No Pain Like This Body Read Online Free PDF

something. She crossed the small drain too, and stood on Tola Trace. She told Balraj and Sunaree to cross the river, walk the quarter mile to Rajput Road and call Nanna and Nanny.
    â€œBut sappose we cant cross de river?” Sunaree asked.
    Ma thought a little, then she said, “If de river high up den all you coud come back.”
    Balraj and Sunaree left.
    Rama and Panday stood on the trace. They asked Ma to take them home, because they were feeling cold. Ma said they had to wait. Pa was home. Drunk. She had to wait for Nanna and Nanny to come, because Pa was worst than a snake.
    Ma faced the wind and the rain as a thin living stump, but she was using her brain. Rama and Panday couldn’t hear her brain working, because it worked as a seed growing. Ma stood with her hands over her face as if she was trying to see behind her red eyeballs. Then she removed her hands and told them, “I go carry all you in dat cane field.”
    Rama and Panday looked at the sugarcane field. The long leaves went ssh ssh ssh. They told Ma that they were afraid of the long black scorpions, because one time Nanny told them a story about a child who was eaten by scorpions in Rajput Road.
    â€œBut all you goin to be warm inside dat cane field.”
    They wanted to be warm, so they followed Ma.
    Rain poured and poured over Tola. Little flashes of light­ning moved as brass earrings and gold fishes in the sky. Rama and Panday walked behind Ma. They felt the sugarcane leaves bruising them; the prickles from the green leaves held on to their skins. It pained as if red ants were biting them. The ground under their feet was damp. There were layers and lay­ers of damp and rottening cane straws on the ground. They felt their toes sinking into the straws as if they were sinking into heaps of vomit; just sinking and sinking and sinking.
    â€œStand up!” Ma told them.
    They stood and waited.
    Ma started to strip some leaves off the tall sugarcanes. Each time she stripped the leaves, it went trash trash one two trash trash. Ma got enough straws. She gathered them and made a bed upon the wet earth for Rama and Panday. Then she held the canes from two rows and tied the tops together. The cane tops formed a shelter over the bed of straws. “Now all you chirens rest on dem straws now.”
    Rama and Panday couldn’t help getting on. They were naked and uncomfortable on the wet straws; they were cold and the straws were cold also. But rain was not wetting them; they heard the rain drops tarat tat tarat tat tat, but they were safe from the rain. Yet they couldn’t rest; especially Rama; he was coughing worst than a dog. Dampness rose up from the earth and touched their bodies as dead fingers. The earth breathed, but they were restless.
    Hours had passed. The rain was not falling heavy now, it was only drizzling. Ma heard the klips klips tix tix of the insects, and the craw craw craw of the huge water birds that lived near the river. She knew that it was almost evening. She told Rama and Panday that she was going to take them home.
    Rama and Panday came out of the cane field together with Ma. Ma didn’t want to go home. She walked with them up Tola Trace a little, but when she almost reached the house, she hid in a guava patch. Rama and Panday walked into the house. Pa was not at home. They went inside and flung open the southern window. When Ma saw the opened window, she knew that Pa was away. She came out of the guava patch and went home too.
    Rama and Panday were cold. Ma got some old clothes and wiped their skins quickly. Rama’s skin was hot as a ricepot. “You sick son?”
    â€œYeh,” Rama said.
    Ma got some coconut oil and rubbed down Rama and Panday. She went inside the bedroom to get some dry clothes for them; she couldn’t find any. Rama and Panday had two pairs of pants and two merinos but Ma had washed them ear­lier in the day. She took two old floursacks out of the cardboard box; with the