Buddha's Orphans, page 11
Nilu wished she could turn around and look for signs of that earlier Raja, perhaps the cleft in the chin, a certain mannerism. But she didn’t remember any features that would definitely identify him.
The boy and the shopkeeper talked on, and their unhurried, relaxed conversation indicated that they spoke like this regularly, perhaps every day. Their talk was punctuated with easy silences, during which the shopkeeper hummed, and the boy—Nilu had turned just a bit so that she could watch both of them out of the corner of her eye—gazed at the ceiling, lost in thought. During one such silence, the shopkeeper asked, “So, what’s going through your mind, boy? What are you thinking?”
“Absolutely nothing.”
“Nothing?”
The boy smiled.
“Impossible,” the shopkeeper said. “There’s always a thought inside our head, whether we realize it or not.”
“Sometimes I think it’s good to not have any thoughts. Life is simpler that way.”
“I understand already. Your mother has entered your head; that’s why you’re giving me this talk about no thoughts and all that.”
Nilu’s heart began to hammer. His mother?
The shopkeeper picked up a notebook and began to jot down some calculations.
“Today in our history class,” the boy said slowly, as though talking to himself, “we had to memorize the names of our past kings, you know, the entire lineup. Shree Panch Maharajdhiraj Girvan Bir Bikram Shah Dev, Shree Panch Maharajdhiraj Rajendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev, Shree Panch Maharajdhiraj Tribhuvan Bir Bikram Shah Dev.”
“There you go again. No wonder you two, father and son, are always butting heads.”
“Shree Panch Maharajdhiraj Birey Dai the Shopkeeper Bir Bikram Shah Dev,” the boy said.
Birey Dai laughed, then told the boy to hush up, as someone might hear him.
The boy put his palm on his crotch and said, “You know this is what I care about people hearing.”
Nilu felt her neck get hot, and suddenly the boy, seemingly aware that a girl had been there all along, straightened up. She thought his face had turned slightly red in embarrassment, but she couldn’t be sure.
An old woman came to the shop. She stood between Nilu and the boy as Birey Dai poured lentils onto a piece of newspaper and weighed them on his handheld scale. Nilu sneaked a glance at the boy. With his head against the wall, he was observing the street. Nilu fought back the urge to reach out and touch him, ask him if he could guess who she was. After the old woman left, Birey Dai said, “Don’t speak whatever gibberish comes to your mind. I know you don’t mean it, but”—he lowered his voice—“there are spies all over the city these days. C.I.D.’s. They’re keeping their ears open for any slander against the king.” He looked at Nilu, as though he were seeing her with different eyes. “Who knows, our sister here could be a spy for the government, a C.I.D.,” he said, half-joking, his voice now almost a whisper. “She could tell on you, and tomorrow our poor friend here would be hauled to the deep recesses of the palace where—” Birey Dai held an imaginary khukuri in his hands and brought it down as though he was decapitating someone.
The boy smiled wanly, as if he’d already contemplated the idea and was already prepared for such an event. Nilu experienced a rush of pleasure and fear at the boldness of the conversation. She’d never heard anyone talk about the king that way. At home, well, Muwa was too drunk to say anything coherent. At school, the sisters practically slobbered over royalty. On the rare occasion when the queen mother, wearing large dark glasses as her husband did when he was alive, graced hockey matches or debate competitions, the sisters tripped over one another in their genuflections and eagerness to answer the queen mother’s questions. St. Augustine’s was filled with girls from the aristocratic Rana and Shah families, some of whom still lived in the European-style mini-palaces scattered throughout the city. They spoke of silver cutlery in their houses. They described family trips to Hong Kong, or London, or Kashmir, where they were driven around in luxury cars as they shopped. During tiffin breaks, their nannies brought them aromatic lamb and special chutneys and fanned the girls as they ate—or didn’t eat, if they found the food smelly or if their delicate tummies were upset. Some of these girls, knowing that Nilu too came from a well-to-do family, tried to befriend her and entice her into their circle. But Nilu rejected them and stuck to her friend Prateema, whose dark skin and Bengali origins automatically excluded her from the hoity-toity bunch.
Just then, a girl of about eleven, wearing a dirty frock, appeared with two glasses of tea and, squeezing past Nilu, handed them to the boy and the shopkeeper. “Raja Dai, how was school?” the girl asked.
Nilu felt heat rapidly rise to her face. Raja. It was him! Her hunch had been correct all along. Instinctively she wanted to get up and leave, so fast was her heart beating, but oddly enough, she instead heard herself ask Birey Dai if she too could get a glass of tea. She avoided eye contact with Raja, but she could see from the corner of her eye that he was observing her. Though he said nothing, Nilu could feel the presence of his restless spirit, a kind of yearning that spread from his body to the air around him.
“There’s a restaurant up the alley where this girl works,” Birey Dai said. “You can go there.”
“It’s so nice here,” Nilu said. “Such an interesting conversation, I don’t feel like moving.” She asked the girl, “Can you bring me a glass too, bahini?”
The girl nodded and left.
Nilu knew that her request had alerted Birey Dai and Raja to her presence, and her words had even seemed to suggest that King B’s Pancheys had indeed begun recruiting schoolgirls as spies. She could feel their gaze on her back but kept sucking on the lollipop stick, pretending it was normal for a girl in a convent school uniform to sit on the steps of a shop in an unfamiliar neighborhood.
“Is bahini’s home in this vicinity?” Birey Dai finally asked her. “I don’t recall seeing you here before.”
Nilu turned, her heart skipping a beat, and she looked at Raja before addressing the shopkeeper. “My aunt lives nearby. I am visiting her.”
“Who?” the shopkeeper asked. “Which house?”
Raja had turned his entire attention to her, the way a wild animal responds to the presence of something foreign in its territory. She felt herself blush, not so much at Raja’s alertness to her but rather at her own stupidity in pursuing this ruse. But she was already ensnared in it, so she vaguely waved in the direction of Samakhusi. “Down there.”
“What’s your aunt’s name?”
“Bhadra Kumari.”
Birey Dai looked puzzled. “Never heard that name, and there’s not a single house in this locality I can’t identify.” He turned to Raja. “You know a Bhadra Kumari?”
The boy shook his head.
“What’s the last name?” Birey Dai asked.
“Singh.”
“Did she move here recently?”
“Yes.”
The shopkeeper laughed. “No wonder. And I thought something was amiss.”
The girl from the Mahan Restaurant arrived with Nilu’s tea, and Nilu asked her how much it cost and handed her the money. The tea was dark and tasted horrible, but now that she had found Raja, she could survive the most vile tea in the world. Raja’s glass was empty, but he was still holding it between his palms. Their silence was broken by small talk—Mohan Bagan versus the RCT soccer team at Dashrath Stadium, the recently opened table tennis center by the Dairy, and the neighborhood library that some energetic youth had recently opened and filled with steamy Nepali detective novels.
Nilu was considering what to do next when the gate to Ganga Da’s house opened. The woman Nilu had seen squinting in the sun thrust her head out and shouted, “Raja, isn’t it time to come home?”
Raja made a face, said goodbye to the shopkeeper, and stepped out. “I’m coming,” he told the woman.
“Why don’t you come straight home after school, huh?” the woman said. “Every day you have to chat with Birey Dai?”
Birey Dai shouted from inside, “Jamuna Bahini, if Raja doesn’t stop here, my dinner doesn’t go down my throat.”
After Raja slipped through the gate, the woman closed it with a loud clang.
Birey Dai smiled at Nilu. “Sometimes I think she doesn’t like me,” he said. “But I don’t take it personally.”
“Looks like you and the boy are very close,” Nilu said.
“He’s like a younger brother to me.”
“Does he go to this school?” she asked, pointing toward the Jagadamba School.
Birey Dai nodded.
Trying very hard to make it sound like small talk, she asked, “What class?”
“He’s starting tenth now, I think. He’s a very good boy, but what to do. He was an orphan before our Ganga Da took him under his wing. The boy suffers at the thought that his real mother abandoned him—I know it, even though he doesn’t talk about it much.”
“After all these years?”
“It’s a strange thing, bahini,” Birey Dai said, “this blood connection we have with our parents. It never goes away, and I think it becomes even more pronounced in our Raja as he gets older. I can detect it in his eyes. But the boy doesn’t want anyone to see it.”
“Did this house’s owner adopt him?” Nilu asked, even though she knew the story.
“Something like that,” Birey Dai said. “Although there was something shady about it, from what I’ve heard. The woman who used to take care of Raja wasn’t willing to let him go. Or something like that. Ganga Da had to hide the boy somewhere, then fought the woman in court. It’s been so long now—it feels like it happened in another life. I’m not sure Raja even remembers that woman. This is his family now. But, what to do—you saw what the mother is like.” Birey Dai made a cuckoo gesture with his hand, then, perhaps realizing that he was revealing too much to a stranger, he abruptly went silent. Nilu shifted the conversation to other matters, frequently addressed the man sweetly as Birey Dai, and, before leaving, bought a loaf of Krishnapauroti so he’d see that she wasn’t merely a gabber.
She walked down the hill instead of up, to corroborate her lie about the location of her aunt’s house, then she circled up toward Thamel.
By the time Nilu left the Lainchour area, it was already dark. She moved briskly, still holding the loaf of bread in her hand. Something was about to change for her. The events at St. Augustine’s, this bizarre quest to find Raja, and her actual discovery of him in a shop next to his house—a momentum, a reshaping was under way. She could feel it.
Nilu Nikunj was dark, silent. Nilu turned on the kitchen light and saw Kaki’s figure in the corner, propped against the wall, sleeping. Your Raja is fine, Kaki, Nilu said to her silently. He’s a tall, long-haired, handsome boy. There’s sadness in his eyes, you can see it, Kaki; his jaw is tight with anger. But he also likes to laugh. He’s a practical joker, your Raja, I can tell.
She left the bread by Kaki’s side and went up the stairs without switching on the stairway light. Muwa’s door was slightly open, and on an impulse Nilu peeked in. It was empty. She was about to go to her room when the main door of the house creaked open. She went to the balcony railing and saw Ramkrishan enter, wiping his feet on the doormat. “Where’s Muwa?” she asked him.
He looked up and said that she and Sumit had left earlier that evening for a party. “What do you want for dinner, Nilu Nani?” he asked. She responded that she already ate at a friend’s house, and went to her room and threw herself on the bed. She had hoped to talk to Muwa about switching schools. She had wished, foolishly, that Muwa would infer that something had happened with one of the nuns and would encourage her to let the matter rest so she could at least finish her schooling there. Nilu had hoped that she could rest her head against Muwa’s shoulder while Muwa stroked her face.
In the night she awoke to the sound of footsteps in the hallway and the murmurs and laughter of Muwa and Sumit. Nilu glanced at the clock: it was half past twelve. “No, no,” Muwa said slowly, in a drunken voice. There seemed to be a small scuffle, accompanied by much tittering and whispering. Muwa’s door creaked open, and it slammed shut.
Nilu’s sadness over Muwa lingered at school all the next day, and although in the morning when she put on her uniform she had resolved that she would not go back to Lainchour, that whatever was propelling her toward renewed contact with Raja would only lead to embarrassment and rejection, by the time the afternoon rolled around and Sister Rose entered the classroom for her English lesson, the only thing that mattered was seeing Raja again. If Nilu didn’t leave during recess, which was right after Sister Rose’s class, she would most likely not make it to Lainchour on time. She wanted to be in Birey Dai’s shop first, to await Raja’s arrival, so that she could pretend that she had her own schedule, that she wasn’t following him.
While Sister Rose was writing on the blackboard, Nilu nudged Prateema, who sat next to her. With whispers and gestures, she signaled to her friend that she was going to leave after this class. Prateema’s eyes grew large. What for?—she mouthed the words silently. But Nilu couldn’t tell Prateema; it would sound too silly, so she leaned close to Prateema and told her that she had some things to take care of. Right then Sister Rose turned toward the class. Her eyes bore into Nilu. She stared, and Nilu stared back. Noticing this new tension, the rest of the class looked at Nilu, then at Sister Rose, who finally spoke. “Do you two have a secret I should know about?” Then, perhaps remembering that the secret might be something that could damage her reputation and position, the sister blushed and said, “You two, Nilu and Prateema, out! Finish your conversation, then grace us with your presence again.” Prateema protested, but Nilu picked up her bag and left the room. Once outside, she glanced back to see Prateema pleading with Sister Rose. Briefly, Nilu waited, then walked quickly down the hallway and toward the gate. The guard asked her for the permission slip, but she cold-shouldered him and left the school premises.
Did You Know the King?
NILU PURSUED RAJA. She enrolled herself in the Jagadamba School by bribing the principal, Singh Sir, and by forging Muwa’s signature on the admission forms.
When she arrived at his office, Singh Sir looked askance at the young girl. “Where are your parents? This is an impossible request. I can’t allow any admission without a guardian’s consent.”
But Nilu was well prepared. She took an envelope from her purse and slid it across the table toward Singh Sir. “Sir, I am a very good student. My mother is very ill—that’s the only reason she can’t come.”
Singh Sir gazed at the envelope. “Are these your school records?” he asked, then peeked at the contents, lifting the envelope’s flap with his thumb and forefinger. He patted the envelope but didn’t pick it up. “Has your mother been to see a doctor?”
“I’m taking care of her,” Nilu said. “There’s no one else in my family.”
“It must be very difficult for you.”
“I’ll manage. But I can’t afford St. Augustine’s anymore.”
Singh Sir’s fingers played with the envelope. “Normally, I don’t allow any breach of admission rules. But you have unique problems, so I’m forced to make an exception.” He asked her to bring her records from St. Augustine’s and told her she could start attending classes the next day.
Nilu didn’t tell anyone at Nilu Nikunj that she’d switched schools. Kaki was too weak in the eyes and too ailing in general to sense what Nilu had done. Ramkrishan, even if he knew or suspected, as Nilu had a feeling he did, wouldn’t know what to do about it. And Muwa, well, Muwa lived in a world of her own.
Every morning Nilu put on the uniform of St. Augustine’s, a dark blue skirt and a sky-blue shirt, and left for the Jagadamba School. The two schools had the same uniform, except that Jagadamba didn’t require a tie. The one person who noted that something seemed amiss was Kancha, who wondered, as he sat in his cramped shop, why the girl with the drunkard mother, instead of turning left at the opening of the alley, took a right and walked toward the palace until she disappeared. But Kancha was only a shopkeeper, so he didn’t say anything.
At the Jagadamba School, it didn’t take Nilu long to locate Raja’s classroom, which was two rooms down from hers. During recess she saw him in the school courtyard; his hands in his pockets, he stood amid his friends but didn’t really take part in their conversations. He’d be worrying something on the ground with his toe or looking around as though searching for someone who was yet to arrive. Nilu half-hid behind pillars, her eyes occasionally straying toward him. She took pains to avoid him inside the school compound so that he wouldn’t think that she was pursuing him. Then, as soon as the school bell rang to signal the end of the day, she was the first one out of her class and quickly proceeded to Birey Dai’s shop, so she would be sitting nonchalantly on her stool when Raja got there. If anything, she thought with a laugh, she could accuse him of chasing her, not the other way around.
A few days later, she did bump into Raja at school, outside Singh Sir’s office, where she had gone to deliver her St. Augustine’s records; there he was, sitting on a bench, looking bored. He glanced at her, recognized her as the girl from Birey Dai’s shop, and gave her a slight smile. She asked coolly, “Is he in?”
“I think he is.”
“Do you need to see him?”
He nodded.
Even though there was space on the bench next to him, Nilu leaned against the wall and waited. Raja was tapping his feet, as if he could hear music. Finally something seemed to occur to him, and he turned to her and said, “What do you need to see him for?” He spoke slowly, in the manner of someone who had all the time in the world, and she realized that she loved this about him.
