Some remarks

THE OLD MAN AND THE DYING COW
On the television last night I saw something that affected me and changed me forever.
The television set was in the public square and a lot of people saw it. They were all poor people, who never have had enough to eat.
It was a programme about the famine in the Sahel. Several famines in fact, because they had taken shots from different programmes to make a general report.
One of the shots stays in my mind.
An old man is sitting by a cow.
The old man is extremely thin. His ribs are showing. His collarbone and his upper arms are like a skeleton.
But he has a patient wise air, and his eyes are thoughtful. And very dignified.
The cow is so thin, she is just skin stretched tight over her ribs, and the pelvis bones are sticking right out. You can already see how she will be when she dies in a few days.
But her eyes look into the camera, and they are patient and wise.
There is nothing but dust everywhere for miles around. Nearby is a patch of withered sticks which is the millet that was planted for the food for that year. But the drought has killed it all.
The cow has walked until she staggered and subsided to the earth. She will never get up again. She will die here.
The sun is burning down.
The old man has built a little roof to shade her. It is some reeds stretched across four sticks. This gives a little thin shade.
This cow is his friend.
The old man is sitting by the cow. She is in the stripy shade from the reeds, but he is in the full sun. The dust is blowing over them.
There is not enough water for everyone.
The old man has a little water in a tin cup. The cow sometimes pants and her tongue starts lolling out and then he puts some drops of water on the tongue and he swallows a few drops himself.
There they sit. He will sit with the cow until it dies.
The cow knows it is going to die.
The cow thinks that she has belonged to this man and his family all her life. But the wife and the children have died. The cow is wondering why she has to lie here not able to get up, by the old man, and why the dust is everywhere, and there is no rain and no food and no water.
The cow doesn't understand.
The old man doesn't understand. But he says it is The Will of Allah.
I don't think it is The Will of Allah.
I think it is wicked, wicked, and Allah will punish us all for letting the old man die there and his poor cow die in the hot dust.
Why? Oh God!
Why? Oh Allah!

Well, I got back up to the roof with this in my hand, ready to give it to Hasan. He was talking to George and not about to take notice of me. I sat down again.

By then all the sky was full of bright stars, and it was the time when everyone in the little houses was eating. I knew that soon our supper would be ready for us.
Then Olga did call up, Supper.
Hasan finished what he was saying, and got up. He was wearing the usual white robe, and he seemed very tall and a bit shadowy. My heart was aching. It was aching badly. I did not know what to do. I was frantic.
George got to his feet and stood by Hasan. I saw to my surprise that George is very nearly as tall as Hasan.
Both were looking at me while they stood there, tall and shadowy, with the stars all around them.
Hasan smiled. I held out my essay but he did not take it. Of course he didn't. He hadn't asked for it!
So then I said to him, tumbling it all out, I want to do it, I'll do the diary, I want to, really.
Good, was all he said.
And believe it or not, I again was full of resentment, because he hadn't taken my precious essay. And as if he should have congratulated me or made a fuss of me or something for saying I would do this journal.
First I went down the outside of the house on the stairway. Then George behind me. Then Hasan. I was longing for Hasan to come in to supper. He had come several times.
But at the foot of the steps he said goodnight, and George said goodnight and that was that.
Benjamin was not at supper, thank goodness.
That is how I came to write all this.
And now I know why he wanted me to write it.

This bit is being written several weeks later. Nine to be exact.

Two facts. One is, several times I have found myself - I put it like this because it is always by accident apparently, with Hasan and George when they are talking. Or rather Hasan is talking and George listening. At least now I don't emote and grovel inside. I can listen. Sometimes I have just caught the drift of what is being said. But the truth is that I know that after being in on a conversation like this, George has understood one thing and I have understood another. That is the nature of this kind of talk.
The second fact is that George has done something I'd never never have expected not in a thousand years. He has become the leader of a whole gang of boys at the college. They are just as silly and noisy and awful as any of these gangs anywhere. They are always rushing about and making speeches, full of self-importance.
And George is with them.
I think it is awful.
I know that Mother doesn't like it, nor does Father.
As for Benjamin, of course he is having the time of his life, being full of scorn.
But George sees Hasan all the time as well. I don't know what to think.

This is being written later. Months.

George has been to India, to visit Grandfather's family. He is even more grown up, if possible, but he is still boss of that ghastly gang and he is with Hasan more than he is ever with us.