Boats on Land: A Collection of Short Stories Read Online Free PDF

Wallang hadn’t been able to prescribe anything specific. Lucy needed to eat better, put on some weight, perhaps meet other English girls her age.
    ‘I know Miss Lucy sometimes helps out at Sunday School,’ the doctor added, ‘but it’d be good if she had more friends to keep her occupied.’
    ‘When she’s better I’ll take her to Shillong,’ said Jonah.
    With the striking of the clock Mr Smithson had exclaimed at the lateness of the hour, and insisted the doctor go home.
    Doctor Wallang stubbed out the cigarette and looked back at the bungalow. It lay shrouded in darkness; the household had retired and the lanterns put out. He wrapped the shawl closer around him, glad for its warmth against the frosty night air. From the pine forest came the wail of a niangkongwieng, its shrill, tremulous notes carried to him on the wind.
    ‘Next,’ the doctor called, wondering how many patients were left before he was done for the day. He’d seen more cases than usual and was tired. From the window, he caught a glimpse of his wife watering the vegetable garden, leaving neat lines of dark, wet soil. On his desk lay a note from Sahib Flynn, requesting for an antiseptic cream to apply on a cut on his hand. As Doctor Wallang mixed the medication in a mortar, his back to the door, someone entered the room.
    ‘How can I help you?’ he asked.
    ‘Doctor, will she become well?’
    The young man, with windswept hair and lean, wiry limbs, seemed uneasy indoors—perhaps he was more at home in the stables or out on the hills.
    ‘They won’t let her come out any more now. I hear she’s ill…lah kem ksuid.’ The boy struggled to stay calm.
    It had been a week since Doctor Wallang’s visit to Kut Madan. He would have liked to check on Lucy, but he hadn’t been summoned, and he couldn’t drop by at the bungalow unannounced.
    ‘Why are you concerned about her?’
    The young man flushed.
    ‘I’m Kyntang…’
    ‘I know who you are. That’s why I’m asking.’
    ‘You won’t understand,’ he said, with the martyric certainty of youth. ‘Everyone told me I’m mad, I must forget her because this—it’s not possible.’
    ‘It’s not possible,’ said the doctor. ‘You know that.’
    ‘I’m the only one she can talk to in this place.’ His voice contained a quiet relentlessness. Doctor Wallang encountered it everywhere in Sohra—the ‘knupmawiang blossoms, the hardy villagers. It was what enabled them to survive their valleyed isolation, the perpetual rain, the long winters.
    ‘One day, she came back crying,’ the young man continued, ‘after going riding with Bah Jonah. She looked upset so I asked her what was wrong. She couldn’t believe I spoke their language…but I’ve worked with bilati people all my life.’
    ‘It will never make you one of them.’
    ‘I don’t want to be one of them.’ He sounded mutinous. ‘I just want to know if she’ll be well.’
    ‘She’s young and strong, but beyond that I can’t say. Who knows what demons people wrestle with on their own.’ The doctor carefully emptied the antiseptic preparation into a bottle. ‘Did she ever tell you about her dreams?’
    The young man hesitated. ‘I don’t remember but the next time she…’
    ‘You cannot see her again, Kyntang. Not if you know what’s good for her.’ He gestured to the door. ‘And for you.’
    When the doctor was summoned to Kut Madan a fortnight later, he found Mrs Smithson waiting for him by the front door. On her face were hints of how she must have once been beautiful, yet now, her high cheekbones only served to emphasize the long hollowness of her cheeks, and her eyes, though startlingly blue, were cold and distant.
    ‘How is Lucy?’ asked the doctor; he wished her husband was around to take the formal, disquieting edge off the air.
    ‘The foolish girl has stopped eating.’
    ‘For how long?’
    She paused. ‘Four days…nothing but bread and water, some fruit. And only when we force it down her