Free A River Sutra by Gita Mehta

were sometimes moved to dance by such music. For the first time he understood why the Sufis believed that once a man began to dance in the transport of his ecstasy, the singers must continue until the man stopped dancing lest the sudden breaking of the dancer's trance should kill him.
    • "The heat of Your presence Blinds my eyes. Blisters my skin. Shrivels my flesh."
    The great sahib rose to his feet. Master Mohan wondered if the great sahib was about to dance as music poured out of that young throat which carried in it too great a knowledge of the world.
    "The heat of Your presence Blinds my eyes. Blisters my skin. Shrivels my flesh
    "Do not turn in loathing from me. 0 Beloved, can You not see Only Love disfigures me. "
    In the flickering light of the candles Master Mohan thought he saw something glint in the sahib's hand. The musicians were smiling ingratiatingly, waiting for the great sahib to circle the boy's head with money before flinging it to them. Now Master Mohan could not see Imrat, dwarfed by the shadow of the man standing in front of him as he sang again,
    "I prostrate my head to Your drawn sword.
0, the wonder of Your kindness.
0, the wonder of my submission.
    "Do not reveal the Truth in a world where blasphemy prevails.
0 wondrous Source of Mystery. 0 Knower of Secrets."
    The great sahib turned around and Master Mohan thought he saw tears on his cheeks. "Such a voice is not human. What will happen to music if this is the standard by which God judges us?"
Imrat was not listening, intoxicated by the power issuing from his own throat.
    "In the very spasm of death I see Your face. O, the wonder of my submission. 0, the wonder of Your protection ... "
    Master Mohan could hear his wife cursing. He did not know his own screams echoed the blind boy's as he screamed and screamed and screamed.
    "What happened? Why was the music teacher screaming?"
    "Wouldn't you scream if you saw a mem slitting a boy's throat?"
"The great sahib killed the boy?" I asked in horror. "Why? Why would he do such a thing?"
"Why does a man steal an object of worship so no one but himself can enjoy it?"
"But did the police catch the great sahib?"
"Of course not. He was a rich man." Tariq Mia pushed the chess table aside and rose stiffly to his feet. "The two musicians were charged with the murder."
"What happened to Master Mohan?"
Tariq Mia bent over to remove the record from the gramophone. "Oh, he lived here with me for several months. Eventually I convinced him he was not responsible for the boy's death. Then he left. Now, little brother, I must join my students."
I got up as Tariq Mia slid the record back into the old yellow folder. "Where did he go? Back to Calcutta? To his wife and children?"
Tariq Mia held the record out to me. "Would you like to take this home and listen to the boy's singing again?"
I was appalled by the suggestion. He laughed at my reaction. "You mustn't be so frightened of love, little brother."
Still chuckling at my distress, he took my arm and led me from the veranda, over the marble platform toward the bridge.
"What happened to the music teacher, Tariq Mia?" I persisted.
"He decided to return to his family. But he threw himself under the train before it reached Calcutta."
"Why?"
Tariq Mia stretched up to kiss my cheek, then gendy pushed me onto the bridge. "Perhaps he could not exist without loving someone as he had loved the blind child. I don't know the answer, little brother. It is only a story about the human heart."
Crossing the bridge, I did not turn around to wave good-bye. I was upset by the old mullah s accusation that I did not understand the world. Especially, I told myself, when all Tariq Mia's knowledge of the world had not prevented the poor music teacher from taking his own life.
Loud laughter pierced the morning silence as I walked through the jungle back to the bungalow. The Vano village women were collecting fuel by the sides of the mud path.
Through the undergrowth I could see their slender brown