The Royal Ghosts, page 18
At work Shivaram developed an intense headache and was thinking about leaving early when his colleague Yograj appeared at his desk. Stroking his mustache, Yograj said, “The wedding is tomorrow, isn’t it, Shivaramji? What’s the feast going to be like?”
Shivaram was used to Yograj’s jabs, and thus far he’d just smiled and changed the subject, but today something boiled up inside him. “Don’t you have work to do? Why do you need to give me a headache with this gibberish?”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw another colleague signal to Yograj to drop it. But Yograj continued, “Daughters are always big headaches, aren’t they? It’s hard to know how they’ll turn out.”
Before Shivaram could respond, another coworker came over and led Yograj away. Shivaram stared in their direction, then left his desk, then the office, without informing his supervisor.
All the way home, he thought about what he should have done to Yograj—grab him by the collar and slap his insolent face. My daughter is not a bad woman, he should have hissed. He walked fast, afraid of his own anger. He felt an urgency, as if he needed to do something, go somewhere, anywhere but home. He considered going to Damodar’s house, even asking if he could spend the night there, but immediately he realized how smug that would make Anita feel, and he didn’t want to give her the satisfaction.
When he got home, Urmila wasn’t there, which didn’t surprise him. He went straight to bed, and despite his headache he quickly fell asleep. He woke to the evening darkness, a bit calmer now. He assumed that Urmila had left him some food in the refrigerator, and all he’d have to do was heat it up, but he didn’t have the energy. He stayed in bed, in the dark, thinking about what was about to happen.
The shrill ring of the phone jolted him. It was Urmila. She said that there was so much work to do for the wedding that she’d have to stay over at Shova’s flat. “Have you eaten?” she asked.
He said that he was not hungry.
“I’ve left some chicken and rice for you in the refrigerator.” After an awkward silence, she asked, “Do you want to talk to your daughter?”
He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t hang up.
The phone was passed to Shova, who said, “Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“How are you?”
“To be honest, I have a headache.”
“You should take an aspirin, okay?” she said. “You wouldn’t believe how much work there is to do here.” She laughed.
Shivaram swallowed hard.
“Daddy,” Shova said softly, “how long are you going to stay so distant from me?”
He cleared his throat and mumbled, “What do you want from me, Shova?” He heard Urmila in the background, asking her something.
Shova responded, “If you don’t come to my wedding—” Her voice broke. “Daddy, don’t do this to me.”
“I haven’t done anything.”
“I need your presence. Otherwise it won’t mean anything.”
Fearing that he might break down and cry, he said, “I’ll talk to you later,” and hung up.
All that night he stayed awake. Now and then he went to the window and gazed at the darkness outside. He attempted to read, then gave up. He finally went out for a short walk in the neighborhood, his shawl around his shoulders, shivering a bit from the chill. After some time, he went back home and slipped into bed, but he remained wide awake. He remembered his own parents, how unrelenting they’d been in their disapproval of Urmila for not giving birth to a son. They’d even suggested to Shivaram, after it became clear that Urmila couldn’t bear any more children, that he consider getting a divorce and finding a new wife. That’s when he told them, “There’s nothing wrong with Urmila or my daughter,” and moved his young family away from his parents, into a new home.
By the time light began appearing in the sky, he felt disoriented, tired. He closed his eyes and suddenly remembered Shova as a child, coming to their room after she’d had a nightmare. When she crawled into their bed, Shivaram would always have trouble getting back to sleep. And if he did manage to doze off, Shova thrashed her arms and legs so much in her sleep that she’d jolt him awake. The next morning, groggy and irritable, he always complained to Urmila, who’d go and whisper something to Shova, who in turn would go to him, wrap her arms around his neck, and plant a wet kiss on his cheek.
The sun began to show itself more, and its heat on his face through the window calmed him and threatened to lull him to sleep. So he made himself sit up, feeling light, almost airy. He went to the bathroom, washed his face, and changed his clothes. Then he realized that he hadn’t shaved, and the circles beneath his eyes made him appear haggard. But what did it matter? Shova wasn’t going to turn him away.
A Servant in the City
SOON AFTER STARTING WORK as a servant to Laxmi Memsab, Jeevan discovered that she was having an affair with a married businessman. A couple of times a week, he came to visit her in the evening, then went back to his wife in another part of the city. Jeevan, who was seventeen, learned about his wife by eavesdropping on arguments that his employer and Raju Sab got into. They were not loud, boisterous arguments, but quiet, melancholy ones that featured Laxmi Memsab pleading with him to divorce his wife. Jeevan gathered that Raju Sab’s wife knew about Laxmi Memsab, and had confronted her one day in his office, where Laxmi Memsab used to work. “Mona refuses to grant me a divorce, Laxmi,” Raju Sab said once. He was a big man with a mustache, and he always wore tailored suits.
“But how long can we go on like this, Raju?” Laxmi Memsab said. “Everyone is calling me names. My uncle has disowned me. My friends don’t speak to me.”
And so they argued, Raju Sab asking for more time, Laxmi Memsab complaining that she’d given up everything for him and now she had nothing. “A whore, that’s what they call me,” she said.
“I can’t prevent people from calling you names, Laxmi,” Raju Sab said. “And anyway, the divorce is just going to take time. You’ve known this all along.”
“But nearly a year has passed since we first started.”
“Please, Laxmi, I’m working on it.”
Through their arguments, and through snippets of conversation Jeevan himself had with her, a story emerged. Laxmi Memsab used to work as a secretary in Raju Sab’s travel agency, and despite the fact that he had recently gotten married, they’d fallen in love. When Raju Sab’s wife discovered the affair, she stormed into his office one day and, planting herself in the doorway, glared at Laxmi Memsab, not saying a word and not even flinching when Raju Sab came out of his office and tried to lead her away. Finally it was Laxmi Memsab who stood up, left her desk, and went out by the side door. She headed straight home and curled up in bed for the rest of the day. Soon Mona pressured him to fire her, but Laxmi Memsab quit before he could. She tried finding another job, but at the other travel agencies where she applied, she was turned away. She suspected that all these people had heard about her affair, or that in the small circle of travel agents in town, Mona had made some phone calls; anyway, she eventually gave up looking. Since Raju Sab’s firm was so well known in the city, news of the affair spread quickly. Laxmi Memsab’s landlord knocked on her door one evening and asked her to move out, saying that because he had a family, he could rent his rooms only to “respectable people.” Raju Sab found her this flat and agreed to pay the rent until she got on her feet again.
Now she’d been waiting for months for him to divorce his wife. He kept reassuring Laxmi Memsab that Mona would soon see that their marriage wasn’t working and give up, but as the days passed and nothing changed, Laxmi Memsab grew more and more depressed. The few friends she had avoided her, and her uncle, who’d been her guardian after her parents had died in a bus accident, refused to have anything to do with her. The last time she’d gone to visit him, he wouldn’t even open his door.
On the evenings Raju Sab didn’t visit her, Laxmi Memsab was dejected. She wondered aloud to herself why he hadn’t come. She paced the floor of the flat and sometimes picked up the phone to call him. She’d hang up immediately, presumably when Mona answered the phone.
Jeevan watched her and wished he could do something about her loneliness. He’d come to like her. She was generally a considerate woman, and was patient with him when he didn’t know how to do something. Whenever he thought about the day he’d met her, he reminded himself how lucky he was.
At that time he had been in the city for two weeks and hadn’t been able to find work. He was considering going back to his village and his ill mother. Her only child, he hadn’t wanted to go to the city, but ever since his father died a year earlier, leaving them with a large debt, life had been difficult. His mother’s medical expenses were piling up, and his father’s creditors were threatening to confiscate their house if they couldn’t start making regular payments on the loan. He’d had no choice but to leave home and look for a job. For some time he’d hauled merchandise on wooden carts, but the work was strenuous, and his lower back throbbed in pain at night as he lay on his straw mat in the room he shared with other laborers. Two of his roommates, veterans at this work, laughed at him, called him a mama’s boy, and said that he’d have to get used to living with a screwed-up back. He was indeed a mama’s boy, he’d admitted to himself. He thought about her all day as he pulled carts and at night in bed as he listened to his roommates snore. He prayed that the neighbor woman he’d entrusted to look after his mother was doing a good job.
The day he met Laxmi Memsab, he’d been wandering around the Basantapur vegetable market, thinking he’d catch the afternoon bus back to his village in Dhunche and be done with this city. Then he overheard a young woman talking to a vegetable vendor about how she was looking for household help. Hesitantly, Jeevan approached her.
At first she’d said that she was not about to hire just any stranger, but he was persistent, saying that he had fallen on hard times.
Her face changed. “Have you been able to eat?”
“I have, but my money is running out.”
“Poor boy,” she said. She had a soft face and kind eyes, and he remained hopeful.
“I’ll do anything you ask me to do, Memsab.”
“Anything?” she said, smiling. “I suppose what I need is someone like you, someone who’d swim the seven seas for me.”
Back at her flat, she showed him the small storage room adjacent to the kitchen, where she kept some boxes and suitcases. “You’ll sleep there. As you can see, I’m the only one living in this place, so the work is easy.” She told him she’d pay him four hundred rupees a month, which wasn’t much, but it was better money than he’d gotten for pulling carts, and his food and clothing would be taken care of. “There’s a man who comes here often,” she said at one point. “He pays for all my household expenses, including your wages. We are going to get married, understand?” She looked at him as if she were daring him to challenge her.
That night Jeevan wrote a letter to his mother, telling her that he was fine and had found a good job as a servant. He didn’t tell her that Laxmi Memsab lived by herself.
Soon after, Jeevan learned that Laxmi Memsab’s neighbors didn’t think highly of her. One evening, on his eighth day working for her, he was leaning against the stair rail outside her flat when a man, someone he had seen around the building before, stopped and said, “Eh, does your memsab give it to you every night?” At first Jeevan was confused, then he understood what the man was talking about, and he scowled and hurried back inside.
“Who was that, Jeevan?” Laxmi Memsab asked. She was sitting in the living room, reading, but now she set down her book, sighed, and looked at the clock on the wall. She was expecting Raju Sab.
“Just a man from down the street.”
“What was he saying?”
When Jeevan didn’t speak, she looked at him. “Was he saying something bad?”
“He was just talking crazy.”
“Come here,” she said. He went and sat on the floor next to her feet. “You’ll have to get used to a lot of nonsense from people around here if you work for me, all right?”
He nodded.
She smiled down at him. “You didn’t get married in the village?”
He told her that he was too poor to get married.
“Surely there are girls from families that don’t have so much money.”
“Which father would give his daughter’s hand to a boy with no money, Memsab?”
“Poor Jeevan,” she said. “You’ll find someone. But I’m so glad you approached me that day in the market. I was losing my mind in this house by myself.”
“You must have some friends.”
“I used to,” she said. “But they all treat me like a pariah now. People are like that.” She stared at the wall, and Jeevan wished he could think of something to say that would console her.
“Maybe you could start working again,” he finally offered.
“Everyone in the city knows about my relationship with Raju, and even if someone were to hire me, I wouldn’t be able to stand my coworkers talking behind my back or making rude comments.”
“But if you stay in the house all day, you’ll only feel more lonely and sad.”
“Now you’re here, Jeevan,” she said. “And you won’t treat me like the others, will you? Besides, it’s just a matter of time. Once Raju divorces her, we can get married. Then I’ll be accepted by this stupid world.” But she doubted her own words, Jeevan could tell, for she then grew quiet.
He went to the kitchen to wash the dishes, and he could hear her pick up the phone and dial, then put the phone back down. She did this several times, then she walked through the kitchen and out onto the balcony, which afforded a view of the street. In a few moments she went back to the living room. After Jeevan was done with the dishes, he boiled a glass of milk and brought it to her. The door to the living room was shut, and when he pushed it open, he saw her lying on the sofa. Her sari had fallen open at her chest and the top few buttons of her black blouse were undone, revealing the bra underneath. The fan whirled nearby. She held a glass of something, and a magazine lay on her lap, its pages flapping in the breeze from the fan. He froze in the doorway.
When she became aware of his presence, she looked up. “You should always knock,” she said, setting the glass down. She buttoned her blouse and adjusted her sari. “I don’t think Raju is coming today,” she said.
He put the glass of milk down on the coffee table and saw that she was drinking alcohol of some kind. She watched his face, then said, “You don’t like to see women drink?”
“Who am I to tell you not to drink, Memsab?”
“If I don’t drink a peg or two, I’ll go mad,” she said. “What’s wrong with Raju? Why doesn’t he come?”
His impulse was to tell her not to depend so much on Raju Sab, but he kept his mouth shut. She asked him to join her. He went to sit on the floor, but then she gestured for him to sit next to her on the sofa. “Why should I treat you as if you were beneath me when the world treats me like that?” He sat on the edge of the sofa, his hands between his knees. She asked whether he was missing his mother, and Jeevan said, “Sometimes.” Actually, last night he’d dreamt that he learned she had died in the village, and the thought had terrified him. If she died, he’d have no family left in this world. For some time, he had felt weepy.
“In a couple of weeks you should go back and visit her,” Laxmi Memsab said. “She must really miss you.” She drank from her glass, and after a moment said, “Tell me, Jeevan, do you think I’m a bad woman?”
“You’ve been like a savior to me.”
“Savior!” she said. “I wish I felt like a savior. Right now I feel worthless.”
“If you keep reminding yourself of that,” Jeevan said, “you’re bound to keep feeling that way.”
She eyed him. “True, true. Do you think it was wrong for me to let myself fall in love with Raju knowing that he was married?”
“People have their reasons, hajur,” he said. “How can I judge you?”
“You’re quite a diplomat, Jeevan,” she said. “Where did you learn all of this? From your mother?”
He kept quiet, and they sat in silence for a while. He was about to get up and go back to the kitchen when she said, “Jeevan, do you think I’m beautiful?”
He’d never known anyone who spoke as she did, and he couldn’t look at her face. How did she expect a servant to answer such a question?
“Please tell me. Don’t be shy.”
Without meeting her eyes, he nodded.
“Look at me and tell me that. I want to hear it from your mouth.”
His heart was hammering, and he managed to lift his face, look into her eyes, and say, “Yes, Memsab.”
“No, no, say it.”
He wanted to flee the room. He felt a stirring in his crotch, and he became afraid that she’d notice. When his voice finally emerged, it was shaky, almost giddy. “Memsab, you’re beautiful.”
She stared at him, then said, “It’s good to hear you say that. I never hear that from Raju anymore.” She was sliding deeper into the sofa, her eyes watery and small.
“Memsab—”
“Jeevan, did I show you my wedding sari?”
He shook his head. His mouth was dry.
She rose from the sofa and went into her bedroom. As he waited, his eyes fell on the glass of milk that he’d boiled for her. It had probably turned lukewarm by now. He considered going to the kitchen to drink some water, but he was suddenly afraid to move, so he reached for the milk and took a few gulps. He waited; it seemed an eternity.
At last Laxmi Memsab emerged, wearing a red sari. A diamond necklace glittered on her chest. She’d combed her hair and put on some lipstick, and she looked different, younger, happier. He muttered, “Memsab, you look beautiful.”
“You don’t have to say that if you don’t mean it, Jeevan.”
“No, no, I mean it,” he said, getting up and approaching her. “You look absolutely beautiful.” His own words began to excite him.
