WALLS
Lal Chakraborty

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21Ân ®gh˦u¡l£, 2003

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Part I: Chapter 3    

When the children learned that they could work on the fort, their numbers increased. We worked hard and the wall grew. Banya often came and encouraged us. Sometimes he gave us fruits to eat.

Miro never liked Banya. "He is a crooked snake. Someday he will wrap himself around our neck and will suffocate us." 

"But Miro, it was he who made it possible for us to work here again. Otherwise there would be no walls today." 

"But still he is a twisted snake." Miro was quite forceful when she talked with me. She only talked with me. She wouldn’t talk with anyone else. She would remain dumb throughout the day. But in my home, she would chatter till my ears hurt with words.

"Miro, why don’t you talk with anyone else?" 

"Because I talk with you. I couldn’t chat with every person of this world. I have barely enough to say to one person. If I waste that on others than I won’t be able to tell you it all. And then I won’t be happy. And if I am not happy then I won’t talk. That’s why I only talk with you." 

She could talk very fast and could have you confused in a minute. Of course, she only had me confused in a minute. And when she knew that I was confused, she would start talking about something else. That would confuse me further and finally when I was hopelessly confused she would giggle all over and laugh and clap her hands and if she was extra happy that evening, she would dance and jump and make herself utterly beautiful. Sometimes she was more beautiful than her legs, and hands and face and breasts and hair. Sometimes she was more beautiful than herself. 

Those were beautiful days. We would wander in the moonlight holding hands and she would whisper, "Zen." 

"What?" 

"I love you." 

Miro and I were the repairing crew. Others would dig mud and load her basket with it. She would carry it to me. I would take the mud in my hands; mix it with the water in the bucket lying right at my feet and fill up the cracks that were visible. Every now and then, we would step back and see if we had covered it all. We were proud of our work because it was the final touch to the wall. It gave the walls a smooth and polished look.

Sometimes when she was tired, I would dig the mud and carry it to her while she would patch the walls. And when we both were tired, we would walk into the room without a roof and sit down. The lack of the roof made the room more of a room. Somehow, it conveyed a greater sense of confinement by not confining entirely. And we both liked it. We lay down together side by side and looked up at the sky. The sky was always blue. Like the walls were always gray. And we were very sad when we found one day a roof over the room and a sort of door made of wood and canvas. The newly made roof over the room was gray, too. Some great idea - to give a gray roof to the beautiful room. We went back to work without resting.

That night I came back to the small room. I had a hammer in my hand. I wanted to break the roof. I wanted to put the room back as before. I looked around me. Not a soul in sight. I walked closer. It wouldn’t take long. The starlight was shining on the newly created roof. When I was near the doorway, I heard voices. 

"Why don’t you let me stay with you?" a female voice was saying.

"Please stay as long as you want to. Just go away before anyone sees you. Or else they will talk about you the way they talk about Mimi, the village whore. Oh, that would be terrible. I can’t see that happen before my eyes, princess." Princess! And Banya. They were meeting here! 

"Oh no. What I mean is why don’t you marry me?" 

"Princess, I am a lowly mouse. How could I ever marry you? Oh no Princess, I couldn’t disgrace you that much. Look at me. Living in this room. I couldn’t even afford a wall of my own and I moved here today. Just look at me. A common field mouse. You are meant to be a royal bride. Not a wife of a field mouse." 

I heard the princess sobbing. I didn’t understand what was happening. Bania moving into this room! Why? "He has such a decent house behind his shop in the market. Why will he move in over here?" I didn’t wait anymore. I slid away silently.

Miro was waiting for me when I came home. She laid the table and we sat down to eat. She didn’t talk a lot that night. On the next morning, we saw Banya come out of that room and lock it. He didn’t go away but asked a few children’s help for adding a few more rooms beside the lone one. Once people saw Banya engaged in this silly game, some other adults joined in too. Over the next few weeks, the game of wall building suddenly transformed into something far more real than it ever was. Rooms were added quickly and people started moving into them. Others bent the walls to touch their existing houses. The network of walls grew like a spider’s web and the unsuspecting people of the village found themselves becoming increasingly entangled in it.