RAVI was jubilant ashe loped through the town. He would tell the old bitch it had cost four rupees, give her one rupee change, and be in pocket to the nice tune of four rupees. After all, she expected to be rooked: he might as well oblige, give her the pleasure of having been right, although of course she wouldn't know that.
But he knew: he knew she had been right. Well then he
wouldn't, he thought with a kind of sick determination, he
wouldn't prove her right. His resentment against her rose like a wall.
When he got back the house seemed to him to be swarming
with people— he almost backed out again in distaste. From within came the sound of a good many voices, women pre-
dominating,andin the front room with the gaping window three men and a boy were crammed around the sewing ma-
chine, seated in a sea of billowing material, although only one of them seemed to be really working.
"What do you want? "They alllooked athim.
"It's all right." This was the old man he had cowed, no longer a trembling hulk but a householder in full authority.
"A workman to fix the window. My wife sent for him."
"Jayamma's workman." There was a murmur — reverent, it seemed to Ravi. And no wonder, he said to himself. He could
well imagine others finding her formidable — those who hadn't the courage to stand up to her. He braced himself to meet her.
"There you are at last!" Jayamma's voice was shrill. "Didn't Isaybequick?Now thedustwillgetineverything—allthese fine new clothes . . ."
"I'll put up a screen," he said sarcastically; "work behind
that." J
"Yes, do." Sarcasm was lost in the capacious quality of her
self-absorption, her total immersion in her own affairs. "We
don't want anything soiled, do you hear? "
He turned his back on her and set to work. It did not take
long— would have been quicker stillifhe had not had to sally forth for the bag of cement which he had forgotten. He had
scarcely put down his trowel when Jayamma appeared. She had been in a dozen times to look already.
"All done?"
"Yes, and here's your change. Four-fifty." He counted it
into her palm. "That's fifty paisa for the cement and nothing
for the bars," he said pointedly. She did not take notice; merely put the money away and waited for him to go. How
like her, how like them, he thought, filled with a great con- tempt.Shesuspected the bars were stolen, but rather than ask,
rather than miss the chance of something for nothing, she was prepared to hold her tongue.
He was about to leave when the girl came in. All the time
he worked he had been hoping for a glimpse of her, this young
beauty whose looks made a man's day as her mother's marred it: it was just his luck, he thought, that she should appear
now, when there was no further excuse for lingering.
"Well, I'llbe going."
"Wait a minute," Jayamma (belatedly, he thought sourly)
was actually opening her money purse. "Here you are. A little
something for your trouble."
He looked down in astonishment at the coin coyly slipped
into his palm. It was twenty-five naye paisa— a quarter of a rupee.
"Thank you," he said. "Are you sure you can spare it? I'll
take good care to see I don't spend it all at once."
This time at least he had got under her skin— skin, he
thought, my God it's not skin, what it is it's hide, what they get after years and years of toughening up, of not looking, of
not caring to look, of glazing their eyes when they do. But this time he had pierced it,hide or skin whatever itwas. She was staring at him, glaring at him, moving her mouth around and shaping words although no sound came. It was almost funny, he thought, and at that moment the girl giggled. It was a small giggle, but it was not a nervous one, a reaction to an imminent explosion from the older woman. She was really amused — amused with him, on his side: for the first time in as long as he could remember a decent girl was on his side. He stole a glance at her, and was nearly thrown into a fit of laughter himself. She had drawn her sari over the lower part of her face like a yashmak, and over this her eyes peered, round and swimming with tears of smothered laughter. What a girl, he thought.
Take a girl like that, and half a man's troubles would be over. He was in high good humor almost before the door banged
behind him.
