The Post Office | Page 4

why should I be?
WATCHMAN. Suppose I march you off then?
AMAL. Where will you take me to? Is it very far, right beyond the hills?
WATCHMAN. Suppose I march you straight to the King?
AMAL. To the King! Do, will you? But the doctor won't let me go out. No one can ever take me away. I've got to stay here all day long.
WATCHMAN. Doctor won't let you, poor fellow! So I see! Your face is pale and there are dark rings round your eyes. Your veins stick out from your poor thin hands.
AMAL. Won't you sound the gong, Watchman?
WATCHMAN. Time has not yet come.
AMAL. How curious! Some say time has not yet come, and some say time has gone by! But surely your time will come the moment you strike the gong!
WATCHMAN. That's not possible; I strike up the gong only when it is time.
AMAL. Yes, I love to hear your gong. When it is midday and our meal is over, Uncle goes off to his work and Auntie falls asleep reading her Ramayana, and in the courtyard under the shadow of the wall our doggie sleeps with his nose in his curled up tail; then your gong strikes out, "Dong, dong, dong!" Tell me why does your gong sound?
WATCHMAN. My gong sounds to tell the people, Time waits for none, but goes on forever.
AMAL. Where, to what land?
WATCHMAN. That none knows.
AMAL. Then I suppose no one has ever been there! Oh, I do wish to fly with the time to that land of which no one knows anything.
WATCHMAN. All of us have to get there one day, my child.
AMAL. Have I too?
WATCHMAN. Yes, you too!
AMAL. But doctor won't let me out.
WATCHMAN. One day the doctor himself may take you there by the hand.
AMAL. He won't; you don't know him. He only keeps me in.
WATCHMAN. One greater than he comes and lets us free.
AMAL. When will this great doctor come for me? I can't stick in here any more.
WATCHMAN. Shouldn't talk like that, my child.
AMAL. No. I am here where they have left me--I never move a bit. But when your gong goes off, dong, dong, dong, it goes to my heart. Say, Watchman?
WATCHMAN. Yes, my dear.
AMAL. Say, what's going on there in that big house on the other side, where there is a flag flying high up and the people are always going in and out?
WATCHMAN. Oh, there? That's our new Post Office.
AMAL. Post Office? Whose?
WATCHMAN. Whose? Why, the King's surely!
AMAL. Do letters come from the King to his office here?
WATCHMAN. Of course. One fine day there may be a letter for you in there.
AMAL. A letter for me? But I am only a little boy.
WATCHMAN. The King sends tiny notes to little boys.
AMAL. Oh, how lovely! When shall I have my letter? How do you guess he'll write to me?
WATCHMAN. Otherwise why should he set his Post Office here right in front of your open window, with the golden flag flying?
AMAL. But who will fetch me my King's letter when it comes?
WATCHMAN. The King has many postmen. Don't you see them run about with round gilt badges on their chests?
AMAL. Well, where do they go?
WATCHMAN. Oh, from door to door, all through the country.
AMAL. I'll be the King's postman when I grow up.
WATCHMAN. Ha! ha! Postman, indeed! Rain or shine, rich or poor, from house to house delivering letters--that's very great work!
AMAL. That's what I'd like best. What makes you smile so? Oh, yes, your work is great too. When it is silent everywhere in the heat of the noonday, your gong sounds, Dong, dong, dong,-- and sometimes when I wake up at night all of a sudden and find our lamp blown out, I can hear through the darkness your gong slowly sounding, Dong, dong, dong!
WATCHMAN. There's the village headman! I must be off. If he catches me gossiping with you there'll be a great to do.
AMAL. The headman? Whereabouts is he?
WATCHMAN. Right down the road there; see that huge palm-leaf umbrella hopping along? That's him!
AMAL. I suppose the King's made him our headman here?
WATCHMAN. Made him? Oh, no! A fussy busy-body! He knows so many ways of making himself unpleasant that everybody is afraid of him. It's just a game for the likes of him, making trouble for everybody. I must be off now! Mustn't keep work waiting, you know! I'll drop in again to-morrow morning and tell you all the news of the town. [Exit]
AMAL. It would be splendid to have a letter from the King every day. I'll read them at the window. But, oh! I can't read writing. Who'll read them out to me, I wonder! Auntie reads her Ramayana; she may know the King's writing. If no one will, then I must keep them carefully and read them when I'm grown up. But if