The Village by the Sea Read Free Page A

village say a factory is to be built in Thul and everyone will get jobs there. Perhaps I will get one too.’
    ‘When?’ cried Lila.
    ‘I don’t know. Not now, not for a long time. In the meantime – in the meantime I’ll look for work. The next time the de Silvas come from Bombay I’ll ask them if they can take me back with them and give me work.’ This was an idea he had had but never spoken of before. He was quite surprised to hear the words out loud himself. So was Lila.
    ‘In Bombay?’ she cried. ‘Then you would have to leave us, Hari?’
    ‘Yes. If I am to stay here, I could get work on a fishing boat – I will ask and we’ll see.’
    Lila nodded. She felt relieved now to think Hari was growing up and would soon be able to find work and earn money. Of course he was still
young, a year younger than her, and she could not expect him to work and earn like a man. Change would not come suddenly or quickly to their home and family, but it would come. She had to believe that it would come.
    She got up and bent to pick up the heavy water pot. Hari bent too, to help, and together they lifted it on to her head. She stood for a moment to get her balance and then walked away, back to the hut. Now she could go back to work. Pinto followed her, just as he always did, devotedly.

    Hari could not work any more. Although he had felt hopeful when talking to Lila of the future, he now wondered if he could really do anything about it. He stared at the dry, stony field that he had to plant with vegetables. What if he did clear and dig the field and sow some aubergines and marrows? The vegetables would be eaten. Then there would be nothing. It was simply not enough.
    He walked down to the sea which was heavy and still and glittering in the noonday sun. The tide was far out. The fishing fleet stood becalmed at the horizon as if it had come to the end of the
world and could go no further, its sails hanging slack at this still time of day. Only the pariah kites wheeled in the sky, up in the very dome of it, looking down on the crawling sea and the little creatures on earth from their great height and distance. Now and then they whistled thin, shrill whistles. And the pigeons cooed and cooed in the great banyan trees, sounding as if they were trying to console.
    Hari sat down in the grove of casuarina trees where it was always shady and even a little breeze murmured through the soft grey needles of the old twisted trees. It was the coolest and shadiest spot on the whole beach and Hari was not the only one to seek it out at midday. One of the old men who owned the coconut grove next to theirs lay there asleep, his head on a pile of casuarina needles, his turban spread over his eyes. He was a bad-tempered, drunken old man and Hari was careful not to wake him.
    He put his hands behind his head and leaned against a tree trunk, half closing his eyes against the glare from the sea. Out of the white-hot sky one of the floating kites swooped suddenly down, snatched up something on the beach and swooped upwards again. Hari opened his eyes to see what
it was that dangled helplessly from its beak. A pair of kites chased after it, the prey dropped from its beak and Hari saw that it was a dead snake.
    He was going to get up and go and inspect it when Ramu came cycling up and stopped under the trees, along with two other boys from the village who, like Hari, had given up going to school although not for the same reasons as Hari. He could no longer pay the fees, low as they were, nor buy books which they could easily for their fathers owned fishing boats and went out to fish and brought home catches they could sell to the dealers who took them to Bombay in lorries. They had simply grown bored with school and were waiting for some opportunity to come along which would bring them money and a good time. They were quite old enough to help their fathers fish but they did not like to, thinking it a boring occupation for uneducated men.
    Hari, Ramu,