The City Son

by Samrat Upadhyay

  Tarun circles and circles the area but doesn’t dare to move into the lane where the house is located. He doesn’t run into Amit or Sumit, although he does come across a couple of the neighborhood boys he knows through Amit. When darkness begins to fall, Tarun moves closer to the lane, and when it’s completely dark he gathers the nerve to walk by the house. There’s light in the kitchen window. He spots Didi, part of her head, shoulders, her side profile. She is cooking, her attention on the stove. To his left, through the living room window, he sees a figure move toward the kitchen—Amit—and sharp words are exchanged between him and Didi. A pressure cooker hisses. Didi turns her attention back to the stove again. She lifts her head as if she’s sensed something.

  Tarun retreats into the shadows of the house across the street. Didi leans sideways toward the window and peers out, her eyes devouring the darkness. “Kina andhyaroma lukira?” A voice startles Tarun. It’s the old man who does odd jobs in the Bangemudha house. He smells of alcohol. “Oh, I see, you’re playing hide-and-seek with your brothers.” The man smiles drunkenly. Didi can see the man because he’s under the streetlamp. After the man leaves, Didi lingers at the window, her eyes boring into the spot where Tarun is flattened against the wall. Then she returns to her cooking.

  At school Tarun’s eyes tear up for no reason, even when he’s not thinking about Didi. He can no longer answer questions from his teachers. He sounds almost like his father: “Um … aah … tyo … yo … yahan.” His classmates laugh. At home he answers in monosyllables to Sanmaya and Mahesh Uncle. These days Apsara mostly stays cooped up inside her room. Sanmaya has to take her food on a tray upstairs and sometimes leave it outside her door, like in a hotel. Some days Apsara pulls the tray into her room, and some days it sits outside, the food turning stale. Every now and then Tarun picks up the tray from outside the door and carries it into her room. At other times, when it strikes her fancy, she opens the door. One time she opened the door and talked to him rapidly about something she did with her aunt when she was a child, something about the sewing of leaves to make plates for a festival.

  Today as he takes the tray into her room, she launches into a description of her childhood picnic, how it was on a hill with a breathtaking view of the mountains. “The mountains looked gorgeous enough to be swallowed,” she said. Sanmaya must have persuaded her to take a bath recently because her hair is combed and oiled. “How do you swallow mountains, Ma?” the boy asks. She laughs. She names her friends who were there: Sarita, Sunita, Bonita, this ta, that ta. The food: pulao, khasi ko masu, kerau ko achar, koreko mula, roasted corn.

  “Let’s have that picnic right here,” Tarun says, and she nods. “Aaan garnus,” he commands, then inserts his fingers full of rice and dal and tarkari into her open mouth. There’s someone standing at the door. Mahesh Uncle. He’s back home early today. “Fabulous,” he says.

  “We’re having a picnic,” Apsara says, then thinks of something and stops eating. Mahesh Uncle leaves, and it takes the boy a while to coax her back to the picnic.

  Tarun doesn’t go to Bangemudha for a week, then two. Finally after skipping two Saturdays, he goes. When he opens the door and enters, there’s no one in the house. Normally his father would be on the bed; Amit and Sumit would be around somewhere, Amit sulking, Sumit smiling. But today there’s an air of stillness. Somehow the noises of the street have also become muted. Tarun stands quietly by the door.

  Didi emerges from the kitchen. She looks younger, perhaps because of the hair cascading on her shoulders—he’s never seen her hair down before—but also because, Tarun realizes with a start, her lips are red. She has lipstick on. And her eyes look darker because she has put kohl around them. The way she’s wearing her dhoti, it looks different, not loose but tightly wrapped around her hips. The boy becomes transfixed. She stops a few feet away from him. “You finally remembered me.”

  Tarun’s throat is so tight that he doesn’t know what sound will leap out if he speaks.

  “So, how does it feel to abandon your mother like this?”

  Tarun is crying now.

  “And what made you remember me today?”

  Tarun is shaking his head, blubbering. He has no excuse. It is all his fault.

  “And what do you want from me today?” she asks.

  Her words pierce him, and he crumples to the ground, on his knees, his hands clasped together in front of his chest. “Please, Didi.”

  She comes close to him and stands a few inches away. She’s breathing heavily. “Stand up,” she says. He does. He’s afraid of meeting her eyes, but he can’t help himself, so he lifts his gaze. Her eyes are big and shiny and filled with something that seems to want to swallow him.

  Her fingers reach out and grab his chin, rougher than usual. “Let me see this man’s face.” She inspects it, and when he makes a gesture to move closer to her, she steps back a few inches and says, “No, you can’t touch me.”

  His eyes fill up again.

  “If you want to touch me,” she says, “you have to prove yourself again.”

  He lets her stroke his face, rub her hand behind his ears. The loose end of her dhoti falls from her chest, exposing a brightly patterned blouse—he’s never seen her in that blouse either. She makes no attempt to gather the dhoti end and cover herself again: he can see the heave of her chest with each breath. “My son,” she says as her finger slides across his lips. “You have no idea how much your mother missed you.”

  “Where are the others?”

  “I sent them away so it’ll only be you and me.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “To the village, for a week. Your father needs to take care of some matter regarding the house.”

  “What about Amit’s and Sumit’s school?”

  “One week isn’t going to hurt them. Are you hungry?”

  He nods.

  “What would you like to eat? Whatever my son wants to eat today, I’ll cook for him.”

  “I want to eat some kheer.”

  “Then I’ll cook some kheer.”

  She asks him to stay in the kitchen with her as she cooks. She’s tucked her dhoti end into her waist so her breasts bounce as she moves. His eyes become fixed on them, and she smiles at him. Her body still hasn’t welcomed him to hers. But every now and then her hand reaches out to touch his face—his eyes, his cheeks, his lips—and his neck and shoulders; once, her hand rubs his chest as she cooks.

  When he gazes at her face, the red lipstick makes him think this is what his mother must have looked like when she was younger, except, of course, his mother was prettier. Yet when Tarun looks at Didi now, he doesn’t think she’s ugly. He’s come to like the fleshiness of her cheeks, the chubby nose, the black spots on her face. Besides the red lipstick, she has also applied some powder to her cheeks, because there’s a sheen to them.

  When the kheer is ready, she ladles some on a plate and takes it to the bed, where they both sit. When he tries to scoot closer to her, she says, “You’re still not allowed to touch me, but I’ll feed you.” And she lovingly feeds him, watches him chew and swallow the kheer. “Mitho chha?” she asks several times and, his mouth full, he nods. At one point he asks her if she’s going to eat, and she says her hunger is satiated by just looking at him. There’s something odd about the way her voice is coming from a different place inside her. After he finishes a second helping of the kheer, he lets out a loud burp, and she laughs. “I guess you don’t want any more?” she asks.

  He shakes his head. “Then why don’t you lie down?” she says. He’s eaten so much that he is feeling drowsy, so he lies down on the bed, the bed where the Masterji sleeps at night. Since she came to Bangemudha, Didi hasn’t slept on the same bed with the Masterji; she sleeps by herself in a corner.

  He wonders if Amit and Sumit are enjoying the village. Did they really want to go? He’s heard Amit say a few times that he wasn’t going to return to that backward hole even if someone dragged him there in chains, and Sumit had smiled and said,
“Yes, a backward hole.” Did they go willingly, or did Didi force them? He suspects the latter. As he begins to doze, he is aware that Didi is closing the curtains to the windows that overlook the street. Why is she doing that? he wonders, but he’s too sleepy to wonder more. Then she slides next to him, and he can smell her—she’s put on some kind of perfume!—and her breasts press against him. Her hands begin to roam all over his body, and she calls his name over and over in endearment.

  A week later when the Masterji returns to the city with Amit and Sumit, there’s a smell in the house he can’t identify. “What’s this smell? Yo … tyo …? What is it?” The Masterji goes around sniffing but can’t place the smell. Amit thinks something is odd about his mother, something off. She appears to have become younger, her skin smoother; she seems to have become … prettier. How is that possible? She must have taken a lover—this realization jolts him, and he looks for clues to validate the presence of another man: cigarette butts around the house, a slip of paper with an unknown handwriting, perhaps a shaving blade left in the bathroom. There’s nothing. When Tarun comes to visit the following Saturday, Amit finds him on the front lawn and punches him harder than ever before. Tarun kneels and gasps in pain, and Didi flies out and strikes Amit on the face with such force that he’s sent reeling across the yard. “If you touch your brother again,” she says, “I will kill you.”

  She takes Tarun by his shoulder and leads him in, where she has him open his shirt. She rubs some Vicks at the point of contact, saying she hopes the bastard hasn’t broken her beautiful son’s shoulder bone. Poor baby, Amit thinks, watching his mother rub Vicks with the tips of two fingers and blow a soft gentle breath on them. The way his mother’s fingers clasp Tarun’s naked shoulder, and the smell of Vicks, which his mother applies liberally, take Amit back to the uneasiness he’d experienced after returning from the village. His mind tries, vaguely, to connect the two feelings, the then-feeling and the now-feeling, but the two mingle and become diffused and confusing. “My beautiful son,” his mother is whispering to Tarun.

  CHAPTER TEN

  EVERY FEW WEEKS there’s an opportunity for Tarun to be alone with Didi. Somehow the other members of the house are away, and when he reaches Bangemudha, he finds the house quiet. Soon after he enters, she pulls the curtains and bolts the door, and suddenly the outside world is shut off. “Come here, sweet son,” Didi says to him. She sits on the chair by the door, and he goes to her with dread and excitement in his throat. When he nears her, he can feel heat coming off her body. Her eyes become slightly glazed, and her chest moves up and down as though she’s begun panting inside. When he is inches from her, she reaches out to explore him. Her hands at first move rapidly up and down his body, an initial survey of the landscape. He’s ticklish and laughs, but she’s not laughing. She begins with the chest, where she gently rubs her palm in a circular motion. Soft, moaning breaths are coming out of her parted lips. Some days she calls him by his name, “Taruuuun, Taruuuun.” He’s mesmerized by her voice, which sounds like a small animal trapped in the thicket of the jungle. Her fingers move up toward his face. They linger for a long time on his lips. “My sweet boy. Is there anyone more beautiful in this world? Is there anyone who loves his Didi more?” She’s not seeking answers to these questions, for in the next second he’s in her arms, and she’s kissing him on his lips, first with great tenderness, then strongly. A hand moves down to his privacy. Without him wanting to, he starts becoming hard, and he recalls a Bangemudha kid saying “lando” as he emphatically grabbed his crotch. Lando, Tarun thinks, and he becomes even harder. “Becoming bigger,” Didi whispers. She deep kisses him, her tongue darting in and out of his mouth, her lips sucking his tongue. Her hand is softly massaging his privacy. He’s confused and a bit scared and wants to move away, yet it also feels good.

  At home, he avoids his mother. He doesn’t have to try too hard because she’s often in her own world. Sometimes when he returns home, he finds her on the lawn. Sanmaya has helped her bathe, oiled her hair, and put her out in the sun. He doesn’t meet her eyes. She stares at him as he goes into the house. He runs up to his room and lies in bed, breathing heavily, his eyes closed. He hates himself.

  On some days after Didi is finished with him, his lips are sore and swollen. Amit notices and asks him why. Tarun doesn’t answer and looks down. Amit calls him a sissy, says his lips look like those of a girl’s puti. He comes closer to Tarun, says, “Do you know who has a smelly puti? Your mother.” Amit nods sagaciously. “That’s what my father smelled, but he liked it.” A pause. “That’s how you were born.”

  Back in Lazimpat Tarun fingers his swollen lips. Sanmaya thinks he got into a fight, so she fusses over him. He brushes her hand away. In his room he stares at his lips in the mirror, whispers, “Puti.” After making sure the door is locked, he takes off all his clothes. He imagines Didi’s hands over his body, and his lando stiffens. He watches it rise. It’s pencil thin, but it has a throb of its own. He twists his body this way and that, as though looking for an elusive scar. Beautiful boy, he mouths to his reflection. He wonders what Didi finds beautiful about him, what others do. His body is scrawny, and lately he thinks his face is like a girl’s. He is certain that his lips, even when they aren’t swollen, look like puti. He doesn’t know what a puti looks like. One time a boy at school brought a tattered book with photos of naked women, but the photos were black and white and grainy, and one photo was a close-up of a puti with the caption VULVA in English underneath. But all it resembled was a cave with some hair hanging from it. Still, it was ugly, and he thinks his face looks like the vulva.

  Every time he returns home after spending private time with Didi, he becomes despondent for a day or two. He loses his appetite, and when Mahesh Uncle and Sanmaya talk to him, he barely responds. “Why so glum today?” Sanmaya remarks. Mahesh Uncle asks whether Amit bullied him again today. Tarun shakes his head no. Mahesh Uncle has heard about Amit’s aggression, not from Tarun but from Sanmaya after Tarun told her about Amit locking him in the outside shed in Bangemudha for nearly an hour one afternoon. “Tell me if he does anything like that again,” Mahesh Uncle had said then. “Maybe you need to stop going to Bangemudha.” But if Tarun stopped going to Bangemudha, Didi would be distressed, so he’s been keeping mum about Amit’s bullying.

  Amit confronts him on the side of the house, the narrow strip enclosed by a wall that separates the neighbor’s house. Sumit is somewhere else. “Eh, randi ko chhora,” he says, grabbing Tarun by the collar. “Muji, you come here on Saturdays when we’re not here, don’t you?”

  Tarun nods.

  “Why?”

  He has no answer for Amit, who briefly lets go of Tarun’s collar, slaps him, then grabs the collar again with the same hand. The smoothness of the gesture indicates it’s copied from a movie and practiced. “Tell me,” Amit says. “What do you come here for?” He’s speaking in a loud, urgent whisper. They are underneath the window of the living room, and the Masterji is inside, sitting cross-legged on the bed poring over a book. Didi is most likely inside, too. Didi and the Masterji rarely speak to each other; rather, it’s Didi who rarely speaks to the Masterji, who generally avoids Didi’s eyes. But the Masterji, even if he knew Amit was strong-arming Tarun, would not have gotten up from his seat to stop it; he’d have looked on helplessly or offered a mild rebuke to Amit, who’d have merely sneered at his father.

  “Ta machikney, you think you can come here and do whatever you want?” Amit grabs Tarun’s collar tighter, knuckles pressing against Tarun’s throat. He smells of khaini; his right cheek has the small bulge of the tobacco ensconced there. Sumit has informed Tarun that his brother is already smoking ganja with the neighborhood boys.

  Amit’s voice is now a soft whisper. “She’s sucking your lando, isn’t she, my mother?”

  Fear grips Tarun, and reflexively he drives his knee into Amit’s groin, feeling something crunch against his knee bone. Holding his crotch, Amit collapses to the ground, his face contorted i
n pain. Just then Didi and Sumit emerge from the front of the house. She observes Amit with distaste, then crouches in front of Tarun and checks his face for damages. She brushes her thumb against his lips, then takes him inside. Sumit attends to his brother.

  Tarun worries about Amit telling everyone about him and Didi, or seeking revenge, but strangely, Amit seems to have acquired a new respect for Tarun. On the next visit, Amit even shows him his swollen testicles. Now he’s less aggressive toward him. He still calls Tarun names, and sometimes he mouths them across the room when Didi’s back is turned, but now there’s an undercurrent of jocularity to it, as though the two share an inside joke. He never mentions his suspicion about Didi and Tarun again, but once or twice when Didi demonstrates affection toward Tarun, Amit is in the background, making kissing gestures, and once, he lewdly grabs his crotch. When Tarun runs into Amit with his friends on street corners, Amit warns them, “If any of you lay a finger on him, you’ll find your arms and legs broken.” He puts his arm around Tarun. “This brother of mine is a chhupe rustam. He looks like a pretty girl, but he’s got many tricks up his sleeve.”

  When Tarun turns twelve he ejaculates as Didi is fondling him over his trousers. His crotch becomes wet. He is ashamed and stands stiffly, as though called to attention at a Boy Scout march. “I was wondering when this would happen,” Didi says. “All this means is that you’ve become a big boy now. But we’ll need to get you cleaned up. Come, take off your clothes.” He covers his crotch with his palms. She looks at him questioningly. “What’s the matter, love?” He shakes his head. “Is my beautiful boy shy? Is he ashamed about what his mother will see?” She’s happy at the idea of him shy about revealing himself to her. “But we’ll need to get you washed up before the others come. You don’t want them to find out, do you? You don’t want Amit to know, do you?” She rubs her index finger over the wet spot on his trousers, then brings it up to her nose to sniff. “A big boy that you are now, you can’t let other people see these things. It’s okay if I see it, I’m your mother. But it has to remain our secret, do you understand?”