etto,’ he said, ‘thel stoyi.’
The Parrot could not take a story in instalments. So, to spare him the discomfort, Ravi said, ‘The story is over.’
The cretin stood before Ravi and the comrades, sullen and dejected, then moved on to the veranda to watch the water run down the eaves. The story had ended without meaning or resolution.
The comrades were telling Ravi another story. Of Kelan the compradore bourgeois, Sivaraman Nair the feudalist, of the peon from the bureaucracy.
‘There is no national bourgeoisie here,’ Kanni Moothan concluded his class analysis. ‘Khasak is a fortress of reaction.’
‘National bourgeoisie?’ Ravi asked. ‘What is that?’
‘I was speaking generally. For example, the outcaste women are not allowed to wear blouses while transplanting the paddy seedlings. Just imagine! Women stooping bare-breasted—’
‘I can imagine,’ said Ravi. ‘Must be gorgeous.’
The words were spoken in play, and sensing the awkwardness, he tried to explain it away. He said, ‘I was speaking generally.’
That made it even worse, and ruined the conversation. The comrades rose after an abrupt tailpiece, ‘Maash, you should be in the forefront.’
‘Very well.’
Later, in the Mosque of the King’ ‘Comrade—’
The visitors were promptly corrected, ‘Call me Khazi.’
‘Ah, yes,’ the peasant leader said. ‘Our Khazi is no stranger to the situation.’
‘Of course not,’ the Khazi said.
‘It’s a conspiracy.’
‘What doubt is there?’
‘Imperialist forces are at work,’ the troll said. ‘We in the peace movement know it only too well.’
‘Be not afraid!’ said the Khazi, and chanted a spell against imperialism leaving the comrades mildly disconcerted.
‘The movement would be greatly strengthened by the Khazi’s return—’
The Khazi ended the chant with the mystic al fateha. The comrades grew nervous in the haunted mosque.
The rain mingled with the steam of the earth and curtained off the seedling house. Kunhamina came through mist and rain, with a tiffin carrier.
‘Umma sends this, Saar,’ she said, ‘patthiri and meat curry.’
‘Sit down, my little one,’ said Ravi. She wouldn’t sit. As in days gone by she came and stood close. Ravi took her hands in his. His thoughts went to the girl bewildered by herself on the peak of Chetali, to the covenant of the mountain. She swayed closer, now she was seated on his lap, her eyes brimming with tears.
‘They say you are going away,’ she said, ‘Is that true, Saar?’
Ravi laid his hand over her head in blessing.
‘Won’t you come back, Saar?’
The fish with a silver crest and red spots hibernated in the crevices of Chetali for long years, said the villagers. This was the messenger of the Sheikh, and it swam down in times of elemental catastrophes. On an evening when the rain let up, bathers in the brook saw the crested one.
The great wind began the next night. For two nights and two days it blew without mercy, it blew the thatches away, while children cried and their parents prayed. Black palms were uprooted, sturdy tamarind branches torn away.
Then both wind and rain calmed. In that gentle interlude, Ravi and Madhavan Nair took a walk on the hills. Khasak lay wrapped in the sunset, cleansed, dry. The sky hung low, holding back its colossal power. Neither the teacher nor the tailor spoke of the school.
‘Where will Kili sleep, Madhavan Nair?’
‘In my shop, Maash.’
They began their walk back. They had a glimpse of the fugitive village.
‘I can’t believe Kodacchi is dead,’ Ravi said, reminiscing.
‘What a name! What did you say it meant?’
‘Woman of the mountain mists.’
Fringes of conversation. Trivia. They kept themselves away from its core. They spoke of fireworks and films.
They parted at the gate of the seedling house. Ravi opened the gate and went in. Madhavan Nair walked over the rise into the village. Neither of them looked back.
Madhavan Nair felt an impulse to go back, to be with Ravi a little longer. Meetings and partings, the torn shreds of Time ...
Ravi rose early. It was still the hour of the Morning Star. He took care not to wake up Appu-Kili who was fast asleep in the corridor. Ravi kept the corridor open and came back to the two rooms of the seedling house. He slipped his letter of resignation into the attendance register. He had told Madhavan Nair not to come, he didn’t want a farewell. The key to the school could be found on the door-frame.
Ravi stood before the locked door for a moment, eyes closed, prayerful. Father! he said. Father of my eventides, my twilight journeys, allow me to go. I leave this nest of sewn leaves, nest of rebirth.
Ravi walked out, his meagre belongings in a satchel. The rain fell on his outspread umbrella, it fell first in a mere patter, then drummed on the taut taffetta. The rain grew heavier, the monsoon rain without thunder and lightning ... Ravi reached Kooman-kavu.
The rain was a steady downpour, a low dome of white opacity. The storm had been more savage in Koomankavu, the mounted shacks had all been blown away, and no one, nothing, moved in what had once been a little bazaar ... There was still time for the bus to come. Ravi surveyed the scene of the great quiet and stood near the bus shelter, now a heap of sodden clods. He played with the clods, prising them apart with his feet.
Ravi looked with fond curiosity at the little blue and black apparition that slithered out of the clods. The blue-black one looked up at Ravi, conversing with its flickering tongue. Ravi saw the tiny hood, outspread now. Infant fangs pierced Ravi’s foot. Teething, my little one?
With a last playful flick of its forked tongue, the snake slid back into the alleys of wet earth.
The rain, nothing but the rain. White, opaque. The rain slept, it dreamt. Ravi lay down. He smiled. The waters of the Timeless Rain touched him. Grass sprouted through the pores of his body. Above him the great rain shrank small as a thumb, the size of the departing subtle body.
Ravi lay waiting for the bus.