Vasanti turned and saw him, and smiled.
“So you’re back?”
“Sure.”
He came nearer. He gently touched her bare arms, and said in a soft, tender voice, “Come on, let’s play.”
Vasanti hesitated. Then she suddenly flared up: “Go away, you Muslim brat!”—and ran off into the house.
Having been scolded by Vasanti, he went back to his house drunk with pleasure, and for a long time felt a melting sweetness, right down to his fingertips.
The uninhabited houses were inhabited again, and in the Small Bazaar there was the same hustle and bustle. Still, here and there he saw empty gaps, and here and there faces were missing. Pandit Hardayal was not to be seen on the terrace of his house, nor Misra-ji on the cushions in his shop. And where was Jagdish, who used to go every evening to Chiranji’s terrace and practice the harmonium? For weeks the shaven head of Sohan, Pandit Hardayal’s son, proclaimed that he was in mourning. But gradually hair grew out again on Sohan’s head, and the gaps in the Small Bazaar began to be filled. Finally, there were as many people as though none were missing, and as much liveliness as though nothing had happened at all. Again a crowd began to gather on Chiranji’s terrace. The harmonium played on and on until midnight, and the sound of singing could be heard far off:
“All night long Laila lies
Embracing a secret pain.
Is suffering too a beloved?
Everyone’s absorbed in it!”
“Chiranji, you bastard, you’re really the lucky one!”
“Why?”
“The pole’s been put up right by your terrace. Now, you bastard, you’ll be playing the harmonium by electric light!”
The poles, which had been lying covered with dust for ages, suddenly rose up. Walking along, people paused, lifted their eyes to the high poles, and imagined with astonishment the new light that would soon arrive.
“They say electric lights are very bright.”
“You’d think the night had turned into day.”
“Why man, those English are amazing!”
But the workers, having put up the poles, again vanished from sight. Days passed, months passed, then time just went on passing. The poles, laden with dust, again became part of the landscape. They didn’t look as if they’d been put up, but as if they’d grown from the ground. In mid-flight, a dove or a woodpecker sometimes alighted for a moment on one of the poles — but, perhaps disgusted with its iron surface, the bird soon flew off. If a kite came and perched on a pole, it would stay there for a long time. But the kites preferred to perch on rooftop ledges. Any kite that came and perched on the high ledge of the village hall stayed there for ages. It seemed that the world would pass away, but the bird would still be perched there. This ledge had grown old with the help of passing time — and with the further help of kite-droppings. But the crenellated walls of the Big Mansion were broken down before they grew old. This was the doing of the monkeys. Just as kites don’t perch on every ledge, monkeys don’t take a fancy to every rooftop. Some of the town’s ledges had suited the kites, some of its rooftops had pleased the monkeys.
The monkeys had a strange way of life. When they came, they kept coming. When they went, they did it so completely that even on the tamarind trees near Karbala — not to speak of the rooftops — there wasn’t a sign of them. The roofs were empty, the walls deserted. Only the ruined parapets of the highest stories served as a reminder that these roofs had once been within the monkeys’ range. And what had happened that evening? Passing through a lane, it seemed to him that someone had jumped from one wall to the opposite one, over his head. When he looked up, what did he see but a troop of monkeys, traveling from wall to wall. “Oh, monkeys!” he exclaimed, and his heart only slowly recovered its beat. And the next morning when he woke up, there was commotion both inside and outside the house. Everything that had been left in the courtyard was either broken to pieces or missing entirely. One monkey had carried off Ammi’s dupattah and was sitting on the rooftop parapet, holding the dupattah in his teeth and tearing it to shreds.
There was no telling what towns, what forests, the monkeys had come from. One troop, another troop, troop after troop. From one roof to a second, from the second roof to a third. Swiftly leaping down into a courtyard, snatching things up, here one minute and gone the next. Nanua the Oil-seller, collecting contributions from everyone, bought grain and a lump of raw brown sugar. He went down to the site of the weekly market; in the small reservoir there, which stayed dry year-round except for the rainy season, he spread out the grain, placed the lump of raw brown sugar in the midst of it, and put a number of small sticks nearby. The monkeys came leaping and skipping along and gobbled up the grain, filling their cheeks with it. They threw themselves on the lump of sugar. One lump, a hundred monkeys. The riot began. The sticks were ready at hand; the moment they saw them, the monkeys equipped themselves with sticks. Whenever a monkey picked up the sugar-lump, a stick crashed down on his head.
The monkeys raised a commotion for days, for weeks. Night ambushes, looting and plundering, finally civil war among themselves; and after that — gone. The roofs were again silent, the parapets once again empty. But when the electricity came, the monkeys were in the town, they could be seen on roofs and parapets. The electric poles, enduring the harshness of the seasons, had become part of the scenery; now suddenly they again became a center of attention. Workers appeared, carrying long ladders on their shoulders. At the tops of the poles iron crossbars were attached, and on the crossbars white ceramic insulators were fixed. From the first pole to the second, from the second to the third, wires were strung, and from street to street the wires gradually connected all the poles.
Something new could be felt in the atmosphere, and the birds had acquired new places to perch. Rupnagar’s birds were no longer confined to walls and tree branches. When the crows grew tired of sitting on the walls and cawing, they flew off and swung on one of the wires. Bluejays, shama birds, swifts would pause to rest in mid-flight by alighting on a wire.
Copying the birds, a monkey leaped from one wall of the Small Bazaar and swung on the wires. The next instant, he dropped with a thud and lay flat on the ground. From one side Bhagat-ji, from the other side Lala Mitthan Lal, left their shops and dashed over. With astonishment and terror, they stared at the dying monkey. They yelled, “Hey, somebody bring water!” Chandi dashed to the well, filled the bucket, brought the water, and poured the whole bucketful over the monkey, but the monkey’s eyes had closed and its body had gone limp.
Monkeys poured in from all directions, and the nearby parapets were full of them: they were gazing at their companion’s motionless body lying in the middle of the street, and they were making a commotion. Then people came running from the streets and neighborhoods, and stared at the dead monkey with amazement.
“Which wire was he swinging on?”
“That one.” Chandi pointed to the highest wire.
“Then the electricity has come?”
“Yes, it’s come. The moment anyone touches the wire, he’s done for.”
The next day a monkey again leaped onto the wires, and instantly dropped with a thud to the ground and lay still. Then Bhagat-ji and Lala Mitthan Lal again jumped up and went to see, and again Chandi ran with a bucketful of water, but the monkey had grown cold before their very eyes.