The Post Office | Page 7

moment to talk to me here.
[GAFFER Enters in a FAKIR'S Guise]
AMAL. There you are. Come here, Fakir, by my bedside.
MADHAV. Upon my word, but this is--
GAFFER. [Winking hard] I am the fakir.
MADHAV. It beats my reckoning what you're not.
AMAL. Where have you been this time, Fakir?
FAKIR. To the Isle of Parrots. I am just back.
MADHAV. The Parrots' Isle!
FAKIR. Is it so very astonishing? Am I like you, man? A journey
doesn't cost a thing. I tramp just where I like.
AMAL. [Clapping] How jolly for you! Remember your promise to take
me with you as your follower when I'm well.

FAKIR. Of course, and I'll teach you such secrets too of travelling that
nothing in sea or forest or mountain can bar your way.
MADHAV. What's all this rigmarole?
GAFFER. Amal, my dear, I bow to nothing in sea or mountain; but if
the doctor joins in with this uncle of yours, then I with all my magic
must own myself beaten.
AMAL. No. Uncle shan't tell the doctor. And I promise to lie quiet; but
the day I am well, off I go with the Fakir and nothing in sea or
mountain or torrent shall stand in my way.
MADHAV. Fie, dear child, don't keep on harping upon going! It makes
me so sad to hear you talk so.
AMAL. Tell me, Fakir, what the Parrots' Isle is like.
GAFFER. It's a land of wonders; it's a haunt of birds. There's no man;
and they neither speak nor walk, they simply sing and they fly.
AMAL. How glorious! And it's by some sea?
GAFFER. Of course. It's on the sea.
AMAL. And green hills are there?
GAFFER. Indeed, they live among the green hills; and in the time of
the sunset when there is a red glow on the hillside, all the birds with
their green wings flock back to their nests.
AMAL. And there are waterfalls!
GAFFER. Dear me, of course; you don't have a hill without its
waterfalls. Oh, it's like molten diamonds; and, my dear, what dances
they have! Don't they make the pebbles sing as they rush over them to
the sea. No devil of a doctor can stop them for a moment. The birds
looked upon me as nothing but a man, quite a trifling creature without
wings--and they would have nothing to do with me. Were it not so I

would build a small cabin for myself among their crowd of nests and
pass my days counting the sea waves.
AMAL. How I wish I were a bird! Then--
GAFFER. But that would have been a bit of a job; I hear you've fixed
up with the dairyman to be a hawker of curds when you grow up; I'm
afraid such business won't flourish among birds; you might land
yourself into serious loss.
MADHAV. Really this is too much. Between you two I shall turn crazy.
Now, I'm off.
AMAL. Has the dairyman been, Uncle?
MADHAV. And why shouldn't he? He won't bother his head running
errands for your pet fakir, in and out among the nests in his Parrots' Isle.
But he has left a jar of curd for you saying that he is rather busy with
his niece's wedding in the village, and he has got to order a band at
Kamlipara.
AMAL. But he is going to marry me to his little niece.
GAFFER. Dear me, we are in a fix now.
AMAL. He said she would find me a lovely little bride with a pair of
pearl drops in her ears and dressed in a lovely red sâree; and in the
morning she would milk with her own hands the black cow and feed
me with warm milk with foam on it from a brand new earthen cruse;
and in the evenings she would carry the lamp round the cow-house, and
then come and sit by me to tell me tales of Champa and his six
brothers.
[Transcriber's note: In act 1, Amal mentions to Sudha about Champa
and his seven brothers. In this act, Amal mentions to Gaffer about
Champa and his six brothers. Translator error?]
GAFFER. How delicious! The prospect tempts even me, a hermit! But

never mind, dear, about this wedding. Let it be. I tell you when you
wed there'll be no lack of nieces in his household.
MADHAV. Shut up! This is more than I can stand. [Exit]
AMAL. Fakir, now that Uncle's off, just tell me, has the King sent me a
letter to the Post Office?
GAFFER. I gather that his letter has already started; but it's still on the
way.
AMAL. On the way? Where is it? Is it on that road winding through the
trees which you can follow to the end of the