“What do you feel about me?” he asked softly.
She took his hand in hers. “When I’m with you, I feel that I am really someone.”
“But you are really someone, even without me.”
She shook her head. “Look at my life. What do I have? This’’—she gestured around the room. “That little girl who doesn’t have a father? And Malekha Didi. She could kick me out of this house any moment, and then where would I go?”
“What kind of a woman is she? She seems...” He wanted to say vulgar, but that would sound too harsh. “She’s like a different kind of person.”
“She’s unpredictable. One day full moon, the other day no moon.”
He reached over her and stroked Rachana’s head. “Does she care about you? And Rachana?”
“I know she loves Rachana, but sometimes she doesn’t want to see her face.”
“And you? Does she love you?”
Malati lifted her arms and stretched. “Sometimes she does. Other times she treats me the way any stepmother would.”
“You don’t have to live with her, you know.”
“But where would I go? How would I take care of Rachana? That’s why I want to pass the S.L.C., so that I can go to college, get a good job, move to a place of my own.”
She paused, as if she were envisioning the possibilities. Then she said, “Now the exams are only a few weeks away, and I’m afraid I won’t pass.”
“You will,” he assured her. “If you focus on getting out from the clutches of that woman, you will.”
“Malekha Didi isn’t so bad,” Malati said, although she didn’t sound convinced of her own words. “She could have thrown me out of the house, but she didn’t.”
“She seems strange.”
“I think it’s because of her dubi,” Malati said, referring to Malekha Didi’s albino skin. “She must have suffered all her life. You know how people in our society act toward anyone of that color.”
“How did she end up marrying your father?”
Malati said that after her mother ran off to India with a truck driver, taking all the money and jewelry in the house, she and her father had come to Kathmandu. Malekha Didi had helped her father get a job in a government office in Singha Durbar. Malati didn’t remember when her father and Malekha Didi became lovers, but she knew that her father began spending more and more time at Malekha Didi’s house. Soon, they moved in with her, and the two adults slept together in the same bedroom. When Malati was sixteen, they got married in a small temple ceremony, and about three months after that, her father was hit by a motorcycle outside Singha Durbar and died in the hospital of a brain hemorrhage.
“Whatever Malekha Didi’s faults, she really loved my father.”
Ramchandra played with her navel, and they fell asleep again. They woke near dawn to the crying of Rachana, who was hungry. Ramchandra’s watch read six o’clock. Across the city, people were preparing for Tika, getting their jamara ready, cooking food for the people who’d flock to their houses throughout the day to receive tika, planning when and how they’d go to their elders to receive tika. And here he was, in this cramped room with Malati. He should go somewhere, do something, but what? Malekha Didi had asked that he stay today and put tika on Malati and Rachana, and he’d said yes, he’d like to. But right now, he grieved at the thought of being away from his children, from Goma, on this important day.
He watched Malati try to feed her daughter, who was shying away from her mother’s breast.
“I have to make some formula for her,” Malati said. “Can you watch her for a second?”
Ramchandra picked up the crying baby, and Malati went to the kitchen. Rachana didn’t stop crying, so he sang to her, a song he used to sing to Sanu when she was a baby cradled in his arms. Sanu would gradually stop crying and look intensely at his face, as if she were savoring each sound. But the song didn’t work for Rachana, who began to wail even louder.
When Malati came back with the bottle, Ramchandra said, “I think I’d better leave now.”
“Where will you go?”
He shrugged. “I’ll probably go to Pandey Palace to see if I’ll be allowed to put tika on the children.”
“Will you come back here for tika?”
“I’ll try. Let’s see how it goes at Pandey Palace.”
In Naxal, a swing had been set up on a small field between a school and a row of houses. Children in brand-new clothes were swinging high on the babiyo rope that dangled from tall bamboo sticks. Some children already had the bright red tika on their foreheads, with the yellow jamara tucked behind their ears. The lullaby he’d sung to Rachana echoed in Ramchandra’s mind. Looking warm but happy, families walked the streets, dressed in their freshly tailored clothes, going to their relatives to get and to give tika. It was the day of victory over evil, when Lord Rama slew the monster Ravana, when Lord Durga triumphed over Mahisasur, the terrible demon that, in the guise of a buffalo, had wreaked havoc, piercing the air with its razor-sharp horns.
Laughter, shouting—all the joy of festivity—rang through the air under the clear blue sky. When Ramchandra passed some people he knew, they looked curiously at him in his crumpled clothes.
In the cluster of shops in Bhatbhateni, he found a telephone and called Pandey Palace. Mrs. Pandey answered, but when Ramchandra asked for Goma, she muttered, “Too many phone calls in this house,” banged the receiver down on something, and went to fetch Goma.
Ramchandra waited a long time for Goma to come to the phone. She didn’t say anything, but her breathing told him she was there.
“Goma, today is Tika. Please come home.”
After more silence, she said, “There’s nothing to come home to.”
“I miss the children.”
She said nothing.
“At least let me come over and put tika on the children. Otherwise...” His voice caught in his throat, and he coughed.
Two other voices, a man’s and a woman’s, echoed within the wires like distant bells in a cross-connection. Ramchandra heard terms of endearment and then the woman’s voice saying that she’d written a poem for the man. “Okay, you can come and visit them,” Goma said. “But only for tika. They won’t leave with you.”
Is it a love poem? the man asked, and Goma hung up.
Ramchandra checked his wallet; he wanted to give something to the children. He had about two hundred rupees and would give each of them fifty. He’d never before given them such a large sum—usually he gave them no more than twenty rupees—but money was the least of his concerns right now.
To his consternation, it was Nalini who opened the door at Pandey Palace. As soon as she saw Ramchandra, she pursed her lips and said, “The children will be with you shortly. You can sit in the living room.”
Her coldness stung Ramchandra. Had Goma told her what had happened? He waited a long time, wondering where everyone was, why no one offered him a cup of tea. Then Sanu and Rakesh came in, wearing their new clothes, and already with their tika and jamara. Ramchandra immediately noticed Sanu’s somber face. Rakesh jumped into his lap. “Ba, look how much Grandfather gave me,” and opened his fist to reveal a hundred-rupee bill. Even on his most generous day, Ramchandra couldn’t keep up with his in-laws. But he acted pleased, hugged his son, and kissed him on the cheek. Sanu remained at a distance until he called her to him. He patted her arm and asked, “And how much did you get?”
“Why are we here, Ba? I don’t want to be here.”
“It’s only for a short time.”
“Did you and Mother have a fight?”
“Is that what she told you?”
“She hasn’t told us anything. She stays in bed most of the time. Even today she hasn’t done anything. She hasn’t put tika on us. Only Hajurba and Hajurma have.”
“Now that I’m here, your mother will come down.” He asked Rakesh to get his mother. While he was gone, Sanu sat quietly on the edge of the sofa, her hands folded in her lap.
Rakesh returned to sa
y that Goma wasn’t feeling well. Then Nalini appeared with a tray of tika and jamara and said, “Here it is. Just leave it here when you’re done, brother-in-law.”
“I haven’t even greeted your parents.” He didn’t want to, but he thought he had to say something. “And this is such an auspicious day.”
She kept her head averted and walked away.
The children sat down in front of him, and, reciting the prayer Om Jayanti Mangalakali Bhadrakali Kapalini, which he always had some difficulty remembering, Ramchandra dipped his fingertips into the rice-yogurt mixture, colored bright red, and dabbed it on Sanu’s forehead. Then he placed a few strands of jamara on her hair. He leaned over to touch her feet with his forehead. That usually made Sanu titter, but today she maintained her serious look. Ramchandra gave her the fifty-rupee bill and recited the blessing of happiness and prosperity. When it was Rakesh’s turn, the performance was repeated, except that the son was to touch the father’s feet. At that point, Rakesh rebelled, saying it wasn’t fair that his sister didn’t have to do this. He thrust his feet at his father, and Ramchandra, overcome by love for his son, and giving in to the sorrow that was spreading its wings inside his body, leaned over and put his forehead on his son’s feet.
7
THE DAYS CREPT ON, and Goma and the children didn’t come home. He felt their absence in his bones, his chest, the membranes of his throat so that at times it was difficult for him to speak.
Initially, he went to Pandey Palace almost every day, first calling the house to say he’d be coming, and then spending some time with the children in the living room. He was offered none of the hospitality that was usually accorded to a son-in-law, not even tea. The Pandeys were obviously avoiding him as much as they could. Perhaps they saw this as an opportunity to wrest their daughter away from a son-in-law who was nothing but a failure. When he did encounter Mr. Pandey, the old man was more interested in talking about politics than about Ramchandra’s rift; with Goma. And Mrs. Pandey hardly showed her face. Their opinion of him was so low, Ramchandra thought with much bitterness, that they didn’t even care about society’s criticism of women who lived separated from their husbands. Good riddance, he could hear them saying silently.
One day, to a servant who had come down with the children, he insisted that he talk to Goma, and she appeared. He sent the children away and talked to her. She listened but said she couldn’t come back to the house right now. She seemed lethargic, as if the whole matter had tired her. Darkness circled her eyes, like Nalini’s. “I’m not tutoring her anymore,” Ramchandra lied, but the information had no effect on Goma. “Not right now,” she said. When he reached out to hug her, she slipped away from him and left the room.
After that, he no longer asked to see her and she no longer came down. What hurt him even more was that, with each visit, he could tell that Sanu had grown to enjoy living at Pandey Palace. She showed him a frock her grandmother had bought for her, talked about the gardener, with whom she’d developed a friendship. And there was the girl from Chitwan, Hasina, a few years younger than Sanu, a scrawny child with a sassy mouth. Sanu adored her. Every time Ramchandra went to Pandey Palace, he found the two together. When he asked Sanu whether she missed home, she became serious and said, “Of course I do. I want to go home.” But he knew she thought that’s what he wanted to hear. Rakesh was his usual jovial self. He’d ask about some of his friends from the surrounding houses in the courtyard, but then lose interest and go running upstairs.
Amidst everything was Malati. She no longer talked of Goma, and when Ramchandra brought up her absence, Malati said, “I’ll never be able to show my face to her again.” He watched her carefully, trying to judge what she was really thinking. He didn’t doubt her sincerity, but often he sensed that part of her—something that defined her, made her a person—remained elusive. He found himself trying to figure out what she was thinking. Sometimes, when she stood looking out the living room window, the expression on her face confounded him. It was sadness, yes, but it was also longing, a craving for something he could not comprehend. And this expression, accentuated by the afternoon rays streaming through the window curtains, made him feel that even as she was in the room with him physically, she was somewhere else emotionally, laughing with someone else, whispering an urgent detail into someone else’s ear, someone with whom she was truly Malati, Malati who knew how to enjoy life, Malati who got what she wanted. He saw her in this alternate life so vividly that the Malati in front of him became a mere shadow, a poor cousin. His own words made him shake his head. Poor cousin? Of course she was poor, and so was he. And as if hearing his thoughts, she’d look at him and smile.
The city had brightened in anticipation of Tihar. Around the outer walls of their houses many inhabitants had already wrapped strings of lights that blinked and winked all evening long. Those people who were rich left them on all night, and the faint glow illuminated the street, sometimes revealing a roaming band of dogs. In Ranipokhari, the entire periphery of the pond was illuminated, and so was the bridge that led to the Shiva shrine in the center. The lights, reflected in the water, seemed to be swaying when a breeze ruffled the surface. A couple of times in the evening Ramchandra stood by the black railings that surrounded the pond and watched. He thought of the children, how excited they’d become during Tihar, when they could play with firecrackers and join a straggly band of neighborhood children to go to each house in the area and play deusi. When Sanu and Rakesh came to their own house with their friends, Ramchandra would make sure that he extracted enough entertainment out of them before he gave them any money. Often, in the courtyard, he’d ask Rakesh to sing a popular tune and Sanu to dance. Goma would come down to watch her children, and she and Ramchandra would exchange looks of pride as Sanu and Rakesh and their friends shook their hips and flailed their arms.
All across the city people congregated in living rooms to play cards—flush, paplu, twenty-nine, marriage. They’d sit in a circle on the floor and hurl money at the center. They’d drink, argue, and maybe leave the room in a huff. The women of the house would bring endless cups of tea and spicy minced meat, or hover behind their husbands and uncles to watch what was at stake. Children eyed the money hungrily, crying “bakshish” whenever someone made a large haul. Some went bankrupt in minutes; others stuffed their pockets with cash and strutted down the streets. Ramchandra had been invited by a few people to join them in playing tas, but he declined. He’d never liked gambling, mostly because he was always poor. He’d never understood how people could risk their money so thoughtlessly.
Malati had begun to improve in her math. She had mastered compound interest and mensuration, and Ramchandra was becoming convinced that, with more intensive sessions, she would definitely pass the S.L.C. She started to come earlier to the house, so Ramchandra had to get up before sunrise to take his bath and make himself a cup of tea. Now he tutored her for nearly two hours. But once she’d left, the morning stretched before him like a long yawn.
The school was closed for the festival, so he had the days to himself, and after Malati left, his mind immediately went to Goma and the children. A servant boy from Pandey Palace came every morning to cook for Ramchandra so that he wouldn’t have to worry about his meals. The boy, a chubby young man with a thin mustache, cooked well and left enough for dinner, but that portion often went to waste, because Ramchandra would end up eating at Malati’s house. A couple of times Ramchandra tried to pry from the boy some information about Goma—what she did all day, whether she mentioned his name—but the boy didn’t know enough or, if he did, was under instructions not to tell Ramchandra.
Ramchandra spent the afternoons in Malati’s house, where they made love in her room, sometimes even with Malekha Didi puttering around in the kitchen. She apparently had become used to Ramchandra’s presence, for she often brought him tea and biscuits without Malati’s prompting. One day, while Malati was washing Rachana’s clothes in the bathroom, Malekha Didi told Ramchandra that her skin disfiguremen
t had subjected her to ridicule and contempt when she was a child in a village outside Kathmandu. She spoke to Ramchandra as if he were her older brother, as if he would understand precisely what she had suffered, and he wanted to live up to that role, so he shook his head and said, “Tsk, tsk,” as she described her suffering. Once, she reached out and touched him as she talked, and, strangely, he felt moved.
On the morning of Laxmi Puja, when all the people in the city were praying to the goddess to make them wealthy, Ramchandra prayed to the small picture of Laxmi in his kitchen and lit a few sticks of incense. Every year he had prayed to Laxmi, asking her to do something about his financial situation. As he stood, his palms joined in front of her, he would picture a house, just a small house, with enough room for his small family. This year, a house no longer seemed important. He asked that his wife and children come back to him. At dusk he called Pandey Palace to see whether he’d be invited there, but no one picked up the phone. Probably they were outside, enjoying the lights or playing with the firecrackers. He didn’t go to Malati’s house that day; he stayed by the window in Jaisideval, looking at the street. Groups of boys and girls came by, dancing, beating the madal. Some entered the courtyard and began their chant, asking for money or anything the household could provide. Ramchandra turned off the light in the flat and watched them from the window.
Even on the day of Bhai Tika, two days later, when Sanu would perform puja on Rakesh, tightening the bond between a sister and a brother, Ramchandra got no call from Pandey Palace. On that evening, he did go to Malati’s house, and Malekha Didi insisted that she put tika on him, make him her brother. Ramchandra didn’t like the idea, but how could he say no? So he let her, and then, reluctantly, gave her a twenty-rupee note as dakshina.
Around nine o’clock, after they’d eaten dinner, they heard thunder, and soon rain was clattering on the roof. Chickens in the nearby shack began to scream. Chewing the betel nut Malekha Didi had passed around, Ramchandra waited for the rain to subside. But it came down even harder, and the ceaseless noise of the torrent made him drowsy. The next thing he knew, he was being led to Malati’s room by Malekha Didi. He kept saying that he had to go home, but he couldn’t keep his eyes open.
The Guru of Love Page 14