“She’s been going on and on about getting me married,” said Agastaya, suddenly willing to talk about marriage with Ruthwa, with whom he had never been very close. When a bigger issue presented itself, it was Agastaya’s nature to seek refuge in smaller ones. It was easy to pour his anxiety about Nicky into his annoyance with Bhagwati’s marriage talk. It would take his mind off his boyfriend.
“She’s been going on and on about Aamaa to me.”
“It seems she’s in a mood to talk sense into everybody when she should be worried about feeding, clothing, and sheltering her family.”
“I don’t think her situation is that dire. I wonder if she talks about marriage-rescuing with Manasa.”
“I strongly suspect she has been recruited by Aamaa to do this marriage talk. I told her off today, and now I feel bad about it.”
“Good thing no one asks me to get married.”
“Why are you here again?”
“To see my loving family.”
Agastaya asked Ruthwa if he had another cigarette. “I need to smoke.”
Ruthwa elevated his left eyebrow. “Since when?”
“Since now—I’m stressed.”
“Yeah, family does that to you.”
“So, are you here to avoid Aamaa?”
“Are you going to get married?” Ruthwa asked.
“Are you ever going to stop being an asshole?”
“Are you going to stop channeling Bhagwati? Or Manasa?”
They both laughed in between puffs. A combination of laughter and nicotine accounted for Agastaya’s feeling a whole lot lighter. But then, almost as soon as they had left, Nicky-related thoughts came back. The heaviness returned.
•
Manasa had awoken early, too, but chose to stay in bed when she heard Bhagwati talking to Ruthwa in the kitchen. Then she heard voices from the garden, which was right outside the guest room, and this time it was Bhagwati talking wedded bliss to Agastaya. With her sister at her pontificating best, Manasa decided that she wasn’t going to leave the room for a long time now.
But an hour or so later, someone drummed at her door. When the knocks grew more urgent, Manasa finally left her bed.
Prasanti, excitement writ large on her face, stood outside.
“What, Prasanti? Are you going to throw stones at me because your plan yesterday backfired?”
“There’s someone at the gate,” Prasanti said. “He’s a foreigner—looks like an over-boiled potato.”
“So, what am I to do?”
“I can’t speak to him. I know no English.”
“He must be lost.”
“No, he keeps asking for Agastaya,” Prasanti said. “Agusta, Augusta, Oogoostoo, he says. It took me some time to figure out.” She tried a few more permutations of Agastaya’s name.
“Where’s Agastaya?”
“Gone to town, I think.”
“Can’t Bhagwati talk to him?”
“She is cleaning upstairs.”
“Yes, because that’s not your job.”
Prasanti pretended not to understand. Manasa grabbed her robe and rushed out to the garden with Prasanti following her. Outside the gate stood a tall, lanky white man.
“May I help you?” Manasa asked.
“Hi, I’m from New York.”
“Yes?” Manasa said somewhat rudely. Being a New Yorker didn’t give one the liberty to show up at people’s doors in foreign countries unannounced.
“I am an acquaintance of Agastaya’s,” he said. “He told me he’d be home, and I was paying Gangtok a visit, so I thought I’d stop by. Finding Neupaney Oasis isn’t difficult—everyone knows where it is.”
“Oh, okay. I’m sorry if I was rude.”
“You weren’t.”
“Agastaya has gone to town, but he should be back soon. Why don’t you come in?”
When he walked in, the American hit his head on the ceiling of the wicket door.
“Sorry,” Manasa said. “It’s not used to people over six feet. I am Manasa, Agastaya’s sister.”
“Very nice to meet you. Do I detect a slight British accent?”
“I live in London.”
“So, you’re also visiting?”
“Yes. My sister from Colorado is here, too. As is the youngest sibling. In fact, all of Agastaya’s siblings are here. You do know that we have a festival going on, don’t you?”
“Yes, the Diwali.”
“The Nepali-speaking people call it Tihaar,” Manasa corrected him. “You’ve come right on time for the festivities. And tomorrow is our grandmother’s birthday.”
“I hope my presence isn’t an imposition.”
“It isn’t, but I’ve just awoken. I need to freshen up. Why don’t you sit out in the sun for a while? I shall have someone bring you tea.”
“Prasanti!” Manasa shouted. The servant had been observing them unobtrusively, choosing to spread on a mat fermented leaves of mustard, cauliflower, and radish, which she’d soon use as a base for gundruk, Manasa’s favorite soup. “Bring this man some tea and biscuits.”
Inside, Bhagwati was scrubbing the stairs.
“Since when did that become your job?” Manasa asked.
“It’s fine. I woke up early. I had nothing to do.”
“A friend of Agastaya’s from New York is at the door. Can you entertain him for a while? I need to use the toilet.”
Bhagwati agreed. “What’s his name?”
“I realized he didn’t tell me, and I didn’t ask him. How rude of me. Let me go find out.”
She returned a minute later.
“Nicholas,” Manasa said. “Nicholas is his name—he’s not bad-looking.”
Not one of the water geysers in either of the two bathrooms was on. That was the problem with Gangtok—Manasa had to plan a shower at least an hour in advance in order to have ample hot water. She quickly brushed her teeth, rinsed, examined with indifference the blood in her saliva, wiped her mouth, and counted the number of days left before she’d be back in Kathmandu and then in London.
The bathroom was filthy. She did not understand why people in India had a partiality for wet loos. All it took was for the shower area to be barricaded, but with the shower being bang in the middle of the bathroom, this was nearly impossible. Manasa was always conscious that the commode not get wet when she bathed here, so she covered the toilet with a dirty towel before she let the shower run. Hairs of various lengths and shapes spun about in puddles on the floor. This wasn’t very different from being greeted by Himal’s beard hairs, lumped with his shaving cream, that she often found in the sink of their London bathroom. Beard and books and the foul discharge from his ear—she had given her husband so much grief about them. She had forced him to install a small shelf above the flush, but a day or two later, all his books—their titles ranging from Donald Trump: Master Apprentice to How to Win Friends and Influence People—were back on the floor, open at various pages, big words underlined aggressively. The sink would be cleaned meticulously the day she shouted at Himal but was back to its hair-covered glory the next day. Himal would keep complaining that his perforated eardrum wasn’t a big deal and that he had no time for surgery. It was maddening.
London would be awful once she returned. She would soon be surrounded by the forced feel-good spirit of Christmas that her father-in-law wanted to be a part of. She had to wheel him to ridiculous shopping centers where the lights were, where the celebrations were. The thought of that life—her life, her real life—being only three days away filled her with dread. She would do herself a giant favor, she decided as she dried herself, by attempting to enjoy her last few days here.
She ran a dryer over her hair and avoided the sight of her body in the mirror. She wasn’t fat, but she couldn’t bear to look at her naked frame. She was afraid of things she might find—stretch marks, flab, wrinkles—but it was her face that scared her the most, and her face she couldn’t help inspecting. All one had to do was look at her Facebook profile picture from two years
before to see how much she had aged. Sometimes, when she saw her reflection in a windowpane or a car mirror, it took her a few seconds to recognize the woman looking back at her.
She heard Nicholas and Bhagwati chitchatting outside. Manasa hadn’t done very much since her arrival in Gangtok and wanted to visit a few old sites. She wasn’t a big fan of the city’s modern avatar and disliked that almost every third building in the MG Marg area housed a hotel of some kind. The Gangtok of her childhood had been slower, less flashy. Tourists were fewer and poorer. These days, big spenders from the West fought with middle-class Bengalis for a piece of the city and state to taint. No one saw the harmful effects of tourism and excessive commercialization. Manasa was nervous for her hometown. She’d perhaps ask the others to join her on her sightseeing trip to the outskirts. If they weren’t willing to accompany her, she’d go solo. Life was sometimes better alone.
“I was telling Byaagg-wuti how understandable her English is,” Nicholas said when he saw Manasa come out. “I can’t believe she’s been in America only two years. Her accent is perfect.”
“And what is a perfect accent?” Manasa asked.
“Well, for us ignorant Americans, anybody who doesn’t speak like us has an accent.”
“That’s the entire world outside America.” Manasa registered the look Bhagwati shot her.
“I know,” Nicholas said. “I apologize for my countrymen’s shortcomings. We should see the world outside of America. You’re from London—wow!”
“That I am,” Manasa said, her voice still icy.
“The weather must drive you insane.”
“It’s no worse than New York—at least the summers in London don’t get as hot.”
“I’d not have minded the cold in London if the sun so much as ever shone,” Nicholas confessed. “The bleakness gets to me.”
“I’d choose London over New York any day.”
“At least October in New York is beautiful,” Nicholas said. “But October in Gangtok is even better.”
“I haven’t been to either New York or London,” Bhagwati declared. “Boulder is a good place to live. I might just live there all my life.”
“I like India the best,” Nicholas said. “I don’t get why upper-middle-class Indians would want to move to America. You have it so easy here—servants, chauffeurs, and living like kings.”
“What do you do?” Manasa asked.
“I am a traveler,” Nicholas answered dreamily. “You could say a pseudo-anthropologist.”
“You take what you have for granted,” Manasa scolded Nicholas. “Everyone in India thinks you Americans have the ideal life. Grass greener—you see.”
Before Nicholas could launch into another silly rationalization about how the upper-middle-class Indian had it best, Manasa ordered Prasanti to get the cordless. This conversation was inane. “We should call Agastaya,” she said.
“That’s fine,” Nicholas said. “I’m quite enjoying my time with the two of you.”
She took no pleasure in this banal discussion of weather and the stupidity of India’s upper middle class. Bhagwati, on the other hand, seemed enthralled by the new arrival. The sooner Manasa dumped him on Agastaya, the quicker she’d start enjoying whatever few days of freedom she had left.
“We’re on our way,” her brother said on the phone.
“Who’s ‘we?’”
“I am with Ruthwa.”
“There’s a surprise waiting for you.” Manasa smiled at Nicholas.
“I think I know what you’re talking about. Is my friend there?”
“Yes, Nicholas from New York is here. Hurry up.”
“I am almost there.”
Manasa relayed the message to Agastaya’s friend.
When her brother finally arrived, he and Nicholas shook hands and exchanged awkward hugs. “I see you’ve met the two sisters,” Agastaya said. “My brother went to buy some cigarettes and should be here later.”
“Yes, we have been having a great discussion,” replied Nicholas.
“About New York, London, and the upper-middle-class Indian,” Manasa said, hoping the despair with which she looked upon the topics hadn’t crept into her voice. “I’ll let you gentlemen catch up in peace.”
Bhagwati, too, excused herself.
“What a boring fellow,” Manasa said to Bhagwati once they were inside the house. “Making the most basic of points and thinking he’s some intellectual. ‘What’s the weather like in London? What’s the weather like in Boulder?’”
“I quite liked him,” Bhagwati answered.
“You were all over him.”
“He isn’t that good-looking.”
“But he’s white,” Manasa teased. “His whiteness had you going crazy.”
“I was just being polite,” Bhagwati said, not very pleasantly. “You were rude.”
“For good reason—I hated him.”
“How can you form an opinion of someone within two minutes of talking to him?”
“I can. At least I don’t have this ridiculous post-colonial hangover where I believe that every whitey I come across is worthy of being fawned over. The way you were so pleased when he called your accent perfect was absurd. You were like a teenager in heat.”
“I wasn’t fawning over him. I treat people with hospitality. You should learn that.”
“What now?” Manasa said. “Are you going to lecture me, too? Lecturing Ruthwa early in the morning not enough for you? Lecturing Agastaya early in the morning not enough for you?”
“Who told you?”
“I heard. I sleep right next to the kitchen and right by the garden, dammit. I keep getting woken up in the mornings. Today it was your nonsense. Yesterday it was Prasanti’s. I am moving to another room, I swear. Maybe I’ll share the bed with Aamaa. I haven’t slept well in days.”
“Those weren’t lectures.”
“Sure, they weren’t,” Manasa said, uncertain why she was so peevish. “Is Aamaa paying you to talk Agastaya into getting married?”
Bhagwati sighed. She said nothing. She hiked upstairs. She didn’t look at Manasa.
It wasn’t supposed to have come out that way. She could have left money out of it. Manasa wanted to kick herself.
Her plan to ask Bhagwati to play tourist with her would have to wait. Her resolve to take full advantage of her last few days in Gangtok wasn’t exactly going well.
•
Chitralekha would stay in bed all day. Her grandchildren would beg her to conduct the puja, and she’d join them only after an entire day’s sulking.
Tomorrow was her big day. The priest would be in later to examine the kiln. Dignitaries had been invited for an extravagant lunch. Friends and richer family members would join them. The poorer relatives would come by later for dinner, which would be cobbled together from leftovers of the previous meal.
Tonight, the Bhailo singers, mostly young girls, would hop from house to house singing Diwali carols all night and disrupt Chitralekha’s peace. Bhagwati volunteered to take offerings out to the girls and had readied a plate on which she placed some uncooked rice, a tiny copper pot that held a marigold, and an earthenware lamp. As the girls arrived, Bhagwati would count the strength of each group and accordingly place money on the plate, the ornateness of which was very often sidelined by the amount of money it bore. The task of paying the girls, thanking them, and sending them off usually fell on Prasanti, who, Chitralekha was aware, cut the amount to be paid to each group by half and pocketed the remaining money.
What Prasanti had done yesterday was inexcusable, but after Chitralekha’s fury had subsided, she decided that her servant had just made an unfortunate mistake. Yes, she’d pardon the brainless eunuch, but Chitralekha hadn’t had a moment to declare to Prasanti that all was forgiven. Her servant hadn’t brought her tea and hadn’t even asked her down to breakfast. Chitralekha was ready to overlook yesterday’s indiscretion, but she didn’t like this lack of follow-up.
The eunuch wasn’t the only person
who should have been begging her for exculpation. Ruthwa had knocked at her door early last morning with all the earnestness of the remorseful but quickly disqualified himself for redemption when he shouted, “Aamaa, can you hear me?” following it with a chortle. To her grandson, everything was a joke. What he did to her was a joke. What he did to the family was a joke. His cruel laughter had rung in her ears until she again fell asleep. She could have slapped him, but an old woman’s slap on a thirty-one-year-old man would not have the kind of effect she desired. If anything, it would invite ridicule from all the grandchildren. Yet another story in the endless book of tyrannies Aamaa had supposedly inflicted on the children.
Her heart had palpitated after the outburst with Prasanti. She felt old—as though she didn’t have in her the will to fight anymore. The realization alarmed her. Isn’t that how old people—people who had given up—felt? A part of her didn’t want to let go, but there was another part—this one, these days, more victorious—that constantly commanded her to rest, to spend her days in reflection at the great life she had led, to twiddle her beads and contemplate where her cenotaphs would be. She was sleeping and dreaming so much more these days. She felt useless.
If she had no ambition left in her, she’d have happily moved to Kalimpong. Gangtok was wonderful, and it was home, but there was always too much going on. The central location of her house didn’t help matters. People who had no business dropping by stopped by all the time. Some were there to talk trade and commerce. Others didn’t want to use public restrooms on their trips to town, and Chitralekha’s bathroom was a convenient choice. Many wanted favors. Some came to offer her their respects, as if she was some guru. Others wanted her blessings because an old woman supposedly had the power in her to sway the minds of gods.
She had piled too much on her plate the last few years. Her level of civic engagement was at an all-time high. Why would a school invite her, a person with a second-grade education, to give away prizes? And why would she, a person with a second-grade education, accept the invitation? Yes, allying herself with the right political candidate was important at one point in her life, but, for a long time now, Gangtok had had no opposition party, no politician worth being friends with other than Subba. And Subba was already her friend, so there was no reason, really, for her to go to parties, to be seen at rallies, to give rousing speeches. She didn’t look forward to attending these events—she went as a creature of habit. Cutting down on these commitments would be difficult—no, impossible—if she continued living in Gangtok. She often discussed with Prasanti the temptation to post a sign that read Please come in only if you’re expected at her gate to lower the number of visitors. There was just no respite.
Land Where I Flee Page 18
