A Burning

by Megha Majumdar

  “In a good way,” she says. “When paths show themselves, don’t be afraid to follow them.”

  And I feel lifted on a wave and placed on a shore. I get up. I should call my wife, I think. Check how my daughter is handling her suspension. I need to get back to my office before the assistant turns it into an ashtray. On the road I will eat an egg roll.

  “Your wife may not support my suggestion,” my guru says, “but I am getting a strong feeling that one thing will be especially valuable for you during this time. For your right index finger”—and here she holds up the finger she means—“an amethyst.”

  JIVAN

  PURNENDU HAS BROUGHT ME a string of shampoo sachets, clothesline clips, and elastic hair bands. I hold the gifts in my lap. They are currency.

  “Thanks,” I say to him in English, so that he knows, even while he gives me products with which I will clean myself and groom myself, that I can be his equal.

  * * *

  *

  WE RESETTLED IN GOVERNMENT housing in a town, fifty kilometers away from our village, with nothing in it but buildings whose walls were plump with damp, whose sewage flowed in open gutters, whose taps coughed rusty water. But it was my first and only time living in an apartment building, and I was proud of my residence.

  I heard the neighbor boy, fellow evicted, stomp down the stairs every evening. I watched, from the window, as he emerged into the lane, where a cohort gathered to play cricket. A plank of plywood served as a bat, and the fielders chased a hollow plastic ball. They were my age. My limbs itched to play with them, to scream and run and skid on the small pebbles of the street, now that my known fields were gone. My mother said no.

  I was a girl. I stayed home to watch my father, while my mother left at dawn and returned in the evening, seeking daily labor. A few days she was employed on construction projects, but after that, the jobs ran out.

  Then my mother cooked, hidden in the kitchen. An atmosphere of smoke and chili about her deterred conversation.

  One night, I heard her and my father.

  “Where is the work?” my mother said. “Everybody here is resettled like us. Who will hire me?”

  “Wait a few days,” said my father. “I will take a loan to buy a new rickshaw.”

  “Another rickshaw,” my mother mocked. “Who will ride your rickshaw in this cursed town?”

  I was ashamed to hear everything. I was ashamed to see my mother sinking into this gray mood.

  I crept up on her one day as she was cooking.

  “Bhow!” I said behind her. She jumped and smacked at my legs, but I escaped. From the doorway I said, in a monster’s deep voice, “Ow mow khow! I smell some human chow!”

  I crept closer, allowing my mother to take another swipe at my legs, to trap me this time, but she did not try.

  * * *

  *

  SO THAT IS HOW I grew up, you see, Purnendu. When Ba’s turn in the X-ray came, I took him. We took a bus which sped down the highway, horn blasting, and brought us to an air-conditioned clinic. I gave a look to a woman until she moved her bag, so that Ba could take the chair. The woman’s arms were white and plump. Diamonds sparkled on her fingers. Her feet were wrapped in the crisscrossing strings of a leather sandal, and her toenails were painted pink. They looked like lozenges. She looked at us. I slid one cracked and soiled foot behind the other.

  In a dark room, a technician positioned Ba against a cold glass plate, then disappeared. Ba flinched.

  “Stand still!” scolded the technician, from a chamber we could not see. “Stand straight!”

  But the X-ray man could not make the picture. He came out, irritated.

  “What’s the matter?” he said.

  Ba rubbed his bare skin, chilled. Still he smiled as a way of asking forgiveness. “It’s cold—”

  “The plate is supposed to be cold!” said the X-ray man. “You have to stand firm, touching it, that’s what I told you. I can’t do my work with these unschooled people—”

  Afterward I held the large envelope in my hand, within it a ghostly image of Ba’s back and shoulders. I carried it home, like a parent carrying their child’s schoolbag, the weight too heavy for the young one to bear.

  At home, I began to show Ma the scan, but she shouted, “Put it back, put it back! You can’t look at these things without a special light, or it will be ruined. Fool child.”

  Was that right? I did what she said.

  “X-ray today, then something else tomorrow,” said my mother. “Wait and see, that doctor will keep you running around. That’s what doctors do. They get paid to make you do tests and buy medicines, don’t you know that? Where will we get the money?”

  My father sat on the bed and, keeping his neck stiff, swung his legs up. He listened to my mother.

  But I knew something was wrong. If I did nothing, Ba would suffer. At least, we had to show the X-ray plates to the doctor.

  A rickshaw-driver friend of Ba’s gave us his service one morning, rolling gently over the potholes that led out of the block of apartment buildings and on to the main road. Ba’s eyes filled with water. He arrived at the hospital, defeated by the ride.

  “Hmm,” said the doctor, after we had waited for three hours, and Ba had nearly fallen and broken one more bone while going to the slippery toilet. “The bone is broken, do you see here?”

  He pointed a pen at the ghostly image.

  “But there is a more serious problem,” he continued. “This disk has been affected, and that is serious. He needs absolute bed rest, otherwise there will be a chance of paralysis. And I see he is in pain, so he needs stronger medicines. Take this twice a day, with food.”

  “I said he was in pain,” I complained, leaning forward in my chair. “He has been in pain since we first came to see you.”

  “Listen, why are you being so agitated?” The doctor put down his pen and glared at me. “For some people an ant’s bite is also serious pain.”

  Then he continued writing in his prescription book. In a penholder, a pen printed with the name of a pharmaceutical company shined.

  “And what about the rickshaw, doctor shaheb?” my father asked. “I have to go back to work soon.”

  “Work?” said the doctor. “Be patient, mister. It’s enough that you walked in here on your own. You can’t drive a rickshaw anytime soon.”

  * * *

  *

  AFTER WEEKS OF RUNNING to a municipal tube well early every morning and carrying water up five flights of stairs, Ma and I began going to the water board office, complaining about the rust-colored water spat out by the taps.

  At the water office, a man with a ring of hair surrounding a bald head waved us away—he had begun to recognize us—as soon as we approached.

  “Later, come later,” he said. “I told you I can’t do anything about the water in two–three days.”

  “Sir, we came seven–ten days ago.”

  “Is that so?” he said. “Now you know my schedule better than me?”

  “We still don’t have clean water, sir,” said my mother, “and they said that by July—”

  “Who said?” charged the man, pausing in the chewing of gum. “Who said such things? July, August, am I in charge of carrying the water from here to your house?”

  Ma said nothing, and I felt like a small child next to her, though I was as much a grown-up as anybody in that office.

  It was too much. “Sir, actually,” I said, “you told us last time that the water supply would be fixed soon. My father is sick. He can’t climb down five flights of stairs to the municipal tap for his baths.” My cheeks were hot. My voice was hoarse. “Please do something, sir.”

  The man stared at me, eyes bulging, before picking up a phone.

  “Yes, good morning,” he said softly into the phone, a polite professional. “What happened to the work
order for the water pipes…” He went on in this way, while we stood and looked at him. I was delighted, though the only expression I could wear was one of pleading.

  Three days later, when the taps in our building deposited clean water into our buckets, my mother told everyone it was all my doing.

  “Jivan spoke to the water supply man,” she recounted to the neighbors. “Oh, you should have seen her!”

  Later, in the quiet of the kitchen after we had eaten, she said to me, “The system doesn’t always work for us. But you see that, now and then, you can make good things happen for yourself.”

  And I thought, only now and then? I thought I would have a better life than that.

  PT SIR

  A POLITICIAN’S HOUSE IS marked by an atmosphere like a fair at all times. Feet from the door, reporters wait idly, smoking cigarettes and tossing them in the gutter. Clerks and lackeys keep an eye on those coming and going, occasionally stopping to chat with this or that person. Citizens with grievances arrive, holding folders. Less frequently arrive packages, sometimes a bouquet or a gift basket of dried fruit. Down the road, policemen assigned to the politician wait inside a vehicle. They sit, rifles strapped to their backs, the doors open for air.

  On the porch, where PT Sir takes off his shoes, grateful for his clean socks, an assistant asks him: “You have an appointment?”

  “No, I mean,” says PT Sir, “I got a lunch invitation, so—”

  “Oh,” says the assistant, opening the door. “You are the teacher.”

  The house is ordinary. Apart from a few framed photographs of parents and grandparents, garlanded by fragrant white flowers, the walls are bare. Two sofas, with rather regal upholstery, face each other, and beyond them stands a dining table with six chairs. The floor is laid with flecked tiles, as in any middle-class home. Some of the tiles are cracked.

  PT Sir stands on this cold floor in socked feet, unsure of himself, until Bimala Pal emerges from an inner office. She invites him to sit at the dining table, whose plywood surface is covered by a plastic cloth which mimics lace. Dishes appear from the kitchen. The food is humble—rice, dal, and fried eggplant, followed by rui fish curry. When, PT Sir wonders, will Bimala Pal tell him why he has been invited? She seems unconcerned.

  “Just yesterday I was in Bankura district,” says Bimala Pal, “and you know what is happening there? The midday meal funds for schools are disappearing into the pockets of school administrators. Those children are getting rice full of stones, lentils cooked in a tiny bit of oil. I said…” The story ends with a student’s grandmother crying with gratitude in Bimala Pal’s embrace.

  It is when their plates are almost clean that Bimala Pal says, “You must be thinking why I have asked to see you today.”

  PT Sir looks at her, and her plate, where she has made a pile of fish bones, curved like miniature swords.

  “You see, I have a small hassle on my hands,” she says. “I was thinking, maybe an educated man like yourself can help us with it.”

  PT Sir sees, through the open door, a dark figure in the sun, holding a baby. A clerk comes by and says, “Madam, the society of mothers who—”

  “Coming, coming,” says Bimala Pal.

  “The engineers are also waiting—”

  Bimala Pal nods, and the clerk retreats.

  There isn’t much time.

  “I will be honored to help you in any way,” PT Sir finds himself saying. “Tell me, what can I do?”

  * * *

  *

  SO IT IS THAT, a few weeks later, PT Sir finds himself at the courthouse. The grand British-era building has received a new coat of brick-red paint. Surrounding the building is a large garden planted with rows of hibiscus and marigold. Even at the early morning hour, the grounds have an air of harried activity. Lawyers in black robes cross the yard. PT Sir lets himself be passed. Under a row of oak trees, typists sit before typewriters, beside them stacks of legal paper. Next to them, tea-samosa sellers, resting kettles and cups on the ground, engage in a brisk trade.

  No one pays any attention to PT Sir, so nobody notices that he is sweating excessively, armpit patches spreading under the blazer he has worn. His left thumb twitches, a tremor that he has never had before. He hides the hand in his pocket.

  Up he goes into the old courthouse, then down a long balcony, off which he can see, through doors left ajar, a library with ceiling fans turning at the top. He walks by warrens of lawyers’ offices, stuffed with leaning towers of folders. PT Sir retrieves a handkerchief from his trousers’ pocket and mops his damp forehead. Before courtroom A6, he taps a guard at a door, clears his throat, and says, “I am a witness.”

  Then he sits on a hard wooden bench, watching in anxiety as three other cases are swiftly brought before the judge and resolved.

  Half an hour later, when PT Sir is called to the front of the courtroom, his throat is parched, and while his left thumb has stopped twitching, his right eyelid has taken up the tendency. He walks slowly, trying to project calm. He stands in a witness box, and a clerk warns him not to lean on the railing. It wobbles.

  Before him appears a lawyer wearing a wrinkled robe and summer sandals with chapped edges. PT Sir looks at those feet, then at the room of dozing men awaiting their own hearings.

  Now Bimala Pal seems very far away, her influence no more than a gentle memory.

  PT Sir wonders in a panic if he can get out of this.

  Is there a way? Maybe he can fake a heart attack.

  The lawyer asks him: “Habyusinthisparson?”

  “Hmm?” says PT Sir. He coughs, and clears his throat.

  He has spoken. Can he fake a heart attack now?

  The lawyer says it again, and this time PT Sir understands what he is saying: “Have you seen this person?”

  The lawyer indicates a man seated at a table in front. The man wears an oversize blue shirt with short sleeves that fall to his blackened elbows. Through his half-open mouth, PT Sir can see that his teeth are stained red.

  PT Sir knows none of these men, not the man with the stained teeth, nor the lawyer, but his job, per Bimala Pal’s assistant’s instructions, is to say: Yes, he has come across that man. He saw that man fleeing after a hardware store near his school was robbed.

  PT Sir has never seen this man before, of course, but he knows—he has been told—that this is a man who has robbed and stolen for a living, but never been caught. There has never been evidence, though his neighbors and friends all know the truth. It is true that he also belongs to the wrong religion, the minority religion that encourages the eating of beef, but that is a peripheral matter, according to Bimala Pal’s assistant. The main issue is, a robber has to be stopped. What decent man would object to participating in the execution of justice?

  Now PT Sir has to speak, or else faint. He must speak, or else surrender all hope of moving up in life by Bimala Pal’s grace.

  So, with his cool, teacher’s diction, his nicely combed hair, his button-down shirt and black blazer, never mind the damp armpits, he stands before that filthy-faced, rotten-toothed criminal, and says, “Him, yes, that man, I saw him there. He was running in a direction away from the hardware store.”

  Then, with an exchange between the lawyer and the judge that PT Sir does not follow, the matter is over. The criminal is taken away by a policeman to pay a hefty fine, or else go to jail. It is clear that he does not have the means to pay a fine. When he walks past PT Sir, the man looks at him closely, squinting as if he is missing his spectacles. PT Sir turns away. The clerk calls the case number for the next case; the lawyer vanishes; a different set of people approach the bench.

  PT Sir strolls casually out of the courtroom, unbuttoning his blazer. His neck prickles as he anticipates how the lawyer will reappear and challenge him. He waits for the judge to call him into chambers and demand to know who he really is. As he passes by guards
patrolling the courthouse grounds, he expects an arm to shoot out and bar his way.

  But, in a moment, he is on the street, where nothing more distressing happens than this: A pigeon pecking at the ground takes flight and flaps away from him, its wings nearly brushing his face.

  * * *

  *

  IN THE MONTHS FOLLOWING, when Bimala Pal’s assistant calls PT Sir and gives him a case, he prepares by purchasing a tube of antiperspirant and applying the white gel in his armpits. He carries a bottle of water and sips from it. He goes to sleep early the night before. Perhaps it is these measures, but PT Sir finds, by his fourth time at the courthouse, that there is little that agitates him.

  At the doors to the courtroom, the guard greets PT Sir familiarly.

  “All well?” he says.

  “All well,” says PT Sir. “Has my case started yet?”

  “Going a bit late today,” the guard says. “Not to worry. You go sit in the canteen, I’ll send someone to call you.”

  For the first time, as he wanders down the familiar corridor, past the law library and to the canteen, PT Sir wonders if the guard is paid by the party too. For that matter, how about the courtroom clerks, and the judges, and the lawyers? Not one of them has ever said: “This man is really something! Everywhere there is a robbery, a domestic problem, a fight between neighbors, this man happens to be walking by! Is he Batman or what?”

  But now is not the time to think about such things.

  An hour and a chicken cutlet later, PT Sir takes the stand, opposite a man in a check-patterned lungi, knotted below a thin, hard belly.

  PT Sir says, “This is the man I saw on the road. He was eve-teasing a lady. Making some disgusting gestures. Don’t ask me to repeat them.” He puts his teeth on his tongue in a gesture of shame and shakes his head. “God knows what would have happened to the lady if I wasn’t going that way.”