The Royal Ghosts, page 12
“My parents don’t come here,” Sukumaya said. “They were against this marriage.”
“Don’t you have anyone else you could talk to, lean on? Friends?”
“Even my friends don’t talk to me much anymore. I do have a good friend who moved to Chitwan after she married, but we only talk on the phone.”
The gun poked at Janaki’s stomach as she moved closer to Sukumaya. “Look, strange things happen to pregnant women, especially women who have children at a slightly later age. You should also remember that there’s a new person growing inside you, so it’s natural that your body would feel awkward.”
“Did you feel anything different with . . . Bhola babu?”
Janaki understood what she was insinuating, and she didn’t like it. “You mean, did I know that he would be different? No.”
Sukumaya failed to catch the irritation in her tone. “To be honest, I’m a little terrified.”
“You can’t worry about such things,” Janaki said. “Though I guess that’s what a pregnancy does, it makes you worry, but you should talk about it with someone close to you. Do you talk to Ananda about it at all?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know why. I guess I’m afraid that if I tell him how I’m feeling, he’ll either get annoyed with me or brush me off.”
Ananda has married a child, Janaki thought. He’s isolated her from her family, her friends, and left her to deal with her pregnancy on her own. “Listen,” Janaki said. “Whenever you feel lonely, call me on the phone. Do you know my number?”
She nodded. “But I won’t call you when he is around, as he might not like it.”
Suddenly Ananda came in and stood in the doorway, apparently shocked to see Janaki. “Oh,” he said. “Everything all right? What brings you here?”
Janaki showed him the gun. Sukumaya gave a start, moved away from Janaki, and went to stand by her husband. “I don’t know where Bhola got the money to buy it,” Janaki said. “Did you give it to him?”
Ananda and Sukumaya exchanged glances. “I don’t know what happened,” Ananda said.
“He came to me,” Sukumaya said, looking at the floor. “He said he needed money for new clothes. I didn’t know he was going to buy a gun with it.”
Janaki grew annoyed. “How much did you give him?”
“Two thousand rupees.”
Ananda took the gun from Janaki and inspected it. He rolled the bulge in the middle. “There are bullets in here. What does he want a gun for?”
Janaki told him about Bhola’s coming to her the night before, about his throwing the plate of food and telling her all his ideas of joining the insurgents.
Ananda laughed. “Then they’ll really be a bunch of crazies.”
Janaki was irritated by his casual attitude. “What if he does something to himself?”
“Leave this here with me,” he said. “I’ll talk to him.”
“When? He’ll be outraged when he discovers that I stole it from his room.”
“Then tell him I stole it, and when he comes here, I’ll deal with him.”
“Why don’t you go and talk to him instead of waiting for him to come to you?”
“I guess I could do that,” Ananda said, and he and Sukumaya went to sit on the sofa. He reached his arm around her. Before Sukumaya, as far as Janaki knew, Ananda hadn’t cheated on her. He’d never expressed any major dissatisfaction with their marriage, though he was by nature a bit distant and aloof. Even on their wedding night, he fell asleep as soon as they were alone together. During Bhola’s childhood, Ananda had been a devoted father, but once their son’s mental illness became apparent, he grew more remote. Now he said, “I’m getting hungry.”
“Shall we eat?” Sukumaya asked. She turned to Janaki. “Janaki didi, you will join us for dinner?”
Didi. Now I’m her sister, Janaki thought. “I should probably go.”
“Please,” Sukumaya said. “You came all the way here, you might as well stay. I’ll go get everything ready.” Despite Janaki’s protests, she went off to the kitchen.
For a moment, Janaki and Ananda just glanced at each other. Then she said softly, “You should spend more time with her.”
Ananda looked at Janaki. “What do you mean? I do spend time with her.”
“When a woman is pregnant, she needs people to talk to.”
“What did she say to you?”
“She’s worried about the baby.”
“All pregnant women are like that. You were worried, remember?”
“Yes, but I had people around to take care of me. Remember, my mother was alive then, and she came to see me almost every day.”
Ananda stretched his legs and placed them on a small stool in front of the sofa. “We’re hoping it’s a son.”
“What would be wrong with a daughter?”
He shrugged. “I just want another son. Another try, maybe.”
“She told me she’s worried the child will turn out to be like Bhola.”
Ananda shook his head, then recalled how Bhola was as a child, before his illness took over. The way he threw a fit when Ananda had to leave for the office, saying, “Baba, no work, no work.” How, as Bhola got older, Ananda used to wrestle playfully with him. He smiled as he spoke, and despite herself Janaki was a little moved.
Sukumaya called them in for dinner, and reluctantly Janaki followed Ananda into the kitchen.
All that night Janaki stayed awake, expecting Bhola to bang loudly on her front door. At the slightest noise, she jerked upright. At four o’clock she finally fell asleep, only to awaken an hour later in the middle of a terrible nightmare, about Bhola hanging from a tree by the side of a hill, a noose around his neck. She scanned her dark room, breathless, and it took her a while to calm down and fall back to sleep.
He didn’t come home that night, or the night after, and the following day she scoured the city. Sometimes he hung out with the teenagers in Jhonche, so she walked through that neighborhood, peeking into restaurants and alleys. When she was younger, this area bustled with hippies, and the smell of ganja perpetually filled the air. Once she and Ananda had spotted two hippies sloppily groping in the middle of the street, and Janaki averted her eyes in embarrassment. That night, Ananda jokingly tried to kiss her the same way, squeezing her buttocks with his palms, but she pushed him away. She remembered this now, and at first felt a pang over her failed marriage, then realized what she was truly mourning was her life before Bhola began to slip away. Back then, Bhola’s dimpled smile, the way he clung to her and called her “Jana,” made tolerable the emotional distance she felt between herself and Ananda. She played peekaboo with Bhola in their garden, and the rapt attention on his face when she told him bedtime stories filled her with a pleasure she had never experienced with Ananda.
After about two hours of fruitless searching, she headed toward Ananda’s house again. Had Bhola indeed left the city in search of the Maobadis? How would he know where to find them? Still on the lookout for him, she walked all the way to Balaju, which took her nearly half an hour, and, exhausted, she stood in front of Ananda’s house and knocked on the door. No one answered, so she knocked again. A faint sound drifted out from inside: the television was on. She went to the back of the house and peeked in through the kitchen window, but couldn’t see anyone at first. She craned to look beyond the kitchen, into the living room, and she spotted a body on the floor. Sukumaya. Janaki ran to the front door, pounded on it, and shouted Sukumaya’s name. Eventually the woman came to the door, wearing only a petticoat and a bra, her hair disheveled. The kohl on her eyes had run down her face.
“What’s wrong? Why do you look like this?” Janaki asked, pushing herself inside.
Sukumaya walked back to the living room, where she sat on the sofa, her eyes lowered. On the small table next to her was a bottle, and next to it pills, laid out neatly, five in a row. Janaki grabbed the bottle and read the label—they were sleeping pills. “What is this?” she asked.
“I need them to sleep,” Sukumaya said in a soft voice.
“This many?”
After a silence, Sukumaya said, “I worry that I won’t love this child, didi.”
“The child hasn’t even been born yet. How can you say this?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I just hate my body right now.”
Janaki sat down next to Sukumaya and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Sukumaya leaned against her, her eyes closed. “He doesn’t understand the way I feel,” she said. “I tried to tell him, but he never really listens to me. I don’t know what to do.”
“Try to calm yourself down. Everything will be all right.”
“I keep thinking of my parents,” Sukumaya said, “my friends.”
“Everything will be fine,” Janaki said, patting her head. She scooped up the pills and slipped them back inside the bottle. “Go wash your face, put on your dhoti, and I’ll make us some tea.” Sukumaya slowly stood and shuffled off.
In the kitchen, Janaki filled the kettle, and by the time Sukumaya emerged, wearing a fresh dhoti, her face washed and her hair combed, the tea was ready. They sat at the table, and Janaki tried to make small talk—complimenting Sukumaya’s earrings, saying the sky was supposed to clear later today. The tea and Janaki’s soft voice appeared to have rejuvenated Sukumaya, and when Janaki suggested they go outside to get some fresh air, Sukumaya sprang to her feet. “There are woods in Balaju Park. Why don’t we go for a walk there? It’s quite nice.”
Janaki wanted to ask her when Ananda was going to come home so she could tell him about Bhola, but she knew the mention of either man might change Sukumaya’s mood, so she remained quiet as they walked the street. Sukumaya began telling her about a picnic she’d had with her friends in Dhulikhel before the wedding, how the mountain view there was so stunning. And just as she spoke of the mountains, the clouds to the north of the city began to clear and they caught a glimpse of the Langtang range. Sukumaya squeezed Janaki’s arm. “Look, didi. How gorgeous it looks!” But Janaki found herself watching Sukumaya’s excited face rather than the mountains. Indeed, Ananda had married a child.
Then Janaki’s thoughts turned back to Bhola. She desperately wanted to talk to someone about him, even Sukumaya, but as soon as they reached the woods, Sukumaya became consumed in reciting the names of the trees and plants they were passing. A group of young boys went by, singing lewd songs at the two women. “Idiots,” Sukumaya said. “Young boys these days. Aren’t they so ridiculous?”
“Some are,” Janaki replied. How she wished Bhola had turned out to be like one of these boys—ridiculous but sane.
On their way back, she again tried to convince Sukumaya that she shouldn’t entertain negative thoughts about her baby. “You have joyful days ahead of you, especially after the baby is born,” Janaki said. “Don’t give in to such pointless thinking. Come talk to me if you are feeling low.”
Sukumaya nodded and thanked her. “Spending time with you today has made me feel so much better, didi,” she said.
Janaki finally told her the reason she’d come, and Sukumaya said, “I’m so selfish. Here you are, all worried about Bhola babu, and you have to deal with my nonsense.”
“It’s not nonsense. You know, I am thinking that once you have the baby, your parents will probably come around. Who can resist a grandchild?”
Back at the house, they saw that Ananda had returned, and when he learned that they’d gone out together, he didn’t look pleased. When Sukumaya went to the kitchen to make tea for him, he told Janaki, as he sat on the sofa, “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but please don’t put ideas into her head.”
She shook her head. “You should talk to your wife more, I’m telling you.” But she hadn’t come here to lecture him about her. She drew a deep breath. “Bhola hasn’t been home for two days.”
“He’s done this in the past, and he always comes back before too long.”
“I know, I know, but I feel like something really bad is going to happen to him this time.”
“Well, I’ll go out and look for him tomorrow,” Ananda said, then stood. She sensed that he wanted her to leave.
The next day, Janaki went to the police station in her neighborhood to file a report. She didn’t mention Bhola’s talk about joining the insurgents to the police inspector. “We’ll do what we can,” he said, “although, to be frank, so many people are disappearing these days, we don’t have enough policemen to search for them.”
“But my son has some mental problems and can’t take care of himself very well,” Janaki said. She handed him Bhola’s photo, which the inspector said he’d circulate to the police departments in and around the Kathmandu Valley.
Back at home, Janaki went up to Bhola’s room, pulled a chair to the window, and sat there, looking out. Across the street, two children were playing football in their yard. A young girl in a frilly dress with embroidered flowers walked below, holding her mother’s hand. Janaki closed her eyes and rocked in the chair, forcing herself to remember Bhola in his younger days—how he used to splash in the mud on the street after rain, how easily he recited the multiplication tables, how he used a tall bamboo stick to pole-vault around the neighborhood, swinging high into the air and landing nimbly on his feet.
The days turned into weeks. Janaki fell into a depression that made her unable to leave the house. Ananda called days later to say that he had searched all over the city but hadn’t found Bhola. “I’ll keep trying,” he said. “He’ll turn up sooner or later.” Every week Janaki called the police inspector, but all he said was that his men were on alert. She no longer turned on the radio, and she avoided newspapers, which these days were filled with pictures of widows holding their children.
Late one morning, Ananda called Janaki, saying that they were in the hospital, that Sukumaya had given birth to a baby boy and had been asking for her. “For me?” Janaki said. “Why me?”
“I don’t know,” Ananda said, his voice thick. “She’s been whispering your name all morning.”
“I can’t come. What happens if Bhola shows up while I’m gone?”
For a moment Ananda was silent. “I don’t know what to do about him,” he said gravely. “Where could he be?” When she didn’t answer, he said gently, “Don’t worry too much. And listen, I’ll give some excuse to Sukumaya for your not being able to come.”
“No, no,” Janaki said, “I’ll come. She must be missing her family.”
With some effort, she washed her face, changed her clothes, and left the house. The sun seemed too bright, and the people walking about too cheerful. She hailed a three-wheeler, and on the way she tried to muster happy thoughts for Sukumaya.
In the hospital, Sukumaya lay on a narrow bed, looking pale and exhausted. The room smelled of milk and soiled clothes, and briefly Janaki was transported back to her time in the hospital when Bhola was born. He had been a big baby, with thick arms, and she’d marveled that he’d managed to squeeze himself out of her womb. Sukumaya didn’t say anything when she first saw Janaki. She just pointed to the baby, who was sleeping in the crook of her arm. Ananda stood and left the room, and Janaki asked Sukumaya how she was feeling.
“I guess I’m all right, didi. Do you want to hold him?” she asked, gazing at the baby. Gingerly, Janaki reached over and took the baby from Sukumaya’s arms. He was tiny, with a small face and red lips. “He looks just like you,” Janaki managed to say.
“No, he looks like his father, doesn’t he? The same broad forehead, the same small mouth. But I don’t care. He’s my son.” Sukumaya suddenly looked as if she were about to weep.
“Calm down now,” Janaki said. “Fathers pass along their faces to their sons.” She set the baby back beside Sukumaya, who didn’t glance down at him. Janaki asked her what they’d decided to name the boy, but Sukumaya didn’t answer. She just stared out the window, her forehead creased.
Janaki sat down beside her. “Everything will be all right,” she told Sukumaya. “Listen, Ananda is a good father. He always was to Bhola. You have nothing to worry about.” Then she couldn’t help herself: she told Sukumaya that Bhola still hadn’t come home, and she feared that he would never come back. As soon as she said it, she knew she shouldn’t have, for Sukumaya lowered her eyes. “But these are just a worried mother’s fears,” Janaki said, wanting to salvage the mood. “I’m sure he’ll be back.”
For the next fifteen minutes, Janaki continued to try to cheer her up by saying how great Sukumaya would feel once the baby began crawling and when he took his first steps. But when the baby started crying, Sukumaya didn’t attend to him, and Janaki had to pick up the boy again and rock him. Ananda finally came back into the room, and Janaki handed him his son. “You’ll be a fine young man,” he said, gently rubbing his nose against the baby’s face. Janaki told Sukumaya that she’d visit her at home, and then she stood and left the hospital. On the bus ride back, she remembered when she and Ananda brought Bhola home from the hospital. Ananda spent hours with him, pinching his nose, making faces at him, picking him up and singing to him, watching as she gave him an oil bath, outside under the hot sun.
“I have no idea where your son is,” the police inspector said testily to Janaki. “I’m sorry, but you can’t imagine how busy we are. Do you know how many of my brothers on the force are getting killed these days?” He held his head in his hands. “I’m sorry, I really am, but please just leave, and I’ll call you if I hear anything.”
Janaki left the police station and passed by a newsstand. On the cover of a magazine were photos of the insurgents in uniforms that looked like the ones worn by the army. They were holding guns, marching. They all looked so young with their smooth cheeks—like schoolchildren.
At home she closed the curtains and bolted the door. Bhola wasn’t going to come home, and she wasn’t going to open it for anyone else. She lay down on the kitchen floor, resting her forehead on the cool tiles. Her mind was heavy, her body ached, and soon she slept.
