Nectar in a Sieve Read Online Free PDF Page B

brick-filled. Day and night women twisted rope, since they could sell as much as they made, and traders waxed prosperous selling their goods to the workmen. They were very well paid, these men, some of them earning two rupees in a single day, whereas even in good times we seldom earned as much, and they bought lavishly: rice and vegetables and dhal, sweetmeats and fruit. Around the maidan they built their huts, for there was no other place for them, and into these brought their wives and children, making a community of their own. At night we saw their fires and by day we heard their noise, loud, ceaseless, clangour and din, chatter, sometimes a chanting to help them get a heavy beam into position, or hoist a load of tin sheeting to the roof.
    Then one day the building was completed. The workers departed, taking with them their goods and chattels, leaving only the empty huts behind. There was a silence. In the unwonted quiet we all wondered apprehensively what would happen next. A week went by and another. Losing our awe we entered the building, poking into its holes and corners, looking into the great vats and drums that had been installed into then, curiosity slaked, we set about our old tasks on the land and in our homes.
    There were some among the traders -- those who had put up their prices and made their money -- who regretted their going. Not I. They had invaded our village with clatter and din, had taken from us the maidan where our children played, and had made the bazaar prices too high for us. I was not sorry to see them go.
    "They will be back," said Nathan my husband, "or others will take their place. And did you not benefit from their stay, selling your pumpkins and plantains for better prices than you did before?"
    "Yes," said I, for I had, "but what could I buy with the money with prices so high everywhere? No sugar or dhal or ghee have we tasted since they came, and should have had none so long as they remained."
    "Nevertheless," said Nathan, "they will be back; for you may be sure they did not take so much trouble only to leave a shell in our midst. Therefore it is as well to accept these things."
    "Never, never," I cried. "They may live in our midst but I can never accept them, for they lay their hands upon us and we are all turned from tilling to barter, and hoard our silver since we cannot spend it, and see our children go without the food that their children gorge, and it is only in the hope that one day things will be as they were that we have done these things. Now that they have gone let us forget them and return to our ways."
    "Foolish woman," Nathan said. "There is no going back. Bend like the grass, that you do not break."
    Our children had not seen us so serious, so vehement, before. Three of my sons huddled together in a corner staring at us with wide eyes; the two youngest lay asleep, one in Ira's arms, the other leaning heavily against her; and she herself sagged against the wall with their weight as she sat there on the floor. There was a look on her lovely soft face that pierced me.
    "Ah well," I said, dissembling, "perhaps I exaggerate. If they return we shall have a fine dowry for our daughter, and that is indeed a good thing."
    The lost look went from Ira's face. She was a child still, despite the ripeness of her thirteen years, and no doubt fancied a grand wedding even as I had done.
    They came back. Not the same men who went, but others, and not all at once but slowly. The red-faced white man came back with a foreman, and took charge of everything. He did not live in the village but came and went, while his men took over the huts that had lain empty, the ones who came last settling beside the river, bringing their wives and children with them, or dotting the maidan even more thickly with the huts they built for themselves and their families.
    I went back to my home, thankful that a fair distance still lay between them and us, that although the smell of their brews and liquors hung