A Fine Balance Part 22

From time to time contenders emerged with fanfare, touting rival brands, but soon went out of business, unable to compete with the Kohlah family's product. Nothing could approach Kaycee, claimed the faithful patrons its delicious flavour was as unique as the air in the mountains. The soft drink and the General Store flourished.

And so, by the time Maneck started school, the business was on a sound footing. Mr. Kohlah carefully guarded the formula that had salvaged their livelihood, waiting for the day when he would reveal it to Maneck, as his father had revealed it to him. An air of contentment surrounded his life, a quiet pride at having survived the ordeal by fire. It surfaced when neighbours gathered in the evening and the talk s.h.i.+fted gently to times gone by, to the stories of their lives; and when Mr. Kohlah's turn came he told of his family's glory days, not from self-pity or notions of false grandeur, nor to sing his own achievement in the present, but as a lesson in living life on the borderline modern maps could ruin him, but they could not displace his dreams for his family.

Of course, the stories had all been heard before, many times over, yet there was always room for one more telling. And Mr. Kohlah was not the only one guilty of repet.i.tion.

Most of his and Mrs. Kohlah's friends were army men and their wives, who, grown used to a lifetime of British-style cantonment living, had chosen to retire here in the hills, unable to countenance a return to dusty plains and smelly cities. They too had oft-told tales to tell, of bygone days, when discipline was discipline and not some watered-down version unworthy of the name. When leaders could lead, when everyone knew their place in the scheme of things, and life proceeded in an orderly fas.h.i.+on, without daily being threatened by chaos.

When these retired brigadiers, majors, and colonels came to tea at the Kohlahs', they arrived suited and booted, as they called it, with watches in their fobs and ties around their necks. These trappings might have seemed comical to a nationalist bent of mind but had talismanic value for their wearers. It was all that stood between them and the disorder knocking at the door. Mr. Kohlah himself was partial to bow ties. Mrs. Kohlah served the tea on Aynsley bone china; the cutlery was Sheffield. If it was a special dinner at Navroze or Khordad Sal, she used the Wedgwood set.

"Such a lovely pattern," said Mrs. Grewal. "When will they learn to make such beautiful things in this country?"

Brigadier and Mrs. Grewal were the Kohlahs' closest neighbours, and dropped in fairly often. Mrs. Grewal was also the unchallenged leader of the army wives. Taking the cue from her, someone lightly struck a crystal gla.s.s to test the purity of its music; another inverted a plate to gaze lovingly at the manufacturer's monogram. Praise was lavished in equal portions on the food and on the bowls and platters that held it. Chaos was successfully kept at bay for yet another day.

Later, the talk turned, as it had countless times before, to the nightmare that would haunt them to the end of their days they anatomized the Part.i.tion, recited the chronology of events, and mourned the senseless slaughter. Brigadier Grewal wondered if the sundered parts would some day be sewn together again. Mr. Kohlah fingered his patch and said anything was possible. Consolation, as always, was found in muddled criticism of the colonizers who, lacking the stomach for proper conclusions, had departed in a hurry, though the post-mortem was tempered by nostalgia for the old days.

After such evenings, Mr. Kohlah wondered why his air of contentment felt ruffled not undermined, but as though someone or something was trying to tamper with it. He enjoyed the dinners and tea parties greatly, and would not have absented himself for anything; yet there was a sense of unease, like a smell which should not have been there, of something rotten.

It took a day or two for his equilibrium to return. Then he began to feel again that yes, it had been the right decision not to leave his home in the hills, it was still a good place for his family. "The air and water is so pure, the mountains so beautiful, and the business is doing very well," wrote he and Mrs. Kohlah to the relatives who periodically beseeched them to leave. "Nowhere else can Maneck have better expectations for his future."

If Maneck had been consulted he would have agreed completely; and never mind the future, the present would have been reason enough for him, for his happy childhood universe. His days were rich and full school in the morning and afternoon, the General Store after that, followed by a walk with his father, late in the evening, when he would stride manfully alongside to keep up, or else Daddy would tease him that slow coaches got left behind.

But Sundays were the best days. On Sundays a gaddi man called Bhanu came to tidy the garden behind the house. Maneck looked forward all week to being outdoors with Bhanu, wandering around the property and doing ch.o.r.es under his direction. The area beyond the first fifty yards, where it began to slope downhill, wild with shrubs and trees and thick undergrowth, was the most interesting. There, Bhanu taught him the names of strange flowers and herbs, things which did not grow near the front of the house with the roses and lilies and marigolds. He pointed out the deadly datura plant and the one that was its antidote, and leaves that mitigated the poison of certain snakes, others which cured stomach ailments, and the stems whose pulp healed cuts and wounds. He showed Maneck how to squeeze a snapdragon to make its jaws open. Late in the year, when the weather turned chilly, they gathered dead twigs and branches as the afternoon drew to a close, and made a small fire.

Sometimes Bhanu brought along his daughter, Suraiya, who was the same age as Maneck. Then Maneck divided his time between ch.o.r.es and play. At noon, Mrs. Kohlah called the children in for lunch. Suraiya was shy about eating at the table; there were no chairs in her house. It was a few visits before she would run in with Maneck and readily take her place. Bhanu continued to eat his food outside.

One afternoon, Suraiya squatted on the far slope among the bushes. Maneck waited out of sight for a moment, then followed her curiously. She smiled as he approached. He heard the soft hiss, and bent over to look. Her little stream had made a frothy puddle.

He unb.u.t.toned his pants beside her and produced a fluid arc. "I can do soo-soo standing," he said.

Laughing, she finished and pulled up her underpants. "So can my brother, he also has a small soosoti like yours."

It became a ritual from then on to go in the bushes every time Suraiya came to work with her father. Gradually, their curiosity led them to closer anatomical examinations.

"What is it?" asked Mrs. Kohlah when they came in to tea. "Why are you two giggling all the time?"

Over the next few Sundays she began watching from the kitchen window, and saw them go repeatedly down the slope, where her eyes could not follow. Her attempt to sneak up on them failed. They heard her footsteps before she was anywhere near, and ran out laughing.

Later, she confided her suspicions to Mr. Kohlah. "Farokh, I think you need to keep an eye on Maneck. While Suraiya is here."

"Why, what has he done?"

"Well, they go in the bushes and " she blushed. "I haven't actually seen anything, but..."

"The little rascal," smiled Mr. Kohlah. The following Sunday he stayed out in the garden, supervising Bhanu's work and patrolling the periphery of the slope. It became part of his routine for the rest of that year. The children had to exercise all their cunning to evade the adult's watchful eye.

When Maneck completed the fourth standard, Mr. Kohlah began to investigate the possibility of sending him to a boarding school. The quality of instruction available in the local day school had become quite appalling, Brigadier Grewal and everyone else agreed. "A good education is the most important thing," they said.

The boarding school they selected was eight hours away by bus. Maneck detested the decision. The thought of leaving the hill-station his entire universe brought him to a state of panic. "I like my school here," he pleaded. "And how will I work in the shop in the evening if you send me away?"

"Stop worrying about work, you're only eleven," laughed Mr. Kohlah. "You have to enjoy your boyhood first. It will be great fun, living with fellows your own age. You will love the school. And the store will still be here when you come home for holidays."

Maneck learned to tolerate boarding school but not to love it. He felt an ache of betrayal. Not one day pa.s.sed without his remembering the house, his parents, the shop, the mountains. He found his cla.s.smates very different from the boys he had known. They behaved as though they were better than he. The older boys talked about girls, and touched the younger boys. Someone showed him a deck of playing cards that had pictures of naked women. The dark patches between their legs horrified him. It couldn't be, the pictures had to be fake, he thought, remembering the smooth, sweetly whispering hole of Suraiya.

"That's hair that's the way it's supposed to be," said the older boy. "These are genuine photographs. Look, I'll show you." He undid his pants to display his pubic hair, also releasing his tumescent p.e.n.i.s from its confines.

"But you're a boy, it doesn't prove anything about girls," said Maneck. He wanted a closer look at the cards. The fellow would not let him unless he did him a favour. He held Maneck very close, rubbing against him and moaning. It was a strange sound, thought Maneck, as though he was trying to do kakka. The cards were handed over after the fellow had spurted.

Maneck returned home for the Divali vacation, let two days pa.s.s, then tried to convince his parents not to send him back. He kept it up till Mr. Kohlah got annoyed. "There will be no more talk on this subject," he said.

Maneck went to bed without wis.h.i.+ng them good night. The omission tormented him for a long time, leaving a hollow that sleep refused to fill. After midnight had struck, he considered going to his parents' room and rectifying his foolish defiance. But pride, and the fear of angering Daddy again, kept him in his own bed.

Up at dawn, he hugged his mother by the stove and murmured good morning, then skirted his father at the kitchen window and slipped into his chair. "His little lords.h.i.+p is still sulking," said Mr. Kohlah, smiling.

Maneck looked down at his cup, frowning into it. He did not want to lose control of his mouth and smile back.

It was Sunday, and Bhanu came as usual to work in the garden. Suraiya was not with him. Maneck tagged along for a while before asking about her.

"She is with her mother," said Bhanu. "She will be with her from now on."

Maneck felt another segment of his universe collapse. He did not return to the garden after lunch. Mrs. Kohlah took him aside and said it was not nice to be unkind to Daddy who loved him so much. "What he is doing, sending you to a fine school, is for your own good. You should not think of it as punishment."

In the evening, Mr. Kohlah bade his son sit beside him on the sofa. "Boarding school is not forever," he said. "Remember, Mummy and I miss you more than you miss us. But what is the choice? You don't want to be ignorant, unable to read or write, like these poor gaddi people who go through their whole lives cold and hungry, with a few sheep or goats, struggling to survive. Remember, the slow coach gets left behind. Once you obtain the Secondary School Certificate in another six years, n.o.body is going to send you away. You will take charge of this business."

Maneck allowed himself a smile as his father continued, "In fact, the sooner it is, the better for me. I can relax and go hiking all day."

Next morning at breakfast, Mr. Kohlah gave him the special big cup to drink from. Then he let him sit behind the till to make change for their customers. Maneck cherished that day for the rest of the school year. Whenever the pain of banishment surfaced, he summoned the happy memory to counterbalance his despair, his dark thoughts of rejection and loneliness.

Despite his initial dread of the eternity that was six years, time chipped away three of them at its steady pace. Maneck turned fourteen, and came home for the May vacation.

That year, for the first time, his parents were going to leave him on his own for two days while they attended a wedding. Instead of closing down the place and sending him to a neighbour's house, Mr. Kohlah decided, as a special treat, to let him run the shop alone.

"Just do things the way we do when I'm here," he said. "Everything will go smoothly. Don't forget to count the soft-drink crates taken by the driver. And phone for tomorrow's milk very, very important. If there is a problem, call Grewal Uncle. I've told him to check on you later on." Mr. and Mrs. Kohlah went around the shop one more time with Maneck, reminding and pointing, then departed.

The day pa.s.sed like any other. There were flurries of activity followed by periods of calm during which he wiped the gla.s.s cases, dusted the shelves, cleaned the counter. The regulars inquired about his parents' absence, and praised his ability. "Look at the boy, keeping the barracks s.h.i.+pshape. Deserves a medal."

"Farokh and Aban could retire tomorrow if they wanted to," said Brigadier Grewal. "Nothing to worry about, with Field Marshal Maneck in charge of General Store." Everyone present laughed heartily at that.

Late in the evening, quiet descended upon the square as daylight began to fade. Maneck went to switch on the porch lamp, feeling proud of his day's work. It was almost time to close the store. All that remained was to empty the till, count the money, and enter the amount in the book. From the porch he saw the shop's interior, and paused. That big gla.s.s case in the centre, with soaps and talc.u.m powders it would look much nicer in the front. And the old newspaper table near the entrance, scarred and wobbly wouldn't it be better off pushed to the side?

The idea pursued Maneck and seized his imagination while he warmed his food. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed like a smart rearrangement of the display. He could easily manage it alone, tonight. What a surprise for Mummy and Daddy when they came back.

After eating his dinner, he returned to the darkened shop, switched on the light, and dragged the old table out of the way. The gla.s.s case was more difficult, heavy and c.u.mbersome. He emptied the merchandise and pushed it slowly to its new, prominent spot. Then he replaced the cans and cartons, but not in their boring old stacks he arranged them in interesting pyramids and spirals. Perfect, he thought, standing back to admire the effect, and went to bed.

The next evening, Mr. Kohlah walked in and saw the alterations. Without pausing to greet Maneck or ask how things were, he told him to shut the door, hang out the Closed sign.

"But there's still one hour left," said Maneck, hungry for his father's praise.

"I know. Shut it anyway." Then his father ordered him to put everything back the way it was. His voice was barren of emotion.

Maneck would have preferred it if his father had scolded or slapped him, or punished him in any manner he wanted. But this contempt, this refusal to even talk about it, was horrid. The enthusiasm drained from his face, leaving behind a puzzled anguish, and he felt on the verge of tears.

His mother was moved to intervene. "But Farokh, don't you think it looks nice, what Maneck has done?"

"The looks are irrelevant. What instructions did we give when we trusted him with the shop for two days? This is how he repays the trust. It's a question of discipline and following orders, not of looking nice."

Maneck returned the displays to their old places, but for the rest of his school vacation he refused to enter the shop. "Daddy doesn't need me I don't want to be there," he said bitterly to his mother. "He only wants a servant in the shop."

In bed at night she conveyed to Mr. Kohlah that Maneck's feelings were badly hurt. "I am aware of that," he said, facing away from her on the pillow. "But he must learn to walk before he can run. It's not good for a boy to think he knows everything before his time."

She persevered, and was successful just before the vacation came to an end. Peace was restored between father and son one morning when Mr. Kohlah started reorganizing one of the gla.s.s cases and called Maneck into the shop to ask his opinion. As school reopening day approached, they began working together again in the soft-drink factory in the cellar, Maneck taking down the cleaned empties, then carrying up the crates of freshly bottled Kaycee.

On the last night, Mr. Kohlah said, while switching off the machine, TU miss you when you leave tomorrow." The motor's dying throbs left his words clutching helplessly at the dank subterranean air. He hugged Maneck as they went up the stairs together.

Boarding school was the cause of Maneck's second unwilling departure from the mountains. The first had come when he was six, when he and his mother went to visit her family in the city, travelling by train for two days. He had been fascinated by the towering buildings and palatial cinema houses, the avalanche of cars and buses and lorries, and the brightness of streets as the lights went on when night had fallen. But after the first few days, he had missed his father terribly. He was thrilled to return home when their holiday was over.

"I am never going to leave the mountains again," he said. "Never, ever."

Mrs. Kohlah whispered something in Mr. Kohlah's ear, who was waiting on the station platform to receive them. He smiled, embraced Maneck, and said neither was he.

But the day soon came when the mountains began to leave them. It started with roads. Engineers in sola topis arrived with their sinister instruments and charted their designs on reams of paper. These were to be modern roads, they promised, roads that would hum with the swift pa.s.sage of modern traffic. Roads, wide and heavy-duty, to replace scenic mountain paths too narrow for the broad vision of nation-builders and World Bank officials.

One morning, at the worksite, a minister was garlanded as a band played. It was the Bhagatbhai Naankhatai Marching Band: three bra.s.s winds, a pair of snares, and a ba.s.s drum. Their uniforms were white, with the letters BNMB BNMB in gold braid on their backs; on the ba.s.s drum, the initials were painted in red. The band's specialty was wedding processions, and the ministerial programme included the paean of the bride's mother, the lament of the bride's mother-in-law, the bridegroom's triumphal progress, an ode to the matchmaker, and a hymn to fertility. But the in gold braid on their backs; on the ba.s.s drum, the initials were painted in red. The band's specialty was wedding processions, and the ministerial programme included the paean of the bride's mother, the lament of the bride's mother-in-law, the bridegroom's triumphal progress, an ode to the matchmaker, and a hymn to fertility. But the BNMB BNMB expertly adapted the repertoire for the occasion. The drums tattooed away militarily, heralding the march of progress, while the trombone eschewed its mournful matrimonial glissandi in favour of a sunburst staccato. expertly adapted the repertoire for the occasion. The drums tattooed away militarily, heralding the march of progress, while the trombone eschewed its mournful matrimonial glissandi in favour of a sunburst staccato.

The audience of unemployed villagers cheered on cue, anxious to earn their attendance money. Speeches were delivered from a makes.h.i.+ft platform. The minister swung a golden pickaxe that missed its mark. He grinned at the crowd and swung again.

After the dignitaries left, the workers moved in. Progress was slow at first, so slow that Mr. Kohlah and all the inhabitants of the hills harboured an irrational hope: the work would never be completed, their little haven would remain unscathed. Meanwhile, Brigadier Grewal and he organized meetings for the townspeople where they condemned the flawed development policy, the shortsightedness, the greed that was sacrificing the country's natural beauty to the demon of progress. They signed pet.i.tions, lodged their protest with the authorities, and waited.

But the road continued to inch upwards, swallowing everything in its path. The sides of their beautiful hills were becoming gashed and scarred. From high on the slopes, the advancing tracks looked like rivers of mud defying gravity, as though nature had gone mad. The distant thunder of blasting and the roar of earth-moving machines floated up early in the morning, and the dreaminess of the dawn mist turned to nightmare.

Mr. Kohlah watched helplessly as the asphalting began, changing the brown rivers into black, completing the transmogrification of his beloved birthplace where his forefathers had lived as in paradise. He watched powerlessly while, for the second time, lines on paper ruined the life of the Kohlah family. Only this time it was an indigenous surveyor's cartogram, not a foreigner's imperial map.

When the work was finished, the minister returned to cut the ribbon. In the years since the ground-breaking ceremony, he had grown more corpulent but not less clumsy. He shuffled up to the ribbon and dropped the golden scissors. Seven eager sycophants leapt to the rescue. A tussle ensued; the scissors were wrested away by the strongest of the seven and restored to the minister. He fixed them all with a fierce glare for calling so much attention to a simple slip, then smiled for the crowd and cut the ribbon with a flourish. The crowd applauded, the Bhagatbhai Naankhatai Marching Band struck up, and in the off-key din of the bra.s.s winds no one noticed the minister struggling quietly to extricate his pudgy fingers from the scissors.

Then the promised rewards began rolling up the road into the mountains. Lorries big as houses transported goods from the cities and fouled the air with their exhaust. Service stations and eating places sprouted along the routes to provide for the machines and their men. And developers began to build luxury hotels.

That year, when Maneck came home for the holidays, he was puzzled (and later alarmed) to discover his father perpetually irritable. They found it impossible to get through the day without quarrelling, breaking into argument even in the presence of customers.

"What's the matter with him?" Maneck asked his mother. "When I'm here, he ignores me or fights with me. When I'm at school, he writes letters saying how much he misses me."

"You have to understand," said Mrs. Kohlah, "people change when times change. It does not mean he doesn't love you."

For Mrs. Kohlah, this unhappy vacation would also be remembered as the one during which Maneck abandoned his habit of hugging his parents and whispering good morning. The first time that he came down and took his place silently, his mother waited with her back to the table till the pang of rejection had pa.s.sed, before she would trust her hands with the hot frying pan. His father noticed nothing.

Stomach churning, Mr. Kohlah was absorbed in watching the growth of development in the hills. His friends and he agreed it was a malevolent growth. The possibility of increased business at the General Store was no consolation. All his senses were being a.s.saulted by the invasion. The noxious exhaust from lorries was searing his nostrils, he told Mrs. Kohlah, and the ugly throbbing of their engines was ripping his eardrums to shreds.

Wherever he turned, he began to see the spread of shacks and shanties. It reminded him of the rapidity with which the mange had overtaken his favourite dog. The dest.i.tute encampments scratched away at the hillsides, the people drawn from every direction by stories of construction and wealth and employment. But the ranks of the jobless always exponentially outnumbered the jobs, and a hungry army sheltered permanently on the slopes. The forests were being devoured for firewood; bald patches materialized upon the body of the hills.

Then the seasons revolted. The rain, which used to make things grow and ripen, descended torrentially on the denuded hills, causing mudslides and avalanches. Snow, which had provided an ample blanket for the hills, turned skimpy. Even at the height of winter the cover was ragged and patchy.

Mr. Kohlah felt a perverse satisfaction at nature's rebellion. It was a vindication of sorts: he was not alone in being appalled by the hideous rape. But when the seasonal disorder continued year after year, he could take no comfort in it. The lighter the snow cover, the heavier was his heart.

Maneck said nothing, though he thought his father was being overly dramatic when he declared, "Taking a walk is like going into a war zone."

Mrs. Kohlah had never been one for walking. "I prefer to enjoy the view from my kitchen," she said whenever her husband invited her. "It's less tiring."

But for Mr. Kohlah, long, solitary rambles were the great pleasure of his life, especially after winter, when every outing was graced by delicious uncertainty what lay round the next bend? A newborn rivulet, perhaps? Wildflowers he had not noticed yesterday? Among his more awesome memories was a mighty boulder riven by a shrub growing out of it. Sometimes he was the victim of a sweet ambush: a prospect of the valley from a hitherto unseen angle.

Nowadays, every stroll was like a deathwatch, to see what was still standing and what had been felled. Coming upon a favourite tree, he would stop under its branches a while before moving on. He would run his hand along the gnarled trunk, happy that an old friend had survived another day. Many of the rocky ledges that he used to sit on to watch the sunset had been removed by dynamite. When he did find one, he rested for a few minutes and wondered if it would be here for him the next time.

Before long they began talking in town about him. "Mr. Kohlah's screw is getting a little loose," they said. "He speaks to trees and rocks, and pats them like they were his dogs."

When Maneck heard the gossip, he burned with shame, wis.h.i.+ng his father would stop this embarra.s.sing behaviour. He also boiled with anger, wis.h.i.+ng to slap some sense into the ignorant, insensitive people.

On the fifth anniversary of the new road, the local punchayet, dominated by a new breed of businessmen and entrepreneurs, organized a small celebration, inviting everyone to partic.i.p.ate. Repulsed by the very idea, Mr. Kohlah left the shop early that evening. He pulled off his eyepatch and started on his walk. The rented loudspeakers, from their perches on tree branches in the town square, followed him for some distance with tinny music and the babble of empty speeches.

He must have walked about three miles when the light of day turned towards the promise of sunset. Strains of pink and orange were weaving their ephemeral threads through the sky. He stopped to gaze westwards, eager to savour the moment. At times like these he wished for two eyes again, to get a wider sweep of the landscape.

Then his gaze was pulled downwards, across the treeless hillside. From hundreds of shacks there rose the grey, stinging smoke of frugal cooking fires. The gauze obscured the horizon. Facing upwind, he could smell the acrid haze and, behind it, the stench of human waste that it grimly tried to shroud. He s.h.i.+fted his weight uncertainly. A twig snapped under his feet. He stood still, asking himself what he was waiting for. He heard the stark voices of mothers calling, the shrieks of children, the barking of pariah dogs. He imagined the miserable contents of the pots blackening over the fires while hungry mouths waited around.

Suddenly, he noticed that dusk had fallen: the sunset was forfeited behind the pall. And the entire scene was so mean and squalid by twilight, so utterly beyond his ability to accept or comprehend. He felt lost and frightened. Waves of anger, compa.s.sion, disgust, sorrow, failure, betrayal, love surged and crashed, battering and confusing him. For what? Of whom? And why was it? If only he could...

But he could make no sense of his emotions. He felt a tightness in his chest, then his throat constricted as if he were choking. He wept helplessly, silently.

The evening darkened. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes. It was a moment before he realized, dabbing at phantom tears, that only the good eye was wet. Strange, he could have sworn the missing one had cried too.

Returning home through the gloom, he decided there was no meaning in going for walks from now on. If meaning there was, it was too new and terrifying for him to explore.

There was no place of escape. Not for himself, at any rate. His dreams had succ.u.mbed, as they must, during their collisions with the pa.s.sing years. He had struggled, he had won, he had lost. He would keep on struggling what else was there for him?

But for his son, he began considering other options for the first time.

Between them, relations did not improve when Maneck came home for the two-week break before his final term. Their most frequent arguments concerned the running of the store. Maneck was full of ideas about merchandising and marketing, which his father rejected outright.

"At least let me finish talking," said Maneck. "Why are you so stubborn? Why not give it a try?"

"This is not a little hobby that we can try and toy with," said Mr. Kohlah, his face mournful. "It's our bread and b.u.t.ter."

"Are you fighting again, you two?" said Mrs. Kohlah. "I'm going crazy listening to it."

"You have no control over your son," said Mr. Kohlah, even more mournful. "Can you not do something about his non-stop keech-keech? He contradicts everything I say. He thinks he has a new formula for success he thinks this is a science experiment."

He refused to let Maneck order new brands of soap or biscuits which were proving popular elsewhere. Suggestions to improve the lighting in the dingy interior, paint the walls, renovate the shelves and gla.s.s cases to make the display more attractive were all received like blasphemy.

Maneck had trouble reconciling this absurdly cautious man with the image that had grown in his head from stories told by his mother, and by his father's friends: of the fearless individual who had descended a rope into the rain-swollen gorge to rescue a puppy; who had shrugged off the loss of his eye to flying gla.s.s as though it was no more than a mosquito bite; and who had once thrashed three thieves that had wandered into the store looking for easy prey, tempted by the sight of the lone woman behind the counter, not reckoning on her husband bottling soft drinks in the cellar like sacks of rice Mr. Kohlah had tossed them around, said his friends.

And now his father was disintegrating all because of the construction of a silly road. Maneck, too, had lately seen the world being remade around him. But with optimism surging through youthful veins, he was certain that things would sort themselves out. He was fifteen: he was immortal, the hills were eternal. And the General Store? It had been there for generations and would be there for generations more, there was no doubt in his mind.