by Kiran Desai
Noni: “But he must be vegetarian, no?”
“These monks are not vegetarian. What fresh vegetables grow in Tibet? And in fact, Buddha died of greed for pork.”
“What a situation,” said Uncle Potty. “The army is vegetarian and the monks are gobbling down meat….”
______
Down they hurtled through the sal trees and the pani saaj, Kiri te Kanawa on the cassette player, her voice soaring from valley level to hover around the five peaks of Kanchenjunga.
Lola: “But give me Maria Callas any day. Nothing like the old lot. Caruso over Pavarotti:”
In an hour, they had descended into the tropical density of air thick and hot over the river and into even greater concentrations of butterflies, beetles, dragonflies. “Wouldn’t it be nice to live there?” Sai pointed at the government rest house with its view over the sand banks, through the grasses to the impatient Teesta—
Then they rose up again into the pine and ether amid little snips of gold rain. “Blossom rain, metok-chharp,” said Father Booty. “Very auspicious in Tibet, rain and sunshine at the same time.” He beamed at the sunny buds through the broken windows as he sat on his swimming ring.
______
In order to accommodate the population boom, the government had recently passed legislation that allowed an extra story to be built on each home in Darjeeling; the weight of more concrete pressing downward had spurred the town’s lopsided descent and caused more landslides than ever. As you approached it, it looked like a garbage heap rearing above and sliding below, so it seemed caught in a photostill, a frozen moment of its tumble. “Darjeeling has really gone downhill,” the ladies said with satisfaction, and meant it not just literally. “Remember how lovely it used to be?”
By the time they found a parking space half in a drain behind the bazaar, the point had been too well proven and their smugness had changed to sourness as they dismounted between cows quaffing fruit peels, made their way past nefarious liquid pouring down the streets, and through traffic jams on the market road. To add to the confusion and noise, monkeys loped over the tin roofs overhead, making a crashing sound. But then, just as Lola was going to make another remark about Darjeeling’s demise, suddenly the clouds broke and Kanchenjunga came looming—it was astonishing; it was right there; close enough to lick: 28,168 feet high. In the distance, you could see Mt. Everest, a coy triangle.
A tourist began generously to scream as if she had caught sight of a pop star.
______
Uncle Potty departed. He wasn’t in Darjeeling for the sake of books but to procure enough alcohol to last him through civil unrest. He’d already bought up the entire supply of rum in the Kalimpong shops and with the addition of a few more cartons here, he would be prepared for curfew and a disruption of liquor supplies during strikes and roadblocks.
“Not a reader,” said Lola, disapproving.
“Comics,” corrected Sai. He was an appreciative consumer of Asterix, Tin Tin, and also Believe It or Not in the loo, didn’t consider himself above such literature though he had studied languages at Oxford. Because of his education, the ladies put up with him, and also because he came from a well-known Lucknow family and had called his parents Mater and Pater. Mater had been such the belle in her day that a mango was named for her: Haseena. “She was a notorious flirt,” said Lola who had heard from someone who had heard from someone of a sari slipping off the shoulder, low-cut blouse and all…. After packing in as much fun as she possibly could, she’d married a diplomat named Alphonso (also, of course, the name of a distinguished mango). Haseena and Alphonso, they celebrated their wedding with the purchase of two racehorses, Chengiz Khan and Tamerlane, who once made front page of the Times of India. They had been sold along with a home off Marble Arch in London, and defeated by bad luck and changing times, Mater and Pater finally became reconciled to India, went like mice into an ashram, but this sad end to their fabulous spirit their son refused to accept.
“What kind of ashram?” Lola and Noni had asked him. “What are their teachings?”
“Starvation, sleep deprivation,” mourned Uncle Potty, “followed by donation. Proper dampening of the spirits so you howl out to God to save you.” He liked to tell the story of when, into strict vegetarian surroundings—no garlic or onions, even, to heat the blood—he’d smuggled a portion of roast jungli boar that he had caught rooting in his garlic field and shot. The meat was redolent with the creature’s last meal. “Licked up every scrap, they did, Mater and Pater!”
They made a plan to meet for lunch, and Uncle Potty, with the dregs of his family fortune in his pocket, went to the liquor shop while the rest continued to the library.
______
The Gymkhana library was a dim morguelike room suffused with the musk, almost too sweet and potent to bear, of aging books. The books had titles long faded into the buckled covers; some of them had not been touched in fifty years and they broke apart in one’s hands, shedding glue like chitinous bits of insect. Their pages were stenciled with the shapes of long disintegrated fern collections and bored by termites into what looked like maps of plumbing. The yellowed paper imparted a faint acidic tingle and fell easily into mosaic pieces, barely perceptible between the fingers—moth wings at the brink of eternity and dust.
There were bound copies of the Himalayan Times, “the only English weekly serving Tibet, Bhutan, Sikkim, the Darjeeling tea gardens, and Dooars,” and the Illustrated Weekly, which had once printed a poem on a cow by Father Booty.
Of course they had The Far Pavilions and The Raj Quartet—but Lola, Noni, Sai, and Father Booty were unanimous in the opinion that they didn’t like English writers writing about India; it turned the stomach; delirium and fever somehow went with temples and snakes and perverse romance, spilled blood, and miscarriage; it didn’t correspond to the truth. English writers writing of England was what was nice: P. G. Wodehouse, Agatha Christie, countryside England where they remarked on the crocuses being early that year and best of all, the manor house novels. Reading them you felt as if you were watching those movies in the air-conditioned British council in Calcutta where Lola and Noni had often been taken as girls, the liquid violin music swimming you up the driveway; the door of the manor opening and a butler coming out with an umbrella, for, of course, it was always raining; and the first sight you got of the lady of the manor was of her shoe, stuck out of the open door; from the look of the foot you could already delightedly foresee the snooty nature of her expression.
There were endless accounts of travel in India and over and over, in book after book, there was the scene of late arrival at a dak bungalow, the cook cooking in a black kitchen, and Sai realized that her own delivery to Kalimpong in such a manner was merely part of the monotony, not the original. The repetition had willed her, anticipated her, cursed her, and certain moves made long ago had produced all of them: Sai, judge, Mutt, cook, and even the mashed-potato car.
Browsing the shelves, Sai had not only located herself but read My Vanishing Tribe, revealing to her that she meanwhile knew nothing of the people who had belonged here first. Lepchas, the Rong pa, people of the ravine who followed Bon and believed the original Lepchas, Fodongthing, and Nuzongnyue were created from sacred Kanchenjunga snow.
There was also James Herriot that funny vet, Gerald Durrell, Sam Pig and Ann Pig, Paddington Bear, and Scratchkin Patchkin who lived like a leaf in the apple tree.
And:
The Indian gentleman, with all self-respect to himself, should not enter into a compartment reserved for Europeans, any more than he should enter a carriage set apart for ladies. Although you may have acquired the habits and manners of the European, have the courage to show that you are not ashamed of being an Indian, and in all such cases, identify yourself with the race to which you belong.
—H. Hardless, The Indian Gentleman’s Guide to Etiquette
A rush of anger surprised her. It was unwise to read old books; the fury they ignited wasn’t old; it was new. If she couldn’
t get the pompous fart himself, she wanted to search out the descendants of H. Hardless and stab the life out of them. But the child shouldn’t be blamed for a father’s crime, she tried to reason with herself, then. But should the child therefore also enjoy the father’s illicit gain?
______
Sai eavesdropped instead on Noni talking to the librarian about Crime and Punishment: “Half awed I was by the writing, but half I was bewildered,” said Noni, “by these Christian ideas of confession and forgiveness—they place the burden of the crime on the victim! If nothing can undo the misdeed, then why should sin be undone?”
The whole system seemed to favor, in fact, the criminal over the righteous. You could behave badly, say you were sorry, you would get extra fun and be reinstated in the same position as the one who had done nothing, who now had both to suffer the crime and the difficulty of forgiving, with no goodies in addition at all. And, of course, you would feel freer than ever to sin if you were aware of such a safety net: sorry, sorry, oh so so sorry.
Like soft birds flying you could let the words free.
The librarian who was the sister-in-law of the doctor they all went to in Kalimpong, said: “We Hindus have a better system. You get what you deserve and you cannot escape your deeds. And at least our gods look like gods, no? Like Raja Rani. Not like this Buddha, Jesus—beggar types.”
Noni: “But we, too, have wriggled out! Not in this lifetime, we say, in others, perhaps….”
Added Sai: “Worst are those who think the poor should starve because it’s their own misdeeds in past lives that are causing problems for them….”
The fact was that one was left empty-handed. There was no system to soothe the unfairness of things; justice was without scope; it might snag the stealer of chickens, but great evasive crimes would have to be dismissed because, if identified and netted, they would bring down the entire structure of so-called civilization. For crimes that took place in the monstrous dealings between nations, for crimes that took place in those intimate spaces between two people without a witness, for these crimes the guilty would never pay. There was no religion and no government that would relieve the hell.
______
For a moment their conversation was drowned out by the sounds of a procession in the street. “What are they saying?” asked Noni. “They’re shouting something in Nepali.”
They watched from the window as a group of boys went by with signs.
“Must be the Gorkha lot again.”
“But what are they saying?”
“It’s not as if it’s being said for anyone to understand. It’s just noise, tamasha,” said Lola.
“Ha, yes, they keep on going up and down, something or the other…,” the librarian said. “It just takes a few degenerate people and they drum up the illiterates, all the no-gooders hanging about with nothing to do….”
______
Uncle Potty had joined them now, having delivered his rum supply to the jeep, and Father Booty emerged from the mysticism stacks.
“Should we eat here?”
They went into the dining room, but it seemed deserted, the tables with overturned plates and glasses to signal it was not open for business.
The manager came out of his office, looking harried.
“So sorry, ladies. We’re having cash flow problems and we’ve had to close the dining hall. Getting more and more difficult to maintain things.”
He paused to wave at some foreigners. “Going for sightseeing. Yes? At one time all the rajas came to Darjeeling, the Cooch Behar raja, the raja of Burdwan, the Purnia raja…. Don’t miss the Ghoom Monastery….”
“You must get money from these tourists?”
The Gymkhana had begun to rent out rooms to keep the club going.
“Hah! What money? They are so scared they’ll get taken advantage of because of their wealth, they try and bargain down on the cheapest room…. And yet, just see.” He showed them a postcard the couple had left for the front desk to post: “Had a great dinner for $4.50. We can’t believe how cheap this country is!!! We’re having a great time, but we’ll be glad to get home, where, let’s be honest (sorry, we’ve never been the PC types!) there is widespread availability of deodorant….”
“And these are the last of the tourists. We’re lucky to have them. This political trouble will drive them away.”
Thirty-two
In this Gymkhana dining hall, in one of the corners slung about with antlers and moth eaten hides, hovered the ghost of the last conversation between the judge and his only friend, Bose.
It had been the last time they ever met. The last time the judge had ever driven his car out of the Cho Oyu gates.
They had not seen each other in thirty-three years.
______
Bose lifted his glass. “To old times,” he had said, and drank. “Ahhh. Mother’s milk.”
He had brought a bottle of Talisker for them to share, and it was he, as was expected, who had instigated this meeting. It was a month before Sai had arrived in Kalimpong. He had written to the judge that he would stay at the Gymkhana. Why did the judge go? Out of some vain hope of putting his memories to sleep? Out of curiosity? He told himself he went because if he did not go to the Gymkhana, Bose would come to Cho Oyu instead.
______
“You have to say we have the best mountains in the world,” said Bose. “Have you ever trekked up Sandak Fu? That Micky went—remember him? Stupid fellow? Wore new shoes and by the time he arrived at the base, he had developed such blisters he had to sit at the bottom, and his wife Mithu—remember her? lot of spirit? great girl?—she ran all the way to the top in her Hawaii chappals.
“Remember Dickie, that one with a tweed coat and cherry pipe pretending to be an English lord, saying things like, ‘Look upon this hoary… hoary… winter’s… light… et cetera?’ Had a retarded child and couldn’t take it… he killed himself.
“Remember Subramanium? Wife, a dumpy woman, four feet by four feet? Cheered himself up with the Anglo secretary, but that wife of his, she booted him out of the house and took all the money… and once the money vanished so did the Anglo. Found some other bugger….”
Bose threw back his head to laugh and his dentures came gnashing down. He hurriedly lowered his head and gobbled them up again. The judge was pained by the scene of them before they’d even properly embarked on the evening—two white-haired Fitzbillies in the corner of the club, water-stained durries, the grimacing head of a stuffed bear slipping low, half the stuffing fallen out. Wasps lived in the creature’s teeth, and moths lived in its fur, which also fooled some ticks that had burrowed in, confident of finding blood, and died of hunger. Above the fireplace, where a portrait of the king and queen of England in coronation attire had once hung, there was now one of Gandhi, thin and with ribs showing. Hardly conducive to appetite or comfort in a club, the judge thought.
Still, you could imagine what it must have been like, planters in boiled shirts riding for miles through the mist, coattails in their pockets to meet for tomato soup. Had the contrast excited them, the playing of tiny tunes with fork and spoon, the dancing against a backdrop that celebrated blood-sports and brutality? In the guest registers, the volumes of which were kept in the library, massacres were recorded in handwriting that had a feminine delicacy and perfect balance, seeming to convey sensitivity and good sense. Fishing expeditions to the Teesta had brought back, just forty years ago, a hundred pounds of mahaseer. Twain had shot thirteen tigers on the road between Calcutta and Darjeeling. But the mice hadn’t been shot out and they were chewing the matting and scurrying about as the two men talked.
“Remember how I took you to buy the coat in London? Remember that awful bloody thing you had? Looking like a real gow wallah? Remember how you used to pronounce Jheelee as Giggly? Remember? Ha ha.”
The judge’s heart filled with a surge of venomous emotion: how dare this man! Is this why he had made the journey, to raise himself up, put the judge down, establish a past position of po
wer so as to be able to respect himself in the present?
“Remember Granchester? And is there honey still for tea?”
He and Bose in the boat, holding themselves apart in case they brush against the others and offend them with brown skin.
The judge looked for the waiter. They should order dinner, get this over with, make it an early night. He thought of Mutt waiting for him.
She would be at the window, her eyes hooked on the gate, tail uncurled between her legs, her body tense with waiting, her brows furrowed.
When he returned, he would pick up a stick.
“I could throw it? You could catch it? Should I?” he would ask her.
Yes yes yes yes—she would leap and jump, unable to bear the anticipation for a moment longer.
______
So he tried to ignore Bose, but hysterically, once he had begun, Bose accelerated the pace and tone of his invasiveness.
He had been one of the ICS men, the judge knew, who had mounted a court case to win a pension equal to that of a white ICS man, and they had lost, of course, and somehow the light had gone out of Bose.
Despite letter after letter typed on Bose’s portable Olivetti, the judge had refused to become involved. He’d already learned his cynicism by then and how Bose had kept his naiveté alive—well, it was miraculous. Even stranger, his naïveté had clearly been inherited by his son, for years later, the judge heard that the son, too, had fought a case against his employer, Shell Oil, and he, too, had lost. The son had reasoned that it was a different age with different rules, but it had turned out to be only a different version of the same old.
“It costs less to live in India,” they responded.
But what if they wished to have a holiday in France? Buy a bottle at the duty-free? Send a child to college in America? Who could afford it? If they were paid less, how would India not keep being poor? How could Indians travel in the world and live in the world the same way Westerners did? These differences Bose found unbearable.
