The Man Who Would Not See

by Rajorshi Chakraborti

  So I switched off the phone earlier than usual and reminded her that it was three hours past her bedtime and we had a whole new thing of keeping her leg up to get used to tonight. We would talk to Baba as soon as it was morning in India.

  Mira asked me quite cheerfully whether she would be able to jump at her ballet class on Wednesday, and briefly I must have looked stumped. Then it crashed on me that the weeks of recovery, including total bedrest for days and the physiotherapy to follow in time, would have had no place in her planning (if twenty minutes’ ‘planning’ was what it had been, rather than a more immediate impulse), simply because she had no experience of any such injury. A huge shock awaited her over the coming month, that would only unfold gradually but endlessly, full of pain above all — so much of that — but also boredom, bafflement, impatience and regret.

  Mummy, I thought I’d jump and it would hurt for a couple of days and Baba would rush back from India and promise never to leave again. What is all this? I didn’t want to stop doing everything for five weeks! No one told me that would happen. THAT’S SO UNFAIR!

  And freshly everything burst in me and turned to nothing, and I felt nothing but hate for my blind, stupid, pathetic, book-driven, guilt-ridden, denial-filled husband, and the Iago he believed was his brother.

  In the middle of the night, lying sleepless, I realised that I hated Abhay also for what he had put me through. I hadn’t seen that until now. He made me witness Mira’s jump. He caused the guilt that will never go away for not being close enough to grab her. He put me through the sight of the ankle, her face, her screams, carrying her with the help of another mum down the steps and to the car, that drive, those cries from the back, the bruising, the swelling up, the very worst fears about snapped bones and permanent damage, lying here right now at 4.15 in the morning, still disbelieving that there isn’t another universe in which we would wake up where my daughter had landed on her head.

  In the middle of the night, it was suddenly clear that I hated Abhay enough to want to leave. Actually, don’t return. Stay right there, tend to your beloved family, ‘discover’ your sister, who after all was nothing but another great abandoner in a long line of them, write your fucking book which is probably your real interest anyway, go to your festivals and your networking, and fuck right out of our lives because this is so over!

  In her desperation to bring her Baba back, to strike some response in him after he’d seemingly forgotten her existence for the past seven weeks, Mira made a sudden choice with no idea of the consequences, and how they would be just hers to pay. And mine to some extent, but not Abhay’s or his brother’s, who were getting off with nothing but a breezy, everything-under-control text. Oh no, motherfucker, oh no you don’t. There are some rights you lose forever from here on, and Mira and I get to decide which ones.

  You wanted to shake up the status quo, dear brothers. Congratulations! The past is never coming back.

  In the morning, on one hour’s (cumulative) sleep — there had been three doses of painkillers in all: each time Mira took an hour to drift off, during which time she clung and yelled and got incredibly angry when I wouldn’t let her turn onto her side — I decided to begin hurting Abhay right away. I had had a meeting scheduled with Ceyda, one of my PhD students, who was leaving on Sunday for a research trip back to Turkey. She would have completely understood if we’d cancelled, or we could have met over Skype any time in the coming week. But I suppose I too needed the break, even if I did email to reschedule my other meetings (thankfully teaching would only resume in the first week of March).

  Mum called at seven, expecting to come over after breakfast; she’d also been an incredible help last evening at the hospital. But I told her to come in the afternoon instead, when I’d be back from uni. I had someone else in mind who I knew was flexible most mornings. I confirmed with my friend Tony shortly after (my lover, in Iago’s eyes) that he could baby-sit between nine and lunchtime: he was shocked by what had happened and agreed right away. To my credit, I didn’t mention that Mira had jumped to get her Baba’s attention.

  But then I immediately texted Abhay: it would be close to midnight for him, so I had no doubt he was awake.

  You can call the house if you have time to talk to Mira. I have one meeting I need to be at, but Tony will be here looking after her.

  Abhay

  Somehow I managed to apologise before Paakhi and Tulti arrived. I managed to say that I could see no part of Mira’s decision to jump (not an ‘accident’, I repeated) was down to Dada or black magic.

  ‘Abhi, believe me, that’s the truth. I have no such powers, and Maheshji wouldn’t dream of hurting a child. There is much you can accuse me of; I did play games in New Zealand — which, by the way, Moushumi had nothing to do with — and I absolutely wanted to shake your world a little, above all because it seemed you had avoided so many of the shocks that we have faced over the years. But from the day I confessed that Didi was alive, nothing else has been a lie.’

  Dada didn’t let me out of his embrace. It was just as well Yakub didn’t walk in with the girls. We were like some final-act scene on a stage — Dada and me pretty much spooning on the floor, or else him saving me with a horizontal Heimlich, with Moushumi taking the sensible option of pulling up a chair to watch from above, probably learning stuff about the Wellington trip she had no idea of.

  Mira was in unimaginable pain just then, and I had her in my sights all the time, but this right here was funny too.

  And this, I also thought, is the calibre of so-called grown-up to which all these kids — her, Tulti, Paakhi, Jhappi — entrust their wellbeing.

  ‘I believe you, Dada, but it’s me. I can’t do it. I’ve tried, but I messed this up as well. In making an effort finally to notice you all and Didi, I took my eyes off Mira. It seems I can’t do both at the same time. I’ve never been able to, not since ’89. And I know you and Didi’s family could use some help, but do you really want someone this rubbish and one-eyed on your team? Unfortunately for that four-year-old in Wellington, this piece of crap is the only Baba she has—’

  ‘Abhi, you will go back right away, but it’s not an either/or—’

  ‘Oh, but it is. You’re mistaking me for some other Abhi, a truly fearless, superhuman Abhi with a third eye and a dozen arms who can straddle a continent and two oceans. This Abhi can barely be a father and a writer at the same time, let alone trying to find his Didi. But this pathetic Abhi is all that little Mira has, the Mira I simply forgot about and decided to take for granted, so obsessed was I by the chance to close the gaps in my own story. I said, darling daughter, I have accumulated a lot of unused vacation time, so I’m just going to put you, your feelings and every expectation that I have hitherto created of normal, loving behaviour on pause for a couple of months and go and sort out this other little thing, which of course should take no more than a long weekend. What was I thinking, Dada? Of course it’s not you. If anything I am truly our father’s son, which is my only shameless defence. You and Didi had Thamma as a role model, who was all about holding the family together, and so you’re able to carry on what you grew up with. I only had Baba, who I know is your hero, but who forgot about anyone as soon as they were out of sight, including his own son and daughter.’

  ‘Abhi, tomorrow morning we’ll set off for Ranchi airport. There’s an Indigo flight to Calcutta just after one. I’ll drive you—’

  ‘No, I want to leave now. I have to be in Wellington by Saturday.’

  ‘Yes, sure, we can book the flight online and also try and change your international ticket right away, but—’

  ‘I’m going to book the flight and leave. In any case, I’m not returning to Calcutta. I don’t want to see Ma right now. There will be flights to Delhi tonight, right? That will give me more options for Bangkok or Singapore, or even KL. I have my passport with me. Can you order a car? I’ll make something up for Ma after I’ve got a flight.’

  Dada let go of my arms when I tried to get up.

&n
bsp; ‘OK, go to Delhi, but by leaving tomorrow you can have a guaranteed journey all the way to New Zealand, and also see Praveen, who I’m pretty sure will be home tonight—’

  I had started gathering things of mine that were lying around in the living room, but at this I had to laugh.

  ‘Do you really think that still matters, whether I meet this drunkard or not? Do you think if I see him I’ll be able to resist smashing his face? If he’d come along like a normal person yesterday or the day before, I might not have had this dreadful idea of staying an extra week.’

  ‘Abhayda,’ Moushumi spoke, ‘you must remember what Lena has said, that the sprain will fully heal. She’ll be absolutely back to normal.’

  Now that I’d taken the first step, there was in fact much more I had to urgently say about their collective blind spot regarding Praveen, the appallingly neglectful parenting I had witnessed even before I’d met the man, and more than anything, his overwhelming share of blame for Didi’s disappearance. Who was this person they were all trying so hard to include and engage, the very man Didi wanted to be rid of forever? There were so many home truths — glaring, at least to me — that I wanted to leave them thinking about. Couldn’t Dada and Moushumi formally adopt at least Paakhi? They pretty much looked after her full-time anyway. Maybe tossing Praveen overboard, rather than this policy of appeasement for the sake of the children, was one key to bringing Didi back.

  Moushumi moved her chair back to the dining table, and Dada went to their bedroom to switch on the desktop. We had to book a Delhi flight, and have me off to Ranchi airport either in a hire car or with Yakub within the next hour. Which meant right now was the moment to say my piece on Praveen, even if I’d never met him. But what doubt could there be? He’d caused my sister so much misery that she chose to leave even her children behind. And now he drank, with no regard for his responsibility to Paakhi. Jhappi seemed to have shut him out altogether, living as though both his parents were absent.

  It often takes an outsider to make you see the obvious. This was another necessary role I had come all this way to play, for Paakhi above all.

  I was ready with my verdict, on the one bad egg they needed to ditch. This guy needed dumping, not carrying. And the time to state this was now, with both Moushumi and Dada in the house, but Paakhi and Tulti due back any minute.

  And then these were the words that came out, once Dada returned to the living room.

  ‘Thank you for reminding me, Moushumi. That’s what I’m going to hold onto for the whole of this endless journey. And I am sorry for abusing Praveen. I take that back. What I’m actually lamenting is my own incompetence. What you have collectively created here is full of love and acceptance, of people and realities as they are; in fact, it’s the very image of relationships and family that Lena and I would like Mira to have. And the tragedy is that were it not for my blindness and laziness and fear and guilt, the three of us and maybe even Ma could have been part of your world for years now. But — and this is where my incredible uselessness reaches its peak — I acted on this long-overdue realisation in the worst possible way. I explained nothing to Mira before disappearing so abruptly, and I showed up here hoping to connect and understand and clear up the mystery about Didi in four days flat. Well, as you can see, I have overachieved rather brilliantly on all fronts—’

  ‘Abhi, shut up and listen. Shut up. Not another word until I have finished. I know you will return. You’re an amazing dad, which I have seen with my own eyes, which is exactly why Mira’s missed you so much, and you’ll go home and make sure she’s all right, and Lena too, and tell them both how much they belong here, and when the time’s right for you, you will all return and we’ll be waiting to welcome you. And I’ll tell you another thing I’ll do. There are a couple of people in that sadhu’s ashram whom I’ve met and stay in touch with, who manage to get my messages through to Didi even when she is far away and out of reach, and I’m going to let her know that I saw you and that you were here, and so now we are literally all of us waiting for her, the one absent person in the family. Everyone else has come together, and we’re waiting. Let’s see if that has any effect.

  ‘And you enabled that. Without you visiting, without Jhappi and Paakhi themselves meeting you and being able to confirm what kind of uncle they had, could I have truthfully made this claim to Didi? I know you and I, and perhaps Jhappi, will still have to go in search of her. But for now, if this message reaches her, at least she will know this has happened. Maybe it will mean something.’

  As I hugged my brother, it came to me in these very words that Mira, so used to being the centre of attention, had jumped ‘to regain her visibility’.

  And that I could play around with any combination of those words — visibility, invisible, Didi — all the way back to New Zealand, and I’d still for now understand nothing about my sister.

  Lena

  There were five voicemail messages from Abhay this morning when I switched on my phone. I didn’t play them until I was waiting for Ceyda in my office at 9.15.

  Friday, 12.46 a.m. (New Zealand time):

  ‘Lena, sweetheart, I’m already on the way. Dada’s driving me to Ranchi airport. I’ll be in Delhi by ten tonight, and then believe it or not I’m on a Thai Airways flight to Bangkok at 3.30 in the morning and then on to Auckland from there, all fully confirmed. So I’ll be home by Saturday afternoon, darling — will you tell Mira that? — instead of next week, and then I’m never going anywhere again without her. Whatever we do, we do together, just like before. Please, please, play her this message.’

  1.05 a.m. (New Zealand time):

  ‘Sweetie, it just occurred to me that she must have fallen rather than jumped. Are you sure she wasn’t trying to impress you with another amazing “gimmastics” feat? Because how would a four-year-old with no previous serious accidents work out that this was the thing to do to pierce my thick skull?

  ‘I remember Bella’s accident last year falling out of that tree at Mandie’s, and her arm was in a cast. Do you think Mira had that in mind?

  ‘But then would she have also remembered how many weeks that took to heal, and how painful it was?’

  3 a.m. (New Zealand time):

  ‘Just gone through security after saying goodbye to Dada. Flight to Delhi’s on time, but do you know what I suddenly realised? There’s someone else I’ve let down in my haste to get away from Hazaribagh. I wanted to give Yakub, Dada’s driver, some extra money to put in two doors in his house (I haven’t told you that story). I tipped everyone, but this completely slipped my mind. Will you remind me when I’m back to send him a cheque?

  ‘Darling, I can’t imagine the night the two of you have been having. I’m so relieved to be at the airport, but I can barely breathe each time I let myself picture her pain. This is what she had to do to get her Baba to notice her. Whenever you have a moment, will you please send me a picture of her, and of her ankle?’

  7.05 a.m. (New Zealand time):

  ‘You’ll be waking up, darling, and I have just arrived at Terminal 3. Fuck this time difference, eh? Did you manage to sleep at all? How was Mira’s night? I’m dying to talk to her if possible before I board for Bangkok. She’ll know I’m coming, but I just want to hear your voices once before taking off. So please call or Skype whenever you can within the next three hours. Tell her I need to know what present she would like from Delhi airport.’

  9.10 a.m. (New Zealand time):

  ‘Hey sweet, I got your text and just spoke to Tony at home and he put me through to Mira, who however had only “good” and “yes” to say when I asked her how she was and whether the ankle was hurting. Of course she was in the middle of watching Paw Patrol with a bowl of Coco Pops, so that’s why it wasn’t a good time. But that was so amazing, darling, and I thanked Tony for stepping in at such short notice. But tomorrow’s Saturday, and that’s it, I’m back for every morning and afternoon after that. It’s the three of us again, the unbreakable team.

  ‘Sweet, on this
endless journey back, it’s so clear to me if I ever lost sight of it that my home is wherever the two of you are, but one day soon, I’d like to bring us all back to Hazaribagh to share with you what these people have built here. This is our home, too, and it doesn’t have to be an either/or, just like you said. There’s some amazing news that I’ve been waiting to tell you in person, but I also promise, I’ll never again make the mistake of heading off without the three of us planning it together. It’s all of us from here on, working as one, no matter how far apart we live.’

  Ceyda had come in while I was playing the second message, so I had had to excuse myself from my office and go into the hallway. From there I moved to a cubicle in the bathroom because people I knew were walking past.

  I almost called Abhay — he still had over an hour to go before boarding his plane — but then remembered Ceyda, and sent a text instead.

  Come home, Abhay. We can’t wait either. Mira will be thrilled. The sprain will heal. And you’re right — it will never again be an either/or. Next time we’re all going home together to Hazaribagh.

  Acknowledgements

  Above all, I’d like to thank Harriet Allan for her strong support of this book right from encountering its first draft, for her vital suggestions that helped to distil and strengthen my telling of the story, and for being such a wonderfully encouraging and attentive presence right through the process of publication.

  A big thank you to Sarah Ell, Kate Stone and Leanne McGregor for their close attention to the text, and for asking crucial questions at various stages, in the answering of which my novel grew sharper and tighter before my own eyes. Thank you also to Stuart Lipshaw, who worked with me on the final version of the manuscript.

  Thank you to Alexandra Lande for the cover image, and to Rachel Clark for the beautifully designed object that this book is.