by Amrit Chima
The Hindu Pundit of Amritsar
1974–1975
Family Tree
Darshan checked his father’s old watch. Breathing hard into his cupped hands, the white mist of his warm breath filtered through his fingers while he stood in Howard Street’s front stairwell. He bounced on his knees, a little dance while he waited. Impatiently, he pushed the buzzer again, the black button leaving a slight indentation in the soft padding of his thumb. “Come on,” he muttered, pressing his ear to the door. Raising his eyebrows and craning his neck forward in concentration, he tried to discern any sense of movement within, but there was only stillness.
Descending the stairs, jaws tight, he returned to his car. Larry, known to his neighbors as the guy who left cigarette butts all over the back staircase and played drums with his band at two in the morning, was one of Darshan’s worst tenants. He had said he would be here at eight o’clock this morning, and the day before at two in the afternoon, but it was so rare that tenants were home—or awake—when they said they would be. Larry had been complaining about the heater for two days now, leaving irate phone messages, colorfully using the word “bleep” a number of times to emphasize his fury at being helplessly heatless. It seemed to amuse him to imply the word “fuck” rather than say it outright. He seemed to believe it set him apart intellectually and ethically. Slamming the car door and cranking up the heat, Darshan knew that tomorrow Larry would call again: “It’s against the law to leave a person without bleeping heat. Where the bleep were you?”
Crossing the Bay Bridge on his way to the Lion of India, Darshan checked his watch again. Rubbing his eyes, he gave his head a vigorous waggle, attempting to shake off the sleepiness. Eyes dry, he turned the heat down and adjusted the vents away from his face.
Parking in the alley behind the restaurant, he shut off the station wagon and wearily got out, pulling a thick camping blanket and a pillow from the back to take with him to the storeroom. He laid the blanket over some stacked burlap sacks of rice and fluffed the pillow before stretching out on his makeshift bed. He tried to relax. Yesterday’s bookkeeping records made clear that for the first time since the Lion of India’s doors had opened two years ago, his father no longer needed to use Howard Street revenue to pay for the losses at the restaurant. His parents’ bank statements now reflected a profit. He tried to remind himself that it had been worth the many quarrels with his father, the tantrums, the bleak and biting silence in the aftermath.
The loss of their original regulars had been a blow after Manmohan began to tamper with the prices. Disgruntled patrons spread their gripes like a disease along Telegraph Avenue, and it took a lengthy grassroots campaign, during which they offered free samples and special weekend deals to reinvigorate the business. Each suggestion to resolve the problem, each step that Manmohan finally agreed to take had only then been accomplished after a great exertion of protracted wheedling until they eventually cultivated a new customer base. Their renewed popularity had also won the restaurant a rather high rating from an anonymous San Francisco Chronicle food critic who heralded the Lion of India as one of the top restaurants serving exotic cuisine in the Bay Area.
As Darshan closed his eyes and wriggled his body to shape the rice sack to his hip, he fell asleep thinking of his mother, of the silvery black circles beneath her eyes and the strain on her increasingly wrinkled face. It was possible now to hire a chef, to free her from the kitchen. But he would once again need to address the matter with his father, who continued to hold steadfastly to the archaic notion of a family-run establishment that would have been greatly successful in Fiji, but here constrained its growth and kept his uncomplaining mother haggard and depressed.
The light woke him. He peeled his lids open to face the glare from the storeroom’s bulb suspended on a thick wire. “So soon?” he mumbled. He heard pots clanging in the kitchen, and through the storeroom door he discerned the faint warmth of the stove that had been recently fired up.
Jai lightly patted his cheek.
“What time is it?” he asked, unable to move.
“Nine-thirty,” she said, retreating to the kitchen.
He struggled to sit up, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms.
Livleen kneeled next to him with a large plastic tub. “Sorry, Darshan. I need some rice.”
Rolling off the rice and onto his feet, his voice thick, he asked, “You need help?”
She ripped open one of the sacks. “Go wash up first,” she said as a waterfall of grains drained into the tub.
“Would you both like tea?” Jai asked from the doorway.
He nodded, making his way to the dining area where Manmohan was reading a Punjabi newspaper distributed by the new gurdwara a Sikh coalition had recently built nearby. Navpreet was with him, a cup of chai on the table between her hands.
“Sat sri akal, Bapu” Darshan said. He nodded at Navpreet and sat next to her, massaging his sore shoulders.
“You were not there to get us this morning,” his father said.
“I got your note. I tried calling. I came by after work.”
“Junkerji’s niece drove us. She came all the way from Fremont.”
Livleen brought in two steaming cups of chai, set them on the table and returned to the kitchen.
“The heaters at Howard are out again,” Darshan told them.
With disinterest, Navpreet poured sugar in her tea, her spoon clinking against the mug as she stirred it in. Manmohan continued to read his paper.
“Larry has been calling,” Darshan said. “And 3B is moving out.”
Manmohan peered over the rim of his paper.
Darshan twisted the cap of the sugar dispenser. Granules fell to the table. “I need to withdraw money from your account for repairs and renovations.”
Navpreet leaned back in her chair, pulling her mug into her chest, blowing to cool the tea, looking at Manmohan.
Manmohan folded his paper, eyes contracting. “I want receipts.”
Darshan pushed his chair back. “As always, Bapu.” He collected the spilled sugar in his palm and went to the kitchen to help prepare for the day, his tea untouched and cooling on the table.
~ ~ ~
Leaning into the full-length mirror that hung behind the door of Navpreet and Livleen’s bedroom, Darshan lifted his right eyelid to scrutinize his eyeball, the red lines jutting across the wet surface, the light brown iris, the dilated pupil. The echo of his hammer throughout unit 3B still rang in his ears, and the noxious smell of paint clung stubbornly to his nostrils. Releasing his eyelid, he blinked, licked his finger to smooth down his eyebrows.
Turning to the dresser, he gathered all the receipts for building materials and additional tools he had to purchase for the last month of renovations at Howard Street, sealed them in an envelope, and wrote Bapu and Bebe in pencil on the outside. In another envelope he inserted two-hundred dollars cash and scribbled Livleen’s name on it. He adjusted his tie, swept a lint brush down the length of his brown and white plaid suit, and combed his hair, parted as usual on the side. Tucking the envelopes in his inside coat pocket, he left early for the long detour to the restaurant to wish Livleen a happy twenty-second birthday before his night shift at Kaiser.
It was late when he arrived, the restaurant closed for the evening. Livleen was in the bathroom. Manmohan and Jai waited for her, their jackets on and buttoned. Navpreet also waited, irritably checking the time on the wall clock. She had finally passed her driving test and had purchased a new car. Manmohan now expected her to drive them home whenever Darshan was unavailable, and she sat, drumming her fingers impatiently on the table. When she saw her brother, she brightened hopefully.
He put up his hand. “Night shift at the lab. I just came to wish Livleen a happy birthday.”
Disappointed, Navpreet gestured lazily toward the women’s restroom. “She’s changing.”
“I have something for her,” he told them, smiling, showing them the envelope of money. “For her braces.”
Manmohan turned to Jai. “You see?” he said.
His good mood soured, he put the money back in his pocket. “I worked for it. I set it aside. It is a gift.”
Jai put her hand on her husband’s bent shoulder. “Your father is concerned,” she said. “We know you work very hard, but it is a lot of money.” She massaged her forehead, wavering unsteadily on her feet.
Manmohan murmured something softly in her ear. She nodded and went to the kitchen.
“It is not nearly enough for a new car,” Darshan said, glancing meaningfully at Navpreet.
Playing with one of her earrings, his sister said, “You just want everyone to think you are some kind of saint.”
“You have said that before,” he replied irritably. “Why does no one question you?”
“Darshan,” Livleen said, coming into the dining hall, her dirty clothes folded under her arm. “What are you—?” she began, then flinched violently, turning abruptly toward the dissonant crash of aluminum mixing bowls hitting the tile floor.
“Bebe!” Darshan cried out, sprinting into the kitchen.
Jai was crumpled on the floor beside her stool, buried under a bulk of metal pots and bowls. Shoving them aside, he carefully examined a bloody gash along her left temple where she seemed to have hit her head on the counter before falling to the floor. She was unconscious.
“Navpreet. Start my car.” He threw her his keys.
They hit her in the chest, clattering to the tile, as she stood gaping and mute.
“Livleen,” he said. “You do it. Quickly.”
“No,” Navpreet mumbled, retrieving the keys. “I know what to do.” She went outside.
Darshan lifted the tiny, almost weightless figure of his mother while Livleen propped open the storeroom and alleyway doors. In the alley, Navpreet revved the station wagon’s engine.
“Is it bad?” Manmohan asked feebly.
Darshan pushed past his father, unable to answer.
“I’m coming with you,” Livleen said.
“Someone has to stay with Bapu.”
“Navpreet, where are your keys? We will be right behind you.”
“They’re inside, in my purse,” she said in a voice shaky with fear. Fumes trailed faintly from the station wagon’s exhaust pipe.
Setting his mother carefully down in the back seat, Darshan turned to Navpreet. “I’ll drive. Keep her head steady. You know what to do, what to watch for. You know it better than I do.”
She steadied herself, trying to regain her confidence at the reminder that she was a medical student. Sitting beside her mother, she pulled the door shut.
They checked Jai in through Kaiser emergency. She had already been wheeled away on a gurney to be evaluated for head trauma when Manmohan and Livleen arrived. Striding back and forth through the aisles of plastic chairs, furious and frightened, Darshan stopped when he saw his father slowly shuffle through the double doors into the waiting room.
“I wanted you to hire someone,” he told his father, making no attempt to mitigate his anger. “Is money so important to you?”
“It was never about money,” Manmohan replied quietly.
Darshan grimly pulled the envelopes from his coat and shoved the receipts at his father. Manmohan hooked his cane over his wrist and took them.
Turning to Livleen, Darshan gave her the other envelope. “It’s not enough for your braces, I know. But I will give you more when I can.”
His sister received the envelope with uncertainty. It had been a long while since anyone had given her anything of value.
“Happy birthday,” he said, stretching out his hand to touch her shoulder. On impulse she shied away. He lowered his arm. “You don’t need braces,” he told her. “You are already very pretty. And I don’t mean anything by it. The money is yours. You earned it, and you don’t have to pay it back.”
~ ~ ~
The springs of Elizabeth’s couch were just as Darshan remembered them, disagreeably jutting into his hamstrings as he shifted right to left until he found that amenable dip that had once been his. It did not feel the same, however, the indentation deeper, a bit wider. He gazed around the studio, at the seemingly unchanged surface of it, but like the couch, subtle modifications over the last two years made it feel unfamiliar to him now—the new records beneath the television, earrings he had not seen before hanging from a metal accessory tree, the scent of a different laundry detergent.
“Would you like some water?” Elizabeth asked him, standing in the middle of the room, helplessly looking about at the mess. “I’m sorry. After you called, I didn’t have time to tidy up.”
“It’s not a problem,” he replied. “I can’t stay long. I only wanted to say hi.”
She filled a glass with water from the sink in the kitchenette, put it on the table in front of him, and sat on the other end of the couch.
He lifted the glass to his lips and tilted it until his mouth filled with cold liquid. Swallowing, he asked, “How are you?”
“I’m fine.”
“Work okay?”
She nodded. “Same. You?”
“Still nights, and every weekend.”
“No day shifts?”
“Sometimes.”
“I never see you.”
He again sipped his water.
She laced her fingers together in her lap. “Your family?” she asked. “They doing okay?”
Hesitating, he once more surveyed her apartment. “I’m sorry,” he said, slapping his knees, smiling. “I should get going.”
“So soon?”
“Busy day. But it was good to see you again.”
“Whatever it is, you can tell me.”
His bottom felt peculiar in the sofa dip. He remembered why he had chosen not to be with her. “Thank you for the water. Maybe I’ll see you at work.”
“Maybe,” she nodded.
At the door they awkwardly hugged, and she patted him stiffly on the shoulder. Regretting this very much, he pressed his hand into the small of her back and pulled her more tightly into him, breathing into her neck. “I’m sorry,” he said again.
She struggled to free herself. “Darshan, please.”
“I was wrong,” he told her.
She pulled away and clasped her arms about her waist, hurt in her eyes. “We both were.”
He tried to touch her face, but she turned her head. “It’s been two years. You were never serious. You couldn’t have been. You never called. Stewart and I—” She stopped short when she saw his face.
He stared at her for a moment, taken aback, then tearfully hung his head, his arms loose and empty.
She gave him a chance to collect himself and then asked him to leave, weakly smiling as he crossed the threshold to the cement landing outside where it was brisk and windy, and then she shut the door.
~ ~ ~
Sometimes Darshan thought that his mother was not really his mother, that this woman named Jai did not exist. She lacked substance of her own, her spirit driven not by self-rule but by compliance, in every respect belonging to her husband. But it had not always been so. She had been a girl once, a person before marriage and children. Darshan wished there was something of that young girl remaining, a fiery voice of rebellion and reason.
Her color still sallow, her mood somber, Jai brushed her hair, the soft bristles seeming to soothe her. She hummed. Careful around her stitches, she continued brushing, twenty, thirty, fifty strokes. She put the brush aside, coiled her hair into a bun at the nape of her neck. She slipped her shawl over her shoulders.
“There will be no one there to watch you this morning,” Darshan told her. “I cannot always watch over you.”
“It is not your job,” she replied, refusing to be dissuaded. She tucked her small feet into her slip-ons.
“It is okay to rest a while,” he said. “The kitchen will be there when you are ready.”
She glanced at Manmohan. “It has been too long as it is. Your father needs me.”
“Tell
her to go back to bed, Bapu,” Darshan said, desperate. “Tell her it is not time.”
Manmohan took hold of a long-handled shoehorn and forced his heel into his sneaker. “The cook you hired makes everything taste like metal.”
“She is your wife,” Darshan said bitterly.
Jai settled her patent leather handbag in the crook of her arm. “Yes, I am,” she said. “Now get your car keys. We are waiting.”
“No,” he said. “I will not take you back there.”
Jai gently rested her hand on Darshan’s chest. “There is a way of things,” she told him.
“It is not the right time. Please go back to bed.”
She pursed her lips with displeasure at her son’s choice. She allowed her husband to take her hand. Manmohan glowered spitefully at Darshan as he led her out of the apartment and down to the street.
When the door clicked shut, Darshan stood there for many minutes, the silence of the apartment oppressive until the refrigerator’s motor kicked in. Roused, he bleakly went to his sisters’ room. He pulled a ring of keys from his pocket and unhooked the set for Howard Street. Circling around the bed, he placed them on Navpreet’s pillow. Ripping a piece of ruled paper from a pad on the dresser, he scribbled down a list of his responsibilities at the apartments. If you do this, he wrote to his sister, no one will thank you or help you. But if you do not, they will hate you for it. He signed his name. Folding the note, he tucked it under the keys, then pulled out his savings from an irregular crease behind the dresser. He left half on Livleen’s pillow. The rest he took with him. He did not see his parents again that day, not even when he left the apartment with a duffle bag packed full of his things. He knew his father’s pride, knew that Manmohan had circled the block to avoid him, waiting for Navpreet to come home.