Waiting for the Monsoon (42 page)

The chauffeur doesn't even ask where she wants to go. When he stops in front of the house where Sita lives, Charlotte jumps out and makes a beeline for the open front door.

“Look what I brought you,” she says to the sleeping infant, who is startled awake by the unfamiliar voice and begins to cry.

Sita picks up the howling Parvat and rocks him until he falls asleep again.

“I don't know how you do it,” Charlotte whispers. “I remember how you always managed to quiet Donald, he cried a lot. . . . Do you remember? Is he a good eater? How often does he wake up at night? Are you managing all right? Just let me know, and I'll jump in the car — an extra pair of hands always comes in handy. This shampoo is supposed to be excellent, it's American, and I thought I saw a scaly spot.” Charlotte bends over the baby. There's no sign of a rash. “Donald used to have a rash, did I have one, too, and are his bowel movements better now, are the new diapers nicer, they were the softest they had so if you need any more, just let me know.”

Sita walks over to the chest with the baby on her arm. The teddy bear is sitting on the only chair in the house and is listing to one side. Charlotte goes on and on about baby formulas, nappy rash, stomach cramps, the advantages of safety pins, runny noses, earache, the first tooth, burping, coughs, and measles. Sita has just opened a drawer and taken out a sheet of paper covered with official seals and stamps, which she hands to Charlotte.

She reads aloud: “Manali Hospital. Sex: male. Time:
5:35
. Date:
16
October
1967
. First name: Parvat.” Charlotte stops and then continues reading in silence. After she's read the whole document, she looks at Sita again, who is still standing there, gently rocking the baby in her arms.

The women look at each other. Thousands of thoughts flow back and forth but are never spoken aloud. Desperate thoughts, hesitant thoughts, heart-rending thoughts, encouraging thoughts, despairing thoughts, comforting thoughts, yearning thoughts, loving thoughts.

Charlotte gets up, walks over to the mother holding her child, kisses the little boy's forehead, and walks to the door.

“Shall I come only on Monday from now on?”

“Yes, Monday is a good day.”

THE HOUSE WHERE
Chandan Chandran lives is on the other side of the block. Subhash occasionally goes there to do repairs, but in all the eight years that Madan has worked for the man with the ponytail, he's never been there. The men in the weaving mill say that his wife has shorter hair than her husband, and that they have four children who never go upstairs to the weaving mill but who occasionally bring their father his lunch in that dark workplace beneath the stairs.

Madan turns into a narrow alley, under a large sign depicting a photo camera, and keeps on walking until he comes to a blue door. Mister Chandran asked him to go to his house to fetch a piece of rosewood he forgot that morning. Madan is one of the few employees who have mastered the art of treating fabrics and threads with herbs and flowers. He knows that if he dries the flowers of the basil plant and works them into the seam of a blouse, the wearer will develop more discipline. And if he soaks cotton for a day in a bath with white chrysanthemums, the person wearing the garment will have more life-force energy. Rose petals awaken love,
rhodiola
can release feelings that lie hidden deep inside. The tiny flowers of the sweet William encourage obedience, while the anemone promotes honesty. Madan rings the bell next to the blue door. The sound is much louder than he expected, but no one inside seems to have heard it. After several minutes, he is still standing in front of the closed door. For the fourth time he rings the bell, and this time he presses harder and longer. The clapper strikes the riveted metal, and the reverberation echoes throughout the house.

“Who's there?” asks a soft voice.

Madan looks around in panic. He hadn't expected this. Why didn't Mister Chandran send someone else, someone who can speak? Should he clap his hands or knock on the door? Why isn't there a window in the door, so that she can see him?

“Is someone there?” says the same voice.

He hears a thump and then what sounds like retreating footsteps. Mister Chandran stressed that he should be quick about it, since it was urgent. So once more he pulls the bell as hard as he can.

“Who's there?” And again it's the same voice.

Madan is panting slightly and rolling his eyes. Why doesn't she open the door? Why didn't Mister Chandran send Subhash? Why doesn't she realize that there's someone there, after he's rung the bell five times? Now he knocks on the door, softly, as if he's using a kind of code. His taps are meant to say that he's waiting outside, that there's nothing frightening about him, that he's only there to pick up something that Mister Chandran forgot.

The door opens slightly. Not enough for him to look inside, but enough for whoever is standing behind the door to look out. Suddenly the door is thrown wide open.

“Are you Mukka?” asks a girl in a black and white checked sari.

Madan blinks his eyes. He's never seen such a beautiful girl. Her eyes shine like dew crystals on a white hibiscus, her lips are as red as a poppy, her skin as soft as a budding snapdragon, her hair is black as ebony, and her nose turns up like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon.

The girl is smiling. “What do you want?”

It never occurred to Madan that he would have to explain what he came for. His eyes dart to the corridor behind the girl. There is nothing that resembles rosewood, only a large pile of old slippers.

“Did you come to get something?”

He nods.

“Something for Daddy?”

The notion of someone calling boss Chandran “Daddy” brings a smile to Madan's lips.

The girl smiles, too.

“Is it for the workplace?”

Madan nods.

“Come inside. Maybe you'll see what you're looking for.”

Madan follows the girl down the hallway. He can't take his eyes off her. Her bare feet tread lightly over the tiles, her hair bounces on the back of her black and white checked sari, and as she walks, her fingers move. It's a long corridor, that turns at the end. The girl begins to hum softly, a song he's never heard before. She opens a door.

“This is Daddy's room. Do you see what you came for?”

The room is the opposite of the one that Madan would have designed for his boss Chandran. It is white and empty. Along one wall, there are simple shelves filled with small black boxes, all exactly the same, with lettering in white ink in the same precise handwriting. There is also a small bookshelf with a single book. Under the window, with its net curtains, there is a narrow shelf that holds all sorts of samples and smaller pieces of fabric in neat piles. And in the middle of the room, on a white table, lies a gnarled piece of wood.

“Is this what you're looking for?” The girl picks up the piece of rosewood. Madan nods and he is now positive that the girl's father wove the black and white fabric for her sari himself.

“What an unusual piece of wood! What does Daddy need it for?”

The girl's hand strokes the bark.

Madan watches the movements of her hand, as she caresses the wood, following the twists; how her slender fingers find each hole, each bend and curve in the wood. She doesn't say anything. She stands there, in a graceful pose, wearing her black and white checked sari and stroking the piece of wood. Madan feels his stomach contract strangely and his heart begins to beat faster. Then suddenly she hands him the piece of wood. He starts, and doesn't dare to take the cherished piece of wood from her hand, fearful that just touching it might have the same effect on him as wearing a garment treated with rose petals. Smiling, the girl presses it into his hand.

Dear Donald,

We've been lucky — the monsoon began a week early this year. We were all sure we were going to melt, that's how hot it was. Father is home now. According to the doctors, it's a kind of miracle that he's doing so well. It's only his legs that no longer function. They think that in a few weeks he may be able to get into his wheelchair by himself. We've converted his old study into a bedroom. In the beginning he was against the idea. He wanted an elevator like the hotels in London, but there's no one around here who can build one, so we're doing it this way. In the past few months I've often thought back to the summers in England. Sometimes I regret that I didn't go back, and wonder what in heaven's name I'm doing here. I'm alone a lot and I don't know who to talk to about my feelings and worries. You're so far away. The last British family in Rampur has returned to England. The atmosphere at the club is totally different, and the people who go there now are all Indian. Father sits in his wheelchair in the living room — usually in a bad mood — and begins to curse and swear when his tea or coffee doesn't arrive fast enough. A few years ago I met a very nice man, but Father ran him straight into the ground, so that after a while even I didn't like him anymore. So now I read a lot: I've read all the books in the library at least twice. The only time I'm happy is when I'm at the piano. And when I visit Sita, our former ayah. I go there every Monday from five to seven. I play with her son, Parvat, an intelligent and handsome little boy. I asked her if I could play the piano for him, but she'd rather I didn't take the baby to the big house, so I sing children's songs to him in English when I visit.

Yesterday was a really bad day. I was playing the fourth impromptu, a magnificent piece by Schubert, and I'd just got to a difficult passage when Father started banging his cane against the door of the music room, which is next to his bedroom. That meant that I had to stop playing, because he wanted to take a nap. I want to get away. I'm going crazy here. Why can't you come for a while, to give me a breather, just a few weeks, then I wouldn't have the feeling that I have to do everything on my own? After all, he's your father just as much as mine. Surely I wasn't put on this earth to be his nurse until he dies. I just can't do it. And I don't want to . . .

She crumples the letter into a ball and throws it into the wastepaper basket. Then she goes over to the piano, lifts the lid, and begins to play. When she hears the tapping on the wall, she goes on playing, but louder and faster. The tapping turns into banging. Then the door flies open and he hurtles into the music room in his wheelchair.

“Stop!” he shouts.

She goes on playing.

“I order you to stop playing!”

She is not listening.

He pulls at her blouse and tells her he's the boss, that she has to stop when he tells her to, that she shouldn't make such a fuss, that's she hysterical, that she knows nothing about playing the piano, that she mustn't think that he'll put up with such goings-on in his house, and that he's going to sell the piano.

In the middle of the piece, she stops playing. She gets up from the piano stool and looks down at him. Her voice is steely. She barely recognizes it. “If you keep me from playing the piano one more time, I'll leave.” Deadly calm, she walks out of the room, up the stairs, and into her bedroom. She opens the drawer next to her bed and takes out the photo of Parvat that she took when no one was looking. She begins to cry softly.

HE CAN'T SLEEP
,
he's not hungry, and he keeps confusing the white rosebuds with the white rose petals, and the orange ones with the pink, so that the effect “you're too young for love” gets mixed up with “innocence,” and “passionate love” with “first love.” He takes advantage of any excuse to leave the weaving mill, and after dinner he wanders around the area, hoping to see the girl again. And he's forever making up excuses to go downstairs, to where Chandan Chandran is busy making extracts in which he soaks the warp threads or weaves dried petals into a piece of fabric, in the hope that Chandran's daughter will come by with her father's lunch.

His nights are spent half awake and half dreaming. In one of those dreams he's dancing with the girl, and when he wakes up, his pants are wet. During his morning bath, which he always takes in the shed behind the weaving mill, he has another erection. There's no time to masturbate, since he can hear Subhash singing as he walks down the stairs. He grabs a bucket of cold water and throws it over his swollen member. The icy water makes him shiver, but his member remains expectantly on high. “Can't you calm down?” Subhash grins when he sees his friend trying to hide his genitals behind the bucket. Madan blushes.

“Okay, I'll leave.” Subhash grins. “But not too long, okay? I have to get washed, too.”

Madan is grateful that his friend understands. He grabs his penis firmly and as he gets into the rhythm, he fantasizes about the girl whose name he doesn't know and the motions of her slender fingers. He doesn't hear the unloading of the crates of cotton thread, the call of the imam, the honking of an impatient taxi driver, the dog that begins to bark when the postman comes into the courtyard, the mother calling her offspring, the shrieking children, the gong that signals the start of their working day, or the sound of Subhash knocking on the door.

When Subhash opens the door, he sees that his friend is still in ecstasy. “Mukka, we have to start work. Didn't you hear the bell?”

A blush of shame colours Madan's cheeks, but his penis is unperturbed and remains on high, like a drawn sword.

“Put on some clothes and hurry up.” Subhash throws Madan his trousers and then watches in amazement as the boy first binds his penis to his belly with a long, narrow piece of cloth before pulling on his pants. “Have you had this problem before?”

Madan's blush deepens now that he realizes that his friend knows his secret. Ever since he first set eyes on the unattainable daughter, he's had an erection almost constantly.