by Marisha Pink
EIGHTEEN
OVER the next fortnight, Arun and Lucky settled into the ebb and flow of a familiar and comfortable routine. Every morning, at the same time, Lucky would arrive in his rickshaw to collect Arun from the front of the hotel, and the pair would set off like two intrepid adventurers, eager to explore the delights of the city and its surrounds. Some days they covered vast distances, sputtering across the terracotta terrain as Lucky pushed his ageing rickshaw to its limits in a bid to show Arun what he called ‘the real India’. There were simple rural villages set amidst gleaming rice paddies, silent hilltop temples and bustling local markets, peaceful island lakes, and a multitude of secret swimming spots along deserted stretches of Puri’s beach. There could be no argument that the views were anything less than spectacular, but the best part of every day for Arun quickly became the simple pleasure of being in his brother’s company.
A strong bond had slowly formed between them and each morning he looked forward to Lucky’s arrival, cherishing the time that they spent together answering each other’s questions and curiosities, and sharing in the magic of India’s beauty. It had taken his best persuasive skills, but Lucky had finally agreed to let Arun ride up front alongside him in the rickshaw and the simple shift had made Arun feel like they were on a more equal footing. After much bickering about the matter, he had also allowed him to pay for the gallons of fuel that the vehicle guzzled through each day, though much to Arun’s frustration, his brother was still resistant to his occasional attempts to otherwise remunerate him for his time.
By contrast, the evenings were an entirely different affair. When the sun began to set, Lucky and Arun would embark upon the long, dusty journey back to Kalpana’s house. Though they would arrive laughing and smiling, thoroughly contented by their experiences and learnings from the day, the sight of Hanara’s stony face and her palpable hostility would quickly level their spirits. She was unyielding in her loathsome sentiment towards Arun, seemingly going to great pains to ensure that he never forgot how much she resented his continued presence in her mother’s home. Reluctantly, she would prepare dinner for the three of them, deliberately crashing around the small kitchen so that her brothers could not enjoy a conversation, but this left Arun even more confused, because she generously and voluntarily sent lunch for him with Lucky each day.
He struggled in the face of such animosity and though outwardly he feigned disaffection to Hanara’s daily torrent of verbal abuse, its jarring nature made it impossible for him to feel truly comfortable in her presence. He yearned for her acceptance and it saddened him that building a relationship with his sister was so difficult, especially when he observed the love and care she so freely lavished upon Lucky. He had long since come around to Lucky’s way of thinking and no longer blamed himself for Kalpana’s death, but reasonable doubt remained as to whether Hanara herself would ever round that corner.
Every evening he tried with renewed enthusiasm to win her over, steering the mealtime conversation away from Lucky’s incessant questioning about his life back home, to focus on learning more about Hanara and her life. Naïvely, he hoped that demonstrating his appetite for learning about his family and birthplace would shift her perceptions of him from a spoilt, rich kid visiting his peasant relatives to what he really was; a young man denied the truth, seeking to connect with the family that he’d always wished he could have. It was difficult to judge whether his efforts were having any effect on Hanara, because she continued to remain tight-lipped during his visits, save for the occasional vilifying comment. But the frequency and severity of her insults appeared to be slowly diminishing and Arun had to concede that perhaps Lucky had been right about her simply needing time to adjust to the situation.
One evening, when Arun and Lucky arrived home from another great day of explorations, they were surprised to find Hanara standing in the small yard talking to the elderly woman that had pointed the way to Kalpana’s house nearly two weeks before.
‘There you are! Mrs Satpathy needs a ride to Haripur to collect something from her cousin. Please take her,’ Hanara instructed Lucky, ignoring Arun completely.
‘Of course,’ replied Lucky, smiling brightly and jumping out of the rickshaw to assist Mrs Satpathy.
His endless bags of energy never ceased to amaze Arun, who was himself ready to put his feet up and enjoy a long, cold drink. Despite his exhaustion, Arun remained seated, unsure whether to tag along with Lucky or to stay behind and face Hanara’s daily diatribe alone, but the decision was soon made for him.
‘You can wait here, Arun, you don’t have to come. I will be back soon,’ said Lucky, helping Mrs Satpathy into the back seat.
Taking a deep breath, Arun clambered out of the front seat and walked round to where Hanara was standing on the other side of the rickshaw, arms folded defensively across her chest. They stood uncomfortably in silence, watching while Lucky carefully tucked the folds of Mrs Satpathy’s sari into the confines of the rickshaw, before hopping back into the front seat and setting off down the dirt track towards the next village. They watched until Lucky was no more than a speck in the distance and when the dust had settled, Hanara turned on her heels and stalked into the house without uttering a word. Exasperated by, but accustomed to, Hanara’s behaviour, Arun started after her, wondering what he had let himself in for.
Once inside, he settled himself amongst the cushions, while Hanara persisted in ignoring him, busying herself instead with the pots and pans in the corner. They continued in this way for some time, an invisible wall standing tall between them, wholly reminiscent of the first day that Arun had arrived on their doorstep. Without Lucky present to mediate and to compensate for the harshness of Hanara’s tongue, Arun felt intimidated into silence by her frosty reception. Somehow it was easier when Lucky was there – his mere presence rendered Hanara less callous for fear of reproach – but Arun would have to learn to stand up to her eventually if they were ever going to move forward. Finally, when he could stand the tension no more, he broke the silence.
‘How was your day, Hanara?’
Hanara loudly clanged the steel pots in her hands together, washing up and pretending not to have heard him.
‘HANARA,’ he shouted, trying to command her attention in the way that he had so often seen Lucky do. Whatever it took, he resolved that she was not going to ignore him until Lucky returned.
‘What?’ she flared, spinning around so suddenly that her raven hair smacked loudly against her shoulders when it whipped across her back.
‘I asked how your day was,’ Arun repeated firmly.
Hanara glared at him, a dark look of contempt spreading across her face, her lips set in a tight line that refused to break. But Arun was resolute in his quest and though he was shaking inside from the terrifying look on his sister’s face, he glared back, defying her not to answer.
‘Fine,’ she conceded eventually through gritted teeth, before turning back to the pots and pans, though she didn’t resume washing them.
‘What did you do?’ pressed Arun, feeling secretly pleased that he had managed to elicit a curt, but relatively inoffensive, response.
‘The same things that I do every day, isn’t it?’
‘Which are?’
‘Do you really want to know?’
‘Yes, Hanara, I do,’ Arun responded hopefully, delighted to have finally initiated a dialogue. ‘I know you think that I don’t care, but I do.’
Hanara carefully set down the pot in her hands and turned to face Arun once more, an ambiguous look on her face. Unexpectedly, she began to walk towards him and, seating herself beside him, calmly arranged the pleats of her apple-green sari neatly over her folded legs. Arun patiently held his breath, half-expecting another of her vicious verbal assaults, but when she was satisfied that her clothes were suitably arranged, she smiled up at him sweetly and calmly answered the question.
‘If you must really know, dear brother, while you were probably still asleep in your big bed, in your fancy hotel, I was washing our clothe
s, preparing breakfast for Lucky, and lunch for you both. When Lucky left to collect you, instead of doing proper driving jobs in the city that pay money like he’s supposed to, I cleaned the entire house and then I went outside to pick the little food that is left in our field, so that we don’t all starve. And then, as if I hadn’t already done enough, whilst you two were busy running around the city enjoying yourselves, I passed the whole day alone in the shop, so that we might make enough money to survive.
‘After being on my feet all day I was really looking forward to coming home, to maybe finally having a chance to go to the mandir, but of course then I remembered that His Royal Highness, Prince Arun from England, is coming to dinner again. So instead I started the cooking for him and my idiot brother who keeps inviting him, so really my day is just fantastic. Does this answer your question?’
Arun’s jaw dropped open, but no sound came out and he had no idea how to respond. Though he didn’t appreciate the sarcasm, Hanara’s words had finally exposed the real cause of her ongoing enmity, and they held a truth about the effects of his visit that he was embarrassed not to have recognised of his own accord. He had learned from Lucky that only a few short months ago the daily household chores and management of the shop had been a shared responsibility between Hanara and their mother, while Lucky ferried tourists about the city to bring in additional income. With Kalpana now gone, Hanara was shouldering the burden of the house and the shop single-handedly, with the hours that this consumed leaving her little time for anything else. Lucky left the house early, leaving her in isolation for much of the day, save for the occasional visitor to their shop, and the little respite that she looked forward to enjoying when he returned home each night was spoilt by the continued presence of the very man that she blamed for the entire situation.
Of the three of them, it was clear that Kalpana’s absence was felt most deeply by Hanara, and the strain was now manifest in her behaviour. Feelings of guilt began to wash over Arun as her words echoed in the silence that had fallen on the house. It was no wonder that Hanara detested him; he hadn’t given her any reason to view his arrival as a positive event. He had been having so much fun, getting to know his brother and his birthplace, that he had not stopped to consider the extent of the impact that this was having on their livelihood. Lucky was covering his expenses, but not earning a penny, and Arun was an extra mouth to feed from already dwindling supplies. These two activities that he had so freely enjoyed for almost two weeks had unwittingly caused him to become the very inconvenience that he had wanted to avoid.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered finally, not knowing what else he could say, but reasoning that this was as good a place as any to start.
Hanara seemed wholly disarmed by his apology and for the first time since his arrival, her face visibly softened.
‘I just didn’t think … about how my being here would affect you, I mean.’
Hanara remained silent, but her eyes revealed that she was listening.
‘The last thing that I wanted to do was to make things difficult for you and Lucky. Coming all the way here only to find out that Kalpana was gone … it was a shock; you have no idea how much I was looking forward to getting to know her. But the fact that you were here, both you and Lucky, well, it made the whole thing a little easier to take. I guess it made the journey seem less … wasted. I didn’t mean to keep Lucky from working, Hanara, or to make more work for you around the house. I just wanted to … to know more about my mother and my family … to know more about the place where I should have grown up … that’s all. Does that make sense?’
Arun waited patiently for his sister to respond, searching her face for signs of what she might be thinking, but Hanara remained poker-faced and mute. After a few minutes had passed, she sighed loudly and began to fiddle with the folds of her sari, contemplating either Arun’s words or her own, though it was impossible to tell which. When a few more minutes had passed, she finally looked up at him and parted her lips to speak.
‘You are just like her, you know?’ she muttered softly.
‘Really? In what way?’
‘Selfish. Always thinking of yourself only.’
Arun’s eyes widened with surprise.
‘That’s not fair, Hanara. You can say what you like about me, but Kalpana really –’
‘I'm not talking about Mata-ji, stupid … Dr Cathy,’ she spat disdainfully.
‘Dr Ca – my mother? How can you say that? How can you say that when she helped you, all of you, especially Lucky?’ cried Arun defensively.
‘She helped herself only.’
‘What? How can you just … why are you saying these things?’
‘I think they thought that I was too young to understand it, but I wasn’t. I was six already and I remember, I remember everything,’ she continued, staring blankly into the centre of the room as though in a trance.
‘What are you talking about? You’re scaring me.’
‘Mata-ji was scared. That’s why she did it only. That’s how Dr Cathy convinced her.’
A hard lump formed in Arun’s throat and he began to sweat profusely. His heart was racing at the prospect of where Hanara’s statements might be leading and he was afraid to ask the next question, but with his sister offering him insight and information for the first time, he couldn’t pass up the opportunity.
‘What did my mother convince Kalpana to do?’
Hanara turned her gaze to Arun and her eyes were cold as she stared deeply and sinisterly into his worried hazel eyes.
‘Hanara, please. What did she convince her to do?’ he pleaded desperately.
Hanara drew in a deep breath and when she exhaled the words hit Arun like a bullet to the chest.
‘Sell you.’
