Three Bargains: A Novel (3 page)

“Everyone knows Bapu,” Madan had told his mother on their return, emptying his pockets of all the coins and candy as if to prove Bapu’s influence and importance. His mother, shaking out a bedsheet, told him to share with Swati. He gave a few sweets to Swati and put the rest back in his pocket, cramming sweets into his mouth every moment he was alone.

His grandfather’s head kept twitching and trembling and Madan wanted to ask Ma why his head danced like that, but he hitched up his shorts and sprinted out, the money she had given him clutched tightly in his hand.

At Bittu’s Paan Stand, he shoved his way through the tangle of legs and loudly asked for the beedis, holding the money up like an ultimatum.

“Oh-ho, who’s this little commander?” asked one of the customers, making space for Madan. He placed his hand on Madan’s head, roughing up his hair.

“This is Prabhu’s boy,” said the paan-wallah as Madan pushed the offensive hand away. “His family has come from the village.” He paused. “They’re staying at Avtaar Singh’s.”

“Really?” said the customer, shaking his head and reclaiming his space around the stand as Madan’s hand closed around the conical beedi packet. “I guess even pigs need to have shelter sometimes, ha?” he said with a smirk. The paan-wallah indicated with a flick of his eye that Madan was still there. He needn’t have bothered. Madan reminded the customer with a sharp kick to the shins before flying back down the road, the wind stroking the back of his bare legs, his feet thudding unerringly on his empire of tar and mud.

“What took you so long?” asked his mother on his breathless return. “No, no! Don’t give him the whole packet. Here . . .” She took a couple of beedis out and placed them on his grandfather’s wrinkled, outstretched palm. “Now wash up quickly. I have to go to the main house. You and your sister are coming with me.”

“Bitch, where’re you going? To clean people’s shit? Our ancestors were warriors and she wants to clean people’s shit.”

Madan’s grandfather’s words followed them out as they walked through the back lawns, past the guava and mango trees and down to the two-story house looming up ahead. The backsides of air-conditioning units jutted out almost obscenely from some windows and a few of the ground-floor doors opened onto half-box verandas. On the expansive terrace above, a woman swept between the water tanks and potted plants.

“Ignore him,” said his mother, noticing Madan’s curious glances back to their quarters. “He says these things. He can’t seem to help himself. One day someone’s going to slit his throat. Now I need you both to behave.” Her tone was sharp and firm.

Madan flashed an encouraging smile. He sympathized with the underlying desperation of her request; to have her own income, from which she would siphon some portion for their needs before it went to his father, would go a long way to easing the constant lines across her forehead.

They waited on the sun-heated stone patio outside the kitchen door. He kept Swati from troubling their mother by letting her win games of pitthu with the pebbles she had gathered in her skirt. When she tired of that, he made her laugh by juggling the pebbles and comically pretending to collapse from pain when he missed and they bounced off his foot. They played guessing games and he repeated her favorite stories of the bird with two heads and the girl who married a snake.

Finally, after the sun’s rays sharpened enough to slice their fields of vision in two, one of the servants beckoned. “Minnu memsaab will see you now.”

Leaving their slippers slick with sweat outside, they entered the cool, air-conditioned maze of rooms. Traipsing through long corridors and wide spaces crowded with chairs and sofas, and past a gleaming dining table, they came to a stop when they could no longer feel the smooth, hard marble, but soft, cushy carpet instead. Madan and Swati rubbed their feet back and forth in wonder.

“Hi, Gagan, its Minnu, listen . . . this pandit, Bansi Lal? He wants us to do a havan tomorrow. He’s told Avtaar it will help the Darjeeling deal . . .”

As Minnu memsaab talked into the black handset about her plans for the ritual of prayers and offerings, Madan’s gaze wandered around the square room that was at least two times bigger than their own. There were so many places to sit; he wondered how many people lived in the house. Sparkling glass bowls and statuettes of animals and people in different poses covered the small oval tables flanking the memsaab’s chair. A picture above memsaab’s head, of a lady by a river pouring water from an earthenware jug, looked like it was encircled with gold.

“You are Durga?”

“Yes, memsaab,” said his mother. Madan tore his eyes away from the large television at the end of the room to gape at the woman sitting on a chair that looked like it could fit three people in a row. Was this a woman? He had never seen a lady with hair so short that her neck and ears were exposed, but he knew she must be a woman because his mother kept calling her “memsaab.” She wore a green and gold salwar kameez, its flowery embroidery stretched tautly across her ample frame like a leering smile.

“So, your man said you cook well,” memsaab was saying. “What do you make?”

His mother began listing her attributes, and Swati pulled on Madan’s shirt and pointed. “I want that,” she said under her breath.

Cushioned in the memsaab’s sizable arm was a small dog, with fluffy hair like a cloud of purest white surrounding its face. Memsaab murmured and stroked the dog’s back, twirling a strand of its fur around a finger crowned by a magenta-colored nail. The dog yapped shrilly and squirmed in her protective grip. “What’s wrong, baby? What’s wrong? Tell Mama,” she cooed, ignoring Madan’s mother’s ramblings.

“Now, look,” she interrupted. Everyone, including the dog, shut up. “I need someone reliable. I do not like excuses.” She paused, and his mother nodded. “I have two girls, they need looking after. See that their uniforms are ready for school every day, their lunch . . . that sort of thing. Also, the cleaning. These people—they just cannot do dusting properly! I have a sweepress, but you have to make sure she does not do half a job. And do you make any chicken dishes? Saab likes his meat . . . And who are these?” she asked abruptly.

“This is Madan, and this is Swati.” His mother pushed them forward.

“This is Prince.” Minnu memsaab patted the dog and it bared its teeth at them.

“What’s your name again . . . Madan? Come close and put your hand out.”

Madan approached slowly, his hand outstretched, allowing Prince a sniff.

“Are you a careful boy?” she asked, and Madan nodded, though he was not sure what she meant. “I need someone to walk Prince. That other idiot is too rough with him. Every evening he needs fresh air.” They stared dumbly at her, not knowing what was expected of them.

“You can go to the kitchen now. Bahadur will show you where to start.” She turned Prince around and kissed his wet nose.

They began filing out. Then Madan realized that memsaab may have finished with them, but his mother had not finished with memsaab.

“Memsaab,” his mother said, and Minnu memsaab looked up in surprise.

“I wanted to ask . . . what I wanted to say is that saab had said yesterday that he’d send Madan to school?”

Minnu memsaab gave a big sigh and massaged her temple with a magenta-tipped finger. “Saab and his charity cases,” she murmured loudly. “Look, I don’t know about saab and what he said. Ask your husband to remind him.” She picked up the phone, dismissing them with a whir of the dial.

S
WATI STUCK HER TONGUE OUT AND MADAN GRINNED. “IT’S
really red now,” he said.

He took the chuski from her, licking it quickly. The market buzzed and their father hummed softly as he walked ahead. The glare of the sun, always strongest just before it set, bathed the crowds jostling to return to their homes in halos of amber light. Many held handkerchiefs and hands to their noses, shielding their senses against the sickly sweet smell of bagasse wafting down from the sugar factory. The factory’s smokestacks, like two fingers, were the highest structure in the town, but Madan and Swati’s father assured them that of all the factories that fed off the land—sugar, paper, cotton and even the mustard oil factory—none could outdo the majestic span of Avtaar Singh’s timber mill.

Madan and Swati concentrated on licking every drop of the sticky rose-flavored syrup dribbling down their arms as the cone of crushed ice melted in their hands. It was so good that Madan told Swati they should not waste a drop of it.

Their mother would not be back anytime soon. Her day ended when the family at the main house had eaten and didn’t need anything more for the night. Madan hoped his mother would bring home leftovers for their dinner.

The food, Madan and Swati agreed, was an unexpected bonus of their move to Gorapur. There was always plenty once Minnu memsaab indicated to Ma that the memsaab’s family did not want any more. Most afternoons, Madan and Swati would wait by the kitchen, sitting cross-legged on the stone patio, as Ma passed out stainless steel plates heaped with tender chunks of paneer or the thickest paranthas, which left their fingers greasy with ghee. On very hot days, they drank freshly churned lassi, cold out of the fridge. They shared the surplus food with Bahadur, and with Avtaar Singh’s main driver, Ganesh, both of whom lived in the other rooms that made up the servants’ quarters. But since they were bachelors and needed only enough for themselves, there was always plenty of food left over for Madan’s family.

“Here, you finish it,” Madan said, passing the slushy ice cone to Swati. Right then, in a burst of black fumes and dust, a motorcycle skidded alongside, forcing them to jump out of the way.

“Prabhu, there you are!” the man astride the throbbing machine yelled. “Avtaar Singh’s looking for you. He needs you right now. Did you leave early or what?”

“Yes,” Madan’s father shouted over the revving machine. “He said it was all right for me to go.”

“Okay, okay, that does not matter now. He’s calling you. A situation’s come up and he needs your expertise.” The man grinned and winked conspiratorially at Madan and Swati.

“I’ll meet you there,” said Madan’s father. “Let me drop my children home.”

Avtaar Singh’s messenger did not look pleased, and Madan understood that he didn’t want to return without his father riding behind him, but the man nodded and sped off.

“I was having so much fun,” Swati whispered to Madan as they hurried the short distance home. Madan nodded sympathetically. He didn’t want to return to their quarters either. For most of the days since their arrival in Gorapur, he and Swati had whiled away hour after hour playing marbles and gilli danda.

“But I can play with my new doll,” she continued, at once happier at this prospect. The doll was not truly new. It had been discarded by one of Avtaar Singh’s daughters, and Ma had brought it home a few days ago. The doll’s chubby arms and legs, molded in smooth, creamy plastic, had entranced Swati, and she kept its naked body wrapped in one of her shirts for warmth. Madan fashioned a little cradle for it out of an empty shoe box, lining it with old newspapers and hooking a wire hanger lengthwise through either end as a handle. Swati’s barely contained excitement as she watched the cradle come together made Madan laugh. She’d jumped up and down when it was done, declaring that she’d sleep in it, if it were big enough.