Tom seemed ill at ease too, as he stared at the tea pot. When Ganesh poured tea into two little cups, the big basketball player unsteadily lifted his with both hands. The cup seemed lost in them. Suddenly Ganesh realized that Tom had probably never drunk from such a fragile cup in his life. Back in the village the kids drank milky tea from water glasses; it was a mark of status there to have the chance to drink from real tea cups. At any rate, his friends in the village drank tea, had consumed it from infancy. Tom, however, took a small hesitant sip, grimaced, and carefully set the cup down. Fortunately Aunt Betty had made brownies for the occasion. Relieved of the tea cup, Tom proceeded to devour three or four of them rapidly.
Perhaps the formality of tea created an awkwardness between the boys; silence grew in the waning light.
“My great-grandfather,” Ganesh remarked suddenly and pointed to the portrait above the fireplace.
“He looks pretty tough,” commented Tom.
“He was strong,” Ganesh said proudly. “He built this house with his own two hands.”
Tom whistled in polite admiration.
Another silence followed, after which, for want of something else to do, Ganesh suggested that they go up to his room.
“This is a big house,” Tom said on the stairway. “Your great-grandfather really built the whole thing?”
“When he was not advocating.”
“Advocating?”
“Practicing the law,” Ganesh explained.
In the room Tom sat self-consciously at the desk, his long legs angled out awkwardly as if unable to find enough space.
Ganesh felt a touch of panic. Maybe this invitation had been a mistake. Back in the village, if he and a friend got bored, they could always have a race rolling bicycle tires down a path or see who could catch the largest bullfrog in a nearby pond (once he had caught one measuring almost two feet). But here he was with his American friend, sitting in silence in a room that didn’t contain a stereo, a single game, a hobby craft project, or anything else geared to an American imagination.
So, fumbling in a side drawer of the desk, Ganesh came out with a dog-eared snapshot taken of his parents many years ago, when he had not yet been born. It was the only photo of them he had.
Father wore a plain loincloth and three ash marks of the Shivaite sect of Hinduism across his forehead. Mother, small and frail, was enveloped in a flowing sari, a red dot in the middle of her forehead.
Ganesh handed the frayed photo carefully to his friend. “My parents.”
Wrinkling his brow, biting his lip nervously, Tom stared at the photo a long time. “Your parents?”
“Yes. Like that.”
“I thought they were American.”
“Yes, born in this country. My father here in this town. My mother in Ann Arbor city in the state of Michigan.”
“But —” Tom tapped the photo, quizzically. “They are dressed like Indians, aren’t they?”
“They lived like Indians. Mother used to say, ‘Scratch our white skin and you’ll find the dark skin of India.’ See those lines on my father’s forehead? They are meaning he was a devotee of Lord Shiva.”
“Who’s Lord Shiva?”
For a moment Ganesh was shocked. How could anyone, even an American, not know of Lord Shiva? “A god of the Hindus,” he explained.
Tom handed the photo back. “Do you believe in Shiva too?”
“I don’t know,” Ganesh said simply. “I did once, but I am not knowing now.”
“They’re dead, aren’t they.”
“Yes. I came here because my father died.”
“We heard that,” Tom said gently. He slapped his knee. “Well, are you getting used to us?”
“I am, yes, I am. Thank you.” Ganesh glanced around the room at the old bed, the figured wallpaper, the window overlooking the yard. “Yes, I am feeling now part of this house.”
Tom laughed. “How can you feel part of a house?”
“I do.”
There was another awkward silence, during which Tom placed two huge hands on two knobby knees. He looked around restlessly, his mouth working to find words for a conversation. At last he said, “Do you miss India?”
“Of course.”
“Would you like to be back there?”
“I don’t know,” Ganesh said honestly. “I am now being part of two places.”
Tom beat a faint tattoo on his knees with the palms of his hands; he was trying — it was obvious to Ganesh — but failing to hide his boredom.
So Ganesh took a breath and said boldly, “I am asking for a favor, Tom.”
“Sure. What is it?”
“Teach me how to make friends happy when they are coming to my house.”
Tom screwed up his face. “Hey, there’s nothing you should do! Let ’em take care of themselves.”
“Because I can’t dance, I don’t know your games, or what you talk about or your sports, do I?”
Staring hard at him a moment, Tom sighed. “Yeah, I see what you mean. But you shouldn’t worry, you’ll get on to everything. The guys like you.”
“Do they actually?”
“Sure they do. Girls too. See, you don’t cause trouble. And you listen to what people say. So don’t worry.” Tom got up, his big hands smoothing back his hair nervously. “I got to be going.”
Downstairs, at the front door, Tom turned and said with a smile, “So don’t worry.”
“Yes, it’s what my father would say too.” Ganesh stood in the doorway watching until his friend’s bike vanished in the gathering dusk. It was not always easy to take good advice. “Don’t worry.” Very good advice, only he still didn’t dance or know American games or what the kids talked about or how to play their sports. Then he went inside and searched for his aunt, who was not downstairs. He went up to her bedroom and knocked. At first he thought she was not there, but then he heard rustling; he was not sure Aunt Betty would come to the door, until slowly it swung open.
His aunt’s eyes were red and swollen. She gripped a Kleenex, as she let him into the room. “Has your friend gone? Seems like a nice boy. So tall, though. Did you like the brownies? That was Darjeeling tea you had.” Aunt Betty talked as she shuffled toward the bed and wearily eased down on its edge.
Ganesh stood near the door. In the light of a bedside lamp his aunt’s face seemed older than before. The light made dark hollows under her cheekbones and emphasized the lines across her forehead, the steel gray amidst her light brown hair. Aunt Betty dabbed at her eyes with the Kleenex, then wadded and unwadded it with both hands. “Yes,” she said as if answering a question, “it happens that way. You’re fine when there’s two of you, but alone you’re prey to anything coming along. Sit down, Jeffrey.”
He sat next to the window, lit now by a slant of street light. A maple branch tapped against the pane, a hectic motion that added to the tension he felt in the presence of his aunt, who continued to talk — not only to him but to herself as well.
“Never did tell you about your Uncle Henry. People said a lawyer’s daughter shouldn’t marry a garage mechanic, but I paid no attention. And how right I was! We had twenty-eight good years together, and I never regretted one moment I spent with Henry Strepski. That box of Kleenex, please.” She pointed toward the dresser. “I am so upset, boy, so upset. What was I saying?”
Ganesh handed her the box of Kleenex. “You were saying about Uncle Henry.”
“Yes, my Henry. We never had children. Couldn’t. And people say that makes a couple closer. Well, I don’t know, but I do know we were close. And Henry proved himself to everyone. He started as a mechanic, but when he went to the state capital to file papers for a new garage, he already owned three.” Her bemused tone lifted suddenly. “Henry was like your father, Jeffrey. Couldn’t keep a red cent in his pocket. If someone asked him for a loan, Henry would just wave his hand and say, ‘Sure, don’t worry, how much?’ in a whisper so other people wouldn’t know. When he died, I had no idea how many debts were owed him. Of course,
some people came forward and paid, but many did not. Jeffrey?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
She ran her hand through the frizzled hair. “He was killed in a car accident that day on the way to the state capital to file those papers for the new garage. That old road has terrible curves. A truck came around one of them blind —” There was a long silence.
“I am sorry,” Ganesh said quietly. He added, “I know how you are feeling.”
Wiping her eyes, Aunt Betty said, “Yes, I suppose you do.” She appraised him closely. “I suppose you do. Come here.”
Ganesh went to the bed. She held out her hand and he took it. “Five years now, Jeffrey, and I have missed him every day. Sometimes I think I hear him downstairs, coming home from work.” She smiled wanly and let go of Ganesh’s hand. “Isn’t that crazy?”
“No,” said Ganesh.
“Five years. And he has never left my thoughts,” Aunt Betty continued, not having heard her nephew. “Sometimes I feel he is here in this house.”
“He is,” Ganesh affirmed. “He is everywhere. So are my parents.”
But Aunt Betty, still in her bemused state of mind, did not hear him. “Now that Henry’s gone, I am easy prey. I always heard people say it, now I know it’s true: a widow hasn’t a chance.”
“I am not understanding.”
She glanced up at her nephew, who stood near the bed. “Why, now that I haven’t a husband to defend my rights, the state has decided to take this house. Boy, we are going to lose it.”
*
The next day for Ganesh went by in a waking dream. There were semester examinations, but he could scarcely remember them. “We are going to lose the house”: those words throbbed in his mind like wounds, while he tried to think past them into the answers for history and science.
That evening, after classes, he went to the gym, knowing he would find Tom there shooting baskets. They had hardly spoken during the day.
And there Tom was, running in a leisurely way up and down the court, feinting and eluding imaginary opponents, then abruptly tensing his tall, thin body for a drive at the basket. When he saw Ganesh standing in the gym doorway, Tom waved. He took aim and let go of the ball; it whooshed through the net. “That was a set shot by Jerry West!” Then he tried other shots: a dunk like Bill Walton, a drive and twisting layup like Julius Erving — singing out the names of professional stars when he made the basket, keeping silent when he missed. At last, dripping sweat, he tucked the ball under one arm and walked over to Ganesh.
“Can you believe the exams are over?” he exclaimed with a smile. “How did you do?”
“I don’t know.”
Tom laughed. “Sounds like you don’t care.”
“No, I am not caring.”
“Well, come on, you got to care a little,” Tom replied, staring curiously at his friend. “Is anything wrong?”
So Ganesh told him: the state government wanted the old house for its new highway. He tried to recall words and phrases used by his aunt. After two years of proceedings, the court had finally decided in favor of the state. There were no more avenues of appeal, no stays of executing the order for dispossession. In one week the state would have the right to pull the house down and bring in the road.
Tom let the basketball drop from his hand; it bounced across the court and came to rest against a wall.
“That’s some bad luck,” Tom said. “Damn them! Where are you going to live?”
“There.”
“Where?”
“In our house.”
Tom scratched his head. “But you just said the state’s going to take it over.”
“I won’t leave.”
“Look, Ganesh, you got to.”
“I won’t leave.”
“Yeah? How are you going to swing that?”
“I don’t know.” Ganesh turned to go. “But I will be telling you tomorrow.”
Tom put his hands on his hips. “Are you serious? You got to be kidding.”
Ganesh kept walking.
“Hey! Are you serious?”
Ganesh said over his shoulder, “Yes, I am.”
Tom watched his small friend striding out of the gym. On impulse the tall basketball player shouted, “If you need any help, let me know!”
*
That evening after dinner Ganesh went to his room and dug into the bottom drawer of the dresser where, under some shirts, he had stuffed the bronze idol of Ganesh, his namesake god. Not once, until now, had he taken the idol out, even to look at it. Because it represented something he might not believe in any longer. The truth was, he didn’t know. In the village he had often prayed in Hindu fashion to the little figure of the elephant headed god. He had done “puja”: made offerings of sandalwood paste, flowers, coconuts, bananas, and incense to it, reciting a mantra in its praise. Om Shri Maha Ganapataye Namah — Salutations to Ganapati the Great. Before his father had sickened and died, Ganesh used to derive satisfaction from his prayers and rituals, as they seemed to bring him close to a power beyond himself, to link him with it somehow. But betrayed by the gods, he had never again done puja. “Save my father,” he had begged, but they had turned a deaf ear or had vanished. Would he ever again do puja? Ganesh sat the idol on his desk; in the village he would have placed an offering of mimosa petals at the fat deity’s feet. Now he simply looked at the belly, the four arms, the elephant trunk and ears, the small eyes, the tall ornate crown on its broad head. What should he do with it? He would not supplicate the god for help, that was one thing; and yet staring at it returned him in memory to the dim interiors of Hindu temples, filled with fire and camphor smoke; with the sweet fragrance of sandalwood.
Abruptly he closed his eyes and brought his palms together in the attitude of prayer before Great Ganapati. He did not ask for anything, yet with eyes closed and hands held together in the submissive pose of puja, he felt a calm descend upon him. For a long while he remained in this position, then opened his eyes and felt stronger. Did he really feel stronger? He did. Was it because of the little bronze Ganesh? He did not know. But he knew this: he would not leave this house. It was exactly as he had told Tom Carrington; he and his aunt would not leave when the authorities tried to claim the property. They would sit and not move. Because this was their home, they belonged here, and nothing, not even a government, not even that of the United States of America, was going to remove them.
This is what he would tell Tom Carrington tomorrow: we are going to practice Satyagraha.
The idol of Ganapati, the elephant-headed Ganesh, remained on the desk.
*
Arriving at school early the next day, Ganesh waited at the bike rack for Tom. When the tall boy came along, Ganesh said immediately, “I have decided to practice Satyagraha.”
Looking down with a smile, Tom said, “Meaning what?”
“I mean to be sitting on the porch. I will persuade the government they have been making a mistake.”
Tom shrugged in resignation. “Look here, Ganesh, the cops will just carry you out and bring the bulldozers in.”
“Then I will come back,” Ganesh declared. “Until the government is seeing its error and puts the highway somewhere else.”
Tom grimaced. “I can’t believe you mean it.”
“I do.”
“What does your aunt say?”
“I have not yet told her.”
Tom lifted his hamlike hands in a gesture of exasperation. “How can you convince anybody of anything by sitting on a porch? No one is going to listen.”
“They will have to listen. That is the way of Satyagraha. It is meaning ‘a grip on the truth.’ I have the truth — we must live in the house of great-grandfather. Why? Because he built it with his two hands for us. When the government is knowing the same, then the house will be saved.”
Tom slowly shook his head. “Damn if you aren’t serious. I keep thinking you can’t be. And then I know you are.” Tom started walking toward the school entrance into which dozens of student
s were funneling. “Well, count me in,” he said with resigned sigh. “I’ll sit too.”
“I thank you.”
“Misery loves company. So maybe we can get some other kids in on it too. When do you need them?”
Ganesh explained that the government took legal possession next Tuesday.
“School’s out then. That’s good, because kids will be looking for something to do, if they don’t have summer jobs — and jobs are scarce this summer. Maybe a few will come over.” There was a new-found note of enthusiasm in Tom’s voice. “It’s like a sit-in. They used to have them at the university. These college kids took over the president’s office, sang songs, smoked pot, and got thrown in jail. They had a lot of fun. But they were college kids and could do it.”
“I am not meaning like that.”
Tom regarded his small friend closely. “I don’t know what you mean. But let’s get some kids together and let you explain it to them. We’ll ask them over to your place on Monday.” He added with a smile, “Here’s your chance to entertain friends.”
So at lunch time, between classes, and after school for the next two days, both boys went about enlisting volunteers. Some kids laughed. Others were indifferent. But more than a dozen — intrigued by the idea of challenging the entire state government — promised to show up at the old house on Monday afternoon.
On the last day of school, Ganesh was walking toward the bike rack when he saw Lucy Smith. This time she was standing in his path. Her pretty face was solemn, her lips determinedly thin, her eyes brilliant and judgmental. “I heard about your house,” she began. “I’m sorry.”
“I thank you.”
“You and Tom have asked a lot of kids to help, but you didn’t ask me.”
Ganesh didn’t know what to say, but felt uncomfortable under the steady gaze of this blunt-speaking pretty girl. “You still hold the Gayatri Mantra against me,” she observed.
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