The Guru of Love

by Samrat Upadhyay

  “I can go by myself, Harish babu,” Ramchandra said. “Give my regards to Nalini.”

  “Let me know how I can help,’’ Harish said.

  “I think I’ll pass,” Malati said. “I think I did well.”

  Ramchandra looked at the question sheet. She’d done some calculations on it, and they were wrong. “Let’s go over this and see what you wrote down,” he suggested.

  “Do I have to? I’ve been through this so many times.” A hint of irritation appeared on her face.

  “Did you discuss your answers with others?”

  “Let it go,” Goma said to Ramchandra. “She must be tired. It’s been a long haul for her.”

  That night in bed she seemed preoccupied. She’d smile for no reason, then suddenly frown. A few times she looked at Rachana and stroked her lovingly. He asked her what she was thinking.

  “I’ll be so happy once the results are in. Then I can really start thinking about getting a job and going to college at night.”

  “What kind of job are you thinking about?”

  “I don’t know. A secretary, maybe. I can take a typing course.”

  “And what will you study in college?” He found it remarkable that he’d never asked her that before.

  “What do you think I should study? Math?” She laughed softly.

  “You could,” he said, “although that’ll take a lot of effort.”

  “I’m thinking about economics or maybe even commerce.”

  “Both of those involve math.”

  She laughed. “There’s no way out for me.”

  Later, when he tried to touch her face, she turned away, saying she was tired. She’d never done this; usually she needed only a touch to respond to him. “What’s on your mind?” he asked.

  “Nothing. I am tired. Can’t a person be tired sometimes?”

  When he woke the next morning, she was getting dressed. “I’m going out for a short while,” she said.

  “Where?”

  She was putting on a bright sari. “A friend has invited me for tea this morning.”

  “What about Rachana?”

  “I’m taking her with me.” Rachana was chewing the end of a pencil. Malati had dressed her in a colorful frock, put kohl around her eyes, and even pasted a red dot on her forehead. She looked adorable.

  “Which friend?” He didn’t like the strident tone of his voice, but she was holding something back.

  “You don’t know her. I met her at the exams.”

  She talked to Goma in the kitchen before leaving, and later Goma said to him, “What’s the matter? Why is your face like this?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like”—she searched her mind—“like a goat whose head is about to be chopped off.”

  Ramchandra laughed. “It’s nothing like that.”

  “She’s been acting strange the past few days,” Goma said.

  “Something’s on her mind. Do you know what?”

  “Why would she tell me?” Goma said. “You’d be the first to know.”

  “She talks to you more than she talks to me.” As he said this, he understood that he’d felt it many times.

  “I’m sure you know things about her I’ll never know,” Goma said, and when he looked at her, he saw a hint of something. Sadness? Loss? But she’d already turned her face away.

  “Well, what shall we do today?” he asked. It was Saturday. “Let’s do something.”

  “Let’s see what the children want to do.”

  The children wanted to go on a trip. Rakesh suggested Balaju, with its garden and gushing stone spouts. Sanu wanted to go to Swayambhu and admire Buddha’s eyes on the stupa that cast a kindly gaze over the city. After much wrangling, Rakesh won, and they settled on Balaju. They decided to go after the morning meal, after Malati returned.

  But she didn’t return. They ate and waited. Rakesh was getting impatient, so they decided to leave without her.

  “Should we take a taxi?” Ramchandra asked.

  “What for? It’s only a few kilometers.”

  They made their way through the crowded streets. They climbed the small hill of Chhauni and walked past the museum, while the sun, hot for February, bore down on them. Rakesh complained, Sanu lagged behind, and Ramchandra wondered where Malati was.

  By the time they passed the Swayambhunath Temple, they were tired. “Let’s just go to Swayambhu today,” Ramchandra suggested. “We can go to Balaju some other time.” But Rakesh started arguing, so they pressed on. They walked the Ring Road that circled the city. Runners passed them, in their jogging outfits, woolen caps on their heads. “Why couldn’t we have at least taken the bus?” Sanu complained, and Ramchandra lay the blame on Goma, who finally agreed that perhaps walking wasn’t such a great idea.

  Outside the gate of the Balaju gardens, they went to a restaurant and relaxed, sipping hot tea. “The money for tea could easily have covered a taxi,” Sanu complained to her mother.

  “Okay, okay, shut up now,” Goma said. “Walking is good for your health.”

  They entered the gardens and headed toward the water spouts. Men in underwear soaped themselves under the streams flowing from the spouts. Women washed clothes and banged them rhythmically against the stones. They sat on a grassy area nearby and watched. Rakesh said he too wanted to take a bath, but Goma told him that he’d catch a cold in such icy water.

  Ramchandra had to urinate; excusing himself, he wandered around, hoping to find a bush behind which he could perform the job. He hated doing this here, but the lack of public bathrooms in the city was a serious problem. In Balaju, the only urinals were inside the swimming pool complex, and he’d have to pay an entrance fee to get in.

  About two hundred yards away, he found a bush that would hide him. He looked around and opened his zipper. As he was urinating, he heard laughter that made him suck in his breath. Then a voice drifted toward him and rang in his ears. Malati’s. He peered around the bush and saw, a few yards away, a couple sitting on a mat spread on the grass under a patch of sunlight beneath the trees. Malati’s back was to him, but he recognized the bright sari. Rachana was playing on the grass nearby. The man sitting in front of Malati was young, Ramchandra could tell, even though he couldn’t see his face clearly. He had a mustache, and he was saying something that made Malati laugh. The man glanced up, saw Ramchandra, and stopped talking. Malati turned around, but Ramchandra hid behind the bush again. He zipped up his trousers and hastened back to Goma and the children.

  They spent the day at the gardens, walking around, eating some bhujiyas Goma bought, and Ramchandra kept trying to doubt what he’d seen. By the time they were ready to go home, he had come to the conclusion that he’d been mistaken, that his anxiety about Malati that morning had blurred his vision.

  The family caught a bus, which dropped them off at Shahid Gate, and they walked home.

  Malati came to the landing as they climbed the stairs. “Where did you go? I’ve been waiting all day for you.”

  “When did you get back?” Ramchandra asked.

  “Around eleven. You must have left just before that.”

  Goma told her about the trip to Balaju.

  “You went to Balaju?” Her face turned crimson.

  Ramchandra couldn’t help saying, “Why? Were you there too?”

  “No, no,” she said. “I told you. I was back here at eleven.”

  Goma and Malati went to the kitchen to cook dinner, and Ramchandra sat down with the children to play carom.

  Throughout dinner, he searched Malati’s face for hints of guilt. But why did he expect her to feel guilty? After all, what relationship really bound them together?

  Later, after she changed into her sleepwear and slipped into the bed, he felt a strange dislike for her. Why had she lied to him? Why couldn’t she come right out and tell him—and Goma—where she’d been and whom she’d been with? And this resentment prompted him to say what he’d held back until now. “You really didn’t go to your friend’s place,
did you?”

  “What makes you say that? Why would I lie to you?”

  “Somehow I know. But I don’t understand why you haven’t been honest.”

  “The exams are on my mind; that’s all.” Her science exam was the next morning.

  “If you’re worried about your exams, why haven’t you been home studying?”

  She was about to turn off the lights but stopped. “What’s happened to you? Why are you speaking to me in that voice?”

  “I don’t understand why you’re not focusing on your exams. Why the need to go all over the city?”

  “I wasn’t all over the city. I was at a friend’s house, drinking tea, discussing the exams.”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “Where do you think I was?”

  “Do I have to tell you?”

  So far their voices had been quiet, murmurs, but now hers took on a hard edge. “Can’t I have a moment of peace in this house? Do I have to be watched all the time? By everyone?’’

  The strident tone surprised him; then it angered him. “You ungrateful woman,” he said. “Even our Sanu has better sense than you do.”

  “Of course your daughter has better sense. She’s blood, after all. What relation am I to you?”

  “None,” he said. “I was foolish enough to think there was something between us. There’s nothing anymore.”

  His words seemed to cut her; she got up from the bed and knelt on the floor and said, loudly, “God, what have I done?”

  “Stop that, Malati. You’ll wake everybody up.”

  But she remained where she was, her back to him. In the next room, the bed creaked, and Ramchandra knew that Goma must have heard their raised voices.

  “Come back here,” he said, gently now, and this time she obliged.

  “I was with him,” she said.

  “Who?” By now he knew what the answer would be, and he dreaded it.

  “Rachana’s father.”

  “After all this time?”

  “He’s left his wife.”

  “And earlier, he left you.”

  “He says he thinks about our daughter all the time.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  She nodded. “That’s why I agreed to see him again.”

  He wanted to tell her that she was foolish to believe him, but he remembered how young she was.

  She said he’d found out about her from Bhakta, the taxi driver who had taken them to Dakshinkali, and he claimed his heart was cut to pieces when he heard that his daughter and the mother of his daughter had been kicked out of the house and were living with strangers. That’s why he wanted to see her, wanted to see his baby, who, he said, looked just like her.

  “And what has he been doing all this time? Where has he been?”

  He had a small trading business in Birgunj, she said, but right now the business was slow, and he’d come back to Kathmandu and was driving a taxi. He was sorry for what he’d done to Malati, and he wanted to make it up to her.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Amrit,” she said. “I’m not going to see him anymore, but today I felt sorry for him. He wanted so badly to hold Rachana.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “He has a room near Ranjana Cinema Hall.”

  Ramchandra lay on the bed, his hands folded across his chest, breathing slowly.

  “I shouldn’t have fought with you,” she said, and placed her hand on his belly.

  When he didn’t respond, she moved her hand farther down, and at first he ignored her, his mind on her laughter in Balaju. But her hand was persistent, and he became aroused.

  In the midst of their lovemaking, he whispered, “Will you promise not to see him again?”

  She promised.

  “What was all that about?” Goma asked Ramchandra the next morning when they were alone.

  He considered telling her about the taxi driver, but decided there was no need for her to know. “We had a small argument.”

  “About what? Were you scolding her again for not studying?”

  “No, I told her to let us know of her whereabouts so that we wouldn’t worry.”

  “You mean about yesterday? God, she was with her friends. Why do you have to be so strict? She’s not your daughter.”

  “I’m not strict with my daughter.”

  Goma said her parents had invited them to dinner that evening.

  “So, they’ve come around?”

  “I don’t know. I think Mother misses me and the children.”

  “She doesn’t miss me,” he said with a chuckle.

  “So do you want to go?”

  “What about Malati?”

  “Malati and Rachana will go with us.”

  “It’ll be uncomfortable.”

  “That’s their problem. I’m not uncomfortable with it,” she said challengingly. “Are you?”

  “I don’t know, Goma. I don’t know you anymore.”

  “I don’t know myself anymore.”

  He didn’t know how to handle her sadness, so he said, “We can ask Malati what she wants to do.”

  Malati said she didn’t want to go, that she couldn’t face the Pandeys’ hatred, but Goma insisted. She pointed out that Malati was very much a part of the family now, and that her parents would accept her. Malati looked at Ramchandra, but he had no advice for her. Finally, she said, “I’ll think about it after my exam today. I have too much on my mind right now.”

  In the evening, she appeared subdued, and when Goma brought up the subject, she acquiesced, seemingly too tired to protest. When they were in the bedroom getting dressed for the dinner, he asked whether she thought she’d done badly on the exam that day. She didn’t respond, and he asked again. In a quiet voice she said that Amrit had appeared at the exam center, saying he wanted to see her and his daughter.

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him I couldn’t. That he was the one who’d ended it, and that was that.”

  She didn’t seem to trust her own voice.

  Outside Pandey Palace, Malati was awestruck by its grandeur. “They must be very rich.” Then she became frightened. “What will I say to them? I have nothing to say.”

  “You don’t have to say anything. Just enjoy the food.” Goma was holding Rachana, who clung to her as if she were her mother.

  They walked in through the gate, but no one came to receive them on the porch. In fact, the place was so quiet that it seemed to be abandoned. No sound came from the servants’ quarters. A heavy smell of incense in the house made Ramchandra uncomfortable. Goma pushed open the door and went inside, and it was she who found Mrs. Pandey seated on a step at the top of the staircase. “Where is everybody? Why are you here like this?”

  “Everyone is gone,” Mrs. Pandey said.

  “Where?”

  “They’re all gone, Goma.”

  Ramchandra and Goma exchanged glances. Later, Ramchandra recognized that this kind of understanding came from their years of living together, knowing what each other thought without having to say it. The same dread had entered their minds simultaneously. Something had happened to Goma’s father.

  “Father?” Goma asked.

  “He’s gone. He’s inside.”

  Goma sat down beside her mother. She let out a sob. “He’s gone?”

  “Gone.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “A few minutes ago. He lay down to sleep, and then he went.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “Nothing. He just went.”

  “Did you give him water?”

  Wide-eyed, Mrs. Pandey looked at Goma. “Water? What for? I burned incense.”

  “Are you sure he’s gone? Maybe he’s sleeping.” Goma looked at Ramchandra. “Will you check?”

  Ramchandra hesitated. But Goma looked at him pleadingly, so he went into the Pandeys’ bedroom. The old man lay on the bed, his face peaceful. Ramchandra put his fingers below the old man’s nostrils and didn’t feel anything. Then
he put his ear to his chest, and there was no movement. The window was open, and a gust of wind blew in, ballooning the curtains. Ramchandra closed the window and looked outside. The sky was covered with gray clouds. The old man would no longer cast critical glances at him. But Ramchandra didn’t feel relieved, as he’d thought he might. In the past, in moments of extreme misery, he had imagined Goma’s parents dead and his feeling of satisfaction. But where was that feeling now? Ramchandra went to the landing and said, “He’s gone.”

  Goma began to cry, and then they all were crying, even Malati.

  “We should move him downstairs,” Ramchandra said. “Where are the servants?”

  Mrs. Pandey said the servants had gone to the market earlier to buy food for dinner.

  “Then I’ll carry him downstairs. Rakesh, you’ll help me.”

  Rakesh clung to his mother, afraid. “How can he help? He’s a child,” Goma said. Ramchandra went back into the room and, with some difficulty, placed the old man’s arm around his shoulders. Any moment he’ll wake up and pat me on the shoulder, Ramchandra thought, and wanted to laugh at his own stupidity. Mr. Pandey’s hand was cold. The dead man’s feet dragged as Ramchandra pulled him to the landing. Goma rushed downstairs to place a mat on the floor for the body.

  Once they’d placed him on the mat, the women began to cry again.

  Then Mrs. Pandey noticed Malati. “What is she doing here?”

  Malati backed away toward the wall.

  “What’s that woman, this whore, doing here?” Mrs. Pandey said to Goma.

  “Mother, this is not the right time,” Goma said.

  “Of course this is the right time,” Mrs. Pandey said. “My beloved husband is dead, and that filthy woman’s in my house. I don’t want to see her.”

  Goma looked at Ramchandra, who signaled to Malati to follow him outside.

  “I think just for today, it’s better if you leave,” he whispered to her on the porch.

  “I knew I shouldn’t have come,” Malati said. She set Rachana on the floor, sat down, and covered her eyes. “I can’t take it anymore. I’ve been reduced to a whore by everyone, and I’ve done nothing.”