Our Favourite Indian Stories by Khushwant Singh Read Free Book Online Page A

Why?'
    'Did he tell you anything?'
    'No, nothing. What's the matter with you?'
    I kept silent. Propping myself up against the pillow, I sipped my tea.
    After some time mother took my temperature and immediately after, jerked down the column of mercury. Previously, I used to insist upon knowing my temperature. But she was reluctant to tell the truth and I stopped asking. I tried to guess it by watching the expression on her face. Sometimes when I became grave she would say, 'Now get well, and then we shall leave for Delhi.' She said it in a casual manner, as if it was entirely up to me to get well or remain ill; as if I was keeping ill out of sheer obstinacy and that I had to be cajoled into getting well. This would put me in a temper, and turning on my side I would lie facing the window. For a long time she would not realize that I was angry, till I stiffened my legs, clenched my fists, grit my teeth and started breathing heavily.
    Mother, who had all this while been looking out of the window then get alarmed. She would look at me intently, sigh and sit down on the bed by my side. I sensed at once that she had seen through my game, though she never gave me that impression. Taking out a bar of Cadbury's chocolate from the almirah, she would place it under my pillow. 'Don't tell your father about it,' she would warn me, running her fingers through my hair. But the very next moment she would forget me; she would be miles away, lost in her own would of thoughts. I knew this from the way her fingers became inert. The piece of chocolate she had given me was not so much to put me in good humour as to keep me out of her way — so that she could again burrow into her shell, undisturbed. I would look at her face without her being aware of it. The shadowy lines would be gone, and her face would be a blank emptiness. Her eyes would glow with an inner fire and seem to be misted over with a thin film. I wanted to delude myself with the pleasant thought that she was thinking of my illness, but in my heart of hearts I knew that her thoughts had nothing to do with me.
    I gently put my hand on hers. She started, as if my touch had dragged her back from some remote recesses of the mind. She looked hard at me and then kissed me on the lips. I wiped my mouth with my sleeve. She smiled.
    'Child, may I ask you one thing?'
    'Yes?'
    'If I go away, will you take it amiss?' She looked at me without blinking her eyes.
    'Will father go with you?'
    'No.'
    'Then?' I was puzzled.
    She started laughing and lay down by my side.
    I put my cheek against hers. Mother was very beautiful and everybody was afraid of her. Sometimes I wondered what was that something about her, which kept every one on his toes. I was also afraid of her—especially of her eyes, when she looked at me closely.
    A long time back I had once accompanied Father to his friend's house. Our path lay along a ravine and as we climbed up we stopped for a while in the forest grove to regain our breaths. The silence of the grove felt eerie.
    Now when I looked at mother's eyes I was reminded of that dark forest grove.
    Mother's arms were white and smooth as marble. I was shy about touching them. She parted her hair in the middle, sweeping it back tightly, which made her forehead still more prominent.
    Her ears were small, almost doll-like, and remained hidden under her hair. When she lay by my side I pulled them out from underneath her hair and I would be suddenly reminded of what Bano had once told me about people with small ears having short lives. I shivered to think of it but I never told mother. I imagined that when she lay dying I would tell her she was dying before her time because of her ears.
    Sometimes I had a feeling that she was not particularly worried over my illness; that perhaps there were times she even forgot I was ill. I also knew that mother was not eager to go to Delhi. Once I had heard her saying so to uncle Biren and I wondered why.
    For the past few months, mother and