The Blue Bedspread by Raj Kamal Jha Page A

him her small steel glass. ‘The little girl wants her name on her glass,’ he said and still smiling, he patted her on the head.
    She watched him take a little hammer out of a small leather bag and a steel pen. He then sat down on the floor, spread his legs and held her little glass between his two feet, his toe leaving giant smudges on the rim. But she didn’t mind as he hammered the steel pen, dot after dot, and she saw her name appear on the steel, letter by letter. The job done, he wiped the glass against his trousers. ‘Go get two rupees from your mother,’ he said.
    She pours the drink into the glass, she can hear the crackle as it hits the ice. She walks up the stairs again, this time looking at her shadow riding up the wall, the cold makes her shiver. It will be better now, she thinks as she reaches the terrace landing, his mother is not here, fewer clothes have to be ironed.
    When she steps onto the terrace, he’s standing near the edge now pointing to a red-brick building, she can see only its top floor and that too just a part of the top floor, a long corridor, lit by one tube light, with several doors, all locked. It reminds her of books, in line on library shelves. The tubelight flickers.
    ‘Can you see that red building?’ he says, taking the drink and then, sipping it, he makes a noise. ‘That’s my school,’ he says.
    ‘It’s very difficult to get admissions there now. I went there last week and met the Principal,’ he says, still looking at the red building. ‘I am a former student so they treated me as a special case. I told them I wanted my child admitted there.’
    His drink is almost over, he passes her the glass and she holds it not knowing whether she can go now. She turns back to head for the stairs, she can feel the cold of the steel in her hands, one ice cube is still there, unmelted.
    ‘Where do you think you are going?’ he says. ‘Didn’t you hear what I said, that’s where I wanted to send my child. And now what do I tell the Principal?’
    She smiles at him, she can feel the wind in her sari again. She looks over his shoulder, away from the school he’s pointing to, to another terrace of another house down the street. She can see a woman hanging clothes out to dry, she hears them flap, so late in the night it’s surprising, a child looks at the woman and then plays with what looks, from this distance, like a red cricket ball.
    ‘Get me another drink,’ he says. ‘That’s the least you can do.’
    ‘Yes,’ she says and she turns.
    How should we end this story? We could have her go down to get him the second drink, hear the crackle as it hits the ice in the steel glass, climb the stairs again and listen to him talk about the school, the child she couldn’t give him.
    Or we could end it like this:
    She returns with the drink, he doesn’t even hear her footsteps, he’s looking out, far away, at the lights on Park Street and she walks closer towards him, the glass in her hand. She bends down, puts the glass on the terrace, she will need both hands, his back is turned, the first drink must have blunted his senses since he can’t hear or feel that she is only two feet away.
    Suddenly there is a scream which no one will hear, a body, dressed in a white shirt and grey trousers, white socks and black shoes, falls into the lane which not many people use since it’s more like a dumping ground, choked with garbage from the buildings nearby.
    Dry garbage, the kind which doesn’t begin to smell and, therefore, need not be cleared in a hurry: old newspapers, scraps of iron and broken furniture. So no one hears the body fall except for a cat which scurries away in fright.
    After a while, even the cat returns, the blood congeals around the head, nothing moves as the night grows heavier and floods the lane with darkness washing away whatever chance there is for a stranger to discover the body.
    A little later, a red handkerchief, folded neatly, falls from the terrace and halfway