The Crescent Moon

BY V. S. KHANDEKAR

(Translated from Marathi by V. M. Inamdar)

Antone was anxiously waiting at the door of his cottage which was thatched with palm leaves. Beyond was the sea like a child in wild merriment, striving to make of the lovely crescent moon a toy. But Antone was not thinking of it. The pleasant hide-and-seek of the shades and the moonlight under the thick palm-groves did not catch his eye which was fixed on the road, wondering when his father would return after closing the shop and then–

There was some noise in the trees near by and Antone stood up inquisitive. There was none on the road. He asked himself why was it that his father closed his shop so late?

He looked up at the moon–his playmate–the moon who hid himself behind the clouds, who frolicked and gambolled on the sands with the stars for the shells and who did so many pleasant things! But today the moon appeared to him something different. "There are mountains on the moon. You will see them through the microscope in the English School," the Headmaster of the primary school had told him. His mind blossomed forth with fond dreams–the English School–the microscope–the mountains on the moon–high examinations…..!

Rapt up as he was with these, he did not mark his father’s arrival until he heard the footsteps in the verandah. He looked up to his dad who smiled and entered the hut. Antone could hear his mother talking within:

"So very late today?"

"This business is such indeed! It thrives as the dusk deepens."

"Antone has so much taken it up in his mind, and he won’t leave that."

"That’s all right. Should he not have what he likes?"

"But where are we to get the money from? It won’t drop from these palms anyway!"

The loud laugh of his father reached Antone outside.

"What is it that makes you laugh?"

"Didn’t you say just now that money won’t drop from the palms?"

"Yes. That’s what I said."

"But don’t you know that palms do yield us money!"

The jingle of the coins in his father’s hands also reached Antone and his heart danced for joy. His mother was grumbling:

"The fees ate so high in the English School and books and……."

"Oh! Never mind, I have found a customer greater than all that……"

"Which one that?"

"I have found. That’s all. The fellow won’t come without four or five others along with him. D–d sure, eight or twelve annas a day!"

"Twelve annas!" His mother’s gleeful voice sent a fresh thrill of joy through his veins. In his happiness he looked up. The crescent moon was setting. The roaring of the sea in the dark fell upon his ears for a moment like the growling of a wild beast. But the thought that he would join the English School next day filled his mind with pleasant moonlight, and the sounds from the sea reached him again as the gay clamourings of delightful urchins.

A silver waist-thread and a red piece of loin-cloth was all that adorned Antone; and it was not without his head hung down that he entered the school with his father next day. The Headmaster’s room–the figure in tip-top suit with glasses on–Antone felt he should run away home at once. But that was not possible.

The school-peon brought Antone to the First Form and he entered the class-room to meet at once the gaze of sixty or seventy tiny sparkling eyes. In a sort of dejection he turned his eye to where the teacher was seated. There like a stone statue was he in his chair. With quaking legs and frightened look he eyed the class-room, and his eyes fell upon a well- dressed boy with a laced cap who beckoned to him to come and take his seat by his side. To Antone, of course, he appeared like a ship in the sea to a drowning man, and all that day long he looked at his face with eyes full of gratitude.

From that day onwards Antone and Vasant became great friends. Vasant would describe to his mother the tiny Cross that dangled in Antone’s neck, and Antone would describe to his mother the words ‘Sri Rama’ delicately tattooed on Vasant’s hand. They sat side by side in the class-room and in the recess played together. When they played Hu-tu-tu, they never played one against another, but whenever the teacher’s whim separated them Vasant found it extremely hard to attack his friend, and likewise Antone also could never raise his hand against Vasant.

Within six months they became so devotedly attached to each other that their teacher made an explicit reference to the same in the class-room. "In the olden times," he said, "people used to write: ‘Our love should wax as the Shuklendu’ (the moon in the bright half)."

"What is meant by ‘like the Shuklendu’?" came the query of a young boy.

"Like Antone and Vasant!" was the teacher’s prompt reply. The class-room smiled. Antone felt at the moment that he was rowing in delightful moonlight, though outside the sun was blazing like anything, and when the hour was over, Antone said to Vasant:

"I have now a new name to call you by!"

"What’s that?"

"Shuklendu!"

Antone however forgot that the waxing moon has his fullness for only a single day–the day of the full moon; and one day Vasant entering the class-room directly occupied a different seat. Antone went to him on a petty pretext but Vasant turned his face away. The two hours before the recess-time Antone spent like two ages, and when the thought came into his mind that Vasant would try to slip away out of the class-room, tears swelled in his eyes. Antone went to him and at once took his hand in his. Like a needle attracted by the magnet, Vas ant stood still and let his hand remain in his.

"Vasant, tell me where I wronged...I...I……" Vasant was confounded.

"Mother told me–" he began.

"What did she tell?"

"She told me not even to talk a word with you."

"Why was that? Is it because I am a Christian?"

"No. Every day my father beats mother–"

Vasant could clearly see amazement in Antone’s eyes which seemed to say: "Your father beats your mother, and for that I am to suffer! That’s good indeed!"

"He never beat her like that before."

Antone only listened.

It is six months now. He goes out….."

"Where?"

"To your father’s shop!"

Antone mused with his eyes on the ground.

"And when he comes home he raves and beats my mother. She weeps and weeps. Yesterday she wept so bitterly and so long. She told me he goes to your father’s shop and…."

"If I should make him not go there ?"

It was now Vasant’s turn to wonder. Could this ten-year-old Christian chap stop his father’s addiction to drink? Even his mother could not prevail upon him, and this Antone should say….

"Then at least won’t you come and take your seat by me?"

"Certainly!"

The class was engaged in Geography, the next hour. The teacher was explaining the eclipses. Antone, looking at Vasant seated away from him, thought that their friendship also had been eclipsed. "But that won’t last long," he consoled himself, "the moon will soon be free!"

That night after supper Antone asked his father,

"Why is it, dad, that people take to drinking?"

"So, that’s what you study in the English School."

"But dad..."

"Yes?"

"That Vasant’s father comes to our shop. Doesn’t he?"

"Yes, He does. What of that?"

"What will happen if you will not allow him to come?"

"He will seek another...."

Antone mused awhile.

"...and you will have to leave off your school."

"Why?"

"Where are you to get the money from for your school if I should let off a customer like that?

He could go to school and learn his lessons only if Vasant’s father came to drink at his father’s shop! It was strange and he could not understand it. He thought and thought until his head ached. "How can I bear to see Vasant tomorrow?" he asked himself and tossed restlessly in his bed, from side to side. Sleep was impossible, and knowing not what to do, he came out of the cottage.

It was past midnight. The whole world was bathing, as it were, in the bright moonlight. But in Antone’s mind was thickening a dismal darkness. He closed his eyes and stood still. He saw before him thousands and thousands of drunkards beating their breasts with their fists, raving and running up to him. Silently, and with his own heart beating loud, he walked sulkily into the cottage.