A month after the apprentices had started, Ashraf was wakened in the night by a soft mewling. He sat up to listen, but there was nothing more. He lay down and began to drift.
A few minutes later the sound nudged his sleep again. “What is it?” asked Mumtaz. “Why do you keep waking?”
“A noise. Was the baby crying?”
“No, but she will if you keep jumping up.”
Then the soft sobs came again. “It’s downstairs.” He got out of bed and lit the lamp.
“So why do you have to go? Are you their father?”
Her reproaches followed him as he descended the steps into the shop. He entered and held up the lamp. The light caught Narayan’s tear-glistened cheeks. Ashraf knelt on the floor beside him, gently rubbing his back.
“What’s wrong, Narayan?” he asked, although he knew the answer, having expected an attack of homesickness sooner or later. “I heard you crying. Is something hurting?”
The boy shook his head. Ashraf put his arm around him. “When your father is not here, I stand in his place. And Mumtaz Chachi is like your mother, nah? You can tell us anything you like.”
Narayan burst into sobs at that. Now Ishvar awoke as well and rubbed his eyes, shielding them from the lamp.
“Do you know why your brother is crying?” asked Ashraf.
Ishvar nodded gravely. “He thinks of home every night. I also think of it, but I don’t cry.”
“You are a brave boy.”
“I don’t want to cry either,” said Narayan. “But when it gets dark and everybody is sleeping, my father and mother come in my mind.” He sniffed and wiped his eyes. “I see our hut, and it makes me very sad, and then it makes me cry.”
Ashraf held him on his lap, saying it was all right to think of his parents. “But don’t be sad, your Bapa will arrive in a few weeks to take you home for a visit. And when you have learned all the tailoring, you will open your own shop and earn lots of money. How proud your parents will be, nah?”
He told the boys that whenever they felt sad, they could come and tell him about their village, the river, the fields, their friends. Talking together about it would change the sadness to happiness, he assured them. He lay by their side till they fell asleep, then crept upstairs with the lamp turned low.
Mumtaz was sitting in the dark, waiting for him. “Are they all right?” she asked anxiously.
He nodded, reassured by her concern. “They were just feeling lonely.”
“Maybe we should let them sleep upstairs from tomorrow.”
Her offer touched him, and his eyes swam with love. “They are brave boys. They will learn to sleep alone, it’s good for them to become tough,” he said.
It soon became known in Dukhi’s village that his children were learning a trade other than leather-working. In the old days, punishment for stepping outside one’s caste would have been death. Dukhi was spared his life, but it became a very hard life. He was allowed no more carcasses, and had to travel long distances to find work. Sometimes he obtained a hide secretly from fellow Chamaars; it would have been difficult for them if they were found out. The items he fashioned from this illicit leather had to be sold in far-off places where they had not heard about him and his sons.
“Such suffering you have brought upon our heads,” said Roopa almost daily. “No work, no food, no sons. What crimes have I committed to be punished like this? My life has become a permanent shadow.”
But her horizon brightened as the day approached for the children’s visit. She dreamed and made plans, her heartache diverted by the desire to have some treat waiting for them. And if the treat was unaffordable, she determined, then it would be obtained moneylessly, in darkness.
For the first time since the children were born, Dukhi acknowledged that he was aware of her night walks. As she rose stealthily after midnight, he said, “Listen, mother-of-Narayan, I don’t think you should go.”
Roopa jumped. “O, how you scared me! I thought you were asleep!”
“Taking such a risk is stupid.”
“You never said that before.”
“It was different then. It’s not like the boys will starve without butter or a peach or a bit of jaggery.”
Roopa went anyway, promising herself it was the last time. After all, her children had been away for three months, she had to give them something special.
On the long-awaited day, Dukhi left at dawn and brought his sons back for a week. The two boys sat very close to their father, and couldn’t stop touching him throughout the journey, leaning against him on either side, Narayan holding on to his knee, Ishvar clutching his arm. They talked nonstop, then repeated everything for their mother when they got home in the late afternoon.
“The machine is amazing,” said Ishvar. “The big wheel is — ”
“You do your feet likethis-likethis,” said Narayan, flapping his hands to mimic the treadle, “and the needle jumps up and down, it’s so good — ”
“I can do it very fast, but Ashraf Chacha can do it very-very fast.”
“I like the small needle also, with my fingers, it goes in and out of the cloth smoothly, it’s very pointy, once it poked me in my thumb.”
Their mother immediately asked to see the thumb. Assuring herself that there was no permanent damage, she let the story proceed. By dinnertime the boys were exhausted, and started falling asleep over the food. Roopa wiped their hands and mouths, then Dukhi guided them to their mats.
For a long while, they gazed at them sleeping before rolling out their own mats. “They are looking nice and fit,” she said. “See their cheeks.”
“I hope it’s not an unhealthy swelling,” said Dukhi. “Like the swollen bellies that babies get in famine time.”
“What-all rubbish are you talking? With my mother’s instinct I would know at once if my children were not well.” But she understood his doubt was prompted by resentment that their children should grow healthier in a stranger’s house than when they were living at home; she shared his shame. They went to bed feeling a mixture of gladness and sorrow.
The family’s excitement continued the next morning. The boys had brought a tape measure, a blank page, and a pencil from Muzaffar Tailoring, and wanted to measure their parents. Ashraf had taught them a diagrammatic code for the constantly used words like neck, waist, chest, and sleeve.
The boys could not reach high enough, so the two clients had to bend down or sit on the floor for some of the measurements: first their mother, and then their father. While they were recording Dukhi’s sizes, Roopa called her friends from nearby huts to watch. Now Ishvar grew self-conscious and smiled shyly, but Narayan flourished the tape and made his gestures more expansive, enjoying the attention.
Everyone clapped with delight when they finished. In the evening, Dukhi borrowed the piece of paper to show to his friends under the tree by the river. He carried it about with him for the rest of the week.
Then it was time for the boys to return to Muzaffar Tailoring. The parents’ thoughts turned once again with dread towards the absence looming in their lives, in their hut. Ishvar requested his father for the page with the measurements.
“Can’t I keep it?” asked Dukhi. The boys considered their father’s request, then rummaged for a scrap of paper and copied the figures so he could have the original.
Three months again passed before the next visit. This time the boys brought presents for their parents. Ishvar and Narayan planned to fool them that they had gone shopping for the gifts in a big store in town, just like rich townspeople.
“What-all is this?” said Roopa uneasily. “Where did you get the money?”
“We didn’t buy them, Ma! We made them ourselves!” said Narayan, forgetting his little joke. Ishvar explained excitedly how Ashraf Chacha had helped them select and match the remnants left over from the fabric for customers’ orders. Their father’s vest had been easy; there were plenty of white poplin remnants. The choli for their mother had required a bit more planning. A print of red and yellow flowers made up the front of the blouse. The back was a solid red, and the sleeves were fashioned from a swatch of vermilion.
Roopa burst into tears as soon as she put on the choli. Ishvar and Narayan looked at their father in alarm,
