by Kiran Desai
“Yes,” wept the cook, “that is right. It’s your duty to discipline me. It’s as it should be.”
______
Sai came rushing from her room, hearing the thuds. “What is happening??? Stop. Stop it immediately. Stop it!” she screamed, “Stop it!”
“Let him,” the cook said. “Let him. He wants to kill me. Let him kill me. What is my life? It’s nothing. Better that it’s gone. It’s useless to everyone. It’s useless to you and to me. Kill me! Maybe that will give you satisfaction. It will give me satisfaction. Go on!”
“I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”
“Kill me.”
“I’ll kill you.”
______
The cook didn’t mention his son… he had none… he’d never had one… it was just his hope writing to him… Biju was nonexistent….
______
The judge was beating with all the force of his sagging, puckering flesh, flecks of saliva flying from his slack muscled mouth, and his chin wobbled uncontrollably. Yet that arm, from which the flesh hung already dead, came down, bringing the slipper upon the cook’s head.
______
“There’s something filthy going on,” Sai wept and covered her ears, her eyes. “Don’t you know? Can’t you tell? Something filthy is going on.”
But they didn’t stop.
______
She fled outside. Stood in the rich humus dark in her white cotton pajamas and felt the empty burden of the day, her own small heart, her disgust at the cook, at his pleading, her hatred of the judge, her pitiful selfish sadness, her pitiful selfish pointless love….
The sound followed her, though, the muffled thuds and cries of the men inside, of the judge beating the cook. Could it really be for Mutt’s sake…?
And Mutt? Where was Mutt?
Sold to a family that couldn’t love her in a village beyond Kurseong, an ordinary family, paying hard for modernity, receiving a sham. They wouldn’t care for Mutt. She was just a concept. They were striving toward an idea of something, toward what it meant to have a fancy dog. She disappointed them just as modern life did, and they tied her to a tree, kicked her…
Sai thought of crossing the jhora and escaping to Uncle Potty—
Who would be thinking of Father Booty—
Wobbling across the bridge, through the bamboo, with a wheel of cheese fastened to the backseat of his bicycle.
One day soon, the GNLF men would arrive again—
Don’t mind me, love—just shut the door behind you when you leave, don’t want the rowdies getting you—
When Uncle Potty woke, he would realize he’d signed away his property and Father Booty’s, as well, to new owners….
______
And Mrs. Sen—she would knit the sweater that Rajiv Gandhi would never wear and that Lola and Noni said would not have matched his Kashmiri pundit, peaches ‘n’ cream complexion anyway. His destiny would be interwoven with a female Tamil Tiger in more intimate fashion than anything Mrs. Sen with her yellow sweater could have dreamed of.
And Lola and Noni would commit annual massacres at this time of year with Baygon, mosquito coils, and swatters. Every two years Lola would visit London, come back with Knorr soup packets and Marks and Spencer underwear. Pixie would marry an Englishman and Lola would almost die with delight. “Everyone in England wants an Indian girl these days!”
And Gyan? Where was Gyan? Sai didn’t know that he missed her—
______
She stood in the dark and it began to rain as it so often did on an August night. The electricity went off, as always, and the televisions frizzed and the BBC was diced by storm. Lantern light came on in homes. Plunk, ping, piddle, drips fell into the pots and pans placed under leaks—
Sai stood in the wet. The rain boxed the leaves, fell in jubilant dunglike plops into the jhora. The rain slapped, anthem-singing frogs exulted in their millions, from the Teesta up to Cho Oyu, high into the Deolo and Singalila Mountains. Drowned the sound of the judge hitting the cook.
______
“What is this all about?” asked Sai, but her mouth couldn’t address her ear in the tumult; her heart lying in pieces, didn’t seem able to address her mind; her mind couldn’t talk to her heart. “Shame on myself…” she said…. Who was she… she with her self-importance, her demand for happiness, yelling it at fate, at the deaf heavens, screaming for her joy to be brought forth…?
How dare…. How dare you not…?
Why shouldn’t I have…?… How dare…. I deserve…. Her small greedy soul…. Her tantrums and fits…. Her mean tears…. Her crying, enough for all the sadness in the world, was only for herself. Life wasn’t single in its purpose… or even in its direction…. The simplicity of what she’d been taught wouldn’t hold. Never again could she think there was but one narrative and that this narrative belonged only to herself, that she might create her own tiny happiness and live safely within it.
______
But what would happen at Cho Oyu?
The cook would hobble back to his quarter—
The judge would return to his room—
All night it would rain. It would continue, off and on, on and off, with a savagery matched only by the ferocity with which the earth responded to the onslaught. Uncivilized voluptuous green would be unleashed; the town would slide down the hill. Slowly, painstakingly, like ants, men would make their paths and civilization and their wars once again, only to have it wash away again….
______
The new morning would hatch, black or blue, clear or smothered. Breakfast, lunch. The judge would sit at his chessboard, and at 4:30, without thinking, from mere habit, he would open his mouth and say, as he always said, “Panna Lal, bring the tea.”
And always there would have to be something sweet and something salty—
Sai stood there—
She thought of her father and the space program. She thought of all the National Geographics and books she had read. Of the judge’s journey, of the cook’s journey, of Biju’s. Of the globe twirling on its axis.
And she felt a glimmer of strength. Of resolve. She must leave.
______
The congress of hopeful frogs continued to sing, even as a weak whiskey light showed in the east as the rain slowed.
Behind Sai, Cho Oyu was still full of shadow. She could no longer hear the men inside. The judge lay exhausted in his bed. The cook sat hunched in the kitchen, his face still in the grip of a nightmare.
Sai, dizzy from lack of sleep, turned to go inside. But then, just as she did, she became conscious of a tiny dot of a figure laboring up the slope through the clouds that were still sunk in the valley. She stopped to look. The dot vanished into the trees, reappeared, vanished again, came around the bend in the mountain. It made a pink and yellow patch of color slowly growing bigger—striving through bushy detonations of wild cardamom—
Gyan? she thought with a burst of hope. A message: I will love you after all.
Someone who had found Mutt? Right here…. She’s right here, alive and well! Plumper than ever!
______
The figure persisted. Someone else. A bent-over woman dragging one leg onerously. She must be on her way elsewhere.
Sai went inside to the kitchen. “I’ll make you tea,” she told the cook, who was covered in slipper marks.
She put on the kettle, struggled with a soggy match. Finally it flared and she lit the balled newspaper under the sticks.
______
Then they heard the gate being rattled. Oh dear, thought Sai with dread, perhaps it was the same begging woman again, the one whose husband had been blinded.
Again the gate rattled.
“I’ll go,” said the cook and he got up slowly, dusted himself off.
He walked through the drenched weeds to the gate.
At the gate, peeping through the black lace wrought iron, between the mossy canonballs, was the figure in a nightgown.
“Pitaji?” said the figure, all ruffles and colors.
Kanchenjunga appeared above the parting clouds, as it did only very early in the morning during this season.
“Biju?” whispered the cook—
“Biju!”He yelled, demented—
Sai looked out and saw two figures leaping at each other as the gate swung open.
The five peaks of Kanchenjunga turned golden with the kind of luminous light that made you feel, if briefly, that truth was apparent.
All you needed to do was to reach out and pluck it.
My Salaams
To my editor, Joan Bingham, and my agent, Michael Carlisle, for their unstinting enthusiasm and generosity regarding everything to do with The Inheritance of Loss. Also, to Rose Marie Morse, David Davidar, David Godwin, Simon Prosser and Ravi Singh. To Adelaide Docx for additional editing help.
To the Santa Maddalena Foundation, the Eastern Frontier Society, to Bunny Gupta and Doma Rai of Sukhtara, each for a desk with a view during three vital stages in the writing of this book.