The Hope Factory

by Lavanya Sankaran

  three

  THE COMPOUND WALL OF HIS HOUSE stood tall, white, unadorned, and forbidding. When they had finally been able to afford the land, Anand had imagined a small, neat house with a large garden, his mind fondly resting on the old-fashioned Lakshmipuram bungalows in Mysore with their monkey-top gables and sloping roofs, but his wife had thrown her hands up in horror, oh, dear lord, no, let’s have a modern aesthetic for goodness’ sake, and since he knew nothing of such matters, he acquiesced and found himself with a sharp-angled house that seemed far too large for their needs. Far too large, certainly, for his: an overweight, cantilevered structure coyly trying to squeeze itself into a space several sizes too small, bursting at its plotular seams, almost spilling over onto the neighbors, leaving room for a small patch of grass in front and little else, sucking up air and space and whatever financial resources he could muster. Each month, Anand diligently paid off a segment of the bank loan that had funded the land and the construction; it would be another five years, he estimated, before the house was theirs. Longer, perhaps, for him to feel entirely at home in it.

  All seemed quiet when he entered, the house settled in for the night, but this impression was deceptive. His wife erupted out of the bedroom.

  “You’re coming, no?” Vidya said. “Don’t ditch, now!” Her long hair spilled in sheaths down the front of her blouse, its manicured straightness a sign that she had spent the afternoon in the beauty parlor. “Don’t tell me ‘tomorrow is a very important day so you can’t come.’ ”

  Anand took refuge in dignity. “I do have an important day tomorrow,” he said, “but I’m coming. Of course I’m not ditching.”

  “Then come quickly,” she said. “I’ve been ready for half an hour already.”

  Anand could tell, by the way she was inserting large golden hoops into her ears as she walked downstairs, that this was not strictly true. “I won’t be long,” he said. “The children are upstairs?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Valmika has some studying to do. Ey, she got an A on her bio test. Damn good, no? … And, listen, I just settled Pingu down to sleep, so don’t go disturbing him now.”

  “I won’t,” he said, running up the stairs.

  He went straight to his son’s bedroom. Vyasa was tucked into bed; Valmika, fourteen years old and seven years older than her brother, was seated on a rocking chair by his side, her toe balanced on the edge of the bed, swaying gently to and fro as she read aloud from a storybook. Anand paused a moment in the doorway watching their absorption in the story before they noticed him with matching smiles.

  He hugged his daughter. “An A in bio, well done, yaar!”

  “Appa!” said his son, impatiently claiming his attention. “I got hurt today. Mama shouted at me, and Akka laughed.”

  Anand gave in to temptation. He flopped onto the bed next to Vyasa and arranged his arm about him. “How did you get hurt?” he asked. “And why did Mama shout?”

  “I fell down in cricket, and I failed in maths so Mama shouted.”

  “Why, what happened?”

  “I was running to catch the ball and tripped. Then we had maths. My foot was hurting, and that’s why I forgot to study for the test, Appa.”

  “And I laughed,” said his sister, poking at him with her big toe, “because you’re a goose…. You should have studied for it the previous day, nut-mutt.”

  Anand quieted his son’s indignation and kissed him good night, fighting the urge to surrender himself to the fatigue of the day, to be lulled into a gentle doze by the ebb and flow of his daughter’s voice as she resumed her storytelling. His children: a powerful joy, so simply achieved—a pleasant, straightforward act, and, nine months later, like magic, an exquisite happiness. He had expected to feel delight at the birth of his first child—for indeed, like everyone else, he had been weaned on ancient Indian tales of parental love on an epic scale: fathers who died when separated from their sons; mothers commanding respect from the strongest of men; daughters swept away by matrimony, carrying with them their fathers’ broken hearts; parents cursing those who harm their children through endless birth cycles—but he had yet been startled by the intensity of emotion that swept through him when his daughter was first placed in his arms. And, once again, two miscarriages and seven years later, at the birth of his son. And startled still further when such intensity didn’t fade with time; when, instead, it continued to manifest itself at odd moments, when he unexpectedly caught a glimpse of his children or heard their voices on the stairs and felt his heart tighten; when he listened to their accomplishments at school with a pleasureful, bashful pride; when he disciplined them for misbehavior and felt himself softening with tenderness even as he lectured them with stern voice.

  “Appa,” his daughter hissed. “Mama’s coming.” His wife’s tread sounded on the stairs and Anand ran for the shower, leaving his giggling children behind.

  THE DRIVE TO AMIR and Amrita’s house was a relatively short one, twenty minutes rendered unpleasant by the shriek and grind of late evening traffic. Vidya was busy with her cellphone, returning the calls and messages that ran through the social arteries of her life; Anand alternately cursed at the traffic and worried if all was ready for the following day’s presentation.

  The flat on Cunningham Road was plunged in darkness when they arrived. The sleeping watchman had to be roused, and Anand and Vidya followed his sluggish, waving torchlight down a path and round the back of the building. Vidya stumbled in her high heels on the pavement stones and Anand held out a hand to steady her.

  “God,” she said, clutching tightly to his fingers, “I can’t believe they gave up that gorgeous Whitefield bungalow for this place. All that money from selling their software company—a deal that’s in all the bloody newspapers—and they move to a building without a generator. I mean, it’s all very well that they are giving all their money away to charitable causes, but at least they could live someplace decent!”

  “I don’t think they’re giving it all away, no?” said Anand. “Just some of it.”

  “Don’t always disagree with me,” she said, pulling her hand away as they reached the apartment.

  “Unscheduled power cut,” their hostess laughed as she opened the door. “Watch the step.” She ushered them through the house, her guests moving all by guess and to the sound of her voice urging them to step this way, mind that side table—through the living room and out to a little verandah.

  Vidya might differ, but for Anand this verandah, facing a tiny garden, had a relaxed, comfortable charm that he missed in his own house with its studied, stylish formality. A long, low table was littered with candles and wine bottles; the surrounding divan piled with block-printed cushions. Anand sank down into the cushions next to his host, Amir, who was absentmindedly plucking chords on his guitar.

  Though he had met Amir through Vidya, they had formed an instant friendship, the ease that Amir and Amrita shared with each other spilling over onto their friends and acquaintances. Anand sipped at his whiskey, lying back luxuriously and feeling the tension within him ease for the first time in hours. This was his notion of hospitality: casual, unfussy, a few good friends.

  Amir was discussing road signs. “ ‘Pederastrian Bridge,’ ” he said, “my favorite of the day. And there were actually people walking through, right under that sign. Quite shamelessly. Some holding children by the hand too.”

  “ ‘Bed shits,’ ” Amrita called. “Saw that yesterday outside a linen sale. And ‘Ladies Bottoms.’ ” She placed a bowl of nuts and a plate of kebabs on the low table and picked up her wineglass.

  “Ah, few things nicer than well-made ladies’ bottoms,” her husband lazily said, putting aside his guitar and reaching for the nut bowl. “You should have bought a few.”

  “I’m gifting you with bed shits instead,” Amrita said. “Vidya! A drink?”

  Vidya flipped her phone closed. “Sorry,” she said and sat on a cushion, slipping off her high-heeled sandals, “these endless calls are so annoying….
You know, so nice to have an evening like this! So relaxing.”

  “Have a drink,” said Amir.

  “Lovely!” Vidya sipped at her vodka-tonic but left the glass sweating on the table when her phone rang. “Oh, it’s Pingu. Yes, baby? Couldn’t sleep …? Yes, I’ll be home soon, you just close your eyes and think of something nice…. Akka’s there, but don’t disturb her, okay? She’s studying hard …”

  “Who else are you expecting?” Anand thought he knew the answer to this, but couldn’t resist asking.

  “Just another couple,” said Amir. “Colleagues from our old software days…. Nice people. And Kavika. I’ve barely met her since she’s been back—be good to see her again.”

  Anand glanced around. Vidya was busy with another call, another message. “What is Kavika doing here? She was with the UN, wasn’t she?”

  “That’s right! And really successful too,” said Amrita. “But she’s given that up and she’s back with her baby. Well, toddler. She seems to be exploring options, but in the short term, she is going to be working with me on fund-raising for that scholarship program for underprivileged schoolchildren.” She tapped Anand on the knee and smiled. “Thanks for your contribution, by the way. That was really generous.”

  He shrugged it off, embarrassed, and asked instead: “She’s going to be here for some time?”

  “I hope so,” said Amrita. “She’s brilliant. Fun. Quite unconventional, but her heart’s in the right place.”

  “Lord,” said Amir, smiling at old memories, “we used to be such a neighborhood brat pack growing up; all of us: Kavika—such a rowdy, like my brother, Kabir…. Vidya was better behaved, I remember. Kabir and Kavika stole Harry Chinappa’s cigarettes once and hid them under my pillow…. Ammi gave me such a walloping! Jesus. Who knew she had such powerful biceps?”

  Amrita shook her head reprovingly, and Anand burst out laughing. Amir’s mother was famously gentle and mild. Vidya joined the conversation: “Oh, that cigarette story! So funny! All the parents were so angry!” She waved her phone at them. “Kavika should be here in two minutes.”

  HE HAD MET HER once before, one evening at his father-in-law’s house the previous week. She had worn a Fabindia kurta that covered her to her knees, a girl of four cuddled sleepily into her lap. Smiling and chatting on the chintz sofa, sandwiched between Ruby Chinappa and another guest like a thin slice of meat in the soft, enfolding cheeks of a bun. Anand had said very little.

  “You won’t believe!” Vidya had eagerly burst out when she first heard the news, for after years of absence, a glamorous international professional existence, and a complete loss of contact with her old childhood friends, Kavika had returned home with a child—but no husband—and, more interesting, no record of a husband ever having been. “My god, can you imagine!” Vidya had said to Anand. “Can you just imagine! God, yaar! I can’t believe her mother didn’t tell us!” But Harry Chinappa, perhaps in deference to Kavika’s mother, had soon deemed her acceptable and Vidya had immediately followed suit. None of it was particularly his business and Anand had paid it no attention—until he met her that first time and some comment she made in passing, something trivial, something humorous, had caught his surprised interest.

  Tonight she was dressed far more casually, her tall, slender, narrow-chested frame in a white tank-top ganji and loose block-printed cotton pants that were not too different in pattern from the cushions on the verandah. Her gray-flecked hair was cut so short it framed her skull in an almost military style, adding distinction to a face that was much younger than its thirty-five years. She had knotted a thin dupatta around her neck in a manner that left her shoulders bare.

  She settled cross-legged on a large cushion, her chappals kicked away in a corner. She was close enough that he could lean over and touch her. Anand was conscious of the presence of his wife and of all the other people on the verandah, the other couple who had just arrived, Amir pouring drinks before rejoining Kavika and Amrita in conversation. He schooled his face to polite indifference, and perhaps he overdid it, for eventually he heard Vidya’s voice at his ear: “Oh my god, at least try to appear interested!”

  “Amir, I’m stunned that I was able to reach your house without paying a single bribe to anyone,” Kavika was saying. “All week, I haven’t been able to get a single thing done without somebody asking me for baksheesh! Crazy!” In the glow of the candles, her skin gleamed smooth, flushing occasionally as she laughed. As far as he could tell, she was wearing no makeup.

  “It is crazy—and the first step to changing things,” said Amir, climbing onto one of his favorite hobbyhorses, “is for people like us to stop paying bribes completely. Not the fifty rupees to the lineman to get the electricity line fixed. Not the few hundreds to get a copy of our marriage certificate, let alone for bigger things …”

  “Now that’s a novel idea,” said Kavika and dodged the peanut Amir threw at her.

  “Seriously, Amir,” Anand said, “nice in theory. But come on, you know as well as I do that sometimes there is just no other way. Those buggers won’t do anything otherwise.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he rolled over onto his back and closed his eyes in regret. He was going to get Amir’s “be part of the solution, not part of the problem” lecture.

  Sure enough.

  “Tell me,” Anand interrupted, after listening dutifully for a while. “Are you guys going to that music gig next week?”

  “Yes! You? … Excellent!” Amir was diverted.

  Anand’s eye eventually fell to his watch, and he scrambled up. He had already informed his hosts that he would be leaving early; Vidya was to stay behind and get a lift home with Kavika.

  “You don’t mind?” Anand asked. “It’s out of your way….”

  “I don’t mind at all,” Kavika said, cheerfully. He smiled back awkwardly. Vidya, he was aware, was frowning after him as he left the party.

  AT HOME, HE MADE straight for his little office on the ground floor, the room his wife referred to as “the study” and he referred to as “mine.” This was his territory. The one corner of the house he claimed as his own and valiantly defended against all comers, spreading his paperwork just how he liked, easing into his comfort on the long sofa, forbidding maids from dusting even the shelves which Vidya had filled with glossy leather-bound books he never looked at. They had not called in an expensive professional for the house interiors; Vidya had bought a couple of books on the subject and wanted to experiment. Her efforts were praised by their friends; she had spoken briefly of pursuing it as a career before losing interest.

  At his desk, Anand flipped open his laptop, clicking on the following day’s presentation. His thoughts were turbulent and ill-timed; he could not concentrate.

  The study door opened. “Aha! I thought I heard you come in.” Valmika peeped in.

  “Hi, kutty,” he said, smiling, his preoccupation instantly banished. “Homework done?”

  “Yup.” Valmika slouched over to the sofa. “I hate physics. And it hates me.”

  “Pingu’s asleep?”

  “Yeah.” She noticed the files and laptop open on the desk. “You’re working right now?”

  “Yeah. Some important meetings tomorrow, Valmika,” he said and, seeing her inquiring gaze, “some people are coming over to the factory, and if all goes well, we could actually enter the export market.”

  “Appa! That’s wonderful! Will you know by tomorrow itself?”

  “No, kutty.” He smiled at her glee. “It will take a few months…. And nothing is definite … but one has to prepare …” She yawned hugely. “Tired? You should go to bed. It’s late, no?”

  “Yes. I suppose. If Newton had sat down under a coconut tree instead of an apple tree, we wouldn’t have had his stupid laws to study because he’d have been struck dead. Which would have been a good thing. Are you staying up late?”

  “Probably.”

  “If tomorrow is important, Appa,” she said, parroting what he always said to her on the eve of an exa
m, “you should sleep early so you will be bright and fresh for it!”

  He laughed. “Good night, laddu.”

  THE FRONT DOOR SLAMMED at midnight; he hastily frowned at his laptop.

  “I can’t believe you left so early.” Vidya seemed undeterred by his apparent absorption elsewhere. She sat on the couch and pulled off her sandals. Her makeup was slightly shop-soiled, the eyeliner slipping at the edge of one eye, the lipstick eaten away until no more than a bright pink outer ring remained. “And I can’t believe you said you pay bribes….”

  I try to avoid it, said Anand.

  “I was talking to Kavika tonight…. The things she’s done! I think she is just fabulous…. I’m going to meet her again tomorrow.”

  He kept his eyes on the computer screen. Good, he said. That’s good.

  Her slight frown was speculative. “Ey, I know what it is! I know why you left early. It’s Kavika. Isn’t it?” she said, with an uncomfortable, unexpected perspicuity.

  He looked up, not daring to speak.

  “You know, Anand,” his wife said. “There’s nothing wrong in being a strong, independent woman like her. You should learn to handle it.”

  four

  THE NEXT MORNING, NARAYAN WAS ready before Kamala was. He stuffed his bread and coffee into his mouth and proudly told her not to bother with making and packing his lunch. “I will buy something,” he said, “with the money that I earn.”

  Eat things that will give you strength, she wanted to say. Do not overtire yourself. Do not get into mischief. Be careful with your earnings; do not spend it all on some nonsense. But she said none of it, watching him run off.

  SHE TURNED TO LOCK her door and stopped, glaring. The pile of garbage was still there. Insouciantly resting against the wall by her door like a guest who has every intention of outstaying his welcome. It had been there the previous day—and there it was still. In fact, it had indisputably grown larger overnight.

  She could hear them inside their room, her neighbors, in sweet newlywed tones that could change with lightning speed to sharp words and shouts that echoed around the courtyard and disturbed everyone else. She wondered whether to slap on their door. Just then, as though summoned by Kamala’s angry thoughts, the new bride emerged, dressed in the most slatternly way, her face unwashed, her hair uncombed, in a thin polyester kaftan that immodestly delineated the ridges and valleys of her body.