IT WAS AROUND nine in the morning. Horihor’s son was sitting in the sunny courtyard with all his toys piled around him. These were: a discoloured wooden horse bought for four paise, a dented tin whistle, a toy pistol worth two paise, a few cowrie shells, a handful of inedible dried red berries, and his collection of lucky stone chips. The berries had been a gift from his sister, who had brought them home because they were so pretty. The stone chips were lucky because they always fell in the right quarter while playing hopscotch, and were thus cherished. The cowrie shells, however, had been quietly removed from his mother’s basket of Lokkhi Puja things, and thus Khoka was very careful about keeping them hidden from view.

This morning, the whistle had already had its turn. The horse, too, was lying on one side, like abandoned cattle in a rescue corral. He had just begun playing with the pistol when his sister, Durga, called from beneath the jackfruit tree.

‘Opu! O Opuuuu!’

At the sound of a human voice, Opu automatically shoved the cowries inside his tin toy box. Then, in a perfectly normal voice, he called back, ‘What is it, Didi?’

‘Shhh! Come here. Quickly!’

Opu climbed down the veranda and ran to his sister. Durga was now ten or eleven years old. She was not as fair-skinned as her brother, but their features were very similar—especially their large, expressive eyes. This morning, she was dressed in an unwashed sari and a few cheap glass bangles. A halo of thick, unoiled, curly hair surrounded her thin face. When he came close, Opu saw that she was holding a coconut-shell bowl tightly to her chest, and glancing warily around.

‘Is Ma back from the bathing steps yet?’ she asked, as soon as Opu reached her.

‘No, Didi.’

‘Good. I need some oil and salt.’ She tilted the bowl towards him to show him a heap of sliced green mangoes. ‘I’m going to pickle these.’

‘Mangoes! Where’d you get them?’

‘Shh! From below the Shindurkota mango tree in Potli’s garden. So, can you get the salt and oil?’

Opu hesitated. ‘Um, I haven’t bathed yet, Didi. My clothes are stale. Ma will beat me if I touch the oil pot in stale clothes.’

‘Oh, come on! She’ll never know. She’s gone to do the laundry at the pond. That’ll take her ages!’

Opu looked uncertain. On the one hand, there was his mother’s wrath. But on the other . . .

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘But give me the shell. I’ll pour the oil in that.’

Durga immediately handed him the shell bowl. ‘Now don’t spill the oil on the floor, or Ma will know!’ she whispered urgently. ‘You are such a clumsy boy!’

After a few minutes, the mangoes were ready. Durga doled out her brother’s share in a second coconut shell.

‘Are all those for you?’ her brother asked, eyeing her shell.

‘“Allll those?” I’ve only taken a few more! All right, fine. Have two more. But that’s it!’

Then she admired her handiwork.

‘Looks good, doesn’t it? Such a lovely colour. A chilli would make this perfect. Can you get a chilli? I’ll give you one more slice if you do.’

Opu bit his lip. ‘Ma keeps the chillies on the top shelf. It’s too high for me.’

‘All right, fine.’ Durga shrugged it off. ‘I’ll get some more mangoes in the evening. We can use the chilli then. The tree beside that little pond has more fruit this year than it can hold—it all comes tumbling down in the afternoon heat!’

For the next few minutes, the two siblings stood in peace under the jackfruit tree, relishing their summer treat. A quiet woodland peace reigned. The Roys’ family home was practically in the middle of the woods, away from the bustle of the neighbourhood. Earlier, Horihor used to at least have his cousin Neelmoni as a neighbour, but after Neelmoni’s death the previous year, his wife had taken their children and moved back to her father’s household. Gradually, the land and house had been taken over by the woods, and this Roy household had become even more isolated from the rest of the village. Their nearest neighbour now was Bhubon Mukhujje, and his place was a good five-minute walk away.

The house hadn’t been repaired in years, either. Chunks of the front veranda had fallen off. Wild cow-itch and kalmegh had taken root in the cracks and crevices of the walls, and all the windows had to be held together with coconut-coir ropes, for the latches and hinges had long been broken.

There was a resounding ‘jhonat!’ of the back door shackle. Moments later, Shorbojoya’s voice rang out. ‘Dugga! Dugga! Where are you?’

Alarmed, the siblings looked at each other.

‘Go go! See what she wants!’ Durga whispered urgently to her brother. ‘Wait, swallow that before you go! There’s salt at the corner of your mouth, rub it off!’

Her own shell was still half full. She quickly pulled her brother behind the jackfruit tree, and began gobbling down the slices as fast as she could.

‘Dugga-a-a! Are you even home?’

Opu was swallowing his own share as well, for there wasn’t time to stop and chew. In between gulps, he smiled guiltily at his sister, well aware that what they were doing was a pretty big offence in their mother’s eyes.

Once they were done, Durga pulled back her forearm and threw the shell over the bubble-bush border along their own land, and as far into Neelmoni Roy’s wilderness as she could. The chance of anyone finding an incriminating shell amongst those thickets was close to zero.

‘Rub that salt off, you monkey!’ she whispered harshly to her brother. ‘It’s still there!’

After a few minutes, she entered the kitchen, looking perfectly innocent.

‘You called, Ma?’

‘Yes, I did!’ Shorbojoya snapped. ‘Do I have to run this household all by myself? Can’t you at least do a