Three Bargains: A Novel (7 page)

“It was the same with everything. He would cry for ice cream and then complain it was too cold. A girl he would lust after, who he couldn’t live without, would turn out a whore.”

His grandfather farted, lifting a buttock away from Madan. “I used to say, ‘Watch out, he empties himself of happiness too fast.’ It’s your grandmother’s fault, of course. She gave him visions of grandeur, giving him the name of God. I tell him that everywhere I go I meet someone named Prabhu. Prabhu here and Prabhu there. Don’t think you’re so special.”

“Where do you go, Dada-ji?” Madan asked. He had never seen his grandfather step a foot out of these quarters. His grandfather grunted and leaned back again.

Soon they heard footsteps and Swati came into the courtyard of the servants’ quarters with a tall stainless-steel tiffin-box. She helped their mother at the house, doing small chores mainly for Avtaar Singh’s twin daughters. “Madan-bhaiya,” she said, her slender fingers working her scalp, her head bobbing back and forth, “I want that—makes your hair smells like flowers after a bath.”

Other things on the list she wanted were pink lipstick, a doll with yellow hair and long legs, miniature clothes that went with the doll, pillows to rest her head on, colorful hair clips that snapped shut with a click. Leaning forward, she regaled Madan with her findings, lowering her voice as if she were furtively plotting a takeover of the main house for shampoo. Madan knew all he had to do was hear her out. To Swati, listing these things held the same joy as acquiring them.

She skipped into their room and fetched three steel plates, spreading them out on the ground in front of the bed. She unloaded the bowls of steaming hot food from the tiffin-box compartments.

“Teeth, where are my teeth?” their grandfather asked.

Swati retrieved the dentures from under the bed, picking them out of the glass of water. “Open,” she said, one hand cupping their grandfather’s chin. He let her slip them in.

They began to eat and Swati said, “That man was asking Ma about your day at school.” She hunched her shoulders and flexed her arms in front of her chest to convey the strength and size of Avtaar Singh. “He also asked if she’d seen Bapu.”

So Avtaar Singh hadn’t seen him around either. Ma would be more worried now that Avtaar Singh had mentioned it. Maybe this was going to be Madan’s first and last day of school. He pushed his plate away, his appetite gone.

“Don’t worry about your father,” his grandfather grunted through mouthfuls of aloo baingan. “Children should not worry about their parents.”

Madan wished his mother was back from the main house. He wanted to find out what she said to Avtaar Singh to explain his father’s disappearance, and also tell her about the kids who laughed at him and the teacher who sounded like a loudspeaker. Swati began clearing away the dirty dishes. His grandfather shuffled off to rinse his hands at the water pump.

“Your father will be back,” his grandfather said. “No one else in the world can stand him.” He laughed and hit his chest to release a captive burp.

Madan was not so sure. “He’s emptied himself of his happiness with us, Dada-ji,” he said.

“
W
AKE UP. PLEASE, WAKE UP.” SWATI SHOOK MADAN.

“What? What is it?” Half up on his elbows, the sleeping mat stuck to his back, Madan turned in the direction of Swati’s voice.

“There’re some men outside,” Swati said, her eyes wide with fear.

Madan heard muffled voices through the slightly open door. “They’re asking for Bapu,” Swati whispered. Wrapping his covers around her, he went to the door, peeking through the slender opening. His grandfather was in quite a state.

“Is this any time for decent people to be out? I ask you . . . bastard!” his grandfather yelped. “I ask you, I ask you . . . bastard!”

“We aren’t here for trouble,” a calm voice said from the entrance by the outer wall.

“Forget him, forget him, he’s an old man,” he heard his mother say.

His grandfather came trundling past, flapping his arms. “This is the time to sleep . . . bastard, disturbing . . . bastard . . . I ask you, is this the time to sleep?”

“Get him under control,” said the man’s voice again.

“Look, I’ll tell my man you were here. Go, please,” his mother said. “We don’t want any trouble.”

Ma sounded frantic. Pushing the door open, Madan stepped out. In the pool of the streetlight, he made out two men. They looked like they were out for a celebration; both wore crisply pressed pants and the one speaking to Ma had a scarf tied jauntily around his neck. The man behind him used a palm-sized switchblade to clean under his nails.

Madan went out to his grandfather and guided him back to his bed, helping him lie down. “Only want to sleep, I ask you . . . bastard, I ask you . . . bastard,” his grandfather mumbled before quieting down and turning toward the wall.

“Tell Prabhu we were here, he knows where to find us. Tell him,” the man added, “that big debts need big repayments.”

“I will, I will,” Madan’s mother said, “but now go, go. If the big saab knows you’re here, then we’ll all be in trouble.”

The man’s gaze traveled up and down the length of Ma’s body, lingering on her bosom. Madan started forward, but Ma’s hand stopped him. The man smirked, not lifting his eyes off her. He yawned and then said, “Prabhu, of all people, should know the consequences of unsettled debts.” Both men turned and left, but Ma and Madan didn’t move until the sound of their footsteps faded.

They returned to their room, past his grandfather hunched in his sheets, now fast asleep. Inside, Madan asked, “Why are they looking for Bapu, Ma?”

His mother turned around and gripped his shoulders. “Listen, don’t tell anyone about this.”

“Who’ll I tell, Ma?”

“If Avtaar Singh finds out such goondas were at our door . . . his door . . . we’ll be on the streets in no time. Thank god Bahadur and Ganesh didn’t come out of their rooms.”

“But Ma . . . that man, he was looking at you like . . . like . . .”

“That’s nothing! What do you think will happen to us if we’re on the streets?” She twisted the end of the sari in her hand, a helpless gesture that irritated Madan.

“Where is he?” his mother muttered to herself. “Why won’t he come back? Hai Ram, without him, who’ll protect us?”

He tried to reassure himself as much as her. “Ma, he’ll come back. He brought us here. Got us all of this . . .” He gestured around the room.

“And his vices will make it disappear like this.” She snapped her fingers. “Where will we go if Avtaar Singh throws us out? What will we do without your father? You might survive somewhere, but think of your sister. What will happen to a young girl like her?”

She took out an incense stick and lit it in front of a picture of Ram and Sita pasted to the wall. Her chest heaved and she rubbed it, breathing hard.

“You’re scaring Swati,” Madan said. He went to his sister and put his arm around her. They lay down on their mats. Swati sidled next to Madan until she was right alongside him. Soon they fell asleep to Ma’s prayers going on into the night.

The bell rang and Madan and Jaggu made their way to class. They had met by the school gate, Jaggu waving and whooping when he saw Madan. They walked through the sandy courtyard into the long building of the school, past the picture of Avtaar Singh and to their classroom, where Master-ji was waiting, ruler in hand.

“Take your seats quickly, quickly,” he bellowed. “I don’t have all day for you children.”

As the day progressed, Madan found it harder to concentrate, his mind on the visitors from the night before and his father’s mysterious whereabouts. He found himself staring down at his open notebook as the teacher’s voice droned on. The blank lines ran from end to end and he wondered when he would get a chance to write on them. He yearned to fill in those lines, to alter the austere white paper so it would be more than a blank sheet.

He reached for his pencil, his hand hovering over the notebook, considering what he would write. A resounding crack reverberated through the room. The sound came from his hand that a second ago held the pencil, which was now on the floor in two jagged pieces. Pain shot up his arm and made his eyes water.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Master-ji towered above him, the ruler raised once again. “Have I given permission to write yet?”

Tears pooled in Madan’s eyes. He blinked rapidly like his grandfather did when trying to control an onslaught of jerks and spasms. He shook his head in apology and forced his eyes to dry up under Master-ji’s livid stare.

“What were you thinking?” Jaggu shook his head as they walked to the bus stop at the end of the school day. Madan shrugged, not wanting to explain what had come over him.

They hopped on the bus, stepping on toes as they made their way down the crowded aisle.

“Is this any way to ride? Smelling people’s armpits?” Jaggu asked, sitting down in an unoccupied seat near the back of the bus. Madan grabbed on to the overhead rail.

“Now, in an Ambassador, like Avtaar Singh’s girls—that’s the way. Sitting in a car with the windows up, inhaling only your own breath again and again.” Jaggu grinned up at Madan. “Don’t you think?”

Madan nodded. Avtaar Singh’s twins, Rimpy and Dimpy, darted in and out of their gleaming gold car all day, the darkened windows sealing them in and away from the rest of the world as they went to school and visited friends.

The bus swung sideways and came to a stop. They hurriedly disembarked before it lurched away. They walked past the corner dump, its low walls barely containing the piles of garbage that spilled out, providing a family of pigs with a sumptuous feast.

“I don’t know if I’ll be coming back to school,” Madan said before he could stop himself.

“Ha? Why?”

He had not meant to say anything, but since Jaggu asked, he spoke hurriedly, eager to say everything aloud so it was more than bewildering images in his head—about his father and the visit of the men the night before, of Ma and her fears that they would find themselves without a job or a home, and particularly without Bapu.

“Those men sound like they’re from the Jalnaur gang,” Jaggu said at last, stepping into the entrance of the servants’ compound. “They do it all—cards, hashish, women. If your father is mixed up with them, that’s not good.”

“How do you know about this gang?”

“I’ve walked every road of this town since I was this big”—he pointed to his knee. “I think my mother’s swept every house at some time.” He shrugged. “I pick up on things; I keep my ears clean and open.

“Your mother’s right to worry about Avtaar Singh finding out about your father,” Jaggu continued. “Gambling and women! And the Jalnaur gang on top of that. Avtaar Singh wouldn’t like it. He does many things, but he doesn’t like that sort of drama.”

“Do you think my bapu will come back?”

“He may, he may not. You never know with fathers. Mine left when I was two, and he never came back.” Jaggu held up his palms to show the inevitability of it all.

“Fathers,” he said, bending to sip straight from the water pump spout and encouraging Madan to do the same, “are strange, a puzzle, and I for one have never understood them.”