KAMALA awoke while it was still dark and looking round perceived that she was alone; it was a minute or two before she realised where she was. She dragged herself from her couch, opened the door, and looked out. A thin blanket of white mist lay over the still water, a grey pallor overspread the darkness, and there was a glimmer of dawn in the sky behind the trees that lined the eastern bank. As she gazed the white sails of fishing boats began to dot the steely-hued water.
There was a dull ache in Kamala’s heart, the source of which she could not divine. Why was the aspect of the misty autumn morning so forbidding? Whence came those sobs that welled up in her breast, choked her utterance, and threatened to bring the tears to her eyes? Why did she brood now over her forlorn condition? Twenty-four hours ago she had been oblivious of the fact that both she and her husband were orphans, that she had no kin or companion of her own. What had happened in the meantime to bring her loneliness home to her? Was not Ramesh alone sufficient prop and stay? Why was she weighed down with a sense of the vastness of the universe and her own insignificance?
As she lingered by the open door, the bosom of the river began to glow like a stream of shimmering gold. The crew resumed their labours and the engines clanked again. The rattle of the hawse-chain and the creaking of the windlass awoke the village urchins betimes and sent them scampering down to the bank.
The din aroused Ramesh too, and brought him to the door of his cabin in search of Kamala. She gave a start of surprise when she saw him, and discreetly veiled though she was already, she essayed to shroud her face still more completely.
“Have you had a wash yet, Kamala?” Ramesh asked.
It seemed an innocent enough question, affording no excuse for loss of temper; and yet she obviously did take offence for she turned away and merely shook her head.
“People will be about soon,” he went on; “you had better get ready now.”
Kamala said nothing in reply; she snatched up her day-apparel from the chair on which it lay and marched off past him towards the bathroom.
That Ramesh should rise early in order to superintend her toilet seemed to Kamala not only unnecessary but an impertinence. She was quite aware that in his dealings with her he drew a line, and that he never overstepped it in the direction of familiarity. She had never sat at a mother-in-law’s feet and learned the usual lessons in deportment — when and where modesty prescribes the use of the veil. Yet she was unaccountably overcome with shyness in Ramesh’s presence that morning.
When Kamala returned to her cabin after bathing, her day’s work lay before her. She took out the bunch of keys from the loose end of her garment which was flung over her shoulder and proceeded to open the trunk containing her clothes, but as she did so the little cash-box which Ramesh had presented to her caught her eye. Yesterday it had seemed to her a new delight, its possession had given her a sense of power and independence, and she had locked it up as carefully as any costly treasure; but to-day the thrill of pleasure with which she had handled it was absent.
The box after all was Ramesh’s property, not her own; she was not its sole owner and it was not at her unquestioned disposal; she could only regard it as a responsibility.
“You’re very quiet,” remarked Ramesh, entering the cabin; “did you find a ghost in the box when you opened it?”
“This is yours,” said Kamala, holding the cash-box out to him.
“What am I to do with it?” he asked.
“You have only to tell me when you need anything and I’ll have it fetched for you.”
“But won’t you need anything yourself?”
“I don’t want any money,” answered Kamala, with a slight toss of her head.
Ramesh smiled. “It’s not many people who can say as much! However, if you value it so little why not make a present of it to a stranger? Why give it to me of all people?”
Without a word Kamala laid the cash-box on the floor.
“Now just tell me the truth, Kamala,” Ramesh went on, “are you annoyed because I didn’t tell you the end of that story?”
“I’m not annoyed,” replied Kamala, with her eyes on the ground.
Ramesh. “All right then, stick to that box. If you do that I’ll know you’re telling the truth.”
Kamala. “I don’t see the connection. It’s your property, and you ought to keep it.”
Ramesh. “But it isn’t mine! People who take back gifts become ghosts when they die. Do you think I want to be a ghost?”
The idea of Ramesh as a ghost tickled Kamala and she could not restrain her laughter.
“Certainly not! Do people who take back gifts really become ghosts? I never heard that.” Hostilities came to an end with Kamala’s involuntary merriment.
“There’s only one way to find out the truth,” said Ramesh, “and that is to ask a ghost about it yourself next time you meet one.”
Kamala’s curiosity was aroused. “Seriously, have you ever seen a real ghost?” she asked.
“Not a real one; I’ve seen lots of imitations; the genuine article is rare!”
Kamala. “Well, Umesh says—”
Ramesh. “Umesh; who is Umesh?”
Kamala. “Why, the boy who’s travelling with us. He has seen a ghost.”
Ramesh. “Well, I must confess he has the advantage of me there!”
Meanwhile after a great struggle the crew had succeeded in getting the vessel afloat She had not steamed far when the figure of a boy appeared on the bank. He carried a basket on his head and was running at top-speed and waving his arms as a signal to the boat to stop. The skipper took not the slightest notice of his predicament. Catching sight of Ramesh the runner hailed him, “Babu! Babu!”
“Takes me for the ticket-babu,” remarked Ramesh, and signed to him that he had no control over the steamer’s proceedings.
“Why, it’s Umesh!” exclaimed Kamala; “we can’t leave him behind. You must have him taken on board.”
“They won’t stop for me,” said Ramesh.
“Oh, you must tell them to stop!” cried Kamala, genuinely distressed. “Do tell them. We’re quite close to the bank.”
Ramesh accosted the skipper accordingly with a request to stop the steamer.
“It’s against the rules, sir,” was all the answer he received.
Kamala had followed Ramesh and she now joined her entreaties to his. “You musn’t leave him behind! Do stop for a moment! My poor Umesh!”
Ramesh now resorted to a simple method of overcoming the master’s scruples, and for a suitable consideration the man stopped the vessel and took the lad on board. He then proceeded to administer a dressing-down to the culprit. Umesh, however, did not turn a hair; he laid his basket at Kamala’s feet and grinned as though nothing had happened.
“It’s no laughing matter,” said Kamala, who had not quite recovered her equanimity. “What would have happened to you if the steamer had not stopped?”
Instead of replying Umesh turned over the basket and emptied out on the deck a bunch of green plantains, an assortment of spinach, and a number of pumpkins and brinjals.
“Where did you get all these?” demanded Kamala.
The account that Umesh gave would not have been classed by the police as “satisfactory.” On the day before when he had gone to the village market to buy curds and other provisions he had noted where these vegetables were growing in various gardens and on various roofs, and going ashore early that morning while the steamer was still aground he had made his selection without asking any one’s leave.
“What do you mean by stealing things from people’s gardens?” thundered Ramesh.
“It wasn’t stealing; I only took a little from each garden. No one’s any the worse.”
“So it isn’t theft when you only take a little! You rascal! Get out of my sight, and take these things with you!”
Umesh looked appealingly at Kamala. “Mother, this kind of spinach is what we call firing in my part of the country; it makes fine stew; and this we call beto, and—”
“Clear out!” cried Ramesh, thoroughly exasperated by this time, “you and your spinach, or I’ll kick the lot into the river.”
Umesh looked to Kamala for guidance and she signed to him to take the stuff away. He gauged from her manner that she still had a soft place in her heart for him, and collecting the vegetables he replaced them in the basket and sauntered off with them.
“It was very wrong of him; you mustn’t countenance that sort of thing,” was Ramesh’s comment as he went off to his cabin to write a letter.
Kamala looked round and espied Umesh sitting at the stem beyond the second-class deck near her improvised kitchen.
There being no second-class passengers Kamala went up to where he was sitting, after first veiling herself in a shawl. “Well, have you thrown the things away?” she asked.
“Oh, no; I put them all in the deck-house here.”
“It was very naughty of you, you know,” said Kamala, trying to look stem. “You’re never to do it again. Think what would have happened if you had been left behind!” She went into the deck-house and called out peremptorily, “Bring me a chopper!”
Umesh obeyed, and Kamala began to slice up the appropriated vegetables.
“Pounded mustard goes very well with that spinach, mother,” remarked Umesh.
“All right, get some ready,” said Kamala.
She was anxious to avoid the appearance of giving countenance to Umesh’s misdeeds, and it was with a very severe expression that she sliced up spinach, pumpkins, and binjals.
Alas! how could she do other than countenance the helpless waif? She herself regarded the theft of garden-stuff as a trifle compared with the homeless lad’s craving for protection. There was a touch of pathos about the affair that appealed to her; it was to please her that the scapegrace had planned and carried out his raid on the gardens, nearly losing the steamer thereby.
“There’s some of yesterday’s curds left over, Umesh,” she said, “and you can have them, but remember never to do such a thing again.”
“Didn’t you eat’ the curds yesterday, mother?” he asked penitently.
“I’m not as fond of them as you are. Look here now, we have everything except fish. How are we to get some fish for your master’s breakfast?”
“I can get you some fish, mother, but you’ll have to pay for it this time.”
Kamala had to administer another scolding. “I never saw such a silly boy as you, Umesh,” she said, trying to knit her beautiful brows. “As if I ever told you to get things without paying for them!”
The previous day’s incident had somehow given Umesh the notion that Kamala found it a difficult undertaking to extract money from Ramesh, and for this and other reasons he had conceived a dislike for his employer. Only the two dependents — himself and Kamala — came within the purview of the schemes that he devised for keeping the wolf from the door. There was no place for Ramesh in them.
The provision of vegetables was a comparatively simple matter but fish was not so easily procured. A world so constituted that without money one could not obtain even a small quantity of fish and curds for the object of one’s adoration appeared to Kamala’s youthful worshipper a hard and unsympathetic place.
“If you could only get five annas out of master,” he said disconsolately, “I could get you a big carp, mother.”
“That won’t do,” said Kamala reprovingly, “I can’t allow you to leave the steamer again. They won’t let you on board another time if you’re left behind.”
“I don’t want to go ashore; the crew netted some big fish this morning and they could sell us one or part of one.”
Kamala at once fetched a rupee and gave it to him.
“Pay for it out of that and bring bade the change.”
Umesh duly produced the fish but there was no change. “They wouldn’t take less than a rupee,” he announced.
Kamala knew that this was not the literal truth, and she observed, with a smile:
“Next time the steamer stops we’ll have to get some rupees changed.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Umesh, with becoming gravity; “once you show them a whole rupee it’s a job to get any of it back.”
“My eye! this is good,” remarked Ramesh a little later as he fell to his breakfast, “but where did you get it? Why, here’s a carp’s head,” and he held it up with a ceremonious air. “It’s neither a dream, nor an optical illusion, nor a figment of the imagination, but the genuine headpiece of Cyprinus Rohita!”
That day’s breakfast was a great success. After Ramesh had retired to a long chair on the deck to let his meal digest it was Umesh’s turn. His enjoyment of the fish-stew was so great that he went on eating steadily till Kamala from being amused became seriously alarmed. “Don’t take any more just now,” Umesh,” she cried anxiously, “I’ve put some by for your supper.”
Her varied activities and her sense of humour imperceptibly weaned Kamala from her morning fit of depression. The day wore on, and the sun sloping westward worked his way steadily across the deck under the awning. Over the throbbing steamer the air shimmered in the afternoon heat. Down the narrow tracks that threaded the fresh green of the autumn crops flocked rustic matrons, water-pot on hip, bound for their evening ablutions. Kamala was busy all the afternoon preparing pân, braiding her hair, washing, and changing her clothes, and the sun had set behind the bamboo clumps that marked the sites of villages before she was ready for the evening.
As on the previous day, the steamer lay up for the night off one of its regular landing-places. Kamala had just decided that the vegetables left over from breakfast would serve for supper, and that there was not much cooking to be done, when Ramesh came and announced that he had eaten such a hearty meal at midday that he did not require any supper.
“Won’t you have anything at all?” asked Kamala regretfully, “not even a little fried fish?”
“No, thank you,” he replied curtly and went away, whereupon Kamala heaped the whole of the savoury mess on Umesh’s plate.
“Haven’t you kept any for yourself?” he asked.
“I’ve had my supper,” was her reply, and the labours of her little water-borne ménage were over for the day.
The new moon was now spreading its radiance over stream and shore. There was no village close to the steamer-station, and the silent lustrous night seemed to be keeping vigil like a lady whose lover has not kept tryst over the soft green expanse of the rice-fields.
On a stool in the tin-roofed office on the bank sat a wizened little clerk totalling figures by the light of a kerosene lamp. Ramesh could see him through the open door. “Would that Fate,” he sighed, “had set me in some groove like that clerk’s — narrow but clearly defined! What harm could come to one in such a life — writing up accounts all day, scolded by one’s master when one makes mistakes, and going home at night with a day’s work behind one?”
By and by the light in the office went out. The clerk wrapped his head in a shawl to keep out the night air and slowly disappeared from view across the deserted fields.
Kamala had been standing for some time behind him by the rail but Ramesh was unaware of her presence. She had expected a summons from him after the evening meal. Her work was now over but no summons had come, so she had herself emerged quietly on to the deck.
But at sight of Ramesh she came to a sudden halt and her limbs refused to carry her farther. The moon shone on his face and his expression showed that his mind was far away — far away from her; she had no place in his thoughts. Between Ramesh, absorbed in his reverie, and herself she seemed to see the spirit of Night like a gigantic sentinel clad from head to foot in a robe of moonlight, with a finger laid on its lips.
When Ramesh covered his face with his hands and let his head sink upon the table Kamala stole away to her own cabin. She dared not make a sound lest he should hear it and discover that she had come in search of him.
Her cabin loomed dark and forbidding. She shivered as she crossed the threshold, and the full consciousness of her forlorn and solitary state swept over her like a flood. In the darkness the interior of the ramshackle little room seemed to gape at her like the jaws of some strange monster; but what other shelter could she seek? there was no spot in which she could lay her poor little body down and close her eyes with the knowledge that it was hers by right.
She peered in once, then shrank back again. As she recrossed the threshold Ramesh’s umbrella fell with a clatter against her tin trunk.
Startled by the noise Ramesh glanced up and rose from his chair. “It’s you, Kamala!” he exclaimed, perceiving her standing in the doorway of her cabin. “I thought you had turned in long ago. I’m afraid you’re a bit nervous. Look here, I shan’t stay outside any longer. I’m going to sleep in the next cabin and I’ll leave the door open between us.”
“I’m not afraid,” said Kamala haughtily. She stepped hastily into her cabin again and closed the door which Ramesh had opened; then she flung herself down on her bed and muffled her face in a shawl. She was acutely conscious of the loneliness of her own personality, utterly bereft of human companionship. Her whole being rose in revolt. If she were neither to have a protector nor to be her own mistress, life would indeed be insupportable!
Time dragged; Ramesh was sound asleep in the neighbouring cabin. Kamala could be still no longer; and she rose slowly, went out and stood by the rail gazing at the river-bank.
There was no sight or sound of any living creature. The moon was near its setting and the narrow paths through the crops were now invisible, but Kamala strained her eyes towards them. “What numbers of women must have carried water up these paths, each bound to her own home!” she reflected. Home! Her heart leapt at the thought. If only she had a little home somewhere! but where?
The banks of the river seemed to stretch unendingly into space. Overhead the huge vault of the sky extended from pole to pole; earth and sky both alike useless to her in their immensity! To the human atom all this illimitable vastness was hopelessly inadequate, for what she desired was a little home.
Kamala was startled to find some one standing by her. “It’s all right, mother, it’s only!” — the voice was Umesh’s.
“It’s very late, why aren’t you asleep?”
Then at last the tears streamed into her eyes; there was no damming them and they fell in big drops. Kamala turned away to hide her face from Umesh.
A water-laden cloud glides along till it meets a fellow-wanderer in the shape of a breeze; then it can no longer sustain its load. Thus with Kamala; a word of sympathy from the poor homeless lad and she could not hold back the tears that welled up in her breast. She essayed to speak but sobs choked her utterance.
In his distress Umesh cast about for means to console her. After a long silence he blurted out, “I say, mother, there’s seven annas left out of the rupee that you gave me.”
The current of Kamala’s tears was checked and she smiled and loved him for his inapposite remark. “Keep the money for the present,” she said. “Now be off to bed.”
The moon sank behind the trees. This time Kamala’s weary eyes closed as soon as she laid her head on the pillow. In the morning the sun’s imperious summons to arise found her still buried in slumber.