How strange, he thought, and frowned.
‘What are you thinking of?’ said Rasheed, quite brusquely. ‘Once you can read and write the language you’ll be free. So do pay attention, Kapoor Sahib.’
‘Look at that,’ said Maan.
‘That’s odd. You’re not diabetic, are you?’ said Rasheed, no longer with sharpness but concern in his voice.
‘No,’ said Maan, surprised. ‘Why? That’s where Baba spat just now.’
‘Oh, yes, I see,’ said Rasheed. ‘He is. And the flies gather around his spittle because it’s sweet.’
Maan looked over towards the old man, who was shaking his finger at one of the brats.
‘But he insists he’s in very good general health,’ said Rasheed, ‘and against all our advice, he still fasts every day during Ramazan. Last year it was in june, and he didn’t have a morsel of food or a drop of water from sunrise to sunset. And this year it’ll be at almost the same time of year. Long hot days. No one expects it of a man his age. But he won’t listen.’
The heat had suddenly begun to get to Maan, but he didn’t know what to do about it. He was sitting under the neem tree, which was the coolest place out of doors. If he had been at home, he would have turned on the fan, collapsed onto his bed and stared at the ceiling as the blades went round and round. Here there was nothing to do but suffer. The sweat trickled down his face, and he tried to be grateful that flies didn’t settle upon it immediately.
‘It’s too hot!’ said Maan. ‘I don’t want to live.’
‘You should have a bath,’ said Rasheed.
‘Ah!’ said Maan.
Rasheed went on: ‘I’ll go in and get some soap and tell the fellow to pump the water while you’re under the tap. It would have been too cold after dark last night, but now’s a good time… Use that tap.’ He pointed to the pump directly in front of the house. ‘But you should put on your lungi while bathing.’
There was a small, windowless room that jutted forward out of the house and Maan used this to change in. It was not part of the house proper but acted as a sort of shed. It contained spare parts for agricultural machinery and a few ploughs. Some spears and sticks stood in a corner. When Maan entered it there was as much expectation among the children as if an actor had gone backstage to emerge in a brilliant new costume. When he came out they discussed him critically.
‘Look at him, he looks so pale.’
‘He looks even more bald now.’
‘Lion, lion, without a tail!’
All of them became very excited. One odious child of about seven called ‘Mr Biscuit’ made use of the clamour to aim a stone at a girl. The stone went hurtling through the air and hit her on the back of the head. She started screaming in pain and shock. Baba, jolted out of his recitation, got up from his charpoy and appraised the situation in an instant. Everyone was staring at Mr Biscuit, who was trying to appear nonchalant. Baba caught hold of Mr Biscuit’s ear and twisted it.
‘Haramzada – bastard – you dare to behave like the animal you are?’ cried the old man.
Mr Biscuit began to blubber, and snot ran down from his nostrils. Baba dragged him by the ear to where he had been sitting, and slapped him so hard the boy almost went flying. Then, ignoring him, he sat down to his recitation again. But his concentration had been spoilt.
Mr Biscuit sat stunned on the ground for a few minutes, then got up to perpetrate what further mischief he could. Meanwhile his victim had been taken back home by Rasheed; she was bleeding copiously from the back of her head, and crying her eyes out.
Ignorant and brutal at the age of seven! This, thought Rasheed, is what the village does to you. Anger against his surroundings welled up within him.
Maan had his bath under the scrutiny of the village children. The cool water poured generously out of the spout, pumped by a very vigorous middle-aged man with a friendly, square, deeply furrowed and wrinkled face. He showed no signs of tiring and appeared to enjoy being of service, continuing to pump water even after Maan had finished.
Maan at last was cool and, therefore, at a truce with the world.
8.6
MAAN did not eat much at lunch but praised the food a great deal, hoping that some of his praise would get through to the unseen woman or women of the house who had prepared it.
A little after lunch, after they had washed their hands and were resting on the charpoys outside, a couple of visitors arrived at the house. One was Rasheed’s maternal uncle.
This man was the elder brother of Rasheed’s late mother. He was a huge, kind bear of a man, with a pepper-and-salt stubble. He lived about ten miles away, and Rasheed had once run off and lived with him for a month after he had been beaten at home for half-throttling a fellow schoolmate to death.