Three Bargains: A Novel (30 page)

Ketan-bhai sat on a metal chair next to the hospital bed in a starched safari suit, his prematurely gray hair slicked down heavily with hair cream, holding the open newspaper up to Madan’s face. “We were in the news,” Ketan-bhai said grimly. “Second page.”

“Two Dead in Factory Blaze” read the headline, followed by a few long paragraphs.

The words swam before Madan. He rested his head back down. The sheets were a jumbled mess beneath him. He tried to cough but it hurt his throat and his head, and nausea came like a crashing wave. He retched into the steel pan at the side of the bed.

“It will take time for your hands to heal.” Ketan-bhai gently patted Madan’s heavily bandaged hand. “You took in a lot of smoke, so your mouth and throat are going to be sore for some time. Doctors were surprised you didn’t pass out.”

There were other patients in the ward on dinged and corroded metal beds like his, and Madan could see legs and arms flung listlessly out on white sheets.

“Jairam?” Madan asked. “Is he here?”

“He’s home now,” Ketan-bhai said. “He wasn’t as bad as you.”

“Who was it?” Madan rasped, pointing to the headline announcing the dead.

“Did you know Govindraja from Chhattisgarh? Uttam from Badarpur?” Madan hadn’t heard of them.

“Govindraja, I knew him from some years ago. How afraid he used to be of these government hospitals. He’d heard that when the wards filled up, they would get rid of the excess population by attaching an empty IV bottle and pumping air into their veins. A killer air bubble would travel to the heart or lungs and the hospital would claim ‘natural death.’ I guess it is good Govindraja found a way out without stopping here.”

Ketan-bhai’s gaze traveled up the IV line inserted into Madan’s hand, to the plastic bottle hanging from a hook.

“Yours is full of medicine,” he told Madan reassuringly. “Yours too,” he added to the worried patient in the next bed listening in to their conversation. Ketan-bhai probably knew all their names and where they were from by now.

“Didn’t know Uttam very well,” Ketan-bhai continued. “There was some trouble with his brother back in his hometown, but I heard he was a solid, hardworking fellow. Once you’re gone, what else is anyone going to say about you? But why am I talking of Govindraja and Uttam? Our pasts have no meaning in this city, where everyone has a story. That’s why we all land up here. To change how the story ends.”

A nurse moved from bed to bed checking blood pressure, handing out medications and making notations on her sheaf of papers. “Hello, sister,” Ketan-bhai said when she came to Madan. “Where is the patient’s lunch? My friend needs some nourishment to regain his strength.”

“Visiting time is ending,” she said, sticking a thermometer into Madan’s armpit.

“Of course, of course.” Ketan-bhai solicitously picked up his chair, placing it flush against the wall, out of the way. He came and stood by the bed, and waited for the nurse to finish with Madan.

“Is there anyone I can call?” Ketan-bhai asked. “I can send a message to your family, to anyone.”

The nurse took a reading of Madan’s temperature. “Let the patient rest,” she said, noting the information on her chart. Ketan-bhai dithered for a moment but it was not in his nature to overlook the rules. “You are sure?” he said to Madan. “It’s no problem.”

“I’ve told you before,” Madan said. “I have no one.”

The pants the hospital charity gave him were too loose. They dragged on the ground and caught under the soles of his rubber slippers. He took care not to trip and hurt himself further. His hands itched and throbbed under the tight bandages. The clarity in his voice came and went. Before discharging him from the hospital, they had admonished him to rest his vocal cords, and given him a brown paper bag filled with a strip of medication and a tube of salve.

He made his way through the tapering lanes, muddy with overflowing drain water, to his room. Overcome by a bout of dizziness, he leaned against the wall of the curving stairway, daunted by the steep climb ahead.

“You! You!” a woman’s voice called to him. She stepped out from her doorway, blinding Madan in her bright green sari and clinking red bangles. “Where have you been? You haven’t ordered food from me for so long.” She took in his stubby beard, sunken cheeks and the pallor of his eyes. “What happened to you?”

Too tired to elaborate, he waved his bandaged hand, keeping his balance by concentrating on the big red bindi on the middle of her forehead.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“Up. To my room.”

“It’s not your room, silly boy! You didn’t pay rent for these days, and he’s given it to someone else,” she said about the landlord. “Come with me.” She bustled off, waving for Madan to follow her to her place. She was holding his white plastic bag when he caught up with her. “He was throwing your things out. I wasn’t sure you would be back, but I kept this for you.” She passed the bag into his stiff grasp.

He opened the bag. Inside were his extra set of shirt and jeans. Gone were the arduously collected bits of fabric, the soft velvet and silky chenille, the patterned cotton and scraps of leather.

“There was some junk in the bag. I threw it out,” she said. “But I saved your clothes.”

She was waiting for him to leave. He stood there swaying on his feet, staring stupidly into the emptied bag. “Are you hungry?” she said, and, not waiting for his answer, she brought out a roll of raw onions and chapatti. Opening the bag, she placed the food on his clothes, and gently hooked the handle around his fist.

“Okay,” she said. “Now you can go.”

He wandered back down the lane and sat at a bus stop. On his lap, the bag was a deflated lump. The chappati was soft and warm against the crunchiness of the raw onions. He ate much too fast and the pungent onions irritated his throat and nose. A fit of coughing shook his bones. When it passed, he found that he was ravenous and unsatisfied despite the burning of his throat. He tried picking at the crumbs in his lap, and realized that the bandages would have to go. He needed his hands for work, and no one would give him a job with bandages impeding his range of motion. What’s more, he needed water and something else to eat. It was too late for langar at the gurdwara, but he could make his way to the Sai Temple and join the other needy in the food line. Hungry as he was, the thought of going to the temple did not appeal to him. He unwound the bandages, letting them fall to the ground by the bench, and wiggled his stiffened fingers. Ignoring passersby, he changed into his jeans and stuffed his pockets with his medicine and the money he had received for his injuries. It was a token gesture from the factory. He would need to earn something to supplement it, but he would have enough to eat for a few good days. On a sagging clothesline strung between two light poles in the middle of the road, trousers, frocks and underwear snapped in the wind. Cars whizzed by on either side. He stepped into the traffic and held his hand out as he crossed to the median, making the cars and scooters slow down for him. The drivers honked their horns in frustration and gesticulated with annoyance. Jumping onto the median, he added the oversized hospital shirt and pants to the pile on the line, and crossed back to the bus stop. The cars protested again but he paid them no mind. Let them try to run him over and crush him under their dusty wheels.

“Seems like you’re getting bolder by the day.” Ketan-bhai was at the bus stop on his shiny blue scooter. The helmet cradled in his arm had flattened his peppery hair, and he’d forgone his usual safari suit for a plain starched shirt tucked carefully in his belted trousers.

“What are you doing here?”

“You weren’t at the hospital and you’d given this basti as your address.” Madan waited for more of an explanation, but instead Ketan-bhai asked, “Are you hungry?”

They found a corner stall in the market. Ketan-bhai insisted on paying for the platefuls of rice covered with creamy yellow curry, and soft pakoras, a sprinkling of crunchy pappad on top, and mango pickle on the side. Madan gave his spicy pickle to Ketan-bhai. He didn’t want to start coughing again. They rested against the scooter, and in a few silent minutes he cleared his plate, and waited while Ketan-bhai chewed thoughtfully.

“What? You’re done? Take something else,” Ketan-bhai said.

“I’m fine,” Madan said, though he could eat another plateful. He didn’t understand why he was so hungry all of a sudden.

“So what’re you going to do now?”

“I was thinking of going back to the factory.”

Ketan-bhai stared plainly at Madan’s scarred hands. “Why don’t you try something else for a change?”

“I don’t know anything else.”

Ketan-bhai raised his brow. “Do you take me for a fool?” he said. “You think I’m following you around for your friendly personality?”

Ketan-bhai gestured angrily as if he was going to toss away his half-eaten meal, but stopped midway when he saw Madan’s focus locked on the unfinished rice and curry.

“Here. You have it,” he said. “I’m full.”

Madan ate slowly this time, savoring each bite and washing it down with the cool, milky lassi he’d bought for each of them with some of his restitution money.

“Not as good as my wife’s,” said Ketan-bhai with a big gulp. “You must come to my house, meet my family.”

Madan laughed.

“What’s so funny?” asked Ketan-bhai.

“Why would you want me to meet your family? You don’t know me.”

“By the way, how old are you?”

“Twenty-three.”

“That’s very young,” he said, and looked taken aback, as if he would have to rethink his opinion of Madan.

After Madan returned the empty glasses, he watched Ketan-bhai remove a cloth from his scooter’s storage compartment and begin to polish the chrome, dust the seats, and wipe down the handlebars. He could tell Ketan-bhai was in deep contemplation as he went through his well-practiced cleaning routine. Maybe Ketan-bhai would put in a good word for Madan at another place. But he hesitated to ask Ketan-bhai for any favors. He had lied about his personal details without any compunction to police investigating the factory fire; he couldn’t allow the slightest chance of them asking questions about him in Gorapur. Yet Ketan-bhai, with his gracious smiles and his affable inquisitiveness, seemed even more of a threat to Madan.

The sun was lazily slinking down and Madan would have to find somewhere to sleep soon. He began to take his leave, but Keten-bahi, having wiped off his spotless scooter, stopped him.

“I want to show you something,” Ketan-bhai said, a cloth bag in his hand.

From out of the bag he pulled out a wire hanger, from which hung a supple leather jacket with big pockets and black buttons. Ketan-bhai looked excited and nervous, as if he were uncovering a thousand-kilogram stash of hashish.

“I’ve had this sample made,” said Ketan-bhai, proffering the jacket for Madan to feel the fabric. “This is the best quality. Look at the lining and at the stitching. Small and indistinguishable, except here and here”—he pointed to the arm seams—“where it is part of the design.”

“It’s very nice,” Madan said politely.

“Nice? It’s more than nice. You know what they say about me? There is God that gets things done, and then there is Ketan-bhai.” He folded the jacket and delicately placed it back in the bag. Ketan-bhai lowered his voice as if afraid the office workers slurping down their kadhi chawal or the shopkeepers behind their counters would overhear. “There is a buyer here, these days,” he said. “From America. He is looking to place an order. There are many factories that want this order, but they are small. It will take five or six of them to make the number of pieces this buyer needs.” Ketan-bhai smiled. “I, on the other hand, know each and every factory. I can coordinate, and I have experience to know how to make the garment to the buyer’s specifications.”

“That’s good, Ketan-bhai, but I have to go if I’m going to get a bed in the temple’s dormitory tonight. Or I’ll be sleeping right here.”

“You can’t tell anyone. This is my idea and there are those who will try to wrangle in and do the same. But I wanted to ask you—”

“Is someone troubling you, Ketan-bhai? Do you want me to make sure they leave you alone?” He hadn’t had a good jaw-snapping, head-punching, arm-twisting, bloody rout for some time, and perhaps that was what he needed.

“No, no,” Ketan-bhai said. “What are you talking about, and what am I talking about? You do not understand.” He held on to Madan’s arm as if he were afraid Madan was going to level the evening rush of commuters with one fell swoop. “Madan, I am a simple man. There are no twists and turns with me, only straight lines. If we’re to go forward, you must know that.”

If only Ketan-bhai would go on with whatever he was trying to say. Madan was beginning to feel woozy again. The spurt of adrenaline that had kept him on his feet for this long was draining away along with his patience.

“This opportunity with the buyer has come about suddenly. I’ve been hoping for a chance like this for some time. I’ve lived all my life first on my father’s farm in Punjab, near Abohar, and then working in factories. I am not confident in other situations. I’ve gotten to know you in the last year. I’ve seen you help others, whether it’s with their pension papers or to move to a new house. You ran behind Jairam without hesitation. What I want to know is if you are interested. To do this with me.”