REPENTANCE

(A short story)

VERA SHARMA

The stars had just begun to pale in the early morning sky. In the old house the first oil dips were lit. The sound of splashing water came from the shed in which the tube-well stood. In a long dark room a young girl lay. Her face was thin and sallow. She slept with an arm thrown over her head, while her father sat on a webbing stool near her string cot. He had spent the night like this, so that she could be awakened every few hours to take her medicine. A cold sweat stood on her forehead and he gently wiped it away with a towel. He was relieved that the crisis had passed, and that she now lay restfully. Typhoid was rampant, and there were many cases in the village.

The door of the bathing shed squeaked on its old hinges as a woman of about forty emerged. Her dark wet hair hung down her back and her sari was loosely draped about her. She went about the house sprinkling water and intoning a prayer. She shivered slightly m the early morning chill. The house was quiet and her bare feet softly paddled the floor. Cocks crowing to each other shattered the stillness. From the cattleshed in the courtyard, came the insistent lowing of their cow.

“Have patience, you mad creature,” she muttered half affectionately and half angrily as she pulled on her long-sleeved blouse and knotted her heavy wet hair. She picked up a shining brass pail and assuring herself that her daughter lay sleeping, went out from the back door into the cold and mist of the courtyard. She instinctively pulled the end of her sari across her face, holding it in place with her teeth. Soon the metallic hiss of the warm milk as it struck the pail could be heard, and the murmuring of the woman to the cow, interrupted by the sound of an occasional slap on the cow’s shanks.

As she milked the cow, Heerawanti thought how lucky it was that they had Ajit in the house. Ajit was her brother-in-law, and a qualified medical practitioner without a practice. He was confirmed bachelor and, since he had enough money for his personal use from the joint family property, he had never cared to start a practice. He attended the family of his brother and numerous relations, for which he accepted no money, and avidly read the medical journals to which he subscribed. They were the last of a long line of Punjabi zamindars, who had been compelled to sell most of their land when the new laws came into force. Even so, they had enough to last them their lifetime, and though they could not live in the manner that they had been accustomed to, they still managed without anxiety or want. Above all, they were still among the richest people in the village, envied and disliked by their poorer neighbours because of their pride and haughtiness. Their daughter Vimala was not allowed to mix with the villagers, and most of her friends lived in the nearest town, where she went to school.

Heerawanti brought in the pail of frothy milk and started to light the wood fire. She listened with irritation to the gentle snoring of their young boy-servant, from where he lay on the coal sacks, covered from head to foot in a cheap coloured cotton sheet. The wood caught fire and she patiently blew at the flames through an iron pipe. The acrid smoke billowed out and her eyes began to water. She sniffed and wiped her eyes with her sari. Before long the water boiled and she made the tea. The two brass tumblers standing before her were filled and there was some left in the pot for the servant. Ajit had gone to the town to get a fresh supply of medicine. He would not come back till evening, having spent the night at the home of a relative. Holding the hot tumbler of tea with the folded end of her sari, she went to the room where her husband was sitting with Vimala.

“It is just made, drink it carefully,” she whispered, as she placed it on the window ledge. “How is she now?” Heerawanti asked, looking anxiously at her husband.

“Better,” he said, as he took the tumbler and sipped the hot tea nosily through his teeth.

Heerawanti went back to the kitchen. On the way she shook the servant, saying the while: “Donkey, must you be woken up every day? It, is nearly daylight. Go and tend the cow and clean the shed.”

The boy got up and stretched himself. Then fumbling for his old Quaker Oats tin, which served him as a drinking vessel, he came slowly forward with it in his hand. She poured the remaining tea into the tin, and he retired into the passage, huddling himself in his sheet, to drink.

Heerawanti sat on a webbing stool near the earthen stove and drank her tea. Soon, the slish-slush, slish-slush of the churn was heard, and the morning’s work had begun…..

Hardly had she finished her mid-day meal and washed her hands when she was interrupted. A peasant woman had entered the inner courtyard silently. She stood half bowed and with folded hands. Her shirt and baggy trousers were stained with toil and the powdery earth of the district. The coarse home-spun cloth which was draped over her head and shoulders was grimy and her hair was unkempt. Heerawanti recognized Ram Pyari, who, with her son, had often worked in their fields at harvesting time.

“What do you want?” she asked, a frown wrinkling her forehead.

“Mataji, is the Doctor sahib at home?” Ram Pyari cringingly inquired.

“No, he has gone to the town. Why do you ask?”

“It is my son. He is very sick and has been lying in our hut with fever for the past fifteen days. Mataji, if he should die, what will an old woman like me do?” She wiped a tear from her eye, and continued, “He is very sick. Perhaps the Doctor sahib will come and see him.” She buried her face in her veil and wept. “He is all I have, Mataji.”

“Sickness is all over the village these days. Even my daughter is ill. How can you expect the Doctor sahib to go everywhere. Besides, Ram Pyari, medicines cost money. Have you money?”

“Mataji, from where could I have money?” she asked through her tears.

“That is what I mean. Why do you want to trouble the Doctor sahib? He does not take money, it is true, but the medicines have to be paid for. What is the use of troubling him, if you have no money to buy medicines?”

“Mataji, perhaps he will be able to tell me how to cure my boy. He is all I have. When he is well he will work and pay the money,” she humbly replied.

“Do, you know how much money is needed? We have to spend many rupees a day on Vimla’s medicines. Could you afford that?” she said. It was a matter of pride to Heerawanti that so much was spent every day.

The peasant woman lowered her head in shame. She silently went to the door, wiping her eyes as she went.

“RAam Pyari.” Heerawanti called out after her. “God is great. Have faith in him.”

That evening Ajit was late getting back from the town. He wearily pedalled his bicycle across the vast plain. His cycle lamp threw a patch of uncertain light on the rough path before him. The black sky above him was studded with stars. He could hear the breeze in the sugarcane fields on either side of him, but he could see nothing except the little circle of light from his lamp. It was a long time before he saw the lights of the village.

As Heerawanti served the food to the two men, she glanced at her brother-in-law’s tired face. What was the use of telling him about Ram Pyari, she thought. Could he cure all the sick people in the village? And so she put the thought of Ram Pyari out of her mind.

Next evening Heerawanti was standing on the terrace of her house. She looked out across the fields idly. At one side, the grass lay green like the feathers on a parrot’s breast. Just as she was about to go down, her attention was caught by a group of people standing on the outskirts of the village. She watched them intently, for it was here that they cremated the dead. After a short while, a thin wisp of smoke rose up to the orange-streaked sky. Heerawanti called down to the inner courtyard, where the young servant was cutting fodder. “Go and find out who has died in our village,” she cried. The boy left his work and ran out.

Heerawanti waited impatiently for his return. Her guilty conscience smote her, and she stood breathlessly. It seemed like hours before the lad returned, but soon she perceived him loping along towards the house. When he came up to her on the terrace, he said, “Mataji, it is nobody important. Just a young labourer. How his mother weeps, poor thing, beating her breasts and forehead. It is nobody from a big house.”

Heerawanti’s guilt overwhelmed her and pity flooded her mind. Now, on looking back, she felt that she should not have taken it upon herself to answer for the doctor. Poor Ram Pyari was a mother like herself. She wondered how she could have been so hard-hearted.

Next morning Heerawanti sent Ram Pyari some money, and immediately she felt some relief from her guilt. The poor thing must have spent her all on the funeral, she thought.

“What did she say when you gave her the money?” she eagerly asked, as soon as the messenger returned.

“Mataji has a good heart. Tell her that Bhagwan took pity on me, my son is better. I shall buy him milk and fruit with this money.”

A strange expression of annoyance and relief flitted across her face as she thought: “So it was not Ram Pyari’s son after all. And to think that I did not eat last night, or sleep, thinking of her. Anyhow, it is better so.”

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