'Yes,' replied the boy from somewhere in the darkness.

'That's very careless of your mother. Does she do it every day?'

There was once again a pause and silence. His wife seemed to have fallen asleep too, for there was no response from her. He somehow did not wish the conversation to lapse. He said as a stop-gap: 'What'll happen if a thief gets in?' There was no response from the son. After blinking in the dark for a few minutes, Margayya asked: 'Boy, are you asleep?' And the boy answered: 'Yes, I am.' And Margayya, feeling much more at peace with himself at heart for having spoken to him, fell asleep at once, forgetting for a few hours the Matriculation examination and his other worries.

They got into a sort of live and let live philosophy. He hoped that when the schools reopened he could put the boy back at school, prepare him intensively for his examination, and if necessary see some of the examiners and so on. Margayya had a feeling that he had of late neglected his duties in this direction. He had unqualified faith in contacting people and getting things done that way. He could get at anybody through Dr Pal. That man had brought into his business a lot of people known to him. Margayya's contacts were now improving socially. People were indebted to him nowadays, and would do anything to retain his favour. Margayya hoped that if he exerted himself even slightly in the coming year he would see his son pull through Matriculation without much difficulty. Of course the boy would have to keep up a show of at least studying the books and would have to write down his number correctly in the answer book and not merely scribble and look out of the door. It was extremely necessary that he should at least write one page of his answer and know what were the subjects he ought to study.

Margayya felt that if he could persuade Balu to make at least a minimum of effort for his own sake, his mind would be easier. He proposed it very gently to him about a fortnight later as they sat down to their dinner together. Margayya showed him extreme consideration nowadays; it was born out of fear and some amount of respect. The boy was always taciturn and grim. He recollected that it seemed ages since he had seen any relaxation in his face. He had a gravity beyond his years. That frightened Margayya. Except the one instance when he saw tears in his eyes on the day of the results, he had always found him sullen. He hoped to soften him by kindness, or, at least, outward kindness, for he still smarted inside at the results of the examination. He looked for a moment at the face of his son and said: 'Balu, you must make another attempt. I'll see that you get through the examination without the least difficulty.'

Balu stopped eating and asked: 'What do you mean, father?'

Margayya sensed danger, but he had started the subject. He could not stop it now under any circumstances. So he said: 'I mean about the Matriculation examination.'

'I will not read again,' said the boy definitely, defiantly. 'I have already spoken to mother about it.'

'H'm.' Margayya turned to his wife who was serving him and said: 'He has spoken to you, has he? What has he said?'

'Just what he has told you,' she answered promptly, and went back to the fireplace to fetch something.

'Why didn't you tell me about it?' Margayya asked, eagerly looking for some lapse on her part to justify him in letting off steam.

She merely replied: 'Because I knew he was going to tell you about it himself Margayya burst out at her. 'What do you mean by discussing all sorts of things with the boy and not telling me anything? These are matters '

His son interrupted him: 'Father, if you hate me and want to make me miserable, you will bother me with examinations and studies. I hate them.'

Margayya went on arguing with him all through the meal till the boy threatened to abandon his dinner and walk out of the dining-room. Margayya assumed a sullen silence, but the atmosphere ached with tension. Everyone was aware that the silence was going to be broken in a violent manner next moment, as soon as dinner was over. Father and son seemed to be in a race to finish eating first. Balu gobbled up his food and dashed to the backyard. He poured a little water on his hand, wiped it on a towel near by and moved towards the street door. Margayya jumped up from his seat, with his hand unwashed, dashed to the street door and shut and bolted it. Frustrated, the boy stood still. Margayya asked: 'Where are you going? I have still much to tell you. I have not finished speaking yet.' The boy withdrew a few steps in response.

Meanwhile his mother had brought in a vessel of water; Margayya snatched a moment to wash his hand at the little open yard. He said, 'Wait' to his son. He opened his office box and brought from it the boy's S.S.L.C. Register. He had secured it on the previous day from the headmaster of the school. The S.S.L.C. Register is a small calico-bound notebook with columns marked in it, containing a record of a high-school boy's marks, conduct, handwriting and physical fitness. Margayya had got the register from the headmaster and studied its pages keenly the whole of the previous day. Matters did not now appear to him so hopeless. The headmaster had marked 'Fair' both for his handwriting and drill attendance. Margayya had no idea that his son could shine in anything. So this was an entirely happy surprise ... His marks in almost all subjects were in single digits. The highest mark he had obtained was twelve out of a hundred in hygiene, and he had maintained his place as the last in the class without a variation.

One would have expected Margayya to be shocked by this, but the effect was unexpected. He was a fond and optimistic father, and he fastened on the twelve marks for hygiene. It seemed so high after all the diminutive marks the boy had obtained in other subjects. Margayya hoped that perhaps he was destined to be a doctor, and that was why his inclination was so marked for hygiene. What a wonderful opening seemed to be before him as a doctor! Doctor Balu it would be very nice indeed. If only he could get through the wretched S.S.L.C. barrier, he'd achieve great things in life. Margayya would see to it that he did so; Margayya's money and contacts would be worth nothing if he could not see his son through ...

He had prepared himself to speak to Balu about all this gently and persuasively. He hoped to lead up to the subject with encouraging talk, starting with hygiene, and then to ask him if he wished to be a doctor. What a glorious life opened before a doctor! He would send him to England to study surgery. He could tell him all that and encourage him. Margayya had great faith in his own persuasiveness. He sometimes had before him a tough customer who insisted upon withdrawing all his deposits and winding up the account: a most truculent client. But Margayya remembered that if he had about an hour with him, he could always talk him out of it. The deposit would remain with him, plus any other money that the man possessed ... Now Margayya wanted to employ his capacity for a similar purpose with his son. That's why he had come armed with the S.S.L.C. Register. He could read out to him the headmaster's remarks 'Fair', etc., and prove to him how hopeful everything was if only he would agree to lend his name and spare time to go through the formality of an examination in the coming year.

At the sight of the notebook the boy asked: 'What is this? Why have you brought it from school?' as if it were the most repulsive article he had seen in the whole of his life. His face went a shade darker. It symbolized for him all the wrongs that he had suffered in his life: it was a chronicle of all the insults that had been heaped upon him by an ungracious world a world of schools, studies and examinations. What did they mean by all this terrible torment invented for young men? It had been an agony for him every time the headmaster called him up and made him go through the entries and sign below. Such moments came near his conception of hell. Hell, in his view, was a place where a torturing God sat up with your scholastic record in his hand and lectured you on how to make good and told you what a disgrace you were to society. His bitterness overwhelmed him suddenly, as his father opened a page and started: 'Here is your hygiene '

The boy made a dash for the book, snatched it from his father's hand before he knew what was happening, tore its entire bulk into four pieces (it had been made of thick ledger paper and only his fury gave him the necessary strength to tear it up at one effort), and ran out into the street and threw the pieces into the gutter. And Vinayak Mudali Street gutter closed on it and carried the bits out of sight. Margayya ran up and stood on the edge of the gutter woefully looking into its dark depth. His wife was behind him. He was too stunned to say anything. When he saw the last shred of it gone, he turned to his wife and said: 'They will not admit him in any school again, the last chance gone.' And then he turned to tackle his son but the boy had gone.

The only sign of prosperity about him now was the bright handle of the umbrella which was hooked to his right forearm whenever he went out. He was a lover of umbrellas, and the moment he could buy anything that caught his fancy, he spent eight rupees and purchased this bright-handled umbrella with 'German ribs', in the parlance of the umbrella dealers. Hitherto he had carried for years an old bamboo one, a podgy thing with discoloured cloth which had been patched up over and over again. He protected it like his life for several years. He had his own technique of holding an umbrella which assured it a long lease of life and kept it free from fractures. He never twisted the handle when he held an umbrella over his head. He never lent it to anyone. Margayya, if he saw anyone going out in the rain in imminent danger of catching and perishing of pneumonia, would let him face his fate rather than offer him the protection of his umbrella. He felt furious when people thought that they could ask for an umbrella. 'They will be asking for my skin next,' he often commented when his wife found fault with him for his attitude. Another argument he advanced was, 'Do people ask for each other's wives? Don't they manage to have one for themselves? Why shouldn't each person in the country buy his own umbrella?' 'An umbrella does not like to be handled by more than one person in its lifetime,' he often declared, and stuck to it. He had to put away his old umbrella in the loft, carefully rolled up, because its ribs had become too rickety and it could not maintain its shape any longer. It began to look like a shot-down crow with broken wings. Though for years he had not noticed it, suddenly one day when he was working under the tree in the Co-operative Bank compound, someone remarked that he was looking like a wayside umbrella repairer and that he had better throw it away; he felt piqued and threw it in the loft, but he could never bring himself to the point of buying a new one and had more or less resigned himself to basking in the sun until the time came when he could spend eight rupees without calculating whether he was a loser or a gainer in the bargain. That time had come, now that thousands of rupees were passing through his hands thousands which belonged to others as well as to him.

Except for this umbrella, he gave no outward sign of his affluence. He hated any perceptible signs of improvement. He walked to his office every day. His coat was of spun silk, but he chose a shade that approximated to the one he had worn for years so that no one might notice the difference. He whitewashed the walls of his house inside only, and built a small room upstairs. He bought no furniture except a canvas deckchair at a second-hand shop. On this he lounged and looked at the sky from his courtyard. He told his wife to buy any clothes she liked, but she was more or less in mourning and made no use of the offer. She merely said, 'Tell me about Balu. That is what I need, not clothes.'

Margayya replied: 'Well, I can only offer you what is available. If you are crying for the moon, I can't help you much there.'

'I am asking for my son, not crying for the moon,' she said.

She was always on the verge of hysteria nowadays. She spoke very little and ate very little; and Margayya felt that at a time when he had a right to have a happy and bright home, he was being denied the privilege unnecessarily. He felt angry with his wife. He felt that it was her sulking which ruined the atmosphere of the home. They had so much accustomed themselves to the disappearance of their son that he ceased to think of it as a primary cause: the more immediate reasons became perceptible. He tried in his own clumsy manner to make her happy. He told her, 'Ask for any money you want.'

'What shall I do with money?' she said. 'I have no use for it.'

He disliked her for making such a statement. It was in the nature of a seditious speech. He merely frowned at her and went on with his business. What was that business? When at home he carried about him the day's financial position finely distilled into a statement, and was absorbed in studying the figures. When he wanted relaxation he bought a paper and went through its pages. Nowadays he did not borrow the paper from the newspaper dealer but subscribed for a copy himself. He read with avidity what was happening in the world: the speeches of statesmen, the ravings of radicals, the programme for this and that, war news, and above all the stocks and shares market. He glanced through all this because a certain amount of world information seemed to be an essential part of his equipment when he sat in his office. All kinds of people came in and it was necessary that he should be able to take part in their conversation. To impress his clients, he had to appear as a man of all-round wisdom.

He walked to his work every day soon after his morning meal. The house was in suspense till he was seen safely off. He did not believe in employing servants at home and so his wife had to do all the work. He often said, 'Why should we burden ourselves with servants when we are like a couple of newly-weds? Ours is not a very big family.' The lady accepted it meekly because she knew it would not be much use arguing it out with Margayya. She knew, as he himself did, that he did not employ a cook because he did not like to spend money on one. But he was sure to give some other reason if he was asked. He would in all probability say, 'Where is the need to show off?' She knew that he viewed money as something to accumulate and not to be spent on increasing one's luxuries in life. She knew all his idioms even before he uttered them. Sometimes when he saw her sitting at the fireplace, her eyes shrunken and swollen with the kitchen smoke, he felt uneasy and tried to help her with the kitchen work, keeping up the pretence of being newly-weds. He picked up a knife here and a green vegetable there, cut it up in a desultory manner, and vaguely asked, 'Is there anything I can do?' She hardly ever answered such a question. She merely said, 'Please come in half an hour, and I will serve your meal.' She had become very sullen and reserved nowadays.

She brooded over her son Balu night and day. She lost the taste for food. Margayya behaved wildly whenever he was reminded of their son. 'He is not my son,' he declared dramatically. 'A boy who has an utter disregard for his father's feelings is no son. He is a curse that the Gods have sent down for us. He is not my son.' It all sounded very theatrical, but the feeling was also very real. When he remembered the floating bits of calico in the street gutter, he felt sorry that his son was no longer there to be slapped. His fingers itched to strike him. He reflected: 'If he had at least disappeared after receiving the slap I aimed, I would not have minded much.' He discouraged his wife from mentioning their son again and had grandly ordered that the household must run on as if he had not been born. When he spoke in that tone his wife fully understood that he meant it. His affluence, his bank balance, buoyed him up and made him bear the loss of their son. He lived in a sort of radiance which made it possible for him to put up with anything. When he sat at his desk from early in the day till sunset, he had to talk, counsel, wheedle out, and collect money; in fact go through all the adventures of money-making. At the end of the day as he walked back home his mind was full of the final results, and so there was practically no time for him to brood over Balu.

Late at night when the voices of the city had died down and when the expected sleep came a little late, he speculated on Balu. Perhaps he had drowned himself. There was no news of him, although several days and weeks had passed. His wife accused him at first of being very callous and not doing anything about it. He did not know what was expected of him. He could not go and tell the police. He could not announce a reward for anyone who traced him. He could not... He hated to make a scene about it, and solved the whole thing by confiding in Dr Pal. Dr Pal had promised to keep an eye on the matter and tell him if anything turned up. No one could do more than that. Margayya had generally given out that his son had gone on a holiday to Bombay or Madras, and lightly added: 'Young boys of his age must certainly go out by themselves and see a bit of the world: I think that's the best education.'

'But boys must have a minimum of S.S.L.C.,' someone remarked.

Margayya dismissed it as a foolish notion. 'What is there in Matriculation? People can learn nothing in schools. I have no faith in our education. Who wants all this nonsense about A squared plus B squared? If a boy does not learn these, so much the better. To be frank, I have got on without learning the A squared and B squared business, and what is wrong with me? Boys must learn things in the rough school of life.' Whatever he said sounded authoritative and mature nowadays, and people listened to him with respectful attention. These perorations he delivered as he sat in his office.

His office consisted of a medium-sized room with four mattresses spread out on the floor. At the other end of it there was a sloping desk where an accountant sat. He was a lean old man, with a fifteen-day-old silver beard encircling his face at any given time. He was a pensioner, a retired revenue clerk, who wore a close coat and a turban when he came to the office. He was expected to arrive before Margayya. It pleased Margayya very much to see him at his seat, bent over his ledgers. He was instructed not to look up and salute when Margayya came in since it was likely to disturb his calculations and waste his time. Margayya said: 'I do not want all this formality of a greeting. I see you every day. If you want to please me, do your work, and get on with it without wasting your time.' But when he felt he needed an audience for his perorations he addressed him, and any other clerks who might be there.

Margayya sat in one corner of the hall. He had a desk before him made of smooth polished wood which he had bought from the blanket merchant at a second-hand price. Margayya loved to gaze on its smooth, rippled grains remnants of gorgeous designs that it had acquired as a tree-trunk hieroglyphics containing the history of the tree. Whenever he gazed on it, he felt as if he were looking at a sea and a sky in some dream world. 'But what is the use of gazing on these and day-dreaming?' he told himself, sharply pulling his mind back. He lifted the lid and gazed inside, and there was the reality which he could touch and calculate and increase: a well-bound half-leather ledger, a bottle of red ink, a bottle of black ink, an oblong piece of blotting-paper, and a pen the red holder of which his fingers had gripped for years now. And beside it was a small bag made of thick drill, into which went all the cash he collected. His clerk did not know what he collected each day. He did not look into the account-book which Margayya kept, nor did he count the cash. It was all done by Margayya himself. He did not believe that it was necessary for anyone to share his knowledge of his finances; it was nobody's business but his own. The work that he gave the accountant was copying down the mortgages that were left with him by the villagers who came round for financial assistance. He not only kept the deeds, but put the old man to the task of copying them down entirely in a big ledger. He alone could say why he wanted this done, but he would not open his mouth about it to anyone. The old man was being paid fifty rupees a month, and he was afraid of being thrown out if he questioned too much. He just did his duty. At about two o'clock Margayya locked his safe box and got up saying, 'I'm going out for tiffin will be back in a minute. Look after the office, and keep anyone who may come here till I return.'

Margayya was always used to having a semi-circle of persons sitting before him as in the old days and never interrupted his studies or calculations to look at them or receive their greetings. He was a very busy man whose hours were valuable: as the day progressed it was a race with time, for he had to close his books before sunset.

The owner of the house, the blanket dealer, did not like to waste money on installing electric lights. He went on dodging his tenant's appeals day after day. His excuse was that materials were not available in quantities he needed or at prices he was prepared to pay. He went on saying that he had sent a direct order to the General Electric in America, that he had business associates of his blanket-contract days who would supply his wants direct, and that he was looking for a reply with every sailing; and thus he kept his tenants in hope. The plain fact seemed to be that he did not like to waste money. He confided to his friends: 'Why should anyone keep his shop or office open after six o'clock? Let him work and earn during the day: that is quite enough. I hear that they are going to introduce a law limiting working hours, when it will be a grave penalty to keep shops or offices open after sunset.' The result was that the shops remained without light, and since Margayya did not believe in spending his own money on an oil-lamp, he had to rush through his day's work and close the accounts before darkness fell. He worked without wasting a minute.

One or two of his clients, who had waited long enough to catch his attention, cleared their throats and made other small sounds. Margayya suddenly looked up from his desk and told one of them, 'Go there,' pointing at his accountant, sitting at the other end of the hall: 'He will give you the deed back.' The other showed no sign of moving, at which he said sharply, 'You heard me? If I have got to speak each sentence twice, I shall have to live for two hundred years and be satisfied with a quarter of my present earnings.'

'Why do you say such harsh things, master?' the other asked. 'Is it because I am asking for my deed back? Is it wrong?'

'It is not wrong. Why should anyone refuse to give a title deed that is yours by right?' He said it in such a tone that the other hesitated and said, 'You have been as a father to me in my difficulties and you have helped me as much as you could.'

'And yet you have not the grace to trust me with your title. Do you think I am going to make a broth of it and drink it off?'

The client rose and said, 'I will come again for it tomorrow, sir, just to show that I am in no hurry.' He rose and walked out.

Margayya said to the others, 'You see that fellow ... the ingratitude of some of these folk sometimes makes me want to throw up everything and ...' The others made sympathetic sounds just to please him. His accountant added from his corner his own comment in his hollow, hungry voice: 'He is afraid he may have further interest to pay if he leaves his papers here ... I know these people: they are docile and lamb-like as long as they hold our money, but the moment they return the principal and interest '

Margayya did not like this: 'Don't disturb yourself, Sastri, go on with your work.' He hated the hungry, tired tone of his accountant.

'I was only giving you a piece of observation ... it is getting to be a nuisance, some of these fellows demanding their papers back at short notice,' Sastri persisted. At this Margayya realized that it would not be feasible to put his accountant down so easily, and cut him short with, 'True, true ... We must include a condition that they must give us at least three days for returning their papers.'

A visitor who felt that he had waited too long asked, 'Margayya, don't you recognize me?'

'No,' replied Margayya promptly.

'I am Kanda,' he said.

'Which?'

'Of Somanur '

'No, you are not,' replied Margayya promptly.

The other laughed, leaned forward almost over the desk, and asked, 'Do you still say that I am not Kanda, master?'

Margayya scrutinized him closely and cried, 'You, old thief, it is you, yes! What has come over you? You look like a man a hundred years old ... Why those wrinkles round your nose? Why those folds at the chin and that silver filing all over your face? What is the matter with you and where are your teeth gone?' The other just raised his arms heavenward, lifted up his eyes as much as to say, 'Go and put that question to the heavens if you like.' Now Margayya wanted to clear his hall of all his visitors. He felt that here was the man he would like to talk to the whole day. He looked at the others, gave a paper back to someone, and said, 'I cannot advance you on this '

'Sir, please ...' he began.

'Come tomorrow, we will see. Now leave me, I have many important things to talk over with old Kanda.'

He had lost sight of Kanda years ago. Margayya had been very fond of this man, who always said that he preferred fluid cash to stagnant land and that it was more profitable to grow money out of land than corn. Kanda had now come to ask Margayya's advice on how best to get money out of some new lands which had unexpectedly come to him through the death of a relative. These lands were in the regions of Mempi, whose slopes were covered with teak and other forests, and at whose feet stretched acres and acres of maize fields, with stalks standing over a man's height. Margayya was carried away by visions of this paradise of blue mountains, forest, and green fields. It was wealth at the very source and not second-hand after it had travelled up to town. The more he listened to Kanda's petition the more he felt that here was raw wealth inviting him to take a hand and help himself. Though it had grown nearly dark he sat and listened to Kanda as he narrated to him his financial ups and downs.

'I am glad you have come back to me, Kanda. I will pull you out of your difficulties,' he said as he rose to go.

Kanda explained, 'I cannot get any more loans from the Cooperative Bank; they have expelled me for default, although they auctioned the pledges ...'

'The crooks,' Margayya muttered. 'They are crooks, I tell you. I do not know why the government tolerates this institution.... They should put in gaol all the secretaries of co-operative societies.' The picture of the secretary and Arul came back to him with all the old force. Margayya warned him, 'Don't go near them again; they will see you ruined before they have done with you. I will look after you,' he added protectively, starting to lock up his door. He had sent away his accountant, and with a duplicate key he locked the door of his office. He generously indicated to Kanda the veranda. 'Sleep here, Kanda, no one will object. I will see you tomorrow morning and then we will go and inspect your property at Mempi. What time is your bus?'

'The first bus leaves the Market Square at six o'clock.'

'The next?'

'It is at eight-thirty ... Four buses pass Mempi village every day,' he said with a touch of pride.

'So that you may come oftener into town and borrow, I suppose!'

'There is also a railway station, about five or six stones off,' Kanda said. 'From here you can get the evening train and be down there at about twelve o'clock.'

'And get eaten by tigers, I suppose,' Margayya added, 'before reaching home.'

Kanda laughed at this piece of ignorance. 'Tigers are in the hills and generally do not come down.'

'Even then I prefer to come with you by the morning bus,' Margayya said. 'We will go by the second bus tomorrow. You can have your food in that hotel there.'

Margayya walked home. At his house he found a commotion. His wife's voice could be heard wailing, and a large crowd had gathered at his front door. He quickened his pace on seeing it.

'What is the matter?' he asked someone nearby. He hoped the people were not rushing in, in order to loot the house. He had kept a few important documents in the front room and a lot of cash. 'Must remove it elsewhere,' he thought as he pushed his way through the crowd on the front steps. 'Get out of the way,' he thundered. 'What are you all doing here?' Someone in the crowd said, 'Your lady is weeping '

'I see that. Why?'

They hesitated to speak. He gripped one nearby by his shirt collar and demanded, 'What has happened? Can't you speak?' He shook him vigorously till he protested, 'Why do you trouble me, Margayya? I won't speak.' Margayya let him go and went in. He saw his wife rolling on the floor and wailing, in a voice he had never heard before. He never knew that she had such a high-pitched voice. There were a number of women sitting round her and holding her.

Margayya rushed towards them crying, 'What has happened to her? Meenakshi, what is the matter with you?' She sat up on hearing his voice. Her hair was untied. Her eyes were swollen. She wailed, 'Balu ... Balu ...' Her voice trailed off and she broke down again. She fell on the floor and rolled in anguish. Margayya felt helpless. He saw his brother and his wife also in the crowd. He knew something must be seriously the matter if these two were there, and their many children sucking their thumbs. His brother's wife was sitting beside Margayya's wife and trying to comfort her. Margayya rushed up and pleaded: 'Won't someone tell me what has happened?' His brother pushed his way through the crowd and handed him a card. Margayya's eyes were blurred with the mist of perspiration. His excitement had sent his heart racing. He rubbed his eyes and gazed on the card. He couldn't read it. He groaned, and fumbled for his glasses ... He could not pull them out of his pocket easily. He gave the card to the one nearest him and cried: 'Can't someone read it? Is it an illiterate gathering? What are you all watching for?' And then some person obliged him by reading out: 'Your son ... B ... Balu ... is no more '

'What! What! ... Who says so?' Margayya cried, losing all control over himself. More perspiration streamed down his eyelids and he wept aloud: 'My son! ... my son! Am I dreaming?' The assembly watched him in grim silence.

His wife was sobbing. She suddenly shot towards Margayya and cried: 'It's all your doing. You ruined him.'

Margayya was taken aback. There was a confused mixture of emotions now. He did not know what to say. One side of his mind went on piecing together his son's picture as he had last seen him.

'Did I treat him too harshly over the examination results? Or have I been too thoughtless over that cursed school record ?' He felt angry at the thought of examinations: they were a curse on the youth of the nation, the very greatest menace that the British had brought with them to India ... If he could see his son now he would tell him, 'Forget all about schools and books: you just do as you like, just be seen about the house that's sufficient for us.' In this din, his wife's accusation reached him but faintly. He retorted: 'What are you saying, you poor creature! What are you trying to say?'

'You and your schools!' she arraigned him. 'But for your obsession and tyranny '

'You keep quiet,' he said angrily. He turned round to someone and enquired: 'Do you know how it happened?'

Several voices chorused: 'He fell off a fourth floor of a building in Madras,' 'He must have been run over in that city,' 'Probably caught cholera,' 'We don't know '

'Who was with him?' asked Margayya. He conducted a ruthless cross-examination.

'How can we know the card is signed by a friend.'

'Friend! Friend!' Margayya cried. 'What sort of friend is it? Friend, useless blackguard.' He did not know what he was saying. Nor could he check the rush of his words. He babbled as if under the influence of a drug. He saw the whole house reeling in front of his eyes the surroundings darkened and he sat down unable to bear the strain. He sat on the floor, with his head between his hands, quietly sobbing. His brother sidled up, put his arm round him, and said: 'You must bear it, brother; you must bear it.'

'What else can I do?' Margayya asked like a child. He still had on his coat and turban. Through all his grief a ridiculous question (addressed to his brother) kept coming to his mind: 'Are we friends now no longer enemies? What about our feud?' A part of his mind kept wondering how they could live as friends, but the numerous problems connected with this seemed insoluble. 'We had got used to this kind of life. Now I suppose we shall have to visit each other and enquire and so on ...' All that seemed to be impossible to do. He wished to tell him then and there: 'Don't let this become an excuse to change our present relationship.'

Margayya did his best to suppress all these thoughts, but they kept bothering him till he could say nothing, till he was afraid to open his lips lest he should blurt them out. His brother whispered among other things: 'We will send you the night meal from our house.'

'No, we don't want any food tonight,' Margayya said. 'Please send all those people away.' He was indignant. Because Balu was dead, why should this crowd imagine that the house was theirs? 'Shut and bolt the door,' he thundered.

His brother left him, went up to the strangers about the house and appealed to them to leave. He said, with his palms pressed together in deference: 'Please leave us. This is the time when the family has to be together.'

'No,' Margayya thundered with deadly irony in his tone. 'How can they leave? How can they afford to ignore all this fun and go? If an entrance be charged 'he began, then stopped, for in his condition he realized that he ought not to complete his sentence, which ran: 'We might earn lakhs 'He did not think it was a good statement to make. So he merely said: 'Oh, friends and neighbours, the greatest service you could do us is to leave us alone.' The neighbours grumbled a little and started moving out. On the fringe of the crowd someone was muttering: 'When are they bringing the body?'

Margayya never knew till now that he had so many well-wishers in the city. The next day they proposed to bundle him off to Madras. He seemed to have no choice in the matter. All sorts of persons, including his brother, sat around and said: 'It's best that you go to Madras at least once, and verify things for yourself 'What for?' asked Margayya. The others seemed to be horrified at this question, and looked at him as if to say: 'Fancy anyone asking such a silly question!'

'I can't go, I won't go, it is not necessary,' Margayya said offensively.

His wife had been transformed. She looked like a stranger, with her face swollen and disfigured with weeping. She glared at him and said: 'Have you no heart?'

'Yes, undoubtedly,' Margayya said in a mollifying manner. He felt that she had lost her wits completely and required to be handled with tact.

'If you have ordinary human feelings then go and do something ... at least ... at least '

'Yes, I understand ... But it's all over.'

His brother said: 'Is this the time to argue about it all? You must go and do something.'

His sister-in-law added her own voice: 'It's your duty to go and find out more about it. Perhaps, there is still some chance of '

'But,' wailed Margayya, 'where am I to go? Madras is a big world where on earth am I to go there?' He despairingly turned the postcard between his fingers: 'There is no address here, nothing is said of where they have written from, nor who has written it.'

'Never mind,' they all said with one voice. Margayya felt now, more than ever, most unhappy to have been the father of Balu. The duties of a father seemed to be unshakable. He made yet another attempt to make others see reason: 'Look here, if I go to Madras, where am I to go as soon as I get down at the railway station?'

'Is this the time to go into all that?' they asked, looking on him as if he were a curious specimen. This encounter left him no time to brood over his own sorrow. There seemed to be so many demands upon him, following the catastrophe, that it was as much as he could do to keep himself parrying all the blows; it left him no time to think of anything else. When there was a pause and his eyes fell upon a little object, the lacquer-painted wooden elephant that Balu had played with as a child, it sent a sharp stab down his heart; it made him wince, he choked at the throat, and the tears came down in a rush, involuntarily but he was spared more of that experience by the people around him. He almost regretted that his brother and his family were now back in the fold: they seemed to think up a new proposition for him every minute ... and his wife, who seemed to be already crazed, apparently fell in with every one of their proposals. One moment they kept saying that he must at once make arrangements to get through the ten-day obsequies for the peace of the departed soul and start right away the performance of those rites; the next, they immediately said that he must go to Madras and try and do what he could.

'You want me to buy a train ticket this moment, and in the same breath ask me to send for the purohit '

At the mention of the word purohit, his wife clapped her hands over her ears and wailed afresh: 'I never hoped in my worst dreams to hear that word applied to my darling '

'How can you be so callous as to utter that word so bluntly?' asked his sister-in-law, and another lady scowled at him.