The Painter of Signs Read online

  She began a preamble : That’s the reason I feel strongly that sex-education must be given from the kindergarten stage. Otherwise so much ignorance and taboo - it’s led to the present state of affairs. I hope you at least know that it’s the easiest thing to produce a baby — ’

  ‘Yes, of course, but not always practical,’ he said, while she went on — ‘the more difficult thing is to stop one from coming. This is the point which I wish to emphasize everywhere, in every nook and corner of the country, dinning it into every citizen, old and young.’ She seemed all of a sudden to be getting into the spirit of public speaking, forgetting that she was cooped up in a bullock-cart with an audience of one or perhaps two, if the cart-driver was to be included. She went into great detail, without the slightest inhibition, about the course a recalcitrant sperm took and the strategy to halt its journey. She touched upon various aspects of contraception, spoke with such zeal that Raman began to wonder what freakish experience or trauma might be responsible for this sort of unmitigated antagonism to conception. He had heard all this before, over and over again, when she addressed village audiences; but now this was a sort of command performance in this narrow closed space, all alone on the highway. It thrilled him and gave him vicarious satisfaction,

  It was seven o’clock. They were planning to catch the town bus leaving Koppal at eight for Malgudi. They had been journeying for over three hours now. The cartman suddenly pulled up crying. ‘Damned, accursed thing.’ The bullock had stumbled and hurt its leg. The cartman got off his seat and went up to examine the injury. The passengers also got down. The old man looked both forlorn and angry. He hit the animal on its haunches with the handle of the whip, and said, ‘I knew it’d do this sort of thing.’

  ‘What has happened?’ they asked anxiously.

  ‘He has hurt himself — the fool didn’t use his eyes, and has injured his leg. Should not a sensible animal use his eyes and see what’s ahead, if a pit or furrow is there? The son-of-a ...’ He made allusions to the mixed-up, ill-begotten progenitors of this creature. He quickly unyoked the animal, took its foreleg in his hand, and examined it with tender care - for all the foul references in his speech. He was almost in tears as he said, ‘He can’t pull any more.’ He stood brooding for a moment as to what he should do.

  Daisy and Raman looked rather worried. ‘So what do we do?’ they asked in unison.

  ‘I’ll take him to the village over there, where he will have an application of medicinal leaves ...’

  To Raman the cartman seemed more preoccupied with the animal’s leg than with their fate. He went on elaborating about the medicament for the animal until Raman was forced to inquire, ‘What are we to do?’

  ‘Stay here or come with me. I’ll get another bull to go forward. I promised to take you to Koppal- I’ll keep the promise, don’t worry.’

  ‘How far away is the village?’

  ‘My nephew lives there and he will help me.’

  ‘Good. How far away is it, I asked.’

  ‘How do I know? I don’t carry a measuring rod. I can go there, and I promise that I’ll be back and take you onward. I have promised you that I’ll take you to Koppal. I’ll take you there. Don’t worry. This place is safe, no robbers or evil spirits, and I’ll be back. The place is safe. You have there a nice bed of straw with a carpet. Eat your food and sleep peacefully. I’ll be back. I have travelled down this road hundreds of times in my life ... This place is as safe as your bedroom. Eat and sleep peacefully. I’ll come back with a good yoke.’ He dragged the cart under a tree and, with many suggestive hints to the newlywed couple, was gone with his animal. The jingling of its bell came from a distance. A half-moon appeared in the sky.

  They became self-conscious at being left alone and looked at each other in embarrassment. This sudden isolation seemed to place a moral burden on them both. For a moment Raman welcomed the opportunity, but actually felt nervous. He had had no notion how important the old cart-driver’s presence had been. They stood about rather uncertainly. A fear came over him that any move on his part was likely to be misunderstood. He said, ‘A nice breeze blowing.’

  ‘Yes,’ Daisy said, without any special spirit.

  He looked up heavenward and declared, ‘A half-moon, rather pretty, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘A full moon would have been glorious, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, still looking in the direction in which the old man had departed - he had suddenly plunged into a bush and gone off cross-country. ‘What a fellow to leave us stranded like this!’ she said in a tone of slight horror.

  ‘Oh, he will come back, can’t have gone very far. Are you afraid?’

  She shook her head rather contemptuously. ‘It is not that. I am used to worse situations in life, but he should have told us where he was going.’

  ‘Perhaps we could abandon this cart and walk to the nearest village. It would serve him right.’ She remained silent over this solution. He said, ‘Would you say that you are tired or can you walk? ... Let us pick up our things and leave this place.’ He looked at his watch rather purposelessly, and muttered, Half past something or other. She ignored his suggestion, and looked about for her usual throne in such places, could find none, flashed her torch on the ground, and, finding it clear, sat down. ‘ The important thing is to see that there are no reptiles around,’ he commented, and followed suit, sitting a little away from her. It was hard for him to decide what distance he should keep from her; with a third person in the company he could nestle close to her as in the waggon, but now he wanted to avoid the slightest trace of a suspicious movement. He shifted and moved away and sat where it would not be too near to create a bad impression or too far if she preferred his company. After an approximate calculation, he got up again and took another seat, as if it were a game of human chess - the sort of game that the Mughal emperors played with human chessmen on marble squares in medieval times. He decided that if she moved even a hair’s breadth closer to where he sat, he would take it as a signal for him to make a move, and ultimately there should be no space between them whatever. He noticed that she had now got into her non-speaking phase and he would have to respect her silence.

  They sat thus for a while, and then he said abruptly, ‘Past eight. Let me serve your dinner.’ She acquiesced. He rose and went back to the cart and took out their little hamper of food. He gave it over to her, placed before her the water bottle too, and waited for her to begin. She opened the food container, tore a banana leaf in two, heaped on one a portion of rice, and held it to him. He said, ‘It is kind of you,’ and ate in silence. Vague sounds of night birds and insects unseen stirred the air. It was a first night between an awkward couple. Perhaps so in his imagination. After the food she held out to him a cup of water. We are a well-matched couple - how well she looks after me! he reflected. What would I not give to know what is passing in her mind? The crux of the problem is not now, it is what comes after the dinner.

  After the rice and a drink of water, her mood seemed to improve and she became communicative. ‘Quite a volume of correspondence must have piled up on my desk, and it is tackling the letters that really worries me. I don’t mind any amount of field-work.’

  ‘Don’t hesitate if I can be of any help,’ he said.

  ‘Well, well, I can manage it; I have always managed these things myself. I am not cut out for desk work, I think.’

  ‘Oh, no, I would not agree with you. Well, you are so effective when you are dealing officially - as I found out when I brought the first sign-board for your office the other day. It seems so long ago!’ he said wistfully.

  ‘Actually twelve weeks ago, not longer ...’ she said with precision.

  He smiled uncomfortably. ‘I feel as if we had known each other several Janmas,’ he said rather plaintively.

  ‘It is imagination really,’ she said. ‘Do you believe in reincarnation?’

  He wanted to make sure that he should have the right answer for h
er and asked, ‘Do you?’

  ‘No,’ she said bluntly.

  He replied, ‘There are some people who believe in it, and some others who don’t. Opinion is divided -’

  ‘I am asking what you think.’

  ‘Oh, I am so busy all the time, no time to brood over such questions. Well, perhaps when I sit calmly in retirement, I shall be about to sort out these questions.’ Now he said rather gallantly, ‘You have been walking and straining yourself since the morning. Please climb into that carriage and sleep if you like. I will remain outside and keep a watch. The cartman has lowered the front of the cart to that culvert so that it doesn’t slope down, but keeps level.’

  ‘You have also been quite active the whole day - must be as tired. Why don’t you get in and sleep first? I will stay out and watch.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ he said, ‘it is a man’s duty. I will stay out, you get in.’

  She said after considering the question, ‘Let us see ...’ Briskly she went up to the cart, brought out a roll of carpet and a pillow. ‘You will have to sleep under the carriage, it will be cosy, only remember not to knock your head when you rise,’ and they both laughed. She added, ‘Some people cannot sleep with the sky open above them...’

  ‘I am one such, how did you guess ...’

  She knelt down, spread the carpet for him with a sprinkling of straw under it, placed the pillow, and made his bed. Raman felt tender and grateful. He put his head into the carriage to arrange her bed reciprocally, flashed his torch in, and smoothed out the straw and the little carpet the cartman had placed there. They washed the vessels with a little water and packed them away. ‘We may at least rest until the cart-driver returns. I hope it won’t be difficult to wake you up.’ Raman helped her to climb into her bed, hung about a little, and crept under the carriage.

  The moonlight, stars, the cool breeze-everything seemed to affect his equanimity. He lay tossing on his bed of straw, looking up longingly at the bottom of the cart. He debated within himself whether to dash up, seize her, and behave like Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik, which he had seen as a student. Women liked an aggressive lover - so said the novelists. He recollected piecemeal all her words of the last three weeks - those three weeks had brought them closer than anyone could hope for in three years. A secret life seemed to have developed between them. When they had travelled jogging in the bullock-cart, in the narrow space, they often rubbed shoulders and their knees touched. Once when the cart bumped rather roughly over a track, they were flung against each other. Once or twice, he thrust his arm forward and tried to touch her; she fended him off unobtrusively. His whole being was convulsed with waves of desire now. He said to himself, I adore her, but this silly tension that’s rising within me must be quelled. I should, perhaps, meditate on the Third Eye of Shiva, by opening which he reduced the God of Love to ashes, and, perhaps, achieved what we nowadays call sublimation. He brooded and projected himself ahead. He would just slip in and hold her down if she resisted. And then she’d become pregnant. That’d make her run to him for support. Good thing, too. Send away Aunt to her cousin’s house in the village. Daisy would live in Ellaman Street with their child - nice and normal; but if she gave birth to twins — there were many cases of twins these days — they’d probably sack her for unprofessional conduct. That’d be a good thing too. She would come to depend upon him completely and he would protect her and give her a good life. Only he’d have to run around a little more and secure more orders; that would be managed. Everything seemed to be working out well, fitting into a preordained scheme, what could be more normal than, with a man and woman lying under the stars separated by an artificial man-made barrier, smashing that barrier in order to spend the night in a proper embrace? He peeped out - twinkling stars and the half moon on the horizon about to set. He felt one was wasting one’s opportunities lying on hard ground. He softly crawled out, raised himself, stood at the mouth of the waggon. He hesitated for a moment whether to call her in a soft whisper and then proceed or - it seemed irrelevant to go through all such formality; this was no time for hesitation. This was a god-given moment meant for action. Man must live for the moment and extract its essence. Every minute becomes a yesterday, and is lost forever. ‘Today is tomorrow’s yesterday.’ He heaved himself up and slid into the waggon blindly. He saw nothing, forgot his surroundings, his only aim being to seize his prey, whatever the consequences. The future was a silly, insignificant notion and meant nothing. Everything that he felt impelled to do seemed to him perfectly justifiable. He whispered: ‘Don’t fear, it’s only me, my sweetheart. Don’t torment me,’ and flung his arm around where she would be.

  But she was not there. The carpet was still warm. He ran his hand up and down so as to know if she had hidden herself under a layer of straw. Only his fingers felt and picked up a piece of garment of soft material, and he seized it as if it were a booty. Where is she, while her undergarment is here? The shameless creature! Where is she gone? Eloped with someone for the night, without impediments!

  His tension suddenly relaxed. He felt it absurd to be holding this thing in his fist, and put it back. He called, ‘Daisy! Daisy!’ He got out and ran hither and thither calling her. Began to feel worried. Or could it be she was Mohini, who tempted men and fooled them? He quietly went back to his own carpet under the cart.

  In the morning he crawled out from under the carriage. The cartman had come, and cheerily explained, ‘I woke up my nephew, it took me half the night to get to him, and then the rascal would not get up. I had to bang on his door till he came out and attended to me.’ He asked, ‘Slept well?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’

  The cartman forbore to look into the waggon where the lady was supposed to be asleep. After waiting for a little time: ‘If the lady wakes up, I can yoke the bullock and start out.’ The birds were chirping and creating a din on the branches of trees. ‘Where is the lady?’ he asked suddenly. Raman wondered what to say. The cart-driver added, ‘Must have gone to the well. There is one near by - quite shallow; but the water is very sweet. Have you washed?’

  ‘Presently,’ Raman said with casual ease. ‘After she comes,’ secretly wondering if he was destined to see her again but speaking in a tone as if he were waiting at the door of a bathroom. Suppose she had stumbled into that well? ‘How far away is the well?’ he asked.

  ‘Just beyond that tamarind tree, that’s why I unyoked here. I thought you might have noticed it.’

  ‘Yes, of course. She mentioned the well, but I didn’t look for it yet.’ He sounded like a seasoned husband who left everything to a wife’s management and completely depended upon her, including the directions for a morning wash.

  Raman felt light in the head, the aftermath of the upsurge of love, his eventual moral collapse (as it seemed), and the frustration of it all.

  ‘Women observe these things first,’ said the cartman. They saw Daisy approaching from beyond the tamarind tree. She had tidied herself up at the well, and looked quite bright. A few drops of water still glistened on her forehead. She had been wiping her face with the end of her sari. As she came up, he wanted to say, I know you are wearing nothing inside. We’ll now leave you to put your clothes back on your good self.

  The cartman said, ‘I’ll give this animal a drink of water and then we may go ...’

  Raman did not spend much time looking at her. He followed the cart-driver, saying, ‘I’ll have a wash at the well.’

  ‘If you are brisk, you can catch the bus at Koppal. At the bus-stand, there is a coffee-shop. The lady must be hungry. I’ll take you there as fast as possible.’

  The cartman drove his bullock towards the well. Raman followed him mutely, leaving Daisy without a word or a glance in her direction. He was aware of the flash of her grey-coloured sari from a corner of his eye. He felt that perhaps she expected him to say something, a greeting, explanation or something, and his going off must surprise her, he thought. But he did not care how she felt. He had a rage against her for deserting him. She had c
ommitted a wrong, as it seemed to him. Was it wrong? he asked, bewildered. Who was in the wrong, actually? He couldn’t be sure. If he had succeeded in his desperate aim last night, he might have ended up in prison for rape. In course of time he might have had to be greeting the twins from behind the bars. Some providence had protected him in spite of himself. At this realization, he felt lighter at heart and even vaguely grateful to the girl for taking herself away in good time and thus saving him. No more reference to this; he must forget it completely and wipe it from his memory. He was appalled at the potentialities that lay buried within him. No reference, no reference, he told himself.

  In spite of this resolution, when they were again sitting in the waggon on their way to the bus-stand ten miles away, he couldn’t help saying the first sentence for the day. ‘Thanks for saving me.’

  ‘Yes?’ she said.

  ‘From myself,’ he added. She made no response. The jingling of the bells of the bullock were the only sound for a while. He inquired gently, ‘Where were you?’

  ‘On a branch of the tamarind tree.’

  ‘All night?’ he whispered.

  ‘Yes, until the dawn.’

  ‘I am sorry you should have suffered there.’

  ‘Yes, it was not comfortable but protected from the prowling tiger.’ For a minute he felt a relief that it was only a tiger that had driven her out. ‘You said tiger? How big was it?’

  ‘I heard it scratching the mat under the cart, and when it appeared at the mouth of the carriage, I managed to slip out the other end to the tree ...’

  Raman felt it would be best to observe silence. Then he asked suddenly, ‘When did you learn tree climbing?’

  ‘We used to play Gorilla when I was young; whoever becomes a Gorilla must climb a tree and stay there. We used to play this for hours day after day, and that’s been helpful. I now realize the meaning of the proverb, “When you are married to the devil, you must be prepared to climb the tamarind tree” - they must have had me in mind.’