They moved to sit at the table.
“This is good,” said Venkat. “From the British and the Portuguese converting the Hindu man to Christianity now they want to know the greatness of our ancient scriptures. The Muslims are not so open. And the …” Venkat’s voice shook a little. “Not the Sikhs.”
“We don’t see them at the temple, no.” Bala spoke with uncharacteristic caution; no idiot he. “But they come to Shivasakti satsang. Even now. Some have specially made a point of coming. Some Sikhs.”
“Gandhiji said it: ‘There is in Hinduism room enough for Jesus, as there is for Mohammed, Zoroaster and Moses,’ ” said Venkat. “Most of the Indian Muslims converted from Hinduism. Right? Yes? The father of our nation, he said, ‘in a free, prosperous, progressive India, they would find it the most natural thing in the world to revert to their ancient faith and ways of life.’ India is a Hindu nation and these others, these others, these—we must make the circumstances for them to revert.” He finished his minuscule portions. “India could be a superpower now, but for this vazha-vazha, kozha-kozha”—his gestures illustrated: namby-pamby, wishy-washy—“multi-religious nonsense. You see what comes of that!”
The Balakrishnans had stiffened and Seth was looking at his plate.
“Everybody wants his own country,” Venkat went on. “We too need to keep up our homeland. India—what does this name mean except ‘country of Hindus’? These others, the defectors, they want to fight. Okay, I say, let us fight!”
Seth had heard such things from him before, but, of course, that was before.
There was a deadness to Venkat’s face as he spoke. His lips barely moved; his voice was a monotone. It had begun the week after the bomb, but back then it seemed no more than appropriate, the numbing effect of horror. Had it continued through last fall? Or had it returned or worsened? Perhaps a very minor stroke? There was also some discolouration, on the skin of his face. Looking at it distracted Seth from what Venkat was saying. It happened to Indians, unlucky ones: light-skinned ones got dark pouches under their eyes; dark-skinned ones a spooky frame edging the hairline. Venkat’s was something else, a visage-haunting.
Vasu diverted them by rising to offer fruits, giving Bala a chance to switch onto the evils of sugar, more comfortable territory for all of them. Venkat had no chance or, perhaps, inclination to return to his topic that evening, but whatever held him back, decorum or fatigue, was absent the next day in the car. He monologued without restraint on the Sikhs: on forcible reconversion, mass expulsion, jail.
Occasionally, when he stopped for breath, Seth tried to challenge his logic. “But Sikhism was an attempt to reform Hinduism because it had become corrupt,” he said.
Venkat had a response to everything. You cannot reform from without, only within. The caste system was morally neutral—a way to divide labour, as in any society. You think we don’t have caste in Canada? And the Sikhs kept it, as did the Muslims, as did the Christians, whatever their leaders said. They don’t forget their heritage so easily but they want to pretend. A return to the fold! And so on.
Perhaps Venkat had spent his entire time in India working up these speeches, discharging them on his mother and other relatives. Perhaps they thought as he did. But whether any of this was a solution to terrorism, Seth wasn’t sure. After all, Sikh separatists themselves agreed that India was a Hindu nation. That was why they wanted their own country. He let Venkat go on, and, at times when he couldn’t stand it any longer, hummed a bhajan to himself and focused on the road.
On their return, Seth helped Venkat to settle again in his own house, and again was unsuccessful in removing any of Sita’s or Sundar’s belongings. Venkat returned to teaching. Though he seemed perhaps slightly more energized than he had the previous fall, his features never regained a normal level of animation.
“It’s like his face is a kind of screen,” Lakshmi said. “A blank screen with some pattern projected on it.” She frowned. “Though I couldn’t say what kind of pattern, exactly.”
One Saturday night early that October, the Sethuratnams had a dinner party. Moe Iyer came with his family and talked a lot about the grand opening of West Wind Condos, the following week. “People are moving in. From all over. Some from Toronto!”
Lakshmi rolled her eyes at Seth. He had been feeling impressed with Mohan but could also see she was right.
“We’re having a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Saturday. In the grand atrium. Cookies, everything. And I will be giving each resident a bird.”
A bird?
“Indian ring-necked parakeet. Beautiful bird. A bird in every condo! The finishing touch!” He kissed his fingertips. “I have extra, actually.” Slurped his whisky, clacked his rings. “You wanna bird?” he asked Seth.
“No!” said Lakshmi.
Ranjani had overheard. “I want a bird!”
“No,” said Lakshmi, who had been stuck with cleaning their cat’s litter box, despite everyone’s promises.
Moe tipped his drink at Venkat. “You, Venkat? I’m going to bring you a bird. Really, I have extra. I wanted forty-two, one per condo. The guy said cheaper to take fifty. You know, wholesale. Very nice birds. Not too big, not too small. And they can talk! Or learn to talk. Very intelligent.”
Venkat: “Indian, you say?”
Moe wagged his head. “Beautiful birds.”
Lakshmi pulled off her apron and announced the meal.
At the end of the evening, the Iyers were the last to leave. Lakshmi cut into Mohan before Seth heard his car door slam.
“You have to tell him not to give Venkat a bird, Seth. What if it dies? That’s all he needs! What kind of nut … All those people just moving into new homes, the last thing they need is to look after a bird. It’s going to be such a mess. You have to talk to him tomorrow.”
Seth was, from a prone position, working on his recliner’s sticky point. David Letterman was goading an actor in black leather. Familiar, but Seth couldn’t place him. He yawned.
Lakshmi tucked dirty napkins into glasses, used a clean one to wipe crumbs off the coffee table. “Can Brahmins even give animals as gifts?”
“Sure: godanam?” The traditional gift of a cow—not something he had seen, but they all knew about it.
She huffed a little and carted away the party debris.
He called after her. “Better than him giving kanyadanam, eh?” Gift of a virgin—this was still a term of currency: giving a daughter, in marriage: a good work, an act of dharma.
Her answer carried in from the kitchen. “That’s enough out of you, buddy.” He could tell from her voice that she was smiling.
The following Friday, they got a busy signal when they tried to call Venkat to remind him to come for supper. After fifteen minutes of this, Seth got in his car and peeled out of the driveway in a panic, wondering if it would be preferable to find Venkat had had a heart attack or fallen in the tub.
At Venkat’s, he went straight through the sliding door at the back. Called, “Hello?” and was headed for the back door into the garage when Venkat popped his head into the kitchen and caught him.
“Ah, Seth!” Venkat beckoned. Seth followed him into the dining room.
In a cage on the dining room table, an unexpectedly large bird rocked from leg to leg like a toddler needing to pee.
“Look! This is Mandarin. I thought his eyes have that—see, the colour of orange peel—and then I remembered that the word mandarin has its roots in Sanskrit. Man. Mantri. Mandarin.”
Seth took a breath, pulled out a chair, sat. The bird looked at him from one of two orange-ringed eyes set in a turquoise head. Its beak was a deep rose-pink that brightened to a gold blotch, though the underbeak was black, as if lined in kohl. The black continued from the lower lip around the neck to form a narrow band. Below the collar, the bird’s body was powder blue, several shades lighter than its luminous head. Was there a feathering of lavender in among the cyan?
Seth had never been so close to such a beautiful bird, and, as Venkat chirped at it, “He
llo, Mandy! Hello, Mandy!” he wondered how he was going to explain to his wife his failure to forestall this infatuation. He had to figure it out quickly. Venkat refused to leave the bird alone so soon after its arrival and Seth had no power to change his mind.
On returning home alone, he described the scene as he had found it. For a minute or two, Lakshmi didn’t say anything. Their daughters were already eating. Seth had been hoping the fight wouldn’t happen in front of them, but now his own irritation rose.
“What was I supposed to do, take it away?” he asked his wife. “He’s not my child.” Not that he could do much with his children, either. He started to help himself to food.
Lakshmi was quiet for a few moments, then asked, “Do you think he needs help, making arrangements? Bird food? What—parrot food? Did Mohan give him any of that? Those things make a mess, you know.”
Not my problem, he thought. “I’ll take him some old newspapers when I see him tomorrow.”
“It’s not your problem.” Said with a conciliatory smile.
Seth snorted. “Damn right.”
The next day, he picked Venkat up and took him to the condo opening. He was curious, he told Lakshmi.
“Sure, go,” she said, “but don’t even think I’m coming with you.”
Even Venkat would not have come except that he wanted another bird.
“Have you done research?” Seth asked him en route. “How to care for it? What does it eat?”
“Birdseed. Fully vegetarian! There is a dish, it was full when he brought Mandy to me. It’s still half full. But I gave him some mango this morning. That was a hit!”
“Find out before you start feeding him all sorts of stuff. You don’t want to give him gas or diarrhea or anything.” Venkat said nothing, and Seth felt bad for being negative. “Call the pet store. That’s all I’m saying.”
Venkat looked at him, surprised, as though he hadn’t been listening. “Seri, seri,” he said, wagging his head. “Don’t worry.”
The condo atrium was hexagonal, crowned by a glass vault. Moe back-clapped them, his eyes hidden by an enormous smile. “Like being inside a diamond, isn’t it? That’s what my architect said and he speaks no lies. Let me introduce you.” He pulled on their jacket elbows but then released them in the direction of some modular sofas when an elderly white couple returned from the show-home suite.
Seth had heard that some units hadn’t yet sold—rumours ranged from five to twenty. He had toured the model unit the year prior, when the condos first went up for sale, but it was more fully furnished now. There was a ring-necked parakeet on the glass-top table in the kitchen, and another by the French doors to the balcony.
“Let me go ask,” Venkat said, and went toward the office. When Seth found him, he was holding a cage with two birds inside.
Moe’s assistant, a woman whose face was shiny and pink, asked Seth, “Would you like some birds too?” Her eyes showed whites all the way around blue irises and she smelled of cosmetics and peculiarly female sweat.
“No, no,” he said, waving at her.
“You sure?” she asked, wringing her hands. “We’ve got a lot.”
Seth thought, as he often did when he was away from his wife, that Lakshmi was exactly right. What a terrible idea! But watching Venkat settle the new birds in the back of his car with anxious absorption, like the father of a newborn, he refrained from saying anything. So many ideas were terrible, if you let yourself think about them.
SETH HAD NOTHING MORE ILLUMINATING to say about Venkat’s state of mind. I wondered if the birds worked against my thesis, Finkbeiner’s assertion. In fact, Venkat had found a way to love again. But had he changed his life to preserve the bond with his late family? I motivated myself with this research question as, against my better judgement, I went to visit Venkat at home. I had phoned him, to set a time, but when he did not pick up or call back, Seth told me when and where to go.
I had to drive. His house was farther out than the Sethuratnams’ and the north winds of November were making the streets hostile to strolling. Even from within a car, though, little of Lohikarma is unattractive. Nervous and reluctant as I was, I was still cheered by the views.
Venkat’s street was drabber than most here and his house looked extremely shabby by comparison to his neighbours’ stalwart facades. A pocked lawn, flowerbeds littered with toppled, half-frozen weeds, cracked concrete steps. I rang the bell, heard it bong, waited.
I girded myself against the chill and rang again, opened the torn screen door and knocked. Lightning has to strike somewhere, I was thinking—a storm builds: friction, release. (My version of Seth’s physics mind.) Nothing personal. Right? Lockerbie. The Twin Towers. I needed to stop thinking of myself as some special victim—
My freshly impersonal thinking fled as the dead bolt shunted and a vast image troubled my sight: Venkat and me, matched at the threshold, then folding away from each other in a chain of men like us, paper men, arms outstretched across this too-wide country, ready for uncoming embraces.
Count on a therapist for a fancy prose style. Venkat opened the door, but he wasn’t even looking at me. He had eyes only for the bird perched on his cuff.
“Come, come in,” he said, pointing his chin toward me, no eye contact. My shoes might have made it into the frame of his peripheral vision. “This is Mandy.” He stroked the bird’s head and neck with a finger, and it gave a little shake and fluff. “Mandy, namaste.”
“Namaste,” said the bird.
Venkat threw me a look of pride. “Howd’youdo, Mandy, Howd’youdo?”
Mandy squawked. “Howd’youdo!”
“Intelligent bird,” I grunted. This was, to judge by Venkat’s expression, what he wanted to hear. Was that why I said it? I followed him down a hallway, his smell, like gunpowder traces, in my nostrils. Ah, the birds, I thought, but that was wrong. I got close to the other two, as he took them out of their cages to change their newspaper. The smell came from him.
The birds had the run of the house. The flight of the house? They hopped along the backs of the chairs, a game. They appeared to live on the dining table, which was covered in a scratched plastic protector. There was a doily-ish thing under the plastic and a tablecloth beneath that, in a pink that matched the carpet.
I fed Mandy some pieces of apple.
“Tasty, Mandy?” Venkat asked.
“Tasty!” said Mandy.
“Mandy is a good boy?”
The parrot repeated that he was.
The cages were cleaner than the house, but the house was not as dirty as I expected. I watched one bird drop its business from a sideboard onto the pile carpet. Seth, I learned later, had arranged for a cleaner. I thought such a person would have to be paid well.
“Seth told me he likes to repeat “E equals mc squared,” I said, by way of bolstering our strange sense of rapport.
Mandy flapped to a trapeze in the doorway. “E equals emcee squared!” He somersaulted, once, twice.
Venkat glanced slyly at me. “ ‘Bande Mataram’?” he asked his bird.
“Bande-e-e Mataram!” Mandy willingly sang, and nipped a pineapple chunk from Venkat’s fingers.
This, the chorus of a de facto Indian national anthem, raised my hackles—I hate anthems, all anthems. Drivel and dreck. When I hear schoolchildren sing it, I want to snatch them and run; when Lata Mangeshkar does it, she despoils the films of my youth. “Perfect,” I said, “coming from a parrot.” Venkat showed no reaction.
I was being drawn toward my reason for coming here. To Canada, and now, to Venkat’s house. It wasn’t to do what Seth had asked, though I hadn’t admitted that to him, and possibly not to myself, but I must have known I could not be this man’s therapist, help ease his pain, soothe his demons. He was too far gone. He didn’t want to be helped. And, most of all, I feared him too much. Not him, exactly. My similarity to him. I was here to get to know him, because only then would I be fully convinced that we were different. The superficialities of his barren life were so
close to my own that they brought all my despair to the surface. But I would change my life.
So much for my reasons for coming—why was he acting so differently toward me? He wasn’t resisting me as before. He had opened the door.
“A noble bird,” he told me, “beloved of ancient Greek emperors, because they would cry, ‘Hail, Caesar!’ ”
“Hail, Caesar!” agreed Mandy.
“The other ones don’t talk?” I asked. Venkat’s breath smelled dead, but in the way of many people’s breath, extruding as something grey, lumpy.
“They may still learn.” He helped one of the others down from the chandelier, from where it had shat onto the clean cage, and caressed its apple-green nape, eliciting chuckles and trills. “But Mandy is the brightest.” He looked up toward his favourite again. “Mandy! Bharat Mata ki Jai!”
This second praise-phrase for Mother India pulled a shudder up through my body from soles to scalp. Mandy parroted it, as Venkat continued speaking.
“You never said, when you came to my office last summer, that you are here because those same bastards killed your family too. Once Seth told me, I wanted you to know: don’t think that, because I stayed in Canada, I have forgotten our motherland. I returned to Canada to better support our struggle.”
My mind ticked forward through the implications. I had heard that ashrams, in India and abroad, were a favoured fishing-ground for Hindu nationalists looking to snag homesick desis with cash jangling in their pants. “Which struggle?” I asked, even though I was suddenly, irrationally sure that I knew. “What kind of support?”
“My good man.” He gave me a complicit smile and rubbed his thumb and forefingers together. Venkat drew a full professor’s salary. The money didn’t go to the house, nor to the birds. A small portion alone would support his mother and sister. He had selected me of all people to tell: he was sending his money to—
“Mandy!” he said, still looking at me. “Khalistan or Kabristan?”
“Kabristan!” Mandy gaily responded, swinging on the trapeze.
The Ever After of Ashwin Rao Page 23
