Untouchable The sweeper boy splashed water over the Aius matting that hung in the doorway and for a while the air was cooled. I sat on the edge of my bed, staring out of the open window, brooding upon the dusty road shimmering in the noon-day heat. A car passed and. the dust rose in billowing clouds. Across the road lived the people who were supposed to look after me while my father lay in hospital with malaria. I was supposed to stay with them, sleep with them. But except for meals, I kept away. I did not like them and they did not like me. For a week, longer probably, ] was going to live alone in the red-brick bungalow on the outskirts of the town, on the fringe of the jungle. At night the sweeper boy would keep guard, sleeping in the kitchen. Apartlike them and they did not like me. Their mother said, ‘Don’t play with the sweeper boy, he is unclean. Don’t touch him. Remember, he is a servant. You must come and play with my boys. Well, I did not intend playing with the sweeper boy... but neither did I intend playing with her children. I was going to sit on my bed all week and wait for my father to come home. Sweeper boy . . . all day he pattered up and down between the house and the water-tank, with the bucket clanging against his knees. Back and forth, with a wide, friendly smile I frowned at him. He was about my age, ten. He had short-cropped hair, very white teeth, and muddy feet, hands, and face. All he wore was an old pair of khaki shorts; the rest of his body was bare, burnt a deep brown. At every trip to the water tank he bathed, and retuned dripping and. glistening from head to toe. I dripped with sweat. It was supposedly below my station to bathe at the tank, where the gardener, water carrier, cooks, ayahs, sweepers, and their children all collected. I was the son of a ‘sahib’ and convention ruled that I did not play with servant children.a a ee a. a ee a eS ae for I did not like them and they did not like me. I watched the flies buzzing against the windowpane, the lizards scuttling across the rafters, the wind scattering petals of scorched, long- dead flowers. The sweeper boy smiled and saluted in play. I avoided his eyes and said, ‘Go away.’ He went into the kitchen. Trose and crossed the room, and lifted my sun helmet off the hatstand. A centipede ran down the wall, across the floor. I screamed and jumped on the bed, shouting for help The sweeper boy darted in. He saw me on the bed, the centipede on the floor; and picking a large book off the shelf, slammed it down on the repulsive insect Tremained standing on my bed, trembling with fear and revulsion. He laughed at me, showing his teeth, and ] blushed and said, “Get out! I would not, could not, touch or approach the hat or hatstand. I sat on the bed and longed for my father to come home. A mosquito passed close by me and sang in my ear. Half-heartedly. I clutched at it and missed: and it disappeared behind the dressing-table That mosquito, I reasoned, gave the malaria to my father. And now it ‘was trying to give it to me!PR ee eA D IT Te ee RS ee REE ee ee eae sa ENT aeRO Te TT See ee from outside the window. I glared back at her. The sweeper boy passed with the bucket, and grinned. I tumed away. In bed at night, with the lights on, I tried reading. But even books could not quell my anxiety. The sweeper boy moved about the house, bolting doors, fastening windows. He asked me if ] had any orders. I shook my head. He skipped across to the electric switch, turned off the light, and slipped into his quarters. Outside, inside, all was dark; only one shaft of light squeezed in through a crack in the sweeper boy's door, and then that too went out. I began to wish I had stayed with the neighbours. The darkness worried me—silent and close—silent, as if in suspense. Once a bat flew flat against the window, falling to the ground outside; once an owl hooted. Sometimes a dog barked. And I tautened as a jackal howled hideously in the jungle behind the bungalow. But nothing could break the overall stillness, the night's silence . Only a dry puff of wind... It rustled in the trees, and put me in mind of a snake slithering over dry leaves and twigs. I remembered a tale I had been told not long ago, of a sleeping boy who had been bitten by a cobra.SRag en ae eee RE NEL, weet Wales MT SY Aer ehh eS EG oR The shutters rattled, the doors creaked. It was a night for ghosts. Ghosts! God, why did I have to think of them? My God! There, standing by the bathroom door My father! My father dead from the malaria, and come to see me! I threw myself at the switch. The room lit up. I sank down on the bed in complete exhaustion, the sweat soaking my nightclothes. It was not my father I had seen. It was his dressing gown hanging on the bathroom door. It had not been taken with him to the hospital. T turned off the light The hush outside seemed deeper, nearer. | remembered the centipede, the bat, thought of the cobra and the sleeping boy: pulled the sheet tight over my head. If I could see nothing, well then, nothing could see me A thunderclap shattered the brooding stillness. A streak of lightning forked across the sky, so close that even through the sheet I saw a tree and the opposite house silhouetted against the flashing canvas of gold. I dived deeper beneath the bedclothes, gathered the pillow about my ears. But at the next thunderclap, louder this time, louder than I had ever heard, I leapt from my bed. I could not stand it. I fled, blundering into theThe boy sat on the bare floor. “What is happening?” he asked. The lightning flashed, and his teeth and eyes flashed with it. Then he was a blur in the darkness. ‘lam afraid,” I said. I moved towards him and my hand touched a cold shoulder. ‘Stay here.” he said. ‘I too am afraid.” I sat down, my back against the wall: beside the untouchable, the outcaste . . . and the thunder and lightning ceased, and the rain came down, swishing and drumming on the corrugated. roof. ‘The rainy season has started,” observed the sweeper boy, tuming to me. His smile played with the darkness, and then he laughed. And I laughed too, but feebly. But I was happy and safe. The scent of the wet earth blew in through the skylight and the rain fell harder This was my first short story, written when J was sixteen.