Short Story from around the WORLD: January 2013

The Red and Gold Shoe part 7/7

The Red and Gold Shoe

The Red and Gold Shoe part 7/7

They passed the shoe from hand to hand, and Lata watched jealously as they examined it.

"Can I try it on?" asked one of the girls, and Lata looked at her for a long moment. "Only for a second-just to see what it feels like," the girl pleaded.

This was something new indeed-to be asked, instead of ordered, shouted at, or even pushed. And then to know that she had the choice of answering yes, or even no. She had to be careful here, and so she said, with that cunning that comes from being treated like nothing for too long: "What will you give me in return?"

It started off with a piece of sesame crunch saved from the recent marriage feast to which they had not invited her. She shared it promptly with Joseph, and from there it went on until, at the end of the week, she had for him a top without a point, three plastic bangles for herself, first place at the tap on two occasions when she overslept and was late, and even an invitation to a not-so-important doll marriage, For only the first week that was a good run of luck indeed, and Lata had reason to feel happy. The conditions laid down for the wearing of her shoe were stern. It must never touch the ground, nor be scuffed against anything to wear away the gold. This was no ordinary shoe and therefore it must be treated as no ordinary shoe was ever treated. Such conditions were bound to affect the wearer too. The betel seller's daughter borrowed the shoe for a whole afternoon and she wore it when her relatives called on the family from their village. All through the visit she sat sedately on a trunk, one leg folded under her and the other hanging down.

The Red and Gold Shoe

The Red and Gold Shoe part 6/7

That evening Lata sat with one leg neatly folded under her, while the other hung down wearing the red and gold shoe. She swung her leg back and forth so that from the corner of an eye she could see it flash out. And sometimes she held her leg stiffly out before her as she'd forgotten to swing it back. As she had hoped, she soon had a small knot of children gaping at her where she sat, though she pretended not to notice them.

"Where did you get such a grand pair of shoes?" asked one of the children in astonishment.

Lata didn't answer or even turn her head from watching the game of tipcat; but she was aware that more children were running across to join the crowd, until the sweetseller's daughter, who was then the rajah, was left perched alone on Janak Seth's feet and feeling very annoyed about it. Finally, she climbed down and pushed her way through the others to stand before Lata and Joseph.

Where did you get them? Is it real gold-all that thread?

Who gave them to you? For a while Lata enjoyed the sensation and then she and

Joseph looked at each other and smiled all over their faces, the way we do when we're very pleased about something and don't care who knows it.

"My grandmother bought them for me,,, Lata said serenely, pulling her shabby skirt straight to make sure that the other foot was well hidden from view.

"My father could buy a dozen such shoes," sniffed the sweetseller's girl.

"Perhaps," responded Lata, “but he hasn't done so yet, has he?"

The Red and Gold Shoe

The Red and Gold Shoe part 5/7

The change began working from that very day. Now there is a way of wearing only one shoe so that nobody will suspect it is only half of a pair. Or better still, there is a way to make it appear that wearing only one is the most natural thing in the world, and the only reason why more people . don't do it is because other shoes are made for walking. This shoe was not.

Every evening Lata carried little Joseph Pinto out to a stone bench in the nearby park where he could watch the others play. It isn't a park really-only a half-hearted attempt at a park in the open space behind the shantytown where the city ends and the countryside begins. The statue in the center is of the man who first had the idea and gave the piece of land. But he died soon after and the rest of the money was spent on this statue, while the park was left unfinished. He is a tall stout figure of a man standing on a platform, and Momin Sheikh's pigeons, the sparrows, crows, and other birds have made a sorry mess of him. He is surrounded by a dozen or more small concrete posts from which it was planned to sling heavy chains, but the money was used up and everyone lost interest in the scheme. Janak Seth, he is called, and the children have made up a song that they sing as they play a game of their own around him:

The Red and Gold Shoe

The Red and Gold Shoe part 4/7

"What will you buy?" asked Joseph seriously, for he knew this problem called for much thought.

Lata was quite sure what she would do. "We'll have a doll marriage too, and we'll have a feast." So what if they'd not been invited? A marriage and a feast of their own would make things equal. Well, almost equal-for it couldn't be much of a marriage when one had no dolls. The groom was the wooden handle of a chisel with the blade snapped off from Joseph's house, and the bride was the short stout stick with which Lata's grandmother beat the clothes at the pond. Both stood stiffly side by side against the fence, with eyes,a nose, and a mouth put on with a charred stick. For ten coppers the feast had to be modest indeed, with roasted peas served in silver cups made from paper out of empty cigarette boxes they found along the tracks.

They ate the peas slowly and very solemnly' It would not do to gobble them too fast, for once they were gone the feast would be over. Too soon would their pleasure become a thing of the past. The peas had to be chewed and tasted to the fullest so that they could be remembered to the fullest.

"We won't tell anybody-not anybody," said Lata, munching.

The Red and Gold Shoe

The Red and Gold Shoe part 3/7

Leaning back, Joseph looked high into the sky where flights of snowy white egrets winged their way toward the lakes set in the rolling hills of a national park. Or he watched giant jet planes zoom over.

"When I grow up, I shall fly," he always said, repeating it every day to make sure it would happen. Joseph planned to do everything that needed no legs. So he would fly like a jet plane, or an egret. Or he would drive a train. Engine drivers don't need legs, not with all those many wheels whirling so fast to carry them along.

Whenever a long-distance train thundered down the track, they watched it go, their hearts beating fast with excitement and a little fear. It made the ground heave and shake, and unable to contain themselves, Lata and Joseph yelled and shouted, waving madly at the startled laces of the passengers in the windows. As the train flew past, the invisible rush of its wings blew against their faces and lifted their hair. It was a thrilling moment but it never lasted long enough.

The Red and Gold Shoe

The Red and Gold Shoe 2/7

As if startled awake by the train, Pinto's alarm clock jumps with fright and begins to ring. It would turn red in the face if it could; but instead it hops angrily up and down on the shelf where it is tied to a nail with a piece of string. When the train has passed, it is still ringing. Everyone hears it and everyone knows that another day has indeed begun.

Lata was first at the water tap. She usually was because old Amma, her grandmother, went early to work in the homes of the rich beyond the station where she swept, scrubbed, and swabbed. She would return at noon with leftovers of food for Lata, the cock, hens, cat, goat, and dog, and then go off again to do the evening chores.

Lata never lingered at the tap. And certainly not today-not when all the girls were talking about today's doll-mar-riage party. What will you wear? What are we getting to eat? Never before had a match been arranged more grandly. The plastic doll from the sweetseller's house was to be married to the rubber doll from the betel seller's. Anyone would be proud to get her doll married into the sweetseller's house, for it was the richest in the lane, and the feast would be some- thing to talk about for days afterwards. There would doubt less be pieces of stale milk fudge from the sweetseller's own shop, fried crisps, sesame crunch, and maybe even buttermilk only a day old. Lata was never invited to any weddings. She was shabby, she had no father, her mother was dead, and her grandmother worked as a domestic servant. She couldn't provide a feast for the neighborhood children because she lived on scraps off the tables of the rich.

The Red and Gold Shoe

The Red and Gold Shoe part 1/7

"Cock-a-doodle-doo ! Cock-a-doodle-doo !" You'd think there ought to be a pleasanter way to wake up than by having the red cock Lalu split his sides crowing from under his reed basket in the middle of the floor of Amma's hut. And immediately the two foolish hens under their crate in a corner begin to fidget and cluck and knock on the wooden slats to be let out.

"Cock-a-doodle-doo !" and "Cluck! cluck! cluck!" This is the way a day begins for eight-year-old Lata where she sleeps on a tin trunk. Old Amma gropes from her string cot for the bamboo pole she keeps handy, and she waves it about as if she would drive back the dawn, for, oh! she is tired and aged and would so like to sleep a little longer.

" Whack ! whack ! whack !" She wallops the basket under which the cock crows. That ought to keep the red devil quiet. May a plague take him! May it wither his flesh and drain his bones dry! May it lock his joints and choke him-he and his cock-a-doodle-doo ! He would bring the roof down on a tired old woman's head, would he? "Whack!"