The Royal Ghosts, page 21
Now he turned on the television, which showed the state farewell at the hospital. People were placing flowers on the royal corpses, which were wrapped in white cloth. The faces of the dead looked ashen and twisted, caught in their final moments of horror. Ganga turned off the television when he heard a loud knock at the door. “Dai, dai.” It was Dharma.
Ganga kept very still and held his breath, but the banging on the door continued, and Dharma shouted, “Dai, open the door. I heard your television just now.”
Ganga finally went to the door.
“Dai, everything okay?” Dharma asked.
Ganga ignored him and walked back to his bed.
“You heard about what happened in the palace, didn’t you?” Dharma asked.
“I don’t want to talk to you right now.”
“What happened? Did I do something wrong?”
Ganga lay down on the bed, unable to look at his brother.
Dharma sat next to him. “Dai, what did I do?”
“I saw something today that has turned my mind upside down.”
Dharma looked confused.
“You go now. And don’t come to visit me anymore.”
“What did I do? At least tell me what I did.”
“I didn’t know you were like this.”
“What—?” An understanding seemed to dawn on his brother. “Did someone tell you something about me?”
“No one needs to tell me anything. I saw it with my own two eyes.” Ganga pointed to his face.
“You came to the shop?”
Ganga didn’t respond, and Dharma kept quiet, staring at him. Then he wiped his face with both palms and stood up. “All right. If that’s the way it is, then what can I do?” He moved toward the door, but he didn’t leave. He just stood there for a moment, then returned to the bed. “I’ve always been like this, dai. Hasn’t it been obvious? Why are you pretending as if the sky has fallen on you now?”
Ganga maintained his stone face.
“What makes you think you’re better than me? You’re driving a taxi because you can’t hold a real job. Look at you—you get into fights all the time, women shy away from you. When people talk to me, they don’t have a single good thing to say about you. At least people don’t say bad things about me.”
“That’s because they don’t know you’re a chhakka,” Ganga said. He sat up. “Tell me, how long has this been going on?” He couldn’t help himself—he grabbed his brother’s collar. Dharma squirmed to get out of his grasp, but Ganga held tight. As Dharma struggled to break free, his shirt ripped. One sleeve now hung by a few threads. They punched and kicked and fell to the floor, Ganga on top. He pinned Dharma’s arms with his knees and pressed his forearm against his throat, increasing the pressure as he spoke. “What the fuck am I supposed to say to people, huh? Chhakka’s brother, they’ll call me.” Then, suddenly realizing what he was doing, Ganga let go, and Dharma began to massage his throat to normalize his breathing.
There was a loud knock at the door, and Ganga stood and went to see who it was. His landlady, Gaurishanker’s wife, was standing there, and Ganga kept the door partly closed so she couldn’t peek inside. “What is all this banging and shouting?” she asked. She had never bothered to pretend she liked Ganga, although she always spoke sweetly to Dharma. “You’re not beating up your own brother, are you?”
He shut the door in her face and locked it, then went to check on his brother. Dharma was still lying on the floor, breathing heavily, but the color had returned to his face. “Dai,” he croaked.
“You better leave, Dharma,” Ganga said.
Shakily, Dharma stood up. He looked down at his shirt without its sleeve, then at his brother again. He turned around and walked out of the flat.
The rest of the evening Ganga stayed inside his flat, drinking. At around seven o’clock, Gaurishanker knocked on his door, demanding that Ganga open it, that he needed to talk. Ganga simply ignored him. By eleven he was pretty drunk, and he opened his door and stumbled down the stairs. He wandered around the neighborhood. It had rained a bit, so the streets were wet, and a couple of times he slipped and fell into puddles. Under the big tree near the shops, a group of young men had gathered, Dharma’s old school friends, Ganga soon saw. They stopped talking when they saw him approach.
Tottering, Ganga asked, “What are you donkeys doing out so late?”
“Talking about what happened in the palace.”
“What’s the scoop?”
“It’s pretty confusing, but everyone is saying Gyanendra is behind it.”
A brother killing his own brother. Ganga made a pistol out of his right hand and, aiming it at them, shot them one by one, making a phoosh sound with each shot. They all laughed at him, and one mumbled something about him that he didn’t quite catch.
“How is Dharma doing?” another asked. A couple of them exchanged glances.
Had they known all along? Whatever the case, he wasn’t going to take the bait. How many people was he going to have to fight with over his brother? “Dharma is fine,” he said, and moved on. Soon he passed Parmendra’s Internet café. The light was still on inside, so he went to the window and peeked in. Parmendra was sitting in front of a computer, his eyes fixed on the screen. Every once in a while he’d type something, and the screen would change. At one point, he glanced toward the window and gave a start. He raised his hand questioningly, then came to the door.
“Any further news?” Ganga asked.
“Dipendra did it,” Parmendra said. “Our news might not say it, but it’s all over the Internet.” He paused. “You’re drunk, aren’t you?”
Ganga sat on the steps of the shop and asked Parmendra if he had a cigarette. He rarely smoked, but knew that Parmendra did. Parmendra fetched his pack from inside, sat next to Ganga, and lit both their cigarettes. The smoke burned the inside of Ganga’s mouth.
“Who would have imagined,” Parmendra said, “that Dipendra would do such a thing? But who knows? Maybe it was a giant conspiracy.”
“Maybe, maybe,” Ganga said. “Or maybe the crown prince did it. These people in power are crazy. How can we know what goes on behind closed doors? We cannot even know with our own relatives.” His words were slurred.
“Yes, yes,” Parmendra said. “What really happened, you and I might never know. But it’s sad. King Birendra was such a good king, wasn’t he? He let us have our democracy when we wanted it a decade ago.”
“For me, it doesn’t really make a difference. One king or another—one politician or another. They’re all the same.”
“Then why do you look so sad? And why are you so drunk tonight?” Parmendra put his arm around Ganga. “Didn’t know you were so sentimental. Everyone thinks you’re such a tough guy”
Parmendra’s touch made Ganga uneasy, and he shifted a bit. He stubbed out his cigarette on the stairs and stood up, swaying. He said, “I want to ask you something. It’s a bit personal.”
“What is it?”
“Don’t get angry with me. I only heard it from someone else and am just curious.” It took him a while to formulate the words. “I’ve heard that you’re a chhakka. Is that true?”
Parmendra stared at him for a second, then burst out laughing. “Who told you that? Is that what people say about me?”
“So you’re not?”
“I’m going to Janakpur to get married next month. When I bring my wife back here, you’ll see.”
“So why are people calling you chhakka?”
“Go ask them,” Parmendra said. “This is Nepal. It doesn’t take anything for people to start talking here. Look at what happened today. How many theories have we heard already? Did you hear the one about that astrologer? He supposedly warned King Mahendra that his grandson Dipendra’s birth date was so unlucky that it would destroy the royal family. You can’t live your life always listening to what other people say. Besides, even if I were a chhakka, what’s the big deal? What business is it of anyone’s?” Parmendra carried on about people meddling in other people’s lives, but Ganga had already tuned him out. He felt tired and now merely wanted the comfort of his own bed.
Over the next few days, an ugly picture emerged of what Crown Prince Dipendra had done: drugged and drunk, he’d fought with his mother over a girl he wanted to marry, and after tending the palace bar that evening, he went to his room, then returned in full military gear and killed everyone. But people refused to believe it. They burned tires on the streets and chanted slurs against Gyanendra, who, after Dipendra died of self-inflicted wounds two days later, was named the next king. The police tried to control the rioters and eventually used tear gas. Curfews were announced, and soon the streets were empty at night.
For Ganga, all of this held only mild interest. Gaurishanker later confronted him, saying that although he understood his wife was not the most polite woman in the world, she was still the landlady, and Ganga had to show some respect. “You can do your fighting outside,” he told Ganga, “but no banging or smashing people in my house.” Ganga slammed the door on him, thinking that he would move out of the flat soon anyway, maybe leave the city, just get in his taxi and drive off to a place where he wouldn’t have to see Dharma anymore. The more he thought about it, the more the idea made sense to him. Who else did he have in the city? When Anu used to ride in his taxi with him, he’d imagined having a family here, a nice little house of his own where he could raise his children. But now what was the point in staying?
He packed his clothes and other belongings in two suitcases. He had about twenty thousand rupees in the bank, and he’d return to the city some other time to withdraw the money. Right now it was important to leave, get far away from it all. He left a note for Gaurishanker, telling him that he’d be back to pay him the next month’s rent, and that he was free to use or discard whatever was left in the flat—which wasn’t much, just some pots and pans, a chair, his bedding, and an empty steel trunk.
Even as Ganga loaded his suitcases in his taxi in the late afternoon, he didn’t know where he would go. He had no friends anywhere else; most of his friends were taxi drivers who worked here in Kathmandu. He suddenly recalled an old friend who now lived in Hetauda and drove buses from there to Biratnagar, something like that. Ganga had heard that the friend was doing well, and perhaps he could stay with him for a few days. Or he could stay in a hotel—he didn’t care. He had enough money for now, and what would be the worst thing that could happen to him if the money ran out? He could always sell the taxi. Whatever it took, he would not look back.
Well after he’d driven beyond the city, past the town of Thankot, as he was climbing the steep, meandering hillside that would take him out of the valley, he began to grow teary. He pulled over to the side of the road and rested his head on the steering wheel. He couldn’t do this. He simply couldn’t leave Dharma. He had protected his younger brother all his life. Who would fight those people who made Dharma’s life hell? Ganga looked out the window. It was beginning to get dark outside, and trucks moved slowly up and down the hilly highway. The city was stretched out below him and was beginning to flicker with dots of light. He sat in his taxi until it became dark, then turned around.
As Ganga sped along the streets of Kathmandu, he decided he’d go directly to Dharma’s shop, knock on the door, and ask for his brother’s forgiveness. But what if Jeet was there? Could he face him? He didn’t think he could, so he drove back toward Godavari. Tomorrow morning he’d phone Dharma, ask him how he was doing. They could meet somewhere, perhaps in that Punjabi restaurant. Ganga would tell him that he was sorry for what he’d done, and that Dharma was right: Ganga sometimes didn’t realize how strong he was. He wouldn’t bring up Jeet again, or what he saw.
Maybe over dinner they’d talk about what had happened inside the palace, what would happen to the country now, whether the Maobadis would take advantage of this uncertainty, raid the capital and take over. “Dipendra killed his own parents and his pregnant sister and his brother, dai,” Dharma would say. “How can people be like that?” And Ganga would console him: “Don’t dwell on it, Dharma. There are things that happen with the raja-maharaja we’ll never understand. Leave it be.” And he would tell him all about Kot Parba, the men on horses, the bloodstained courtyards, guns booming in the middle of the night.
On second thought, he would not. What would be the point of bringing up those royal ghosts? Instead he’d tell Dharma, “Eat, eat. You’re all skin and bones,” and Dharma would dig into the food—mutton curry or lamb masala or whatever they’d ordered—and say that eating well was probably the best thing to do in times like these.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the following people for their support and guidance: my editor, Heidi Pitlor, whose faith in my work has remained a constant source of nourishment for me; the folks at Janklow and Nesbit, especially my wonderful agent, Eric Simonoff; Indiana University’s English Department and my students and colleagues in the MFA writing program; Buwa and Ammi in Nepal; and my first reader, my wife, Babita, whose generous spirit breathes life into every word I write.
About the Author
SAMRAT UPADHYAY is the author of Arresting God in Kathmandu, which earned him a Whiting Award, and The Guru of Love, which was a New York Times Notable Book, a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year, and a finalist for the Kiriyama Prize. He lives in Bloomington, Indiana.
Samrat Upadhyay, The Royal Ghosts
