The driver didn’t understand. “How was your Bhai Tika, madam?” he asked.
“It didn’t happen.” It fell the day after the Chaurasi. It would have been her first Bhai Tika in eighteen years.
“These rascals—do they know what they do to people’s families?”
“I’ll try to sleep,” she said.
“You should. I shall not put on any music.”
She knew why she had stolen from Prasanti—because she had pride.
She was too high-minded to steal her grandmother’s things. Even nefarious deeds had degrees of heinousness to them—pride guided what was an acceptable monstrous act and what was not. Stealing her grandmother’s jewelry would have compromised Bhagwati’s integrity.
“Bhai,” she said to the driver. “Let’s go to Jaigaon instead of Bagdogra.”
“You mean Phuntsholing?”
“Yes, Phuntsholing.”
“Won’t you miss your flight if you go to Bhutan?”
“It’s not until tomorrow. I’ll go to Bagdogra from Phuntsholing.”
Thanks to the open border between India and Bhutan, she didn’t really need an ID as long as she restricted her movements to Phuntsholing on the Bhutanese side. A penetrable border in an impermeable country.
She decided on a detour to Bhutan so she could see what she had left behind. Years before, this was the same route Ram and she had taken to start a new life together. Then, she was a young woman running away from home who’d never be accepted by her family again. Now, she was a thief who would never be discovered because of the number of people visiting her sick grandmother. Nobody would think she did it.
As the car traversed the vast, ugly plains of North Bengal, Bhagwati wondered if anyone would recognize her in Bhutan. Once she and her husband had been corralled out of the country, her brothers-in-law had cut off all contact with Ram and her by ignoring their phone calls and letters. But now Ram and the siblings were back in touch because the pariahs had been magically moved to America.
Jaigaon was a filthy town full of stray dogs, stray cows, and stray people. Phuntsholing, on the other side of the border, had fewer people and was more planned and cleaner. The border patrolmen didn’t stop anyone. She wasn’t a suspect. She wasn’t going to disrupt national peace. She wasn’t about to stage demonstrations. This was her home before she was kicked out. It was the only home her husband had known. It appeared scared now—as though the entire town was afraid of speaking.
“Where are you from?” a shopkeeper asked.
“Sikkim,” she said.
“Oh, Sikkim.” There was admiration, the asker from the land of monasteries and Buddhism respecting the asked from the land of monasteries and Buddhism.
“Where are you from?” an Indian shopkeeper asked. Stores in Phuntsholing could be licensed out only to Bhutanese (the bona fides, of course, those who received the chance to continue living in the country) and were then leased out to Indians.
“Nepal,” she lied. The shopkeeper looked at her with distrust, with fear.
“Where are you from?” a third salesman asked. He looked Nepali. He was Nepali—one of those lucky few who got to stay.
“I was one of those driven out,” she said.
“And you’ve come back because . . .” He stared inquiringly.
“I want to experience how bad things are. You look so happy—as though nothing has happened.”
No ethnic cleansing. No bloodshed. No displacement of over a hundred thousand people.
“How can you be so certain?” he said. “We hate it here. Your kind is so lucky.”
“You’re delusional. You wouldn’t have survived all those years at the camps. You, with the pencil shop, living in this comfortable world, couldn’t have done it.”
“That’d have been better. Look at where we are now. We can’t even smoke in peace. There’s a new law against it.”
“It’s a good law for the environment and for your health,” Bhagwati said.
“My cousins were at the camps,” he said. “Now they are in America.”
“Who were they?”
“Anamika Chettri.”
“The pretty woman—I know her.”
“Lucky woman.”
“Yes, she’s incredibly lucky. Her second husband is abusive—beats her every single day.”
“Doesn’t matter. They are in America.”
“You really think being beaten up is all right just because you’re in America?”
“You’re in the best place in the universe. I’d much rather have been among those ejected.”
“Best place? Where? In heaven?”
“Isn’t America heaven?”
She’d have visited the palace just to show herself she could travel freely but thought better of it.
“Airport,” she said to one of the many taxi drivers flitting like flies around her. “Bagdogra Airport.”
“Where are you from, madam?” the polite taxi driver asked once they had crossed the border into India.
“Me? From a place in America called Boulder. Heard of it?”
The driver shook his head to deny knowledge of the strange place.
“It’s different from Bhutan. People live freely. People can be themselves.”
“And what do you work there as, madam?”
“I am a dishwasher,” she said.
“I hear even dishwashers in America make more money than officers here.”
“Yes, you heard right. In America, they make a lot of money. Momo sellers make even more.”
“Do they sell momos in America?”
“They do. My husband and I plan to do it, too. We might even sell a Bhutanese dish or two.”
•
She apologized to Prasanti because it was the civil gesture to make. Up until her grandmother’s stroke, Manasa had considered Prasanti an unnecessary appendage to the household. After the hospitalization and the dedication with which the servant looked after Aamaa, Manasa was compelled to change her opinion. They couldn’t have done without the eunuch.
“I know I shouldn’t have slapped you,” Manasa said. “It’s just that so many things—bad things—are happening in my life right now. When I see you so happy and carefree, I wish I could be like you. I am jealous.”
“You mean, become a hijra?” Prasanti asked.
“No, not become a hijra. I wish I had no cares, no stress, no tension. You have an easy life.”
“Try running the house for a few days,” Prasanti said. “You’ll want your old life back.”
“You’re lucky.”
Prasanti made light of the apology, but Manasa could see the spring in the eunuch’s steps. It was tragedy’s way of unifying a family.
“Now, no mischief from you, Aamaa,” she said to her reclining grandmother. “No drugs, no flirting, and no fighting with the world.”
The older woman replied with gibberish, but she was smiling.
At the Bhadrapur airport, from where she’d fly to Kathmandu, the daughter-in-law of the once all-powerful and now entirely powerless Ghimirey family wouldn’t have to submit herself to the humiliation of being frisked. An old loyal dog worked there. His anxiety at her father-in-law’s retirement from active politics was palpable.
“Your Bua did great things for my family,” he said. “He was responsible for this job I have now.”
A man who had positively changed the fates of so many families had distorted hers. She smiled politely.
“Now we hear he lives in London,” the man continued. “That he isn’t keeping well. But he doesn’t need to be well in the body to contribute to this nation. As long as he’s well in the head, he should stay here.”
“He’s not well in the head, either, Daai,” she said. “He had problems remembering things. Some other people have taken over the reins of the party, as they should.”
“How can you say that?” It was a gentle admonishment. “Who can take over the mantle from someone as great as your father-in-law?”
; “Don’t know.”
“How about your husband?”
“Himal?”
“I’ve known him since he was a child,” the man proudly said while shooing away the short, dark porter who had been a staple at the airport in Bhadrapur for decades. “Your husband perhaps remembers me.”
Manasa gave the porter a ten-rupee bill.
“Why don’t you enter politics?” he said. “The daughter-in-law of Madhav Prasad Ghimirey belongs to the country.”
“I hardly belong to Nepal. I am not even from here.”
“But you got married into it.”
That solved matters. Marriage solved everything.
Himal was waiting for her at the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu. As though by reflex action, Manasa craned her neck to see if Bua was next to him. He wasn’t.
“How was the flight?” Himal asked.
“Shaky,” Manasa replied. “I could see the cockpit from my seat.”
“We have to go to Kancha Kaka’s for lunch.”
“Right now? Straight from the airport?”
“Sorry,” Himal said, as though a quick stop at his place in Baneshwor, so close to the airport, would derail the entire lunch. “We have to go now.”
Manasa was quiet in the car while the new family driver stole glances at her in the mirror. Feeling violated and ambushed (both by this strange driver and her husband), she stared out at the city stretching out around her. The driver shifted to the side-view mirror to check her out.
It had been such a beautiful city. Nature had been bountiful. Man had been uncharitable. Manasa could see the mountain range behind her. Beside her and in front of her, she saw lofty hills of trash. The car didn’t move because the traffic was unbearably bad. Dendrite-sniffing five-year-olds exchanged their tubes of adhesive with hashish-smoking six-year-olds for the benefit of a foreigner who videotaped them in their natural habitat.
This city had become uncontrollable. People were moving into the valley because of the relative stability here. Such a small place, and so many people—it would continue growing. Tomorrow there’d be a strike, and a hundred new families would migrate into the capital. A natural disaster somewhere, and a few more would adopt the city. Some faction of the Maoists would murder some family member, and the rest of the deceased’s relatives would move in.
Kathmandu was the easiest escape route, sometimes a long-term layover on the way to the greener pastures of Abu Dhabi, Heathrow, and Houston. Until the country became stable, Kathmandu would burst at its seams with newer migrants. Once the country became stable, Kathmandu would inflate with newer migrants. It was a city that wouldn’t stop gaining weight.
“Aren’t you going to ask how he is?” Himal asked.
“No,” Manasa said.
“I think he misses the way you take care of him.”
“I am such a fine nurse.”
“Don’t be cynical, Manasa. Everyone is very excited to see you.”
Before entering Kancha Kaka’s, where the driveway wound to a gigantic mansion whose multicolored exterior gave it the appearance of a cheap, house-shaped cake, Manasa covered her head with her shawl, a gesture that attracted her husband’s gratitude.
Himal’s uncles and aunts were gathered in the sitting room with Bua. Manasa touched the feet of all the women with her head.
“The youngest daughter-in-law in the house,” an aunt quipped.
The token separation between genders occurred once greetings and blessings were dispensed, with the men sticking to the sitting room while the women congregated in the kitchen.
After the youngest aunt went on an ignorant spiel about how beautifully Manasa spoke Nepali despite having been born and brought up in India, Manasa excused herself to go to the bathroom. There, she inserted her finger into her throat and vomited loudly, forcefully.
“I just threw up,” she said to the bevy of females in the kitchen. Pregnancy, their favorite subject, was staring them in the face.
“Is it true—the good news?” her father-in-law asked her on their way home.
“I don’t know, Bua. I haven’t tested myself. It might be something I ate.”
“I hope it is good news. It’s about time. I need a little boy to play with.”
“And what if it’s a daughter?” she asked.
“When the first-born is a daughter, she’s Lakshmi,” her father-in-law said unconvincingly.
Once home, she fed Bua some porridge, washed his face, brushed his teeth, and put him to sleep. Five minutes later, he shit all over the bed. The servant was out, so Himal cleaned Bua while she changed the sheet.
In bed that night, Manasa asked Himal if his ear was better.
“Not better or worse than when we left London,” Himal replied.
“Himal,” she softly said.
“Yes, honey.” He was equally soft.
“I can’t go to London.”
“Will you stay in Kathmandu with Bua? He has been talking about sticking around a little longer.”
“Aamaa had a stroke. There’s no one with her.”
“What about Prasanti?”
“She’s not family.”
“And the others?”
“No, Himal. I looked after your father all these years. It’s time for me to look after my grandmother.”
“When will you be back?”
“When she’s better.”
“What if she’s never better?”
“Then I’ll stay until she dies.”
“I can’t look after Bua alone—you know that.” Voice a little louder.
“I’ll look after Aamaa alone. You should try it.”
“I have a job.”
“I had one, too, before I started looking after your father.”
“Please, Manasa.”
“It’s not to get back at you, Himal. It’s the way things happened. I have to go. Hire a home-care aide—some Gurkha’s daughter or son. I know of someone called Gita. I’ll put you in touch with her.”
“What will the relatives say?”
“They are your relatives, Himal.”
“And what if you’re pregnant?”
“I vomited on purpose to get away from Kancha Kaka’s house.”
“So, you aren’t pregnant at all? Should we try to have a baby?”
“Earlier I’d have said I am already looking after your father, Himal. Now, I can’t say anything until Aamaa is better.”
“I wasn’t expecting this.”
“I wasn’t expecting Aamaa to have a stroke. I am leaving tomorrow. Please get your ear surgery done.”
She had already made peace with Prasanti. Now she’d have to learn to live with her.
•
Prasanti hadn’t been this busy in years. Aamaa’s appetite had taken a nosedive, which the doctors said needed rectifying. Force-feeding her mistress was no easy task now that everyone, especially Manasa, was gone. Manasa had known how to deal with Chitralekha when her grandmother was being difficult—the tyrant thrust the spoon of rice into Aamaa’s mouth. Aamaa would spit it out, mutter something about being treated like a disabled baby, but Manasa had carried on unfazed. Before long, the old woman was grudgingly chewing away. When Prasanti attempted to imitate Manasa’s militant method, Aamaa, weak as she was, nearly slapped her.
Agastaya, the last person to leave, had asked Prasanti if he could help her with anything before he left later that day, which she thought odd.
“If you want to work, go wash your sheet, condo,” Prasanti had remarked. “How will a man know how to do a woman’s job?”
To her surprise, Agastaya actually washed his sheet.
“You must really like to work,” Prasanti said. “What an idiot.”
Agastaya’s good-bye message to her was not to work too hard.
“You do all the chores inside the house,” he said. “Let Nirmal Daaju do the rest.”
“That stupid driver knows nothing—all he does is stare at my condo.”
“I have spoken to
him about it,” Agastaya said. “He’ll do all the man’s work.”
“There’s no man’s work to do here. Let him do all my work, and I will do the man’s work. Then, I’ll get to relax all day.”
“This is for you.” Agastaya gave her an envelope.
“I hope the money you’d have given me for Bhai Tika is included in this,” Prasanti said. “Your condo white friend didn’t give me anything.”
“He’s from a different world. He doesn’t know better.”
“Never be friends with stingy people. Even that stingy Ruthwa left money on my bed—it’s only two thousand rupees, but I wouldn’t have expected the person who nearly killed Aamaa to leave me anything.”
“I thought you said you wanted nothing to do with Ruthwa,” Agastaya teased. “Why take his money?”
“It’s money, you condo. Why should I say no to money?”
“And thank you for everything you do for Aamaa,” Agastaya said. “You’re the reason she’s lived so long. You take excellent care of her. She’s so much better now. With your care, she’ll be even better.”
“I run this condo place. One of you should now come back and stay here. What will happen when she dies? I alone cannot look after this house.”
“It’s your house as much as it is ours. Of course you will look after it if Aamaa isn’t alive. But don’t talk that way. Aamaa will live for many, many years.”
“If you all don’t bother her so much,” Prasanti said, happy that she had received yet another doctor’s reassurance about Aamaa’s health. “At least you went to see that ugly girl.”
“Aamaa is stable now. If she were still in danger, I’d have stayed.”
“Liar.” Prasanti laughed, relieved. “You tell me she’s stable only because you want to get out of here.”
“Thank you again, Prasanti. You’re a real sister.”
“Now, talk to your real sisters about one of you moving back here. Aamaa would like that.”
Agastaya’s taxi trundled down the driveway, belching smoke on her. Everybody came and everyone left. Only she stayed behind with Aamaa.
Prasanti was a day late for her weekly inventory.
First, she counted the cash. With the addition of the monies left behind by the siblings, she was up to 60,000 rupees. This was a lot of money, and her room wasn’t safe—she needed to talk to Aamaa about starting a bank account. Aamaa repeatedly told her to deposit her money in the bank, but Prasanti was afraid that her mistress would question her about the mostly illegal means by which she, a servant, had accrued that big an amount. The money in her Godrej, therefore, kept piling up. Aamaa had a right to be suspicious. A lot of the cash Prasanti had stolen or shortchanged. But she was a servant, Prasanti reasoned, and servants stole and shortchanged.
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