Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya Page B

change?"
    "Indeed no," I said. "But Ceylon is a distant land, its people are not ours. How will you fare?"
    "No worse than here," they replied. "No worse than here."
    The wick was spluttering in the oil. There were only a few drops left in the coconut shell, but there was none to replenish it. We sat on in the darkness. Then at last I made one more effort.
    "If you go you will never come back," I cried. "The journey costs hundreds of rupees, you will never have so much."
    The tears came, hot and bitter, flowing and flowing as if the very springs of sorrow had been touched in my body. They spoke soothingly -- of how much they would earn, and how one day they would return -- as one does to a child; and I listened to them; and it was all a sham, a poor shabby pretence to mask our tortured feelings.
    They left at first daylight, each carrying a bundle with food in it, and each before he went kissed Nathan's feet, then mine, and we laid our hands on them in blessing. I knew we would never see them again.
    "They are growing up," Nathan said. "Would you have them forever at your breast?"
    "Ah, no," I said wearily. "They must go their way. Only it seems to me their way lies far from here. Two sons have gone, now the third is going -- and not to the land, which is in his blood, but to be a servant, which he has never been. What does he know of such work?"
    "He will learn," said Nathan. "He is quick and has an agile brain. Should you not be thankful that he goes no further than two days' journeying, and that it is a good house that takes him? Kenny himself has assured you of that -- you should be grateful that he has recommended our son."
    "I am indeed," I said, flat and dispirited. "He has done much for us."
    "You brood too much," Nathan said, "and think only of your trials, not of the joys that are still with us. Look at our land -- is it not beautiful? The fields are green and the grain is ripening. It will be a good harvest year, there will be plenty."
    He coaxed me out into the sunlight and we sat down together on the brown earth that was part of us, and we gazed at the paddy fields spreading rich and green before us, and they were indeed beautiful. The air was cool and still, yet the paddy caught what little movement there was, leaning slightly one way and the next with soft whispering. At one time there had been kingfishers here, flashing between the young shoots for our fish; and paddy birds; and sometimes, in the shallower reaches of the river, flamingoes, striding with ungainly precision among the water reeds, with plumage of a glory not of this earth. Now birds came no more, for the tannery lay close -- except crows and kites and such scavenging birds, eager for the town's offal, or sometimes a pal-pitta, skimming past with raucous cry but never stopping, perhaps dropping a blue-black feather in flight to delight the children.
    Nathan went and plucked a few green stems and brought them to me. "See how firm and strong they are -- no sign of disease at all. And look, the grain is already forming."
    I took the paddy from him and parted the grass and there within its protective husk lay the rice-grain, just big enough to see, white, perfect, and holding in itself our lives.
    "It promises a good harvest," he repeated eagerly. "We shall be able to pay the landlord, and eat, and perhaps even put by a little. We may even make enough to visit our son -- would not that be good?"
    Thus he sought to comfort me, and after a time I was with him, thinking pleasurably of harvesting, and of plucking the pumpkins swelling on the vine, and visiting our son -- and so we made our plans.
    Before long Kenny brought me news of my third son. He was doing well, he said. His employer was well pleased with his work, he would be well looked after and I had no cause for his anxiety. The boy would soon be writing to me himself.
    "It is very kind of you to tell me," I said. "You have done much for me and mine."
    "It is nothing," he said. "You ask