Three Bargains: A Novel (39 page)

Jaggu dug into his lunch with gusto, silencing with a quick jab the constant beeping of his cell phone.

“I’m keeping you from your work,” said Madan.

Jaggu finished his last bite and pushed his plate away. “What are your plans for the day?” he asked.

Madan had none. He went back to the cinema hall with Jaggu and sat in his office while Jaggu handled the business of the day. In between, he told Jaggu about his other business interests, about Ketan-bhai and their partnership.

“You own factories, a big business,” said Jaggu. “It’s hard for me to imagine, but you were always good at organizing things, looking at numbers and making them work for you. What about family? You’re married?”

“Yes,” he said. “I hear you are too.”

“Many years now,” said Jaggu, smiling. “Any children?”

How to answer a question like that? Yes, he did have a child. Arnav was and would always be his child. And no, he didn’t. Arnav was not here to slip his small hand in his, or to call for his father when he awoke at night. And what about the child who came before Arnav?

Jaggu’s sudden look of consternation suggested his last question must have turned his own thoughts to that other child as well. Madan kept his answer as simple as he could. “I had a son,” he said. “Arnav. He was nearly nine. There was an accident; we lost him recently.”

“Aaah,” Jaggu said, shaking head, like the pain was his. “That should never happen to anyone.” He paused. “Is that why you’re here?”

“Partly,” said Madan, and he was grateful that Jaggu didn’t press him for more.

At the end of the day, Jaggu, locking the drawers of his desk, said, “Let’s get you out of your hotel. You’re coming to stay with me.”

Jaggu lived in one of the old neighborhoods. Low-slung houses lined the streets, some updated, but the framework remained, each house presenting a veranda and good-sized lawn in front, a short driveway to the side.

They stopped in front of a white gate. “Madan,” said Jaggu. “Give me a minute, let me explain inside.”

“Of course.” Madan stood by the car as Jaggu walked through the gate and up and across the veranda, disappearing inside the square house. Madan heard voices, and two children ran out to play on the front lawn of the neighboring house.

It was taking Jaggu a long time, and he felt bad for causing Jaggu any problems with his wife. But then the front door of Jaggu’s house swung open, and he waved Madan in. Madan climbed the veranda steps, noticing that Jaggu was talking to someone behind the front door. “It’s okay,” Jaggu said when Madan reached them. A woman stepped out. She looked familiar, yet he could not place her. She held on to to Jaggu’s hand, trembling, tears brimming in her eyes, and turned to face Madan.

“Swati?” Madan said.

She looked up at him, and Jaggu said to her, “See, I told you. I told you one day your Madan-bhaiya would come back.”

Swati’s eyes darted across Madan and back to Jaggu.

“Let’s go inside,” Jaggu said, breaking the shocked silence.

Madan couldn’t hear a thing, like someone had rung a bell near his ear, leaving the sound to reverberate incessantly. He followed them into a spacious living room. A large jhula swung from the ceiling in the corner, and there were low sofas and chairs upholstered in a colorful patterned fabric, and small side tables of handcrafted walnut.

“What should I get?” Swati asked Jaggu, her brow furrowing. “Nimbu pani, Coke, tea?”

“Wait . . . Swati. You live here?” Both of them stared at Madan from the doorway. “What’s going on?” he asked.

Jaggu came and put and a hand on his arm, guiding him to one of the sofas. “You are not the only one who can keep a secret,” he said.

Swati bent her head shyly. “Are you surprised, bhaiya?” she said, acknowledging him at last. “Jaggu said you’d be surprised. We’ve been married over fifteen years now.”

“Why don’t you get us some tea?” Jaggu said, and she nodded and went out.

“She seems . . .” Madan struggled for the word. “Not like how she used to be.”

“She has good days and bad days,” Jaggu said. “After you left, I missed you so much I spent a lot of time at the compound. I started taking her out, to cheer her up, to distract her. She asked about you constantly. Took her to lots of movies, especially since I worked there. We saw a show together nearly every day. They were singing about love on the screen and we found love sitting in the balcony section. As soon as I could . . .” He tapped a picture on the side table, Swati dressed in a red and gold lehenga, he in a cream kurta, garlands of flowers hanging from their necks.

Madan shook his head in wonder. “My mother?”

“She lives here. She has a room in the back, that’s how she likes it. She retired a few years ago. She’s at the temple for the evening aarti. She’ll be back soon.”

“Has she . . . is she still angry?”

“Who knows? You know it’s hard to tell what your mother’s feeling.”

“But she must be happy about you and Swati.”

“Oh, yes,” Jaggu said, grinning. “I can do no wrong.”

There was a commotion, and Swati came in, followed by a boy and a girl. She placed the tray on a table. “This is your Madan-mamu,” Jaggu said. “He’s come to see us after a long time.” The girl hid behind Swati, but the boy looked boldly at Madan.

“This one’s Nima,” said Jaggu, pulling the girl forward. “She’s six. And that one”—he nodded toward the boy—“is Vikas. He’s eleven, our oldest. Say hello to your mamu.” They both murmured something and the maid came in with a two-year-old riding on her hip. “And the baby is Vipul.”

Madan sat back, confounded. He had missed so much.

“When I was at the market,” he said to no one in particular, “I saw that Sunrise General has a whole toy section now.” Vikas, playing with a fighter jet, stopped, trying not to show his increasing interest. Madan hid his grin. “Tomorrow, that’s where we’ll go after school,” he said to Swati.

“They have enough toys, bhaiya,” she said. She looked worriedly at Jaggu, and he gave her hand a squeeze and she relaxed.

“She’s right,” Jaggu said. “I’m always saying there are too many toys in this house.”

“No, I insist. No matter what your parents say,” he said to Vikas directly. Vikas couldn’t stop the smile that broke across his face. How Arnav would have loved having an older cousin, Madan thought.

He heard movement in the hallway and everyone stopped talking. He knew who it was.

Her hair was more white than gray and she stooped a little. She was heavier.

“Ma,” he said, and then he choked. “Ma.”

She shuffled slowly toward him. Nima bounced on the sofa, the thumps and creaks of the cushion springs filling the room. Swati caught her, stopping her mid-jump.

Madan’s mother put her hand to her chest. It looked like she was going to collapse in a heap, and Jaggu rushed to her side, clutching her arm, trying to make her sit in a chair.

“Jaggu,” Madan’s mother said, leaning on him but refusing to sit down, “is that your friend?”

“It’s your son, Ma,” Jaggu said.

She pushed Jaggu away, pulling her sari tighter around her shoulders. Her befuddlement cleared, replaced by the cold intensity of nothingness. “I have no son,” she said to Jaggu.

Swati began to sob and say, “Don’t say that, Ma. Don’t say that. It’s Madan-bhaiya.”

“My poor girl, still so simple. When will you learn? If you had a brother, he would never have neglected his duty to you, or to his mother. He wouldn’t have been so foolish as to see beyond his status, never would have thought himself so high and mighty that he could follow the stars in his eyes and put us all in jeopardy. And you . . .” She twisted back to Jaggu. “It’s your business if you bring people from the street into the house, but either he goes or I go.”

“It’s my house,” Jaggu said.

“You’re right,” she said, and they watched her stiffened back retreat out the door, Nima trailing after her grandmother and asking for a snack.

That night, Madan finally returned Ketan-bhai’s calls, the rising and rolling hum of Jaggu’s argument with Madan’s mother vibrating through the walls. His mother had threatened to return to the temple, spend the night in the streets if she had to, but Jaggu firmly and unequivocally had insisted that no one was going anywhere. “We are all finally together,” he said. “For now, no one is leaving this house.” Madan stayed in his room, grateful for Jaggu’s unfaltering hospitality.

Ketan-bhai answered at the first ring, shouting into the handset, “Where the hell are you?” Not waiting for a reply, he continued, “Going off like that? What’s wrong with you?”

“I had to leave for a few days.”

“Tell me where you are. I’ll come get you.”

“I’m not in Delhi,” he said. “I have something to attend to.”

There was silence on the other end. “Madan,” Ketan-bhai said at last. “To disappear like this on Preeti? To leave her, after Arnav? Madan, there is only so much she can take.”

“I know,” he said. “I need a little time to sort out a few things.”

“I’ve said what I want to say. When can we expect you back?” When Madan was noncommittal, he hung up with a long, resigned sigh, saying, “Call her.”

Madan tried to call Preeti but she didn’t answer.

When he woke the next morning, the sky was bright, and outside on the lawns there were women everywhere. Squatting, sitting cross-legged, standing, the ends of their saris covering their heads or tucked into their sides. And from what he could make out, they were all sewing. Cloth of different shapes, sizes and colors lay strewn around, bits of thread hanging off everything, measuring tapes and chalk littering the ground. His mother sat on a wicker chair in one corner of the veranda.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“It’s what she does,” said his mother, nodding toward Swati, barely visible in the milieu of women, giving orders and instructions. His mother’s pinched expression and the hostility of her tone and carriage made it clear that she was anwering him unwillingly. She removed a package wrapped in plastic from a pile next to her and tossed it to him. Inside, he could make out a cream-colored table mat set, beautifully embroidered with a red paisley pattern. On the outer package, a green sticker with a flower logo in the corner read
Gorapur Mahila Cooperative
.

“They’re from the slums around town or they’re farm laborers’ wives,” his mother said, sticking to the matter at hand. “She teaches them to sew and embroider. They make all sorts of things: tea-cozy sets, table mats, tablecloths, bedding sets, quilts. They sell them at the tourist rest stops and home stores. One lady from Delhi buys a lot and sells them in her boutique.” She paused as the maid brought Madan his tea. “Swati sets a quota for them to complete every month and what profit they make is divided equally among all the women in the cooperative. It supplements their income, helps feed the children when the men have drunk away the money, and helps send their children to school.”

“How did it happen, Ma?”

His mother’s voice thickened. “We didn’t stop living because you decided you didn’t want anything to do with us.”

“I didn’t mean that—”

But she held up her hand to stop him. “I have put a stone on my heart all these years not knowing if you are alive or dead, and now you reappear like you just went out for lunch.”