Randy Boyagoda - Beggars Feast

VIKING CANADA

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First published 2011

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (RRD)

Copyright Randy Boyagoda, 2011

The traditional horoscope markings that appear on part opener pages are courtesy of Ivor Boyagoda.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Publishers note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Boyagoda, Randy, 1976

Beggars feast / Randy Boyagoda.

ISBN 978-0-670-06563-9

1. Kandy, Sam, 1899-1999Fiction. I. Title.

PS8603.O9768B43 2011 C813.6 C2010-905826-7

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For Anna,

and for Mira, Olive, and Ever,

the four corners of my earth

O fool, to try to carry thyself upon thy own shoulders!

O beggar, to come to beg at thy own door!

RABINDRANATH TAGORE, O FOOL

Chase away a little bird, putha, only a little bird. It looked more like a winged dog, waiting for him at the far side of the great green clearing. His father was standing beside the man whod come to the hut and eaten all their lunch the day before. His mother and brothers and sisters and the new baby were also there, and one of his grandmothers, who was given a stool. She carried a little rag and always wiped her mouth before and after she spoke. The baby was crying. His father motioned him over and opened and closed his palm long enough to show him a piece of jaggery. Then he pointed at the bird and the boy ran right at it. On his eighth birthday, the crow was waiting at the same place behind the village. His father showed him two pieces and the boy ran again. As he neared, the bird lifted and jumped forward, directly at him, once more sending him glancing to the side. But this time, when he turned to face his father, he had to watch him feed his promised sweets to two of his brothers, who were jumping up and down at their sudden good fortune. He decided that would not happen again. At nine, they went to the field with a bowl of curd and treacle, and a newer baby crying, and no grandmother, and with everyone cheering he sprinted at the crow through a stretch of limp yellow grass no longer knee high. His heart lifted as the bird went off at his approach but it resettled not ten steps away. He looked to his father, who was looking to the keeper for a ruling. The boy would not wait. He ran at the bird again, who lifted over another few feet, then again, and again, and soon he was running useless figure eights across the great green clearing, his eyes burning with sweat and tears and dirt, and they were all laughing and eventually he fell and the bird, the bird actually hopped closer to him. It seemed to be considering him with its bead-black eyes, as if to say Hard luck. See you next year, but it was only watching his father, who knelt beside the boy, lifted his chin, and pointed at the crow. He wanted to say to him Sorry Appachchi but instead watched his father dump the bowl of white curd onto the dry brown ground. The birds beak gleamed.

Hed been six-plus when the dry time had first descended on the village. Every family needed someone to blame. They took him to the astrologers hut, which always occupied the most auspicious of the four corners of the dry dirt square where the villages two lanes met. Villagers had lately been queuing in greater numbers to see her. She asked less than the nearby temple monks and their bottomless stomachs, and besides horoscopes, she could also read palms. After first uncoiling his birth-hour scroll and showing his parents a future tattooed with empty houses and empty marriages, she took the boy by the wrist and traced the lines already creasing his small handshunger, poverty, rage. The boy was then sent from the hut, where he met other families blights: a granny who peed herself while he waited, and a girl with milk-white eyes, another with a creviced lip, and also an uncle who giggled while smelling his wrists. But he had ten fingers and ten toes. He hunted snakes and could climb almost any tree his brothers could. Why was he here? Meanwhile, the astrologer told his parents that this was a son never meant to be born in the middle of a family. She said he would never give when he could take, never serve when he could be served. He should have been born first or last.

What will he do to us? his mother asked.

Ruin you, she answered.

What can be done? his father asked.

Ill send my husband to see you.

As was his known habit in the village, the astrologers husband came calling just as his mother was getting the lunchrice, a thumbprint of dried fish for his fathers plate, dhal, and limp long slices of salt-and-peppered papaya and combs of finger-long plantains. Plantains were the only food the children were allowed to eat as they pleased. His father gave his plate to the visitor.

He looks too young, I am telling you. I cant take a mans money when he has so many to care for, and at such a terrible time for everyone, no? The crow-keeper swept his dhal-dripping hand across the reedy children, all of them watching him with mud-brown eyes.

Doesnt matter, his father answered. Tomorrow he is seven. We have heard of others who have chased the crow at this age. Whos to say, maybe he will too, no? At least to try, what harm?

Only harm is the cost.

Which is?

Not payable with a plate of rice and curry.

No, its an honour to have you share our table. About paying, its like this. His father bagged up his sarong between his legs. Id like to pay you, of course. But also, if youre interested