The Village by the Sea Read Online Free PDF Page A

brothers from the neighbouring farm who drank together every night. The moon had
set and it was deeply, intensely dark. The brilliant, flashing stars lit up the sandy beach but their light did not filter through the close-woven palm leaves in the grove where it was black as pitch. The men had had a lantern with them when they set out from the village but it had fallen and broken as they bumped into each other and into the tree trunks. They had laughed when it smashed and tinkled to bits on the stones, it was their wives who would think of the cost of a new lantern and more oil and wail bitterly over the loss. Now they tried to find their way home in the dark, calling to each other and singing to keep up their spirits.
    They made so much noise that all the stray dogs of Thul woke up on hearing them and howled in alarm and protest.
    Lila and Hari, who knew their father was among them, tried to shut out the sounds by covering their heads with their pillows. Lila hated and feared the noise so much that she cried to herself. Hari did not cry but he bit his lip and thought, ‘Maybe a poisonous snake will bite him. He may step on one and be bitten, there are so many of them and it is dark. Then he would die.’ He did not say that in fear, he said it with hope, as if he wished that was what would happen.
    A little later there was a thump against the front door. Their father flung it open, jarring the whole house so that the walls shook and the palm-leaf thatch rustled. Pinto got up and gave a sharp yelp of alarm. Their father hissed at him, then bumped and lurched his way into their mother’s room. They heard her begin to say something in protest, but he growled at her, then fell down in a heap and snored.
    There was silence then. But the silence was not calm and lovely, it was full of fear and anger and nightmares.

2
    Lila would go to the market at Thul today. She had to buy rice and perhaps some sugar and tea. Hari had brought down six bunches of coconuts and sold them to the Malabaris who came from Bombay in a lorry, so she had some money to spend. After Bela and Kamal had left for school, she took out her best sari from the green tin trunk in the corner of the room she shared with her sisters, and wore that. It was pink and had a pattern of brown flowers on it, and a border of violet. It was quite a cheap cotton sari but she wore it so seldom that it still looked fresh and new, and made her look so much younger and prettier than when she was dressed in an everyday sari which was always either dark green
or dark purple, a single unpatterned colour, of thick cloth that stood much wear and tear. She herself felt younger and happier, and she took the market bag off its nail on the kitchen door and called goodbye to her mother who seemed to be asleep and did not answer, then set off down the beach that was brilliant with morning light and already hot.
    A few other women were walking along to market with big black umbrellas to shield them from the white, blinding sun. The whole sea glittered with reflected light – it was like a mirror broken into bits and shining. Only the two small rocky islands of Undheri and Kundheri made two blobs in all that brightness. One of them had a small fort built long ago and empty now except for lizards. There was a breeze and the big dhows and catamarans swooped along as swiftly as birds, carrying their cargo up the coast to Gujarat and Saurashtra.
    There was some commotion on the beach where a lorry had come and unloaded some timber. Now it was stuck in the sand. The driver was cursing loudly. Some of the village boys, the ones who did not go to school, came to help. They were spreading palm leaves on the sand under the
wheels and trying to push the lorry out of the ruts on to them.
    As Lila walked past, the wheels churned and threw up sand, then the lorry heaved and roared and was on its way.
    ‘Next time, send your timber in a bullock cart,’ one of the boys shouted after the driver and they