by Amrit Chima
Hotel Toor had been the only place impervious to change, stolidly resistant. It had neither improved nor was it falling apart, which, despite everything, was why Baba Singh loved it. Entering the lobby, now cleared of its furniture, he wondered what he would do without these walls and rooms to which he had always retreated when the pain of his nightmares sharpened.
He turned to leave, unable to understand this shell of a building, unable to grasp its new meaning. But as he placed his hand on the door handle, he heard a noise from down the hall.
“Get out. Let’s go,” he heard someone say. “We will be caught.”
Baba Singh peered down past the six sleeping quarters toward the washroom. “Vikram, is that you?”
There was what sounded like a tussle, and then Vikram stepped uncomfortably out into the hallway. “Bapu, I am sorry. I tried to stop him.”
“What is wrong? Did something happen?” Baba Singh asked apprehensively, taking wide, quick strides down the hall. Broken bits of plaster littered the tiled floor, and he saw with disbelief that the room where his mother died had been forced open.
“He wanted to see it,” Vikram said.
Baba Singh gestured toward the room. “There was a reason we kept it closed. Don’t you smel—” He froze when he saw Satnam inside, coming out from behind the door where he had been hiding. “What have you done?” he asked the boy, knees weakened by the scent of death that had not dissipated in all these years.
“It is just a room,” Satnam said, his chin lifted defiantly, trying to disguise his fear. It was clear he had not expected to be discovered.
“You do not belong in there. Get out. We need to close it again.”
Satnam’s jaw tightened. “No.”
Baba Singh strained to keep calm. “I will not ask again.”
“We are always doing what you say, and we hate it.”
“You are too young to know that I have only wanted to help.”
Satnam shook his head. He was such a small boy, so frail for his age. “We were fine doing whatever we wanted. We were happy before you came home.”
There was a pause of shock as Baba Singh slowly swallowed Satnam’s words. Without warning, he swung his arm around high, bringing his hand down solidly upon his son’s cheek. Satnam stumbled backwards, losing his balance, landing with a thud on the floor.
No one said anything.
Face hard as rock, Baba Singh turned and left them there, his fists tight, strained and white at the knuckles.
Once outside, he fled, running, clutching his heart, sinking fast, mumbling to the wind.
~ ~ ~
She was by the river. She did not know that he watched her while she bathed, fully dressed, revealing only parts of herself as she soaped her skin in segments, rinsing off with handfuls of water. Even alone she was entirely modest. Nonetheless she was alluring, exposing first a wrist, then a forearm, a smoothly polished shoulder.
He was not skulking, but he remained in the shade of trees off the bank where she could not detect him. The sweat of panic had almost dried, his legs no longer burning from his long run, his breath finally even. Now he watched her peacefully, not thinking of his misfortunes, of his innumerable failings. Not thinking of her accumulated and reasonable hate. He thought of nothing but the image before him, the exquisite softness of the moment, the reflective droplets on her skin.
His reverie was broken by cries of distraught children coming nearer, closer and closer until they found her. There were two of them, young boys, holding hands, one of them in tears. She waded out toward the bank, dropping to her knees in front of the one who sobbed, tenderly turning his head to see the wound on his face. It was red, inflamed, scorched by fingers.
She pulled him close, held his head to her soaked clothing, her eyes shut with sorrow.
She released him, looked once more at his wound, and then slowly they made their way toward the village, the three of them, together.
When they had gone, he remained, staring into the river, the image of her beauty seared upon his soul where not even she could touch it or take it away.
~ ~ ~
The hot August sun beat down on the roof and stucco walls of Hotel Toor with feverish intensity as Baba Singh, Desa, and Khushwant gathered in front of it. There was a man with them, nearing seventy, not too tall, modestly wide in the middle, as though life had cushioned him against the turmoil of the last several decades. A retired judge, his hands were soft and without calluses. Ink and paper had been his livelihood, as well as his weapons of war. He had been a tinkerer of laws, an Indian minion of the British who never saw the front lines, never fathomed the impact of his statutes during his tenure in office.
He appeared lost as he surveyed the town, his eyes finally landing square upon the hotel, undisguised disappointment in the downward turn of his mouth. “It was never pretty,” he said ruefully, squinting up at the building with distaste.
“Have you been here before?” Baba Singh asked, suddenly curious about the previous era of the hotel, its service to weary travelers, its life as a usefully functioning member of Amarpur society, when its guest quarters were filled with the bustle of passers-through greeting each other in the hallway on their way to the lobby for dinner.
The man tapped the sides of his legs with impatience. “My grandfather’s masterpiece. He had no real sense of architectural continuity or harmony. I had forgotten his horrible lack of refinement.”
“Your grandfather built this hotel?”
“When I was a boy and our family had entrepreneurial inclinations.” The man put his fists on his hips, nodding toward Suraj Road. “This town is nothing like I remember. It is grittier. I am not sure I like it anymore.”
Khushwant glanced around. “A lot has happened here.”
The man frowned. “I suppose I heard that.”
“Are you alone, ji?” Desa asked him.
His face fell. “Yes,” he replied. “My wife should be here, but she died last year. We spoke about it, the quaint little town from my childhood, before my father learned how to play politics. A return to my roots, so to speak, peace in old age.” He straightened, wiping the moisture running down through his short, thinning hair with a handkerchief. “I could not get away in time. There was always so much work.” He looked once more at Suraj Road. “It really is not at all like I remember.”
“It is a very big building for one person,” Desa said.
“I do not plan to keep it,” he said. “My grandfather was really very proud of himself, but I think it will have to go.”
Baba Singh turned slowly to the man, disbelieving. “Tear it down?”
“Something more suitable, I imagine. A nice little house will do, perhaps with a garden where I can take tea.”
~ ~ ~
The tiles were cold and hard as iron beneath Baba Singh’s back, the night around him slick as oil. He had lain down on the emptied lobby floor of Hotel Toor, where the reed chairs had once been, ticking away the hours in darkness until the sun fired rays through the windows. Sleep had been intermittent, and his extremities were cold despite the morning’s promise of another hot day. Dozing, he turned on his side, his shoulder bone pressing into the tiles.
There was another presence in his dream. He sensed rather than saw it.
“Can’t you help me?” he asked it, looking down the dirt road beyond the faceless man, feeling so small beneath the black sky. “I do not want to hurt him anymore.”
“Possibly,” it replied. “Possibly not. I do not know. I am not there yet.”
Baba Singh opened his eyes.
The front door of the hotel swung inward, cautiously, almost curiously, until Khushwant was framed in the entryway, silhouetted by the bright morning. Before coming in, he turned first to nod to someone outside.
“Have you been looking for me?” Baba Singh asked him.
Khushwant nodded. “Sada came this morning.”
“Did she?”
“When you did not come home, she wondered
about you.”
“I see.”
“Did you manage to get any sleep?”
“Not much. I did not intend to stay the night.”
Khushwant appraised his brother, the disheveled turban, the rumpled clothing, the dark circles under his eyes. “This is not a good idea, Baba, being here like this.”
“What have you done with Bapu’s chest?”
“Desa has it. She knows it is important.”
“I never thought it would be torn down,” Baba Singh said. He took a deep breath. “I really wanted to fight to keep it.”
Khushwant regarded him sadly. “You are always fighting.”
Pressing his palms into his eyes, Baba Singh asked, “Don’t you feel them?” The lobby was full of echoes, murmurs of memory, whispers from another realm, cotton blooms brushing lightly against his cheeks.
“Feel who, Baba?”
“They are all still here.”
There was a small noise by the door. Baba Singh sat up when he saw his wife enter.
“I told her,” Khushwant said discreetly, raising a calming hand when his brother flinched. “Not everything.” He sighed. “This is all so unhealthy. I did not realize how little you had shared with her. Talk to her,” he said, leaving the room.
Baba Singh straightened his turban as Sada Kaur approached, stopping several feet away in the center of the lobby, waiting for him to speak.
“I know you hate me,” he said.
“I have never hated you,” she replied, but her tone was not forgiving. “Khushwant did not have to say anything. I have always known.”
“What have you known?”
She frowned with irritation. “Everything. Your losses: your parents, your sisters. I was there when you lost Ranjit. I have always understood you.”
“Are you angry?”
“Yes.”
“I cannot get free,” he told her, trying to explain.
Stepping closer, she leaned over him. With that same bluntness she used to express every rational, logical course of action, she said, “Stop trying.”
~ ~ ~
Rising from his charpoy, Baba Singh slipped his feet into his chappals. Glancing behind him in the dark when Sada Kaur shifted away from him in her sleep, he waited for her to be still. She had brought him home that morning, had fed him breakfast, had waved him off—almost affectionately—as he left to join Prem in the fields. In the evening, they had gone to bed. There was no tenderness in it, no warm advances, they did not even touch. Still, it had been an eternity since she climbed into bed with him without waiting for him to first doze off. He had been grateful, almost happy.
He went to the other room. Holding his breath, he carefully took Geography of the Heavens from the shelf where Satnam’s figurines had once been. Tiptoeing past his sons and father-in-law, he went outside to sit in one of the sun-bleached chairs, opening the book to the center astrological map. But he did not look down at it. Instead he turned his gaze upward toward the open and sparkling sky. Chilly, he wrapped his gray shawl tightly around him, the reality of the cosmos imposing and intimidating.
He trembled restlessly. He felt that there was some business he had not yet finished. Gently closing the book and tucking it under his arm, he rose from the chair. Hesitating, he spun around, seeking encouragement, but he was alone.
He began to walk.
The moon was his only light for the five-mile stretch of dark, unpaved road to Amarpur. His heart pounded as he strode purposefully forward, the field of silhouettes around him much like what he had been dreaming about for over twenty years. A faceless man was with him; he could sense his presence in the air.
The walk was long, and he was afraid. It was almost two hours before he came upon the edge of town. Striding down the sleeping Suraj Road, he saw the twinkle of oil lamps at the train station far at the end. Mr. Grewal’s was to the right, Dr. Bansal’s empty lot to the left, then India Quality Cloth and Yashbir’s and the astrologer’s, until finally he turned down the side street that led to Hotel Toor.
The way to the universe—to that familiar place he knew with certainty existed because he knew with that same certainty he had been there—could not be found by conventional means, by maps of stars and plot-point coordinates. It came from somewhere closer and much less precise. Mustering his courage when he arrived at the hotel, he pried open the front entrance and went inside.
Exhaling softly, he groped toward the center of the lobby, sitting, waiting patiently until his eyes adjusted to the darkness.
“Hello?” he said softly, not sure what to expect, not surprised when nothing happened.
Feeling foolish, he set the book on the floor as a symbolic gesture meant to express farewell.
As he stood, ready to go home, he perceived a shadowy box that had not been there the previous night, black as ink in the corner. Frowning, he approached it, realizing even before he was able to distinguish it clearly that it was his father’s chest. There was a scrap of paper on the top and Baba Singh went to the window to read it in the faint starlight.
Goodbye, and thank you, it read. Three names were scribbled beneath: Khushwant, Desa, and Baba Singh.
His jaw instantly tensed and he dropped the note. Agitated he paced up and down the room, accidentally stumbling over the book.
Bracing against the wall, he caught his breath, considering the chest.
After a moment, he squatted down and clenched his teeth as he heaved the weight of it onto his shoulders, intending to carry it the entire five-mile walk back to Barapind. The edge of the wood cut into his shoulder as he made his way, chafing his skin and bending his back. But he persisted, stepping relentlessly forward through the flatlands, followed closely by spirits.
When he finally arrived home, spent and weak, he hid the chest under a tarpaulin outside, then slipped his aching body back into bed to lie stiffly next to his wife.
A Two-Story House
1935–1937
Family Tree
The world yawned. Baba Singh could feel it, a gateway opening.
He squinted beyond the worshippers bathing in holy water, across the manmade lake at the Golden Temple, the tawny plating reflecting the honey-colored sunlight of early afternoon, as if it were catching miracles and transmitting them to the masses of Amritsar.
Baba Singh was here, he knew, standing before this great monument of serenity, because Khushwant believed it was an ideal place in which to share possibly distressing news. He was probably hoping that coming here would forestall Baba Singh’s potential descent into yet another period of utter despair. It had not been, however, necessary to go to such lengths. Baba Singh was determined not to be affected by the letter Khushwant had just given him, discovered in an old tin of Yashbir’s things that Desa had long ago packed away, and which had been received some time after the blacksmith’s death. He clutched it in his fist with detachment. Despite the sweat of his grip smearing the scribble of ink on the unopened envelope, he was calm.
To Yashbir Chand, the front of it read, From Dr. Nalin Bansal.
Khushwant gently pried his brother’s fingers open and took the letter, smoothing it over his forearm. “It is very peaceful here,” he said.
“Is it?” Baba Singh replied, still gazing at the temple, finding it beautiful in spite of how much he resented it. “I thought it was full of bad memories.”
“It was, but I have been here many times since Ranjit died, and one day I reminded myself that he came here for peace. I think he found it.”
“I cannot imagine that to be possible.”
“It was a horrible day,” Khushwant agreed, continuing to iron the wrinkles out of the envelope. “The gunshots were loud and never ending. People were trampling each other in their panic. But I could see by Ranjit’s face that he did not even notice all the feet and dust and screaming around him. People were kicking me, scrambling over my head, and I shouted at him, grabbing his hand, but he did not speak. He looked at me as if I was the only thing worth seeing. The
re was no fear, only peace.”
He fell silent, not wanting to share more.
Baba Singh had many questions about what had come next. He did not, however, ask them. He stifled them, shoving them into the folds and creases of his memory.
Khushwant returned the letter. “You should open it.”
“There is no need,” Baba Singh said. “It is too late.” He gestured at the temple. “Come. They will start soon.”
They circled the lake to a bridge, unfurled like an outstretched, welcoming hand for the steady stream of pilgrims who numbered in the thousands. They entered the main complex through a gate, a portal from the roaring metropolitan hum to the sweeping quiet of reverence and the murmur of prayer.
They found a place to sit in the enormous hall, the priest’s voice echoing through the cavernous space as he read from the Holy Book. Baba Singh set the envelope down in front of his knees and bent his head, praying not to God, but to that letter.
His two portraits came to mind, the two that Junjie had drawn of him and which had long ago been stampeded into Hong Kong’s concrete footpaths, crushed under enraged feet, charcoal staining the pavement, paper ground into oblivion. Both drawings had spoken of a bleak future, a hunt for contentment and liberation, a hauntingly regrettable realization that neither would be found. Junjie had seen more than the people he drew; he saw that all of them were on trajectories, unable to veer to avoid calamity.
Still, perhaps it was possible to change direction, if one possessed enough strength and courage. Not all men were doomed, as Junjie would have had his subjects believe. There had to be those whose lives ended in good fortune, if for no other reason than to provide balance in the universe. Baba Singh realized that he would simply need to earn it, to force himself on a journey of absolution so he could be worthy of the many blessings in his life.
In the swell of prayer he saw clearly what would have to come next. He had been living the last twenty-five years as if with a fever, his wife and three sons so far from him, existing only beyond the fog of his illness. He slept in a mud hut like so many others, so commonplace, the walls surrounding him containing no record of the unique hardships he had endured. There were so many of these unremarkable dwellings, fanning out towards the fields, all of them brown and ordinary, caked in dung, easily melted by storms, easily washed away by the tide of time.