Over all this Balu’s voice rose: ‘You won’t be paid for just loafing.’ His voice thrilled Margayya. But he checked himself. He feared that he might make a scene, or that his son might start to run away, out of sight once again, and then the Inspector and the others might blame him for spoiling the entire situation. So he edged away towards a corner of the room and turned his face towards the wall as Balu strode in. Balu came in saying: ‘Manager, sir, we went through the People’s Park, Rundall’s Road, and Elephant Gate, and returned this way – except for the three boys, the rest skulked away for a nap in Moore Market. You must teach them a lesson, sir.’
Margayya could hold himself in check no more. He turned and observed that the boy wore a dirty dhoti, his cheeks were sunken, he was dark with wandering in the sun, and his hair was uncut. As he later explained to his relations, the moment he saw him he felt as if he had swallowed a live cinder. In this state he rushed forward with a loud cry, some indistinct words coming out in a rush in which the only clear words were: ‘Is this spectacle my fate? Is it for this I prayed for your birth as my son? What has come over you?’ His face was wet with tears. The boy was taken aback – so were the other two.
The Inspector had credited Margayya with greater self-possession. A crowd gathered at the door; the cinemagoers viewed this as a free show. The Inspector lost his temper at the sight of the crowd, and going up to the door, shouted: ‘Get out of this place.’ He stood at the doorway, and Balu felt that his retreat was cut off. He surrendered without a word.
The officer saw them off at the Egmore platform. Margayya gripped his arm and once again there were tears of gratitude in his eyes. He said: ‘You have been like a God to me. Tell me, if there is any way in which I can repay you, write to me. You know my address.’
‘Oh, yes. This is the first time I got at someone who was not a dacoit or a knave. I am glad to have done a good turn,’ said the Inspector. He told Balu: ‘Be a good son. Don’t be a bother to your parents again. I have told the railway police to keep an eye on you.’ It was this part that Balu did not like, and later commented after the Inspector went away.
‘What can the railway police do? I’m not a thief. If I want to give them the slip there are a dozen ways.’
The Inspector had got them comfortable seats in an end compartment which was not too crowded. All night Margayya plied his son with questions and tried to know what he had been doing with himself ever since his disappearance after the results, but the boy sullenly declared: ‘I won’t speak of anything. Why couldn’t you leave me alone? I was quite happy there.’
‘But … but … have you no affection, don’t you want to see your mother, your – ?’
‘I don’t want to see anybody.’
‘But my dear boy, do you know what it will mean to them to see you back in the flesh? Your mother broke down completely –’
‘Why couldn’t you have given me up for dead? I was quite happy seeing pictures every day. I want to be in Madras. I like the place,’ he said, already feeling dull at the prospect of living in Malgudi. ‘What are you going to do with me? Make me read for exams I suppose?’ he asked next.
‘You need not go near books: you can do just as you please,’ said Margayya indulgently. He was filled with love for his son. He felt an indescribable pity as he saw the dirty, greasy dress and the famished appearance the boy had acquired. He became absolutely blind to all the dozen persons packed into the compartment. He hugged his shoulders and whispered: ‘You eat, rest, and grow fat – that is all you are expected to do, and take as much money as you like.’
The boy seemed to accept this advice with a hundred per cent literalness. As one supposed to be returned from the grave, he was treated with extraordinary consideration. His mother, he found, seemed to have become an entirely new person. She looked more youthful. A new flush appeared on her sallow cheeks. Her eyes had become very bright and sparkling. She became loquacious and puckish in her comments. She took the trouble to comb her hair with care and stuck jasmine strings in it. She seemed to feel that she was born anew into the world. She spoke light-heartedly and with a trembling joy in her voice. This was a revelation to Balu. He had never thought they attached so much importance to his person. He enjoyed it very much. His mother plied him with delicacies all the time. He had only to take a deep breath and look for his mother, and she at once asked: ‘What do you want, my boy?’ Balu found that he had returned to a new home. Everything now was different. His father left him alone according to his promise. It was a very agreeable situation for all concerned – except Margayya’s brother and family.
The moment Balu was brought back home, their position as the helpers of the family disappeared. It was a relationship essentially thriving on a crisis. The moment that the crisis was over, the two families fell apart; and they were once again reduced to the position of speculating from the other side of the wall what might be happening next door. Margayya’s wife ceased to bother about them: Balu never knew that there had been a momentary friendliness during his absence. On the day he arrived with his father, when he stepped in and saw his uncle and the family in their central hall, he was speechless.
His uncle demanded: ‘What have you been doing with yourself? What is all this – ?’
And his aunt and the children of the next house surrounded him and gaped at him. He felt abashed. He simply moved into the little room at the side and shut the door on the entire gathering. That was the signal; when he reopened the door, the house was cleared and the front door bolted. Margayya briefly announced to him: ‘They have all gone.’
‘Where?’ Balu asked with interest.
‘To their own house,’ Margayya said, and added: ‘What is their business here, anyway?’
His wife chimed in: ‘They probably wanted an excuse to plant themselves in here again!’
Margayya did not like to contradict her or say anything so utterly ungracious himself, although the moment he had secured his son, his first thought was to tell his brother’s family, as diplomatically as his nature would permit, that they might go back to their house and resume their avocations! This he said very gently when the occasion came. As Balu shut himself into the small room, his brother wanted anxiously to know what had happened.
He said: ‘Did I not tell you to go to Madras, and then it would turn out to be good for you?’
Here is this fellow, Margayya reflected, rubbing in his own wisdom and judgement as usual. He hated in his brother the ‘Didn’t I say so?’ tone that he constantly adopted. It seemed to him a very irritating and petty habit of mind, and so he retorted sharply: ‘That’s all right, nobody doubts your wisdom.’
His brother ignored this sting and asked: ‘Well, where did you find him? What was he doing? Who wrote that card?’
Margayya lowered his voice and said in a whisper: ‘I will tell you all that later, when the boy is out of hearing. Now I had better attend to his wants.’ He moved towards the street door.
His brother took the hint: he cast a glance at his wife, who got up, herded the children together and started out, telling Margayya’s wife: ‘I have so much to do at home – I think … Anyway, let us thank God for this recovery,’ and marched out. The moment the door shut on them, Margayya’s brother’s wife ground her teeth and said: ‘Even if this house is on fire, let us not go near them again.’ It was a sentiment which was not approved by the last but one toddling beside her: ‘Why not, mother? It’s so nice being in that house!’
‘Now what has happened for you to make all this fuss?’ her husband asked. There were tears in her eyes when she went up the steps of her own house. She said: ‘I only want you to have self-respect, that’s all. After all that we have done for them these three days, baking and cooking for them night and day – five seers of rice gone for those ingrates –’
‘After all, she was the only person in their house. You have included the feeding of your own children,’ her husband said; which enraged her so much that she stabbed his cheeks with her finge
rs screaming: ‘Go and lick their feet for love of that wonderful brother of yours, you will do anything for him I am sure.’
PART FOUR
Balu devoted himself to the art of cultivating leisure. He was never in any undue hurry to get out of bed. At about nine o’clock, his father came to his bedside and gently reminded him: ‘Had you not better get up before the coffee gets too stale?’ Balu drank his morning coffee, demanded some tiffin, dressed himself, and left the house. He returned home at about one o’clock and sat down to his lunch. His mother waited for him interminably. He came home any time after one. Sometimes he came home very late. Even then he found his mother waiting.
‘What are you waiting for, mother?’ he asked. She never answered the question but went on to serve him his dinner. After dinner, he went up to the shop opposite, bought betel leaves and areca-nut, chewed them with great satisfaction, and sat down on a dealwood box placed in front of the shop, watching the goings-on of the street for a while and smoking a cigarette, after making sure his mother was not watching. If he saw any elder of the house or of the next house coming out, he turned the cigarette into the hollow of his palm and gulped down the smoke. After this luxury, he suddenly got up, crossed the street, and went back to his house. He spread a towel on the granite floor, in the passage from the street, and, cooled by the afternoon breeze blowing in through the street door, was overcome with drowsiness and was soon asleep. He was left undisturbed. He woke from sleep only at five in the evening, and immediately demanded something to eat and drink, washed himself and combed his crop and went out. He returned home only after ten, when the whole town had gone to sleep. By this time, his father had already come home and was fretting, bothering his wife to tell him where Balu had gone. He had got into the habit of feeling panicky if Balu absented himself too long from home. But the moment the door opened and Balu came in, he became absolutely docile and agreeable.
He said: ‘Oh, Balu has come!’ with tremendous enthusiasm, and as he went in to change, asked with the utmost delicacy: ‘Where have you been?’ avoiding to the best of his ability any suggestion of intimidation or effrontery.
The boy just said: ‘I’ve been here and there – what should I be doing at home?’
Six months of this life and the boy became unrecognizable: there were fat pads under his eyes; his chin was doubling, and his eyes seemed to shrink down to half their original size. Margayya wondered what to do with him. ‘Must do something so that he is able to grow up like other normal boys of his age – otherwise he will rust.’ He thought that the best solution would be to marry him. He sent out his emissaries, and very soon the results became evident. From far and wide horoscopes came in, and letters asking for his son’s in return. Margayya carefully scrutinized the status of those who clamoured for his alliance. It was like the State Ministry scrutinizing the wedding proposals of a satellite Prince. The chief assistant in this business was his accountant Sastri. He had acquired a new status now as a matchmaker. As he sat in his corner copying in his ledger, Margayya said from his seat: ‘Sastri, do you know anyone with a daughter?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Sastri said, pleased to have an opportunity to look up from his ledger. ‘Yes, sir, quite a lot of inquiries have been coming my way, sir, for Balu –’
‘Then why didn’t you mention the matter to me?’
‘You may be sure, sir, that when the right party comes they will be brought to you. Till then it does not seem to be very necessary to trouble you, sir.’
‘Quite right,’ said Margayya, pleased with his accountant and feeling his own eminence unquestioned and clearly placed. ‘You are right, Sastri – I’m very keen that if there is to be an alliance it must be with a family who have a sense of –’
‘I know, sir, they must at least be your equal in status, sir.’
‘Status! Status!’ Margayya laughed pleasantly. ‘I don’t believe in it, Sastri … it’s not right to talk of status and such things in these days. You know I’m a man who has had to work hard to make money and keep it. But I never for a moment feel that I am superior to anyone on earth. I feel that even the smallest child in the road is my equal in status.’
‘Very few there are, sir,’ said the other, ‘who are so wealthy and are so free from vanity or showiness. I have known people with only a tenth of what you possess, sir, but the way they –’
‘How do you know it is only a tenth of what I have?’ Margayya asked, his suspicions slightly roused: for he let the other keep only one set of accounts: the other set which gave a fuller picture of his financial position was always in his possession. Had this fellow been peeping into his private registers? The man gave a reassuring reply: ‘Any child in the town can say who it is if he is asked to name the richest man.’ It was very flattering and true, but Margayya hoped that the income-tax people would not take the same view. Further development of this conversation was cut off because three clients from a far-off village came in asking: ‘Is this Margayya’s?’ At once Margayya and his assistant fell silent and became absorbed in their work. When anybody entered with that question on his lips, it meant that he was a new client, he had been sent in by one of Margayya’s agents, and he would want ready cash before departing for the evening.
Margayya said: ‘Come in, come in, friends. May I ask who has sent you along?’ They had come with the right recommendation. The three villagers came in timidly, tucking in their upper-cloth. Margayya became very officious and showed them their seats on the mat: it was as if he had reserved for them special seats on fresh carpets and divans. He then said: ‘Will you have soda or coffee? Or would you care to chew betel leaves?’ He turned to Sastri and said: ‘Send the boy down to fetch something for them: they have come a long distance. You came by bus?’
‘Yes, paying a fare of twelve annas; and we want to catch the evening bus, if possible.’
They went by the evening bus, but leaving their mortgage deed behind, and carrying in their pouches three hundred rupees, the first instalment of interest on what was already held at the source. The first instalment was the real wealth – whose possibilities of multiplication seemed to stretch to infinity. This was like the germinating point of a seed – capable of producing hundreds of such germinating points. Lend this margin again to the next man, as a petty loan, withholding a further first instalment; and take that again and lend it with a further instalment held up and so on … it was like the reflections in two opposite mirrors. You could really not see the end of it – it was a part of the mystic feeling that money engendered in Margayya, its concrete form lay about him in his iron safe in the shape of bonds, and gold bars, and currency notes, and distant arable lands, of which he had become the owner because the original loans could not be repaid, and also in the shape of houses and blocks of various sizes and shapes, which his way of buying interest had secured for him in the course of his business – through the machinery of ‘distraint’. Many were those that had become crazed and unhappy when the courts made their orders, but Margayya never bothered about them, never saw them again. ‘It’s all in the business,’ he said. ‘It’s up to them to pay the dues and take back their houses. They forget that they asked for my help.’ People borrowed from him only under stress and when they could get no accommodation elsewhere. Margayya was the one man who easily lent. He made the least fuss about the formalities, but he charged interest in so many subtle ways and compounded it so deftly that the moment a man signed his bonds, he was more or less finished. He could never hope to regain his possessions – especially if he allowed a year or two to elapse.
There were debt relief laws and such things. But Margayya nullified their provisions because the men for whom the laws were made were enthusiastic collaborators in his scheme, and everything he did looked correct on paper. He acquired a lot of assets. But he lost no time in selling them and realizing their cash again, and stored it in an iron safe at home. ‘What am I to do with property?’ he said. ‘I want only money, not brick and lime or mud,’ he reflected when he reco
nverted his attached property into cash. The only property he often dreamt of was the one at the foot of the Mempi Hills, but somehow it was constantly slipping away: that fellow, Kanda, came again and again, but always managed to retain his ownership of his lands.
Sastri turned up with quite a score of offers for Margayya’s son. Margayya felt greatly flattered and puffed up with conceit. This was evidence that he had attained social importance. He had never thought that anyone of consequence would care to ally with his family. There was a family secret about his caste which stirred uneasily at the back of his mind. Though he and the rest were supposed to be of good caste now, if matters were pried into deeply enough they would find that his father’s grandfather and his brothers maintained themselves as corpse-bearers. They were four brothers. The moment anyone died in the village, they came down and took charge of the business from that moment up to dissolving the ashes in the tank next day. They were known as ‘corpse brothers’. It took two or three generations for the family to mitigate this reputation; and thereafter, they were known as agriculturists, owning and cultivating small parcels of land. No one bothered about their origin, afterwards, except a grand-aunt who let off steam when she was roused by declaring: ‘It’s written on their faces – where can it go, even if you allow a hundred years to elapse.’