“Are you going to see him now?”
“Leave me alone, please. I’m not going anywhere.”
He walked down the stairs, into the courtyard, and out to the street. The driver was still leaning against his taxi, the cigarette glowing. Ramchandra moved toward him, thinking he’d say something, although he wasn’t sure what. But as he neared the man, he saw that it wasn’t Amrit. And feeling foolish, he walked past.
For some time he roamed the streets, where pockets of people were discussing what would happen in the country tomorrow. Pressure was building in Ramchandra’s chest, as though he were about to break out in a sob. In Indrachowk, he spotted a bhatti, with a couple of customers inside, drinking the local liquor. He entered and asked for a glass of raksi. The drink went easily down his throat, and he asked for another. After three drinks, his mind seemed to clear, and he began chatting with the shopkeeper, who sat behind the counter under a poster of a heroine from an Indian film. The conversation was light, with much laughter, but the shopkeeper soon went to join some customers who were talking about the arrests in Kirtipur. Moments ago the police had raided the houses of student activists and taken hundreds of them off to jail. Ramchandra listened to the talk about the incident. He felt like telling them that his father-in-law, who had disapproved of him, had recently died. And that Mr. Pandey’s soul must be happy at those arrests, because he believed that those in power must hold on to their power. If I have another drink, Ramchandra thought, I’ll really start blabbering and making a fool of myself. He left the bhatti.
At home, Malati was already in bed, and he changed and slipped in beside her.
“You’ve been drinking,” she said.
“Just a bit,” he said.
“I don’t like the smell.”
“You don’t like anything about me anymore.”
“That’s not true,” she said. She ran her hand through his hair. After a while she said, “He wants to marry me.”
“Your taxi driver?”
“Amrit. He told me that today.”
“And what do you want to do?”
“I don’t want to marry him.”
“Why?”
“I don’t trust him.”
“That’s right,” he said. The alcohol had taken hold of him now. When he opened his eyes, the room spun, so he kept them buried in her armpit. The room was dark, and he was more comfortable this way.
“But Rachana does need her father,” she said. “When she grows up, people will mock her, say she’s a bastard.”
“I’ll adopt her as my daughter.”
“You’re not serious.”
“She’s already a part of the family, isn’t she? I can formalize the adoption.” In his drunkenness, the idea appealed to him even as he said it. He could lay claim to another daughter. Both Sanu and Rakesh adored Rachana, and Rachana loved Goma as if she were her mother. Why not?
“What will bhauju think?”
“She won’t mind. Remember, your living here was her idea.”
Malati was quiet, and he listened to his own breathing, the slight gurgling sound in his nostrils. The alcohol floating inside his head was like a sweet syrup.
“But you’re not her real father,” she said. “And that’s what she needs.”
He sat up. “What real? How real was he when he left you pregnant? When he didn’t seek out Rachana after she was born?”
“He had a wife. He had his own difficulties.”
It occurred to him that she was using him as a sounding board, arguing with him to clarify her own thinking about Amrit. Or perhaps to convince herself about what she wanted to believe. Somehow, in the dark, he found her face and slapped her.
Her silence told him she’d expected this. He’d never lay a hand on Goma or on his children, but that he’d slapped Malati about a taxi driver was a sign to him that something had gone terribly wrong, that something was terribly wrong with him.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” he said immediately. “I am sorry.” But he didn’t reach out to touch her.
“I make many people angry.”
He didn’t want to listen to her self-pity, so he said, “The fault is not yours. People who become angry become angry for their own reasons, not because of you.” His voice had become distant, remote. “You do what you need to do in life. I shouldn’t stand in your way.”
Dawn was a few hours away, but neither of them slept. He could see that her eyes were open and she was staring at the ceiling. Once the effect of the liquor wore off, he became lucid, wide-awake, with only a tinge of a hangover. He suddenly recalled from his childhood a boy, slightly older than he was, coaxing him to spit at the sky. He did, and the spit landed right back on his face, and people laughed, strangers. He remembered a small girl who made necklaces for him, and his mother teasing him, saying the girl wanted to marry him. The memories emerged and disappeared, and he found solace in them, and gradually he drifted to sleep.
He woke just as light made the room visible. Malati had already packed her belongings. “I’m leaving now,” she said.
He nodded.
“Please tell bhauju I’m sorry. I’d like to see her, but I don’t want to go there.”
“I’ll tell her.”
He got up and embraced her, kissed Rachana on the cheek. He thought of giving her some money, but decided that would be in bad taste. He did ask whether she had enough money for a three-wheeler, and she said yes.
He walked her down the stairs, carrying her suitcase. Mr. Sharma was at his window, brushing his teeth, and he waved his hand with the brush. Ramchandra waved back.
Outside, they had to wait before an empty three-wheeler came their way.
“I’ll keep an eye out on the S.L.C. results. I have your exam number.” He helped her into the cab, and as it took off, she said, “Please tell everyone I was thinking of them.”
He climbed up the stairs and sat on the bed. The house was empty without her and the sweet noises Rachana made.
An hour later he left the house and walked toward Pandey Palace. Democracy Day was a holiday, so he didn’t have to go to school. The sky was filled with gray clouds, like an omen of the trouble that would start today. All the way to Bhatbhateni, Ramchandra saw people standing outside their houses or in tea shops, talking about what was to happen.
At Pandey Palace he found Goma alone in the kitchen and told her that Malati had left.
“But where did she go?” Goma appeared alarmed. “Back to her stepmother?”
He told her about the taxi driver.
“What do you think of this?” Goma asked, watching him carefully.
He shrugged. “It’s her decision. She has to do what’s good for her.”
“You mean you don’t care?”
“I care,” he said. He really wasn’t sure what he felt. There was a sense of relief, as though an elephant had stopped pressing on his chest, but he was anxious, and his throat was parched by some craving he couldn’t identify. It wasn’t associated with Malati; he didn’t ache for her body as he used to.
After eating his morning meal, he fell asleep on the living room couch, and when he woke his heart was hammering. His throat was so dry that it hurt to swallow. He went to the kitchen and drank some water, but the anxiety remained. He went upstairs, where Goma was sitting with her mother, and said that he was going out for a walk.
“But where? There’s going to be trouble today.”
“I’ll just walk around the neighborhood,” he said. “Nothing will happen here.”
“Come back soon,” Goma called out as he headed for the door. “Otherwise I’ll worry.”
On the lawn, Sanu and Rakesh were looking at the flowers and chatting with the gardener; he went past them silently.
Malati had mentioned that Amrit lived near Ranjana Cinema Hall, so he headed toward New Road. How would he find Amrit’s house? And what would he say to Malati? He had no answers, but the only way he could lessen his anxiety was to see where she was, how she was going
to live from now on.
On the way he saw police vans patrolling the streets. Many shopkeepers had closed their shutters in fear of riots. In Asan and Indrachowk, people walked around aimlessly, waiting for something to happen. When Ramchandra reached the statue of Juddha Shumshere on New Road, he saw a large group of people rushing toward him from the east, holding red flags and shouting accusations against the government. Ramchandra needed to turn left at a particular alley, but got pushed to the opposite side of the street, under the famous peepul tree. The protesters ran toward Indrachowk, their antigovernment chants floating in the air. “The Panchayat rally is coming any minute,” someone said. “That’ll be fun.” People had wild expectation on their faces. Then someone called out, “They’re coming! They’re coming!” From the far end of the street, near the New Road Gate, a procession headed in their direction. They could hear the faint chants: “Long live King Birendra,” “Panchayat system jindabad.” As the parade came closer, the bystanders could see a large poster picturing King Tribhuvan, the present king’s grandfather, who had liberated the country from Rana dictators. Government ministers in official dress appeared first, led by the prime minister.
Ramchandra’s attention was drawn elsewhere. Across the street, at the mouth of the alley leading to the cinema hall, he saw Malati, with Rachana on her hip, standing next to Amlit. Why were they here with the baby? He shouted, waved his hand, but their eyes were on the parade. Ramchandra was thinking about crossing the street, telling them to take the child away from this mob of people, when a commotion broke out behind Amrit and Malati, near the cinema. A handful of men rushed into New Road, carrying the flag of the Congress Party. The next moment, seemingly at the wave of a scepter from one of the two million gods above, men and women appeared from all the New Road side streets, carrying Congressi flags and banners. Strident voices broke the air: “Down with the fascist Panchayat system!” The men and women headed straight toward the crowd, where the prime minister now stood still. Ramchandra’s eyes were on Malati, who was trying to push through the crowd toward the cinema. Amrit was trying to clear the way for her, but he was stopped by the mass that surged forward. Ramchandra saw Rachana fall from Malati’s arms and disappear into the rush of arms and legs around them.
Ramchandra experienced a twisted knot of panic; he was only dimly aware that the government procession near him had broken into chaos. The prime minister and the other ministers were running back toward the New Road Gate. Someone shouted, “They have their tails between their legs,” and people laughed. The men in the government parade scrambled to get away from the angry men and women bearing down on them from all the side streets. Some of the onlookers under the peepul tree got caught up in the frenzy. Now the crowd was rushing in every direction. Some ran to Indrachowk; others took off in the opposite direction, to Dharahara.
Sweating, Ramchandra shoved his way through the crowd. At first he didn’t see them; then Amrit’s taxi inched its way past, and Ramchandra saw Malati holding Rachana in her lap. The child’s head was bloody. He shouted Malati’s name, and she looked up, her eyes filled with tears, but she didn’t seem to recognize him. The taxi honked, lurched forward, took a sharp left turn, and disappeared toward the New Road Gate. They were headed for the hospital.
Ramchandra lingered for a while. The action had already moved toward Tundikhel. He wanted to go to Bir Hospital, where he was sure Amrit had taken his daughter, but as the crowd around him swirled and voices of excitement rose to the sky, he let this impulse pass. All he could do was pray that the little girl had not been badly hurt.
To avoid getting caught up in the confrontations around him, he took a circuitous route. In spots, small groups of people broke out into chants that decried the government repression and demanded multiparty democracy. In Naxal he found an open tea shop and sat down to rest. People inside said that the protesters had called for a nationwide strike the next day. All schools, shops, and traffic would be shut down.
At Goma’s insistence, he slept at Pandey Palace that night, in a small room next to the one she shared with her mother. The children slept in another room near the staircase. Because he didn’t want Goma to worry, he said nothing about Rachana’s injury. When Goma had asked why he’d been away so long, he told her he’d run into a colleague from school and had ended up going to the man’s house for tea and conversation.
That night, about two hours after he’d gone to bed, he was awakened by an incessant cawing outside his window. As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he saw a crow, poking its head in the air and creating a ruckus. He opened the window and shooed it away, and by that time he was wide-awake.
He decided to walk in the garden to calm his mind. It had been a long time since he’d slept at Pandey Palace, but he knew the house well, having been here so often for meals and festivals. Before, the house had evoked in him a feeling of dread; its corridors reeked of wealth he wasn’t born to, couldn’t dream of amassing in his life, let alone passing on to his children. When he ate in the big kitchen, with its shiny tiles and sparkling cutlery, with the three servants who tiptoed around deferentially and created near-perfect dishes, the food refused to go down his stomach, especially when Harish was present and Mrs. Pandey’s hands flew near him to serve him. Now, after Mr. Pandey’s death, the house had become transformed; it was almost as if the big mansion was his to do with as he wanted. Ramchandra scolded himself. What kind of a man was he, fantasizing about owning someone else’s house; not just any anyone’s but his own in-laws’? If people knew what he thought, they’d laugh at him. And that led to another thought, one that made him cringe. What would happen if Mrs. Pandey were to die tomorrow? Who would take over the mansion? Harish and Nalini? But they were rich already. What would they do with a big house like this? Is it possible, Ramchandra wondered, that Goma would inherit the house?
In the garden, Ramchandra tried not to think about this possibility, but his imagination took off, and he pictured himself living here as the owner. He visualized himself walking through its corridors, opening doors to take peeks at his children sleeping in their separate bedrooms. Or climbing down the stairs, his hand caressing the smooth balustrade. Or inspecting the garden on a bright spring day, giving instructions to the gardener. Or having workers install a Western-style commode bathroom on each floor of the house, which now had only a squatting-style bathroom. He saw the servants, quiet, courteous, and wearing freshly washed clothes, asking what he’d like for his evening meal.
But how would he retain the servants with his schoolteacher’s salary? How would he install those expensive commodes? Even if Pandey Palace were bequeathed to Goma, and thereby to him, there wasn’t any way he could maintain it. Or would Mrs. Pandey leave behind a large sum of money for Goma? That thought made Ramchandra crazy, and he muttered to himself, “Stop, stop.’’
He was about to head back when he looked up and saw the outline of a figure upstairs. It was Goma. Was she looking at him? He wanted to say something to her about himself and Malati. Or about her. But the words became jumbled with other words in his mind. She was watching him, and he was watching her watch him, and when he saw himself through her perspective, he came upon a stranger. Goma, he said in his mind. What is to become of us, now that Malati is gone?
11
THE CITY CONTINUED to explode into riots. Angry citizens taking to the streets were tear-gassed or fired on by the police. Men and women died. A student’s death in Jhapa, a district bordering India to the east, infuriated college students across the country, and the campuses in Kathmandu became battlegrounds for the police and the students. Nor did Ramchandra’s school remain untouched. His students, especially those in the upper grades, didn’t want to study. They came to school and then left to join the demonstrations. With the image of Rachana’s bloody head still vivid in his mind, Ramchandra tried to dissuade the students, but they wouldn’t listen. Instead, they chastised him for not sympathizing with those who were giving their lives for freedom. One studen
t even accused him of being a government crony, and Ramchandra said, bitterly, “Yes, you’re right. I have a lot to gain by seeing that those in power remain in power. That’s why I’m stuck in this miserable job, teaching you miserable students, clinging to my miserable salary.”
The student’s accusation annoyed him, and he muttered to himself, “Do what you want. What do I care? I am just here to teach.” But he did worry about the students, and in bed he had nightmares about their young bodies lying in gutters as their mothers pounded on Ramchandra’s door.
Most of the teachers supported the protesters, but a few came to the regime’s defense. “These people want nothing but trouble,” Bandana Miss said one morning, after the older students had left to support the antigovernment demonstrators and the younger ones had gone home. Her brother occupied a high position in the tourism department. “This will lead our country nowhere.”
“You mean you don’t want democracy?” Shailendra asked with a smirk.
“We need control,” Bandana Miss said. “Otherwise we’ll end up like America, where people shoot each other on the streets.”
“I thought you liked America,” someone said. “Didn’t you send your son there?”
For a moment Bandana Miss was stumped. Then she said, “Sending your son to America for education is one thing. Agreeing with its philosophy is another.”
“I’ve heard you sing praises of America,” Ramchandra said.
Bandana Miss became defensive. “That’s an entirely different thing. We can’t let this country fall to anarchy.”
“What’s your take on this, Ramchandra-ji?” Gokul asked. “You haven’t offered us your opinion.”
“I have none. Revolutions come and go. I still don’t have a house of my own in this city.”
That made everyone laugh, and even Bandana Miss found a way to save face. “So true, so true, Ramchandra-ji,” she said, placing her hand on his arm.
“So, Ramchandra-ji,” Shailendra said, “you mean to say that your personal problems are more important than the country’s problems?”
The Guru of Love Page 22