Nectar in a Sieve Read Free

The seeds sprouted quickly, sending up delicate green shoots that I kept carefully watered, going several times to the well nearby for the purpose. Soon they were not delicate but sprawling vigorously over the earth, and pumpkins began to form, which, fattening on soil and sun and water, swelled daily larger and larger and ripened to yellow and red, until at last they were ready to eat, and I cut one and took it in. When Nathan saw it he was full of admiration, and made much of this one fruit -- he who was used to harvesting a field at a time.
    "One would have thought you had never seen a pumpkin before," I said, though pleased with him and myself, keeping my eyes down.
    "Not from our land," said Nathan. "Therefore it is precious, and you, Ruku, are indeed a clever woman."
    I tried not to show my pride. I tried to be offhand. I put the pumpkin away. But pleasure was making my pulse beat; the blood, unbidden, came hot and surging to my face.
    After that, ten times more zealous, I planted beans and sweet potatoes, brinjals and chillies, and they all grew well under my hand, so that we ate even better than we had done before.

     

    CHAPTER II

    KUNTHI'S child was born a few months before mine, a fine boy who nearly took his mother's life in exchange for his own. Janaki was ill and could not come, Kali was away, therefore I had to do what I could. Kunthi's husband went off to fetch the midwife, leaving me with the sweating girl. When she saw who I was -- not at once, for she was half-dazed with pain -- Kunthi cried out that she did not want me.
    "You must go," she kept entreating.
    "Why?" I said. "Do you dislike me so much, then?"
    "No, no, but please go. I do not want you here."
    "I cannot and will not. Besides, there is no one else."
    "I shall be all right. The midwife will be here soon."
    "And what will your husband say," I said, "if I leave you here alone?" and I took no more notice of her cries.
    When she saw I would not go, she grew still and lay like a log, not a murmur from her, but the sweat forcing itself up in oily drops on her throat and temples.
    Kunthi was lying in an exhausted sleep, with her baby beside her, before I went home. It was a whole day since I had left. Nathan was waiting for me and he said crossly: "You look like a corpse. Whatever possessed you to stay so long?"
    "Blame the midwife," I said. "She could not be found. Or blame Kunthi's son. He took a long time."
    I was tired and my voice was on edge.
    "Well, so long as you don't forget you are pregnant," he said shortly and turned away. It was the first time I had seen him angry. Tears came pricking at my eyeballs. I sat down to stop my head from spinning, and after a while the pain went. He means well, I thought. He is anxious only about our child. Better that he should worry than that he should not.
    From then on, I began to take more care of myself, leaving more and more of the work to Nathan. Sowing time was at hand and there was plenty to be done in the fields: dams of clay to be built to ensure proper irrigation of the paddy terraces; the previous year's stubble to be lifted; rushes and weeds to be destroyed; then the transplanting. All this meant stooping, and Nathan would not hear of it.
    With the leisure I now had I took up writing again. It was my father who taught me to read and write. People said he did it because he wanted his children to be one cut above the rest; perhaps so, but I am certain that he also knew that it would be a solace to me in affliction, a joy amid tranquillity. So he taught his six children, myself the youngest by ten years, with the patience he brought to all things. "Practise hard," he would say, watching me busy with slate and pencil. "For who knows what dowry there will be for you when you are ready!" And I, with only the thistledown of childish care upon me, would listen lightly and take up my pencil again.
    "What use," my mother said, "that a girl should be learned! Much good will it do her when she has lusty sons