Fire On the Mountain by Anita Desai Read Free Book Online Page A

in a ringamongst the stones. Here a breeze stirred, cool, dry and resinous.
    Raka leaned against the crusted bark of the tree, as thick and scorched as pieces of burnt toast, feeling the cracked surfaces by rubbing her shoulder-blades against them. Down below her, on the other side of the knoll, was the green rooftop of a large, low building that had bright geraniums in baskets along its verandas, white muslin curtains that the windows alternately inhaled and exhaled, a giant deodar tree to shade it and, across the road, freshly swept and marked tennis courts, empty and waiting. That must be the club her grandmother had spoken of, but deserted now, asleep. It seemed that all Kasauli slept except for the cicadas that sawed and fiddled without stop. In the sky, huge vultures circled lazily, stealthily, on currents of air, prowling for game.
    Raka slid down on her haunches, then lowered herself onto a flat stone at the foot of the tree. Resting the small knobs of her spine against the trunk, she surveyed Sanawar which lay in the deep shade of its trees, and Dagshai and Sabathu, handfuls of pebbles gleaming on golden hilltops. A cricket close by broke in raucously upon the silence and she spent the rest of the afternoon lifting stones in search of it.

Chapter 3
    WHEN AT LAST she heard Ram Lal knocking about in the kitchen, making tea – the loose, jingling sounds so clearly proclaimed tea-time and not any other, heavier meal – she slid down the knoll and went to question him about the factory.
    In between setting out the tea-cups on an old walnut tray, blowing up the fire into a blaze and whipping at clouds of smoke with his kitchen rags, Ram Lal told her.
    â€˜That is the Pasteur Institute. It is where doctors make serum for injections. When a man is bitten by a mad dog, he is taken there for injections – fourteen, in the stomach. I’ve had them myself. Once a whole village was rounded up and taken there – a dog had gone mad and bitten everyone in the village. The dog had to be killed. Its head was cut off and sent to the Institute. The doctors cut them open and look into them. They have rabbits and guinea pigs there, too, many animals. They use them for tests.’
    He stopped to pour boiling water from the great black kettle into the tea-pot and Raka watched the hissing stream, hanging onto the edge of the table by her fingernails.
    â€˜Why is there so much smoke?’ she asked, in a somewhat weak voice.
    â€˜Oh, they are always boiling serum there – boiling, boiling. They make serum for the whole country.’
    Going out with the tea-tray balanced professionally on the palm of one hand, he stopped by the railing and nodded in the direction of the concrete Institute walls that had worried Raka by their incongruity and their oddly oppressive threat. ‘See those chutes? They empty the bones and ashes of dead animals down into the ravine. It’s a bad place. Don’t go there.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜Jackals come at night to chew the bones. Then they go mad and bite the village dogs. The mad dogs run around, biting people. Keep away from there, huh? Specially at night. At night you hear jackals howling and people have seen ghosts.’ He lowered his voice. ‘The ghosts of people who have died of dog-bite and snake-bite roam on the hillsides. It isn’t safe, hear?’
    Raka pressed pale lips together and nodded. She followedRam Lal to the veranda where he put down the tray, and sat down very stiff and still while her great-grandmother poured out a cup of milk for her with a drop of tea in it.
    As she handed over the cup, Nanda Kaul narrowed her eyes and said ‘How pale you are, child. Didn’t you rest at all?’
    Raka ducked her head and lifted the cup to her mouth. Her great-grandmother was left to interpret the motion as she wished.
    After they had emptied their cups, ‘What will you do with yourself now, Raka?’ Nanda Kaul wondered, having