The Royal Ghosts, page 20
The Royal Ghosts
THAT JUNE MORNING, a Saturday, the whole country woke to the news of the killings inside the palace. People walked the streets bewildered. Ganga said to the regulars at Saney’s tea shop, “What do you expect? They’re royalty. It’s their destiny to do things like this once in a while. Remember Kot Parba?” Ganga had failed history back in school, but somehow the lesson of Kot Parba returned to him vividly now: the brutal massacre of 1846 that propelled the Ranas to power and shackled the country with a dictatorship for more than a century. When he’d studied it, he’d found the images intoxicating: the men clanking swords in the cobblestone courtyards of Hanuman Dhoka, the old palace; the whispered rumors, brother against brother, mother against son; the heads chopped off and presented as gifts to the avenger; the spies and messengers traveling on horseback in the middle of the night; the king and queen eating dinner while their own children plotted their demise.
He began regaling the others with the story. “Queen Laxmidevi’s favorite military commander, Gagan Singh, was found murdered, and she had a fit. She blamed the Pandeys and ordered everyone to assemble at the palace armory. Everyone drew their swords and knives, and fighting broke out. Now, Jung Bahadur Rana was the only one not taken by surprise. Some say he had it all planned out. By the time the fighting was over, dozens and dozens of corpses—”
“Be quiet, Ganga!” shouted one elderly regular, who had known Ganga’s father. “Who cares about Kot Parba now?”
“Why are you shouting, Nati ba?” Ganga said. “I’m just seeing parallels, that’s all.” But it was obvious that no one in the tea shop was interested in feudal Nepal when they’d just learned on CNN that Crown Prince Dipendra had shot himself after wiping out his entire family last night inside the palace. Ganga didn’t dismiss royalty out of political conviction. And it wasn’t just royalty he scoffed at—his mistrust of those in power spread to many levels. He hated the policemen who demanded bribes for minor traffic violations. He despised the bureaucrats who slyly extracted “tea money” to process licenses, permits, and other documents, which required so many government stamps that you could hardly read the words. He dreaded the days when rich English-speaking ladies hired his taxi for picnics in Gokarna or Dakshinkali, when he had to listen to them complain about the smell in his cab or how his jerky driving gave them headaches. A year ago, he’d taken a group of NGO workers to Nagarkot for an office picnic. Toward the end of the day, his passengers had insisted that he wash their dirty dishes as part of the fare, and after arguing with them, he warned that he’d leave without them if they didn’t stop their nonsense. When they didn’t, he abruptly got into his taxi and drove away. He relinquished his fare, but the sense of satisfaction he experienced had been worth it. On the other hand, he felt an absolute solicitude toward the old and the sick. He’d taken a number of people to the hospital free of charge, something his younger brother, Dharma, didn’t understand. “This is your job,” he chided. “Why would you do that?”
Now Ganga drank his tea and wondered what Dharma thought of the news. Dharma would have appreciated his Kot Parba story, seen the similarities between the two massacres, wondered how Ganga could remember this, especially since it was Dharma—not Ganga—who had been a good student, especially in history, and who ended up going to college and getting a degree. Dharma was probably weeping at the news—he was such a softy. Tears welled up in his eyes easily. During festivals he pleaded with Ganga not to slaughter goats, asking why he couldn’t let others bloody their hands. In their school days, Dharma had been the brunt of much teasing because of his long eyelashes, higher voice, and effeminate walk. Ganga, older by a year, had fought for his brother, taking on even the most fearsome of bullies.
Everyone in the tea shop was discussing the palace carnage. Since the government media hadn’t announced anything, people were watching CNN on the small TV on the counter. Some customers were claiming that the prime minister was behind it. Others were certain that the mastermind was the king’s brother, Gyanendra, who—it was being discovered in bits and pieces—had been out of town. “How can we be sure that anything at all happened inside the palace?” the tea shop’s owner said. “How do we know that this all isn’t just a rumor? It could be the prime minister’s conspiracy to upset and distract the country, then grab power.” The others reproached him, saying that CNN never lied.
Ganga bought his secondhand taxi a couple of years ago, after his father died and left him four lakh rupees, a sum he didn’t know the man possessed. Ganga loved driving the taxi—he loved speeding through the city, overtaking trucks and lorries at blind corners, squeezing through narrow alleys, blasting his stereo as he drove past pretty girls. Owning his own taxi provided him a freedom that other taxi drivers didn’t have. He didn’t have to answer to anyone or adhere to any schedule.
Dharma’s life was quite different. He worked as a bookkeeper for a local merchant who owned several copy shops in the city. Customers came in to use copiers, fax machines, and telephones that had long-distance connections. It was a booming business, and the merchant opened new stores every year. Ganga was happy for his brother; at the age of twenty-three, he already had a respectable job. Many of his classmates still hung around street corners, looking for drugs.
Back at home, Ganga washed his face and changed, then got into his taxi and drove toward town. Across the city, people had gathered in groups, their faces betraying their shock. Most of the shops that had opened earlier had now shut down, and in Lagankhel, by the side of the road, Ganga saw a number of people getting their heads shaved, as if the deceased king had actually been their father. This amazed him, but then he realized that this was the kind of thing his brother would do—shave his head in mourning for a king who didn’t even know that he existed. Ganga imagined a bald Dharma, and he smiled. If he had shaved his head, or was contemplating it, Ganga would say to him, “Who was that king to you, huh? You probably wouldn’t shave your head if I were to croak tomorrow.” And of course Dharma would ask him not to say such things about his own death, and of course he would say that Ganga was more important to him than anyone else.
In Jawalakhel, a group of women milled about in front of a house. As Ganga slowly drove past them, his window rolled down, he could hear them weeping. He swerved to the side, stopped, and asked them, “Someone died in this house?”
The women looked at him. “Haven’t you heard what happened in the palace?” one asked. He rolled up his window and stepped on the accelerator.
Ganga turned on the radio. It was playing the syrupy music—a slow, tortuous violin—that was always played when some national tragedy had happened, so he turned it off. He slipped in a cassette of Ram Krishna Dhakal’s music and sang along. The song reminded him of Anu, a teacher at the English boarding school in his neighborhood. He’d driven her around in his taxi a few times and played this song, one of his favorites, for her. He’d liked Anu immensely and had felt good about how their relationship was progressing. But after about a month, she began to avoid him. Whenever he called her, she conjured up excuses not to see him, and then one day he saw her with another teacher from her school, sitting inside the restaurant opposite her flat, laughing. He confronted Anu near her school the next day, and she told him that there was nothing between the teacher and her, but also that there was nothing between her and Ganga. “You have to understand—you drive a taxi,” she told him, “and I am an educated woman.” His astonished face seemed to prompt her to soften the blow. “If I’ve misled you, I’m sorry.” “My fault,” he said, trying to hide the hurt. “I misunderstood you.” These days he saw Anu with the teacher all the time, and there was talk in the neighborhood that they were going to get married. One afternoon, after a particularly trying morning in the taxi, he pulled up beside them and asked whether they needed a ride. She glared at him, and he scoffed and drove off. He’d soon felt embarrassed for what he’d done, and the next day he waited at the restaurant across from her flat, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. But the only person who came to her window, a cigarette between his fingers, was the other teacher.
Ganga parked the taxi right outside the shop where his brother worked. Dharma lived in a small flat at the back of the shop. Ganga didn’t understand why his brother would want to sleep in such cramped quarters in Putalisadak when he could have continued staying with Ganga in his roomier flat near Godavari. “It takes too long to commute to the city,” Dharma complained before he moved out a few months ago. He didn’t have to go to work until nine-thirty; Ganga headed out at around seven, so he couldn’t give Dharma a ride. When Ganga offered to start later, his brother added, “But my boss wants me to sleep in Putalisadak so I can keep an eye on the place.” He explained that shops in the Putalisadak and Baghbazar areas had recently suffered a series of break-ins.
“I should guard the place,” Ganga said. “Look.” He lifted his arms like a bodybuilder and flexed his biceps. He exercised obsessively, and his muscles were knotty and impressive.
Dharma said, “You’re an idiot, dai. It’s psychological, something you wouldn’t understand. How would a robber know that I don’t have a knife or a gun?”
He was right, of course.
On Saturdays, Ganga usually stopped by the shop around noon to chat with his brother. Sometimes the two went out for lunch, and today, guessing that Dharma was depressed over the palace news, Ganga was thinking that he’d treat his brother. It might be hard to find a place that was open, but there was a new Punjabi restaurant in Kalimati that Ganga had been wanting to try—maybe they could see if it was open. Another taxi driver had told him that the food was terrific, quite spicy, and Dharma loved spicy food.
The door to the shop creaked open when Ganga placed his palm on it. Inside, it was dark, but he felt his way past the fax and copy machines. The door to Dharma’s fiat was ajar, and Ganga gently pushed it open. In the light seeping through the small window that overlooked a courtyard, he saw his brother, stark naked, and another man, also naked, sleeping together on the narrow bed. On the edge of the bed, Ganga spotted a used condom, its mouth in a knot. Both men were sound asleep—the other man was actually snoring near Dharma’s; forehead.
Ganga closed the door behind him, rushed out of the shop, and stepped onto the pavement. He felt nauseated, and put his hand on the roof of his taxi for balance. He didn’t want to linger, in case he had woken Dharma, so he quickly got into the taxi and drove off, nearly smashing into a three-wheeler close by-
About a month ago, Dharma mentioned that another man, a relative of his boss, had started sleeping at the shop too. Ganga suggested that since now his boss had found another man to guard the shop, Dharma could move back in with him. But Dharma had said, “My boss wants both of us there to keep an eye on things.” Ganga wondered if Dharma was just making excuses, if his brother was simply tired of living with him. After all, a week before that Dharma had criticized Ganga for getting into a shoving match with the neighborhood butcher. “Every problem doesn’t need to be tackled like a bull, dai. Everywhere I go people complain about you.”
Ganga asked his brother who’d been complaining.
“What does it matter?” Dharma asked. “How can you be so hot-tempered all the time?”
It’s better than being a softy like you, he wanted to say, but he knew it would hurt his brother’s feelings, so he just smiled and punched Dharma on the shoulder.
Dharma grabbed his shoulder and hopped around the room shouting, “Aiya!” Ganga moved toward him to apologize, and Dharma kicked his leg. “Donkey!” he said. “That hurt. You don’t realize how strong you are.”
Ganga felt like an idiot. This had happened plenty of times before. He’d hit Dharma as a sign of affection, and Dharma would howl in pain.
Now Ganga drove aimlessly around the city, refusing to stop for customers who tried to hail him. He couldn’t focus on anything, and he was relieved that the streets didn’t have much traffic; otherwise he probably would have gotten into an accident. At times he drove slowly, at other times at breakneck speed, gunning the engine, scaring people who’d gathered on the sidewalks and in the streets to discuss the day’s news.
Over the past few weeks Dharma had frequently mentioned his roommate, Jeet, and how funny he was. “He has me laughing all the time, dai,” Dharma said. “I’ve never met anyone like him.” Ganga felt a strange pang, and said, “How’s there enough room for both of you in that tiny flat?”
Dharma shrugged dismissively. “We don’t have that much stuff—it just works out somehow. Jeet is such a fun man. You’ll see when you meet him.”
Ganga pressed harder on the accelerator. Near Dashrath Stadium, a policeman waved his baton at him, motioning for him to stop, but Ganga swerved toward him, nearly hitting him, then floored it. His taxi brushed against a pole before hurtling toward Thapathali.
As he climbed the steps to his flat, his landlord, Gaurishanker, called to him, asking him what the situation was in town, whether he’d learned anything more about what had happened at the palace. “Nothing,” Ganga said. The landlord, his lungi wrapped around his waist, came out his door and ambled after him. “There are rumors that the funeral is tonight,” Gaurishanker said, following Ganga into his flat. “Can you imagine? Killing off your entire family? I still don’t believe it. There’s something fishy here. Eh, Ganga, you have anything to drink? This is too mind-boggling—I need something to calm my mind.” He spotted the bottle of Ruslan vodka on Ganga’s windowsill. “Let’s have a drink, okay?” Dumbly, Ganga agreed.
Before long, both were tipsy. Gaurishanker had been going on nonstop about what might have happened in the palace. He’d tiptoed down to his room to grab his transistor radio and was playing with the dials now, attempting to get the BBC. Radio Nepal was still playing religious tunes of mourning. The old transistor wasn’t working that well, and Gaurishanker was cursing it. Finally Ganga stopped him and asked, “Dai, what do you think of chhakkas?”
Gaurishanker, still fiddling with the dial, asked, “Why? Was the crown prince a chhakka?”
“No, no, I’m just asking. Looks like the population of chhakkas is increasing in Kathmandu.”
“Are you one?” Gaurishanker grinned.
“If you don’t want to answer, that’s fine.”
“Disgusting, that’s what I think. They should be rounded up and locked away, that’s what I think. I’ve heard there’s even a chhakka club in the city—can you believe that? You know who’s a chhakka?”
Ganga’s heart pounded.
“That Parmendra who runs the Internet café by the school. His two employees there are his lovers. Both of them. And I’ve heard he also likes very young boys, gives them money to come to his shop at night.”
“Parmendra?” Ganga had driven the man into the city a few times in his taxi. He was always very cordial, asking Ganga about his business, inquiring about how Dharma was doing. Suddenly, with a shudder, Ganga wondered if Parmendra and Dharma were involved; why else would Parmendra have asked after his brother that time?
The rest of that afternoon, Gaurishanker drifted in and out of Ganga’s flat, bringing him news updates. The state television and radio had finally admitted that the king and queen and several other members of the royal family had died in an “unanticipated” event at the palace last night. Crown Prince Dipendra, now officially declared the king, was in a coma, so Prince Gyanendra had been named regent. The dead would be cremated at the Pashupatinath temple that evening. Their bodies would be carried in a procession starting at the Chhauni military hospital. “I’m going to go,” Gaurishanker announced. “Do you want to come?”
Ganga shook his head.
“Are you just going to sit here all day and mope? Come, let’s go. And call Dharma. Where is he today, by the way? Did you see him in town?”
Ganga mumbled that the booze had given him a headache and that he needed sleep. After Gaurishanker left, he bolted the door, closed the curtains, and lay down on his bed. He should have known. Dharma had shown all the tendencies. In eighth grade, Ganga had stumbled upon a boy, pants down around his knees, rubbing himself against Dharma’s buttocks. Tears streamed down Dharma’s face, but he hadn’t cried for help. Ganga yanked back the other boy’s head so hard that for weeks he had to wear a neck brace. To the crowd that had gathered that afternoon to watch the “action,” Ganga had warned, “Any of you do anything to my brother or tease him anymore, you’ll have to deal with me,” and he’d shown them the large knife he’d stolen from a neighbor. That afternoon as the brothers walked home, Ganga scolded Dharma. “Why didn’t you scream for help?”
“I was just scared,” Dharma said, teary-eyed.
“You still should have fought back,” Ganga said gently. As they neared home, he put his arm around his brother, rubbed his head with his knuckles, and said, “Don’t worry. As long as I am here, no one can do anything to you. And I won’t tell Father.”
Dharma wiped his tears and looked at him gratefully. Later, when Ganga was alone, his own eyes grew moist at the thought of his brother so helpless at the hands of that: bully. He vowed that he’d always protect Dharma. And he did, even from their own father.
Baba had been overly strict with his two sons, especially after the death of their mother when they were still young. When they disobeyed him, he beat them with his cane. He was especially harsh on Ganga, whose aggressiveness frequently got him into trouble. He accepted these beatings; with a clenched jaw, unlike Dharma, who whimpered and bawled, begging Baba to stop. Ganga’s heart broke when he saw his brother’s misery, and soon he began to step in front of Dharma when his father brandished his cane. As the boys grew older, Baba softened, mainly because he found a formidable opponent in Ganga, who once wrestled the cane away from him and smacked him on his own behind. On his deathbed Baba wheezed and coughed and apologized to Ganga for being too tough on them. Ganga held the man’s hand, but said nothing.
