A Delhi Obsession

by M G Vassanji

  “It looked deliberate, that…swarming…do you think it was?”

  She didn’t reply.

  “Do you know these people?”

  “No,” she told him briefly. But they looked like unwashed versions of the Purifier Jetha Lal’s followers. An uncouth bunch, who needed scrubbing to clean themselves inside and out.

  Ravi arrived shortly afterwards, wearing a sporty linen jacket over a purple shirt. He put a box of barfi before Munir as a parting gift. “A guest is always bid farewell with sweet memories,” he said. Really, Mohini said to herself. As they sat chatting, Ravi’s interest as usual Canada and its economy and politics, the young men from before came in, occupying the doorway, looking around. Mohini counted eight of them. They saw Jetha Lal and his crew at his table by the side window and went to chat with them. Ravi watched them with a twinkle in his eyes.

  Ravi said, “They’ve just finished duty in Ayodhya, and are on their way back to Gujarat and Maharashtra. We keep an eye on them.”

  Mohini and Ravi explained to Munir the significance of that. Ayodhya was believed to be the birthplace of the god Ram. The first Mughal emperor, Babur, had built a mosque there, apparently on the site of a temple. The site was in contention, but in 1992 an activist mob had demolished the mosque. Now they sent volunteers to keep watch over it while the government and courts prevaricated in coming to a decision about it.

  A ruckus erupted from the group, someone among them having shouted something and others responding. The young man who had been conspicuously blocking her and Munir earlier was standing up, and he again shouted out something like a toast. The others responded, “Zindabad!” Everyone else in the lounge was stone-silent. Then normality returned, the usual soft hum of chatter and the clatter of dishes.

  Munir looked at Ravi, then Mohini, for an explanation.

  “They were toasting Nathuram Godse,” Mohini said bitterly.

  “Who is he?”

  “He was Gandhi-ji’s assassin. They’ve started putting up statues of him all over the country. To them he was a saint.”

  Later they were sitting at the bar when Munir’s taxi arrived. He said goodbye and left.

  Her eyes boring into his, bidding him goodbye and pleading for him to come back soon.

  Munir

  WHAT’S BROUGHT THIS ON? A call from his agent. A long bout with a bottle of Scotch.

  The creative life runs its course, though the body that’s sheltered it keeps going. An empty shell. There’s no more to say, I’ve passed on like a wavelet that’s risen and waned, disappeared without a trace. Writers should know when the force is gone. At home in Nairobi we had a set of books by the famous Indian author Mulk Raj Anand. One was Coolie. Another was Untouchable. The author was a distant relation of Dada’s, how, I don’t know. Thin, badly produced books, easily readable and quite gripping. What’s an Untouchable?—Dada explained: no it’s not a snake. But the author in his dotage was still at it, sputtering along on empty. The American Philip Roth, on the other hand, recently announced that he has retired from writing. I met him once, outside a publisher’s office in New York. He stared blankly at me—or looked through me—as we were briefly introduced at the door. Didn’t know who I was. Why should he? A Canadian Punjabi from Kenya? Triply marginal.

  Munir, Munir, stop it.

  * * *

  —

  Max North, with a chortle:

  “You son of a gun, Munir, you know you can’t hide! We’re all waiting for it, breathless, need I say it? Publishers are eager to get their hands on it—this magnum opus that’s been ten years in the making…Admit it, now. I was in London and Jeff from Ironsides says he can’t wait to lay his hands on a new work by Munir Khan…”

  “There’s nothing, Max. I’m—”

  He never listens. Warm, yes, stylish, yes, and meaning well. Boundless enthusiasm that eventually sputters out, and then, as though nothing happened, all forgotten. You leave messages, and nothing. He’s on a boat somewhere, perhaps off the coast of Greece.

  That’s the business to be in. Let the creators agonize.

  “Willie Straus is over from Frankfurt, scouting, and you know what he said, Munir?—hold your breath—‘Munir Khan, you mean he’s not published in Germany?’ He should know. I’ve given him notice—‘If you don’t publish all of Munir Aslam Khan, you’re getting nothing more from me.’ I promise, Munir, within a year your whole list…”

  “That’s nice, Max. There’s hardly much of a list, though.”

  “Willie will pass by the office tomorrow. Why don’t you come around eleven—do you drink cappuccino? We have a new machine…”

  Cappuccino? If this Willie guy were really interested they’d ask me out for lunch. I know the game, Max, I’ve been here long enough.

  “Chapter? Introduction…?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Anything I can look at, Munir? All right, I know, you’ll wait until you’re ready. But a title as yet? A paragraph? It has to enter our world catalogue in four weeks—”

  “As I said, Max, there’s nothing…yet. All I’ve done is scribble some notes on medieval India. Nothing will—”

  “You know which writers sell the most in the world today? You got it—India. There’s a book I’ll send you soon…It’s called Raja, simple. Sold rights in fourteen countries already. She’s off to India to do research on background—elephants and temples and so forth.”

  “Well…that’s wonderful. Good for her.”

  Elephants? God, I’m glad to be out of this business. Except for this one little idea…but that’s between me and Ziauddin Barani of Delhi. Not you, Max. Something private I don’t have to show anybody else.

  Not yet. Perhaps never.

  * * *

  —

  “Dad—have you been drinking?”

  “Sorry—I…”

  “It’s not a good idea when you’re alone. You know better, Dad.”

  “I just dozed off, here.”

  Always good to hear her voice. Someone who cares. There’s something special about a child—she is yours, absolutely. She ties you to the world, gives you a stake in it like nothing else does. Not your books…Your books? Not even one? No, Munir. And she? Mohini? How can she, who belongs elsewhere? She’s a happy illusion, a happy maya.

  Everyone needs a maya.

  “I don’t know if I should tell you this now, you’re not quite there.”

  “Of course I’m here, and of course you should tell me—what is it?”

  “I can’t come home this Christmas.”

  “You mean…why not? Not even for a day or two?”

  He’s stunned. He swallows. Can’t come home? He’s been looking forward for months to seeing her again. Every Christmas they’ve spent together, ever since she was born. Gone shopping. Exchanged presents. Christmas is the happiest time of the year, barring perhaps the first real day of summer. Everyone greets everyone else, we think of our loved ones. It’s commercial, yes, but everything is, isn’t it? We sit on the living room carpet together and open the presents. What joy in giving a present to a child. The look on that face, when she gets something even beyond what she thought possible. And your heart is full. And you receive a hug. What better memories? A Christian festival? Not necessarily, though a Handel concert is nice. A children’s choir is divine. Why, why can’t she come?

  “You know Mark doesn’t celebrate Christmas. I can’t leave him alone, Dad.”

  “No you can’t, but you should both come. And what’s wrong with celebrating, call it anything—Kwanza, Kwa heri, Deepawali, what difference does that make? It’s family time!”

  “I can’t, Dad.”

  “All right, I guess,” he says, punctured.

  “You won’t mind too much?”

  “No, I won’t mind.” Yes he minds. He minds very much. She’s leaving home, bye-bye.


  “This will be the first time—”

  “I know. Don’t worry.”

  There’s always a first time, isn’t there. The first grey hair, the reading glasses. Life winding down. Is that the last tie she cuts before she drifts away? Why should I complain, I cut mine when I was much younger. Never—hardly—looked back. Until now. Until Delhi.

  * * *

  —

  Well, Aileen, here we are. What I can say has been said a thousand, a million times before, therefore has no meaning when spoken. You know that. But you got a good piece of real estate, I don’t mind telling you that again, here under this maple tree, right in the city. A beautiful place, this…No, I’m not happy you’re dead. Yes, there’s this person in Delhi, but it’s all up in the air, as I said. I could tell you you should have been careful, no need to get more sweets for Halloween, just close the door, turn off the lights, and the kids will understand. You wouldn’t listen. I should have gone. But an accident’s an accident…How do I spend my time? All I do is mull around now. A slight increase in the intake of single malt, of which it was you who gave me the taste, remember. A bit of writing, I can tell you that, though not Max North. He called the other day—after a long time—and you know what he’s like, all bluster. Invited me for coffee. I didn’t go. More important, Razia won’t come home for Christmas this year. It’s going to be lonely, just me and me, like during those student Christmases long ago. But I’ll send her a present from the both of us. And I’ll buy me a sweater from you. I need one. We were always practical—at least in recent years…Nothing more for today, Aileen. Here is a yellow rose. I see someone’s left a red one before me. A fresh one. Who could it be? A secret admirer? A not-so-secret one? You wouldn’t have done that to me, would you, Aileen? But then perhaps…after twenty-five years, when boredom set in? When we stopped looking at each other closely? When you went off to meet friends at the Cricket Club? No matter. And here is a book I bought for you in India.

  * * *

  —

  There was a hiatus. Time out while the heart aches, time to face the practical world. What have we done, is it too late? Yes, it’s too late. He had not written or texted her—phone was out of the question—and neither had she. But finally, he couldn’t resist and called. It was nighttime, his.

  “It’s me.”

  “I know.”

  “Is this a wrong time?”

  “Yes. I’m in the kitchen, and he’s around.”

  “Isn’t it morning there?”

  “I’m making parathas. I wish I could send you one.”

  “Just wanted to hear your voice—”

  “I’ll write or call—now bye.”

  Just that, a hurried “bye.” A bye is when a ball drifts away from the batsman, untouched, unwanted. Was he a bye, a drifter?

  He wrote her a text. Thinking always of you.

  And at that moment a thought flashed. An image—that dim room at the Sheth Rustomji Guest House on frantic Bahadur Shah Zafar Road. Couldn’t be. He had walked to the old city and returned to find what?—the police had been in his room. Just a routine search, the man said—his name was Naren—looking for terrorists. Munir thought his computer had been unlocked. Now he recalled that he’d also left his phone behind, in his jacket pocket in the closet. It contained the selfie he and Mohini had taken at Safdarjung.

  Couldn’t be. He was being paranoid.

  * * *

  —

  Everybody’s here for the block party, and we pretend nothing’s different, Aileen could be around somewhere in one of the two rooms or in the kitchen chatting with someone. Hiya, says Andy, the host this year and the cheerful face of the block; beard’s a bit scruffy, he’s just retired and the kids never returned. Sitting on the porch on warm evenings he’ll greet all and sundry, ready with a quip. Your beautiful daughter not visiting this holiday? No, she’s staying with her husband in New York. Ah, she married an American; there’s some nice Canadians, too, you know. Too late! Beryl looks cheerful and different. We all remember the day her little son died, as he was expected to, but her face broke then and never recovered; she put on weight, picked up a stoop. But they’ve persevered, always with a cheerful greeting, she and Jim, no other kids. Now she’s returned after three months away and it seems she’s had her face done, it’s all smooth, and, We’re going to LA, she says. We’ll drive to Las Vegas from there—have you been? And Jim explains, We haven’t either, but you have to see it once, I guess. Is something up, Munir wonders. I hope they’re okay. Jim and Beryl and Andy and Alice are the only ones left of the old guard, been here twenty-five years or more, except for that couple whose names I still don’t know, the guy making a racist remark when Aileen and I first moved, something like, Where did you find him? Not where you’re from, Aileen had replied, then to Munir: Left over from the Stone Age. Not another word exchanged in twenty-five years. But they don’t speak to anyone, except, it seems, to Beryl. Those two could be hiding dead children in their basement, Munir once said. That’s cruel, Aileen said. When Aileen died, they pushed a sympathy card through the mail slot. A cheap one, but still. How the demographics have changed, his the only brown face once, now there are two young Asian couples and an elderly Anglo-Indian who wears a fedora, and his wife. Hi Joanna, Hi Munir, meet my daughter, the one I spoke to you about, analyst at the Bank of Montreal. All high achievers, Joanna’s two daughters and nephews, all gone to MIT or places like that, and her father a former university president. Razia not here? No, not this year. Well, maybe some other occasion soon. I hope so. A significant pause. They all remember Aileen, but nothing gets said. What do they have in their minds, about him, he wonders. There are the inevitable, though disinterested book questions that he instinctively deflects with some nonsense. And then the young Indian couple who inspired his visit to India. Should he tell them that? No…Their names are Raj and Shobha and hello, she’s pregnant. You must miss India. Not at all, she says. No? No, except the family. Why is that? It’s become unlivable, the corruption and the pollution…they’ve made it impossible for young people. No, we like it here. They’re looking for a family doctor, and he gives them some advice, and the name of his own doctor. He wanders around. More young people. How it’s changed, this neighbourhood. The two hardware stores are gone, so is the butcher shop, and the watchmaker and the couple of boutiques; but now there are three Starbucks and a French café. More flower shops and two mani-pedi places. An Indian restaurant. Who says the economy is bad? But how times have changed…This is home, he looks around, these are my neighbours, we accept and like each other but don’t intrude…But it won’t remain the same forever…some will die, others will move. Two women are introduced to him, Joanna’s friends, a librarian and a teacher. An accident, their presence? Meanwhile Joanna’s hurried away. How was India? Wonderful. They talk enthusiastically about India. In some strange way, it’s taken me back, he finds himself saying, then keeps quiet. We all harbour worlds inside ourselves.

  And then, Surprise! cries a loud chorus, and Razia makes an appearance—wine glass in hand, leaning sideways, smiling—and Munir stifles a sob. He feels the heat of all eyes upon him—“Hi, Dad!”—and they embrace. “So you made it.”

  “Hear, hear!” says Andy. “Three cheers for Dad! And daughter.”

  Yes, all the while they’ve harboured sympathy for him, it’s his first real Christmas without Aileen.

  He and Razia walk home together. It’s bright outside, and there’s ice on the ground, she supports him though he thinks he doesn’t need it. When they are home and having coffee, she says, “We had a quarrel—Mark and I.”

  He stares at her.

  “Don’t tell me it’s going to be all right.”

  “Of course it’s going to be. He’ll call you.”

  “You know that, do you?”

  “Yes. I do. I would.”

  “That doesn’t count, does it?”

  A
lovely girl like that, why wouldn’t he call her? He’s heartbroken and in despair already, I bet.

  They say nothing for a while, and she flips the pages of a New Yorker.

  “Dad.”

  “Yes…”

  “I am so grateful you had me.”

  It takes a moment for that to sink in. “What a thing to say,” he says softly. “We had a child and it turned out to be you. Wonderful you. Thank you for the joy you bring.”

  “I mean it. You are a good person. A moral person, Dad.”

  “Am I now. I wouldn’t be sure.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  “Who?”

  “Don’t play innocent. India. I heard you telling those two people that you had a craving to return to India. Can’t be the Taj Mahal.”

  He laughs. He gives her her present from Aileen and himself, from where he has placed it, where presents have always been placed before being handed out in the morning every Christmas. And he gives her his present for Mark. She’s brought him a travel kit and walking shoes. They decide to visit the cemetery the next morning. And while they’re discussing dinner plans, sure enough, Mark calls. It’s a long call, which she takes in her room. When she returns, her face is wet and she looks happy. “I’ll go back on New Year’s Eve, is that all right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Now what were we talking about? Ms. India.”

  “Mrs.,” he says softly. Why did that have to come out?

  “Dad…”

  She’s like my mother now.

  “Dad!…”

  “Yes.”

  “Dad, don’t tell me…she’s married?”

  “I can’t help it. Couldn’t help it. It just happened.”

  “That’s a fine endorsement for marriage from you.”

  She knows that half the marriages in our part of the world end in divorce. It’s a healthy alternative to the prison of a bad marriage. We just pretend when we get married that it’s going to last forever. And we celebrate and bless like there’s no tomorrow.