by Preti Taneja
Daddy could be anywhere. On the bowling green or on the driving range. In the ice-room where real snow can be made to fall. At the bird tower with his peacocks and his pigeons, cooing and pouting at the southern most tip of the Farm. She must make him sit down with her, and listen. He will want to know about the strike. He must have more directives for her on the Kashmir hotel. She feels she has become heavy as the key to his office door. Keep out, keep in, keep turning.
Her kurta sucks at her skin; her thighs bloating, her cheeks must be two red plums. Her middle puffing upwards: a puri in hot fat. She reaches the duck pond. On a stone bench she takes rest, sheltered by the kindness of willows. The stone’s warmth seeps upwards, into her. The bench is scarred by stubbed out cigarettes. She fingers each dark burn.
Sita has always been – wayward and forward. Too outspoken. Too tall. Bapuji believes her disobedience has been caused by her time in the UK. At least, Gargi thinks, girls over there take the family’s blessing before they go off to do what-all. She knows her father is wounded by Sita’s selfishness. So must he punish everyone?
Radha says Sita is answering her texts. Just with a hey-ho I’m OK, I’m with my friends, don’t worry. Gargi never thought that Sita could lie – and this pains her most of all. Sita writes friends, says nothing about a boy. But Uppal’s full report, gathered the days after the party when she had already left the Company Gurgaon, said that one of the suite’s beds was not slept in. Sita had ordered room service but nothing was consumed. Ten green bottles of Cristal had been opened – and left to go flat. Nine bottles of Sula Dindori white wine – emptied into the bath. Eight fresh limes had been quartered – and left floating on top. Seven Diet Cokes and six butterscotch sundaes with extra dark chocolate shavings had been mixed together – and left to melt in the bidet. Meanwhile, five rounds of Char Sui Bau – pork sticky buns, she is told – were found cut open, the insides gouged out and rearranged into tiny, perfect models of pigs. At Uppal’s request, housekeeping provided photographs: four little caviar whales were found, diving over the pillows. Sita must have spent hours hunched on the bed with a bowl and a tiny silver spoon, moulding the black eggs into shape. Two-dozen oysters were discovered stinking in the double sink; their innards had been picked off and strung into a necklace with the complimentary sewing kit – and left on the mirror as garland to a lipsticked message the concierge did not understand.
No Sorry – In bourgeoIs socI-ety capItal Is Independent and has In – dIvId – dualIty, whIle the lIvIng person is dependent and has no IndIvIdualIty – No Thankyou. Save the monkeys.
There was one red dot, the height of a bindi, on only one ‘i’, Gargi notices. The word is.
Sita Madam also had some tattoo done. This last was according to a maid, called to hold her hand for the duration. Where did Sita mark herself? The maid indicated, her left side. Why? With what design? Of course the mute maid has no idea.
Sita and the boy had left the suite the following morning. The concierge saw them walk, actually walk, with no security down the sweeping drive of the hotel, passed the drivers’ waiting to drop off their employees, passed the gate police doing bomb checks, into the street. He didn’t stop them, he said, how should he? Two weeks have gone by. Sita has bought nothing with her cards. It seems that the city has swallowed her. She is either dead in a ditch or somehow indulging in the height of selfishness with that boy. Gargi had promised not to track her. She must obey herself.
She leaves the shade of the willow; its branches trail over her shoulders, trying to persuade her to stay. Whispering into her, Could it be that Sita knew that Daddy would turn his back? Gargi’s hand smoothes the length of her plait, bringing it around her neck. Worry is weaving grey strands through it; she must get it dyed. She wraps it tight around her throat. Girls these days have no respect. Gargi says this out loud:
—Girls these days have no respect.
It makes her feel strong, as if she comes from a line of powerful women: a sisterhood who say such things about their children because they have such things to bear. The air around her is stiff with the effort of plants trying to survive. Sita’s betrayal is paining as an ulcer might. If her guts were rotting would they smell?
She wonders for a moment if one of the dogs has done toilet here, and no one has cleaned it up. No, it is not that. Something nearby is stinking like sickness – just like when Sita, at four-years-old, caught typhoid. Gargi had missed over a week of class, holding her little sister’s hand, not letting anyone else feed her or sponge her. She cried over Sita and slept by her through the nights. The doctors had praised her care, saying —Gargi, you are so dedicated, you will heal her. What would their mother have done? This only. And so Gargi did it too. She found herself curled on her knees, her forehead pressed to the ground: the only way she could show she meant her prayers. She promised Lord Krishna she would always do what her father told her. She promised she would never curse Nanu in secret again. She promised she would make sure Radha started behaving nicely. She would give up chicken and meat and eggs and stop playing her music for a whole year – if only she did not have to tell Bapuji that Sita was dead.
After Sita recovered, Gargi had made sure she had everything she wanted. She even signed her a birthday card especially from Bapuji and wrapped her a gift from him every year. Something precious – once, a plant book, once a botany set – in addition to whatever finery her father actually bought.
Now, the sun falls on Gargi’s dark head and on her body, swelling her ankles and hands. Every pore of her skin is weeping. Sita she thinks. Come home.
The stench spikes the hot summer air as if a sewer pipe has burst. In the rose garden, Gargi covers her mouth and nose with her dupatta. Expecting the comforting nod of the roses – their quiet approval – she finds the stems have been stripped naked. The whole garden is a tangle of thorns piercing the sky. Where are the petals? What is that stink? She forces herself to inhale. On the other side of the yew hedge a shock of colour. There are peacock feathers, bright turquoise, deep blue eyes wide on the blood stained grass.
Wild dogs? It cannot be. There is a concrete wall and a barbed-wire fence protecting the Farm’s backside. There are garden boys. She crawls along the hedge, almost strangling herself as she kneels on her dupatta, sees more dark eyes – sapphire ringed with turquoise, beige, emerald green staring up at her – each quill writing a fat, closely feathered body, white legs splayed – the feet are scaled, like Nanu’s old fingers encased in her lizard-skin gloves. Gargi has to reach under the yew, and pull. The peacock’s talons scratch her as if it is still alive.
Struggling with the branches, trying not to rip the tail from the mass of flesh, she tries to wave away a swarm of flies, to pull the peacock’s body into her arms. A dry lake of blood stains the earth. There is more dry blood, crusted around a hole in the peacock’s breast. Its stomach has been sliced open – pale guts spill from it – the creature’s juice seeps onto her, sticky, unctuous, the wet earth smell of a child unable to hold her toilet. Gargi tastes ulti rising in her throat, and swallows. She cradles the peacock in her lap: yes, it is the size, the weight of a small child.
She rocks the bird in her arms. She turns it over as best she can: the blue neck, which she always thought so elegant, is broken. She strokes it with a finger: rough like raw silk. The jet black eye stares up at her. The points of its crown are bent; the tiny razor teeth exposed as if trying to bite the air.
Sweat pours down Gargi’s neck. It drenches her underarms, her breasts. Her head feels so light it could float from her body. Around her the stripped rose bushes entreat the heavens. There is no reply.
She has to find Bapuji. Her arms are numb; she eases them out from under the peacock. Trying to place it back on the grass without twisting it more, as if it was only hurting. Not dead, not yet. She wipes her hands on the grass, fumbles in her pocket, pulls out her phone, presses ‘1’.
—Uppal, she says. Her throat is parched. Her voice shakes. Rose garden phata-phat aao, mal
i ko lekar. Mali ko lekar aao, someone good. Get him to bring a wheelbarrow, a shovel. When you are done here, go round the whole Farm, check for more. I don’t care if you are still disposing of the ladoos. Do this now. And, Uppal… don’t bring any peacock feathers into the house.
Gargi gets up and begins to jog, not towards the bunker but away, across the estate. To the bird tower.
On the way, she sees more feathers, more tails fanned out over bodies across the grass, legs sticking out stupidly like drunken girls in lehnghas, falling over their skirts. Do they have no shame?
She keeps on, barely stopping when her phone rings. It is her grandmother.
—What is it Nanuji?
—What are you doing in this leaky balloon? This world is a gambling den, Gargi, you cannot be too carefreefull. There has been an outbreak of Avian Flu in Golkattapur. Government is killing all chickens. I called to order – evening meal. Aaj raat ke khaane ke liye, saag banwana.
—Yes Nanuji, Gargi says. Khaana, birds, killing. Gargi goes as quickly as she can across the Farm, wound by a memory of herself at eight-years-old – the year that Bapuji had almost lost the Company to the Bank of India. An income tax raid had shut him down for weeks; every part of the business was put under surveillance, all offices occupied by state officials. Bapuji took down the gun from his study wall, loaded it up and went hunting on the roof garden at the old Jor Bagh house. Gargi had crouched with Radha in the music room, listening to the shotgun fire – and watched as feathers rained down on the front lawn. A pink flamingo, flapping towards the Lodhi lake. A huge black kite, the biggest she had ever seen. It tumbled from the sky as if Lord Krishna had kicked it from heaven. It landed right outside their window, making three-year-old Radha howl.
When the shooting had finally stopped Gargi left Radha with the Lottie, and crept upstairs. A group of police had arrived, they were pacing the rooftop garden, she could see their boots moving between Nanu’s precious flower pots (which were full of pinks with English names). The men were asking Bapuji about the size of his gun, the range it could fire and the cost of each cartridge. They congratulated him on his aim.
When she showed her presence, boldly she thought, like a lady of the house come to quell a commotion, Bapuji told her to get back downstairs and organise tea.
She ordered the tea. Went back upstairs with Nanu, and was allowed to stay. Sitting under the a canopy as the sun bled through the smog, Nanu informed the police that the gun was gifted by a Major General of the British Army to Nanu’s own father, the Maharaja of Lutchapur in 1903. Then it became part of Nanu’s own dahej when she married at eight-years-old. Her husband, the Maharaja of Napurthala, tried to give it back to the British as a parting gift, but the gesture was taken as a bribe and refused. Nanu described to the policemen how her husband, the Maharaja had then taken the gun and ordered his servant to shoot him just weeks after he acceded his land to India. His death had left Nanu and a boy-king with no kingdom to rule.
—Look, said Nanu. How my son has used his money and built this India into a rival for any country on this earth! Look how he can buy any Britisher a hundred times over! That is a real Maharaja. One who knows the value of the mother country can never forgo his bright future.
The Inspector Sahibs had agreed, and congratulated Nanu for bearing the kind of son they wanted their own future boys to emulate. Before they left they sat, legs spread on the roof terrace swing, and toasted her with bone china cups of the finest Company own-brand tea.
Lies, lies: her paternal grandfather died broke, yellow from gambling and wine. Even as a girl, Gargi had known that.
Gargi must get to the bird tower. Save at least one peacock. Even one pigeon will do. She will go through the woods, around the domestics’ quarters. She runs, walks, bounces, runs – it is hard – until she almost reaches the edge of the grass, where the manicured Farm meets the outer ring road.
This is the line they were told as children never to cross. If they did, Nanu warned, they might get stolen, or swapped for some low caste child, and never find their way back home. Jeet and Gargi used to dare each other: up to here, a toe over the line, a leg, and arm, Radha and Jivan watching, too little to join in and too scared. Too late to think about it: Gargi must get to the tower. She has to save the birds.
She forces herself away from the gardens and up the small rise. There is not even a road here, just a kachcha path, yellow earth hard and cracked. Ahead is a pine grove, deep and densely planted, carpeted with ferns, sweet, strange flowers and long grass; sharp, slicing her arms. A sudden chill and an alpine scent like the Pahalgam of her earliest memories, summers spent high in the mountains of Kashmir before it became dangerous, before her sisters were born.
She reaches the far side of the pines. Through the clearing she can see the white concrete boxes of the day-servants’ quarters planted in orderly rows. It looks peaceful, empty, like the graveyard of headstones in the old cantonment in West Delhi – she used to go there with Radha and a Lottie, for Sunday walks. A place of strange nomenclature, Westerners mostly; the Gloucestershire Rifles, Machine Gun corps, the fallen commonwealth soldiers of undivided India who fought alongside her grandfather’s men. When she was young, it was a quiet place of safety.
She crosses another dirt track. No one is here. The silence is watching her as she walks through the blocks, waiting to jump on her, take her inside one of these white boxes and brick up the cavities. In this heat, all the liquid would be sucked from her body; eventually her flesh would tandoor, peel from her bones. Behind each clean hut rubbish fills the gully, baking in the sun. Who is supposed to be taking care of this? Are all the servants who live here hiding, waiting to mob her?
Don’t be stupid; all are working at the house.
As she walks deeper into the compound she sees a group of black children squatting in the dirt near the old water pump, skittling pinecones along the ground. She catches her breath. Servants are not permitted to have their wives or families here.
Then a female voice calls,
—Madamji?
Gargi looks up, forced to squint through her own sweat. A dark-skinned woman in a print cotton sari stands on the steps of a concrete dwelling; her shape cut out against the whitewashed walls.
The woman’s eyes do not waver as they take in the bloodstains on Gargi’s kurta, her torn chunni, the contrast of gold bangles, diamond studs. Gargi’s hair is heavy and caked with sweat. I am thirty-three, I am thirty-three, I oversee thousands of people, she thinks. She has not felt like this since she was thirteen: Nanu caught her sleeping in the afternoon, the chaadar rucked up around her waist. She had no panty on. Nanu had slapped Gargi’s naked cheeks with her hard, flat hand.
Gargi pulls herself straight, the pose she uses to toast her father.
—What are you doing here? she says. Who are you with? Who are you to these children?
The woman draws her sari over her head as if she is going to pray, still it does not cover her eyes. Her face is full of a hangdog pleading, mixed with an insolence that, Gargi thinks, would make any sane person want to scream.
—Paanchopi din ki baad, the woman says. Gargi Madam. Now, you come.
Her language is crusted in some thick local accent; its origins lost, here.
—Come, she says again.
Gargi follows her. Up the steps and into the concrete dwelling. Carbolic soap, sandalwood smoke, and sour, male sweat hang in the airless room. Wires twist out from the ceiling where the fan should be. There is an empty tin thali and cup by the bed. On the wall, a 2009 Company Resorts of India calendar secured with a rusty thumb tack shows the month of November: Radha and Bubu in their most formal Indian wear, silk encrusted with gold, grinning as they light candles with a long taper at Diwali. That calendar. They give them to the G-level staff every New Year.
In the grey room, a man is curled on the low cane bed. He is wearing a dirty singlet and pyjamas; his head and chest are covered in strips of cloth, stained with turmeric and dried blood. The woman
peels back the sheet. On his ribcage, sour bruises; green, yellow, purple, spread from under bandages made from torn up sheets.
Gargi looks away. A Company Server’s uniform, blood stains rinsed out but still visible, hangs from a hook near the bed.
She blinks. The room feels choked with despair. The dust presses on her. She tries not to inhale.
—What happened – did he get in a fight?
—No Madam. No fight Madam. After the Mangalvar party. Sita-Ma’am welcome-home. Farmhouse wale ne asahu bheja inko. Put-put mein.
The woman wipes her face with her own dupatta. She squats down by the bed.
Gargi understands something about Sita, the Tuesday Party two weeks ago. The put-put – the woman is telling her that this man was brought here, like this, in a cart from the house, has suffered here all this time.
She dials ‘1’.
—Uppal. Get the Company doctor down to the day-servants’ village. She turns to the woman.
—Sector? Unit?
—G-Teen-panch, Madam.
—G level, sector three, unit five, she says to Uppal. Come now with the doctor. Bring 2000, no, bring 5000 cash.
Then she says to the kneeling woman,
—Doctor Sahib aa rahe hain, Uppalji ke saath. Aap yahan par unka intezaar karo, aur unko batao ki kya hua hain.
The woman makes a hissing noise. She does not look at Gargi. Eyes on her man, she slides her hand under his. She begins to sing as if to a child, lori, soft and low.
—Nanhi kali, sone chali, hawa dheere aana.
Gargi’s own mother sang her this lullaby. And Jivan’s mother used to sing it to Radha, and she, Gargi, sang it to Sita, tucking her up into bed for afternoon nap. Gargi watches. Limbs too heavy to take another step.
Behind the kneeling woman, Gargi stands, tears sliding down her cheeks. There is comfort here, a dissolving language of sounds she cannot let herself recall. She is watching a woman turn into a mother, a man back into a boy.