The Inheritance of Loss (14 page)

But the zenith of triumph came when he, nothing but a tin shack shopkeeper by origin, but richer than all the Brahmins in town, hired a Brahmin cook who upheld the laws of pollution so strictly that should you even utter "
eendoo,
"
egg, in the kitchen, every pot and pan, every spoon would have to be washed, all the food thrown away.

________

One day a group of men almost quacking in their excitement, crowded in to see Bomanbhai and told him of Jemu’s imminent departure for England.

Bomanbhai’s eyebrows drew together as he mulled over the information, but he said nothing, sipped a little Exshaw No. 1 brandy with hot water in a Venetian goblet.

Ambition still gnawed at him, and Brahmin cook he might have, but he knew that there was a wider world and only very rarely did history provide a chink allowing an acrobatic feat. A week later, he got into his landau drawn by two white mares, drove past the British Club on Thornton Road he could never join no matter how much money he had in his pocket, all the way to the other side of town, and there, he stunned the residents of the Patel warren with the offer of Bela, his most beautiful

daughter, who lay with her sisters in their big bed complaining of boredom under a crystal chandelier that provided the luxurious look of ice in the summer heat.

If Jemu succeeded in his endeavor, she would be the wife of one of the most powerful men in India.

________

The wedding party lasted a week and was so opulent that nobody in Piphit could doubt but the family lived a life awash in ghee and gold, so when Bomanbhai bent over with a
namaste
and begged his guests to eat and drink, they knew his modesty was false—and of the best kind, therefore. The bride was a polished light-reflecting hillock of jewels, barely able to walk under the gem and metal weight she carried. The dowry included cash, gold, emeralds from Venezuela, rubies from Burma, uncut
kundun
diamonds, a watch on a watch chain, lengths of woolen cloth for her new husband to make into suits in which to travel to England, and in a crisp envelope, a ticket for passage on the SS
Strathnaver
from Bombay to Liverpool.

When she married, her name was changed into the one chosen by Jemubhai’s family, and in a few hours, Bela became Nimi Patel.

________

Jemubhai, made brave by alcohol and the thought of his ticket, attempted to pull off his wife’s sari, as much gold as silk, as she sat on the edge of the bed, just as his younger uncles had advised him, smacking him on the back.

He was almost surprised to discover a face beneath the gilded lump. It was strung with baubles, but even they could not entirely disguise the fourteen-year-old crying in terror: "Save me," she wept.

He himself was immediately terrified, frightened by her fright. The spell of arrogance broken, he retreated to his meek self. "Don’t cry," he said in a panic, trying to undo the damage. "Listen, I’m not looking, I’m not even looking at you." He returned the heavy fabric to her, bundled it back over her head, but she continued to sob.

________

Next morning, the uncles laughed. "What happened? Nothing?" They gestured at the bed.

More laughter the next day.

The third day, worry.

"Force her," the uncles urged him. "Insist. Don’t let her behave badly."

"Other families would not be so patient," they warned Nimi.

"Chase her and pin her down," the uncles ordered Jemubhai.

Though he felt provoked, and sometimes recognized a focused and defined urge in himself, in front of his wife, the desire vanished.

"Spoiled," they said to Nimi. "Putting on airs."

How could she not be happy with their brainy Jemu, the first boy from their community to go to England?

But Jemubhai began to feel sorry for her, as well as for himself, as they shared this ordeal of inaction through one night and another.

While the family was out selling the jewels for extra money, he offered her a ride on his father’s Hercules cycle. She shook her head, but when he rode up, a child’s curiosity conquered her commitment to tears and she climbed on sideways. "Stick your legs out," he instructed and worked away at the pedals.

They went faster and faster, between the trees and cows, whizzing through the cow pats.

Jemubhai turned, caught quick sight of her eyes—oh, no man had eyes like these or looked out on the world this way. . . .

He pedaled harder. The ground sloped, and as they flew down the incline, their hearts were left behind for an instant, levitating amid green leaves, blue sky.

________

The judge looked up from his chess. Sai had climbed up a tree at the garden’s edge. From its branches you could look onto the road curving down below and she would be able to catch Gyan’s approach.

Each succeeding week of mathematics tutoring, the suspense was growing until they could barely sit in the same room without desiring to flee. She had a headache. He had to leave early. They made excuses, but the minute they left each other’s company, they were restless and curiously angry, and they waited again for the following Tuesday, anticipation rising unbearably.

The judge walked over.

"Get down."

"Why?"

"It’s making Mutt nervous to see you up there."

Mutt looked up at Sai, wagged, not a shadow crossed her eyes.

"Really?" said Sai.

"I hope that tutor of yours doesn’t get any funny ideas," said the judge, then.

"What funny ideas?"

"Get down at once."

Sai got down and went indoors and shut herself up in her room. One day she would leave this place.

"Time should move," Noni had told her. "Don’t go in for a life where time doesn’t pass, the way I did. That is the single biggest bit of advice I can give you."

Seventeen

Saeed Saeed caught a mouse
at the Queen of Tarts, kicked it up with his shoe, dribbled it, tried to exchange it with Biju, who ran away, tossed it up, and as it came down, kicked it squeaking up again, laughing, "So it is
you
who has been eating eating the bread, eh, it is
you
eating the sugar?" It went hysterically up until it came down dead. Fun over. Back to work.

________

In Kalimpong, the cook was writing on an airmail form. He wrote in Hindi and then copied out the address in awkward English letters.

He was being besieged by requests for help. The more they asked the more they came the more they asked—Lamsang, Mr. Lobsang Phuntsok, Oni, Mr.

Shezoon of the
Lepcha Quarterly,
Kesang, the hospital cleaner, the lab technician responsible for the tapeworm in formaldehyde, the man who plugged the holes in rusting pots, everyone with sons in the queue ready to be sent. They brought him chickens as gifts, little packets of nuts or raisins, offered him a drink at Ex-Army Thapa’s Canteen, and he was beginning to feel as if he were a politician, a bestower of favors, a receiver of thanks.

The more pampered you are the more pampered you will be the more presents you receive the more presents you will get the more presents you receive the more you are admired the more you will be admired the more you are admired the more presents you will get the more pampered you will be—

"
Bhai, dekko, aesa hai
. . . "he would begin to lecture them. "Look, you have to have some luck, it is almost impossible to get a visa. . . ." It was superhumanly difficult, but he would write to his son. "Let’s see, let’s see, perhaps you will get lucky. . . ."

"
Biju beta,
"
he wrote, "you have been fortunate enough to get there, please do something for the others. . . ."

Then he applied a homemade mucilage of flour and water to glue down the sides of the airmail forms, sent them finning their way over the Atlantic, a whole shoal of letters. . . .

________

They would never know how many of them went astray in all the rickety connections made along the way, between the temperamental postman in the pouring rain, the temperamental van across the landslides on the way to Siliguri, the lightning and thunder, the befogged airport, the journey from Calcutta all the way to the post office on 125th street in Harlem that was barricaded like an Israeli army outpost in Gaza. The mailman abandoned the letters atop the boxes of legal residents, and sometimes the letters fell, were trampled, and tracked back outdoors.

But enough came through that Biju felt he might drown.

"Very bright boy, family very poor, please look after him, he already has a visa, will be arriving. . . . Please find a job for Poresh. In fact, even his brother is ready to go. Help them. Sanjeeb Thorn Karma Ponchu, and remember Budhoo, watchman at Mon Ami, his son. . . ."

________

"I know, man, I know how you feel," Saeed said.

Saeed Saeed’s mother was dispensing his phone number and address freely to half of Stone Town. They arrived at the airport with one dollar in their pocket and his phone number, seeking admittance to an apartment that was bursting with men already, every scrap rented out: Rashid Ahmed Jaffer Abdullah Hassan Musa Lutfi Ali and a whole lot of others sharing beds in shifts.

"More tribes, more tribes. I wake up, go to the window, and there—MORE

TRIBES. Every time I look—ANOTHER TRIBE. Everybody saying, ‘Oh, no visas anymore, they are getting very strict, it so hard,’ and in the meantime everybody who apply, EVERYBODY is getting a visa. Why they do this to me?

That American Embassy in Dar—WHY??!! Nobody would give that Dooli a visa. Nobody. One look and you would say OK, something wrong here—but they give it to
him!
"

Saeed cooked cow peas and kingfish from the Price Chopper to cheer himself up, and plantains in sugar and coconut milk. This goo mixture smelling of hope so ripe he slathered on French bread and offered to the others.

________

The sweetest fruit in all of Stone Town grew in the graveyard, and the finest bananas grew from the grandfather’s grave of that same wayward Dooli whom the American Embassy in Dar es Salaam had so severely misjudged as to give him a visa—so Saeed was telling them when he glanced out of the window—

And in a second he was under the counter.

"
Oh myeeee God!
" Whispering. "Tribes, man,
it’s the tribes.
Please God.

Tell them I don’t work here.
How they get this address!
My mother! I told her,

‘No more!’
Please!
Omar, Go! Go!
Go tell them to leave.
"

Outside the bakery stood a group of men, looking weary as if they’d been traveling several lifetimes, scratching their heads and staring at the Queen of Tarts.

"Why do you help?" asked Omar. "I stopped helping and now they all know I won’t help and nobody comes to me."

"This is not the
time
to give a lecture."

Omar went out. "Who?
Saaeed?
No, no. What name?
Soyad?
No, no one of that name. Just me, Kavafya, and Biju."

"But he work here. His mother tell us."

"No. No. You all get moving. Nobody here who you want to see and if you make trouble WE get into trouble so now I ask you nicely, GO."

________

"Very good," said Saeed, "thank you. They have gone?"

"No."

"What are they doing?"

"They are still standing and looking," said Biju feeling brave and excited by someone else’s misfortune. He was almost hopping.

The men were shaking their heads unwilling to believe what they’d heard.

Biju went out and came back in. "They say they will try your home address now." He felt a measure of pride in delivering this vital news. Realized he missed playing this sort of role that was common in India. One’s involvement in other peoples’ lives gave one numerous small opportunities for importance.

"They will come back.
I know them.
They will try many more times, or one will stay and the others will go. Close the door, close the window. . . ."

"We can’t close the shop. Too hot, can’t close the window."

"Close it!"

"No. What if Mr. Bocher visit us?" He was the owner who dropped by at odd moments hoping to surprise them doing something against the rules.

"No sweati, bossi," Saeed would tell him. "We do everything you tell us just like you tell us. . . ."

But now. . . .

"It’s my life we’re talking about, man, not little hot here and little hot there, boss or no boss. . . ."

They closed the window and the door, and from the floor he telephoned his apartment. "Hey Ahmed, don’t answer the phone, man, that Dooli and all them boys have come from the airport! Lock up, stay down, don’t stand, and don’t go near the window."

"Hah! Why they give them a visa? How they buy the ticket!" They could hear the voice at the other end. Then it vanished into Swahili in a potent dungform, a rich, steaming animal evacuation.

________

The phone rang in the bakery.

"Don’t answer," he said to Biju who was reaching for it.

When the answering machine came on, it went off.

"The tribes! They always
scared
of the answering machine!"

It rang again and then again.
Tring tring tring tring.
Answering machine.

Phone down.

Again:
tring tring.

"Saeed, you have to talk to them." Biju’s heart was suddenly pulsing with the anguish of the ringing. It could be the boss, it could be India on the line, his father his father—

Dead? Dying? Diseased?

Kavafya picked it up and a voice projected into the room raw and insistent with panic. "Emergency! Emergency! We are coming from airport.
Emergency!