The Hope Factory

by Lavanya Sankaran

  Kamala met him in the kitchen on her way out with a tray of snacks and paused long enough to say, “Where have you been? Have you filled yourself to the brim with fireworks? Your very body bears the trace. Go drink some water, but wash your hands well before you do.” He dutifully washed his hands but vanished before she could say more.

  She was amused at his eagerness to return to the fireworks and thought no more of it, happy that he was getting such a fine reward for all his obedient work of the day—for Narayan had toiled fully as hard as a grown woman and earned a warm, fine reputation in the process. “He must have inherited his nature from his father,” said Shanta. No one begrudged him his joy at setting off the fireworks. Just as no one would begrudge him later when it came time for all of them to eat.

  Her next sighting of him, therefore, almost caused her to drop the tray of snacks. She froze into position, hardly noticing the guests’ fingers that hovered greedily above the tray, like bees nursing at a nectar-filled flower.

  She had a clear view of the card tables; she stared at the film star—memorizing his various aspects, the manner of his sitting and the angle at which he held his head (so familiar, and yet so startling to see it in the flesh). Her eyes (having drunk their temporary fill) wandered indifferently past the others at the table—the women, the men, the politician dividing his scattered attention between the cards and the conversation, Vidya-ma’s father standing by in benign hospitality—when she saw him.

  Mr. Little Boy in Big Shirt.

  He stood not three feet away from the film star, so close, staring at that great man with such a fixed intensity of purpose that Kamala became truly frightened. What ailed the boy? Had he lost all his senses? Had he sent his brains up into the sky on one of those rockets?

  The landlord’s mother leaned forward. “Rama-rama!” she said. “He must have wanted to get close to him…. That is understandable, I myself would be tempted, but he should have concealed himself behind something. Foolish child! You must have been very angry.”

  No, not then, said Kamala. I was simply scared.

  No one paid him any attention—but Kamala knew that was a short-lived state of affairs. At any moment, Vidya-ma, or her father, or Anand-saar would spot Narayan, and there would be the reckoning. Shoutings. Shame. Perhaps an instant firing of his mother. Sure enough, Vidya-ma’s father said something to the politician—and started to turn around. Run, thought Kamala. Move. Go hide yourself. A great anger began in her, that Narayan should ruin all that day’s effort over a piece of foolishness.

  But she was once again surprised. Vidya-ma’s father glanced at Narayan, who, as though waiting for a signal, stepped forward alertly. Vidya-ma’s father gave him some instruction, and Narayan hurried to the bar and returned bearing a drink on a tray. Vidya-ma’s father handed the drink to the politician. Narayan returned to his watchful post, three feet away.

  “Ah, so Vidya-ma must have placed him there,” said the landlord’s mother approvingly. “That is good. Very good. He surely would not have been given such a magnificent responsibility if he had not behaved with the utmost credit to us all.”

  “Yes,” said Kamala. “Vidya-ma asked him to be there.”

  And in so saying, she knew she was not articulating the entire truth of the story. This business of waiting on the film star; of being positioned exclusively where none but he would have the pleasure of serving him; of having the film star wink at him and smile and call him by name, Narayan, as though they were childhood friends; of being treated to jocular exclamations of “good boy!”—was, in fact, a situation that Narayan had brought about himself, with a temerity that none of the older employees—no, not even Thangam—would have dared to muster.

  Narayan had hung around his friend the barman until he saw the film star raise his head, as though seeking a waiter. Vidya-ma and her father had stepped away to look after some other guests, and Narayan, sensing opportunity, had wasted no time. He had simply precipitated himself in front of the film star.

  “Sir,” he said, a little shyly, “what is your pleasure? How may I serve you?”

  The film star, if a little amused by his underaged servitor, had not hesitated in asking for a glass of beer. After Narayan (ignoring the amused jibes of the barman) carried it to him, he did not return to his former place next to the soft drink bottles. He simply waited, three feet away from the film star, who, in no time at all it seemed, needed other things—a napkin, an ashtray, matches—and Narayan quickly provided all of these to him and to the politician and to the other players at that table.

  And so, Vidya-ma returned from her hostessing rounds to find her most important guests being well looked after by the temporary-and-most-junior member of her staff. If she was startled by this, she did not show it. It had not occurred to her to provide a personal attendant to these guests, but the idea had merit. The film star was pleased. The politician was pleased. Her father was pleased. That was all that mattered.

  “He is a good lad,” said the landlord’s mother. “So smart! Our Narayan.”

  Her praise made it easier for Kamala to speak her burning desire. “He is smart, mother, and I would so much like him to go and study in a paid school … he would do so well … but the money they charge is so high!”

  “Child,” said the landlord’s mother, after a moment of silence. “You fully well know what the answer is to your problem.”

  “What is it?” asked Kamala, surprised.

  “Speak to Narayan’s father’s family. Speak to your brother,” said the landlord’s mother. “They will help you.”

  Mother, said Kamala, and fell silent.

  The landlord’s mother shook her head. “There is such a thing as too much pride, Kamala-daughter. There is such a thing as being too obstinate. And you should not let your son suffer for it.”

  Kamala kept silent, not knowing what further to say.

  She slept deeply in the afternoon and so found herself awake late at night, the memories of the party returning, reconfigured as worries, blowing through her mind, rising and falling to the rhythm of Narayan’s sleeping breath. So bright, her child. So determined. How was she to provide him with a suitable education? With proper guidance for his life?

  The landlord’s mother’s advice intruded, abrasive, grating like rough concrete against skin. If one had a duty to one’s family to be loyal, then surely family too had a reverse duty to make the task an easy one.

  Let her brother help, indeed. As though he were full of the caring, charitable impulses he pretended to. There was no prosperity waiting for her in the village. There never had been. Her brother knew that as well as she did.

  She picked up an onion from a basket. It was a little past its prime, with skin lying pale and dry and brittle on the pink flesh beneath, slipping and tearing easily under the pressure of her fingers. The taste of it, strong and pungent, would be quieted only by fire, which soothed its acrid bite and allowed the mellow inner sweetness to emerge. An onion had a special magic; unbidden, it could take her back to her village and childhood, where her mother supplemented their variable income with a few onions and chiles grown in the dirt behind their hut.

  TWELVE YEARS EARLIER, WHEN the course of her young life had left her widowed and alone, expelled from her husband’s modest family hut by his parents, the starving mother of a baby boy, she had turned to her brother for help.

  He was living with his wife in what had been their late mother’s hut, where her sister-in-law now tended to the onions and looked after her own children. Far from being the proud owner of many acres, he too struggled to make ends meet, and his response to his sister’s predicament was unhappy; the far greater misfortune, he seemed to feel, was his; the tragic tide of events that had made her his responsibility.

  His frustration and anger were nightly expressed in shouts—as though Kamala herself had been responsible for the accident that had relieved her husband of his life—and finally, when he returned home one day to find her lining her eyes with kaja
l, in a cruel, intemperate beating for behaving in a manner unsuited to a young widow. Especially one who was such a monstrous burden on her family.

  With no resources apart from the sinewed strength of her body, Kamala knew quite clearly what she was going to do—get away from her brother and the village, travel to the big city and get a job that would flood her body with nourishment, and, through her, enter the eager sucking mouth of her son, who, unlike his predecessors, had not perished in the womb and miscarried but had fought his way out of that hostile tomb and now lay drinking greedily at her breasts, which, as if to compensate for those previously lost chances of succor, swelled gratefully with milk every time they were sucked dry, draining her body and filling her with pride at the same time.

  “Please stay with us, Thange,” her sister-in-law said again, when Kamala whispered these plans to her. “Your brother does not mean all he says. He often acts in a temper. You know that. He is very proud.”

  He is a fool, said Kamala. You are too good for him, Akka.

  “How will you live? Thange, how will you survive?”

  “I’ll manage, Sister. You’ll see.” She did not tell her sister-in-law about her secret resource, given to her by a friend’s mother—the name and telephone number of a job broker in the city.

  The phone call to Bangalore was short and expensive, but very productive.

  “Can you speak Hindi?” the job broker asked her in a businesslike fashion.

  No, said Kamala.

  “Can you speak English?”

  No.

  “Do you know how to clean houses?”

  Kamala paused in surprise before replying, wondering if this was one of those trick questions whose answers were cunningly other than the obvious. For who did not know how to keep a house clean?

  Yes? she answered cautiously.

  “Good. Are you honest, and a good, hard worker? … Are you of decent morals? … My good ladies are very particular, and I have never disappointed them…. And, most important: Do you know how to keep a respectful tongue in your head?”

  Certainly, said Kamala, for there was no one standing by to click their tongues and contradict her.

  “And can you look after babies?”

  Oh yes, said Kamala, hugging the tiny sleeping bundle held in a sling around her neck fiercely to herself. “That is what I am best at.”

  IT HAD BEEN A FOOLISH PLAN from the start, but it had taken hindsight for her to realize why. It was a foolish plan for one very obvious reason, which was made immediately clear to her.

  The job broker lived in a government compound, in a dirty two-story building painted blue that housed several families, for her husband worked in some capacity for the city corporation. Kamala had spent half an hour staring at the building from the opposite side of the road, wondering how she was ever to reach it.

  She had traveled from the village overnight on the bus, covering the four miles that remained within the city on foot, asking directions as she went, sticking nervously to the broken footpaths to avoid the rush of the traffic that skimmed past her on wings of steel. She stopped once to buy a banana, almost shrieking at the price she was asked and waiting suspiciously to see if the banana seller charged others differently before handing over her money. For all its extravagant city price, it tasted overripe and soggy, but its sweet flesh insensibly lifted her spirits.

  And so she had arrived at her destination. Or almost arrived, separated from the government compound by a road of a nature she had never before encountered, even in her walk through the city—as wide as the broadest river, with screaming lines of traffic: buses, lorries, cars, vans, auto-rickshaws, motorbikes, scooters, all rushing back and forth without break and without pause, pouring onto a bridge that soared high. Kamala, clutching her baby against her with one hand and a jute bag with all her worldly possessions with the other, finally decided to ask for help. “Anne, brother,” she asked, of a man walking by. “How is one to get to the other side.”

  “By crossing the road, sister,” he replied without breaking stride, “like everybody else.” Kamala sat down and weighed the truth of his words. She discovered it was indeed true: people were walking across the road all the time, each time, it seemed, placing their lives in peril, leaping and dancing as they moved, jerking this way and that to avoid the oncoming traffic. They would start on their perilous journey, and she would hold her breath and almost close her eyes, opening them to see the people safely crossed to the other side.

  It took her half an hour to decide to try it herself. Her strategy was to cross along with someone who looked sensible: not like the young boys who seemed to take pleasure in the daring crossing; and not someone so old that they might decide, halfway through, that they had seen enough of life after all and simply stop to meet their fate. She finally threw in her lot with two respectable looking women; they did not seem to mind the addition to their party; perhaps there was a greater strength in numbers. Kamala held her baby tight against her chest and kept close to the two women, moving in concert; dancing forward when they did, stepping back, freezing, running a quick yard or two, freezing again, moving forward, moving back, feeling the gusts of air from passing vehicles, in front of her, behind her, so close that she had almost felt the touch of their metal upon her skin, until they finally reached the other side. A deep gasp released the breath in her chest. Kamala turned to thank the other women and perhaps to share a laugh at the narrowness of their escape, but they had already moved on.

  The job broker’s husband’s government job was possibly a post of some prestige, for their building had electricity and running water. The job broker herself worked part-time as a cook and made her money, really, from the people she placed—collecting from them a full two months’ salary, payable (if she knew them to be reliable) in installments of up to six months.

  All this had been explained to Kamala over the telephone, and Kamala was entirely agreeable. For a good job, even a payment of three months’ salary seemed a small price. But now, as she waited for the job broker to appear, she steeled herself for the discussion about to come. What if the job broker, having coaxed her this far, now demanded four months’ salary as her pay? Should Kamala demur or pay up without argument? Or perhaps argue a bit to save face, and then concede? Wasn’t, in fact, even five months’ salary, an indenture of almost half a year, worth it ultimately? To have good food in her belly and the promise of more?

  The woman appeared on her landing, and Kamala looked down at the ground in relief. The job broker had the generous girth of someone who stretched her employers’ budget to feed both them and her own family on ample scale. She had the calm demeanor of a woman who did not break her promises lightly. Kamala felt her fears quieten.

  “Namaste, aunty,” she said respectfully to the massive and competent figure who stood a few steps above her. Her laden arms prevented her from joining her palms in greeting, but the job broker did not seem to take offense. She nodded back, looking over Kamala in a considering manner. Her eyes rested first on Kamala’s face, and something in it brought a hint of a softening smile to her own; then they swept downward, dismissively, over Kamala’s body and dress, before coming to a sudden, freezing halt halfway down.

  “What is the meaning of that?” she said, pointing to the sleeping bundle tucked under Kamala’s arm. “That’s not a baby, is it?”

  “Yes,” said Kamala, smiling proudly. “That’s my baby. My little one, my son.”

  “You are to be congratulated,” the job broker said. “And do you have somewhere to leave it while you work? Someone who can look after it for you, this baby?”

  No, said Kamala. I am alone.

  The job broker stared at her before turning away to spit on the ground, the bubbles of her saliva resting on the earth before sinking and converting a small circle of dry sand into mud. “You stupid, stupid girl,” she said. “Have you no sense at all? Should you not have told me about this earlier? Who will hire you with a babe in arms?”

  I ca
n do the work with him, Kamala said. Really. Please believe me, aunty.

  He is a good baby. No, he will not cry and disturb the masters, she said.

  No, aunty, how can you say such a thing, yes, of course I was married and widowed—I did not lie about that.

  No, he is not a mistake.

  I can do the work with him. I promise.

  But the job broker, as job brokers will, kept her eye on her own internal quality standards and could not be swayed. “Come back when he is older, or when you have made other arrangements for him,” was all she would say, before turning away with a censuring shake of her head and disbelief at the naïveté of village girls.

  And, as with all foolish, ill-considered plans, it had come to naught, as simply as that.

  sixteen

  IF SOMEONE WERE TO ASK HER today how, as a young, widowed mother of one, with no experience and (in the light of this fiasco) very little of either judgment or brains, how then had she managed?—Kamala would rely upon the full serious weight of her dignity to reply, “Well, sir, I contrived. Somehow, I contrived,” and she would clack her thin gold bangles together to indicate that, by some measures, she had done even better than that.

  Returning to her brother’s house was not an option she was willing to consider, come what may. When she went back to her village, she would go in strength and self-respect, or not go at all.

  There was only one alternative open to her.

  She became a coolie, a day laborer. A life immeasurably distant, it seemed to her, from the respectability of those who earned their wages monthly, or who toiled on the farmland that they and their ancestors before them had owned. A coolie worked through the day, took his money, and was free to drink it or spend it or lose it. A coolie had no fixed job, or job title. He went where the work went, one day to work on a construction site, another day to clear out a dirty gutter. And with the influx of village people pulled daily into the city, a coolie missing today, for whatever reason, was a coolie replaced with ease tomorrow.