Free The Village by the Sea by Anita Desai

down her spine.
    ‘Look at Pinto!’ she suddenly cried. ‘Pinto’s going with them – catch him.’
    That made Kamal run down the path after the dog – she did not want a stick or stone hurled at him, nor the fiercely yapping and snarling dogs to attack him who was not of their pack.
    As she caught up with Pinto on the bank of the creek, now trampled and turned to green, oozing mud by all the stamping feet and paws, the band of hunters pressed on and surrounded a grove of pandanus. Here they fell upon their prey with a great hullabaloo, bringing down their sticks with great whacks while the dogs leapt and darted about in frenzy.
    In spite of her fear and horror of the scene, Kamal could not help being curious and asked an old man who stood at the outer edge of the ring, grinning and scratching one leg with the other, ‘What is it? What have they caught?’
    ‘See, see.’ The old man grinned, pointing delightedly to where the creature was being torn
apart by the dogs, then torn out of their mouths by the men who heaved it up on top of a pole, like a trophy.
    ‘Oh,’ cried Kamal in distress, clasping her hands together and nearly crying. ‘It’s only a little mongoose.’
    The old man rolled his yellow eyes at her. ‘It is bad – very bad,’ he told her. ‘It drinks the water out of our coconuts. When they are green and fresh, it climbs the trees, makes a small hole in the coconut and drinks all the sweet juice so that the nuts falls down – dry.’ He slapped his hand on his thigh and went off chuckling to join the celebration over the capture and death.
    Kamal stood stricken on the mound by the creek, holding Pinto by the neck. A poor, small, helpless mongoose – she did not believe it did anything so wicked; it was a mistake. And even if it did drink the coconut water and destroy the coconuts, was it necessary to hunt it with a dozen sticks, a pack of wild dogs and a band of howling men? It frightened her to see the ferocity with which they had destroyed the little thing.
    When she heard Bela coming down the path to join her and stare at the men and dogs who
went whooping down the blazing white beach to celebrate, she turned to go back to the house. ‘Come, Pinto, come,’ she begged the dog, in tears.

    Later that evening, with Hari still not back, their father already out, leaving the girls to sit around their mother’s door, wondering why her fever had not come down, another visitor broke through the thick, wild hedge, sending the bright red, hard wooden fruit of the pandanus rolling with a kick of his foot.
    This time it was Lila who got to her feet, pushing the two girls behind her when she saw it was one of the three drunken brothers who lived in the neighbouring grove. From his rolling walk, his wildly disordered hair and red eyeballs, it was easy to see he was already drunk although the sky still held the evening light, the sea was bronze and calm, and it was by no means the hour at which most men in the village started to drink. But of course he brewed his own toddy and must have been lying in his house drinking all day, Lila knew. She was frightened.
    ‘Oh you, you child of a rascal,’ he roared at her, standing by the log across the creek and swaying on his feet. ‘Where’s that father of yours, that rascal?’
    ‘My father?’ said Lila wildly. ‘He – he has gone out.’
    ‘Gone out – or hiding under his wife’s bed? Shall I come and drag him out?’
    Lila gave a small scream which was echoed by the two girls who were hiding behind her. Now Pinto was growling, too, although held back by them from attacking the intruder. ‘He’s not here,’ she cried in a high-pitched voice. ‘Don’t come in – my mother is ill.’
    ‘Oh very good, very good.’ He laughed maliciously, showing his yellow teeth in a mouth stained red with betel juice. ‘Mother ill – father out – little girls know nothing. Do you at least know where he keeps his money?’ he roared suddenly, like a lion,