 
# Babu

by BRUCE HANNA

Distributed by Smashwords

Copyright 2017 Bruce Hanna

Smashwords Edition, Licence Notes

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About the author

Other books by Bruce Hanna

### Chapter 1

A Great Man never lives long enough to know his own true worth, for better or worse.

In humbler times Babu said, "I'm not worried how I will die. That will be plain soon enough. Bigger dilemmas feed on my mind."

His hungry eyes searched the skies for an answer to his problems yet his downcast heart foraged among perplexity.

The manner of death is not a matter to disturb the wise man, it is said. Nor the hour, nor the why - these decisions are for the Gods. Lesser beings meanwhile have regrets to harvest, so many pleasures and errors to enjoy.

Life for Great Man Babu was a swarm of days or worrisome worms secretly devouring every soul. How he began was unpropitious and inauspicious, as an infant terror, an outrage to the local village. The wild naked orphan Babu hid in the mountains. He galloped naked on hands and feet. Cunning and as slippery to catch as a rat in a grain-store, he had teeth sharp as a monkey. He was a sacrifice rejected by the Gods.

Suddenly he could appear from nowhere, causing a furore, then he fled with mouth full of hot rice snatched from a cooking pot. They threw rocks and yelled to drive him away, but he would come sneaking back another day. Too poor to have a family, the bare-arsed brat was too ugly to belong otherwise - and uncatchable to sell for a slave.

No carrion-eater would touch his mucky flesh. The despicable devil was tainted by a meddlesome Spirit, folk said. He fed on dirt the way a child of flesh and blood learns to eat meat. His father was the wind that blew through the village and left behind the tiny troublemaker among the rocks with no mother.

The unwanted baby was abandoned to dogs, crows and ants who find a use for things left in their care. Alas, the Spirits spat in the face of Fate. The Spirits thus thwarted nature's scavengers. The paternal wind sheltered the baby with leaves and dew-damped dirt. In this way the baby monster survived, garbed in grime, adorned in a birth-right inheritance, his self-replenishing robe of filth.

Stones and abuse were harmless against the cursed infant. He would often upon reaching a safe distance, perform lewd gestures to taunt hostile villagers before fleeing. Superstitious women swore the tiny wretch's survival was revenge from the Spirits, sent against the village for the menfolk's collective sins. Wife blamed husband, and neighbour blamed neighbour, for every wrong they could think of. Everyone blamed little Babu.

Folk pondered was the troublesome child nursed by rats and kept warm at night by a blind snake. Someone said a young girl often went to the mountain carrying small parcels and she returned empty-handed. She might know. The girl said she knew nothing. She ran away crying. The girl sickened and died. Not just the girl. Many people died. Yet the snivelling Babu survived. It defied sense.

"The pest must be in league with evil Spirits," it was said.

"That is the only possible explanation."

It was said the breath of his mouth stunk worse than that of his other end. And when the boy stole a few rags to wear, like a real person, things got no better. The owner of the rags saw them upon the thief's filthy body and no longer wanted them back. Life was lonely, harsh, bleak and dismal for young Babu until years later he met an unwanted priest known as Baba.

Until the priest Baba came as an outcast to the village, there was only one friend for Babu that being the schoolteacher employed to educate children of the rich landlord and certain shopkeepers.

The teacher spoke to Babu not like he was a dog though the boy often scampered about on his hands and feet.

Babu repaid the kindness faithfully, with many secret visits. He returned the schoolteacher's hospitality in other ways too, to please the teacher in a fashion Babu observed among certain animals. He craved the affection - and he met what came with it, wearing a bored expression of puzzlement. The teacher's attentions amazed and confused Babu.

Babu sought to smoothly ignore the occasional proceedings and then he quickly forgot them.

There were times the teacher bathed Babu before playing with him. And afterward Babu would hasten to the woods and roll in the dirt to remove the smell of water from his body.

Eventually, Babu learned from the teacher to speak and walk other than as a wild wretch, and as Babu grew older, worldlier and uglier, the schoolteacher showed less frequent interest in petting, chafing and fondling him. Babu grieved not.

The schoolteacher was a quietly-spoken strange fellow with a modern pencil behind one ear. A learned man of importance and status as he strolled through the village in a raffia hat, the teacher had no wife or children, and therefore not a care in the world, yet he worried how he might die.

"To quietly pass away in my sleep, so I don't notice a thing," said the schoolteacher. "That is my preference."

Through the years Babu gathered all manner of ideas about many things. Some he made up himself and he learned how to speak of them.

"I do not worry how I will die," Babu said when older. "Such things are ordained by the Gods. That is what Gods are for. I will leave it in their hands. The scary question for me is when...."

It was about the time of these thoughts that Babu met the Baba.

The pest Babu and the priest Baba became friends. The schoolteacher suddenly began to make excuses for his past behaviour. The teacher's effort was wasted on Babu. The imperturbable nonchalance of Babu endured.

"I am sorry for what we have done," said the teacher. "I am ashamed of myself. Poor Babu...."

He added in grave admonition, "If people discover our secret you will be in big trouble, Babu. You must say nothing of the dreadful matter to anyone. Not even to the Baba, most of all."

Momentarily intrigued, Babu recited the teacher's pronouncement. His voice lowered to an ominous tone.

"I am ashamed of myself... poor Babu."

He savoured the words for their power. During the following days he was possessed by a confused flush of absolution. Alone in the moonlight Babu sang to trees who bowed their heads in the wind.

"I am ashamed of myself poor Babu."

He chuckled madly, over and over waving his arms like a young bird discovering its wings and wondering where they came from.

"What have you to be ashamed of, Babu?" spoke an invisible voice.

"Who is that?" Babu cried.

"'Tis I," confessed the invisible voice.

Out of the darkness into the moonlight melted the shape of the outcast priest, the dreaded Baba.

"I must say nothing of the dreadful matter," replied Babu, faithful to his great secret.

Anyway, how could he put into mere words all he must not say? Plus Babu had a heap of other stuff worrying his mind.

The sudden apparition of the Baba dumbfounded Babu. He wondered what he would learn next about this crazy holy man able to appear out of thin air like a magician, swaggering like a bear and smelling like a drunk....

### Chapter 2

THE SCANDALOUS PRIEST BABA HAD BEEN banished from the Great Monastery and sent in disgrace to Babu's small village which lay at the furthest end of far away. The village was a discarded place in a forgotten corner from the rest of the world. The Masters of the Monastery had been outraged by the Baba's indiscretions. Questions of propriety and loyalty were involved. Finally, the Elders could stand no more.

"Harsh action is timely," declared the Highest Elder.

"Banishment is too good for him," suggested a minor official eager to leapfrog Baba's place in the hierarchy.

The Elders redeployed Baba in dishonour to the furthest and poorest village, where only privation and earthquakes were known. There the Baba was to serve his time homeless with no prospect of reprieve. Leave him unknown with no supporters and no honorarium.

Forbidden to work and prohibited from begging, let him be plaything of the Gods. If he died, it would be a religious death. He might die a martyr. So be it. As long as Baba did his dying or living out of the way the Elders were satisfied.

"If I must I go joyously," said the Baba unto his detractors. "Necessity is the supreme measure of all spiritual endeavour."

His brave face was a mask. He embarked on his exile in heartbroken disgrace. Upon many days trek, beyond signs of civilisation, deep in the mountains the Baba reached the furthest valley; and here his silent escort cut his bindings and set the Baba free to his banishment. The fallen priest fell to his knees in a fit of unrestrained sobbing, until he heard someone approach. Then he stood up with a strained smile as though nothing had happened. He wiped tears from his ruddy face. He turned toward the sound of disturbance and heavy breathing from behind a bush. There he saw no one.

The miserable place of banishment was filled with nothing but drab days devoid of distraction. The past waned, leaving only empty time for Baba to serve in meditation while memories faded. The roly-poly holy man would over a few years lose his fat, and over many more then turn black. Those days were yet to come. The villagers at first greeted his arrival with suspicion.

"What does this peculiar mendicant want of us?"

"Is he a monastery spy?"

"They say he is a priest. If he is a priest, where are his fine robes?"

"Keep count of your children.... That is all I say...."

"Aye! That's for sure! Eh?"

The most likely answer was at last civilisation was coming to the valley. First, a priest... then, perhaps a temple... then who knows what modern advancements were within the grasp of a people prepared to move with the times?

"God would think twice before he raised his hand against a respectable, devout community with a priest and a temple. That's one thing you can be sure of," said the rich landlord.

"There will be no temple in this village until we have a school.... or at least a roof over the well to keep out the leaves and dirt," a codger grumbled.

"Yes," agreed the village schoolteacher. "For the children a school would be a blessing...."

"Who asked for a priest to be sent here, anyway? We cannot afford to feed ourselves, let alone a priest."

"A monk would be better."

"Yes," it was agreed. "Monks eat less. You can get three monks for the price of one priest."

"A monkey would be more use than a monk," the grumpy codger growled. "A monkey can at least be eaten."

Villagers banished the priest Baba yet again. He was pointed to an old abandoned hut far from their midst. The hut lay in the wilderness where a hermit once lived and there died from a curious disease. The villagers expected this priest to die soon too, just as the hermit had perished, festered in sores, howling with agony and weepy bleeding. The plan was to let the priest die like that, or else let him go hungry till he wandered off like a stray pooch.

"Let him search for crumbs, not bricks and pennies," villagers chuckled.

"After all, what good is a priest?" asked poor superstitious folk tossed aside by all the gods and left in a state of harassment at the mercy of Demons, Spirits and misfortune.

"If he is any good as a priest, why send him here?" villagers muttered.

It was generally agreed, "Only a fugitive or a fool would come to a place like this."

### Chapter 3

LOCAL SUPPOSITION BELIEVED THE HERMIT'S HUT LAY UNDER AN INESCAPABLE CURSE. Yet the Baba did not die right away. Nor did he die soon.

Many gave wonder would he die at all ever... It could be an omen. Were the Spirits with him? And if the Baba were with the village then obviously the Spirits would remain with the village. It was beneficially-logical to think perhaps old Baba was indeed a holy man.

Every village worth a pinch of salt had a holy man. The local crowd began to see this as a sign of progress. The villagers in their wisdom adopted the modern spirit of reason and soon forgot all talk of a curse.

As time went by, they overlooked Baba's minor aberrations. His wavering conduct and lapses of abstinence might be excused. Serious matters however could not be ignored.

Shopkeepers were scandalised when Baba devised concoctions that trespassed on their trade. A class of gullible paupers used Baba's quack remedies and some swore they worked miracles. It was the principle of the thing, not the money that bothered the shopkeepers.

"Baba's home remedies have nothing to do with true medicine. They are worthless," complained the village's leading retailer.

"The Baba's potions may work on those who are not bad sinners, but the medicine sold from my store is the only sure protection for a true sinner. Proper shop-bought medicine and guaranteed sacred charms blessed by priests in the Great Monastery, which come in a wide price range. That is the only answer to every ailment known to man."

Customers happily joined the controversy.

"Yes. True medicine works miracles! I was at death's door last week and look at me today."

Troubled souls purchased remedies from the stores for atonement at any sign of guilt, shame or fever, while rationalists purchased medicines and charms purely for their curative powers and as a precaution. Side by side, sinners and rationalists and the sick fought against death with weapons supplied by the shopkeepers, despite Baba's influence.

Whatever the Baba had to say about anything, the shopkeepers continued to do a pleasing trade in medicines and guaranteed sacred charms, among believers and disbelievers alike. Who wants to risk death when it can be avoided for a few coins? Whenever there was a funeral the shopkeepers would shake their heads knowingly.

"Who can tell? A little more medicine... and perhaps one more sacred charm clutched in the poor soul's ailing hand.... Who knows, the poor soul may be still among us?"

A good death in the community overshadowed rumours and troubles for days. Nonetheless, rumours persisted in regard to the priest and his dubious activities. It was known the Baba concocted suspect incense, herbs and fermented elixirs to treat his toothache and ills. And like most old no-goods in the village he smoked the dried purple resinous flowers of the ganga plant till his eyes glowed red. He indulged in black magic and was known to have manly urges. He bartered for food, favours and items, and who knows what else.

His best customers had neither brains nor money, and were mainly superstitious old women. There was one old woman in particular, gossips whispered.

Such information might interest the faraway Monastery Elders, were they to be informed. Some reward may lay in store for the courageous messenger who carried the bad news. But what could be done in the meantime? Even the rich landlord showed no concern when informed of these alarming developments. The landlord owned every scrap of land, and most anything of value on it. He demanded his share of everything from all who had anything, and from some who had none. The pathway to the landlord's estate was the best paved in the village. Alas, no path is entirely straight, even the most perfect path may have a pothole. In this regard, the landowner refused to meet a village delegation complaining about the Baba, until his roadway was fixed.

After a time with one thing and another, the villagers and even disgruntled storekeepers found a use for the dubious Baba despite his imperfections. Occasionally they resorted to his judgement in minor matters - though anyone only ever did so when deceit and the usual vanities of community life proved inadequate.

Most preferred to observe the priest from afar, and thus avoid being pestered by the hungry holy man to make some offering to the Gods. Mysteriously absent, or indisposed for days at a time, the Baba otherwise sat long periods, day and night, where he was observed in an attitude of prayer a-front of his diseased hut, or upon fresh leaves under a tree, or in the dry season on a carpet of lichen on a prominent rock outcrop over the dried creek bed. Such habits are to be expected from a priest, and for the most part the villagers were happy to leave the story-telling holy man alone.

"When the Baba dies, everything will return to normal," village men consoled each other.

"Yes. We have enough problems.... without God looking over our shoulder every moment," they said.

### Chapter 4

DESPITE HIS SEMI-SEGREGATION THE BABA GREW ACCUSTOMED to chance encounters with young village nuisance Babu. So it was, on a local religious feast day they bumped into each other as Baba approached the village and Babu rushed the other way.

In the village the poorest families polished carved wooden fishes and they gathered coloured pebbles in bowls, in pretence of the foodstuffs they did not have to eat. Shopkeepers competed with vermin to plunder their own stores. Scarcely was sound of fowl or swine to be heard in the morning unless it was screaming for its life.

Meanwhile, in the forest Babu flounced in a state of abnormal agitation. He was covered in more than usual dust and abrasions.

The Baba witnessed the wretched beggar's performance sadly knowing it would go on.

The Baba enquired, "What happened to you, my dear friend, Babu?"

Babu shrieked in reply.

"The spiteful villagers caught me this morning when I was trying to steal a rice cake. They almost murdered me, and why? For the sake of one tiny rice cake only. What is a man's life worth these days, less than a mere rice cake?"

He huffed and puffed, "I should go back and give the cruel bastards a taste of their own medicine."

Babu brandished his fist at the empty track behind him.

"You bastards!!!" he yelled....

A string of distasteful obscenities followed. Baba winced...

With threatening eyes Babu menaced the empty track, at first defiantly, and then with a satisfied sneer, as though an invisible, cowardly enemy had been dispersed.

Notwithstanding this brief glimpse of triumph, Babu was tormented by want and worry. He confided in the holy Baba as they walked through the grove of blossoms among a haze of bees and flying bugs.

"You know what scares me?" Babu said. "Sometimes my stomach gets so hungry I am afraid it will crawl up behind my poor heart and eat it."

"That is terrible," said Baba.

"That is easy for you to say," said Babu. "I am the one who lives with the problem. My troubles are too big for me. I give up on everything."

"Why?"

Babu replied, "Because that is all there is."

The priest raised his eyebrows, "You are very erudite today."

"I know," said Babu, "And it is killing me."

He lamented further, "Oh Baba, I live my life worse than an insect. Every time I pray for luck I get bad luck. God listens more to a praying mantis than he does a praying Babu. When does my good luck day come?"

The Baba said, "The garden of creation is shared by all creatures, insect and man alike, large and small, rich and poor. If God gives us flowers how dare we quibble over their colour? Do the flowers complain? This one has brighter colour, that one more nectar? Do they weep, when in passing like Gods we crush them under our tread?"

Babu stared suspiciously at the holy Baba, and then nearby wildflowers. Wisely Baba allowed Babu to think a moment before he continued.

"Why should any man be to God more than a single flower is to you or me?" the Baba asked. "Perhaps the flowers pray to you, my son. How have you answered their prayers?"

Lifting his grubby foot to see beneath, Babu whispered.

"What do they ask for? Perhaps...who knows? I might do something... if it is in my power? I have nothing against them. What about when I have my lucky day, they might get lucky too... if they behave themselves...."

As for insects, Babu had nothing against insects either. Some insects he admired for beauty, some for courage. He admired the tenacity of ants. Some insects had no purpose in life other than to be observed in the faceless functions of existence, feeding, mating, and killing each other, much like people. Some were works of wonder. Many were quite appetising. Babu loved the textured crunch between his teeth, and the soft flavoured cream centres. He was enough a connoisseur to spit out any bad parts.

"This is the only way to learn," Babu explained, submitting to his teeth a sizable victim unfamiliar to him. "...experience."

Then he pulled a tortured face and spat from his mouth what was in there.

"Bleh-h-h!" he gagged.

Gastronomy aside, Babu had special interest in the activity of ants. Ants had the advantage of tasting terrible. Human flesh on the other hand tasted nice so the ants appeared to think. Babu peered in awe for hours at their activities while they tried in vain to kill and devour his enormous, bony feet. Babu often shared his observations with the Baba.

"Do you know the ants talk to each other? They go like this," he said.

Babu twitched about with fingers aside his rag-wrapped head, mimicking antennae and doing a little ant dance with his body.

"That is very interesting," said the Baba, who had never seen a spectacle of this kind before.

"What do the ants say?" Baba chuckled.

"Aha!" Babu replied, "I am sworn to secrecy."

"Secrecy?"

"I must remain silent."

"Praise be!" said Baba.

Babu concurred at first with a sombre nod but upon a moment's further thought he scowled.

"Praise be.... what?" he asked Baba.

Baba could not answer. The question made the old man's head shake. It was the second sign Babu had seen of the Baba's fallibility. As time went by Babu saw many more failings in the holy man.

"I like you because you are the same as me," said Babu, leaning close, "Exactly like me."

"How so?" Baba grunted.

Babu softened his sound to a more serious level, pressing even closer.

"You know when you are alone.... and you sit down and sometimes cry really bad for a long time, when no one is there to see you? That's what I do too."

The Babu raised one eyebrow and he leaned away from the smell of Babu.

"Hm-m-m-m," Baba grumbled gravely with a sidelong glare.

### Chapter 5

THE RASCAL BABU WALKED NAKED, APART FROM A CLOTH ROUND HIS LOINS and the blanket of dirt clinging to his skin. The rag round his head at a glance in the dark may have passed for a turban. And that is all he owned, apart from the odour that surrounded him.

Babu cried, "I am a poor man, Baba. How can I find happiness?"

The Baba said, "Bring me the map of your life. I shall show you where happiness is to be found."

They were all the same, crazy men, the Spirits, shopkeepers and women. Babu feared them but he was intrigued by their secret powers. Babu began to wonder, was perhaps the Baba a saint. Or who knows, was he a crazy, dangerous charlatan like the shopkeepers said.

So! The respectable folk said the holy man was crazy! Aha! That was good enough for Babu. Such praise was testament to the Baba's worth. After all, did not the shopkeepers say more than once, Babu himself was the craziest son-of-no-bitch that ever wasted breath?

If only it were so simple. If one were able to get hands on a map to show where happiness was hidden, you could go there to grab a chunk. If happiness really existed it had to be somewhere! Babu perplexed a while and then shrugged.

So, what was new? Let others worry. Babu felt secure in uncertainty. Now, if there were a map to show where things may be found to eat, that would be a different matter, a very happy state of different circumstances indeed. But there was no such thing as a map to happiness. Babu knew for sure. Anyway if there were indeed such a thing, someone else would have it. They would lock it up. The map would be theirs like everything else.... and Babu would have nothing again. It would be just one more thing he did not have.

Experience showed Babu that people who knew no privation and sorrow could not dream of happiness, just as a full belly is unable to feel hungry. Real people knew nothing. Babu was different; he was happy anywhere so long as he had something to eat. Just to think he might have something to eat tomorrow, or the next day. It made Babu smile. And thus his hunger fed on hope.

Nothing was too obtuse or obscure to excite his imagination. Babu could think big and small at the same time. The Baba noticed the powers of Babu in this regard. The Baba often rolled his eyes heavenward in admiration when Babu raised a conundrum.

"Did God make ants?" Babu asked.

"I'm not sure," said the Baba. "I was not there at the time."

This seemed an honest response, yet an inadequate answer. Babu contorted his face.

"You know," said Babu. "Maybe you were there. Perhaps you did not notice. Maybe your back was turned."

He thought about it pretty good.

"If you were asleep, how would you know you were there? You look a bit like an ant. Sort of sad but not with the misery of true sadness such as I suffer. Perhaps you are afraid of what you cannot admit to yourself, that you really do know. I feel like that sometimes. Do I look a little bit like an ant?"

Babu crouched ant-like in posture, enticing the Baba to glance his way. Alas, the holy man simply shook his head to himself and gazed elsewhere for a long time. Babu slowly reassumed human stance in the silence.

"I wonder if they know something we do not know," Babu mused.

"Who?" Baba asked without interest.

"The ants," said Babu.

"Oh," said the Baba. "Back on about the damned ants are we?"

Babu acquired feelings of importance from these discussions with the Baba. The Baba might be crazy but he was an educated man. And he knew a lot too. Also, as proof of the holy man's intelligence, he did no work.

So what if the Baba sometimes went a little hungry? A little hungry is better than a lot hungry. At least the holy man was smart enough to not need bust his arse in toil. Babu figured the Baba must be secretly rich, to be so free. Even shopkeepers and the big landlord must count their money; and Babu had to work constantly simply to steal enough to eat and amuse himself all day, whereas old Baba was idle as a prince.

And holy Baba was a humble man. He did not flaunt his easy life. For endless hours while he sat about wasting time, Baba made the pretence of meditating. Huh! What a clever trick. Also the Baba would wander aimlessly, with one lazy arm tucked up behind him, moping about the dusty surrounds of his disease-ridden hut, stirring up clouds of dirt and leaves with a broom of branch ends, mimicking the village women at work. The Baba with his scurrying and pottering about gathered a convincing sweat enough to fool almost anyone to think he was an industrious individual.

"I am not fooled," said Babu to the half-naked holy man, as they sat waiting for the Baba's clothes to dry in the sun. "You are really in fact a lazy, lazy man."

"You are not wrong," the Baba confessed. "Yet, all the same..."

"No. No. No!" Babu scolded the bare breasted priest. "None of this.... Yet-All-The-Same! I said you are a lazy, lazy man and you admit it. That is very proud of you to be so lazy. I am impressed."

Babu smiled at the Baba. The holy man glistened in the sunlight, with sparkles of sweat beading a profusion of pallid flesh. Young gaunt-faced Babu smiled warmly as a father might gaze lovingly upon a giant, old, overgrown, larvae-like baby.

"Yet, all the same," Babu pronounced with an air of superiority. "You are nowhere near as lazy as me."

Laziness was the work of Gods. If the Gods were not so lazy life would not be such a mess. But with the bad came the good. For instance, earthquakes were godly errors; yet they served Babu in his quest. Tremors shook the village from time to time and terrified Babu. They caused landslides and killed people inside their huts where they fled to safety. But earthquakes and hurricanes yield bountiful harvests. During one earthquake, Babu hid under a tree. A wide split in the ground appeared nearby. Babu gawked at the jagged crack snaking in a zigzag toward him. For that instant he felt the earth's jaws opening to devour him. Babu hugged the trunk of the tree for protection. Branches and twigs rained from above as it shook. Babu felt the Gods attempting to rip the tree out of the ground.

Babu squeezed shut his eyes in terror. Then it all ended....

"Am I dead?" Babu cried.

No one answered.

"If loneliness is Hell," Babu whispered, "I am alone."

He surveyed ruination around him. And there on the ground he saw bird nests and smashed eggs where they had fallen, with several half-dead fledglings and some eggs that were cracked but had not quite broken. Babu devoured these unexpected offerings without delay, and he sat amid the debris in a state of belly-full bewilderment. Thereafter though Babu remained in terror of earthquakes, from time to time when suffering great hunger he would pray for an earthquake to strike. Whenever the earth quaked and after it subsided Babu ran immediately to the forest to feast on the aftermath and the misfortunes of lesser creatures. He felt it was the least he could do. He was duty bound to ensure their sufferings were not in vain and did not go entirely to waste.

### Chapter 6

BABU HAD PLENTY TO SAY ABOUT ALL THIS STUFF AND MORE WHEN he met the old priest under a miserable, wind-mangled mango tree. They sheltered for hours in a torrential downpour under shelter of crippled branches, their backs braced against the pathetic mango trunk growing among rocks that saw more wind than sunshine. The tree bore only two fruits each year, and they dangled like the shrivelled tits of an old grandmother. Babu awaited those fruits each year ardently as a suitor possessed by a temptress's charms. They were gifts from Heaven. And each year, he made sure he and no-one else received them, so he grabbed them when they were still green and he gnawed on their stringy flesh with glee, hard, dry and sour as they were. For it is better to have an imperfect thing than to see the same thing ripen only to fall into another's hands.

When Babu explained this fact of life to the Baba, the Baba replied wearily, "If you say so."

It was a long wet day, and Babu had nothing else to do than to share his thoughts. He watched the water hit the stony slope and then, faster than it had fallen, it ran downhill away from the thirsting tree, barely damping the dirt round the exposed roots. Such perversities are enough to make a wise man wonder.

"Baba," said Babu.

"Speak, my son."

"Baba.... Is it good to be rich?"

"If these words have meaning to you," said the Baba. "You are rich beyond the dreams of the dead, my son. Enjoy them while you may. Yet be certain, someday such thoughts shall mean nothing at all to you."

Babu untangled the rag from his head and wiped the rain from his muddy face.

"Well, Baba, that is all very well for some."

Babu admired the Baba for his gentle, cultured holy man hands and his voice softer than a woman's. Baba had fine qualities. Even the rag of his robe was quality cloth - poor quality admittedly, but quality nonetheless. Quality cloth was obvious apart from cheap rags, on account of the way the holes in good cloth grow slowly and hold themselves aloof without descending into a rabble of tatters like market day in the village.

Babu, on the other hand, knew himself to be a low quality man, a creature made of bones clad in poor flesh and the least of rags. Fleas jumped onto him and then jumped off without a bite. Yet, though of scant bodily flesh, Babu was indeed a man of much flesh in his heart.

"Oh Baba," he confessed. "I had impure thoughts again. I cannot resist them."

"Indeed, Babu," the holy man grinned quickly. "In your mind, the most impure thoughts would be cleansed by the sacred pond of innocence in which they swam."

"Thank you Baba...." said Babu. "That makes me feel so much better.... except for one thing..."

He wrinkled his nose and sniffed, "I cannot swim."

Water was an enemy to Babu. It attacked him in the rain. It tried to drown him more than once and carry him away in the swollen river, most memorably the time as a child he somehow slid down a collapsed embankment and only barely escaped from the flood. In the winter every year the wetness froze him. But at least water was an enemy he could see, not like some, such as fate and death and bad luck....

Babu often shook his fist at his invisible torments, so many some days his arm ached from shaking at them. When exploring the depths of melancholia, Babu counted his own self as worst and foremost among his enemies. Sometimes, he blamed himself for his being hungry and cold and hated by the whole village.

Babu many times heard his own voice growl, "You idiot!"

And he would reply, "Shut up stupid!"

And life went on the same.

"If ants are so smart, why do they work so hard?" Babu wondered.

He asked the schoolteacher this question more than once over the years; and with each succeeding answer the schoolteacher made less sense. Babu asked the same question of the Baba on numerous occasions. Finally, after futile attempts to answer, the Baba submitted.

"Yes," the Baba said. "I have often wondered, myself."

And, if truth were known, while a man might stop to wonder and doubt and worry.... meanwhile, the ants went about their jobs seemingly without cares or complaints. To Babu it was an important point.

"Do the ants ever get sick and tired of things? Are there rich ants and poor ants, like people? Do they pray to God? Or do they have a special Ant God?"

Babu also asked, "Why do I never see any begging ants, like me?"

To his dying day, Babu never wearied of his thoughts and he never ceased asking questions. Baba's various attempts at explanation were increasingly water off a duck's back. On occasion Babu felt sadly proud that he the pupil had outgrown his master. Babu mimicked the Baba by sitting on a hill pretending to meditate. In the distance below he observed the villagers were ants. Compared to true ants, the human ants were lazy and disorganised, and altogether unimpressive. More like snails than ants they crawled home into their shells.

A few times, during his observations of genuine ants, Babu crouched hoping to see if some of the teensy creatures wore fine clothes while the others were forced to wear rags. Babu put his big head very close. He stared into the tiny entrance of the nest. His breath stirred up dust with a speck of dirt in his eye and the big jawed war ants jumped onto his face with a barrage of bites and tail stings.

Babu struck at himself violently. He beat with his hands at the treacherous monsters to get them off; and he retreated in haste to another place, with red welts burning on his face and blood streaming from his nose.

### Chapter 7

POLITENESS, VIRTUE AND EXPEDIENCY ARE THREE PILLARS UPON which civilisation stands. Politeness is a cheap virtue and all virtues by definition are expedient. It cost nothing to be polite. Babu could not afford to not be polite. He was an expert in the art of cowardice, a necessary social skill.

Village dogs taught Babu all he knew about people. Dogs bark like people pray. Even a toothless dog may bark. Dogs bark loudest when caged or tethered. And they bark because they are afraid or crazy. Some bark simply because they are too stupid to do anything else. It is one thing for a dog to bark, but entirely different of it to bite. Personalities vary from dog to dog. In all these regards Babu learned the ways of people from the dogs. He had scars all over his lower legs to prove it.

The thing you cannot rely on is for a dog to bark at all. Oh no. They rush up from behind in savage silence, or sneak from the side. Others will fly headlong without so-much as a growl, the fur spiked on their back and fiery eyes. Some dogs were as nearly as bad as people. Such is the world into which our innocent souls are flung without a scrap of good luck to cling to. Babu tried everything. He was polite, he never harmed anyone, and when he was not hungry he respected the four-legged congregation their territory. And, like the people of the village, the dogs were bullying, mocking and not to be trusted. Yet, there were the odd one or two with whom he shared scraps of food he managed to steal, in exchange for them to share with him their mangy warmth on cold nights.

"I am not afraid of dogs," Babu said, "They are like stupid children. But!"

Silence hung in the air till Babu said, "In the village there is a bad man who says he will burn the devil out of me. That scares me."

The Baba gave sage advice, "Fear neither the man of wood nor fear the man of stone.... nor the man of dust; for one shall burn, and one he shall crumble.... and the other he shall be blown away by the merest breeze. Nor at all fear the man of flesh for he is made of minced meat like the sausage and his greatest strength is his smell when he dies...."

"Yes," said Babu. "I know all that, but I am still frightened. What about the devil inside me? I can feel him there."

"Do you want to talk more about the man who frightens you?" Baba asked. "Or shall I tell you a story?"

"The story of course...."

Soon after they first met, Babu discovered the Baba was blessed with the gift of the story. Babu would always beg the Baba for one. The Baba had heaps of tales and fables to tell, or he made them up on the spot. There was no way to be sure. In any event, Babu listened avidly as an amazing world of wonder opened before him.

The Baba told a story like a traveller arriving with the latest news from afar. They were compelling and spellbinding to Babu. From the stories Babu came to know things he had never seen. With greater knowledge grew a broader vision and an urbane insouciance far beyond his appreciation. Even when he did not understand, he collected every word jumbled in his head and it was good. The stories filled parts of his mind where formerly nothing gathered and only his worries crept, those sneaky brain-eating spiders he hated.

Like the rich man enjoying opium in one of Baba's tales, Babu would sit transfixed, madly listening to a story, he loved them all, rarely blinking as though meditating like a monk, barely breathing, his heart beating slowly, with Baba's voice as soft as a mother's hand patting a baby to sleep. Only when the Baba finished speaking would Babu realise how his mouth had grown stale, and how his eyes too had dried from the lack of blinking, and his jaw might ache from being clenched and leaned on his fist the whole time. Sometimes his legs fell asleep from so long squatting. Only at the end of a story would Babu feel his bladder distended. The stories of the Baba were a strong medicine that must be taken repeatedly, a powerful drug to numb the effects of time and loneliness and hunger.

Indeed, the stories were a magical and holy experience the like Babu had never known. He sometimes wondered what rich men might possess as glorious to the soul as the hearing of a story. It was invisible treasure. When the story stopped, it was like a dog's meal snatched away with scraps yet to be devoured - Babu was the famished beast with ears craving more.

After storytelling, old Baba would be dulled from the effort, and in later days he would likely wipe blood from his lips. The best thing was there was no guessing where a story would lead, which way it would go and where would it end. Sometimes the old holy man without reason simply abandoned a tale in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes, perfectly! The stories made no sense at all, like in real life. Each story would begin slowly and grow slower, like sleep begins and then turns into a dream. Where the line is between wakefulness and sleep, and between the sleep and the dream, one cannot say. The Baba's voice would grow deeper as he dragged Babu into the dark cave of his tales, yet it was a softened voice all the more clear as the world around faded from hearing, and gradually the story would suck Babu's mind out of his head and into the dreamy realms where belief and disbelief lazily rolled into one. Most stories ended with poor Babu in confusion.

"Is it true?" Babu would ask.

"What difference does it make?" Baba would reply.

And then he might puke up blood or make a cup of tea, or just go to bed. Or he might simply sit a long time with dim eyes and his mind far away. And if disturbed he would stare at Babu like a stranger and sometimes for no reason tears would suddenly soak Baba's eyes.

### Chapter 8

SOMETIMES BABU TRIED TO OUTWIT POOR OLD BABA WHO WAS usually willing to discuss any sort of matter. If Baba showed reluctance to talk, then Babu teased the old fellow. Babu enjoyed pouncing on the Baba's dissertations without warning. He avoided prior thought. For too much thinking might allow opportunity for a conception to escape. Babu had a habit of misquoting statements out of context. It was his secret weapon. With repeated circumlocution, his utterances grew increasingly intricate in detail, till every part of his reasoning lost contact with all others. That's when he would pounce.

Sure, there is always more than a single way to look at a question. And there is more than one way to look at the way you look at a question. In this fashion Babu discovered there is more than one road to confusion and he often found himself there. He grew familiar with the feeling of punctured pride when one of his wisecracks backfired. Luckily pride was not Babu's biggest thing. He knew when he made a fool of himself.... he would see that familiar sad smile on Baba's face, as the old priest said kindly, "Yes, that is very clever, young Babu." And Babu devoured these scraps of praise.

Just as Babu thrived on scraps of friendship, he relied on scraps of food provided by friends, man and beast. The schoolteacher for instance was a well-respected and important, but poor, man, yet he always had the odd scrap of food to share. The teacher also had a home-made chair and a thing that resembled a table upon which were stacked neatly his few prized scrolls and parchments.

If the documents were intended to impress anybody, they did not impress Babu.

"Paper is good when it burns," Babu told the schoolteacher. "But not good like wood. Even poor wood burns stronger than the finest paper. And paper has little flavour. Ask the Baba. I told him that."

And what is a chair to a man with a few crumbs of dirt to sit on? Babu often wondered about it since he once sat on a chair and it seemed a device purely to bruise arse-bones and make it difficult to fart.

However, the schoolteacher had a number of other items that impressed Babu. Most auspicious was the modern charcoal pencil the schoolteacher perched behind his left ear, and secondly, his shirt with a collar and a white rag that he wore over the collar to soak up the sweat and grime from his neck. Oh, how Babu admired those.

The old Baba on the other hand, he was poorer than the schoolteacher. Behind his ear the Baba had only a rash that came and went with his worries. The Baba wore a robe with no collar. The Baba had no chair, only odd bits of stump to sit on when the ground would not suffice. But almighty God ensured the Baba did not starve. And the Baba made sure that Babu too did not starve. These were no matters to be sniffed at. In return, Babu devotedly shared with the Baba all he had in the world. This consisted of news of his latest troubles and random thoughts.

Babu was a plague of slow-moving but deadly curiosity, said the Baba. Baba's kind recognition encouraged Babu's philosophical deliberations.

"The schoolteacher says No man is an island. What does that mean?"

"All men are indivisibly one in the eyes of God," said the Baba. "And thus we are each one of us joined to all others in God's hands...."

"I understand that," said Babu impatiently. "But can you tell me... what the damn-Hell is an island?"

### Chapter 9

BABU'S ENLIGHTENMENT HAPPENED IN THIS WAY, ALTHOUGH HE promptly forgot about it in the mad rush of events that followed. He was not ignorant of his own growing intelligence. He often went to the Baba not for advice or guidance, but merely to discourse on his own contemplation as wise men do. The mysteries of the universe were to Babu as an undisturbed patch of dirt to a road builder.

Alas, perhaps due to advancing years or the effects of deprivation and malnutrition, the Baba on the other hand was in mental decline. Babu told him so. And the old priest all the time coughing up blood could lead to no good. Babu warned the ailing priest if he kept doing that all the time he would soon have no blood left inside him.

At times the steep road of Babu's thinking was simply too hard for the Baba's weary intellectual legs to climb. From time to time, the old man got the wrong idea and made a botch of discussion. Such a time was when Babu found a half-smoked rolled-leaf of tobacco dregs by the roadside. It was an unusual find and any find is a good one.

This was the day Babu attained enlightenment, although the event was short-lived. Babu carried his blessed tobacco-find around all morning, wondering what else he might discover that day. Lo, some hours later as though fated, right near the kind of log it is good to sit beside and lean on, Babu came upon a deserted camp fire by the track, and there not far away a soggy scrap of bread. Babu shook off the ants and scoffed the bit of bread.

He felt the ashes were not fully cold. He raked his fingers through and scrounged the trace of an ember. He puffed softly on the ember, careful not to kill it with his breath, then he puffed on the tobacco dregs and by a miracle he managed to get them alight. Having dined on bread already, he smoked the butt, sitting back, lounging on the log with his feet by the dead fire. Suddenly he was a man of significance in the sunshine, sucking with inexperienced lungs and coughing. Babu wished somebody might come by and see him as he blew smoke out his nose and mouth far into the air with the gusto of a dragon.

Perhaps the scraps of bread and tobacco were poisoned. Babu swooned. He sat a time thinking of nothing but the dull ache in his belly. Then nothing turned into something. He perceived his legs had a mind of their own, and they walked about of their own accord, and they carried Babu as a passenger from one place to another, just as a man may carry from one place to another a hat perched on his head. This was when Babu attained enlightenment. His eyes were at last opened with invigorating insight.

"Father of all the Gods," Babu cried aloud, joyously to the ears of heaven and the very skies, caring neither who might or might not hear him.

"Father of all the Gods, I see now," Babu cried to the East. "I am no more than the hat of my legs!"

And then, turning toward the West, pounding his fist against his ribs, expounding emphatically with a voice hugely pregnant, "I am the hat of my legs, damn you!"

Soon Babu discovered his legs had conveyed their hat to the company of the Baba. So Babu seized the opportunity to discuss with the Baba what was on his mind.

Much time had elapsed, and many other moments interceded, since Babu initially attained enlightenment. Now his legs were tired, and also the hat of his legs was tired. Babu forgot about his brief enlightenment. Now, his mind juggled other thoughts also, and many faded away. One or two fell out his mouth.

"Baba, tell me," said Babu with a look of massive concern. "What is more worthy and less worthy to be in God's eyes? Is it a leper or a beggar.... or a thieving moneylender.... or a braggart?"

Baba replied, like a man not properly listening, a man who has missed the whole point of the conversation too many times. With a supercilious gesture he mumbled, "Why Babu have your ambitions suddenly grown so lofty."

At moments like these Babu wondered if it was worth his bother to attempt a sensible exchange of ideas. And, for that matter, what is wrong if a man might become a little ambitious? Everybody needs to eat, even a silly old fat holy man. And thinking of himself.... even a man who has suddenly become so.... well, yes.... ambitious! Was that such a crime?

Babu gave Baba's question surly consideration. Then he added his own question in response.

"Should not a worthless man eat as well as a useless priest?"

An ant crawled across his hand. Babu resisted squashing it while the Baba was watching.

He wondered if ants have tiny wise old Ant Priests who sit and meditate and say prayers all day long.... and never do a scrap of useful contribution.

"Is the Ant God as big as a mountain?" Babu asked.

Baba sighed with a weariness worn down by life's worries, especially the one before him.

"Yes, Babu, I am sure...." Baba groaned. ".....as big as a mountain."

"Hm-m-m-m," said Babu.

He fixed a withering and unrelenting gaze upon the Baba slumped over his own shadow on the ground.

As a cat might question a battered mouse with yet another bruising slap of the paw Babu continued to press his point with a stress on his every word. The priest winced with each emphasis in return, as Babu twisted the blade of enquiry.

"But...." Babu sniffed.... "I wonder, my dear friend, would you say the ant god is as big as a big mountain.... or a small mountain? That question you have so far avoided."

### Chapter 10

BABA LEARNED HOW SERIOUSLY AMBITIOUS INDEED BABU WAS when Babu said he dreamed of getting an educated job, with a shirt and so on, even with a little rag on the collar to soak up the sweat and dust, like the schoolteacher. He thought he might get some shoes, not just sandals, but shoes like the children of the rich landlord. But he wouldn't wear them. Babu explained he would just carry them around the place, so everyone could see he was a man of distinction and account and not some dog, or less than a slave as he was.

Babu wanted to be Somebody.

"That was the whole point of life, after all, to be a Somebody," he said.

Fine ideas possessed Babu's new imagination. These fine ideas often followed sudden realisations like the time Babu realised the having of shoes was more important than wearing them. A man might wear borrowed or stolen shoes. That did not make him somebody.

It was the man who owned shoes that Babu wished to be. By the same token, any wretch might pick up a butt from the wayside and smoke it, but Babu envied the man with a full shop-bought cigarette behind his ear for the world to see.

Babu dreamed with his new shoes he might easily do with a cigarette someday. Yes, a fresh, full, clean cigarette, wrapped in a skin of the finest tobacco leaf, even though he might only wear it behind his ear like a school teacher wears a pencil, like a badge of honour behind his ear. A real cigarette, a new one not one with its guts already sucked out by some other lucky bastard.... a virgin of a cigarette untouched by another man's lips. Babu prayed for all the good things life could bring. He would smoke and drink and go to the big city and throw money through the window at whore-ladies gathered below like pigeons pecking at the ground for the copper coins he would toss them, and he would father dozens of illegitimate children like a rich landowner, and the children would admire their great, successful father with a pair of shoes, and maybe a cigarette behind his ear even. And, maybe a pencil! Yes! Don't forget the pencil. A pencil behind one ear! A cigarette behind the other! That would be the pinnacle of success and ambition, indeed. There would be no stones thrown at Babu on that day he reckoned.

And then maybe people would at last remark, "There goes Babu. He is certainly a true Somebody. Make no mistake. Just look at those shoes under his arm. See the pencil behind his ear. And yes, look see, there it is, do not forget the cigarette...."

What a pity, Babu lamented, a man has but two ears. Alas, only two ears to adorn with a cigarette and a pencil, and only two ears to listen to such praise as may come his way. Ah, sweet admiration!

On Sundays he would wear his shoes, even if they hurt, and he would go walking, and kick all the beggars like a man of consequence. Babu had been kicked plenty of times in his life. Why should he not have a chance to dish out the same medicine? Any self-respecting beggar would feel proud to be kicked by such shoes as Babu dreamed of having. He knew from experience, the finer the shoe does the kicking the more satisfying the pain.

Bruises left by the kick of a good shoe are a thing to behold, and worthy of note. The bruise left by the kick of a shoe may be shown to impress people for weeks, much more so than the paltry kick of a bare foot, or the commonplace sandal-bruise. Babu, being a man of the world who got around among people, even if he did say so himself, was an expert on such matters.

The shoes he dreamed of owning were sometimes brown, sometimes tan, if not red. They would come in handy, he figured, the next time he got hungry. He could pawn them with a shopkeeper and take food as payment. You'd get a good price for a pair of shoes. But you have to smear the inside of the shoe with poo, to ensure the pawn-broking shopkeeper did not wear your shoes around his house behind your back to impress his house callers.

Babu dreamed of owning shoes so shiny they would be envied and soft enough to eat; but as everybody knows, it is not a good idea to eat shoes, because then they are gone. And also shoe leather makes for poor eating. Babu knew that. He had seen precious few shoes in his life, but he found part of one in the mud one day and he ate it. Not without much preparation. First he had to find a fire. The leather toasted well enough, in a way. But the cooking somehow never quite rid of the strange smell and that unique, very sour and bitter flavour that clung to his lips for days.

Well, some of that was for the future, and some of it was for the past. In the here-and-now, Babu was busy dreaming about his shoes. In the total time Babu spent thinking of shoes day after day a cobbler could have made a number of pairs.

When the Baba finally wearied of Babu and this obsession, he coughed some blood and wiped his face; then he offered a stern piece of advice in regard to the matter of shoes.

"Babu, you first need to get your hands on a pair of shoes, before you can get them on your feet."

Babu smiled warmly.

"Yes, red ones would be fine, Baba, soft, shiny red ones without holes in the soles. And I shall hardly ever wear them, you know. Did I tell you what else, Baba?"

"Yes. Far too many times," said the Baba coldly. "Leave me in peace. Go now. I need my rest."

Momentarily chastened Babu gave a sly smile then whispered, "Say a prayer for my shoes."

He dashed off into the darkness, hurtling toward a future that was hidden among the shadows cast day and night by his dreams.

### Chapter 11

DEMONS, SAINTS AND WARM LAUGHING LADIES PLAGUED BABU. They disturbed his sleep though not always to his equal displeasure. His dreams were more vivid than daylight. There were times Babu cursed the devil in him and clenched his eyes in despair, trying to fall asleep again, so he would return to his dreams in order to finish off the terrible sins he was on the verge of committing before he cruelly woke. Of course, it was not easy to live with such a weight on his conscience.

"Baba, I have had evil impulses again," Babu confessed.

"Then the world is safe," said the Baba.

"What are you talking about?"

"Babu, your ineptitude would inspire a Saint and befuddle a Demon."

Such comments only partly mollified Babu's ill-ease. Poor Babu, with squinted eyes he searched the surrounding area and moved closer to the Baba.

Babu whispered, "Can a man go to Heaven, if he dies with a stiffy in his hand?"

The Baba laughed.

"Babu, I have told you many times. The man who dies with a stiffy in his hand is in Heaven."

Babu was dragged to and fro, from Heaven to Hell and back again, by his dreams. Worst were those he could not remember. It seemed the more he had on his mind the more disturbed were his dreams. Good dreams, bad dreams, puzzling dreams, clean dreams and dirty dreams. They gave him little peace. And, it seemed the more he had them, of course, the more he had to think about the dreams later. It was a vicious cycle. It made him dizzy.

Babu told Baba, "Those damned dreams.... I think they are having me.... instead of me having them."

It was hard to tell. Taking a break from his arduous regime of pestering the sick old holy man, Babu liked to sit under the stars in hiding places to view the goings-on in the village, particularly down by the women's bathing hole. He did not know whether he was awake or dreaming at times, so fevered was his appreciation.

There were good spots Babu liked to loiter, depending what he might see. One day when asleep among some bushes, a dog jumped onto Babu in a romantic frenzy. The hot beast clung to Babu, drooling with passion and gave it to him as naked Babu struggled underneath. He was deeply violated. Repeatedly, gasping with exasperated curses and feeble swipes with his fist behind his back, Babu on hands and knees, tried without success to free himself from the slavering rapist. He cried for help, then he screamed, and in his panic he forgot to pray for God's help. It was a big mistake. His unanswered yelps sank into submissive whimpers. As claws and twigs scraped at his flesh, Babu's terror, horror and pain flared in the breathing blast of the beast's frantic exuberance. With the four-legged fiend climaxed and having fled the scene, Babu slumped in humiliation and exhaustion, dripping, and shivering all over. His only consolation was no one had witnessed the attack.

Babu steered clear of that stupid dog ever since. He also did not go back to the place of the rape. When Babu had not been seen for some time, the schoolteacher found Babu hiding in a ruin where Babu sometimes set up camp in bad weather.

And consequently that's how the Baba later found Babu there, very sick with yellow skin weeping from claw scratches. Babu groaned clutching a terrible ache inside his swollen belly. His mad eyes gleamed red like blood-filled sores on his face. The sickness lasted days. Villagers argued only how far from the village the corpse of Babu should be buried when it died.

Old Baba visited Babu each day as the illness worsened. When he offered Babu a bowl of water, Babu responded with a weak swing of his arm and a blast of bad breath. The bowl splashed out of the holy man's hands.

"Baba," the ailing Babu clenched his rotted teeth. "Baba! I am having pups. I am pregnant by a mongrel dog. You must help me. Oh, God. What will become of me? I will be outcast by the village."

The Baba informed the schoolteacher, a gentle, understanding soul, of Babu's crazed belief that he was pregnant to a mongrel dog.

"Yes," the schoolteacher snickered. "I promised to take one of the puppies when he has them."

"I fail to see the humour," said the Baba.

"I only laugh because it is impossible," said the schoolteacher. "Babu is not having pups. He may be badly constipated...."

The Baba grimaced.

"That is what worries me. How will the poor boy be, when he realises he has lost his puppies?"

"Baba? Have you lost your senses?"

"Yes," said the Baba. "I am thinking of poor Babu."

"Me too," said the schoolteacher. "He is a good boy. He is slow, that is all. He could be smart enough if given half a chance."

"Hm-m-m," said the Baba. "Maybe you are right...."

The schoolteacher smirked.

"The boy deserves a chance for heaven's sake, he...." Baba began to mutter and peeled off a fit of bloody coughing.

### Chapter 12

WHERE IS THE BEST PLACE TO BURY THE OUTCAST WHEN HE DIES? People had different ideas. As far, far away as possible was the single point of agreement. The only problem was waiting for Babu to die.

In the end, Babu let everyone down when he recovered. To widespread amazement and dismay, the illness passed, but Babu was never his real self again. He was no longer a young man. Under his greasy head-rag only tufts of string-like hair remained. Skin clung close to the bones of his face. Each of his yellow eyes protruded like a raw quail egg floating in a bowl of cold soup. His rag a flimsy shroud-in-waiting draped over his skeleton. In such sartorial despair, he shuffled from place to place.

For weeks Babu was too weak to flee when a tormenter tossed a stone. His cries of protest were more akin the squawking of a bantam chick than the cries of a man. Villagers were pleased by his decline. While illness bothered Babu it might leave others alone. Who could guess how much longer he would last? Not long, everyone was sure. Stooped and unsteady, Babu shuffled in the village, panting on his way. Nonetheless, he followed his usual route, shuffling and puffing, scraping his bare feet in the dust as regular as the afternoon breeze on its official round. Occasionally, he suddenly looked in fear behind him, as though he sensed an unseen threat or menace.

One shopkeeper in a momentary lapse of spite offered Babu a stale bit of chewed bun from his mouth. Babu snatched it before the shopkeeper changed his mind. You never know with people, especially shopkeepers. The shopkeeper laughed with a sneer as Babu shoved the wet scrap out of sight into his mouth.

"Where are you going in such a hurry, old Babu?" the kindly shopkeeper laughed.

Bystanders busted their sides laughing before Babu could even catch his breath. Babu ignored the laughter. He was so grateful for the half-of-a-bun that he swallowed it whole. Babu's jawbones disengaged like the snake, they said. And Babu answered the shopkeeper, as the lump of half-bun went down his throat, almost choking him on its way. He gulped dough and words at once.

"My responsibilities, Sir," Babu sputtered. "I am carrying out my responsibilities, my mission. I spread the message of compassion. All men are equal to ants. And no island is a man...."

Babu smiled among the smirks. Life was improving at last. He felt the approval of the Gods beginning to finally smile on him. He hoped they did not look too closely.

"All children of God are equal to ants and no less!" he spoke with bold conviction. "A worthless man deserves to be fed no less than a useless priest or a thieving shopkeeper."

"Get out of here, you mad fool," people cried and threw stones, but only stones now not rocks as before.

Babu was tempted to tell people there were no beggars in the world of ants, but he discretely kept the news to himself for fear people might get the wrong idea...

Instead he shuffled upon his way to thank Baba for caring for him during his despicable illness. Babu found comfort from the stale lump of half-bun stuck in his chest for hours. He often went by the same shopkeeper, bowing obsequiously, just in case there was more kindness to be had some day. You never know with people, even shopkeepers.

Gradually, Babu, spread his message. The message depended on the day.

"Beware when you crouch in the bushes," he said gravely. "Mark my words or you may be sorry."

Another time he might simply say, "Always keep an eye over your shoulder. And it's no use screaming for help. Nobody ever comes."

He wandered here and there, making the usual nuisance of himself.

"Help only comes to those who do not need it," he warned passers-by. "I learned the hard way. No help ever comes when you really need it."

Babu spread his message among all God's creations.

He spoke to ants and they did not even pause to look at him, causing him to wonder if he was as invisible to the ants as the Gods are to the eyes of men. He spoke to idiot flowers, lizards, dogs, birds and moths. Only rats showed any sense of intelligence among the creatures. Nothing that lived and breathed could be trusted.

"Do not try to deceive me," he scolded a skulking dog. "You are as treacherous as the four-legged heart of a man."

Babu eyeballed the iniquitous mutt while it followed him.

"Don't worry. I'm watching you. Go on. Get out of here, stinky-bones!"

Babu hurt his foot stamping hard on the ground; and he marvelled when the treacherous canine wandered off to waste its time elsewhere. Babu wondered if his powers were returning.

### Chapter 13

COMPARED TO EVERYDAY VILLAGE LIFE, BABU'S FRIENDSHIP WITH the Baba and the schoolteacher was as a bee to two flowers growing in a pool of filth. Babu knew how much they depended on him. They were lonely men who not only lived alone, but also, on account of their vocations, were required to exercise a certain aloofness of spirit and ethical behaviour above the money grubbing, grasping and grappling level of everyday village life.

Babu knew his visits provided the missing link that bonded the Baba and the schoolteacher to the ordinary world, like a rope that tethers a dog to its post, or the feeble fears that tie Heaven to the world of men.

When he wore out his welcome with one good friend, Babu would simply transport himself to the other. When unable to get a good answer to something from the Baba, there was nothing to prevent him paying a visit to the schoolteacher, and vice versa. What could be more simple and satisfactory?

Babu felt with his two friends like a man with two legs. Who needs more? Only a dog has need of more, or a caterpillar. He sat to rest his two legs, and to give more energy to his many thoughts. That is why dogs run in packs. And caterpillars gather in swarms. A one legged man should have only one friend at that rate. And that is why everyone despises snakes, because they have no legs and are condemned to crawl on their bellies friendless as beggars, leaving no footprints but only a scratch mark like the trail of a stick scraped in the dirt on account of some idler having nothing better to do.

As he thought these things, Babu made such a mark on the face of the earth with a stick in his hand. Then he looked at it some more. Who would want to be the friend of a snake? He wondered. Then he got on his way again. Babu strode proudly in the sunshine, assured of his two great friendships. Let other men marvel at the colours of the rainbow and the trappings of material wealth, true richness lay in friendship. Only a man with true friends would know this great secret. Only in friendship a man finds liberation. Babu required of himself to remember this insight for discussion with his two great friends. Indeed, he repeated the words that meant all this to him as he went along. In friendship a man finds liberation. Liberation is freedom. And friends! Caterpillars and dogs are like shopkeepers and landowners; with so many friends they cannot even remember their names. And a man with no friends is like a snake that has no legs. For some reason Babu forgot what he was trying to remember along the way. But the feeling of happiness did not wear off. It got stronger as it sped him along to where he was going.

Babu felt he was king of the world, even if he was hungry. Why complain? The cleanest arse is full of shit. Some days the rats chased Babu out of his derelict shed. Why complain? Rats have their problems. Villagers threw stones at him and hissed. They said he was useless as a shit tied on a string. They knew no better. The rags on his body may be lice infested and parts of his body ache in turn, but tribulations only made Babu smile.

Yes, life was good for a man with two such fine and important friends to depend on him at all costs. Babu valued his fine friendships. They were dependable as two legs neither broken nor palsied, nor chopped off by an axe.

Babu felt an ache in his gizzards and then an empty twisting pain. These things came and went. If he had no problems, how would he know how lucky he was to have what else he had? Is it not the darkness that makes the sunlight so bright? Still, his stomach grumbled.

"My belly may be sad but my heart is glad," he sang. "My belly may be empty and not very friendly, but my heart is as happy as...."

"Yeow!" he squealed as a jealous tree smacked him in the face with a low branch.

The vicious attack would have ripped out his eye, but Babu ducked aside as it lashed out and he tumbled into the ditch by the track, where he lay laughing.

### Chapter 14

Good days trail along in the wake of the bad, even in unfortunate lives. Babu never forgot his many troubles even on his best days. Babu pestered the Baba in disquiet, after one day he was attacked by a vicious tree that scratched a hole in his face.... and the following day, a bolt of lightning almost blew his head off.

"Do you think God is trying to kill me?"

"No," said the Baba. "You are needed here with us."

"Yes," said Babu. "I know that."

He scrutinised Baba's face. Finally, he could no longer resist the burning question.

"But, does God know that?"

And, of course, bad days follow in the wake of good days - even in the most fortunate lives. The poor schoolteacher once told Babu that even in the big city there are bad days, and there are people in the city who are unhappy.

Babu listened politely. He believed no such nonsense as that and the rubbish people said about bloodsuckers in the city who eat human flesh and keep children for slaves and have babies for wives. He knew that city houses are so huge and filled with all the good things in life that people go inside and never need again walk out in the rain and the mud or in the burning sunshine and dust; and there are people in the city who live all their lives indoors, like snakes hiding in a rockslide of luxury, as do the angels in Heaven, reclining on silk sofas with slaves all over the place to keep things running smoothly. Babu heard bits and pieces about this good information over the years.

Yet these happy stories upset Babu. They stirred negative thoughts when he compared them to the poverty-struck village with its rivers of sewage, stagnant slush, the paltry huts and scabby dogs and half-starved children and rats, and the featherless chickens and bald-headed, broken-bellied women.

"One day I will go to the big city," Babu told the schoolteacher.

"When you do go, I shall give you my raffia hat to wear. It will protect you from the sun on your journey," said the schoolteacher. "And remember, be wary of danger. Most of all beware the friendly stranger!"

The schoolteacher's expert kindness pleased Babu. He resolved to remain in the village as long as the schoolteacher lived. He thought how lucky he was to have such a friend; one upon whom he could always rely, a friend who would give him the hat off his head no less. Any man with such a friend should never stand alone in the face of problems. As if to prove the point, the schoolteacher gave Babu a bit of cold rice and mouse stew.

"Please don't eat it here," the schoolteacher pleaded.

Babu got a little out of sight and sat in the dirt to noisily devour the gift in a few gulps. Then he licked the grease, first from his fingers, and then from the banana leaves, till his tongue ached and his fingers glistened. Then, with a surge of replenished energy, Babu sprang to his feet and marched boldly, to see if the Baba might also have scraps that need eating.

"Mark my words," Babu made prophesy to the Baba. "One day I shall go to the big city."

"Yes," said the Baba, raising his eyes to the stars. "And so shall we all."

"Everyone shall be pleased to see me, even the lowest beggar or a woman with one eye," said Babu. "....when I get there."

He smiled with confidence.

"And dare I say," Babu added. "I shall be a wonderful success! You just wait and see when my good luck day comes...."

### Chapter 15

AND WHILE BABU LONGED FOR THE ARRIVAL OF HIS LUCKY DAY, bad luck gnawed at his life in between-time. Babu complained to the Baba, "I have no home, I have no family.... What will become of me? I have nowhere to go...."

The Baba replied, "So free of so much, Babu.... Why go anywhere?"

"I must find my destiny...." Babu confided with a hasty look around. "....before it finds me."

Babu was always on about his worries to Baba, and not only bad luck. Even his good dreams worried him.

"Last night I dreamed everyone cheered my name," he said.

"That must have been very nice," said the Baba.

"Not really," said Babu. "I wasn't there."

The Baba scratched his bald head and said nothing. Then the ground shook with a mild earthquake. Babu gawked. It is one thing to be dissatisfied, but things could always be worse. When the tremor subsided and the ground stood still, Babu himself was still shaking. He trembled a time. When he stopped shaking, his eyes narrowed accusingly.

"Baba," he moaned to the priest. "You yourself told me I was ambitious. I think you may be right."

"Yes? And what are you ambitious for?" the Baba asked.

Babu considered the question a riddle. There was no better answer than the unadorned truth.

"I am ambitious to get more and more ambitions."

"More? What do you seek to achieve with all these ambitions?"

"I told you before," Babu cried in exasperation. "Remember the shoes and the cigarette, and the pencil? Baba, surely you remember the shoes."

"Ah," said Baba sadly. "Yes.... the shoes!"

"Maybe people will be kinder to me then...."

Villagers were not always unkind, Babu had to admit. True, they let him go hungry and they treated him like a dog and laughed at him; and they certainly snarled, hissed and spat and jeered and threw stones.

Yet he remained grateful they did not drive him into the wilderness, like he heard other villages did to any nuisance of no benefit to anyone. He was too weak to defend himself and too stupid to even serve the most menial of functions. Babu sensed this and never lost his dignity even when he was beaten. For such abuse Babu knew was a form of acceptance. He would flee, yelping and dodging stones, but the next day he would walk through the village as tall as any man, in his rags and greasy head-rag, always keeping a respectful distance and his head bowed, but soaking up the sunshine along with the best of them, basking in every glorious, unbeaten moment. In the eyes of Babu there was much to be thankful for.

And in the eyes of Babu, the best of all men was the Baba. The Baba was a good man, a very, very good man. Babu told him so, and the Baba said he admired Babu too, because Babu was a child of God. And the Baba told Babu that his innocent dreams were the best dreams Baba ever heard of.

"Do you really mean it, Baba? Honestly? Oh that makes me happy. Is it true or not?"

That sure was something. If only there were a silk sash and honours bestowed on the man who had the best dreams of all, Babu knew he would at last receive the acclaim and glory he so desired. Maybe such fame would come with something to eat, and a cigarette and a pencil to put behind each ear, and a pair of shoes to wear dangling on a cord over his shoulder. Babu basked in possibilities. Then he was seized by guilt....

"I am a fraud, Baba. I am sorry. I have failed you," Babu cried, and he confessed, "Oh Baba. I had a very terrible dream."

"Thank heaven, then, that you were asleep when you had it," said Baba.

Babu sneered, "If I was not asleep, I would not have had the terrible dream. Would I?"

"Yes," said Baba. "If you were not sleeping you would be awake! And that would mean, of course, the terrible things you dreamed were really happening to you. So luckily it was only a dream."

"Only a dream! Only a dream!" Babu gasped at such a heresy.

Listening to Baba was a waste of earwax. It set Babu thinking about his dreams, particularly the best ones he kept secret. What if they really did happen? Or, worse.... like one of the terrible nightmares? But if a good dream really happened, that would sure be something to keep quiet about. But!

Babu began to cry. Dribble ran from his mouth and nose. He howled.

"Baba, I dream of screaming babies."

"Shush Babu."

"Screaming babies, Baba!" Babu screeched again.

"Babu! Calm down."

Babu suddenly fell silent. His lids stretched wide so the eyeballs protruded like a pair of blood-shot turds emerging side by side.

"Screaming babies," Babu whimpered. "Real babies covered in ants! Screaming........"

### Chapter 16

BABA FOUND A HUT FOR BABU TO LIVE. IT WAS A DESERTED DUMP in the playground of mudslides far downhill from the village. It was not deserted without reason, but it was better than the ruin where Babu normally sought shelter. The hut was originally located in a worse spot, but landslides gradually shoved it downhill. It now half stood, half sunk in dried mud and leaning on its side with one wall cracked open. Landslides often occurred when earthquakes struck. Splintered planks partly covered the doorway. The planks impeded but did not prevent entry and egress of stock and of vermin. An old cantankerous woman owned the hut and she said she was saving the place till her son returned from a certain distant city famous for robbery and violent murders.

The son had obviously forgotten about his mother. What else are mothers for, asked old village women. Everyone knew her son had died or been imprisoned, or worse. But nobody told any of that to the old lady waiting for her son. They knew she herself would soon die. And in between time she was known for spiteful and dangerous outbursts when antagonised. To be fair, she was sure to die more happily dreaming of her son's return than mourning him the few remaining months or years of her life. Also, if the woman died and there was no son to claim it, everyone had a chance to grab the spot. That was the popular idea among down and outs.

The derelict hut was damp and had been overrun by mice for a long time. It was a nuisance to the whole village. Optimists were glad when a gang of scar-faced rats devoured the mice. Then when the mice were gone, it was worse.

Gangs of rats chased cats, children, pigs and dogs alike. Baba suggested to the old woman that if she let poor Babu live in the hut, he might fix it up, and get rid of the rats in preparation for her son's return. That would be better than receiving rent because the hovel was worth nothing as it stood, and in truth you would need to pay a normal person to live in it. Then, after all, when her son returned, she could toss Babu out in the dust, since the place belonged to her anyway.

The last part of the Baba's idea appealed to the old woman. She smiled.

"Toss him out, you say. Out on his ear, eh? What could he do? He could do nothing."

The old woman rubbed her whiskers and chuckled, "I would be a landlord! That is not a bonus to be sniffed at. Maybe, when he gets a job, he can pay a little rent."

"That is a possibility," said the Baba. "Perhaps after he fixes the place up a bit and gets rid of the rats. Who can say? You know, I think I may be able to get him a ....."

"Rats?" enquired the old woman. "What rats?"

She gave a gnarled glance about as though half blind. A gathering of rodents nearby regarded her with curious, insubordinate stares. The Baba nodded his wise old head, to indicate the silent audience of brazen rats.

"You mean the mice?" the woman asked sternly.

"Mi-ice?" Baba raised his brows.

"Big mice," said the old woman, pointing toward the rats. "Are you blind?"

### Chapter 17

BABU MOVED INTO THE HUT. THE RATS REMAINED. BUT WITH Babu's excellent example, the rats improved their housekeeping. In other words they did not leave scraps of food around, because Babu stole them.

Babu tried many times to catch a rat to eat as well. But he was too slow. He tried to be friendly like a shopkeeper, to entice them close enough to belt the daylights out of them with a hidden stick.

Alas, his efforts failed. He devised and constructed traps with frightening intentions yet no success. By watching the rats carefully, Babu came to know their ways, and then he came to know their faces and their tiny, human-like expressions. He grew familiar with their personalities. He called them by name, and introduced himself to their families. He sometimes returned from his foraging with tit-bits for his rodent companions.

Babu came to mimic the ways of his fellow tenants. Intimacy leaned toward deeper emotions. He was glad that they did not trust him. For in his heart he knew if they ever did, he would betray them in allegiance to his tyrannical stomach. The sweetness of juicy, tender rat meat was not a thing easy to resist. And out of loyalty, in the dark cave of his hut, and from the dark cave of his hungry heart, he warned the rats "Do not trust me, for in my weakness, my darlings I would crush you and tear you to bits with my teeth, I swear."

He warned brother rats many times, "Trust nobody. Beware all who entice you, especially those who wear a smile."

Babu smiled. He almost tasted warm blood, like a hunger-maddened cannibal, as in the vision of his mind he spat out clumps of rat fur and bone. Oh, how he feared for the young ones too. In his hunger he sometimes cajoled them to a precarious proximity, before the screech of a parent rat would have them scurry to safety.

"Oh," he sighed, squeezing shut eyes to block out evil thoughts. "That would be a terrible, terrible, wonderful thing."

Whispering sweet kiss-like sounds, Babu crouched lower, to seem smaller, and less intimidating, his fingers crawling slowly across the dirt toward his nimble prey. He had no chance of catching a grown rat. They were too fast. If he did catch one it would tear his hands to shreds in an instant. The young ones were his only chance. All he need do was be friendly. It was a simple plan. He was patient, slowly gaining the victims' confidence, ready to suddenly betray.... The tiny rats must sooner or later slip up and trust him. Stupidity eventually prevails over all things. Babu was filled with the force of hideous humanity.

The little rats scurried from sight. Babu followed with sentimental eyes. He wanted to curl up in the warmth and safety of their nest, to be among them and to belong with them.... with some of them curled up chewed to pieces inside him.

### Chapter 18

WHEN THEY NOTICED BABU LIVING IN HIS NEW PLACE, THE villagers were appalled. How does that useless Dirt Man deserve a place to live in? He belongs in the mountain, not the village.

"You know he breeds rats in there? He talks to them like babies."

"What if the old crone's son fails to return and reclaim his inheritance? What if she dies and that disgusting imbecile keeps the hut?"

"Even worse, what if the son returns and the crazy imbecile moves up the hill with his plague of pet rats?" a shopkeeper moaned. "We shall have to move the entire village to get away from him."

"We will be overrun by rats again. Who will ever forget the old rat plague?"

All agreed that the old rat plague was something they could never forget. Those who had not seen it most loudly spoke of it. They recalled the rats in those days were larger than the human babies they pounced on and devoured.

The stories drove one villager mad. He was always mad. Rats had attacked him as a child. Now his dreams were overrun by a pack of man-eating rodents. The tormented rat-crazed villager tossed and turned in terror, unable to sleep, unable to stop the images of horror in his mind. He fled into the night and found himself kneeling at the partly open door of Baba's hut.

The insomniac confided his fears in a drooling whimper to the puzzled priest.

"I am afraid your friend, the Dirt Man, is possessed by an evil Rat Spirit," said the mad-eyed villager. "I dare not even speak his name."

"Do you mean Babu?" Baba enquired.

The demented villager gulped and shuddered. He glanced over his shoulder and hissed loudly.

"Oh Baba, you must know, there is only one way to cure the imbecile."

"And that is?"

"Fire!" said the villager. "Cleansing by fire! The accursed one must be burned alive. Scorch the Demon out of his cursed soul. You must know this to be true, as a holy and wise man. We must burn out the Rat Spirit from where it dwells inside the Dirt Man."

The Baba scratched his chin and stirred the cold ash of his dead fire. He shook his head in slow motion. The night grew darker as the moon shrank behind a curtain of black clouds draped across the starry sky.

"Do you really think any self-respecting Spirit would inhabit such a filthy, disgusting receptacle as Babu?" the Baba asked. "Even a Rat Spirit has its pride."

"Not a Rat Spirit?"

"Yes," said the Baba. "Believe me. I know such things. A Rat Spirit is the proudest of all. I often discussed this matter with the elders in the Great Monastery before my departure, and it was well agreed that Rat Spirits are the proudest of all in the Underworld. They would never inhabit such a decrepit soul as Babu."

"Perhaps you are right," said the villager. "Then again, perhaps you are not. Maybe there are others who might have other views."

"Of course, you may find some who will encourage you," said the Baba. "But have you ever seen what a Rat Spirit can do when angered? It is well known that the torture inflicted by a Rat Spirit upon a man's eyes and testicles cannot be spoken. I dare not say more, but you are the one who mentioned fire. Not I. I pity the man who speaks as you do. Such talk can only attract bad spirits."

With those words the Baba turned and sank out of sight. The villager peered into the darkness of the hut.

"Baba," the villager called out. "Are you there? Baba?"

There was no answer.

The next day the insomniac villager discovered a number of idlers who agreed with his plan to exorcise the rat demon from Babu. The suggestion of fire was exciting. People were not afraid to offend a mere rat demon, though some warned of the danger of upsetting the Rat Spirit. Several ideas were proposed for burning out the demon. Despite eager support, not one man was willing to raise a finger to put the plan into action. The failure to act was not from fear or laziness. The fact as far as rats went, for all their faults, they made not bad eating. And the rats from the Babu hovel were easy to catch because they had a soft life.

### Chapter 19

DEEP HUNGER IS ONE THE DARKEST OF PITS IN WHICH A MAN CAN find himself lost, where every effort to climb out leaves only crumbling dirt in his grasp, and his eyes blinded with tears of frustration.

When the man is in the pit and the pit is his stomach and it shrinks all around him, there is no way out.

In this darkest, hungriest hour, Babu would visit the Baba, at any time of day or night, and he would crouch in the dirt at the doorhole to Baba's hut, whimpering like a wounded animal.

Babu was unable to free himself from behaving in this fashion, due to some quirk of despair or humiliation, as though the Spirits of Heaven grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and crushed his face against the earth, forcing him to search for invisible diamonds in the dirt where there was nothing. And Babu would grovel, whimpering in submission, as though being punished for daring to walk like a man. Now he returned to his true animal state. The Baba would find him that way when he came out of the hut, perhaps with a lighted stick to find Babu grovelling in the dirt.

"Babu, what are you looking for, there in the dirt?" the Baba asked, on the first occasion he encountered Babu in this peculiar fashion.

"Kindness," Babu cried with starving eyes. "Ki-i-indness, Baba please! Ki-i-indne-e-ess-ss-ss...."

### Chapter 20

BABU HUNG ABOUT WITH OLD BABA FOR COMPANY AND philosophical discussion, as well as for handouts, and interesting stories. Scraps of food with luck might be stolen or found in the village, and Babu discovered over the years his stomach had shrunk to the size of a sparrow's. But if he were a bird he was a crow, for he would often take the young from a nest and scoff them down his throat, with their squawking and squirming, feathers, heads, guts and all. They didn't taste too bad when you got used to it. Lizards and grasshoppers made not bad eating either. Babu had fingers like bear claws to dig up things hiding for safety in the ground.

Sometimes when Baba offered him a snack Babu would say, "No. I have already eaten. Do you think I would come round here to beg from a friend?"

Even if it was a lie, he sometimes said he had eaten, because he knew the Baba would go hungry himself to feed Babu, and Babu wanted the Baba to keep up his strength, so the Baba would have energy to tell another story.

There was one of Baba's stories about a poor woman who went to the door of her hut, only to meet the Devil standing there when he called to collect the rent. One after the other she paid the devil with her sins and he counted them one by one into his bag of golden vanities until finally she had no sins left. Then with all the weight of sin removed from her heart she floated away all the way up to Heaven.

This story made Babu unhappy. He said he did not believe such fairy tales. But for a long time whenever someone hurled a rock at the rickety boards of his ramshackle hut, Babu would scramble out through the hole in the back and run away frantically like a madman into the nearby bushes to escape from the possibility that the Devil had come rent-collecting. The rats watched his antics with bemusement, for it is known well that rats believe in neither the God nor the Devil. Nor do they pay taxes to landlords and shopkeepers.

As for Babu he was no trouble to the rats. They paid scant regard to his ingratiating smile. Though he loved them, he would love them no less if he ate them and the rats seemed to know it.

### Chapter 21

BABU RUSHED TO TELL THE BABA HIS LATEST PROBLEM.

He stammered, "It was t-t-terrible, t-t-terrible. I dreamed that I was in Heaven, but I felt that I did not belong there. It was just like the village and they chased me away."

The Baba said, "Babu. You only dream of Heaven when you do belong there."

Babu was disturbed by this explanation, as he was by the story entitled The Man Who Was Filled With Hatred.

The man in the story was filled with such hatred that when he held a bowl of water to drink and he thought with hatred of his enemies the water turned to blood. All the rest of his life, for as long as he remembered to do it, Babu would stick his finger into water before drinking it. He would inspect the colour of his wet fingertip. Any hint of colour reflected in the water that might be a sign of blood, Babu would not let the stuff touch his lips.

"Did you ever meet God when you were at the Great Monastery?" Babu asked.

"No," said the Baba. "That is the last place you would expect to meet God."

"Where is the first place you would expect to meet God?"

"There is only one place you can meet God."

"Then I am keeping away from that place for a while," Babu cried.

"Why?"

"I got my reasons," said Babu.

### Chapter 22

HIS HEAD-RAG SOAKED UP SO MUCH PERSPIRATION ONE HOT DAY, Babu wrung it out to dry. Sweat poured from it. It was not a day Babu recalled with fondness. The Baba was aching with a tooth, and he was spitting out blood. He was extremely impolite when Babu tormented him with endless stupid questions.

The thing to be known about people is they turn vicious without warning. Babu begrudgingly respected treacherous forces in both dog and man, no less than he respected the treachery of the days that flowed around him and swept him through life.

"If you are a holy man, why does the Father of all Gods afflict you with the toothache?" Babu supposed aloud. "If I was God I would make only bad people get the toothache. Also I would make their arses bleed like the old hermit who used to live here."

As everyone knows, a man with a toothache is not the sweetest companion. The Baba was a holy man, yet a man nonetheless. He stunk of cloves, water and ganga. But the smell of the Baba was less foul than his temper when he had the toothache.

"If I was God," said Babu. "Everything would be different. All the babies would be fat and happy and everyone would always have a stiffy. Nobody would die. Old people would all be warm and shopkeepers would be kind. Only bad people would die. Everyone else would live forever."

"The cost of life is death," the Baba growled through grit teeth. "You pay what you have. If I have encouraged you to torment me Babu, then the toothache is my punishment. Just fuck off, please, give me to suffer in peace."

Babu left the Baba with his cloves and woes. Babu tarried to the schoolteacher.

"If I was God I would make this village into a city with a great monastery and many happy people who would laugh and sing and dance in the street and ride donkeys and all of them be nice to me."

Also he said, "The Baba is a bad tempered man. And he has a toothache. I wonder how a holy man comes to have a toothache. Does that make sense?"

The schoolteacher said, "The Baba is indeed a holy man. The hole in his tooth is part of his holiness."

Babu admonished the schoolteacher.

"That is not what I asked," said Babu. "I asked, Does it make sense?"

### Chapter 23

LIKE DOGS, DISSATISFACTION AND SELF-DOUBT BARK AT US, taunting us from behind a fence of sleep the spiritual world builds round its sacred garden of dreams.

"I'm unhappy here, but I don't know where else to go," said Babu. "I think my lucky day will never find me in this village."

The Baba asked, "Where else is there to be?"

"Somewhere else?"

"Ah yes. I know it well," said the Baba. "Somewhere else...."

"How do you know it?" Babu asked suspiciously.

"Because that is where I come from."

"Why did you not stay there?"

The Baba answered, "It matters not. From over there, here looks better than it is. That is a delusion. And from here, over there looks better than it is. That is another delusion. Problems and bad luck exist everywhere."

"Yes," said Babu. "But which delusion is the best one?"

"As it turns out, both delusions are misleading. That is all that delusions are good for."

Babu smiled.

"That is where you are wrong, Baba. I think I know a little about delusions. I can tell you, over there is better than it looks, much better.... much, much better."

Several items of discussion were dealt with in this fashion before Babu gathered courage to speak of his most intense concern.

"I am in love," Babu said. "But it is a secret. I don't want to become the laughing stock of the entire village."

"I am happy for you," said Baba.

"I am more in love than a dog rolling in a carcass, I swear to you, Baba," Babu accentuated this admission with a pointed finger.

"That is wonderful," said the Baba. "But it is always wise to tread carefully in matters of the heart."

Babu had no time for the advice of a man who knew no better.

"Her breath is as sweet as a thousand angel farts," Babu pined.

Baba chuckled, "Oh, Babu! A thousand! Indeed, what a beauty she must be."

"She is," said Babu. "I love her fierce."

"You must have gotten very close to her if you smelled her breath."

"No," said Babu. "I was far away, but her breath is very strong."

The Baba stoked the embers and chuckled, "It sounds you may be a well-matched pair."

"Yes," said Babu. "I intend to..."

Baba elevated his eyebrows in anticipation.

Babu did a bit more thinking in mid-sentence before he said, "What do they call it?"

### Chapter 24

THE NEXT DAY THE SUN ROSE ON A DIFFERENT, MUCH LESS WORLD.

"All Babu's worries have flocked home," sobbed Babu. "It's all over."

He moaned and hurled a twig into the bushes. "The woman I love cares not for me. I live with rats. I have no job. I have no good luck. And dogs piss in my hovel. And the rats! Oh yes. They piss in my hovel too. All my ambitions come to nothing. I do not feel alive. My life is finished. I am no longer of this world."

"Yes?" the Baba joked. "And how do you think you may have died, oh you who is no longer of this world?"

"I don't know," said Babu. "That's all I can say for sure."

"Ah, well, perhaps at least the worst is over," said the Baba.

"Yes, but who will pay for my sins now that I am gone?" Babu moaned. "And what is to become of me?"

Bad luck was Babu's forte, big bad luck, misfortune and adversity.

"I have such bad luck in love," said Babu. "Worse than no luck at all. I gave a woman my heart but she rejected it."

The Baba told Babu, "Perhaps she did not wish to deprive you of such a precious token."

With eyes of a snake Babu stared at nothing in particular. His eyes narrowed further and he licked his lips.

"She may even be thinking of me now," he said softly.

### Chapter 25

DESPERATE VILLAGERS SECRETLY WENT TO BABA FOR ADVICE. Babu knew this. For entertainment he would spy on these highly secret episodes. Babu hid in nearby bushes to listen to the interesting and confidential revelations.

"Baba," said one old man who lost three children in one year. "Answer me this."

The old man spoke worn out, bitter words, "Why is it that my grandfather worked hard all his life and left my father nothing; and my father worked hard all his life and left me nothing; and I work all my life so hard, and still I have not one thing?"

Babu crouched intently in the bushes in his secret theatre of confession and scandal. For some mysterious reason whenever a woman consulted the Baba the sad little tales inflamed Babu's interest even more. Babu strained his ears all the harder, especially when the woman might follow Baba into his hut.

"Baba," cried one such mad woman. "My husband beats me till the blood comes out my ears. I plan to kill him and hide his body. Is it a sin if I don't get caught? He shows me no mercy now since God took away our three little ones, he blames me."

The Baba wrapped his arms round the woman.

"My child, my child," he said.

Babu crept to the hut to hear better when the woman followed Baba inside. No words he heard, only a gentle sobbing and the sound of heavy breaths in meditation. Then the woman and Baba began apologising to each other and Babu grew suspicious.

### Chapter 26

IN THE WHOLE VILLAGE IT WAS WELL AGREED THAT BABU WAS THE laziest good-for-nothing on earth, except perhaps for Gold Bangles the rich landlord's slack eldest son, a lay-about with a donkey and gold-plated bangles as thick as his fat wrists.

The Baba consoled Babu, "Even the poorest man has something even if he only has something to complain about."

Hard to believe as may be Babu was consoled. He walked away whistling. After a while the exertion tired his lungs and thereupon he walked along happily in silence with a big smile of rotted teeth.

About this time Babu asked the Baba to tell him a story. The story the Baba told was The Woman With No Eyes. Babu longed to meet such a woman, for she did not care how ugly a man might be. She saw only the beauty in his heart and she married the ugliest man in the whole kingdom. The ugly man was ostracised by all men and women and children on account of his facial deformity, but he earned the love of The Woman With No Eyes because of his kindness, simplicity and purity.

"That is the kind of story that makes me feel like a real man," said Babu with tears dripping from his yellow eyes.

The Baba smiled and patted Babu on the shoulder.

"Don't worry, my son," he said. "You are indeed a real man."

"But I am the poorest and the lowest of all men in the village."

"Perhaps," said the Baba, knowing such a truth was impervious to any form of softening. "But, as you always tell me, there are two ways to look at everything."

"How?"

"Well. One way is with open eyes, and another way is with your eyes closed."

"What about if you close one eye, and keep one eye open? That's three ways," said Babu grumpily.

Sudden revelation set his mind in motion. By the time he knew, it was gone. It was gone like a dream that you cannot remember though the feeling inside remains. Every lost dream was to Babu a lost treasure, not to mention every lost hope, every lost idea....

Babu explained poor men too have dreams and hopes, delusions and ambitions, not just shopkeepers and other everyday folk. Babu explained a few other home truths to the Baba and then posed one of his conundrums.

"Should the poorest man be denied the companionship of even the poorest woman?"

"Of course not," said Baba.

Babu knotted his brow and shook his head.

"Well, then," he said. "Where is she?"

### Chapter 27

BABU EVENTUALLY SUCCEEDED IN FINDING A WOMAN ABLE TO tolerate his attentions. She lived at the trashy end of the village where occasional landslides would carefully choose one house or another, and then take it away, along with what was in it. Life was like that at the poor end of the village. Other men considered the woman to be of exceedingly undesirable countenance. It was also the smell of her that caused comment for she was dying on account of a deeply rotting sore inside her gizzards. The affliction often gave pain, but on account of it being so deep inside, gave no evidence until the blood began to appear in her stools. But long before that, Babu commenced calling upon her, initially in the manner he bestowed himself upon the schoolteacher and the Baba.

Baba smiled when he heard news of the new big romance.

"How long have you been in love this time?" Baba asked.

"Who counts the days in Paradise?" Babu oozed dreamily.

The woman encouraged Babu by not throwing stones at him. She occasionally offered a scrap of food, but that was all. Babu became devoted to her and he neglected his old friends, the Baba and the schoolteacher. But one day he visited the Baba with bad news.

"Baba," said Babu. "I found my fiancée in the company of another man. What should I have said?"

"Hmm-m-m..." said the Baba gravely.

Baba lapsed into silence. Babu poked him with a finger.

"Are you thinking, Baba?"

"No. I am not thinking," said the Baba. "I just answered your question."

"This is the worst broken heart I have ever had," said the wounded Babu. "I have never been in love so bad before. And your advice was no better."

Baba attempted to be sympathetic.

"Look on the bright side. Think how much better it might be when you fall in love next time!"

Babu did as Baba said. He thought about it. What was the point? He sulked until Baba could no longer stand the silence.

"How great was this love compared to all your others?" Baba asked.

Babu answered, shaking his head, "How can I compare a bucket of water to a drop of rain?"

Baba smiled slyly. "Babu. Imagine a river of love. Would that not be a love truly worth waiting for? Much bigger than a bucket - a huge river of love may be waiting somewhere for you some day."

Babu thought a while and sniffled. Then he thought another while, and he sniffled again. He did a lot of sniffling and wiping the back of his hand on his arm and breathing deeply. He then stared into Baba's eyes.

"Tell me more about the river of love, Baba," he said, then with a glint in his eye. "Is there any ugly woman there?"

Eventually, Babu recovered from his romantic war-wounds. The woman of his affections became attached to the other man and Babu ceased to visit her. Then he ceased to spy from a distance. Babu began to think of other things. Eventually, when he would walk by the humble hut of his former love, Babu would forget to look the other way. Sometimes, when he caught sight of her, he felt no pang of regret. In the end she got sicker and died. The other man lived in her house after that, and Babu forgot his old love. He was distracted by less temporal affairs.

"Is it far to go to get to Heaven?" he asked the Baba.

The Baba said, "Oh Babu, don't worry. I'm sure they will send a litter for you....or something."

Ethical matters also bothered Babu. He often compared the schoolteacher's view of things against that of the Baba. It seemed, though, the Baba should be more expert on certain matters. So Babu deferred to the holy man's opinion on a number of issues. Like when Babu asked the schoolteacher about sin.

"What is sin?" the schoolteacher replied, blushing.

This proved to Babu that he had consulted the wrong man. He thought an educated mind should be more knowledgeable than that. The interchange improved Babu's opinion of his own intelligence. He at least knew what a sin was.

"Baba," Babu asked. "Is it worse to commit a sin on a holy day?"

"Who has time to commit a sin on a holy day?" the Baba replied.

"I do," said Babu with authority.

### Chapter 28

FOR THE MOST PART BABA TREATED BABU'S QUESTIONS SERIOUSLY. When asked to tell a story Baba would generously oblige. Babu enjoyed the stories as much as old Baba enjoyed telling them, though he sighed wearily when asked to do so. Baba would then smoke a while on his resin pipe before commencing.

Stories made life interesting, and gave things meaning, unlike reality. Babu liked stories that puzzled him, such as The City Made Of Money and The Man Who Became His Own Father. There was one story about a marvellous hero who rose from the humblest of births to become a courageous warrior at the head of a thousand wild horsemen. As Babu listened to that story he could feel the throbbing echo of the wild galloping horses surging in his veins. Babu's favourite story for a while was The Man Born With His Brain In His Chest And His Heart In His Head.

"I think that story is about me," Babu often said.

"What difference does it make?" Baba replied. "You are a good man. That is the only matter of importance."

Babu laughed. What a joker the Baba was. Sharing jokes was one way the two friends passed the time, though not always did they share a joke in the same way.

Babu said, "Why are rich people so few and poor people so many? It would be far better if things were the other way around?"

Baba replied, "You know the old saying: A child with ten fingers grieves that he has only two nostrils?

Babu quipped, "Do you mean I am a finger or a nostril?"

The Baba said, "That depends. Are you rich or poor?"

Both Baba and Babu laughed, and they laughed a long time; and staring at each other, in a happy marriage of stupidity, they laughed until their ribs ached, laughing at the silly look on each other's face until they could no longer remember what had been so funny.

They gasped for air. Babu looked at the stupid expression on the Baba, while Baba looked back at demented Babu gawking. They burst out laughing again.

"Oh, my dear Babu," the Baba whimpered as he clumsily restoked his resin pipe, carelessly spilling lumps of broken ganga flower onto the dirt.

"Baba," Babu chuckled. "When you laugh like a fool you look like a woman having a baby."

Babu glanced over his shoulder. There was nothing untoward there. He turned back and whispered worriedly.

"I think the baby might be me."

### Chapter 29

GREED STRIKES EVEN THE MOST PURE OF MEN. BABU FOUND A cloth lottery ticket and got big ideas. Like if he won the lottery he need never want for anything again. It never occurred to Babu that his ticket belonged to an old lottery. All he could think was this might be his good luck day. One shopkeeper ran the small lottery modelled on rackets in the big city. Some villagers complained the lottery was rigged, just like those in the big city. None of the talk concerned Babu, so long as he won.

"Baba, can you give me a prayer for the lottery?"

"I can give you ten prayers Babu. As far as the lottery goes you still will not have a prayer. That ticket you have is out of date," said the Baba.

Babu won nothing. By a strange coincidence, the shopkeeper's wife had the winning ticket. By another strange coincidence, the shopkeeper's shed burned down. The fire blazed on a night after the lottery results were announced.

"I had nothing to do with that," Babu said. "I only hope my ticket will win the next time."

Babu believed in fate, but he sought official confirmation from the Baba, to be on the safe side. Why accept one's misfortunes, if in fact something might be done about it?

"Baba, is it true a poor man is born to always be poor?" Babu asked.

"If the swallow is content with the nest it builds, why should a man be discouraged by misfortune?" replied the Baba.

Babu was smart enough to figure out most riddles, and this was no different. After a while he chuckled.

"Yes, Baba.... I will not be discouraged either, when you give me a prayer for the lottery."

Instead, Baba began a story that went for seven days, night after night. Babu wondered if it was this big story that finally wore the Baba down. He was never the same after it. Baba finally finished his marathon tale on the seventh night with a sigh. After a long wait Babu breathed heavily and asked, "Then what happened?"

A similar pause ensued before Baba replied mysteriously, "Where am I?"

Whatever the answer to either question, Babu was haunted for a long time by what happened next day. He watched a group of four children playing naked by the river. Their clothes were hung to dry over bushes. The boys disappeared into the bushes one at a time with the girl. In between they splashed in the water and shared a lump of cake. Babu wondered where they stole the cake. From a distant ridge across the water, Babu watched and wondered what was going on behind the bushes. His imagination lived up to expectations when he could see. Then there was a scream. One of the boys began to screech for help and frantically wave his hands as his head repeatedly disappeared under the water, and the other three kids splashed out into the stream to save him and they all washed away, screaming.

Babu screamed too, as his old enemy the laughing river unleashed its evil. But no help came. That night, the sight in midst of the crowd by the village well sickened Babu. He shuddered in hiding on the far hillside overlooking village central. Three waterlogged young bodies spread on the grassy knoll, surrounded by the crowd in the evening firelight. Babu wondered where the fourth child was. The three bodies were covered by bits of clothing, and cloth to hide them from view. Eyes in the crowd looked nowhere else. Agonised wailing echoed across the valley sky for nights and days. For weeks the village was a howling hell. Bereaved family members scowled at Babu and cast accusing glares when he ventured close to the village next day. One old woman screamed at him, "Why should our children die - and you live?"

A man shouted for all to hear, "There goes the cause of all our troubles. Get out of here! You should burn in Hell!"

Babu recognised the voice and the twisted face of the man who had long frightened him. Babu ran away and stayed away. When he went near the place after a long absence they were still muttering at the waste of young lives, and all the young ones' work washed away before it was yet done.

In between time, Babu reported the events to Baba. He described the multiple drowning in florid detail.

"Sometimes I do not know who I am," Baba sobbed, staring between his feet with his mind lost somewhere. "What sense is there?"

When Baba's tears were sufficient, Babu pressed close and noticed the old holy man's face not so fat as once was. Babu scrutinised the dark sky above suspiciously. The night was cool and quiet, disturbed only by the natter of insects and frogs. Babu seized the moment and whispered secretively into the old man's hairy ear.

"I think God is a murderer."

### Chapter 30

BABA SUCCUMBED TO TEMPTATION WITH A VILLAGE WOMAN, according to rumours. People weary eventually of anything. Bawling is no different. The village seized on the Baba scandal as a distraction from the tragedy of the children's drowning. The fourth child's body remained unfound, and people wearied of searching for it too.

Babu never went again near where the children drowned. He continued to stay away from the village as much as possible to avoid insults and memories of the tragedy. But he needed to steal food. When he crept nearby it was impossible to avoid overhearing gossip.

People were disgusted that the woman concerned would have anything to do with the old blood-spitting priest. Some said he seduced her with his black magic. One guy said the woman was a witch herself and she was the one who cast a spell on the old religious hermit's gizzards.

Now the spell had roosted in the Baba, in a more convivial region.

Babu could ignore the slander no more. Nor was it the first such rumour about the Baba. A few stalwarts scoffed, but Babu was not among them. His heart suffered a sense of betrayal. Some days later, Babu confronted the Baba. He adopted a firm troublesome expression, he was resolved to sort out the question finally.

"Is it true?" Babu asked Baba.

"If you believe it is true, Babu, then it is true," said Baba.

"Oh Baba," cried Babu. "I believe it. I believe it. You must pray to God."

"I already pray to God, Babu. Who else would I pray to? Believe me, I pray."

"I believe you, Baba. You must pray again."

"I prayed many times," spoke the chastened Baba. "I still pray sometimes."

"You must pray not only for forgiveness. Even more you must pray for strength to resist temptation in the future. Do you do that?"

"No, Babu. I am afraid I do not," the Baba smiled sadly. "I pray to God with gratitude, thanking him for making me so weak...."

"Be serious, Baba," wailed the distraught Babu. "I am not sure my powers are great enough to save you, if you will not lift a finger to help yourself."

This depressed Babu. He stayed away from the Baba for many days.

Instead he guarded the viper woman's house on the edge of the village. He thought it would be a good idea for Baba to have a dog. A companion might get the woman off the old man's mind. In his hand Babu clutched a broken branch to drive away the Baba should he falter this way. Perhaps, who knows, Babu might need to defend himself against demons. He was not brave. He had come to save Baba but he came in fear; he was scared of losing his storyteller.

Babu clutched the stick for comfort lest the viper if she was a witch might catch him, or even worse. Had not a vicious mongrel already once almost ruined his life entirely? Babu maintained vigil late at night when the woman bathed in candlelight. From his secret place Babu could see her intimately. A world of splendid wonder opened as she turned her back and bent to scoop a pan of water. Then as she stood she arched her back and poured the water slowly through her hair. Naked flesh inflamed in Babu such delight no more need be said. Her delicate doings amazed him. So rewarding were the fruits of surveillance his imagination outgrew itself thrice-fold. He was unable to sleep at night afterward without disturbing himself incessantly. By the end of that week, when Babu was satisfied the Baba was being strong, Babu had become exhausted. He was too weakened from lack of rest to maintain his vigil. Babu staggered to the Baba and fell in the dust at the Baba's feet.

"Baba," panted Babu. "I am at last satisfied you have repented."

The Baba laughed.

"If you believe it is true, Babu, then it is true."

Baba's disgrace offended Babu. And his lack of remorse so concerned Babu that he thought endlessly about morals. He fretted over Baba's poor progress in recent times along the path of righteousness.

"Baba, have you heard what they say?" Babu asked accusingly.

Baba shrugged.

Babu said. "They say the flesh is weak. And when they do, I think of you."

"Yes," said the Baba. "That is why I have bones to hold up all my insides off the ground."

"What if we had no bones?" Babu suddenly thought aloud.

"If we had no bones we would cling to the rocks like lichen."

Babu squeezed his eyes for a clearer view in his mind of what a boneless person might appear like.

"What if we were just made from bones, with no skin and stuff?"

"Just wait," said the Baba. "We shall all see when the time comes."

In the dark of shut eyes, Babu could see only his vision of the viper woman, and water running across glistening flesh with shifting shadows dancing in candlelight as she bent over with her back to him. He tried to open his eyes but it was no use. He hoped the old Baba was not thinking the same things too. Then Babu reddened with warmth to picture how gracefully her hair fell down, down, dow-n-n-n...

The Baba shook Babu by the shoulder.

"I was meditating," Babu lied.

In truth all this small talk was beginning to bore him and he fell asleep. Babu's boredom was no small matter. He was bored by the weakness of the Baba and his recent transgression. Babu felt his standing in the community might suffer if he were seen to be too closely associated with the disreputable priest. Babu resolved to reclaim his independence.

For a time he was often to be seen about the place smiling harmlessly at people in the village. They tired of chasing him away day after day. That was encouraging. They began to tolerate Babu in their vicinity more, till inevitably they wearied of his incessant chatter. Women would at times offer morsels should he go away. Or hoping he would at least shut up a moment while he ate them. These scraps were usually the kind that are gristly or hard-baked and cannot be chewed or swallowed, but entail considerable hard sucking.

At times Babu's slobber was more annoying than his jabber. When villagers could stand no more of his prattle, and his intrusive curiosity that knew no bounds of privacy or propriety, they would simply tell him to get lost. Babu accepted this type of response as one might an invitation, a casual suggestion to be considered at one's leisure. In other words, he was impervious to hints and invulnerable to insults. Often the exasperated victim would drive Babu away with a stick or a broom. Babu would scurry to safety under a hail of abuse or stones, often both. He would then wander along to the Baba, as a prodigal returning with renewed affections and his sociability revived.

The Baba would sigh at the sight of Babu coming his way. And Babu would, of course, mention nothing of his banishment from whence-ever he came.

One such time, Babu told the Baba, "Baba, I have heard a strange thing, but I do not believe it."

"Uh-huh!" said Baba.

"You know, educated people aren't so smart," said Babu. "Not like you and me. Do you know what that stupid schoolteacher said?"

"What is that?"

"He said all children are born equal. What nonsense. And you want to know what else?"

"Do I need to?"

"Yes you do. Baba, you won't believe it. That school teacher told me that there is another place on the other side of the world where people do not eat rice."

"Is that so?"

"Yes! The schoolteacher said that, and he expects me to believe him. But I know better. There is nowhere else actually."

"If you say so," the Baba moaned.

"Of course," said Babu. "And you ought to keep away from that woman too, if you know what's good for you."

### Chapter 31

BABU FOUND A DOG. IT WAS A COMPANIONABLE, CROSS-BRED mongrel with no pretensions. These qualities are to be admired in man or beast. Babu knew because he was the same. It was part of his scheme to broaden his social circle. From somewhere he got the idea a man with a dog is more significant than a fool with no dog. Babu supposed a dog felt the same way about a man.... or a woman for that matter.

Babu supposed, whether a dog or not, he would rather belong to a woman than a man. For a woman is often less cruel and brutal. And she is more likely a source of food. Other possible benefits occurred to him. In any event, he acquired the companion.

The dog in question belonged not to Babu but to some other poor fellow. The dog simply used Babu for company. They had much in common and they frequented the same places for similar purposes. When Babu urinated the dog would do likewise. If the dog pissed somewhere, Babu would return the compliment. It became a matter of honour. Babu took to guzzling copious amounts of water each day to maintain his efforts, always dipping his finger in the water and inspecting the colour of his wet fingertip before drinking. The dog began following Babu about, but after a while perhaps in anticipation and being familiar with Babu's rounds, the dog developed an impertinent habit of going in front, wagging his tail and looking over his shoulder at Babu struggling behind. Struggle as he may on his rickety old bony two legs, Babu was not as fast as his spritely four-legged friend. It was hard enough to keep up with all the pissing.

"Baba, my dog treats me like an inferior," Babu bemoaned. "He walks in front.... as though he thinks he is my leader."

The Baba said, "A dog knows his master better than even his master knows himself."

"I would like to know how the dog seems to know exactly where I am going."

"Perhaps he reads your mind," said the Baba.

"That is exactly what I was thinking."

"I was joking."

"I wasn't!"

After that interchange, Babu resolved to end the relationship. He offered the dog for sale all over the village. The man who owned the dog heard of this. He gave Babu a bamboo beating about the ears and insults to go with it.

It was a mild flogging, so when his head stopped aching Babu went for revenge. When they next met, he only gave the dog a soft kicking, which he regretted, because the dog bit him and ran away, and Babu had no chance to retaliate. Altogether, in the end, it was an unsatisfying association. But Babu often recalled the good times with a smile.

"You know I sometimes miss that old mutt," said Babu, tending to the infected bite on his leg.

The bite developed into an ulcer. Babu encouraged it with a filthy fingernail for weeks before the festering sore reluctantly agreed to heal.

"I am sure he misses you," said the Baba.

"Do you think so?"

"Of course, Babu. Honestly, where would a dog find a friend as devoted as you?"

"Maybe you are right. Perhaps we should have stayed together."

"That is not what I meant," said the Baba. "Perhaps life has more in store for you. You are a grown man now, Babu. You have a home and friends. You possess an active mind. You have boundless energy and creativity to offer. The world is at your feet. I never met anyone to persevere like you in the face of insurmountable adversity. Have you ever thought of the difference a job of work might make to your life? All you need is an opportunity."

"An opportunity?" Babu sneered. "What would I do with an opportunity? What is an opportunity anyway?"

"The opportunity of a job," said the Baba. "Would you like to have a job? You would have money. People would be forced to treat you with respect."

"A job?" said Babu. "Do you want me to be a priest now? I could do it. Piss-easy. And you won't hear the same gossip and rumours about me, either."

The Baba laughed, "That is not what I meant."

"Well you can get any other ideas out of your head," said Babu. "I don't have time for a job. It's the ambitions that I want."

### Chapter 32

THEN THE MIRACLE OCCURRED WITH THE COMING OF RATS IN A plague. Babu got a job. It was unskilled, menial, labouring gang work, helping dig a length of roadway on the rich landlord's estate. The job was a month of work. Babu was put in charge of a shovel. For the moment he was impressed, until he lifted the thing. He sneered at its weight. Disappointment screwed his face. At first Babu was afraid lest the shovel try to subvert his authority. It was bigger and heavier than him. And it was poorly-made Babu swore. The pointed wood blade was blunt and split. Babu noticed a curved crack across the blade suggestive of a smile; a smile of derision he sensed. The shovel's two ends were unbalanced making its behaviour difficult to predict. It had a mind of its own and sometimes flung itself free of his grip, falling to the ground with a thud. The digging gang shook their heads and dug away from him. For hours, Babu did his best to tame the shovel.

He scolded it aloud, and threatened and cajoled it and hissed bitterly at it under his breath. He even kicked where it lay on the ground, but the stupid thing learned nothing. When Babu leaned on it to rest in the manner of his fellow labourers, the shovel would suddenly go skew-whiff with Babu stumbling, to the amusement of the gang. To be more popular, Babu contrived to fake clumsy accidents to gain attention. His brother workers sneered at these feeble efforts and soon ignored Babu altogether.

After his first work day Babu told everyone he met that he was the new estate gardener. They smiled. Babu carried the prized shovel on his shoulder like the spear of a warrior, through the village on the way to battle, and on his way home from work in the evening. The long hours tired him, but nothing wearied his enthusiasm. When fellow labourers shuffled home exhausted, Babu lingered at the work site, admiring the landlord's big house and other things until he had to be threatened with the dogs before he would depart. Late at night, after his bowl of tea at a mud-floor food stall, he would strut through the village as proud as a sentinel on duty, with his head held high and jaw steadily thrust forward, and the shovel over his shoulder. He glanced out one corner of his eye, then the other, to see who might be watching.

Why people laughed he could not fathom. But, so long as they watched he was happy. He went to the Baba and began to expert on matters horticultural. He discerned one plant as good, except planted in wrong soil too far to the East or the West. Another might suffer a scientific weakness. Nothing was beyond the reach of his expertise.

"Goat's piss or old woman's piss is the best remedy for that problem," he would expound. "A man's piss is not strong enough."

Babu condemned the Baba's garden as a wilderness where even a snake would have trouble to slither without tripping over a weed.

"You could do wonders here," said Babu. "If you listen to my expert advice, now that I am a professional gardener."

Baba smiled. It had taken him many months to convince the landlord's headman to reluctantly give Babu the opportunity of work. Already the job was having a positive effect.

"First of all, speaking as a professional gardener, you have to get rid of these weeds. Those weeds are fine. But these weeds have to go. And those ganga plants of yours are a pest. They stink and poison the air. Also, flowers.... there must be flowers in a garden. Not shit wildflowers, but proper flowers that die if you fail to water them regularly. But that will all be taken care of now you have me for your gardener..."

"Oh dear Babu, there is no need for you to worry. I already have a gardener," the Baba laughed.

Babu looked shocked.

"You do? Who?"

"God is my gardener."

Babu looked betrayed. He felt mocked. Then he cowered with guilt, as one who has inadvertently offended a superior. Would God take his comments personally? He shouldered his shovel and shuffled away less officiously than he had come, hurrying from the vicinity without bidding the Baba farewell.

On the third day of his job, the headman came to Babu on the excavation site and said, "Why are you digging with your hands, you idiot? Use the shovel."

The war between the shovel and Babu went on. The shovel would sneak off and hide in places. If Babu stuck the shovel in the dirt while he bent to shift a buried rock, the shovel would fall over and whack his skull.

"I would do better with a spade than a shovel," Babu told the headman.

"Only gardeners have a spade. Labourers use a shovel. It is a man-sized implement. A spade is an instrument for women and experts. That is the difference. The shovel is a tool for work. Now find your shovel and get back to work. Or do I find it first and jam it in your arse where you won't be able to lose it?"

Babu looked everywhere, and he found the shovel somewhere else. It was where he had gone for a crap behind a mound of dirt, hours ago. That was not the first problem, nor was it the last. At least twenty times a day it seemed, the gummy headman would interfere in something.

"Shut up, Babu, and get back to work," he continually yelled.

Babu would look around perplexedly, as if he was but one in a whole crowd of men named Babu. Begrudgingly he would return to work. The other workmen avoided him, so he took to shovelling up quietly behind them, or from their blind side; and when they heard him they would shovel away as fast as possible in the other direction. The headman noticed this and, though he was fed up to the back of his gums with Babu's antics, he realised he got a lot more work out of the other men in this way.

Sometimes Babu feasted his eyes with longing at the shiny big stone house surrounded by flowers that dominated the landlord's estate, until the headman barked, "Get back to work, you imbecile. What do you think this is - a picnic?"

Babu wondered what was inside there, that huge house. From time to time he would see the landlord or his son ride on a donkey through the garden out the gate and through the fields, down to a nearby hill from where they would watch the work being done. Babu watched the bent-back donkey stagger under the lazy load of either hefty fellow surrounded by a pack of yapping dogs. Before long the dogs turned and rushed back toward the big house. Babu warmed to the sight of the landlord's polished bald head shining in the sun, or the gold bracelets shining on the arms of the landlord's over-sized son. Babu felt sorry for the donkeys smaller than the men on their backs. And he prayed that when his good luck day came he might have an animal to ride and something bright to wear on his arm. He would think all these things and more, as he watched the headman of the work crew scurry up to the nearby lookout to discuss things with whoever rode on the donkey. Babu wondered what they talked about. When they pointed his way Babu would fling dirt about the place with furious swings of the shovel to impress them, one time so furiously he fell over.

The final straw occurred one morning after twenty days when the bad tempered, toothless headman drove a marker stake into the earth. The earth squelched and spat out human waste. The grumpy headman had discovered one of Babu's little shallow crap-holes.

At the end of the week the headman dismissed Babu for talking instead of working how he should.

The headman said, "I knew it was a mistake."

Babu took this to mean his dismissal was a mistake, but when he told the other workmen they sneered. Babu was fooling nobody. Himself neither. He hurried home crestfallen, dejected, shovel-less and forlorn, without a word to anyone. The few who greeted or growled at him, he ignored. He lay in a dark corner for three days.

Eventually, Baba paid a visit.

Babu ignored Baba's calls. He closed his ears to the rapping of the holy man's knuckles on planks that barred the doorway.

"Babu! Babu! It is I, the Baba."

Babu said nothing.

"Babu, please, may I come in? Babu! Are you all right? Babu! Babu....."

No answer came. The Baba walked around to the hole in the wall. He peered in. There was Babu lying in the dark corner, with a rat nibbling scraps of time-dried potato bits where they rotted on the floor beside Babu's foot. The rat scurried out of sight at the sound of Baba's voice.

"Babu, I will come back in an hour with some steamed rice and gravy juice."

When Baba returned, Babu ate in silence, not even lifting his eyes as the Baba patted his shoulder and cajoled the miserable fellow.

"The village cares about you Babu. You are important to all of us."

Babu glowered. He did not wipe the tears from his face. When mucus dripped from his nose into the rice he ate it tastelessly and uncaring.

"Babu," said the Baba. "I have a job for you."

Babu glanced at the Baba as though the old man had done a very bad fart, and turning away continued to chew slowly like the Baba was a clod of mud in the wall.

"Babu," the Baba tried again, using a tone of voice some young man might employ in asking a girl to go with him for a walk in the woods.

"I want you to work for me in my garden. There is much to do."

This time Babu answered with the bitter whisper of a man whose fate has been sealed. Having suffered the fatal sting of rejection at the height of his life's achievements, he was in no mood for false placation. Even he knew that.

"You already have a gardener to tend your weeds, Holy Man. Go see him."

Thus spurned, the Baba left Babu to finish the food and digest his miseries. It broke the Baba's heart to see the sad young man alone in his hut sobbing in the dark solitude of mourning for his own soul.

Alone at last as he had always been and would be forever, Babu flung the bowl aside and sank his head and his heart onto the dirt floor and whimpered.

"You useless idiot...."

A small audience gathered and sat spellbound, watching in the darkness of this dingy theatre, quivering their whiskers and blinking their eyes at Babu downfallen as a wounded hero. The audience of rats was spellbound by Babu's stunning performance. Then they turned their attention to the upturned bowl in the corner with the last few grains of rice stained by rat gravy. Outside it began to rain, water dripped through the roof like tears and the sound of the downpour slapping against the world sounded like applause in a gilded Opera House as Babu wailed with all the strength of his lungs alone in the centre of the small dark dirt stage.

### Chapter 33

NEXT DAY, BABU WAS NOTICED CARRYING A THICK, SHARP STICK uphill toward the main part of the village, like a man on a mission. He avoided the village well and its knoll, and the memories of the four dead children that surrounded it. He strode through the village grandly and out the other side. With a spring in his step he was soon through the woods to the Baba's remote hut.

"Hello Babu. I am so pleased to see you out and about," said the Baba, careful to not inadvertently allude to recent sorrows.

Babu surveyed the vicinity with a sneer.

"That is an impressive strong stick," Baba observed.

"It is my implement," said Babu, pointing to the weeds around the Baba's hut. "I suggest we begin the work over here. I'll be in charge."

After some hours of frenzied zeal, the position of Baba's gardener was restored to its original occupant. In fact, it seemed Babu's efforts were aimed at flogging the weeds with his stick to make them grow faster. And thereafter, Babu employed his impressive implement only to help him clamber up steep hills, or to lean on and rest his legs when he was a long time standing in the one place for some reason, or maybe no reason.

On the last day of the month, when the stars were arranged for auspicious healing and the purification of bad blood, the toothless headman from the rich landlord's estate met Babu in a carefully contrived encounter, just as the Baba had planned.

"I pray you are joking...." the headman said when Baba first made the suggestion.

The headman's prayer came to no good. Baba was serious, he wanted a second chance for Babu. After all, the headman had to admit the Baba had done him a big favour when he prayed for the headman's precious daughter to live even though the child was three parts dead with such a fever the sweat steamed off her brow instead of dripping. The girl's chances were hopeless, yet the Baba came to the headman's hut and sat over the girl, spooning black magic syrup between her crusted lips and praying for two days without sleeping. The several times she stopped breathing the Baba pressed on the child's ribs to coax air through her lungs, until her breathing grew stronger and she opened her eyes. And look at her now! She had grown into such a beauty she needed to be locked up at night.

The headman owed Baba. And as Baba told the headman, even a dog can be trained where to shit. It was simply a matter of time and patience and Babu would be a model worker. Plus there was merit in it. Forgiveness, compassion and charity are the three legs of the stool of kindness \- upon which all good wise men sit, said the Baba. The headman could not argue with that. Merit might be very useful in the afterlife when a man finds he is knocking on the doors of Heaven hoping to not be turned away. A man without merit might easily find himself reincarnated as a spider hated by all, or a suckling piglet tethered to a stake waiting to be stuck, throat-cut and bled half alive and kicking. Or an ugly old woman ridden with diseases of all kind and no children to bury her when she dies, or....

Baba's final words on the matter were, "A man could make it into Heaven for one or two kind deeds of charity, for all we know. And I hate to mention this, but how many times since long ago have I heard you say you owe me...."

"Okay, okay. One last chance," the headman said to the Baba. "But only because I owe you. The witless imbecile is dangerous."

Baba vowed on oath he would certainly mention the headman's good deed in his prayers. To give Babu a second chance was a compassionate gesture worthy of double merit, maybe even three merits in one, all considered.

"Ah, Babu, young Babu," cried the headman when he ambushed the witless imbecile on the village outskirts.

The headman slapped his hand softly but firmly on the grubby wretch's shoulder. "I have been hoping to see you, Babu my young friend, I have a temporary, part-time position for you on the estate. You may have your old shovel back and all."

Babu twitched a nostril and inspected his shoulder, where the headman had touched his skin.

"I would not work for you if I was starving," sneered Babu. "You are a lick spittle slave driver. That is what the men call you behind your back, and worse. They say your daughter is just like her mother and you deserve them both. Go to Hell. I would not work for you even if you offered to place me in charge of a spade. You Sir are no sir!"

Babu spat to the side and the headman sighed silently with relief. Babu marched away, threshing his elbows in a huff; and he flung his big stick into the bushes, like the abandoned crutch of a man whose broken leg has healed.

He stormed toward his house of rats and the cries of their sweet young that sounded more and more like the cries of the screaming babies that tortured Babu in his dreams. As he went along, Babu muttered a string of verbal indignities directed against work, the world and the rich landlord's headman. He decided to celebrate with a bowl of tea.

The tea woman at the stall spat and said, "Get out of here, you wretched beggar."

Babu grinned and went on his way. Such a small defeat he ignored in the face of his great victory that day. He sauntered downhill to his rat-hole whistling and singing loudly. The sound was so high-pitched when Babu passed a dog tied to a tree the animal buried its face in the dirt and with its paws covered its ears.

Blushed in victory Babu sighed with gratitude, thinking how proud Baba would be of him when he heard what he had done. Go to Hell, Babu intoned, reliving the moment he told the headman off. The Baba would be pleased when he heard the good news. A surge of freedom and independence uplifted Babu so he felt strong, and when his belly growled with hunger he told it to shut up and lie down....

"And keep away from my heart there, you bastard. Or there will be trouble."

### Chapter 34

BABA SAID IF QUESTIONS WERE GOLD COINS BABU WOULD BE RICH. And Babu wished to God it was true.

"Why does God love a rich man's dogs who get plenty to eat and a blanket to sleep on, plus I have nothing? And why did he drown the children that time? And what about me, what have I done to deserve all this?"

The Baba groaned, "You ask too many questions, Babu."

Babu said, "That is because I wish to become wise like you, Baba."

The Baba asked, "And what will you do when you are wise like me, Babu?"

Babu replied, "One thing is for sure, I will not waste my time on every good-for-nothing scoundrel who comes along, that's for sure."

The Baba raised his eyebrows and remarked, "Is that so."

Babu nodded and waved his hand in a gesture that embraced the general locale around the Baba's hut.

"And I would fix up this place for a start."

The Baba was ignoring his responsibilities. He did not do enough prayers or cleaning up. He did nothing about the rats that over-spilled the village and ran rampant through his hut and everybody else's. He messed up the stories he told and he started to piss and shit in unusual places. Despite all these things, the Baba and Babu continued to get on well, except Babu had no rest from his bad dreams about screaming babies covered in ants and screaming children covered in water.

"I have had another bad dream," he said. "What can I do to end these dreams?"

"Sleep with your head in a bucket of water, my son," said the Baba.

"Will that stop bad dreams?"

"It will stop many things," said the Baba.

"But I might drown," cried Babu.

"Hm-m-m," said the Baba, his mind drifting. "This may be true."

Some night soon, Babu asked the Baba to tell him a story, but not one that he had told before. The Baba bothered the fire with a stick for a moment before he spoke. It was not easy to think of a story Babu had not heard. The two men stared at the fire lost in thought. Sparks danced out of the flames.

Baba looked round in a panic and saw nothing he knew. He stared at Babu and creased his brow. Then he pointed a quivering finger at Babu's head.

"Who are you?" Baba asked.

### Chapter 35

DURING THE GREAT RAT PLAGUE BABU WAS SORELY TROUBLED. Despite worrying he could do nothing about Baba. He noticed when he spoke the old man's eyes go blank. Baba wearied easily, and he was difficult to interest in things. Babu was talking cheerily, trying to brighten the mood, and he relaxed backward against the stick-pole that supported one corner of the awning over Baba's doorhole. The stick gave way and down the corner fell on Babu's head. Babu sat hunching his shoulders under the sagging awning while he finished what he had to say.

"My ambition is that when I die people will be sorry," Babu told Baba. "But my big problem is to decide who I shall pass on my turban to wear when I am gone. That is an important question."

"I will be sorry when you die," Baba mumbled, barely glancing at the collapsed corner of the palm leaf awning. "And I would be happy to take care of your turban if you wish."

"No, no. You should already be dead by then," Babu lamented.

A cloud of dust descended round both men.

"The sooner the better," Baba shrugged, absent-mindedly wiping bloody phlegm from his lips.

Baba's attitude surprised Babu. The priest seemed to be increasingly a stranger to himself at least half the time now. Nonetheless, triggered by the Baba's apparent lapse into lucidity, Babu responded to the old man's offer....

"But I will remember your promise in case you don't."

"In case I don't what?"

"In case you don't die before me. Of course you will but if you don't, you are the one I choose to pass on my turban. I want you to wear it always. Promise me that."

"I promise," Baba said without conviction.

"You really promise. Don't forget. Promises between friends are sacred you know."

Baba nodded with a long face and gloomy eyes.

"Necessity is the supreme measure of all virtue and endeavour," he muttered.

Babu moved away from under the collapsed corner of the awning toward the unaffected side over the doorway, nearer to Baba. There he gave the sad-looking holy man a piece of advice.

"Go and say some prayers. That will cheer you up," Babu said. "I think it will do you good."

This remark made the old man look sadder. Not only was old Baba impassive, he was forgetful, and for most of the time he ignored the rats running amok all over his place. That was no surprise in a way, there were too many rats to do anything about them; too many rats in fact to not ignore. Piles of rat droppings gathered undisturbed in every corner. On top of this Baba even forgot about sweeping round his hut some days. And other days like a madman he swept it furiously down to the clay, as though forgetting to stop. Then the dust afterward would settle back where it had been. He would sweep round a turd on the pathway and leave it there, only to tread in it later and take no notice. Most days he forgot his prayers, and he ceased chanting in the morning. All he did was mope round coughing, puking and spitting blood all over the place. Then he would suddenly look up and weakly smile, his old self again, and staring at the mess round him, shake his head.

Meanwhile weeds grew in the doorway to Baba's hut, and Baba trod round them. Baba no longer washed much. He began to smell like Babu. His fire often lay cold. Then there was the matter of the partly-collapsed structure outside his door as well. Baba ignored it. Nothing would have been done except after a day or two, in despair Babu propped up the corner he had broken down.

Poor Babu worried. If his old friend died, to whom would Babu go for a story to hear? Fate hung over all living things like a giant foot. It might tread down anywhere with no reason. Babu had seen its work. On occasion he had done its work for it and dealt out a tiny wretch's doom underfoot. Death was everywhere. Even in the village. He recalled young faces and the old – the dead he had seen. The faces of the living were much more frightening. The huge foot of fate hovered above them all.

Babu felt he was being prepared for death with every living breath. He looked overhead, squinting painfully. There was nothing to be seen, only bright sky and the branches of swaying trees. That meant nothing - Babu sensed the presence of an unseen great foot that might any moment descend to crush him. He hoped his death would be less easily forgotten than that of the next crawling bug he thoughtlessly crushed under his foot - its existence suddenly, innocently extinguished....

Babu decided to enjoy every day as though it may be his last. They were good days. Villagers threw cooked meat in the dirt for the dogs. In these days of the great rat plague no one went hungry.

The village reeked of dead rat flesh in every way it could be cooked. The smells eventually sickened people. Dog bellies swelled and Babu scavenged well. Villagers ignored him. At least he was less unwelcome than the rats. Food infected his brain. He became talkative. He imagined he had plans.

"It all depends on my lucky day," Babu said. "When will my lucky day come?"

"The day a man dies is his lucky day," said Baba. "Then all his worries will be over."

"One thing is for sure, when I die people will take notice," Babu said. "I mean it. But for now, tell me one of my favourite stories Baba."

Baba gave a red spit and obeyed, though telling stories was hard these days. His memory failed. There was no fire in him. And Babu was not an easy listener.

Baba coughed a time and spat out red gobs before he commenced sombre faced, the story of The Loneliest Man In The World, "There are no Gods in the world of a lonely man.... only devils...."

"Ha-ha, what a foolish thing to say," Babu cried. "Of course there are Gods."

"Have you finished?" Baba scowled.

"Please carry on," said Babu. "I enjoy this story most of all."

"As I said," old Baba said. "This is the story of the loneliest man in the world. Dogs in the street paused with puzzled expressions when they saw him. They regarded the lonely man with only the slightest interest, for he smelled of nothing they knew or cared for. No woman to love did the lonely man have, nor any man for a friend. His worthless days he squandered as he wandered, a restless relic, far from one place, then away, nowhere special...."

Babu sighed contentedly and Baba continued, "For so long the lonely man never heard the sound of his own name from another's lips. Indeed he had forgotten his name as though he were born without one. The sound of his voice was like a lull in the wind. His mouth yawned agape when he slept as a dead man. In fact he slept with open eyes many a time as he walked round the place. And those who had nothing better to do, they noticed he went nowhere and did nothing. They saw simply he would wander great distances back again to where he came from as though he did not give a damn about a thing."

"Not a rat's arse of a damn!" Babu grumbled proudly. "I can tell you that for a fact! Not a rat's arse of a fucking damn!"

Baba resumed, "The lonely man said, I have many secrets, only because no one is interested to hear them. In the end my death will make no iota of difference in any way at all. I care not. Let me lead the world in this - everyone shall not care. If the maggots are proud to feed on my corpse, there is no glory in that. Let my passing be unremarkable and unnoticed."

Babu muttered, "I would like to meet him when I die and tell him he is wrong there."

Baba went on, "How the lonely man lived was unknown. Why he lived was a darker mystery. Some say he thieved. Some said he was a rich man gone mad. Others said rich men are all thieves and all men mad, so what is the difference? Yet others claimed he was a magician whose commands were obeyed by the fairies. As a result his every need was unquestioningly met. His desires, they fed on. So said the simple folk who believed these things.... "

"Tiny, tiny creatures no man can see..." whispered Babu with vacant eyes. "Have I not told you many times about the fairies?"

"Fairies and angels live in the sky with the Gods," Baba said, coughing and spitting blood aside. "Among as many beliefs as infect the minds of the feeble and needy...."

"And me too," said Babu. "Bad angels are the worst, with silver wings - so dreadfully beautiful, if ever you see one you will be in love forever. They bring bad luck and steal a man's dreams.... and.... and.... far worse..."

Baba ignored Babu's loud listening. With a sigh of resignation, Baba told how the loneliest man searched for rocks along the shoreline of a river.

"Among his finds he prized specimens of smooth soft stone. On them with an edge of harder stone the lonely man chiselled symbols of words. He throws them into the middle of the river....splash.... The words he carves are...."

"There you go. Too far-fetched, my silly old friend," laughed Babu, interrupting the story. "No lonely man can write. Only priests and schoolteachers have such secret powers. I think it a practice of the devil, or a deception at least.... a sham that is nothing more than scratch marks. Wise men pretend the writing of words has meaning, to make themselves important – when as far as I can see it is no more than the trail of a snail. I tell you a secret, Baba. No man ever pleased God by scraping his head on the ground with his backside in the air. That is for certain. Would that impress you? I am not impressed with writing either. Tell me more about the lonely man and none of this other business."

Baba grumbled for Babu to shush his mouth. He continued before he might be interrupted again in mid breath. Each time Baba paused he glared at Babu. The story involved encounters in which the lonely man had unpleasant conversations with people who did not care.

"His life was clouded by his own darkness. Precious shards of daylight barely dreamed through. He could not see his own face reflected in still water, only its sadness. The reason I cry, he told himself, is sorrow, not sadness. The difference is my sadness belongs to when I am unhappy. My sorrow on the other hand is because the Way-Things-Are is terrible. The loneliest man stepped back from the world into the shadows of his thoughts, as if someone inside him had died and yet would not go away. He could not explain the thing when there was no one to listen to him. It is always worse to be alone. The loneliest man pined: You cannot be honest unless you have someone to be honest to...."

"There is one thing about your story I cannot accept," Babu said abruptly. "It is a storyteller's way to exaggerate, I know. Or to lie, as you often do. I allow that, for it is your way. But now, dare you say he is the loneliest man in the world? When I have often told you it is me (as well you know) and no other. Can you at least admit that?"

"Do you not enjoy the story? Baba enquired.

"Ho-ho-ho," Babu chuckled ecstatically. "I love it. You know I do. Why do you leave out the bit where the villagers chase me with stones? And they yell at me to rot in hell.... You are a strange man, Baba."

Baba breathed slowly to continue, "People were strange, crazily strange in those days, as they have been so for a thousand years. They performed their rightful role in life as mere finger food for the rich and the Gods. The lonely man said to the wind it seems fools must more love their Gods and Kings the more they suffer. There are more Kings than there are kingdoms, and more Gods than there are Heavens; even devils pray; yay, the very walls of Heaven are worm-eaten by rich men's prayers."

Babu sighed and Baba went on.

"The lonely man did not know which was worse to be - surrounded by strangers, or to become one of them himself. Some said he was mad. He laughed in their faces and said you do not know the half of it...."

Babu interjected again, "Anyway; all the time you say these things to me Baba do you think for one moment I am such a simpleton? If so, aha, that proves who is. Not me."

Babu enjoyed his wit a moment and said, "If a man could write on stone he would no less easily write on men's hearts.... and join the Gods. I know that, for a fact.... I would."

These words Baba much later reported to the schoolteacher, and other eerie things Babu had said over time regarding life and death.

Hearing them, the schoolteacher exclaimed to invisible ears, "Oh my God! He sounds almost like a prophet.... "

Meanwhile in the midst of the real world going insane around him Babu went about his business with a lot on his mind.

### Chapter 36

Gold Bangles, the rich landlord's heir, rode his donkey through the village like he owned the place already even before his father died. Soft eyes under heavy lids lazily watched nothing in particular, while the donkey beneath him grunted with each stiff-legged step. Gold bangles sparkled and jingled. A bell round the donkey's neck tinkled. Babu saw the heir go by, and others did too. Some felt sorry for the donkey. Traces of donkey manure proved that Gold Bangles, the son of the rich local landowner, had passed by. But nobody saw him return.

Babu was recovering from his recent disappointment.

The Baba finished the story of the lonely man halfway through, like an executioner. Chop! What was wrong with the old Baba? He seemed to want only to be left alone. Babu complained to the schoolteacher. It was a fiasco. Baba's house was falling down round his ears, and he was beginning to smell now how old men always do before they die. Plus he no longer meditated at all. What would be the next bad thing to happen? Babu wondered, and what about his ambitions? Not a word of them in Baba's stories, and not a sign of them anywhere.

"Maybe I will have a better life when I am dead," Babu muttered angrily.

He heard a voice inside his head reply, "Maybe we will all have a better life when we are dead."

"No," Babu remonstrated with the voice. "Just me - everybody else has had their chance."

Babu wished he had a donkey to ride on about the place, and pretty rings to wear on his arms. If he could not be a brave warrior ahead of a legion of a thousand wild riders, like the rebel hero in one of Baba's adventure tales, a fat boy on a donkey would be his second choice.

He wished he had a big belly in which to put many greasy sweet cakes with lumps of pig meat followed by the succulent flesh of roasted baby rats. All washed down with cups of tea brewed in buttermilk, with sugary syrup and a sprinkle of that stuff salt which Babu had never seen but heard of. Babu would pour fine things one after the other into his fine swelling belly. How mightily Babu envied the rich landlord's fat son.

"If I be a good man, O Lord, please reward me with many fine things and a big belly to put them in," Babu prayed silently. "Or else I may be famous and the hero of a great legend - feared and envied across the land."

He watched Gold Bangles go. The big boy's golden pretty things captivated Babu. One bangle looked thicker than the donkey's ankle bone. The thin legs of the donkey trembled under its burden of human flesh, trudging along the track out of the village. The rider's backside draped either side of the donkey's bent spine.

Oh, how Babu dreamed.

Late that day - or was it early in the evening, people forgot on account of the following excitement – there was a series of earthquakes of moderate severity spread over an hour. As soon as the shaking and shuddering subsided, Babu rushed into the forest, to partake of his usual feast in the aftermath.

#

Gold Bangles' donkey was found much later, grazing far from the village without its heavy load. A search party found nothing at first. The rich landlord again increased the small reward offered for whichever man found his stupid lost son.

"I'll flog his arse so bad when I get my hands on him he won't be able to sit on a donkey," the angry father grumbled. "The slothful bastard will have to learn to walk."

Each following hour the worries of the father grew. He increased the size of the promised reward to whoever might drag the absconded son home.

Babu was chasing after the stray donkey when he found the lost son. Gold Bangles was trapped by a landslide. The heir was half crushed under rocks, and buried beneath more on top of them. Blood came from his mouth. Another boulder crashed down narrowly missing his head. From time to time more rocks slid down with thunderous clogs of dirt.

"I am dead," cried the battered young man covered in rocks and blood. "I'm done for."

Babu thought he should get away. He could think of nothing else but which way to run.

"I will run to the Baba," Babu yelled. "He will know what to do."

The boy cried, "Don't leave me. Please...."

"Wait here I will get Baba to come and pray."

Babu stepped with one foot to go. The other foot did not move. He turned and crept closer to the landslide, peering with curiosity at the waving arm, and the huge bangle among jangling bracelets, all the brighter now.

"Please stay with me," the half-buried young man pleaded with blood trickling from his mouth.

Babu felt important. His legs trembled. He crawled closer to the voice. The young man weakly grasped his arm. The desperate voice pleaded with eyes staring from a face jammed among rocks, "Here. Take the bangle. Please take..."

The boy shuddered, "Stay with me my last moments. It is yours...."

Babu slid the gold bangle from the young man's bloody arm. He wiped his wet hand leaving a red smear on his shoulder. He slid the bangle over his hand and admired how heavily it weighed.

Babu strained his ears to hear the boy weakly whisper, "Hold my hand... for God's sake.... "

He stroked the young man's trembling fingers. He admired their softness, tipped with perfect unstained nails, nowhere cracked or broken despite the avalanche. But even more Babu admired the precious band of gold he now wore, as the boy gripped Babu's hand hard.

"Thank you," the rock-bound boy whispered with a moan.

"Your hands are like a baby's," said Babu. "Not like my good ones."

"This is your lucky day," wept the almost hidden boy.

Then he cried for water. Babu scampered away across the rubble. The bangle rattled against his arm bone as he scurried to a nearby stream. He sucked up a mouthful of water and ran back. He spat all the water he could save at the trapped youngster's gaping mouth. Much went in. Babu felt like a bird feeding a newborn in a nest of rocks.

"Oh-h-h, thank you so much.... " gasped the boy weakly.

He gasped for more. Babu hurried again and again to the stream. Finally, the young man stopped sobbing and water simply trickled from his mouth with the blood. Babu reached among the rocks and tilted the head. He stared into the wide-eyed windows of the boy's soul, but no light glimmered inside. Death had taken the poor lad. Babu considered the sad fact, staring at flies going mad among the rocks round the blood-covered boy's half-open eyes. Would Death be satisfied? Was it making plans for somebody else?

Babu was terrified lest he be chosen next. He held his breath and listened to the hum of undisturbed insects. He tried to wipe blood from his hands where it dried with his fingers glued together.

So far so good! The dead boy said it was Babu's lucky day. So it was, Babu supposed. Now he was rich with gold beyond his wildest dreams. He removed the remaining bracelets from the dead boy's arm. They were no use to the lad anymore. Babu wiped his brow. He must be careful to avoid being robbed now. Babu reached into the crevice, trying to locate more bracelets on the boy's other arm. It was nowhere to be reached among the crushed ribs, the blood soaked cloth and flesh, and the sharp edges of stone. The worse tragedy was the guy's shoes were buried too, on his feet under all that rock and rubble, where they were no benefit to anybody. With a long face and deep regret Babu grieved for the wasted shoes. At least he had something. He fondled the thick gold bangle and the lesser bracelets, much preferring to have the unattainable shoes in their stead. Then he heard the search party approaching.

Babu fled.

From hiding with heart pounding Babu watched the searchers discover the young man's body. Babu had plenty on his mind with his future clasped in the grip of the gold things on his arms. The safest thing was maybe wait until it was dark, and then sneak away undetected. He could not guess what might happen next on this day of good luck. He gazed upward with worry. His heart yielded a lonely sigh. He was curious to see how things turned out, as he watched the search party venture forward.

Under a mound of rocks among a clump of bushes, just below the rocky crags of an ugly sheer cliff-face, the searchers made their grisly find. A poor man from another village at first saw only a bare arm protruding from the rock pile, then he shifted a few smaller rocks and uncovered the head and shoulder. He rushed with the news back to the village. The bangles were gone.

Instant alarm prevailed. Young Gold Bangles had been murdered and robbed it was quickly deduced. The poor messenger was dragged before the rich landlord.

"Who are your accomplices? Tell the truth and we'll go easy on you."

Soon it was clear the messenger had nothing to do with the murder. The landlord was torn with grief. Black tracks were eaten by tears into the flesh under his eyes. When asked for the promised reward, he screamed.

"Reward? A fucking reward? For a dead son?" he gestured vaguely to the distance, the aggrieved father glaring at faces around him, "Bring me my boy alive! Or bring me his killer. Till then don't talk to me about a reward."

He raged, "If I cannot have my son, I shall have my vengeance!"

The searchers were commanded to keep searching until the murderer was found. Those loitering at the death scene sat at the edge of the bushes talking about it, shaking their heads in failure. The main thing they wondered as the sun began to set: was it reasonable to return to the village yet.

One of the searchers grumbled they would never find a murderer, "No one murdered the kid. He's been caught by the rock-fall. Any fool can see that."

"Sure, you try telling that to the boss!"

Babu watched and listened for darkness to come. Then he stayed watching the sad scene lit by the moon, while occasional boulders in a rain of rock were thrown down by the mountain. He was eager to flaunt his new wealth and importance. Babu played with ideas of how his life would now change. No reason for him to dream of ambitions. Nothing was beyond the grasp of a man with gold bangles. Firstly a pencil and a cigarette, a shirt and a pair of red shoes would be needed. Babu could almost feel them in his hands. He was deadly eager to see too what everybody made of him now he was rich. Perhaps people would like him now, and maybe some woman. He felt his heart growing.

Suddenly someone among the search party saw eyes nearby among the shadows. The eyes stared in semi-human silence, watching every move from behind a large tree. The surprised searcher screamed. Everyone came running. It was no evil Spirit or wild animal.

"For Heaven's sake," said one of the searchers, recognising the greasy head rag above the bushes. "It is only Babu the imbecile from the village. Come out here, Babu."

Babu was excited by the friendly greeting. He bounded from his hiding place gleefully. He gave a wide, demented grin beneath a vivid smear of dried blood across his brow. As suddenly as Babu appeared from nowhere with blood on his hands and elsewhere, those around him screamed in unison. They shrank away, raising forefingers like poisonous, accusing spears at Babu's scrawny biceps and the bracelets he shoved high up his arms to stop them falling off. And clear for all to see on the imbecile's shoulder, bloody finger-marks smeared no doubt in the death struggle.

"Murderer!" cried the crowd, surging forward one step then another, from all sides toward Babu. He threw himself at the dirt. Vigilantes fell upon him with kicks and sticks and fists.

"There see there - the blood on his hands."

The terrified imbecile shrieked, as he attempted to protect his head with his arms, his head rag dragged down skew-whiff over his face; he covered his stomach with his knees as he shrieked, "What have I done?"

"Aha!" cried a voice in the fray. "The fiend confesses....."

### Chapter 37

WITH HANDS BOUND BEHIND HIS BACK AND A ROPE ROUND HIS neck Babu was marched and dragged to the village. All the way he protested.

"Oh no," he howled. "This is not my lucky day at all."

Babu cried out with any lie he could think of in an attempt to convince his captors the whole thing was a mistake.

"I wasn't there. I didn't do anything."

When all failed he tried to tell the truth. Again he tried another lie. In fear he knew not what was true and what not.

"He gave it to me. He did. That is all. I was nice," cried Babu. "Wait! I'll tell you the truth."

"He was already dead. He said so himself. He gave me the bangles. I couldn't catch the donkey. Ask him, if you don't believe me! Help! Help me somebody!"

With every cry Babu was beaten harder, making him cry out in order to be beaten again.

"Not bad. Not bad...." Babu pleaded while they dragged him in the dirt. "Me innocent! He was dead. True. I don't want these things. Get them off me. Help! Help me! Somebo-o-ody-y-y-y!"

None of the captors cared to listen. The more he cried out the surer they were of his guilt. They had the murderer. Something was easy for a change. Better too, because the search could now end, people could return home. Better too, for now there was hope of a reward to be shared. The second reward would be bigger than the first, it was hoped. Perhaps, if no celebration, there might at least be food and drink for the weary searchers.

Surely, now the killer was captured and gold bangles recovered, there would be no further fuss and bother. Lazy searchers agreed the boy's corpse should be left as buried to rot where it lay. The rocks were as good a tomb as any.

"Those huge boulders are too many and too heavy to move," they said. "The rocks will keep the crows at bay. What does a dead man care where he is buried?"

Slack-jawed villagers lined the way as the search party returned through the village, past the hut Babu called home thanks to the kindness of Baba and the old woman. Where was kindness now?

"I would feel better if we hadn't lost the donkey," grumbled one searcher to his wife when she joined the rowdy procession into the village. "I feel sort of empty-handed bringing back the murderer without the body, or the donkey even."

"Help me! Somebody! Tell me it isn't true," the prisoner squealed.

"Yee-ow-w-w!" he howled as he received yet another blow.

The shameful procession passed the huts, skirting the overgrown landslide rubble at the bad end, past the shopkeepers' temples of commerce, and through the whole village to a place where the rich landlord waited with his retinue not far from the village well. The headman led the way bearing a scrap of the dead boy's bloodstained cloak. At the tail of the procession they dragged the whimpering captive, Babu. From time to time Babu flinched and yowled as a strap or stick reminded him of his guilt. Bystanders spat.

"None of this would have happened if they burned the wretch like I always said," shouted an onlooker enthusiastically brandishing a stick in preparation for the fire. "Burn the accursed devil and the bad luck he brings us all."

Roars of scorn from the crowd fanned dread fear inflaming the heart of Babu. The head rag slipped loose in a noose round his neck.

Even his former four-legged companion followed in the retinue, curling a path among scabby human legs. But the dog remained wary of Babu in his moment of need. The schoolteacher also, like the dog, lurked at a distance, saying nothing, offering no help, simply staring with a perplexed scowl and not even a wave or a word.... Babu searched the crowd for the Baba.

Thank God, he had two such fine friends to rely on. Surely they would stride forth to his aid any minute. Everyone else had gone mad. The throbbing in Babu's head grew wilder. He swallowed blood from his mouth. Yet no hand was raised to halt the madness, Babu heard no wise words uttered. Everyone would listen to the schoolteacher; maybe the schoolteacher was waiting for the right moment to intercede. That had to be it! When the teacher and the Baba joined forces, then Babu would be saved....

Babu was dragged forward with his hands tied behind him. He was thrown at the feet of the rich landlord who with a swirl of robes belted a heavy leather clad foot into the midst of Babu's ribs. Babu cried out as sticks snapped inside his body.

"Why did you do it?" the landlord growled. "You worthless, disgusting...."

Babu gave no answer. Blood galloped through his veins with pounding hooves, swirls of dust clouded both sides of his eyes. Babu trembled and shook.

"Ugh!" he grunted with the next cruel thud in his guts.

No further form of legal process was required. No voice was raised in defence of Babu. Here came his life's reward now on this his lucky day. The thundering hooves in his head grew louder and louder, as his body jolted under each blow. Tears and dust blinded him. Lips shrunk from his teeth in terror. His fingers reduced to stumpy claws clutched at air and dirt behind him, as he rolled this way and that with each kick. With sentence delivered on the spot every accusation was hurled in violence. It was not a glorious moment, nor was the moment diluted by mercy. Blood sparkled on his body and turned to mud, in the midst of a cloud of dust and a flurry of feet, fists and sticks.

His each gasp was shorter and weaker than the one before. With every blow Babu was driven deeper into the dust he was born from. Suddenly he became possessed by a tumultuous ambition to live. It swirled through his soul as briefly as the tail of a breeze, or the flicker of a flame. Now, at last, help must come. The schoolteacher strode forward.

"Hold there!" the teacher cried. Jostled aside the raffia hat was knocked from his head. He stumbled and he fell, the pencil slipped from behind his ear and he flung his hand to save it as it was crushed to splinters in the melee.

Babu broke his wrists free of their bindings. He sprang to his feet in mad-eyed terror.

The surge in his veins suddenly ceased as a savage blow from behind broke open his skull. His knees buckled and he crashed in a heap. The wooden shovel blade drove down again and again among blows from all around. The headman shoved aside the crowd. The gold ornaments were torn from Babu's stilled arms. The headman threw them all but one in the dirt at the feet of those who had beaten, bound and dragged Babu to blood justice. Hands grabbed in competitive fury to snatch a share of the reward. The headman handed over the large blood smeared bangle to the grim-faced landlord.

The landlord slipped the slimy bangle into a leather pouch on his jewelled waistband. Thence the parts of Babu's corpse were dragged beyond the village precincts and cast out for the wild animals and dogs.

The schoolteacher retrieved his hat and slapped it against his hand a few times. He plonked it on his head and dawdled behind the crowd, stooping to pluck something from the dirt where Babu had been beaten to death and dismembered. The teacher shook off dust and flicked away a lump of hairy flesh from the rag.

He wandered in a daze among idlers squatted on a hillside to watch dogs scavenge for offal. He overheard experts exchanging opinions on the canine brawl. The hum of excited flies joined the hushed drone of subdued voices, as the infuriation of the mob subsided. In the days after, rats and dogs could be seen, one quietly gnawing on a chunk under a bush, others squabbling over bits and pieces across the hillside. A murder of crows gathered among dead treetops to descend in chorus upon undefended scraps. Ants swarmed to harvest themselves a share of such human generosity.

### Chapter 38

THERE WAS NO SENSE RISKING MORE LIVES. UNFORTUNATELY, THE rich landlord thought otherwise. The day after Babu got slaughtered the rich landlord despatched the headman with a reluctant party of labourers to retrieve the body of his son. He planned a magnificent burial ceremony as the son of a rich man deserves.

Workers from the village muttered ungratefully as they shifted the landslide, boulder by boulder, staring fearfully upward as bits of rubble and dirt rained downward. The rocks at the death site were heavier and more than before. One in particular was large as a hut. Now only the few remaining fingers protruded where once had been an arm. And the arm had been worried by dogs anyway. Where had all these extra rocks come from? A few men looked toward the sky for answers. What was the point?

"Keep working you lazy bastards," muttered the headman. "Or there will be no reward for any of you."

Many times, as rocks crashed down the diggers scattered. Soon it was obvious the task was hopeless. After much work, the body of the murdered guy lay more buried, then out of sight. Injured bleeding diggers swore if the work went any further, none of them would survive. The headman in charge and his pals from a safe distance urged the diggers to work harder. Then one of the diggers copped a flying rock on the head. Finally, sense prevailed and work ceased. The headman joined his crew to help carry out the unconscious man. Blood dribbled over the rocks from the guy's head wound. Suddenly there was the roar of a wronged ghost, or a demon who finds intruders in his house, then the noise of a rumbling stampede. The work party had only half a chance to look up with horrified, bulging eyes in time to see the avalanche crash down on their faces. The headman and all but one were disintegrated. What the sole survivor saw as dust rose like the stage curtain in a theatre of carnage was the pile of rubble, and sticking out from jumbled rocks, half a leg or some other part of one of the men buried there.

Mourning broke out in the village. Dogs were kicked without cause. Layer of grief gathered upon layer of woe. Tears rained in the many huts where members of the slaughtered work party lived or were known and loved. The best were good men. They worked hard in steady jobs. They brought home most of their pay when lucky to be paid. And they were known to beat their wives and children no more than a proper and justified degree. They were respected members of the community, much loved and now sorely missed. Not a dog, except with its tail between its legs, was seen in the village for days, as the wailing continued. Birds flew away from their nests and the deserted fledglings grew hungry, then desperate for sustenance. The unfeathered things tumbled to the ground and their doom, where, blind and uncomprehending, they were devoured by the tireless workers who clean up all of God's mess.

A pregnant woman so flung about in sorrow she almost bled to death. Again ants and dogs had work to do. Men howled like women and women bawled like babies. Children unfed for days joined in with howls that overshadowed even the wailing of certain women who though not directly related to the dead men burst in tears with relish; and for a while they continued to outdo others in the spectacle of woe while every stick of incense in the village was burned. Every religious token was offered. The village shrine was buried under an avalanche of offerings. The dead men's remains were left to rot where they lay, for no profit was seen sending more live meat after dead bones.

The wife of the landlord's headman opened her mouth wide with anguish but she made no sound at all. Her husband was dead and his corpse lay buried under rocks with his men. There was no hope for him. All there was to be seen, the village men said, was part of his foot protruding from under the rock pile. And now, with no husband to beat her, the headman's wife beat herself, bruising her bosom and her thighs, lurching about in a trance, agape as one attempting to catch invisible rain in her mouth. Watchers shook their heads numbly.

"The Dirt Man has taken his vengeance!" sobbed one mourner.

"Or is it the revenge of the Rat Spirit?"

"How much more are we to suffer? Oh God protect us...."

From one end of the village, stricken souls bemoaned the treacherous turpitude, avoiding any inference of insult against the Gods who no doubt would little appreciate criticism of their work.

*

The Baba had been enjoying the company of a grateful old woman the night before, and much of the day. Happily weary and drained of worries, he dawdled through the mountain glades, and hobbled along stony parts of the track, spitting blood from time to time, unashamed under the eyes of God. At ease with the forces of nature, his soul drew peace from the warmth of the world around him. His scrawny old body ached with good tiredness. On his return from his overnight absence he heard the great moaning and bemoaning from the village. It came to him slowly as wails of misery echoed across the valley. The Baba wandered down to the village. Piece by unintelligible piece he learned of the great disaster, so many innocent husbands, sons and fathers lost; the senseless waste of life and now unendurable suffering. He consoled the villagers with a meaningless mutter here, a gesture of reassurance there.

Baba knew not what he might do. No servant may undo his master's work. Any mention of God merely provoked suspicion and scathing anger. All he knew was grief and broken hearts are powerless against the grinding ages. Time would heal them.... or let them die.

His head span. He wished to be somewhere else, and for a time he was; he wondered what was going on with all this strange misery round him. It frightened him. He did not know this place, nor recognise any faces. Nor momentarily did he remember how he got there, or where from he had come, nor who he was....

.... a shriek of agony from a woman squirming in the dirt shook him. In horror, his senses returned! He hurried away.

"Babu was right," Baba grumbled. "I am losing my fucking mind."

"Oh Baba, where will I find strength to carry on alone," cried a woman who flung herself at his feet and grasped his ankles.

She was a widow he knew well. Outbursts of grief ripped from her throat. She wept that her two beautiful, loving, fit sons were in the doomed work party. And now she had only her crippled daughter left to care for her old age.

"What have I done to deserve this?" she wailed.

"My child...." Baba sobbed as he reached down to stroke her hair, then another, then others.....

After a further hour tending to the bereaved, the mind of Baba flickered with consciousness. He came upon a man he at first did not recognise, and that was the bleakest face of all. The schoolteacher greeted the Baba and told the full gruesome story, including the persecution of the outcast....

It was the first mention Baba heard of what happened to Babu. Things began to make horrible sense. He imagined his friend poor Babu beaten to pieces. The horror that afflicted the village.... all this grief and sorrow was the merely vicious reward of communal guilt! Baba panicked inside his heart searching for some excuse why he had not been there when Babu needed him. He found nothing. Nothing but remorse; he could not ignore the fact he had strolled in the sunshine probably at the precise moment Babu was being dragged through Hell, and....

"Babu, Babu, Babu...." the Baba cried till he coughed lumps, and when he spat, blood hung like snot from his lip. "Oh, Babu...."

"I felt so helpless," the schoolteacher sobbed. "What could I say? I did all I could. No one would listen to me. I was confused. I thought he was guilty. He was wearing the gold bangles."

"What are you talking about?"

The teacher explained about the bangles.

"Babu may have been a thief, and God knows what else. But he was no killer. We know now that there was a murder. Not by Babu. The only murder was the murder of Babu."

"Babu, Babu... Babu," sobbed the Baba. "What will we do without you?"

"If only he had not taken those gold bangles," the schoolteacher said sadly, "The shopkeepers in the village always mocked him. They called him Babu, the Baba of the Dogs...."

"Yes," the Baba sniffed. "The two-legged dogs.... Pffff!!!!"

The schoolteacher burst into tears.

The Baba wiped his nose on the back of his forearm the way Babu had a habit of doing, and a string of red snot clung to his arm. His feet shuffled on the spot, stirring dust but going nowhere. And as though transforming, his shoulders curved and his chest sunk, he cowered and he slumped dejectedly....

"Oh Babu, Babu...." the Baba sobbed.

The schoolteacher untangled a small parcel. He handed to the Baba a bloody, grubby cloth. The Baba took the cloth and let it unfold. It was the head rag Babu always wore. The Baba chuckled with the face of an old woman gone mad.

"Yes, I don't forget. I shall keep my promise."

His laughter shuddered and turned to tearful sobs. The Baba tied the rag around his bald head. The Baba tugged at his humble robe until each part was rent in turn, and he let the torn rag dangle from his body. The Baba clawed his torso with his nails and kicked off his battered sandals. And he began to walk without care letting the stones cut his toes. Tears streamed down his face. The schoolteacher called out behind him.

"Where are you going, Baba?'

The Baba cried, "I am so ashamed of myself Babu.... So ashamed..."

The schoolteacher cringed. He heard not the voice of the Baba. More like somebody else, another who no longer walked among the living! And as the barefoot Baba walked in tatters wearing a greasy head rag, down the hill, and then was gone, the earth trembled.

The schoolteacher shuddered in the wake of the tremor. Memories of Babu stirred mixed emotions. The teacher remembered Babu's erratic ways and annoying habits, so endearing now he was gone. Darker memories disturbed him. And he remembered with brutal clarity Babu's final agonised plea for mercy in the dirt.

"I am so ashamed Babu...." the schoolteacher softly muttered. "Please forgive me....."

Much away, barefoot Baba in rags trudged from place to place as he knew Babu would do, until the soles of his feet were bloody. The old Baba never returned it was said, nor did he go away.

He deserted his old diseased hut and his former ways. Grime gathered to the odour of his rags and to his body, like dirt to the walls of an empty house in a year of windstorms. His skin turned black and darkened with hues of hunger absorbed from the hurt and sorrows now in his dismal heart. What flesh was on him sagged, the rest was eaten away, and his spine bent, his cheeks hollowed and his eyes shrank under his brow. He was a ruined man detached from his self, and he looked it to those who shook their heads as he shuffled by.

### Chapter 39

ROUND THE PLACE THEY SPOKE IN RIDDLES OF THIS BLACK BABA. Old Baba was gone. Perhaps the ghost of the dead murderer had returned to possess the holy Baba's soul. All saw the rag turban of dead Babu now round the head of the Black Baba, like a threatening curse. The accusing third eye of Babu ever after watched the village from midst the grimy head rag. That was proof enough.

Many men cowered before the grimy rag with a dark bloodstain in the shape of an eye that stared malevolently upon all under its gaze. The Black Baba may be an evil Spirit that should be driven away. Each new fright disturbed further fears. Should the whole village tear up its roots and move away; else the Black Baba cast an inescapable spell upon every one of them and all their descendants. Surely the evil and dead Babu would seek vengeance. Who would not after such harsh justice?

One citizen called for a fiery vendetta, to burn the soul of Babu out of the Black Baba. It would be a fit offering to ward off the Spirits and to please the Gods, said the man.

"Shut up you fool," sneered a hunchback woman with many children. "We've had enough deaths in this village this year to satisfy even the gluttony of a God!"

Less superstitious folk spoke of the new, improved Babu. The schoolteacher claimed that the old Baba had taken unto and into himself the angry spirit of Dead Babu to prevent further harm to the village. He claimed the Baba, in whatever his chosen form, would defend them, as he had always done.

"See," he said. "Everything is peaceful again, thanks to the Black Baba."

And so, in a wave of optimism and opportunism, the villagers resurrected the image of Babu in the form of the Baba. The fact of all this change caused the villagers to feel a mixture of comfort and discomfort. They lowered their eyes when they saw the grim reminder of the terrible day, the terrible day when Babu went through Hell on his way to Heaven, and the grim reminder, Black Baba, the New Babu....

Pretty soon it was agreed the Baba and Babu had become one, and as to whichever of the one he or they, that is Baba and Babu, had become, there was little about the matter that needed to, or could be done.

For a short time they took to calling him Babababu.

The story spread over the land about the King of Beggars who was stoned to death and torn in fifths, and then was rescued back again alive in spirit. Across one valley after another, the story spread, and grew, until the whole world heard the tale of Babu, and how the magic Baba followed Babu into the realm of the Dead and then rescued him by smuggling the pure and innocent soul of Babu back to earth, concealed in the heart of Baba's own body.

In Babu's rat nest of a hut the old holy man lived, just as Babu had. Soon Baba was known by no name other than Babu. Folk spoke of Babu's silent wisdom. For Babu to spit blood in front of a hovel in the village was taken as an auspicious omen, and a fortuitous blessing upon the occupants. Babu's red spit was gathered and kept for luck, sometimes used in mixing an emollient or to be smeared on the shrine as appeasement. And the old schoolteacher encouraged these rituals with the tales he told to all who gathered to listen.

"So many of Babu's dreams have come true.... his prophesies were numerous. He even foretold his own death. And his wise aphorisms are legion....."

The schoolteacher never ran dry of Babu's wise sayings. He was in demand for ever-new stories and secrets he knew about Babu. Popularity was profitable. He was often invited to the rich landlord's house to entertain visiting dignitaries with his stories, and never once did the schoolteacher embarrass his host by recounting the actual events of Babu's demise. Different telling of the story yielded varying versions of Babu's martyrdom, which added to the mystery and magnificence of the legend. The landlord by grace and favour gifted a new house to the teacher and promised someday he would see a school for the village children. Long before a school was ever built the teacher was too busy spreading word of Babu to do teaching. Everyone wanted the story of how Babu was the wisest of men in his rags and bare feet and sacred turban. Many were able to recount some miracle or wisdom to prove beyond doubt everything the old teacher said. Babu was indeed an immaculate spirit and a superior man. Had not everyone himself said so all along?

All agreed. The ghost of Babu without a word all this time pottered about the village, harmlessly coughing blood over the place. The shopkeepers began to peddle relics and charms blessed by the True Babu in his lifetime, and others sanctified by the Immaculate Babubaba thereafter. The village slowly prospered from a trickle of visitors and the odd pilgrim, drawn by the curious legend of Babu.

Every traveller coming and going listened to each exaggeration upon the other, and added more. During the years in the village before the schoolteacher died, he told stories over and over, being Babu's devoted disciple and protector. The teacher remembered Babu's sayings, among them the chilling prophecy and universal truth: It is no use crying for help. No one ever comes!

The tale spread by word of mouth and grew throughout the land. With each telling the story improved. Scribes sold the saga in written form. Scholars competed to expound loudest its virtues. Far away in the biggest city, the greatest musician who ever lived composed an opera staged with enormous success. The opera, based on popular folk legend, was called Babu the Great. The finest voice in the land was cast in the role of Babu, wearing a crimson silken head rag, gold sandals and a green silk kimono trimmed with silver embroidery, and a jewelled dagger at his side. The most beautiful of actors played the part of Babu's lifelong sweetheart. When the sweetheart shed his feminine tears they tinkled as small coins onto the stage.

Women suffered seizures in the audience when in the second to final scene came the moment of The Kiss. The singing hero Babu became rich and was infamous for throwing coins to whore-ladies who gathered at his city window, like some hunter tossing crumbs as bait to trap pigeons. He fathered hundreds of illegitimate children all of whom loved and adored their famous father. Thousands of others falsely claimed to be his bastard offspring.

In this and other regards, many of Babu's great dreams secretly came true. At home meanwhile in the village, Babu, now murdered and resurrected from the dead, lived as he had always done, in simple silent innocence and in the purity of God's filth and squalor. To all intents and purposes the old holy Baba existed no more. He might as well have been dead for centuries or never born for the difference it made to him.

As one by one so many of Babu's secret dreams became true, he cared not a scrap, nor gave a rat's arse of a damn. Nor too did he listen to tales of his far away fame. He was too wise to care. He was too poor to bother. He spurned those who implored him. When beggars barefoot or clad in riches came to the door of his hut seeking blessings, he would throw whatever he had at them. Likewise, he did the same when animals came sniffing. When rich men with troubles came begging for advice from wise Babu, he would throw out scraps of food or filth or sticks or bones or stones, and nothing more. Such offerings were taken as omens. Even when the schoolteacher came to the door of the hut, he received no more, nor less, than the lowest dog or any other. And eventually, the schoolteacher who had let Babu die without a gesture now buried the new Babu too at the edge of his heart. And he stayed away, with his share of shame till he died, amusing himself with tales of Babu to the many eager to listen.

Babu had learned enough of men in his first life to want none of their world in his second. Men lived lies. He did not care for the cleanliness, calumny and clumsy, carnivorous company of men. Some men lived lies to escape the truth. Some lived lies to explain the truth in an effort to avoid enduring it. Some lived lies because they knew no better. All men lived lies only because they were not yet dead.

The village was as big a lie as the grandest city. This was proved many years later; the roadway came and the village itself disappeared in a cloud of building dust.

Meantime Babu lived in the slowly disappearing village only while it was there, and as far as it seemed, he himself was there too. Many days he was senseless to any knowing at all. Yet among the villagers no difference in him did any notice, as though their eyes were blind from their own dust. The village was dust in the hands of the sky. Men were dust and their world was dust. The hut of Babu sank more into the dust, a little collapsing with every breeze, and Babu remained living among the ruins. Even the rats moved away, and still Babu stayed. The old woman who owned the hut died and left it behind. The ruins of the hut slowly drifted downhill as the years fled, like a dog slinking slowly away from a place it never was welcome.

Speaking of dogs, as ever, they followed the new Babu everywhere he went. They gleefully licked up gobs of blood he spat. He paid no heed to the four-legged bothers, apart from when they came sniffing at his door, and he tossed out a few scraps. They feasted well enough on him already.

Far away in the old monastery, the Elders were alarmed at the endless stream of terrible news, but they could do nothing. They knew better than anyone the power of superstitious nonsense. And to keep the simple people happy, a small shrine was set up in the courtyard of the Monastery in honour of the formerly disgraced Baba. Soon the Baba shrine attracted crowds chanting.... Babu! Babu! Babu! The shrine took more offerings and donations than all others.

An emissary was sent from the monastery to bring the Baba back home. The idea was abandoned when the emissary trod through a scattering of human waste and peered through the gap in the blood-spattered wall of the fallen down hut. The emissary recoiled at the sight of the semi-human thing in the gloom he saw. The emissary reported to the Monastery Elders.

"The Baba is worth more gone to where he is, than were we had him with us. Any thought of his return would be a most untimely and unseemly embarrassment."

Reference to the banishment of the Baba was deleted from Monastery scrolls and rewritten in appropriate terms. The faraway village was extolled worthily, and its valley pronounced an unspoiled sanctuary of innocence and simplicity.

### Chapter 40

THE END FOR MANY THINGS FINALLY CAME DURING ONE OF THE minor earthquakes to shake this rugged and remote valley. The angered earth opened its jaws, and many a doomed soul of man and beast plummeted deep inside to be devoured without trace as though they had never been.

Local folk said when the ground ripped open all they heard was a deafening sound of wild horses stampeding. And rising above the thunder most of all, like the voices of two Gods they heard the mighty, bellowing laughter of giants roaring, just as the sky exploded with lightning and thunder, shaking the earth to its marrow, and every Spirit in the mountains was howling with terror and Demons laughed insanely, and burning lashes of rain slashed to ruin all that grew, stood, or ran for shelter. The entire earth was shaken like a crippled duck in the grip of a dog's maw. Then the crack in the ground chomped shut, crushing everything between its teeth, and shaking all else down.

The crunching and grinding continued after the earth's great mouth closed. The earth chewed to bits what it swallowed. The ruins of the old Babu hut were without trace. And with it the new Babu was gone too, like the old....

None would forget how the mighty voices echoed across the valley throughout the earth-wrenching fury. Long after the earthquake the two mighty voices echoed up and down the distant valleys of every heart that survived the disaster; and how those mighty god-like voices roared in the heavens above.

All agreed only two words were heard as the very earth itself broke open and then slammed closed again. One mighty voice roared a huge welcome, while the other mighty voice roared a great greeting, as clouds swirled into hurricanes and fireballs tore across the skies.

Survivors afterward agreed, they were senseless with terror at the time, yet they clearly recalled the thundering of huge, heavenly but chilling voices bellowing above the shrieking storm. There was no doubt. Above the chaos and horror, two words they clearly and unmistakably heard....

"Baba!"

"Babu!"

For many years, audiences would rise from their Opera House seats in acclamation at this point of the performance. They cheered the name of Babu. Understandably! Who could blame them? It was a beautiful story. A chorus of poor but honest villagers sang the sweetest songs of adoration. The story of Babu became a cherished national treasure, surviving the centuries and enduring the scourge of a thousand translations and revisions. Successive governments commissioned further improvements. Children in schools across the land sang the praises of Babu, the wise and humble man of low birth who sought only to serve his Emperor and country.

Babu will always be remembered as the miracle child born among the rocks with no mother; for his wisdom and purity, and for his great love of a beautiful Princess and his devoted friendship with the magical monk, Baba the Magnificent. The moral of the story would be interpreted in many different and sometimes contradictory ways. It has become de rigor these days among radical intellectuals to deny it has any.

As Babu is reputed to have once said, "Such is the handful of rice that makes a feast of life's mere morsel."

In modern times the site of the old village was declared a location of Sacred National Heritage and developed into a kind of attraction for people who enjoy that sort of thing. Along the bitumen highway into the flourishing modern township there stands a concrete coated cairn of rocks with a bronze plaque in memory of the great man Babu. Across from the memorial and nearby gas station a road-sign warns visitors to beware of prostitutes, pickpockets, drug peddlers and beggars.

### THE END

Thank you for reading my book. If you enjoyed it, please leave a review at your favourite ebook retailer.

Thanks!

Bruce Hanna

About the author

Born in Sydney, Australia in 1949, Bruce Hanna is the author of Hugh Janus (a novel, Smashwords 2017), Fatal Moments (a novel, Angus &Robertson, 1987) and Empire of Exiles (A&R Poet of the Month, 1977). His cartoons, poetry and other writings appeared in the Australian, the Bulletin, the Sydney Morning Herald, Nation Review and Tribune. He is responsible for the PsychoJunk Recordings (1999-2004), and edited the short-lived independent Adelaide newspaper Paper TV (1984). An opponent of the American War in Vietnam, Hanna was granted amnesty under the Whitlam government. He was Secretary of the Unemployed Workers' Union SA and a founding member of the now defunct Environmentalists for Full Employment and the Industrial Democracy Association. He designed and conducted the Tangentyere Efficiency and Morale (TEAM) Project (Alice Springs, 1986) and subsequently worked as an advisor to legislative authorities, and senior mediator within the SA industrial training sphere (1987-2009). Since 1975 he has travelled extensively, writing in the Seychelles, the south of France and several Asian countries. He resides in Paradise, South Australia under supervision of two adult children.

Other books by Bruce Hanna

Hugh Janus (Smashwords 2017)

Fatal Moments (A&R 1987)

