A Different Sky by Meira Chand Read Free Book Online Page A

do the bad,’ Manikam counselled. Since the death of his wife the year before, his thoughts had turned religious.
    â€˜Pagoda Street man wanting more muslin to make mosquito nets. Two hundred metres or more maybe,’ Raj said, knowing this was the news that was wanted. Manikam looked up with a smile.
    â€˜He has liked our muslin, now he will give regular order; he is making nets for Europeans. So many nets those people are needing. Because their skin is white and sweet all mosquito are wanting to eat them,’ Manikam chuckled.
    After the death of Mrs Manikam things had not gone well for Manikam. His marriage had been fruitless and he now mourned not so much a wife as the lack of a son. Ill health, the state of widower and a fall in business had brought him low. When he could no longer pay their salaries, Manikam’s other two employees left. Only Raj had remained to work for three meals a day. This show of loyalty decided Manikam to treat Raj as a surrogate son. From the beginning Mrs Manikam had taken a liking to him, and had always fussed about him while she lived in a manner that annoyed her husband.
    â€˜Tomorrow I will do our accounts for this week,’ Raj promised as Manikam turned the key of the cash box. Under Manikam’s instruction Raj had learned how to add and subtract and balance neat columns in a large ledger. He soon found irregularities in Manikam’s account books, careless mistakes that created unnecessary and sometimes shocking deficiencies. Soon, Raj’s disciplined management of the business had produced small profits in a pleasing way, and almost imperceptibly control of the shop had passed from employer toemployee. Manikam was happy most of the day to read a newspaper and drink tea. In the beginning Raj had slept in the shop on the counter top but recently, after Manikam had raised his salary by a small amount, he had rented one of the dark tenement cubicles upstairs. Manikam himself rented the entire ground floor of the shophouse for his business premises and living space.
    Soon Manikam disappeared into a back room. Raj sat down on the chair behind the counter and, turning the tap in the earthenware water jar, filled a metal glass and drank thirstily. Now the violence of the afternoon was over and he was safely home he felt suddenly weak, as if he had been pummelled all over. In the quiet of the shop with the familiar sights and sounds of the street beyond, the alarming events of the last few hours filled his mind, and his thoughts returned to Mr Ho.
    He had helped the Chinese alight from the trolley, increasingly alarmed by the man’s huffing and puffing. ‘Uncle, if your house far then we take a rickshaw,’ Raj had suggested as the tram drew away.
    The man’s colour was not good and his breath continued to rattle in his chest like a bag of marbles. Demonstrators still straggled along the road murmuring angrily; outside the Kreta Ayer police station the dead bodies were being dragged to one side and covered with straw mats.
    Raj hailed a rickshaw and they climbed in, squashed together on the seat. The Chinese had pushed his boater hat to the back of his head at a rakish angle, and the long hairs sprouting from the raised mole on his chin lifted as they bowled along. Both his wheezing and his courtly manner gave him the appearance of age, yet Raj judged him to be no more than forty-five.
    â€˜I have a biscuit factory near here,’ Mr Ho told him, extracting a gold watch from his waistcoat pocket. The sun flashed on the long chain across his chest as he noted the time. Raj stared at the watch, at its smooth pebble-like shape, the intricacy of its fine workmanship, and vowed that one day he too would own a similar timepiece. Beneath them the runner flexed stringy muscles and suddenly picked up his pace, throwing them back in the seat.
    Soon they reached Pearl’s Hill and the demonstrators were left behind. Mr Ho directed the runner towards a dusty