Now, in Ramchandra’s flat, Mrs. Pandey said, “Politics, politics,” looking at her husband fondly as he droned on about the power-wielding people he knew. “This son-in-law knows nothing about politics,” she said as if Ramchandra weren’t present. “I wish Harish babu were here. He knows some politicians in the city.”
Goma, who had just entered the room with a tray of tea and sweets, caught the tail end of the conversation. Ramchandra had leaned his head against the wall and almost closed his eyes. He wanted Goma to say something to her mother, but, as usual, she didn’t. She merely looked at him guiltily, then set the tray on the floor. Rakesh reached for a barfi, and Goma scolded him, saying he must wait for his grandparents to start eating. Sanu peeked in through the door. “Grandmother, did you bring me the jewelry you promised?”
Mrs. Pandey had forgotten. Apparently, she had promised her granddaughter two of her very old silver necklaces, once worn by women in Rana palaces. She apologized to Sanu, who asked, “And what did you give Rakesh?” Then it was discovered that the entire bar of chocolate was sitting in Rakesh’s stomach, and a ruckus ensued. Sanu accused her grandparents of playing favorites with their grandson. “I know why you like him and you hate me,” Sanu said to her grandparents through her tears. “It’s because he’s a son, isn’t it?”
Mr. Pandey, staring at Sanu, let his mouth hang open. His mind was probably stuck on some important government official in the Home Ministry. Mrs. Pandey attempted to mollify Sanu, saying of course she didn’t favor one over the other, that both of them were very important to her. But when she reached to put her arm around Sanu, the girl pushed it away and said, “You think I don’t know you two? You think you are such big shots, sitting in that grand house over there? And you treat Ba as if he were a dog. He’s my father!”
Sanu’s outburst left everyone stunned. Ramchandra had never realized that his daughter was pained by the grandparents’ behavior toward him.
“Sanu! What nonsense are you uttering?” Goma exclaimed.
“And you,” Sanu said to her mother. “You are frightened like a soaked cat in front of your parents.” She stormed off to her room, banging the door behind her.
“What’s come over her?” Ramchandra said.
“I don’t know where she gets these ideas,” Goma said.
Mr. and Mrs. Pandey stared at the sweets and the tea; then Mr. Pandey said, to his wife, in a loud voice, “Why didn’t you bring the jewelry you promised? Why raise a young girl’s expectations like that?”
“I forgot,” Mrs. Pandey said. “I can’t be expected to remember everything.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Goma said. “That girl has become very bigheaded.”
“Why did Didi call Ba a dog?” Rakesh asked.
“Be quiet,” Goma said, ruffling her son’s hair. “Why didn’t you save some chocolate for your sister? Then none of this would have happened.”
“Do you think our Ba is a dog, Grandma?” Rakesh asked.
Before Mrs. Pandey could answer, Goma said, “Okay, enough. Go outside and play,” and she ushered Rakesh out the door.
For a while the four sipped their tea in silence. No one reached for the sweets, although Ramchandra was tempted to. He was feeling a perverse kind of glee. His daughter had told the Pandeys what they needed to hear.
“All of this will come to no good,” Mr. Pandey finally said, then grabbed a piece of barfi and scrutinized it.
Everyone looked at him expectantly, for what he’d say next. “People are going to die for no reason. We need the king.”
“I don’t know what’s happening,” Goma said, apparently relieved that the conversation had shifted elsewhere. “I don’t understand why people are so upset.”
“People are fools,” Mr. Pandey said.
“I don’t think they are fools,” Ramchandra said. “There’s much wrong with the Panchayat system.” He was pleased by his boldness.
Mr. Pandey popped the barfi into his mouth and said, “It’s the best system we have.”
“How can it be the best system if so many people are unhappy?”
Ramchandra thought he was going to be challenged, but he was wrong; apparently Sanu’s outburst had mellowed Mr. Pandey. He chewed his barfi contentedly.
The talk gradually turned to other matters, and the closed door to the children’s room was the only reminder of what had taken place. Because of the houses surrounding the courtyard, they could not see the sun go down, but they knew of its descent, behind the mountains to the west, as everything inside gradually turned gray, and a film of dust could be seen in the twilight, rising and falling, swirling in the air, fogging their view of one another, until Goma got up and turned on the light. Rakesh, his stomach filled with chocolate, had fallen asleep on the floor. The Pandeys decided it was time to leave, and Mrs. Pandey indicated she had something to say to her daughter in private. She urged the men to go downstairs. “It’ll take only a minute.”
Ramchandra never liked it when, at family gatherings, Mrs. Pandey took Goma aside and whispered in her ear. When they were together like that, with the mother’s mouth close to her daughter’s ear, a strange expression came over Goma’s face, as if she and her mother were in collusion, perhaps against him. He knew this was not true, but the way Goma looked, like a little girl sharing a secret with her childhood friend, made him feel he was an outsider. He never asked what her mother had whispered to her, but sometimes late at night, when they were alone, Goma would say, “Mother was saying...” and it usually turned out to be gossip about a relative or some concern of Mrs. Pandey about the health of her husband, who had bladder and stomach problems. “Does she ever say anything about me?” Ramchandra had once asked, and Goma had said, “Nothing she wouldn’t tell you to your face.” Somehow Ramchandra hadn’t believed her, and now, as he walked down the stairs with his father-in-law, he was almost certain that Mrs. Pandey was going to say something about him to her daughter, something that had to do with buying a house, perhaps suggesting that they take a loan. He watched the back of his father-in-law’s head, the wisps of hair on his scalp.
Downstairs, Mr. Pandey pulled his shawl tighter around him and said, “Son-in-law, it’s time to start taking things seriously.”
Across the courtyard, a silhouette appeared in one of the windows. It was Mr. Sharma, who worked in the government’s insurance department. To distract his father-in-law, Ramchandra called out to his neighbor, “It’s a cold evening, isn’t it, Mr. Sharma?” Mr. Sharma waved back, but didn’t say anything.
“Things cannot remain this way forever,” Mr. Pandey said. “Look at this.” He waved his hand toward the courtyard and the surrounding old houses. “Is this a decent place to live?”
Ramchandra cocked an ear toward the door for the sound of footsteps on the staircase.
Mr. Pandey sighed deeply and said, “A nice little house in Kathmandu; doesn’t need to be big. Two rooms should be enough.”
“In a few years,” Ramchandra said.
Across the courtyard, Mr. Sharma appeared to be listening intently to their conversation.
“In a few years, in a few years. That kind of talk has been going on for too long.”
“But one has to understand that mere talking about it doesn’t produce a house. One needs money.’’
Mr. Pandey shook his head, as if money were an inconsequential factor. “One doesn’t need that much. Besides, if one wants to, one can always acquire some money.”
Ramchandra was thinking of what to say in reply when, at last, he heard the sounds on the staircase. Goma and her mother emerged, laughing.
Sanu didn’t come out of her room for dinner, despite repeated calls, so Ramchandra went to her. She was seated on the bed, reading a book, and she didn’t look up.
“Daughter, come to the kitchen. Food is getting cold.”
She said she wasn’t hungry.
Ramchandra went over and sat down beside her. “Are you still angry?”
Sanu shook her head.
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“Then why this sullen face? Like—” he searched for a comical comparison—“a monkey who has just lost her coconut to a donkey.”
Sanu didn’t crack a smile.
“Come on, let’s eat.”
“Why doesn’t Mother ever say anything?”
“They don’t mean it in a bad way.”
“They treat Uncle Harish differently.”
“They don’t mean to.”
“Ba, does living in this flat make us small people?”
“I don’t think so. Do you think so?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think you become small or big by where you live. But I know that some of my friends at school laugh when they see my house.”
“Their laughter cannot harm us.”
“When do you think we’ll be able to build a house of our own?”
“I don’t know, Sanu.” He took her hand and played with her fingers. “It might be a long time.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know. Maybe years.”
“Will no husband want me because I live in a house like this?”
“Who told you that? Why wouldn’t anyone want my pretty daughter?”
She smiled.
“Why are you worried about a husband? First, you have to study, go to a good college.”
“I’m going to be a doctor.”
“What kind of doctor?”
“I am going to be an animal doctor. A vete... a veterian.” She fumbled with the word and Ramchandra laughed.
“Come, right now let’s go and treat our stomachs. They’re sick, and the only cure is dal-bhat.” He took her hand and led her to the kitchen.
The kitchen, the smallest room in the house, had a window that overlooked the courtyard, and from it Ramchandra saw Mr. Sharma’s shadow at his window.
Rakesh was already eating, and Goma served dal-bhat to Sanu and Ramchandra. The vegetable this evening was cauliflower, which they didn’t have often, because it was expensive. He asked Goma why she’d bought it, and she replied that her mother had brought her two heads from the garden at Pandey Palace. The Pandeys had a gardener who took excellent care of the vegetables and the flowers. After he heard this, Ramchandra didn’t ask for more cauliflower, even though it was delicious.
Seated on the wooden pirkas on the floor, the family ate quietly. Then Goma said to Sanu, “And what came over you this evening? Why did you speak to your grandparents that way?”
Sanu didn’t respond, and Ramchandra signaled Goma to be quiet.
In the silence that ensued, they could hear one another chewing.
“This girl,” Goma said. “She thinks she has become big.”
Sanu was playing with the rice on her plate, her face dark.
“I want my children to have respect for their elders,” Goma continued.
“Respect,” Ramchandra said. “Maybe the elders should also learn the meaning of that word.”
Rakesh, who had finished eating, was watching his parents attentively.
“And why aren’t you eating?” Goma asked Sanu.
“Not hungry anymore,” she mumbled.
“You can’t let that go to waste. Do you know how hard your father works to feed you?”
“Okay, enough,” Ramchandra said. “No more on this subject.” And he coaxed Sanu to eat. She very reluctantly lifted her rice-filled fingers to her mouth.
Later, as Ramchandra and Goma were getting ready for bed, he told her, “Don’t speak to her that way. She’s very sensitive these days.”
“I am afraid she’s getting out of control,” Goma said. “The other day she argued with me about a dress that I didn’t want her to wear.”
“What was wrong with it?”
“It was too tight in the chest. And you know, she is getting bigger.”
“She has a mind of her own.”
“Too much mind of her own will make life difficult for her. She has to get married one day.”
Ramchandra thought of Malati, who had brought a child into this world at such an early age, and he knew Goma was right. These days even girls from good families got themselves into trouble. “She’ll be fine,” he told Goma. “She is doing well at school. She likes to study. Says she wants to be a doctor.”
“That’s good.”
He asked her what Mrs. Pandey had whispered into her ear that evening.
“Oh, nothing.”
He placed his hand on her shoulder. “Am I such an outsider that you can’t tell me?”
“Mother was talking about a girl from Chitwan. Her parents are very poor, and they want her to work as a servant here in the city. My sister can arrange to bring her here.”
“We can’t afford a servant.”
“I know we can’t afford one, but lately I’ve been very tired. All the cooking, the children...”
Their lack of a servant was another of the in-laws’ issues. “My daughter is slaving away in your house, son-in-law,” Goma’s mother had remarked a few times. “How about someone just to help with the cooking and the laundry?” They’d even offered to send their own servant to help, but Ramchandra had refused. Now he wondered whether Goma had talked to her mother again about this. He studied her face. She did look tired, but, then, she usually looked this way after a visit from her parents.
“How much do they want?”
“I can negotiate for a hundred rupees a month. And she can wear Sanu’s old clothes. She’s only eleven years old.”
“Let’s think about this carefully,” he said. “If we hire someone, that means even less money in savings. As it is, with Dashain this month we won’t be able to set anything aside.” He was about to ask why she had offered them sweets this evening, but he remembered the money he’d spent that morning, and kept quiet.
As he was about to fall asleep, he thought again of Malati, and for a brief moment, he entertained the notion of employing her as a servant. That way, she would get out of her stepmother’s clutches, and he could tutor her more. But on second thought, the idea seemed ridiculous. Malati would probably balk at the idea of working as a servant in anyone’s house, and, in fact, the idea made him uneasy; it was as if he were contemplating bringing home a second wife. He pushed the thought aside and concentrated on one of his beautiful vistas. This time he was on a mountain peak; the sun was rising, and snow glittered on the slopes all around. The sun cast an orange hue over everything.
3
WHEN RAMCHANDRA WENT to the latrine in the courtyard the next morning, with a pitcher of water and a towel, he found it occupied. Mr. Sharma was inside, judging from the grunts and groans emanating from behind the closed wooden door. He was a small man with a goatee. His wife had died a few years earlier, and he now spent most of his time reading religious tracts. Ramchandra glanced at his watch. He had woken up half an hour late this morning. He usually liked to get up by six so that he could have some time in the latrine before the other occupants of the courtyard came down. On numerous occasions Ramchandra had talked to the landlord about constructing bathrooms inside the houses, but the landlord had told him the rent would then go up by a hundred rupees. That silenced Ramchandra.
One time, when Sanu was in the latrine, some of the neighborhood boys had pried open the latch and teased her while she tried to cover herself. She had cried the whole day, and Ramchandra had walked the streets, with a belt in hand, searching for the boys. He didn’t find them, but he quarreled with the parents of one, and then went straight to the landlord, who lived two houses down the street. The landlord had dismissed his complaint, saying that the problem was with the latch, not the latrine, and he’d promised to install a sturdy latch that couldn’t be opened from the outside. It had taken him a whole month to do that, and until it was installed, Ramchandra stood guard outside, with Rakesh beside him, every time Sanu needed the latrine. The structure was old and had tiny holes in the roof, so when it rained hard, water dripped on the occupant’s head.
Mr. Sharma emerged after a full twenty minutes. �
�Oh, didn’t know you were here, Ramchandra-ji. Would have come out earlier.”
“That’s all right,” Ramchandra said and went in, with his pitcher. The stench was unbearable, and Ramchandra had to leave instantly. Resisting the urge to pinch his nose, he said, “Needs some air.”
After a couple of minutes, Ramchandra entered again, and when he came out, Mr. Sharma had already started his bath at the tap. The city water flowed in abundance in this neighborhood, even though it was scarce in most parts of the city. Sometimes women from the neighborhood came to the courtyard to fill their gagros, because their own taps were dry. This had led to confrontations, the residents claiming that if the women used the tap too frequently, it would soon run dry, and the women asserting that decency demanded the insiders to grant their neighbors access to this water, which, in its ethereal form, belonged to no one. The shouts and screams and back-and-forth accusations had annoyed Ramchandra, and he finally came up with a compromise. He and his fellow residents would allow in two neighborhood families every day, and it was up to them to make the arrangements. So far, this had worked pretty well.
No one had yet come this morning, but they would soon, and Ramchandra wanted to finish bathing before the courtyard became crowded.
“That student of yours, how old is she?” Mr. Sharma said, applying soap to his armpits. “Twenty? Twenty-one? She’s pretty.”
Ramchandra was pouring water over his back, and it took him a moment to realize that Mr. Sharma was talking about Malati. “I don’t notice such things, Sharma-ji,” Ramchandra said. “Perhaps for a widower like you, they are important. For me, what’s important is that I earn some income, and that the students pass the S.L.C.”
The Guru of Love Page 5