Madhaba, seven years of age, a pupil of Class One in A.K. Satpathy Municipal School, Baramunda, Bhubaneswar, had been sent out by his mother to buy some rock salt and a bottle of oil. Madhaba had been reluctant to go. On a shelf in their one-room hovel, above the figure of his mother bent over the stone grinder making ginger-and-chilli paste for their evening meal, the kerosene lantern was flickering, and on their string bed Madhaba was having a fine time making shadows on the opposite wall: a rabbit with floppy ears, a crocodile with gnashing jaws, sea waves rolling and leaping. He was making sounds too, chirruping like a bird on a dawn branch, clucking like a chicken strutting about a yard. The first time his mother bade him go he ignored her, but the second time her voice was sharper; he stood up almost at once. “It’s so late. Why couldn’t you tell me earlier?” he grumbled. “Can’t I do it tomorrow on the way back from school?” He took from her the money and the little oil bottle, its bottom specked with the black dregs of old oil, and as she ran a comb through his hair he began to recite a song he had heard on the radio that afternoon. With the coins, he stowed in his pocket his red-and-green top. “Go running and come,” said his mother. “Don’t loiter anywhere, or follow your friends. Be back in ten minutes.” Madhaba wrapped his gamcha around his shoulders and left.

Now he was on the way back from Bijay Sahu’s shop, clutching the packet of salt in one hand and the bottle of oil in the other. It was a chilly, misty, gloomy night; there was hardly a soul on the unlit, rutted street. The shifting shapes here were not comforting but ominous; trees hung low over the street, rustling gently as if sighing at old memories, and in the ditch by the road crickets were chirping. At one place, he could see no one, hear no one. It was quiet, so quiet that Madhaba had an apprehension that everybody in the world had disappeared, leaving him behind. His thin gamcha and frayed shorts were nothing against the cold; there were goose pimples on his skin and a tight uneasy feeling in the gut of his stomach. All songs and sounds had gone out of him; all he wanted to do was get home quickly. He was relieved to see the light of Biren Mohanty’s grocery shop, to which only the more well-to-do went; it didn’t sell salt or oil loose, as Bijay Sahu’s did, and he had only gone there once in his life, to buy a matchbox. Biren Mohanty was on his high stool with his head turned back, watching television. The parrot he kept in a cage outside his shop was bowed and silent as usual, and in all the time that Madhaba gazed at it as he passed by it moved not an inch. Why didn’t it ever speak, as parrots were supposed to? Was it so sad? He turned the corner. Now there was only one dark stretch of road left, and then he’d be at the widow Manju Behra’s house, the first of their settlement, and in another minute he’d be home.

Madhaba thought he heard a low, cracked voice singing somewhere close by. He was sure that his imagination was playing tricks on him, but at a stroke his courage ran out; suddenly he felt that ghosts and phantoms were all around. He kicked up his heels and ran for home. There loomed in front of him a lurching figure. He was taken! Madhaba opened his mouth but no sound came out. It was the figure that spoke, not to him but to itself. It was Haru! Stick-thin, shock-haired Haru, the drunkard, on his way home after a tipple. Ever since his son had lost his life in an accident on a construction site, old Haru had lost his mind completely. Often he stood outside his own home late at night, hollering at the skies and showering the people of the community with slanders. Madhaba watched the gaunt figure stumbling and moaning, and a vision took shape in his mind not just of Haru in the darkness, but also of the black night that was inside Haru.

The drunkard turned his face away from the wind to light a match, a beedi between his lips, but as he brought it to his face it guttered out. Before he could light another, Madhaba shot past Haru, and went running, running, running on his fast, obedient legs right up to the widow’s house, when suddenly and unaccountably he slipped on the loose red gravel and took a tumble. He skidded along the ground on his hands and knees, and when he came to rest, the things he had been carrying in his hands were no longer there.

Madhaba got up, cursing. Bent over, he began to look around till he located his goods. The salt seemed unharmed, but the bottle lay broken by the wayside, and the oil glistened in the grass like dew. Only a few minutes ago he had paid money for it; now it lay squandered, and who had gained? Why were things so? Madhaba thought of his father’s grease-stained shirt, which he still wore every other day to work; the way he sat and counted and recounted the ten-rupee notes he brought home every Saturday evening; the night some months ago when nothing went on the stove, and they had all gone to sleep hungry. He saw his mother’s lower lip slowly curling in anger and disgust as she heard his story. Even in his imagination that look was too hard to bear. How could he go home without the bottle of oil?

Madhaba sent the broken bottle into the ditch with a sweep of his foot. His mind was ablaze; he felt it darting from corner to corner of a small closed space. He saw then what he could do. He could go back to Bijay Sahu’s, and somehow get another bottle of oil on credit. Two or three days later he’d ask his mother for a new notebook for school, and with that money he’d pay the shopkeeper. And he’d work harder at school; he’d pay attention and study diligently and get better than pass marks; he wouldn’t keep looking out of the window thinking of when classes would get over; he wouldn’t be as he was now. Madhaba set off again for the shop. His palms were burning, perhaps bleeding, but he paid no attention to them. He no longer felt scared of the darkness either; it held no terrors for him now, it was just the day without light. He walked right past Haru, still rolling and lurching on his way home, now singing an old song: “I am floating, floating on an endless river”. The silly old goat!

Bijay Sahu was surprised to see him. “Back again?” he said. “Did you forget something, boy?”

“No.” Madhaba swallowed. “We have guests. Mother’s sent me to buy some more oil. She said to ask you: could we have it on credit? She’ll send money for it the day after tomorrow.”

The old man grunted. “Just some oil? All right. Where’s your bottle?”

“I haven’t got another. Would you have an old one?”

“Next you’ll be asking me to home-deliver it on a bed of basmati rice. Wait, let me take a look. Did you hurt your hand?”

The new bottle was exactly like the old one. Madhaba was pleased and relieved. He thanked the shopkeeper, stuffed the bottle in his pocket, and set off home again. His hand stayed in his pocket, clutching the bottle firmly; even if it were to suddenly come to life and want to escape, there’d be no way out for it. He began of think of what reason he’d give his mother for coming home late. A pup was traipsing forlornly by the roadside, but when he bent over it scampered off. Madhaba went on.

When he neared Biren Mohanty’s shop again, there came to his ears the sound of a distant rumble unlike anything he’d ever heard in their neighbourhood, like sea waves breaking upon the shore. It was the sound of something vast stirring, of people milling. What was it? Had the travelling players of the jatra come, with their painted faces, pounding drums, and brightly coloured costumes with jewels and peacock feathers? Eagerly he went forward. Biren Mohanty was not to be seen, but his parrot had worked itself up into a great state; it was flying about beating its wings against the sides of the cage, squawking madly. The glow of some bright light, as from some wedding or grand function, emanated from around the corner.

Madhaba’s hand went to his mouth. The leaping flames, the mass of silhouetted people. A house in their settlement was on fire – it was the widow Manju Behra’s! The widow herself was standing out on the street, beating her forehead and screaming hysterically. Half of the thatched roof had fallen in, and a great many people were trying to douse the flames with buckets of water that they were frantically pumping from the tubewell. Madhaba’s heart gave a jump. As he ran forward he saw more frenzied activity. Half a dozen men were raining blows upon the gaunt figure of Haru, and he was howling piteously and begging for mercy. “It blew up at me!” he cried, as if singing. “Blew up at me from below!” Was Haru so mad that he’d set the widow’s house on fire? Madhaba froze as he recalled how the drunkard often carelessly dropped the stubs of his beedis by the wayside, or into the ditch. His oil – his bottle of oil! Manju Behra’s home was burning down, and old Haru, who was in retreat from life anyway, was being beaten for it.

A slap fell across Madhaba’s cheek, rattling his teeth. He recoiled in fright. “It wasn’t me!” he cried.

“It wasn’t you what? What wasn’t you? Where were you all this time, you wretch? I’ve gone mad looking for you everywhere! Do you ever think of your mother at all?”

“I’ve got all the things you asked for,” mumbled Madhaba, fumbling in his pocket for the salt and the bottle of oil.

What was he to do? He let himself be dragged home, stealing looks over his shoulder with his great big eyes, and wiping his nose, which had begun to run from the cold.