The City of Good Death

by Priyanka Champaneri

  20

  One of the newer guests had another relative arriving that day, and he had asked Pramesh about having someone meet the man at the train station and walk him to the bhavan. Pramesh found no sign of Mohan in the courtyard or any of the guest rooms, and then he heard an expansive sneeze echo from a corner of the hostel. He found the man bundled in his bed, eyes bleary and throat hoarse.

  “You’ve caught a chill,” he said after laying the back of his hand to Mohan’s forehead. “Honeyed milk with turmeric is what you need.” He threw another blanket atop his fevered assistant. “You must have gone out without a shawl, Mohan-bhai. Come now! You’ve lived in this city longer than I have; surely, you know better.”

  Mohan answered with a muffled groan, and after asking Shobha to prepare something for the assistant’s ailment, Pramesh set off on the errand himself.

  On most days, the train station was hot and frenzied with the sounds of passengers disembarking, relatives pushing through the crowds, porters grabbing luggage and insisting on carrying bags, beggars calling out for pity and money, children darting and crying and shrieking with laughter, and conductors bellowing out the last call before departure—but some days, quiet pockets of time existed when all was as subdued and motionless as an abandoned temple. Pramesh found the station in the latter condition. The man at the ticket window dozed, and a cat wandered through the open door and back out again. He looked for the relative’s train on the arrivals board, found it, and then his gaze caught on something else: an impending departure for the stop closest to his home village.

  He looked away. He’d ridden the train back to his home just once, on a trip with Shobha a week after their marriage. “The one I love the most, joined with the man I trust the most,” Dharam had told Pramesh when he offered Shobha’s hand. The surprise Pramesh felt was equaled by the pleasure of learning that Shobha had given her consent first. She, with her confidence, her lightness, her ease in the world that he marveled at—she wanted him. Impossible thing!

  Their wedding was hasty, made urgent by the old manager’s sudden decline and his wish to see his daughter settled before he left this world. There was no time even to write to the Elders and Sagar with the news. Afterward, Shobha’s father insisted they travel down to Pramesh’s home immediately. “You are my son now,” he said. “But you were someone else’s son first, and it is right that you get their blessing.”

  On the day of departure, he arrived early at Rama ghat to bathe. Maharaj was stretched out on the steps, half awake or half asleep with his arms around his ever-present clay pot, and as Pramesh scrubbed his scalp, working soap into his hair, two boys called out to the drunk. “Maharaj, a story, a story!” The man responded with a grunt and turned away, but the children continued to pester him until Maharaj gave in, blinked, bleary eyed, and expelled a lengthy wide-mouthed yawn.

  “Do you know,” he said, “that no one is ever allowed to leave Kashi? We are prisoners here. The city lets visitors in, lets them out, but does not let them back in.” He tucked his arms beneath his head and, with half-shut eyes, proceeded to explain that the divine gatekeeper of Kashi, the Lord Bhairav, did not let just anybody stay in the City of Light. “There are many people wanting to live here, and because they did not please Sri Bhairav they could not find any work, not even a piece of cardboard to sleep on. Remember that: those who live here do so only with Sri Bhairav’s blessing. But that also means you can never leave, nah? Because if a god gives you a gift, you do not spurn it.” Pramesh listened with half an ear. He’d heard the very same speech about Lord Bhairav from some greybeard when he’d first arrived in the city.

  “Another thing!” Maharaj said to the now restless boys. “Many is the poor soul who, having lived his life in Kashi, one day decides to take a small trip outside the city—perhaps he has the urge to visit a family member or some far temple. Whatever the reason, no sooner does the man set one foot on the earth beyond Kashi, just one toe on that common soil, and hai Rama, his heart stops, a snake bites him, a stone falls from the sky and breaks his skull. Just like that. Dead! Outside of Kashi the man loses his life, and all those years of being in the city are come to naught. Next thing he knows he is born again as some faraway laborer, and Kashi is out of his grasp for another lifetime.”

  Pramesh finished his bath and his prayers and dried the river from his body. He laughed quietly to himself as he secured his dhoti. Shobha’s father came from a long line of Banarasis. If he was willing to send his sole offspring out of the city along with his new son-in-law, then surely Lord Bhairav was not as unforgiving as Maharaj made the god out to be. He shook his head and looked over at his neighbor in the river, a scrawny man who insisted on keeping his spectacles on as he poured water over his head from a brass lota. “Sometimes the drunk man is also the wise one,” the man said to no one as water streamed down his head.

  “Plenty of people come and go, Bhai,” Pramesh said. “Half the people in this city would be shut out of their homes if what he says were true.”

  “How do you know they aren’t?” the man retorted. “And who are you, to say what is and isn’t true?”

  Pramesh made a gesture of apology and stepped back into the water to offer his salutations to the sun one more time, as well as a prayer. He prayed that the old manager would not decline further while he and Shobha were gone, that the journey would be without incident, and that his family would give Shobha the welcome she deserved. As he opened his eyes, he saw a vulture, loose from its clambering brethren that bickered on the washed-out sands of Magadha, circle and swoop in front of him, aiming for an object floating in the middle of the river.

  As he sat waiting in the train station, the familiar weight returned to his chest. He should have waited; he should have forced Sagar to join him in the city and then kept him there, away from the Elders. Who are you? That bathing man had asked. A day later, he’d get an answer to that question. Even now, remembering his father’s voice sent the hairs on his arms standing on end: You are nobody. He shifted on the bench, willing those thoughts to leave him. A low rumbling came to save him; the station stirred and stretched, and everything that had previously been still came back to raucous life.

  “Your bags, Sahib, your bags!”

  “This way, this way, this way.…”

  “Ah, Bhai, so many years, nah? Why so long in coming?”

  “Madam, need transport, need directions, need guide?”

  Pramesh watched the crowd from his bench until the train he was waiting for trundled past. He stood, and when the relative disembarked—a short and bearded man who looked terrified in the mass of people until Pramesh introduced himself—he led the way through the station, putting a hand out to give the many bodies before him a gentle nudge as they made their way to the exit. More crowds clustered around the doors, the usual group of touts vying to win over the bewildered newcomers, each man claiming that his hostel was the best in the city. Then a familiar name reached his ears.

  “This way! This way to Shankarbhavan!”

  He turned.

  “Shankarbhavan, the holiest of lodgings in the holiest of cities! This way!”

  Pramesh found the tout just outside the door, a half-chewed toothpick dangling from the corner of his mouth. The man’s gaze was on the crowd, pupils moving quickly, fingers shuffling a pack of small white cards. Pramesh pushed through and the tout noticed him. The man stared back before recalling himself. “Lodging, Sahib? Just yourself? Any family, any bags?

  “Have you no shame?” Pramesh said, his voice vibrating with anger. “You men know these families have no money. They journey great lengths—must they also contend with such men as you, pretending to take them to Shankarbhavan but leading them elsewhere?”

  The man kept his eyes on the crowd, a look of bored indifference plastered on his face. “And what about me, Sahib? Will Rama feed me if I sit all day at the station, calling out for alms?” He flicked the card
s through his fingers, scanning the crowd. “If you change your mind, Sahib,” he said, and he flicked a card at the manager before diving against the current of people and renewing his call.

  Pramesh bent down for the white card, now muddied in the damp earth. Shankarbhavan, it read. The premier luxe hostel of the great God’s city. The address was listed below, in a part of the city entirely untraversed by Pramesh but which he knew by reputation. He frowned and stuck the card into his pocket. He turned back to the relative who’d been waiting with a nervous smile on his face some paces away. “My apologies, ji,” he said to the man, and led the way back to the real Shankarbhavan.

  Only later, when he fished the card out of his pocket, did he think on what the tout had said, how he’d looked at him. He remembered his cousin’s body in the airless jail cell, Bhut’s wonder at the dead face exactly like the living manager’s. He rubbed his eyebrow, thinking of the white slashed scar that his cousin had in that same spot. Had the tout seen Sagar?

  His heart twinged, but then another voice—one he’d been practicing for many weeks now—interrupted his thoughts. Detach. He took the card and tossed it into one of the drawers in his desk, willing himself to forget.

  21

  She saw the return address first. It was written in a clear hand on the back of the envelope, while the front bore the bhavan’s address in equally sure script. The old postmaster pushed the letter through the space between the metal grille and into her hands, and Shobha tried to keep her features placid as she walked down the lane, her stomach fluttering.

  The vegetable sellers that day were surprised by Shobha’s amiability. They knew to expect ruthless haggling, accusations of week-old greens, and even threats from the bhavan mistress to forever forsake their stall for a rival offering fresher produce—yet today, Shobha accepted what the sellers gave her without protest. When she distributed her coins amongst them without questioning their prices, they stared at her in surprise. As she departed, the one who sold greens rubbed his face with the end of his scarf and clucked his tongue. “Perhaps she is ill,” he said to his neighbor.

  Shobha’s pace quickened as she neared Mrs. Mistry’s to pick up Rani. “She fell earlier and scraped her knee,” Mrs. Mistry explained as Shobha kept tight hold of the child’s hand, lest she run back into the Mistry house to rejoin the other children. “Just a small cut, but how the blood ran, poor little one.” Shobha checked over the wound and reassured her neighbor, but Mrs. Mistry continued. “Such a good child, she was so still as I bandaged it, and now she’s so happy to see her Mummy, isn’t she?” The older woman tweaked the girl’s cheek and then launched into a story of some funny thing her grandson had just done. Shobha was almost in agony as she waited for the end of this interminable tale, which Mrs. Mistry at last concluded.

  Shobha swept through the bhavan gates, exchanged sandals for house slippers, and flew past the courtyard and into the kitchen, Dev’s voice following her as he read aloud. Rani pulled on Shobha’s sari as her mother dropped the market bag to the floor. “I know, beti, almost time for your snack.” Shobha put the child’s favorite wooden horse into her waiting hands. “Your Mummy is very bad. Just a moment, I only have to run upstairs and then I promise you will get your milk.” She ran to the privacy of the bedroom, the envelope already half open by the time she reached the top of the stairs.

  here was only a single sheet of paper, folded thrice. Overwhelmed, her eyes could not focus on the text. She pressed the paper against her chest and forced herself to look out the window at the Mistry terrace, populated with grandchildren, as she counted to ten. Calmer, she held the letter out before her once again. The message was short. There was no greeting, and there was no signature.

  There was a letter someone sent. A letter asking about me.

  I am here. I am well.

  But when will he be here? My husband’s brother.

  He said he would come.

  We are waiting. Write soon.

  Shobha re-read the lines. She had hoped for a letter from the father, or whoever else was still living in Pramesh’s childhood home, but she never expected a note from the woman herself. The paper was coarse and smudged with dirt, and the handwriting was rushed but precise, different from the letter acknowledging receipt of the land. He said he would come. The words conveyed a promise made, a prior communication. As if a return was not just required, but expected. Why would she think he might visit?

  The older one. She wanted him specifically.

  The unease that had simmered quietly in her stomach since the postmaster had placed the letter in her hands rose to a boil. She unlocked one of the many drawers in her almirah and slipped the letter in amongst a pile of old bangles. So eager for it an hour before, she could not bear to look at the letter now.

  What could Kamna possibly want Pramesh to do for her in the village? How long did she mean for him to stay here? And what of herself and Rani? Did she expect them to come or stay behind? Shobha descended the stairs and settled herself in her customary place with the market bags before her, and glanced at the other corner of the kitchen.

  Rani was not there.

  She turned about the room, walked out to the courtyard, and then noticed her husband’s office door was open. Rani was sitting in his chair, blood running down her leg from the cut on her knee, and Pramesh was kneeling beside her, dabbing the flow with some cloth that was rapidly turning crimson. Fear gripped her heart.

  “What happened?”

  Her husband continued to dab, turning the cloth to a clean and dry edge until it was completely soaked through. He motioned over his shoulder, and Shobha grabbed another clean scrap from the ragbag Pramesh had upturned over his desk. “Hold it to the cut,” he said, not looking at her. As Shobha pressed the cloth to her daughter’s knee, Pramesh wet another clean rag and wiped away the red still clinging to Rani’s skin. The girl was quiet, still hugging her wooden horse, and she smiled up at her mother when Shobha stroked a lock of hair away from her eyes.

  “I found her like this,” Pramesh said once the leg was clean and he dabbed peroxide on the cut while Rani whimpered. “So much blood … if her eyes had not been open I would have thought.…” He did not finish the sentence, but there was a quiver in his voice. Then Pramesh’s voice was tight. “I did not know where you were.”

  She had never heard that tone from him before, and any explanation about being upstairs for just a moment—but had it been only a moment?—died on her lips. “She fell at the Mistry house,” she managed to say. “But it was just a scratch; I don’t know how it could bleed so much.” The girl’s knee continued to ooze small beads of blood, and Pramesh had to bind the wound with several tight wraps of cloth. He seemed about to say something else, and then they heard a voice calling Rani’s name. Mohan poked his head through the door.

  “The Mistry grandson insists on seeing this one,” he said. Rani perked up and pushed herself off the chair before Shobha could stop her, no worse for her injury. Out in the courtyard, Mrs. Mistry’s grandson presented Rani with a toy, a set of flat wooden blocks joined with thin yellow ribbon, and he showed the girl how to hold the end so that one block seemed to magically cascade down the others, as if shimmying down a ladder. Shobha felt her fear subside as Rani took the toy and repeated the trick over and over with ease, her joy evident, showing it to Mohan, to Pramesh, even running to Narinder as he walked with his prayer beads.

  But that night in bed, wave after wave of shame washed over Shobha. Pramesh lay next to her, and she again heard the accusation in his voice, asking where she’d been. At the same time, the letter would not be expunged from her head. When will he be here? He said he would come. A low sigh escaped her lips. She raised a hand to wipe the wetness from her eyes, and felt her husband roll toward her and wrap his arm around her waist. “How can anyone doubt?” he murmured, half asleep.

  She felt the warmth of his body like the familiar comfort of a bl
anket. For a moment, her thoughts were blissfully silent. She nestled closer and felt the strong grip of her husband’s arm. “Doubt what?” she asked.

  He was silent for so long that she thought he’d fallen asleep, but then he yawned and rested his chin atop her head.

  “Rani,” he said, his voice heavy with sleep. “Did you see her face, the happiness there? How can anyone think she is but half a child?”

  “I don’t know,” Shobha whispered. There were so many things she was unsure of, and yet this single incontrovertible moment seemed capable of eviscerating all doubt, shame, and guilt. “I don’t know.”

  22

  Rani seemed to have forgotten the desperate howling of the pots that had made her wake crying in the night: she was up before any of them. As if to make up for the frequent summer colds she’d suffered in the past few weeks, she now bounded about the bhavan with renewed energy, running around the courtyard, tugging at Loknath’s sacred thread as he attempted to read the mantras aloud, hiding beneath the spare bed in room No. 5 as Sheetal’s father eyed her indifferently. Seeing Shobha losing her temper, Pramesh scooped the child up to take her out to the ghats to run around.

  At Lalita ghat, Rani joined a trio of children chasing a brown and white dog, and Pramesh sat down on the steps and watched their play. Men gossiped loudly enough for a few errant words to reach the manager’s ears, a group of boatmen stood in a circle in a haze of beedi smoke, and a holy man paced the steps and muttered beneath his breath.

  He found himself thinking about Govind, his conclusion that Sagar had a specific desire, that the ghost would keep wandering until that want was fulfilled. But there had been so many things denied to Sagar while he lived—how could Pramesh pick the most urgent one? A life of his own, without the influence or criticism of their toxic Elders. A true companion, a reliable woman to share the burden during life’s trials. Land unmarred by mismanagement and negligence.