Buddha's Orphans, page 25
Lama-ji’s characterization of Maitreya as possessing an old man’s ways reminded Nilu of what his teachers said about him. Maitreya was so quiet and composed in class that they had wondered if everything was all right at home. “It just seems abnormal for a kid to be so disciplined, so calm about everything, when everyone around him is so intent on bedlam,” one teacher had said. Maitreya displayed a brooding quality that the teacher didn’t think was healthy, so she had suggested that Nilu and Raja take him to a psychiatrist to have him examined. At that time they’d squelched their anger at the teacher because Maitreya loved all his instructors, especially this one. This teacher, however, did plant a seed in Nilu, and she began to worry, observing her son to discern any signs of mental imbalance. Maitreya had large, expressive eyes, and although he loved sports, especially soccer, he preferred to stay at home and talk to his parents rather than go out with his friends to play, which was a bit odd for a boy his age. He liked to read, and spent hours on the sofa after school with his head in a book, pondering aloud why certain characters acted a certain way, which reminded Nilu of Raja’s bookishness and tendency to philosophize during his jobless days in Thamel. Perhaps this serious, questioning quality was what had caused his teacher to worry.
“My son wasn’t sad,” Nilu said. “But he acted quite old for his age.”
“He was a gentleman,” Lama-ji said.
This characterization nearly brought tears to Nilu’s eyes. Among his friends in the neighborhood, Maitreya was the peacemaker, often stepping in to break up quarrels and fights. He brought home sick and injured animals—a rabbit with a gaping wound on its back; a kitten weak from malnourishment—and nurtured them until they got better.
Lama-ji’s eyes were fixed on Nilu’s now, and eventually he said, “It’s a difficult time for you. There’s a man, someone who’s also suffering. But you two were connected in some past life, so you have to go through each other.” Lama-ji was rambling, and Nilu was losing interest. The phone rang, and Lama-ji picked it up and launched into an animated description of designs for a shrine, in a house that he was apparently having built. Nilu signaled to Prateema that they should leave.
Prateema raised her hand and said loudly, “What to do about her son, Lama-ji?”
Lama-ji produced a rudraksha bead from somewhere in his pocket, circled it in front of the deities while carrying on with his construction talk, then handed it to Nilu. “Keep this on your person,” he told her. “It’ll help you, in the long term.”
Nilu slipped the bead into her bag as both she and Prateema stood. Prateema placed a twenty-rupee note in front of Lama-ji, but he barely looked at it as he bid them goodbye.
Outside, Prateema apologized. “He is building his first house, so he’s quite preoccupied these days.”
They walked to Chabel, where Prateema caught a taxi to New Road. As Nilu entered her house, she thought about what Lama-ji had said about Raja—she was sure it was Raja: who else did she have?—that they were connected in a past life. That’s what Nilu too used to think when she followed him from St. Augustine’s to the Jagadamba School. But now their connection forged in this life, let alone a past one, was turning out to be tenuous. “You have to go through each other,” Lama-ji had said. What a concept! Go through each other. And come out all bruised and battered on the other side? She shook her head. She should have known better than to be persuaded to visit someone like Lama-ji. These charlatans were adept at playing with people’s minds.
A Visit to Muwa
AS IF MAITREYA’S VISITS weren’t enough, Muwa also kept phoning Nilu. One day she even came to the house, shouting Nilu’s name as she banged on the door. “Come on, I know you’re in. Open the door! I need to talk to you.” Then, in a slightly lower voice, “Something has come up, chhori. I need your help.”
Inside, Nilu held her breath. Was Muwa in some kind of trouble? She fought the urge to open the door. Muwa never needed Nilu before; she didn’t need her now.
Muwa had visited the Chabel house twice, once after Maitreya died and once before that, while Maitreya was alive. That first time Nilu had come home to find Muwa sitting inside on the sofa with Maitreya, who had returned from school about an hour before Nilu did and let himself in with his key. Nilu was struck by how comfortable her five-year-old boy was with his grandmother, whom he didn’t know. They were facing each other, and he was reading to her; she listened to him with her head cocked. There was a yellow pallor to Muwa’s skin. Her jaw had gone slightly crooked, as though she had just had some dental work performed. Add to that her jet-black wig and her dark mascara, and she looked ghoulish.
When he saw Nilu, Maitreya said excitedly, “Muwa, grandmother, has come for a visit. Had you known she was coming?”
Of course Nilu hadn’t, and she attempted a smile at Muwa.
“Nilu, it has been a long time.”
Nilu couldn’t speak. She nodded, then turned to her son and smiled. “How was school, son?”
For the next few moments Nilu focused on Maitreya, and Muwa watched them interact. “What a beautiful boy,” Muwa said, distracting Maitreya, who then turned to her and asked her why she didn’t come to visit more often. There was a knock on the door, and Nilu hoped that it was Raja, arriving home from the office earlier than usual. But it was Maitreya’s friend, wanting him to come out and play soccer. Maitreya looked at his grandmother, who asked him whether he enjoyed playing that sport, and Maitreya nodded. “Then you should go,” Muwa told him. “I need to talk to your mother anyway.”
After Maitreya reluctantly left, Nilu felt obligated to ask Muwa whether she wanted tea, and Muwa fished out a small bottle from her bag, opened the cap, and said, “Just give me half a glass of water.” Slowly Nilu went to the kitchen and brought her some water. Muwa poured her whiskey or rum or whatever it was into the glass, then took a sip and closed her eyes.
“Still the same, eh, Muwa?” Nilu asked.
“At this age I can’t change my habits.”
“So, what made you remember us? Remember me, I should say? Your grandson you don’t even know.”
“You haven’t given me the opportunity.”
“Who has stopped you from coming here?”
“I haven’t been invited.”
“You’re my mother. You need an invitation?”
“Nilu, I haven’t come here to squabble with you.”
“Then what have you come here for?”
Muwa downed the contents of her glass, then handed it to Nilu, signaling that she wanted more. After Nilu brought her more water, she refilled her glass, took a sip, and said, “I need for you to lend me some money.”
“Me lending money to you? Whatever happened to all the money you had?”
“That money is still there, but I can’t use it right now. That’s why I have come to you.”
Nilu shook her head in confusion. “I don’t know what you’re saying, Muwa. You ought to have at least a few lakhs in the bank, if not more. What happened to all that money?”
“It’s still there, I tell you,” Muwa said.
“Then use it. Why come to me? You know how much Raja and I make.”
“I’m just talking about a few thousand rupees, Nilu. It’s become really difficult for me.”
“How much?”
“About ten.”
“What do you need it for?”
“Some expenses have come up. I can’t reveal everything to you.”
“Sumit still with you?”
Muwa nodded. She pulled a cigarette from her bag and lit it, her hand trembling. She took a deep drag and said, “He takes care of me.”
“I don’t have ten thousand. The maximum I can give you right now is four.”
“I’ve come to you after so many years. Don’t disappoint me like this, Nilu.”
“And you wouldn’t have come here, had you not needed money,” Nilu replied.
She went into her bedroom, pulled open the drawer where she kept some cash, counted out five thousand rupees, and took the money back to Muwa. “Here,” she said. “Now you can leave. I don’t want Maitreya seeing you smoke.”
“I’ll snuff it out when he comes in,” she said. She put the money in her bag, then asked about Raja, where he worked now. But when Nilu began answering, Muwa dug into her bag, looking for something, which turned out to be a pill; she popped it into her mouth, then washed it down with her drink. Soon she stood and said she’d better be going; otherwise Sumit would wonder where she had gone.
Nilu saw her to the door and asked, “And what does he do these days? Doesn’t he ever work?”
Muwa took her time putting on her sandal. “He used to work, but it’s been hard for him. His mother died a couple of years ago. He’s been heartbroken since then.”
Maitreya was playing soccer in the yard. He shouted, “Grandma, I’ll come to visit you in your house.”
“Yes, yes,” Muwa said, then held out her palm as if blessing him. She faltered on the steps and would have tumbled, had Nilu not caught her. Muwa grinned, revealing her yellowed teeth and gums. “I nearly broke my hip some time ago,” she muttered. At the gate she told Nilu, “Sometimes you can come and visit me, can’t you? We live in the same city, but you treat me like a stranger.”
“Okay, I’ll come,” Nilu said.
Later during dinner she told Raja about Muwa’s visit.
“That’s really odd,” he said. “I wonder if she and Sumit have depleted her bank account.”
“But how can they spend lakhs and lakhs of money so swiftly? I don’t understand. Unless he’s swindling her.”
Raja swallowed, then said, “I should have told you this before, but I didn’t because I thought you’d be upset. I saw them together at the casino about a year ago.” Raja had gone to the casino at Hotel Everest to write a special feature for his magazine; there, he’d seen Muwa and Sumit, who were too drunk to notice him. As Raja interviewed the manager and workers and some players, he kept an eye on them. They were gambling quite heavily, from what he could gather. One of the waiters told him that the two were regulars and over the months had lost a lot of money. “But they keep coming back, the waiter informed me,” Raja said.
Maitreya was quietly listening to their conversation, but Nilu didn’t care that he was learning these things about his grandmother. She hadn’t spoken to him a great deal about Muwa and once had even told him that Muwa wasn’t much of a mother. Apparently Maitreya had pondered that for days, for one day he suddenly asked her whether she wished she had had a different mother. Taken aback, Nilu hadn’t known how to respond. Hesitantly, she’d said that she wouldn’t go that far, for a mother was a mother, a notion she herself didn’t find convincing. “Muwa could have been a better mother had she tried, that’s all I’m saying.”
After mulling over her answer, Maitreya asked, “But no one is perfect, isn’t that right? Isn’t that what you told me?”
She smoothed his hair and said, “Of course you’re right. Maybe I expect too much of her.” She had wondered, then, if she was judging Muwa a bit harshly, but she knew she wasn’t when she recalled her days at Nilu Nikunj before she went searching for Raja in Lainchour. No, she could not accept Muwa back into her life again, no matter what Maitreya thought. He was too young to understand; give him a few years. She just had to make sure she avoided speaking about Muwa to him.
On second thought, the news of Muwa and Sumit’s frequenting the casinos didn’t surprise Nilu. It seemed like a natural extension of their debauchery. What was surprising was how quickly Muwa had managed to deplete her money. As far as Nilu knew, the sale of the travel agency after her father’s death had brought Muwa lakhs of rupees, along with the prime property of Nilu Nikunj and several plots of land, as well as investments in factories around the country. Just the bank account itself, and the interest it accrued, would have been enough to support a lavish lifestyle, including pandering to Sumit’s whims. If Muwa needed to pester Nilu for a few thousand rupees, then where had all that money gone?
That night Nilu stayed awake for a long time, remembering her childhood—the big, empty house, Sumit’s lecherous eyes, Muwa’s lack of interest in what was happening at St. Augustine’s. Next to her lay her son. Maitreya had his own bed in the corner, but he preferred to sleep with his parents, and excepting those nights when Raja and Nilu felt amorous, they let the boy slide in between them. Tonight, as usual, Maitreya’s face was buried deep in the pillow, his favorite way to sleep. Many times in the night Nilu would gently push him so his nose would get some air, but within minutes he’d be back in the same position again. Next to Maitreya was Raja, who used his hands as a pillow when he slept, his knees pulled high up, close to his belly.
Maitreya would end up not getting a single paisa of the property that Nilu’s father had accumulated—this thought struck her that night. She hated it. When she gave birth to Maitreya, it had briefly occurred to her that her son, if Muwa allowed, could inherit a significant amount of money. It was pure and simple greed, albeit only for Maitreya, not for herself. But after Muwa visited them in Thamel to see her newborn grandson, Nilu had vowed that she’d have nothing to do with Muwa’s money. And now, hearing that Muwa was squandering her wealth playing flush and kitty and roulette and whatever else they played in the casinos, that old thought returned to her. Hadn’t it crossed Muwa’s mind that family properties were passed down from one generation to the next? Idiot—Nilu chastised herself. She herself was making a decent income; so was Raja. Maitreya was attending a good school. They had enough to eat, to buy decent clothes, to indulge themselves at restaurants now and then. Why was she grasping for something that would not make her and her family happy? What was it that Raja theatrically used to recite to his imaginary street audience in Thamel, those famous lines from Devkota? Yes: “Eat greens and nettles / with a heart full of bliss—/ now that’s true happiness.”
Repeating those words like a mantra, Nilu had tried to make herself sleep that night. Eat greens and nettles, now that’s true happiness.
Nilu’s phone didn’t stop ringing. She unplugged it, then reconnected it because she didn’t want to miss Raja’s call if he wanted to talk. Then, one day when she answered the phone and Muwa said, “Nilu, please, don’t put down the phone,” she didn’t have the heart to cut her off.
“What do you want?”
Muwa was weeping. “Was I such a bad mother to you? Am I so bad that you can’t even speak a word to me?” A wave of emotion washed through Nilu; then she reminded herself that even as she said those things, Muwa tripped over her words. How much of this was simply the alcohol talking?
Still, she didn’t hang up, and asked, “Why have you been calling me so much? What is the matter?” Her anger toward Muwa had lasted only for an instant; now she felt resignation, apathy, numbness.
“I need to see you, talk to you.”
“Speak.”
“No, in person. I can’t do it over the phone.”
“You can come over this afternoon.”
“Nilu, I can’t. I sprained my ankle yesterday. It’s hurting badly. Yesterday I was even considering going to the hospital to make sure it’s not broken. It’s swollen, and I can hardly walk.”
Nilu felt sorry for her. “Where’s . . . he?”
A pause. Something was amiss. “He’s not here. Can you come this afternoon, Nilu?”
Nilu said that she’d be there at three.
At the opening of the alley leading to Nilu Nikunj, Kancha, now old and wizened, still sat inside his soda shop. Nilu was just going to pass by him, but he peered at her from the side window and said, “Looks like Nilu Nani. Am I right?”
Nilu nodded and asked how he was doing. He said his bones were getting creakier. He was so sad to hear about her son’s death. “Coming to visit your mother?” he asked.
She nodded.
“I don’t know what’s happening in that house in there,” he said, pointing toward Nilu Nikunj. He leaned closer. “I don’t see Sumit around these days. Has he left?”
“I haven’t been here in ages, Kancha Dai, so how would I know?”
Kancha looked sad. “What kind of a mother and daughter are you two? Living in the same city but not visiting each other. Tch, tch.”
Nilu bid him goodbye and moved on. The last time she was here was when she’d secretly brought baby Maitreya to meet Kaki. Since then, she had deliberately avoided this area, often taking streets that bypassed Jamal, or, if she had to come to this vicinity to go to a bank or a bookstore, walking on the other side of the street so that she would not even pass close to the soda shop where Kancha could spot her. Years ago, within days of Muwa’s visiting Nilu and Raja in Thamel to see their newborn, Nilu was walking past Nilu Nikunj on the other side of the street when she spotted Kaki, tapping her cane on the ground by her feet, in the process of exiting the alley near Kancha’s shop. Kancha said something to Kaki, and briefly, Kaki turned toward him and answered. But their voices were smothered by the sounds of traffic before they could reach Nilu, who hid as best she could behind a lamppost. She watched Kaki emerge onto the sidewalk, where she sniffed the air, it seemed, to orient herself to her surroundings. Then Kaki turned to her left and began walking, tap-tapping the cane. Her progress was slow, and she was jostled and bumped by other pedestrians. Nilu knew she should have cut through the traffic to reach Kaki and aid her in finding her destination. But talking to Kaki would mean listening to her lamentations about Raja. By then Kaki knew that the two had married, but because Nilu hadn’t been to Nilu Nikunj, she had no way of gauging how Kaki felt about their being together; and she had to wonder why Nilu hadn’t brought Raja to see her. Kaki would also expect her to ask after Muwa, which Nilu had no desire to do; she still had a sour taste in her mouth after Muwa’s visit. Besides—and this prevented Nilu more than anything from approaching Kaki—she seemed to be on a mission. Despite her slow progress, there was determination in the way she trudged along, undeterred by the shoves from other pedestrians.
