The Royal Ghosts, page 16
“I don’t know what she’s thinking,” Urmila said helplessly. “You know she’s always been stubborn. You used to admire that about her, boast to everyone about how independent-minded she was and how she was going to become someone great one day, a diplomat or a prime minister, remember? Now I’m supposed to understand her more than you do?”
Suddenly Shova was at the kitchen door. “Please, don’t argue over this. I will leave this house, go live alone, and you can tell everybody you’ve disowned me.”
“Shova, don’t talk this way,” Urmila said.
“What do you want me to do, then?” Shova said angrily. “You want me to go back to that loveless marriage and be unhappy all my life?”
Shivaram tried to speak calmly to her. “But love needs time to grow. You don’t simply give up after a couple of weeks. Look at your mother and me.”
Shova moaned, stalked off to her room, and shut the door.
Shivaram watched Urmila put the vegetables in the frying pan and turn on the gas. “I bet she’s still thinking about that cobbler’s son,” he said.
Urmila stirred the vegetables and didn’t respond.
“It’s been nearly a month since she came back. I’m sure Rajiv babu is thinking about getting the marriage annulled. His neighbor Raghuji told me the other day that: he’s already considering trying to find a new wife.”
Urmila sprinkled salt over the pan. Shivaram sighed and went to his room to change his clothes.
“Come back soon,” Urmila said when he returned and told her he was going for a walk. “The food will be ready in half an hour, and I have to be at work early today for a meeting.”
It was only eight o’clock, and he had a couple of hours before he himself had to head for work. He wandered aimlessly around the neighborhood, mulling things over. Each day he held out hope that Shova would change her mind. He wondered whether he should visit his son-in-law again, plead with him to go to Shova and try to persuade her to return. But when Shivaram went to Rajiv the last time, his mother had come home as they were talking, and she was livid. “Look,” she said, “we’d heard about your daughter’s past before the wedding, and to be honest we were pretty much against this marriage. But our son said he was a modern man, and young people have romantic flings all the time these days. We caved in to our son’s wishes then, but now we’re standing firm. There’s no question of going back—this marriage is over.” Still, Rajiv came by Shivaram’s house later that evening, and he and Shova talked in her room for about half an hour. But when he emerged, he looked disappointed. “She won’t really talk to me. She just keeps saying she can’t go anywhere with me.” Urmila asked him to stay for dinner, but of course he refused.
Now Shivaram decided that he didn’t have the fortitude to return to Rajiv and his parents. At least not today—maybe some other day he’d muster the courage. As he walked along the street, he wondered what had gone wrong with his daughter. She had always been a bit strong-willed, and as Urmila said, Shivaram had been proud of her for that and had told everyone that headstrong people usually went on to achieve something significant in life. As if confirming her father’s dreams for her, Shova had done extraordinarily well in school. Immediately after graduating from high school at the top of her class, she won an essay contest sponsored by the Nepal-U.S. Foundation and got to travel to New York for a summer seminar. There she became passionate about global politics, and when she got back home, she and Shivaram talked excitedly about the possibility of her returning to America after college and going to graduate school for political science or international studies. But the scandal with the cobbler’s son had deeply injured Shivaram’s faith in her.
He remembered that day about two years ago when he received a call in his office from the police station in Hanuman Dhoka, saying that Shova was in their custody. Thinking that she’d been mistakenly apprehended during some political demonstration, as she sometimes took part in them, he rushed to the station. He found her sitting inside a jail cell, her head down, fiddling with her necklace.
“We arrested her for indecent exposure,” said the officer who’d accompanied him to the cell. “In the park of Gokarna, in the bushes. With that boy.” He pointed to a young man in the cell across from hers. At first Shivaram didn’t believe the officer, but when he questioned Shova, she wouldn’t meet his eyes. Her lower lip was swollen and split, and a small clot of blood had formed there. He couldn’t bear to ask what had caused it.
“How do you know him?” Shivaram whispered to her.
“He’s a student at Ratna Rajya too,” she said.
Shivaram had to bribe the police to get Shova released, and as soon as they got home, he told her he’d never felt so humiliated in his life. When she confessed to him and Urmila that the boy’s father was a lowly cobbler, even Urmila became indignant. Shivaram went to the boy’s house in Samakhusi, where he confronted the father about what had happened, saying his son had ruined his daughter’s reputation. The man apologized profusely, said he too wasn’t exactly happy about what had happened, that he too had had to bribe the police to free his son. He hauled the boy, whose name was Mukti, out of his room by his ear and forced him to apologize to Shivaram. “I don’t want his apology,” Shivaram said. “I want him to promise me that he’ll never look at my daughter again.” After his father slapped him, Mukti promised, then wrote a note to Shova—dictated by his father—saying that their relationship was over. When Shivaram presented the note to his daughter, she read it and tossed it to the floor. “It doesn’t mean anything,” she said. “I can only imagine what you did to get him to write this.”
For a moment Shivaram questioned whether he had overreacted. Had the boy been of another caste, perhaps a Brahmin or a Chetri, he might not have acted so aggressively. With some dismay, Shivaram came to realize that he actually wished the boy had been of a higher caste; then he could have simply gone to Mukti’s parents and insisted that the two get married. This new self-awareness troubled him, as he’d always considered himself fairly open-minded, someone who paid little attention to notions of the purity of caste and other traditions that demeaned people. Despite his own parents’ objections, he’d encouraged Urmila to find a job right after they got married. And later, after Shova was born, when his parents didn’t stop criticizing Urmila for being unable to bear any more children and thus depriving them of a grandson, he’d moved his wife and daughter into a separate flat, away from them. He had several friends and colleagues who came from lower castes: just the year before, he’d attended the wedding of the son of a lower-caste colleague when many of his coworkers had come up with excuses not to go. Yet there was no denying that the discovery of his own daughter’s liaison with Mukti had brought out something deeply embedded in him, and he found himself unable to wish away the revulsion he felt in his stomach.
Gradually he convinced himself that some traditions survived centuries because they had important functions. When people kept to their own role, their own station, society functioned more smoothly. You could see this, Shivaram told himself over and over, in many intercaste marriages—they got no support from their families or their culture, and the couples gradually turned bitter toward each other. Shivaram knew of several such marriages that had soon resulted in divorce. And while a divorced man had little trouble remarrying, the woman ended up being shunned by friends and relatives for the rest of her life.
That was not the future any father would wish upon his daughter, and for nearly a month, Shivaram, worried that Shova would reconnect with Mukti secretly, didn’t allow her out of the house unless Urmila was by her side. He was on constant watch for Mukti, and he monitored Shova’s phone calls. When both he and Urmila were at work, he enlisted a relative to stay at home to watch her. Perhaps because of the shameful manner in which she’d been caught with Mukti, Shova remained subdued during all of this, not speaking to her parents but not doing anything to rebel either. After a few weeks, she approached them and said, “I want to get back to my studies,” and fought them when they responded that she’d have to attend a different college. They categorically refused to pay her tuition at Ratna Rajya, and reluctantly she agreed to transfer. After starting at her new college, her mood seemed to improve, and she didn’t object when they began talking to Rajiv babu’s family about a possible marriage. She did, however, turn a little quiet and withdrawn.
Those days Shivaram could feel her eyes following him, as if she were waiting for just the right moment to say something important. Once when Urmila wasn’t home, she came into the living room, where Shivaram was looking through old photo albums. She sat down next to him and leaned her head against his shoulder. “Look at this one—it was taken the day you left for New York,” he said, and glanced at her. Her eyes were suddenly teary. He hugged her and asked, “What’s wrong? What’s bothering you?” She kept shaking her head, and he stroked her hair and said, “Everything will be fine, just fine. Believe me, Shova, this marriage will be a new beginning for you. Do you understand? You deserve to be happy.” She nodded, then wiped her tears and smiled at him. Perhaps she was just anxious about her impending wedding—such nervousness was to be expected. That night he told Urmila about her crying, and she agreed that such prewedding jitters were normal for any woman. They both expressed relief that their daughter finally seemed to be coming around.
But now here she was, willfully headed for divorce. Why didn’t she understand that all marriages needed time to work? Four weeks was all she had given Rajiv. Shivaram was convinced that if only Shova stayed with her husband for a longer period, say six months, she’d get used to him, and he’d eventually make her so happy, especially in that new house, that she’d look back and laugh at the fact that she once thought of leaving him. Six months—that’s all that was needed. And if after six months she still wanted to leave him, which Shivaram doubted she would, he himself would tell her that she’d made the right decision. Now Shivaram wondered whether he should try to talk to Shova again and mention the idea of a six-month trial period. He sighed. She wouldn’t listen to him. She’d merely shake her head and say that one month was enough, that her mind was made up.
But he had to do something, and after walking around a bit more, Shivaram pointed himself toward his brother’s house.
Damodar lived in Thapathali, not far from Shivaram’s office, and was watching television and eating dal-bhat and chicken in the living room when Shivaram knocked on the door. His wife, Anita, let him in.
“Dai, what brings you here?” Damodar said, turning off the television and getting up. “Have you eaten?”
The smell of chicken made Shivaram hungry, but Urmila would be expecting him to return home to eat, so he said he’d already eaten and sat down. A year ago, he and Damodar had squabbled over a piece of land they’d inherited from their father. Since then, Anita and Urmila had stopped speaking to each other, because Anita thought that Urmila had incited Shivaram to argue with his brother; but Shivaram had gradually patched up his differences with Damodar and, to a lesser extent, with Anita.
“Why such a gloomy face?” Damodar asked. “Nothing’s changed with Shova?”
Shivaram looked at the ceiling. “I don’t understand what’s going through her head.”
Anita said, “What can we say to people about her? You have no idea the kind of things we hear. People are starting to say nasty things about us too.”
“Can you be quiet?” Damodar said. “Dai has come here worried, and you’re concerned about what others think of us.”
“Remember,” she said, “we were the ones who acted as the go-betweens for that marriage. Just the other day Rajiv babu’s mother called and told me bluntly that I had hooked her son up with a crazy, spoiled woman.”
“I didn’t want this to happen, Anita, you should understand that,” Shivaram said. “I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with all this, but you know as well as I do that Shova is far from crazy or spoiled. She’s basically a good girl. I’m just as baffled as everyone else at what’s happening.”
“You should do something,” Anita said. “If she were my daughter, I’d drag her by her hair back to Rajiv babu and forbid her to leave him again.”
Her words made Shivaram cringe.
“Will you stop this drivel about dragging people by their hair?” Damodar said. “This is a serious matter and needs a serious solution.”
“That’s why I came to you, brother,” Shivaram said. “Maybe you can talk with Rajiv babu, persuade him to visit Shova.”
“Of course, I will try.”
Shivaram soon felt better, and he ended up eating dal-bhat with them after all. If Urmila found out, she’d be annoyed, but he didn’t feel quite ready to leave yet. The three chatted about politics and television programs, and after they finished eating, Shivaram told Damodar he was glad to have a brother he could depend on at a time like this, and stiffly apologized again to Anita for what she’d had to put up with. Since it was already time to go to work, he headed straight to his office.
Late that afternoon, Shivaram was talking to his colleague Yograj when he spotted his son-in-law at his office door. Surprised, Shivaram rushed over to him. “Rajiv babu, I was just thinking about you.”
Rajiv ran his hand through his hair and said, “I need to talk to you in private.”
“Let’s go up to the roof where it’ll be quiet.”
Shivaram told Yograj that he’d be back in a few minutes, and he and Rajiv climbed the stairs to the roof. They leaned against the wall that overlooked the busy street below. At first neither man spoke, then Shivaram said, “It’s good you came. I was thinking about paying you another visit, and Damodar was even going to talk to you.”
“It’s been nearly a month,” Rajiv said.
“That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I think you should try coming to the house one more time, try to persuade her again.”
“I want to come, but my parents would be furious.” He paused. “They already have someone else in mind for me to marry.”
Shivaram shook his head and said, “You’re still married to Shova. Don’t act rashly.” He tried to sound confident. “She’ll come back to you, you’ll see.”
“But,” Rajiv said, his expression pained, “why is she acting this way?”
Shivaram wished he had an answer. He placed his hand on top of Rajiv’s. “Listen, son-in-law, you shouldn’t give up so easily. A marriage shouldn’t be taken so lightly.”
“It’s not me who is taking it lightly,” Rajiv said. “It’s your daughter.”
“I know, I know, but please, Rajiv babu, talk to Shova. She’s your wife. Problems come up in all marriages. In your case this happened early, and maybe it means that the rest of your lives together will be happy.”
Rajiv’s eyes followed a speeding taxi below, then he looked down at his feet. Finally he lifted his head and spoke. “All right, I’ll give it one last try. I’ll come by this evening. If she acts like she did last time, though, I’m going to do what my parents want.”
Shivaram patted his back and attempted a smile. The two left the roof and walked down the stairs. Outside his office door, Shivaram clasped Rajiv’s hands and told him how glad he was that he came, then went back inside to his desk. But he had a hard time focusing on his work. Yograj stopped by and asked in a whisper how it went with his son-in-law.
“I just don’t know what my daughter is doing,” Shivaram said dejectedly.
“You might try to be more strict with her.” Yograj was a staunch Brahmin who performed an hour-long prayer ceremony at home every morning, and he refused to join his coworkers for snacks because he feared becoming what he called “polluted” by eating “impure” food.
“But how? She’s a grown woman.”
Yograj shook his head. “This is probably because of the time she spent in America. No one has any sense of tradition or rules there.”
Rajiv had said he’d come around six that evening, and Shivaram wanted to make sure that Shova was in a good frame of mind for his visit. When he got home, she was shut in her room, and Urmila, back from her office, was watching television in the living room. She didn’t speak to him when he entered, presumably annoyed that he hadn’t returned home to eat before going to work this morning. He stood behind her and massaged her shoulders. “Why is my dear Urmila frowning?” he asked. When she didn’t respond, he said, “I have some news. He’s coming to talk to her.”
Urmila turned to face him. “Rajiv babu?”
He nodded, leaned down, and whispered that Rajiv had come by his office. “Do you want to tell her, or should I?”
“Should we even let her know? What good would that do? She hasn’t left her room since this morning. Hasn’t eaten a thing. With both of you not eating, why do I slave away in the kitchen? I was late for my meeting because I waited for you.”
Shivaram adopted an apologetic tone. “I just wasn’t feeling good this morning, and I would have been late for work if I came back here. Listen, I really want to make sure she’s prepared for his visit. She’s more receptive to you than me, so would you talk to her?”
Urmila sighed and slowly stood up just as Shova opened her door. She spoke as if she’d been rehearsing her words all day: “I have decided I am going to leave this house. I was just on the phone with my friend Bimala. I’m going to move in with her.”
“How can that be?” Urmila said. “Shova, Rajiv babu is coming here to talk to you soon.”
“You can send him away. We’ve talked through everything already, and there’s no way I’m going back to him.”
With a controlled voice, Shivaram said, “Daughter, there’s still time to fix this before everything gets more out of hand.” He was about to mention his idea of a six-month trial when Urmila said, “What’s the harm in talking to him, Shova? Listen to what Rajiv babu has to say, then decide what you want to do. Your father is right—you should give it one more chance.”
