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Short story:
A moonlit night
Somasiri ATTANAYAKE
We used to gather at the place of one of our friends every Saturday
night to play some indoor games when we were youngsters around 25 years.
This particular place turned into a mini-recreation club every weekend
where, cards, carrom and draughts playing took place. Very often,
playing sessions extended into the wee hours of the next day. There were
about six habitues who were very young except a school master who was an
immediate neighbour and not a young person, but a middle-aged stocky man
with his hair prematurely turned grey. Almost at all times, he chewed
betel like a goat munches fresh leaves; talked incessantly in a toneless
voice and he went there not to play any game but to enjoy the company of
the young men who respected him as an elder and liked him because he
narrated daring experience of his salad days which he highly exaggerated
in his enthusiasm to entertain the very green lads.
A carrom game was in full swing on a Saturday night amidst a lot of
laughter and shouting made by the onlookers who gathered round the
carrom board placed under a kerosene gas-lamp which hung on a long metal
hook fixed to the wooden framework of the roof. The lamp illuminated the
open veranda and a larger part of the compound, giving a soft continuous
wheezing sound.
 It
was about one hour away from midnight when two or three girls in school
uniform and a young woman appeared, all of a sudden in the compound;
they spoke to the school master who got up from the stool, he had been
sitting on and went out towards them. We heard them talk in low voices
and the school master called me by the name and beckoned me to come out.
I went out into the compound and stood in front of them wondering
what the urgent matter was.
"I think you know this teacher."
The school master said looking straight at the young woman who was
clad in a white saree.
"Yes, I know her."
"They have returned from an educational trip. At this time she can't
go home alone. Will you take her home please."
I could not refuse his request. I knew that she was residing at the
adjoining village and she was a teacher and I did not know anything more
about her.
It was a brightly moonlit night. We walked along the lonely road that
was overarched with trees which stood on either side of it. Moonlight
filtered through the openings in the foliage created lace-like patterns
on the surface of the road. We saw the moon shining brilliantly like a
silver plate through the gaps between the trees. The path lay between
the hedges; skirted the thickets and threaded among the clusters of
houses, half hidden in darkness. Wherever we looked, there were patches
and splotches of silvery moonlight all over the ground. The moon brought
a mysterious and ineffable beauty into the world by illuminating it
vaguely and partially, leaving the rest in semi-darkness. Here and
there, cattle lay with their limbs folded and drawn under their bulky
bodies, beneath trees, close to the houses. Lazily, nonchalantly, the
bovines chewed the cud they had browsed hurriedly during the day; their
large eyes glistened like marbles caught in the effulgent moon light.
There was a continuous, soft rustle and a murmur in the leafage
stirred by a lethargic breeze that caressed us with velvetty, cold
finger tips. While walking along the road side by side, the young
teacher unreservedly talked with me; she told that she was an arts
teacher and where she taught. She also told that she knew me including
my name which surprised me greatly.
The shady narrow road ultimately brought us down into the vast
stretch of paddy fields across which the road ran over an embankment.
The extensive expanse of fields looked almost bare after harvesting,
except threshing floors with clumps of trees, piles of straw and
makeshift huts thatched with cadjan and straw put up by farmers to take
a brief respite between long spells of toil in the hot sun. A
phosphorescent sheen of moonshine transfigured the whole landscape into
a ethereal never-never-land.
"My goodness! what an enchanting sight!", she echoed what I thought.
Like millions of fire flies, moon beams shimmered on the water that
creased into tiny ripples by the wind. All at once, without any apparent
reason, both of us began to talk excitedly. She waxed lyrical about the
tour.
"What struck me most was Dunhinda fall. What a marvel it is! I
couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the waterfall for the first time. We
were there for more than an hour; all the time I was looking at the
water falling down like a veil giving a hissing sound that mingled with
the shrill chirping of cicardas."
The cold night air had been impregnated with an all pervading and
penetrating sharp fragrance that resembled the pungent, pleasant odour
of eau-de-cologne.
"Can you feel a strong and very pleasant smell in the air?"
"Certainly, I felt it vaguely before we reached the fields... A tall
ruk-attana tree is in flower."
"No, no - it is the sweet smell of moonlight!"
She laughed breezily and she abandoned herself to her unrestrained
cachinnation. She looked just like a mischievous and playful child when
she laughed airily. Her voice sounded rich and melodious. I thought she
was a kind hearted person and I got the impression that she was
incapable of getting angry even under very strong provocation. Her talk,
manners, the way she expressed herself revealed the tenderness in her
heart. She was also a fine conversationalist and she grasped every word
I uttered.
We walked halfway the embankment that carried the narrow road to the
far bank of the paddy fields. The firmament was like an endless canopy
flecked with snowy fragments of clouds and the moon was just overhead in
the sky. The whole world was inactive and fast asleep. The bamboo groves
on both sides of the road covered with hairlike foliage continually
murmured and whispered in contrast to the sharp whirring churr
repeatedly issued by the insects hidden in the grass. She stopped in the
middle of the causeway and looked at the orb in great admiration with
her head titled back and the chin raised towards the heavens. Immersed
in silvery effulgence, her visage looked like a fresh flower in full
bloom. When she perceived that I had walked a few yards ahead of her,
she ran like a silvern flame to catch up with me. Her childlike
simplicity, happy-go-lucky attitude to life and her vivacious demeanour
caught my fancy.
Houses, cottages and novels on the far bank among leafy trees and
tall coconut palms partly bathed in silvery radiance, submerged in
darkness were seen like a painting roughly done in black and white.
After escorting the young woman home, I did not rejoin the group of
my friends but returned home. I felt uneasy and emotionally disturbed. I
thought my malaise would be vanished after a sound sleep and I got into
bed and put out the lamp. Darkness swallowed up everything. With closed
eyes, I lay on bed expecting to slip into the land of nod as soon as
possible since I was tired and sleepy.
Instead of falling into sleep, I felt that the same fragrance we
smelt in the open fields linger very strongly in my room. It was the
very same odour, even stronger than before! I heard the soft rustle of
the young woman's saree, her musical contralto voice. Through the
darkness, her eyes overflowing with tenderness gazed into mine boldly.
"You are very different from what I thought of you earlier. I thought
you were a very strict and serious minded person." Her words crossed my
mind in flashback. I did not know when I fell into sleep. However, the
next morning I did not experience the physical relaxation and mental
calmness I usually enjoy after a restful and sound sleep.
During the few days that followed the little adventure, I tried my
best to forget all about the incident. The more I tried the more I
failed in my attempt to erase the memory of that moonlit night and the
young teacher. Over and over again, I relapsed into the habit of
recollecting the pleasant experience in every detail as a drunkard falls
back into his characteristic habit after a period of forced abstinence.
In the end, I miserably failed to resist the temptation that urged me to
see her again.
It occurred to me that I could meet her at the railway station where
she waited every morning to travel to her school. The next morning I
went to the station around the time I thought she would arrive there.
Before I got to the station, she had been waiting there for the train
with a bevy of young girls in white uniform.
With my heart going pit-a-pat, I approached her who was standing at
the very end of the platform. She did not notice me till I stood just in
front of her.
"Good morning!"
She looked at me with a start and blushed like a teenage girl. Her
face went red up to the tips of the ear lobes.
Violent emotions made her stun and dumb. |
