"h.e.l.lO?"
"La ma ma ma ma ma ma, he can"t get leave. Why not? Don"t know, must be difficult there, make a lot of money, but one thing is certain, they have to work very hard for it.... Don"t get something for nothing... nowhere in the world...." he can"t get leave. Why not? Don"t know, must be difficult there, make a lot of money, but one thing is certain, they have to work very hard for it.... Don"t get something for nothing... nowhere in the world...."
"h.e.l.lO? h.e.l.lO?"
"PITAJI, CAN YOU HEAR ME?"
They retreated from each other again- Beep beep honk honk trr b.u.t.t ock, the phone went dead and they were stranded in the distance that lay between them. the phone went dead and they were stranded in the distance that lay between them.
"h.e.l.lO? h.e.l.lO?"-into the rictus of the receiver.
"h.e.l.lo? h.e.l.lo? h.e.l.lo? h.e.l.lo?" they echoed back to themselves.
The cook put down the phone, trembling.
"He"ll ring again," said the watchman.
But the phone remained mute.
Outside, the frogs said tttt tttt, tttt tttt, as if they had swallowed the dial tone. as if they had swallowed the dial tone.
He tried to shake the gadget back into life, wishing for at least the customary words of good-bye. After all, even on cliched phrases, you could hoist true emotion.
"There must be a problem with the line."
"Yes, yes, yes."
As always, the problem with the line.
"He will come back fat. I have heard they all come back fat," said the watchman"s sister-in-law abruptly, trying to comfort the cook.
The call was over, and the emptiness Biju hoped to dispel was reinforced.
He could not talk to his father; there was nothing left between them but emergency sentences, clipped telegram lines shouted out as if in the midst of a war. They were no longer relevant to each other"s lives except for the hope that they would be would be relevant. He stood with his head still in the phone booth studded with bits of stiff chewing gum and the usual relevant. He stood with his head still in the phone booth studded with bits of stiff chewing gum and the usual f.u.c.k-s.h.i.t c.o.c.k d.i.c.k p.u.s.s.y Love War, f.u.c.k-s.h.i.t c.o.c.k d.i.c.k p.u.s.s.y Love War, swastikas, and hearts shot with arrows mingling in a dense graffiti garden, too sugary too angry too perverse-the sick sweet rotting mulch of the human heart. swastikas, and hearts shot with arrows mingling in a dense graffiti garden, too sugary too angry too perverse-the sick sweet rotting mulch of the human heart.
If he continued his life in New York, he might never see his pitaji pitaji again. It happened all the time; ten years pa.s.sed, fifteen, the telegram arrived, or the phone call, the parent was gone and the child was too late. Or they returned and found they"d missed the entire last quarter of a lifetime, their parents like photograph negatives. And there were worse tragedies. After the initial excitement was over, it often became obvious that the love was gone; for affection was only a habit after all, and people, they forgot, or they became accustomed to its absence. They returned and found just the facade; it had been eaten from inside, like Cho Oyu being gouged by termites from within. again. It happened all the time; ten years pa.s.sed, fifteen, the telegram arrived, or the phone call, the parent was gone and the child was too late. Or they returned and found they"d missed the entire last quarter of a lifetime, their parents like photograph negatives. And there were worse tragedies. After the initial excitement was over, it often became obvious that the love was gone; for affection was only a habit after all, and people, they forgot, or they became accustomed to its absence. They returned and found just the facade; it had been eaten from inside, like Cho Oyu being gouged by termites from within.
They all grow fat there....
The cook knew about them all growing fat there. It was one of the things everyone knew: "Are you growing fat, beta, beta, like everyone in America?" he had written to his son long ago, in a departure from their usual format. like everyone in America?" he had written to his son long ago, in a departure from their usual format.
"Yes, growing fat," Biju had written back, "when you see me next, I will be myself times ten." He laughed as he wrote the lines and the cook laughed very hard when he read them; he lay on his back and kicked his legs in the air like a c.o.c.kroach.
"Yes," Biju had said, "I am growing fat-ten times myself," and was shocked when he went to the ninety-nine-cent store and found he had to buy his shirts at the children"s rack. The shopkeeper, a man from Lah.o.r.e, sat on a high ladder in the center and watched to make sure n.o.body stole anything, and his eyes clutched onto Biju as soon as he entered, making Biju sting with a feeling of culpability. But he had done nothing. Everyone could tell that he had, though, for his guilty look was there for all to see.
He missed Saeed. He wanted to look, once again, if briefly, at the country through the sanguine lens of his eyes.
Biju returned to the Gandhi Cafe where they had not noticed his absence.
"You all come and watch the cricket match, OK?" Harish-Harry had brought in a photo alb.u.m to show his staff pictures of the New Jersey condominium for which he had just made a down payment. He had already mounted a giant satellite dish smack-bang in the middle of the front lawn despite the fact that the management of this select community insisted it be placed subtly to the side like a discreet ear; he had prevailed in his endeavor, having cleverly cried, "Racism! Racism! I am not getting good reception of Indian channels."
That left just his daughter to worry about. Their friend and compet.i.tor, Mr. Shah"s wife, had hooked a bridegroom by making Galawati kebabs and Fed-Exing them overnight all the way to Oklahoma. "Some dehati dehati family in the middle of the cornfield," Harish-Harry told his wife. "And you should see this fellow they are showing off about-what a family in the middle of the cornfield," Harish-Harry told his wife. "And you should see this fellow they are showing off about-what a lutoo. lutoo. American size-he looks like something you would use to break down the door." American size-he looks like something you would use to break down the door."
He told his daughter: "It used to be a matter of pride for a girl to have a pleasant personality. Act like a stupid now and you can regret later on for the rest of your life.... Then don"t come crying to us, OK?"
Thirty-seven.
The situation will improve, the SDO had said, but though they had begun to torture random people all over town, it didn"t. the SDO had said, but though they had begun to torture random people all over town, it didn"t.
A series of strikes kept businesses closed.
A one-day strike.
A three-day strike.
Then a seven day.
When Lark"s General Store opened briefly one morning, Lola fought a victorious battle with the Afghan princesses over the last jars and cans. Later that month the princesses could think of nothing but jam, furious about it, in the midst of murder and burning properties: "That thoroughly nasty woman!"
Lola gloated each day as she spread the Druk"s marmalade thin so it would last.
A thirteen-day strike.
A twenty-one-day strike.
More strike than no strike.
More moisture in the air than air. It was hard to breathe and there was a feeling of being stifled in a place that was, after all, generous with s.p.a.ce if nothing else.
Finally, the shops and offices didn"t open at all-the Snow Lion Travel Agency and the STD booth, the shawl shop, the deaf tailors, Kan-shi Nath & Sons Newsagents-everyone terrorized to keep their shutters down and not even poke their noses out of the windows. Roadblocks stopped traffic, prevented timber and stone trucks from leaving, halted tea from being transported. Nails were scattered on the road, Mobil oil spilled all about. The GNLF boys charged large sums of money if they let you through at all and coerced you to buy GNLF speeches on ca.s.sette tapes and Gorkhaland calendars.
Men arrived in trucks from Tindharia and Mahanadi, gathered outside the police station, and threw bricks and bottles. Tear gas didn"t scatter them; neither did the lathi lathi charge. charge.
"Well, how much land do they want?" asked Lola gloomily.
Noni: "The subdivisions of Darjeeling, Kalimpong, and Kurseong, and extending to the foothills, parts of Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar districts, from Bengal into a.s.sam."
"No peace for the wicked," said Mrs. Sen, knitting needles going, for she was making a sweater for the prime minister out of sympathy for his troubles. Even in Delhi it gets cold... especially in those drafty bungalows in which they house top government officials. But she was not an accomplished knitter. Very slow. Unlike her mother, who, in the course of watching a movie, could knit a whole baby blanket.
"Who"s wicked?" said Lola. "Not us. It"s they who are wicked. And we are the ones who have no peace. No peace for the not wicked." not wicked."
What was a country but the idea of it? She thought of India as a concept, a hope, or a desire. How often could you attack it before it crumbled? To undo something took practice; it was a dark art and they were perfecting it. With each argument the next would be easier, would become a compulsive act, and like wrecking a marriage, it would be impossible to keep away, to stop picking at wounds even if the wounds were your own.
They were done with their library books, but of course there was no question of returning them. One morning when the trim major who ran the Gymkhana Club arrived, he found the GNLF had scuttled out the librarians and desk clerks and were enjoying the most s.p.a.ce and privacy they"d ever had in their lives, sleeping between the bookshelves, cavorting in the ladies" cloakroom, where, not so long ago, Lola had blown on her puff and delicately powdered her nose.
No tourists arrived from Calcutta in hilarious layers as if preparing for the Antarctic, weaving the cauterizing smell of mothb.a.l.l.s through the town. No visitors came, with their rich city fat, to burden scabied nags on pony rides. This year the ponies were free.
n.o.body came to the Himalayan Hotel and sat under the Roerich painting of a mountain lit up by the moon like a ghost in bedsheets, to "Experience a Quaint Return to Yesteryears" as the brochure suggested, to order Irish stew, and chew chew chew on the scrawny goats of Kalimpong.
The company guesthouses closed. The watchmen who always had to move at this time of year from their illicit occupation of the main houses during winter into their peripheral huts; who had to alter their expressions from dignity to "Ji huzoor" servitude; replace cupboard locks they had picked to disinter televisions and made-in-j.a.pan electric heaters; this year, they found their comforts uninterrupted. servitude; replace cupboard locks they had picked to disinter televisions and made-in-j.a.pan electric heaters; this year, they found their comforts uninterrupted.
And while they stayed put, children were being plucked from boarding schools as parents opened the papers to read with horror of the salubrious climate of the hills being disturbed by separatist rebels and guerilla tactics. The mounting hysteria all around was perhaps to blame for the last group of boys at St. Xavier"s disgracing themselves. When instructed to help with the preparation of dinner (cooks having vanished into the mist), they discovered that a chicken"s head was best removed by twisting and popping it like a cork-much better than sawing away with a blunt knife. An orgy of blood and feathers ensued, a great skauwauking kerfuffle, headless birds running about spilling guts and excrement. The boys screamed until they cried with disgraceful laughter, their laughs drowning and struggling in sobs, and sobs bubbling and rising with laughter. The master in charge turned on the hosepipe to blast them into sense with cold water, but of course by now there was no water left in the tanks.
No gas either, or kerosene. They were all back to cooking on wood.
There was no water.
"Left the buckets out in the garden," said Lola to Noni, "to fill with rain. We better not flush the toilet anymore. Just add some Sunny Fresh to keep the smell down. For small jobs anyway."
There was no electricity, because the electricity department had been burned to protest arrests made at the roadblocks.
When the fridge shuddered silent the sisters were forced to cook all the perishable food at once. It was Kesang"s day off.
Outside, rain was falling and it was almost time for curfew; drawn by the poignant smell of mutton cooking, a group of pa.s.sing GNLF boys searching for shelter climbed through the kitchen window.
"Why your front door is locked, Aunty?"
The enormous locks that were usually on the tin trunks containing valuables had been moved to the front and back doors as extra precaution. Above their heads, in the attic, several objects of worth had been left vulnerable. Family puja puja silver from their preaetheist days; Bond Street baby cups with trowellike utensils that had once gathered and packed Farex into their own guppy mouths; a telescope made in Germany; their great-grandmother"s pearly nose ring; bat eyegla.s.ses from the sixties; silver marrow spoons (they had always been a great family for eating their marrow); damask napkins with a pocket sewn in to enfold triangles of cuc.u.mber sandwich-"Just a sprinkle of water, remember, to dampen the cloth before you set off for the picnic...." Magpie things gleaned from a romantic version of the West and a fanciful version of the East that contained power enough to maintain dignity across the rotten offences between nations. silver from their preaetheist days; Bond Street baby cups with trowellike utensils that had once gathered and packed Farex into their own guppy mouths; a telescope made in Germany; their great-grandmother"s pearly nose ring; bat eyegla.s.ses from the sixties; silver marrow spoons (they had always been a great family for eating their marrow); damask napkins with a pocket sewn in to enfold triangles of cuc.u.mber sandwich-"Just a sprinkle of water, remember, to dampen the cloth before you set off for the picnic...." Magpie things gleaned from a romantic version of the West and a fanciful version of the East that contained power enough to maintain dignity across the rotten offences between nations.
"What do you want?" Lola asked the boys and her face showed them that she had something to protect.
"We are selling calendars, Aunty, and ca.s.settes for the movement."
"What calendars, ca.s.settes?"
Balanced against the forced entry and their rebel camouflage attire was their disconcerting politeness.
The ca.s.settes were recorded with the favorite washing-b.l.o.o.d.y-kukris-in-the-mother-waters-of-the-Teesta speech.
"Don"t give them anything," hissed Lola in English, feeling faint, thinking they wouldn"t understand. "Once you start, they"ll keep coming back."
But they did understand. They understood her English and she didn"t understand their Nepali.
"Any contribution to the effort for Gorkhaland is all right."
"All right for you, not all right for us."
"Shhh," Noni shushed her sister. "Don"t be reckless," she gasped. Noni shushed her sister. "Don"t be reckless," she gasped.
"We will issue you a receipt," said the boys, eyes on the food lying on the counter-intestinal-looking Ess.e.x Farm sausages; frozen salami with a furze of permafrost melting away.
"Nothing doing," said Lola.
"Shhkh," Noni said again. "Give us a calendar then."
"Only one, Aunty?"
"All right, well, two."
"But you know how we need money...."
They invested in three calendars and two ca.s.settes. Still the boys did not leave.
"Can we sleep on the floor? The police will never search for us here."
"No," said Lola.
"Fine, but please don"t make any noise or trouble," said Noni.
The boys ate all the food before they slept.
Lola and Noni barricaded the door to their bedroom by moving the chest of drawers in front of it as quietly as they could. The boys heard and laughed loudly: "Don"t worry. You are too old for us, you know."
The sisters spent the night awake, eyes aching against the dark. Mustafa sat rigid in Noni"s arms, feeling his self-respect a.s.saulted, the hole of his bottom a tight exclamation point of anger, his tail a straight and uncompromising line above it.
And Budhoo, their watchman?
They waited for him to arrive with his gun and scare the boys away, but Budhoo did not arrive.
"I told you...." Lola said in a scorched whisper, "these Neps! Hand in hand...."
"Maybe the boys threatened him," spat Noni.
"Oh, come on. He"s probably uncle to one of them! We should have told them to go and now you"ve started this, Noni, they"ll come all the time."
"What choice did we have? If we had said no, we would have paid for it. Don"t be naive."
"You"re the one who is naive: "They have a point, they have poiiiintt, three-fourths of their point if not the whole poiiintt," now look... you stupid woman!" you stupid woman!"